Up-diet September 22, 2006
Posted by dorigo in food, personal.trackback
Boy it’s hard.
I have done it in the past, I will succeed this time too. But it is very hard to stick to my very strict diet! No lunch (only 200 calories allowed), very light dinner (no more than 700 kcal, and lots of veggies), no bread, no alcohol whatsoever, no sweets. Lots of water. Only a few coffees during the day.
The problem arises when you have to keep the enthusiasm going as a reasonable weight loss has been achieved and motivation starts fading. I lost eight pounds in less than two weeks, and I am now back to what can be considered a normal weight (73.5 kg for 1.77m of height, or a BMI of 23.5), but my goal was to go down to below 71 kg, to leave a little room for the coming winter and the associated christmas parties.
I can almost hear my stomach saying “C’mon dude, things are under control now, so why don’t you open the f***ing fridge and get a beer out”.
Because I do have beer in my fridge. That is part of the torture…. But I’ll live through it. The graph above shows my current weight chart, which shows the decrease from 77.5 to 73.6 kg (rightmost points). I will keep going.
I really think you should take up running. What you’re doing now is only half of what you can and should do, and the least enjoyable part of it by far. Rather than just trying to reduce your calory input, you should increase the output. It’s not just the increased burning as you run; by increasing your muscle mass you will raise your overall metabolic rate and burn more even at rest. And you will feel (and look) a lot better. And your hunger will be reduced, believe it or not.
A bonus trick: do pushups and a little assorted upper-body gymnastics. You will grow muscles which are otherwise never used. Legs already walk, but arms do very little, so relatively speaking this is where you get the most bang (increased metabolism) for the least training effort. Strengthen your abdomen and back muscles and you also get the best insurance there is against back bain (very often due to the spine taking too much of the load not carried by underdeveloped muscles).
P.S. Obviously, “back bain” -> “back pain”. A careless typist I am.
Hi GW,
I do appreciate your advice. Indeed, I am a bit careless in the body training department.
The thing is, or at least my justification for having trouble implementing something like what you offer above: I am a little bit of an old dog – one who can’t be taught new tricks. Meaning that starting to exercise would imply a deep change of my daily habits. This very blog, for instance, is a time eater that lives on the free time it swallowed from my former hobby, chess. In order to make up time for jogging I would have to give up something else – and there is very little else than blogging, playing with my kids, and being a father.
Of course things change when I am on vacation, where I do have a healthier approach. But that’s 10% of my time only and has little impact on the overall problem.
I think I could – with effort – bring myself to doing a bit of upper body workout. I will consider that. Indeed, what you say about using little my arms and upper muscles (including my brain lol) is correct. Also, it would benefit my back, which is often strained when I doggedly lift all in one piece my telescope to bring it around.
I’m an old dog, and I have learned how to lose weight – and it was hard. With the issue of exercising, I think the battle will be ultimately won more easily when Filippo grows 10 or so, when doing sport with him will become entertaining.
Cheers,
T.
I am obviously pursuing a devious plan here, to reduce the time you can spend writing leftish posts and make you concentrate on physics ones.
Fad diets – especially low-carb diets – do not work long-term. Just look at the science. These trendy “plans” usually end up making you fat. Why? They cause you to lose precious fat-burning lean muscle. And that slows down your metabolism and speeds up your weight gain. But with the 3-Hour Diet’” you will lose two pounds every week, starting first with belly fat.
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yeah .. i agree with helen.. anyway, thanks for the info…
I am a 10 year old girl.My weight is 125pounds and 50kg.I need to lose weight becuz everyone makes fun of me and cuz I feel a lot heavy but I don’t want to do any exercise