81–90 of 99 posts
I'm planning on following this pretty closely soon. I've lost a lot of weight over the last couple of years (somewhere around 130lbs, starting at nearly 400lbs), but it's been largely due to cutting out soda and simply getting off my arse. Now I'm walking 3mi every other day or so, and the next step is to figure out what to eat to maximize my energy while keeping my weight on a downward trend, and I think that having…
There are two points I wish to add to this discussion: 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 wil…
I've found that losing the fat was impossibly hard no matter how healthy I tried to make my lifestyle. I suspect that once I have gotten rid of most of that fat, exercising will result in more visible improvements (muscles are much more visible when not covered in thick layers of fat), which will generate motivation for me to keep exercising. We'll see.
I really like the main idea: it's a willpower management issue, not a diet issue. A lot of stuff is approached differently if you think about it this way, especially in the light of studies who found out willpower is a finite resource, which is replenished easiest by... eating.
I actually completely disagree with this main idea. Everybody eventually gives up, no one has 100% steel willpower, we're all human. I would be very interested to see and update in a year or so, to see if the author has managed to keep the weight off. A much better idea is to change your diet completely, so your taste buds change and you stop craving unhealthy things. A wrote a similar article 3 years ago, and took a…
I'm planning on following this pretty closely soon. I've lost a lot of weight over the last couple of years (somewhere around 130lbs, starting at nearly 400lbs), but it's been largely due to cutting out soda and simply getting off my arse. Now I'm walking 3mi every other day or so, and the next step is to figure out what to eat to maximize my energy while keeping my weight on a downward trend, and I think that having…
Congrats! Keep it up. I've lost about 60lbs, and it started the same way for me: cutting out bad foods and doing a bit of exercise. It was nice motivation to say "no, I'm taking the stairs" or "I'll walk" and know that I could do it and it was making a big improvement in my life. Pick up cycling! So much more efficient use of your energy, meaning you can utilize it more often to hop around town!
Walking is great -- you'll need to pick up the distance soon, though, and perhaps make it a daily thing. As you walk more (and as you lose weight) your body will get better at walking. And don't worry too much about the food intake -- learn to listen to your body's needs rather than its wants. It can happen. If you are walking about an hour a day for exercise (along with the normal shuffling about), you should probably be able to get by on something in the neighborhood of 1500 calories -- and that can represent a lot of food if you're eating the right stuff, so feeling hungry doesn't have to be part of the deal. (Keep the time and effort constant -- if you're walking about 3 mph now, you'll find it steps up to 4 mph pretty much by itself. I regularly catch and pass "joggers" these days.)
I've lost just a little bit more than 160 pounds, but I started at a slightly more modest 300-ish (just shy). Just walking, dumping the egregiously horrid foodstuffs and being engaged with the meal I'm eating (rather than absently putting stuff in my mouth while doing other things) did almost all of the work. (Unfortunately, at fifty the skin doesn't quite snap back the way it might have if I'd done it at thirty -- I look way too much like a shar-pei these days.)
It really is about calories in versus calories out. Managing calories in doesn't have to be hard -- it's more about mindfulness than about absolute quantity. It's keeping that arse in gear, even if that means low gear until your capabilities catch up with your ambition, that makes the big difference.
If you find a way to do this, notify science.
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I actually completely disagree with this main idea. Everybody eventually gives up, no one has 100% steel willpower, we're all human. I would be very interested to see and update in a year or so, to see if the author has managed to keep the weight off. A much better idea is to change your diet completely, so your taste buds change and you stop craving unhealthy things. A wrote a similar article 3 years ago, and took a…
The first graph is from 2.5 years ago. I have regained weight only when I stopped weighing/charting. Weighing yourself once a day is not an onerous expenditure of time and energy, and I believe it achieves the goal of faking "100% steel willpower" by generating a little willpower for you every day.
I've lost close to 90 pounds over the last year. Honestly, I didn't expect to be this successful. I thought that after a few months, I'd lose the motivation. But every day I tell myself, "Forget yesterday. Forget tomorrow. Get through today, that's your goal."
Now some days, I didn't get through. But the next day, I'd begin all over as if it never happened. If you don't worry about willpower lapses, you will find it easier to get back to it. 100% willpower is an illusion created by having over 50% willpower along a great enough timeline.
Even though its called weight loss, most people I know want to lose fat, not lose weight. If you skip exercise altogether you'll go from being large fat, to average fat, and finally to skinny fat.
Those people have always irked me because they would have the same amount of fat as me, but wouldn't get crap for it because it wasn't as visibly obvious. Whereas, for most of my life, I've been what you could call "fit fat(?)". Reasonably strong with above average endurance but obviously carrying a lot of baggage. Unfortunately, I eventually got an office job and went to being just plain fat. But I've decreased my caloric intake to lose weight and started training to increase my strength and endurance.
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A much better book, written by an actual scientist, is Life Without Bread.
Can you elaborate on what makes it "much better"? I thought Taubes's book was very well researched (I think he spent about 10 years on it) and very well argued. I'd love to see something even better.