One of my earlier posts on the blog that I shared with my Facebook “friends” seemed to cause some form of stir. I have managed to cause many a stir on Facebook with my status updates, and this was certainly one of them.
From my reading of both online and offline literature about weight loss fat loss, all points of view in that discussion have been covered in some form or another, all with success. I think that this is the main reason between my confusion between which path to go down, as their methods conflict with each other, yet the end result is somewhat similar.
The one and only thing that I have seen in common with all the various methods of dieting and working solutions for fat loss seems to be eating lots of protein. I have heard that when you have eaten a minimum 20 grams of protein in a meal, that your body registers as being full even if the stomach isn’t full. I think that is what I need to incorporate most into my diet, the rest will be drowned out.
Now my next biggest problem is to work out which high protein foods I can get my hands on easily. Eggs are one source I have heard, can you recommend any others?
BTW, I am down 1kg in a week!
So u r doing sOmething right then
That’s the thing, I don’t know if I did anything right or not. I’m just wondering if it is a fluctuation, or is actual weight loss.
In my experience there has been no one thing that has been key in my own weight loss across the past year. I decided that I needed to loose weight and decided to try and change some small habits rather than ascribe to a radical diet.
I decided to eat less, I cut down my dinner portions by about a third then not allowing myself to eat after dinner, I also reduced the amount of fruit I was eating from 4 to 2 pieces a day. Sure I was really hungry at time but it dissappeared after about a week, eating huge amounts now is uncomfortable and I generally feel better for eating a little less anyway.
I also started semi regular exercise, both for the physical and psychological benefits. I started by walking a little loop, then started jogging sections of it to raise my heart rate. Now I run sections of it, almost half of it. Going for a run straight after work is a good de-stress measure and also leaves me feeling pyshically and emotionally much better. It also is a disincentive to eat on the way home from work because then I’ll have a stitch and get frustrated.
Protein is good, and you do feel full fast, but it also digests quicker so you feel hungry again soon. Protien in my opinion should be used as a stop gap while you are building self control. Also make sure you are exercising (even just weights or sit-ups/push-ups) so your body is using the protien you are putting into it.
Oh, and my weight seems to naturally fluctuate by 1-1.5kgs across different days, but make sure you weight yourself at the same time each day to more acruately monitor your progress. It’ll might take a week or two to show up but it will.
My 2c from my own experience
I think getting hung up on things like concentrating on eating protein (or carbs or vegies or whatever) in an effort to lose weight is not the ideal way to go about it. It may help, but it also may be counterproductive long term.
When I lost a lot of weight (13kgs) and maintained most of that for about 4 years (before finally getting slack and going back to eating crap) the thing that worked for me was just a mindset that the only thing that would work for me was if I eat less rubbish, Whilst I am (like you) a methodical, numbers person, the art of calculating points on weightwatchers is fun but I can see that it would quickly become tedious and I’d get slack with counting because it would bore me. I prefer to go to the fridge/cupboard/shop and then think “is there a less fatty or smaller option”. It doesn’t restrict me to any particular food, but If I am serious about weight loss, I find I make good choices and if I am not serious, I usually don’t even ask myself the question…so if I was on a more formal diet I’d have failed anyway. The more restrictive the diet is, the more likely it is to fail – mainly because being told that I have to eat specific foods gets right up my nose.
As a side note, for lunches I would get a Subway footlong from the “<6g of Fat" range and avoid the cheese and sauces. I then forced myself to then eat only half of it and leave the second half till later in the afternoon when I was actually hungry again. After a few weeks of that, I found that I got used to eating less, and could usually leave the second half until lunch the next day. (And not eating Chicken, Chips and Gravy with a Coke for lunch makes a big difference.)
And 1 kg in a week is good. Enjoy it as a small win, and persist!