LLD101

[sPiN]

Well the past couple years I haven't done much and I'm starting to gain weight. I don't watch what I eat and I don't exercise. I'm just wondering if anyone has any good diet plans they've used, and exercise routines they've used. I'm at about 180 pounds and I'd like to go down to ~160. Any help is appreciated. Thanks

[Torrent]

I've never been in the same boat, but my friend uses a diet on this site. Maybe it can help you.

[sPiN]

[Wank]

This was talked about in a different topic, and you'll get better answers from a bodybuilding forum, obviously.

[Aqua]

[Torrent]

[sPiN]

Well I don't know where jerkazoids post went but I'm guessing a mod deleted it because he was supporting starvation as a source of weight loss?

[Wank]

Actually, the dumbest thing you can do is to not eat. It will send your body into what I call "starvation mode", so every little bit of food (energy) you eat will be stored for future use, also known as fat.

Don't quit eating, actually eat more; so long as its healthy. And do some sort of physical activity.

[sPiN]

[mastercraft]

I think i have been in your shoes in a fitness sense. Im lucky that i decided to get in shape while in high school though. I took an aerobics class in the morning and ran two or three miles after school on the track. Now its just a habit to get out and run. Dont get me wrong, just taking the first step outside is a struggle in itself, but it gets easier as you progress.

[Jerkazoid]

i deleted it bc i went on a bit of an Adam Carolla style rant and found it unnecessary. but i suppose ill go at it again, its by no means authority, but i will speak as if it is.

1st, "starvation mode", or a famine response is EXACTLY what MUST happen for your body to change, this is when it alters to a lower calorie intake and starts using its reserve. this is painfull and is what makes dieting HARD!
Your body will not just burn reserve without making your mind feel stressed, hungry and territorial.

starvation- means to kill with hunger no one recommends killing yourself as a way to loose weight anymore then someone can recommend amputation. Not talking about organ damage and death, its about threshold moderation.

your body probably only needs 1/2 what most people eat to maintain, so when you diet a little your body easily compensates to the new amount and just continues to maintain. You need to drop WELL below what you normally eat otherwise the body just sustains itself with a minor cut. this is when people start to give up, they feel hungry but the body has adapted and is sustaining, very frustrating.... you will ONLY change if you push past your bodies unique thresholds.

how motivated are you? thats the only thing that matters really, the rest is boring ass simple and easy. all of the work of diets and plans is structure for motivation bc thats the problem. work out the motivation and it gets easy.

ill tell you my experience, its WAY less complicated to diet than competitive research markets say. Now i tried both ends of the spectrum, bulking and dieting. dieting was cheaper, faster, safer, and somewhat easier,, bulking was tougher, MUCH more time consuming, dangerous to my joints and expen$ive!.. so i dont like it when a fat (roomates, dad, co workers, girls) person complains to me its hard, cause try being skinny and gaining 50lbs of muscle, its MUCH more work as a whole to try to gain 50 good pounds lbs then loose 50 bad pounds.

you can try to keep your metabolism high, endorphins going with lots of empty calories eating and massive exercising, this is obviously the fastest way... but trust me, your body will feel stressed, and its allot more work. if u dont want to spend time exercising then just lower the calories allot. you can diet and loose weight without working out.

allot of my friends complain and bounce around dieting then not caring..... and my dad was fat (until he got cancer and couldnt eat for 6 months and MAGICALLY lost 100 lbs,, btw hes fine, and that "starvation" didnt kill him,, and he had CANCER while that "diet" was happening.) its a new weight lose plan called "cancer" amazing! lets market it and put it on the internets! no special diet, no exercising, just plain ole fashion hunger.

humanity has been struggling for food for thousands of years.. you cutting about 40-50% of the calories and going into some level of "starvation mode" (famine response) is just fine, its NORMAL,
better then that.. its more normal then the amount we eat in this day and age. you live in an era when giant cans and bags of sugar filled treats come out of a machine, satiating your life and babying your lifestyle with a full belly, humanity has never had this. You can walk into a 7/11 and pick up fluffy cakes bigger then your hand and go crazy 24/7 and make yourself feel happy. in what world is excess and complete abandoned decadence without its consequences? more efficient consumption is always a good thing on any scale.

dont think for a second that we live longer and are healthier now a days with our modern food horticulture- hunter/gatherer societies are way healthier diets, the only problem was they didnt have modern medicine and housing 15k years ago.

depressing appetite, its fine. the famine response is the 1st plateau you will hit as your body reconfigures to maintain itself with less calories. you simply must push through it, and as you possibly taper, you will need to further lower calories to continue weight lose after that point. and its HARD, but possible, its simple numbers.

an important cause of failure to maintain weight loss, universal in plight is not being able to manage the famine response and correctly adapt. you quit, and binge, and the body will grab it all and put it right back into your ass ruining allot of the work u did to get to that point. you can think of it as a drug relapse, its horrible for you and ruins all the work.

you'd be surprised how much u dont need to eat. And empty calories is a waste, it just makes your stomach feel full, but trust me, your brain will know, you will know your hungry. why do u think people have a hard time dieting?

your body cannot loose weight without going into starvation mode. you are giving it less food then it needs to sustain. how hard you tip the scale loosing faster or slower depends on your will power. diet means consuming less, its simple....

i lost like 7 lbs in 2 months, its HARD, i would sit at work and day dream about pizza and want a pepsi bad, it was distracting, like cheerleaders in my mind, but this time it was garlic bread and toast, bacon and cheese!! and it was VERY hard to concentrate.. also i was pissed,, all the time, very unhappy and irritated by little things..
this is because the body was under stress, reacting to the threat of not getting food. everything is a territorial battle at its roots and everything bothers you allot more.

i did this.
1) only drink water*
2) avoid carbs like a drug habit, whole wheat bread only and not much
3) snack on un salted almonds, peanuts, sunflower and pumpkin seeds
4) hard boiled eggs (no yolk) to help lower empty stomach feeling
5) raisins, and dried apricots

that was it!
i probably ate 9 eggs a day, 2 cups of dried fruit and 2 cups of nuts. it was about $50 a week . consistent low calories , no bouncing around, no breaking, no "oh its friday ill have a full plate of pasta just this once."
a 24 hour fast (only water) after your body uses all its blood sugar gives your pancreas a rest and helps lowers your bodies desire for unnecessary sugar. i recommend doing that maybe twice a month.

there is a reason why things sweets and fats "bad" for u taste so good, if u found it in nature it was rare, and you gobbled it up instantly. that doesnt mean its ever good to have them, AVOID them entirly!
no need to buy a diet candy bar,, or some expensive pretty packaged slim-fit-diet-fixomatic 9000.. just cut out how much you eat

*NO SODA, absolutely no exceptions. u drink a can of pepsi just run full speed into a wall. once u hit the famine reaction your body will drain a can of Coke straight into your fat ass and kill all the work your doing. not even gatorade, no juice dont even think about it! and no beer,, yah that sucks but NO alcohol!

after you loose the weight, u can start breaking the diet a little, adding back some of the old yum, but ull probably want to add some gym activity at that point.

i have put the weight back on over since then im about 140lbs now, but i jog 30mins about 4-6 times a week so its looking good., avoid carbs afternoon and follow the guidelines of the new food pyramid. BMI at just under 22 and can jog a mile easy not a single pant, or breaking a sweat. by no means some volleyball athlete, but im in waaaaay better shape then alot of people i work with. and its not hard at all. not like trying to bench over 140 which was allot of hard work, time and money for me to even approach

[Mr_Bilson]

pick ~2 things that you eat a lot that are crap for you and stop eating them eg. soda and candy

every time you feel like them eat a peice of fruit or vege/drink water. if you crave something sweet have some toast with honey on it or juice some fruit up etc

imo its unrealistic to change your whol diet in an instant, as you probly wont be able to stick with it

[Goky]

Don't listen to jerkazoid and you'll be fine. Painful horrible diets are the reason people fail so miserably. It's great that he's insane and enjoys being in pain and has the willpower of a stone wall, but that doesn't mean he has to recommend it to everyone else! Most people would fail pretty quickly doing something like that.

I had a really good diet of whole non-processed foods consisting of lots of lean meats, vegetables, whole grains, etc. I ate about 2,000 calories a day (very reasonable) consisting of about 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat. I lifted weights 3x a week (mainly compound movements) and ran 1-2x a week. I looked/felt in the best shape I had ever been.

Before that (about 2 years before) I listened to other people with the whole "run all the time all day every day and don't eat" idea. I lost like 50 pounds but looked like absolute shit. I mean, with my shirt on I looked nice and skinny but as soon as I took it off I was flabby and out of shape looking. I lost a crap load of muscle and had no tone or shapeliness to me whatsoever. This is aptly known as being "skinny fat" and trust me you don't want to be that guy.

[Jerkazoid]

[FudGe]

getting in shape is like 90% diet

people who spend like 2 hours at the gym are idiots.

The fact is: you don't want to be fat, then don't eat like a fat person.