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As I suppose many of the people here do, I have a long list of pet projects that I plan to one day finish. One of them is lineardiet.com. The idea is simple. You just enter your current weight (C) and your desired weight (D). The service then plots you a graph with a line from weight C to weight D. The Y axis is the weight and the X axis is time. Now you have to weigh yourself every day. If you are above the line it'…
Is the site in german?
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Indeed. For those wanting to learn (a lot) more about this, with references to all the studies, check out Gary Taubes's book Good Calories, Bad Calories .
A much better book, written by an actual scientist, is Life Without Bread.
1. This is what works for one person. Every body is different and everyone's daily routines are different, so what works for one may not work for another.
2. This diet distinctly lacks any form of exercise and implies that by simply eating less and weighing yourself every day is the key to losing weight.
While this may be true and may make you lose weight, it will not make you healthy. It's a fine balance between diet and exercise and it takes some time to find a solution that is right for you.
If you really want to be healthy and not just lose weight I would suggest seeing both a personal fitness instructor and a dietician, both of whom can tailor a program depending on your own body and level of fitness. It is really the safest (and I stress safest as following any sort of dietary or exercise advice from the internet can be extremely dangerous) and easiest way to lose weight and become healthy.
I agree with him that exercising for weight loss is a _lot_ harder than simply not eating shit/unhealthy food (or excess amounts of healthy food)
However going into caloric deficit without a solid resistance training plan is a sure way to shed more muscle than you likely want.
You shouldn't think in terms of weight loss, you should think in terms of fat loss. You don't want to be shedding muscle. A simple resistance/calisthenic training program such as body weight exercises like pushups/planks/squats/burpees/pullups(if you can) will ensure that you have a better chance at retaining muscle, while shedding fat.
Also, using scales is simply not an accurate way to measure fat loss. The simplest way to measure your fat-loss progress at home is the good old tape measure.
Good luck.
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Carbs are quite fine if you're an endurance athlete, much less so if you are sedentary. Take a look at what a pro cyclist consumes during a tour: thousands of calories a day beyond what most people would consume, the majority of which are carbs. It works for them, because not only do they need the energy from it, but they are burning it. And these are not fat people (some of them are close to being underweight, by so…
I think the reason why carbs work well for endurance athletes is because it gets stored in the muscle glycogen and they actually use it . Yeah, otherwise it's useless.
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I think the reason why carbs work well for endurance athletes is because it gets stored in the muscle glycogen and they actually use it . Yeah, otherwise it's useless.
So is excess protein, which can stress the kidneys. The right balance, for the right lifestyle.
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The other thing to say here is that the latest research indicates that carbs may actually be a leading cause of heart disease rather than fat. For example: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbs-again... So low carbs can be healthy even if you're not trying to lose weight.
The study says refined carbs are bad — that's an important distinction. Also, some research (The China Study, for example) suggests that proteins (not fat) from animal-based foods are a cause of heart disease (and cancers).
This can also be a dangerous path for people that are not great self-starters. Using the scale every day teaches you to become obsessed with your weight. A lot (not all) make the association of:
My weight == My self worth
So if they slip up and put on 3 pounds, they feel horrible about themselves. I also think this doesn't promote a healthy long-term method of thinking because at some point you will stop loosing weight. At some point you will have that beach body you wanted -- and then what? If you were obsessed all along with the weight of BF measurements, then you can potentially loose your cause to continue.
This happened to me when I lost 30 lbs. I was so obsessed with the weight, I took it off in 2 months, and kept it off for about 6... then gained it all back + 10lbs over the next 2 years due mostly to being "bored" once I was "done" with the diet and had been at my goal weight for so long.
Again, this just happened to work for me.
I actually like excercise, but I liked food more. So without giving up the good quality foods I liked (eating fast food for every meal doesn't count) I upped my activity level to compensate and have enjoyed a much healthier method of taking off weight for my personality type.
I still have a bit of a gut, but I'm stronger, faster and cardio is much better with better blood work -- and that is what matters to me long-term. These are the type of habits I want to carry forward... needing to work out every day, enjoying what I do.
I want to pass good habits to my kids some day, and that all starts with learning to love physical movement I think (unless you are a phenomenal eater, then that's good too... but most of us aren't)
If you don't mind playing sports or exercise and LOVE food, then try and play with upping your activity level instead of dialing back your diet.
Fight 1 battle at a time.
The pride and confidence you will gain from feeling better will naturally translate to not eating so much of the really terrible food (drive thru) and instead replacing it with something slightly worse... maybe a veggie pizza or something.
That being said, I'm by no means a guru, I just know for 10 years I've tried everything and this is the only thing that worked for me.
Also, if you are the type that likes to push yourself and kick your own ass to see if you can take it -- you need to look into CrossFit, it's awesome.
I didn’t try the crazy diets like Atkins or the Maple Syrup diet. Anything that requires eating crazy stuff is probably bad for your health. Now I'm starting to feel like an Atkins Zeolot, I've been defending low-carb on HN so much lately, but I can't let a statement like that sit on itself! There's tons of scientific evidence for Atkins and everybody I talked to that investigated it, agrees. Furthermore "eating less…
The article contends that graphing your weight on a daily basis is a good motivator, and I agree with this as well. Doesn't have to be a computer graph either, a piece of graph paper posted on the bathroom wall by the scale does just fine.