Health and weight issues

[JaffaRed]

I hope that this is the best forum for this.

I am 34 years old and I have had weight issues for years and also some cognitive features related to eating disorders (i.e. hating myself if I overate, and thoughts about making myself throw out, though I was strong enough to resist that urge). The problem is that I'm 93kg on 170cm, which is quite obese. I wish to get rid of 10kg-20kg to gain an ideal weight of 70kg-80kg.

I am quite physically active - I have no car and public transit here is far from perfect, so I walk about 30-60 minutes per day at a fast pace to get to places.

The problem is that I'm probably eating very badly. After a struggle with myself, I'm now regularly eating breakfast, a sandwich or toast at around 8:30 AM; usually a pita-bread with a chopped tomato - I eat a lot of tomatos as of late - and either hummus and pastrami or two slices toast cheese. Afterwards I eat a yogurt around 11:00 AM and maybe a banana or an apple around 13:00 PM. I rarely eat lunch, and if I do, it is usually also a sandwich of the same type. My spouse works from 1 PM to 9 PM in childcare while I work from home at a freelance translation job so I eat lunch alone and rarely have motivation to cook anything if I eat alone. For dinner around 9 PM we usually eat the main hot meal, which usually includes beef or chicken with rice or pasta, typically with some cooked vegetables added in for good measure, i also eat 2-3 cubes of chocolate per day.

I usually meet with friends and comrades 2-3 times a week. We usually eat cheap Ethiopian or Sudanese food, which is whole grain injera (Ethiopian bread) with various meat and vegetable dishes put on it. This comes either in addition to dinner or instead of it. We also smoke hookah once or twice a week.

I'd like some advice about improving my diet and losing weight, hopefully without being too hungry and tired during the process as I felt in the past when I used to skip meals to try and drastically reduce my calorie intake.

[Tim Cornelis]

Skipping meals generally leads to compensation by snacking, leading to more calories consumed. If you skip meals, but keep your calorie consumption in check, it's not a problem. I basically never eat breakfast. Anyway.

To losing weight, there's two sides: the balance of energy input-output and the balancing of your metabolism.

A number of things you can try is:


Find out your approximate maintenance calorie requirements
Track your calories, your fat, carb, protein intake. This way you ensure you don't underestimate the amount of calories you consume. Create an energy deficit.
If you have trouble controlling snacking behaviour, be rigid. Junkfood may cause you to desire/crave more junkfood because of bacterial responses in your digestive system and your reward system in your brain. If you know you crave it, cut it out entirely for an extended period. Don't lie to yourself and say that a little bit will help your psychologically, if you know you have bad self-discipline and self-control in this respect.
Lift weights, this increases your metabolism
Up your protein intake, this is more satiating than fat and carbs, and less energy efficient (which is good because your body converts it less efficiently to 'stored energy'--fat).


A common problem is also insulin insensitivity, but I'd first ignore this. You should be able to lose a lot of weight regardless, if parts of your bodyfat are particularly stubborn, this may be a sign of insulin insensitivity and you may want to experiment with carb cycling.

Hunger and low energy are indicators of your metabolic rate. If you experience hunger and low energy, your metabolic balance may be out of whack. Increasing your calories from protein, which is more satiating, may improve this.

[The Feral Underclass]

Bread is really, really high in calories. If you're eating bread all day, which it sounds like you're doing, then you are taking in a lot of calories. Trying to cut bread out of your diet might help.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

If you like bread then don't give it up, it won't be sustainable to try to stick to a diet you don't like.

But make small changes to see big results. Try switching to brown and/or seeded bread, and say to yourself that you can have bread with breakfast and lunch, but not with dinner. Do that and you should see some weight drop off.

Of course, the best way to be healthy and in shape, in addition to your diet, is to train regularly. This could be cycling, swimming, resistance training etc. Or, if you're struggling for cash/time, just set aside 30 mins at home where you do a few press ups, pull ups, squats, lunges, and the plank. Anything like that to get your heart rate up will help build some muscle, strength, and increase the rate at which you burn fat ('lose weight').

Good luck :)

[The Feral Underclass]

A slice of brown bread is between 90-110 calories. If you're having 4 pieces of bread a day, that's almost a quarter of your daily calorie intake.

[Tim Cornelis]

Almost a quarter, or a sixth, or 1/5th. That depends entirely on the person in question and their caloric needs and intake. You can eat bread as long as at the end of the day, 48 hours, or week, you are in a caloric deficit.

[Sewer Socialist]

Your diet doesn't look too bad, but I don't know the amounts of food you're eating - as others have pointed out, it could be 1000 kcal of bread a day, could be 300.

You could probably cut down on bread, not necessarily eliminating it, and eat more veggies and fruit instead. I usually just eat a banana or two for breakfast. It's hard to make these changes yourself - eating one meal while everyone else eats another. But if you explain all this to your friends and family, they should be accommodating to something important to you.

Going from 1:00 to 9:00 without eating is a long time, and could certainly contribute to over eating. You could also work out more; I find that works best with a routine - say, jogging on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, and doing some sort of strength workout Tuesday and Thursday mornings, for example.

[Ele'ill]

I've been substituting sweets of any kind with blended berries and other fruit and kale but into a whip and it tastes richer, is lower calories than what a comparable desert size/type would be, is easy to 'make' and clean up, and is really healthy. It is also high enough in calories and has a macro profile that it doesn't crash me/leave me hungry. Peanut butter helps w/ that but is obviously high in calories per serving.

Adding 20-30 minutes of walking somewhere every other/every day on top of other activities can make a huge impact. I used this in the past coming off weight lifting bulk @ 200lbs.

[The Feral Underclass]

Almost a quarter, or a sixth, or 1/5th. That depends entirely on the person in question and their caloric needs and intake. You can eat bread as long as at the end of the day, 48 hours, or week, you are in a caloric deficit.

Sure, but if you're having difficulty loosing weight because you eat unhealthily, cutting out bread from your diet will help you reduce your calorie in take fairly dramatically. Even 1/5th of your daily calorie intake is a considerable amount when you consider that we're talking about 4 slices of bread.

[Sentinel]

What has worked best for me is a low carb, high fat diet (LCHF) (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Carb_High_Fat). It is quite popular here in Sweden, but also a bit controversial as in it has both its vocal critics and supporters.

Since you aren't a vegetarian it might suite you, of course anyone can do it but it is easier for meat eaters with more appropriate foods available. I think a regular vegerian even can do it fairly easily but I've heard (and can imagine) LCHF is quite difficult especially for vegans.

There is a whole debate about its long term effects on health and also the environment. I don't have time to into it right now, but I've generally been convinced by the pro-sides arguments.

And in any case, I've never felt better than on these diets - better than on a 'normal' mixed diet and certainly better than on any other diets trying to lose weight.

Very good video explaining the basics by one of the main supporters, Andreas Eenfeldt MD:

FSeSTq-N4U4

[JaffaRed]

Many thanks for your support and input! First of all, I'll try to cut back most of the bread out of my diet. The main replacement would probably be fresh vegetables and fruits as I can't afford to eat too much meat products, and vegetables are cheaper here. A banana as suggested above might be a good breakfast, and I'll try to eat salad, maybe with tuna, for lunch and then something cooked for dinner. I'll try to avoid most carbohydrates for the most of the day and eat very little carbohydrates in the dinner as well.

By the way I am already doing about 30-60 minutes of very fast-paced walking a day...

[Guardia Rossa]

What was working for me until recently is going Full Saddam on myself, not eating ANY chocolate/high-sugar stuf (AT ALL) and having an apple in my pocket at all times (And, um, eating it)
Keeping in mind at all times and reminding myself constantly, etc.

EDIT: Also, exercise and/or have a walk at least thrice per week.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I will say that the high fat diet mentioned before has given me the most success. Coconut oil is a healthy source of fat. I used to eat 1-2 tablespoons a day; however, I hated the texture so I would put it in tea or take it in capsule form. It also improved my skin it seemed.

[Sentinel]

Many thanks for your support and input! First of all, I'll try to cut back most of the bread out of my diet. The main replacement would probably be fresh vegetables and fruits as I can't afford to eat too much meat products, and vegetables are cheaper here. A banana as suggested above might be a good breakfast, and I'll try to eat salad, maybe with tuna, for lunch and then something cooked for dinner. I'll try to avoid most carbohydrates for the most of the day and eat very little carbohydrates in the dinner as well.

By the way I am already doing about 30-60 minutes of very fast-paced walking a day...

That sounds like a good start if you are thinking about my advice. The tuna is a good protein source, so combined with enough fat for energy and some vegetables that is certainly a good 'LCHF' meal. Fruit has a lot of sugar which is carbs - sugar is generally to be avoided - but just leaving bread out will certainly make a big difference. Vegetables that grow above ground are preferable to rootfruit which contain a lot of starch.

What Eenfeldt argues in the video is basically that LCHF more resembles the diet humans had when we were hunter-gatherers, for millions of years; with agriculture about 15000 years ago much more carbs were introduced. That was fine back when most did very hard physical labour all day, but in todays urban societies it is too much so we gain weight.

[BIXX]

Also, and idk if this is very comforting, but I am led to understand (and this could be wrong) that some people are just naturally heavier. And that could just be a more natural weight for you. I'm not saying don't follow the ideas posted itt but that you could actually be healthy. How do you actually feel (sorry if I missed this in the op)? Like, does you're weight negatively impact your physical existence? Or is the primary negative social (which is also very real and valid reason for wanting to lose weight)? I just wanna say you might actually be healthy but think you aren't based on your self image.

[Tim Cornelis]

Well you wouldn't just remove bread, you'd replace it so if it's 1/4th of your calorie intake you wouldn't simply win 1/4th.

Of course one easy way is to cut out all calories from drinks, especially pop/soda, fruit drinks, whatever.

He is obese, which simply puts you at a greater risk of all sorts of health issues. Saying 'are you healthy' is not entirely correct. You can smoke and be healthy in the sense that you don't necessarily feel the impact, but it puts you at a greater risk of health issues. So yeah, he might actually be healthy, not noticing a direct negative impact, but beneath the radar, plaque may build in the arteries as a result of inflammation (compounded by excess sugar iirc) and small LDL cholesterol particles (compounded by excess fat iirc) and suddenly shoot loose and cause a stroke or heart attack.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

A slice of brown bread is between 90-110 calories. If you're having 4 pieces of bread a day, that's almost a quarter of your daily calorie intake.

Sure. So a couple of slices at breakfast, a couple at lunch. That's 400 calories from bread per day. You should probably be consuming even more calories from carb sources tbh.

[Бай Ганьо]

When you feel hungry and you know you shouldn't eat according to your diet schedule, just drink lots of water. It should suppress your appetite. (Let us be clear: the water itself won't make you lose weight.)

[Klaatu]

To lose weight try your best to completely avoid alcohol. Here is why:
Losing weight puts your liver to work burning off body fat.
Alcohol 'keeps the liver busy' so to speak, and thus diverts it away from
it's job of processing stored fats.

Also, drink a LOT of water, because the hydrolysis of triglycerides (fat)
cannot happen efficiently if you allow yourself to become dehydrated
(which by the way, alcohol also dehydrates the body) another reason to avoid it.

Lastly, get a hell of a lot of exercise. Good luck to you!

[JaffaRed]

I hardly drink any alcohol, usually one beer every half a year or so... I do smoke a hookah weekly, though.

And drink massive amounts of water.

[The Feral Underclass]

Well you wouldn't just remove bread, you'd replace it so if it's 1/4th of your calorie intake you wouldn't simply win 1/4th.

Why would you replace it? I suppose you could replace the whole meal with something healthier.

[The Feral Underclass]

Sure. So a couple of slices at breakfast, a couple at lunch. That's 400 calories from bread per day. You should probably be consuming even more calories from carb sources tbh.

Bread is a really shit source of carbohydrate -- even brown bread. Taking up a quarter of your calorie intake with a shit carb that's full of salt is not healthy.

A bowel of porridge with soya milk and a banana has more calories in it that two slices of bread, but it is healthier (it helps reduce cholesterol) and it will provide energy for longer than bread. Having a jacket potato instead of a sandwich provides more vitamins and minerals, has less calories (depending what you put on it) and is a better source of energy.

[Tim Cornelis]

Why is bread a really shit source of carbs?

Salt is not necessarily bad.

[The Feral Underclass]

Why is bread a really shit source of carbs?

Salt is not necessarily bad.

It's just processed wheat. That's not a healthy source of carb. All wheat breads are broken down into sugar really quickly making them a fast-acting carb. The spike in glucose means you'll use the energy really quickly and then need more energy. This spike in glucose levels can also lead to an increased your risk of type 2 diabetes over time, especially if you're eating a lot of other starchy carbs. Also bread doesn't contain many vitamins and minerals, if at all. You're basically just putting a food with a high glycemic index, that's fast acting into your body that has negligible nutritional benefits. To get the benefit of energy throughout the day, you need to eat slow-releasing carbs.

Salt is not necessarily bad at all and is needed to help the body function, but we only need a very small amount of salt. Over time, too much salt can cause hypertension, which in turn leads to strokes and heart disease. The daily recommended intake of salt is about 2.3g, but really, in my view, we should be trying to consume no more than 1.5g per day. 4 slices of bread has 0.5g of salt.

You want to eat porridge for breakfast. Porridge, porridge, porridge! Of course all this advice is irrelevant to people who already have healthy lifestyles. If you're training every day or every other day and have a good, balanced, moderated diet and stay well hydrated then eating two, three, four slices of bread a day isn't such a big deal -- it's not healthy though.

[Tim Cornelis]

Well I do want to get on a carb cycling diet, but I have nothing to replace me whole wheat pasta and bread with -- if I may piggyback on this thread. Porridge, meh, it needs preparation in the morning.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

i love potatoes far too much to ever be thin. i'd literally kill someone over roast potatoes

[Ele'ill]

I always used plain rolled oats as my main carb source both bulking and cutting and right now when i'm not working out because it's easy/quick to measure and is lower gi, even the 1min oats that come in bulk at a slightly higher gi, making them mid range gi.

You pour them into a bowl, add water, microwave, add a milk of some type. You can even add a little bit of frozen fruit, mango goes well with it, especially with almond milk. When I was way more serious into lifting I would keep them dry in a to-go cup and just add water and down it all real quick before work.

[JaffaRed]

Today I ate:

Breakfast at 9:00 - one banana.

Breakfast II at 11:00 - one cup of fruit yogurt and a boiled egg.

Lunch at 13:00 - beans with some meat. Small portion.

Lunch II at 15:00 - beans with some meat. Small portion.

Dinner at 21:30 - a dish of onion soup.

A lot of coffee/black tea [with sucralose rather than sugar] and water all day long.

I am feeling hungry and this means it is working - my body will have to burn its own fat rather than calories from food.

No bread at all in my new diet, and a relatively small amount of carbohydrates.

[The Feral Underclass]

Well I do want to get on a carb cycling diet, but I have nothing to replace me whole wheat pasta and bread with -- if I may piggyback on this thread. Porridge, meh, it needs preparation in the morning.

Bread is irreplaceable, frankly. You'd have to sort of change the meal. Can you not eat more beans instead of bread? Whole wheat pasta isn't that bad, but you could try replacing it with something like bulgur wheat or even brown rice.

You can make a porridge smoothie. Just throw some oats and milk into a blender with a banana or other piece of fruit and drink it

[The Feral Underclass]

i love potatoes far too much to ever be thin. i'd literally kill someone over roast potatoes

You could use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes?

[The Feral Underclass]

Today I ate:

Breakfast at 9:00 - one banana.

Breakfast II at 11:00 - one cup of fruit yogurt and a boiled egg.

Lunch at 13:00 - beans with some meat. Small portion.

Lunch II at 15:00 - beans with some meat. Small portion.

Dinner at 21:30 - a dish of onion soup.

A lot of coffee/black tea [with sucralose rather than sugar] and water all day long.

I am feeling hungry and this means it is working - my body will have to burn its own fat rather than calories from food.

No bread at all in my new diet, and a relatively small amount of carbohydrates.

Carbs are not the enemy, you just have to eat the right kind of carbs.

A good way to loose weight is to eat small amounts often. Providing it's the right kind of food.

[Ceallach_the_Witch]

You could use sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes?
but then i'd be eating twice as much potato



on a more serious note the only time ive ever really successfully lost weight as an adult was when i ran out of antidepressants and hardly ate for a couple of months. I did used to go to the gym for a good couple of years (and I very literally hated every individual nanosecond of the two or three extra hours a week i could have spent playing Shogun II: Total War) and while i did lose weight and become significantly better at picking up heavy things and so on it was much much less effective than not caring whether i starved to death or not.

[Ele'ill]

One of the first things to do regarding weight loss is to figure out how many calories you need, and in order to be able to maintain good health, where those calories are going to come from each day. This is based on your current body composition, weight, height, age, and activity levels. I am not suggesting counting calories as a final solution but I think starting off there and developing an understanding of basic physiology is important. After a month or so you'll probably find your weekly/daily diet planning to be automatic. Generally speaking there is a lot of debate regarding diet and it's also important imo to understand it, and through trial and error find a food strategy that works for you personally.


Here is an example of a site although not the best imo:

A relatively detailed thread on a forum discussing some brief math needed to figure out what you have to do to shed weight. imo this is the most important link in this post
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=156380183

Main Nutrition index (forum)
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=261

Nutritional Calculators: I suggest using many different ones to find a general range, they are not 100% accurate at all, they can be quite off. This is why that first link in this post is important because you'll be able to do the math out and fine tune it to a much greater degree than these calculators.
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbinfo.php?page=NutritionCalculators

The Main Nutritional Articles:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/bbmainnut-tools.html

[lutraphile]

I find MyFitnessPal to be a pretty good way to monitor caloric intake. Just put everything in.

[Bala Perdida]

I guess besides everything everyone else already said, it'd be smart to plan out your meals once you measure out the caloric and nutritional value of all the ingredients. It helps save time so you don't have to spend a lot of time planning out what you're gonna make. Then if you plan or end up eating something else, the meal plan always makes a good base.

[Tim Cornelis]

I want to have low carb days, so rice is not really good for that... ugh. maybe Ill not do carb cyclng.

[Ele'ill]

I want to have low carb days, so rice is not really good for that... ugh. maybe Ill not do carb cyclng.

what is your issue with the low carb day? you eat considerably less carbs on that day, or no carbs for your carbless day if you end up approaching CC like that. You can replace your carb meals with something without a heavy carb load like a protein source and veggies (or just veggies) and you match the calories of the high(er) carb day. It could end up being just 1-2 servings of oats on the low carb day.