Re: Health & Fitness goals
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grace  Get back to exercising after a nearly a month break due to illness. Find some new way to get rid of this tonage. Exercise, counting calories, starving, nothing works. I bought a book on depression and weight gain that I hope will give me some insight.
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Wow. You said a lot in that post.
I don't know where to start, but this is something I know a TON about, so..
1) starving never works. There are physiological reasons for this. Generally, dieting and starving makes you fatter. Now, don't use that as an excuse to pig out, there is a very easy, practical solution.
Calorie restriction actually leads to significant hormone changes, reduced leptin levels, etc (that can cause depression). These hormone changes also lead to a change in your body that is referred to as "calorie partitioning".. i.e. when you eat extra calories, where it goes (or when you burn calories where they come from) - fat or muscle.
Super slow diet results, and/or a momentary lapse in motivation leads to your body INSTANTLY hoarding of calories into fat (why you gain two weeks worht of effort back in one afternoon).
Think about it this way, if you aren't eating enough calories, your body thinks your starving. Therefore, it will drastically slow your metabolism to hang on to as many fat reserves as possible. Making things worse, it will also immediately store any excess calories you happen to eat making it essentially impossible to permanently lose fat.
Dont dispair, there is a solution (and no, I'm not selling anything).
1) Get your head right. Permanent weight loss is 100% mental. You have to change your attitude and think healthy, in order to act healthy, in order to be healthy. Get your mind right, and you body will follow.. eventually.
2) Recommended reading:
Any Zone diet book; Master Your Metabolism by Jilian Michaels; A Paleo / Paleolithic / Caveman diet book. If you read these, you will have all the building blocks you need to TRULY understand what and why to eat certain foods.
If your a nerd like me I can also recommend much more scientific ones that have to do with hormones & calorie partitioning, etc.
3) Eat real food and only real food. Some call it the green-face diet. "if it wasn't green (plant) or didn't have a face (animal) then don't eat it". This is easier than you think. More on this later.
Go through your fridge and throw away anything with artificial sweeteners, artificial colors, and strongly avoid high fructose corn syrup.
I'm not preaching, read Master Your Metabolism from above. She cites
several interesting scientific studies on how this (and other) crap affects our metabolism and your natural hunger reflexes causing you to eat more (example: artificial sweetners cause your brain to dissasociate sweet with calories and therefore you eat a lot more)
4) Exercise. Duh right? But you MUST lift weights. Cardio is also very important, but cardio alone won't do it. This has a lot to do with maintaining "calorie partitioning" mentioned above. You want your body to burn fat, not muscle. And if/when you eat a little more, you want it to build more muscle, not store extra fat.
There are a lot of simple bodyweight routines that can be done at home. Gyms are obviously better as long as you go.
I'm a HUGE advocate of crossfit.com, though it's harder than most people want.
5) Eat almost zero carbs. Definitely no refined ones. Okay carbs are beans, quinoa, steel cut oatmeal. Try to avoid breads except on your cheat day (more on that later). Unless you are unusually active (competetive athletes) your body doesn't really need many carbs. Get most of your calories from clean protein, and some fat.
I have more info on how many calories you should be eating, and of what type (fat, protein, carb), but it's at home, and i'm at work. Maybee tomorrow.
6) Use "carb-ups" once a week. This is your "cheat" day, except you aren't cheating. It's required. As outlined above, when you restrict calories your horemone levels fall and your metabolism slows.
The trick is, it takes roughly 4-5 days for levels to start falling, and only about a good day to spike them back up. Using periodic, planned carb-ups keeps your metabolism humming along, you mentally happy, motivated, etc. You will seriously look forward to it all week.
The carb-up window should be around 5-6 hours of eating whatever the heck you want. I advise against eating a bowl of frosting.. or anything else that would give you a heart attack or diabetes, but basically it's your JOB to have fun. Go to olive garden and gorge yourself on pasta and breadsticks.
Sorry if this is a little scattered, it's sorta train-of-thought. This is stuff I do know a lot about, so feel free to ask questions.
