I am fat.. and I cannot lose the weight.. I weigh 190 lbs and nothing works. Any ideas.?

Question

I have dieted, exercised, done it all.. nothing works.

I am 5'8" tall.. and I am fairly big boned.. I wear a size 12 but most of my weight is belly weight and my rear.

Answer 1

On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common question amounts to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

Change your lifestyle. Change your habits.

Eat a normal diet but eat healthy foods. Fruits, veggies, lean meats. Eat 3 meals a day and 2 healthy snacks. Drink 8 glasses of water every day.

Do Not Eat any junk food at all. No fast food burgers & fries. Nothing.

Try the No Flour, No Sugar Diet if nothing else works. Do not eat anything with flour in it and do not eat anything with sugar in it except the natural sugars in fruit.

Start a walking program. Power Walk 15 minutes hard every day. Build up to 30 minutes every day.

Hope some of these ideas will jump start you to losing weight.

Answer 3

Don't diet !!
It doesn't work .
Just eat normally , no fat , no sugar , don't ever go to fast food places .
They are the worst .
Cook for yourself .....I cook every day , stay away from fat and sugar and I'm not fat and never will be .
It's easier then you think .
Most people go back to there old eating habits , little by little , and that's what brings the weight back .
Losing weight should go slow , it didn't come on overnight , so why try and get ride of it in a very short time ?
It really doesn't work that way , believe me.

Answer 4

You don't say how tall you are or if you are "big-boned" or "heavily-muscled", 190lbs may not be out of line. 190 is just a number, you need to look at, for instance, how do your clothes fit? The simple rule is decrease your intake and increase your output. One possibility is you could be hypothyroid (under-active thyroid gland) but to make that determination for sure (or rule it out) you'll need to see your GP. The body's natural tendency is to store carbohydrates as fat and burn muscle for energy. The trick is to "drive this equation the other way" (to use chemistry terminology). Try cutting back on your carb intake and increasing your protein intake. Also, muscle is more metabolically active than fat so try getting into some serious weight-training to build more muscle.

Answer 5

Could be a medical condition? Try talking with your doctor.

If you haven't tried the cabbage soup diet, It worked for my mother-in-law who weighed nearly 200 lbs (and had tried everything). You can search for it on yahoo or google and get some good recipes and tips on how to use it. If used correctly, it's proven to make you lose 10 lbs in the first week and it's very simple to follow.

Also, try changing your drinking habits. Only water! It's amazing how much better you can feel if you drink water as opposed to soft drinks. Walking and/or exercising would also help you along.

Good luck!

Answer 6

So many solutions... dude you are very younger. Don't say that "I am a scholar so I do not get time for something". You have at all times. Eat anything you wish to. Just pass external in night time and play a few out of doors video games. Specially Football, Badminton, Cricket and so on and so on. Play up to you'll. Play soccer every day for an hour or 2 and you'll be able to see the alterations.

Answer 7

I've been there, done that and have a few t-shirts. I have tried Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast, Dexatrim, and a variety of other plans, pills, and potions. The only thing that got lighter was my wallet.

Since July 15, 2006, I have been on Stack Body Tune Up and have lost 32 pounds. This is the first thing that has helped me. I have a home page that talks about my journey with the Stack.

If I can be of further assistance, let me know.

[e-mail]
http://www.geocities.com/pktull

Answer 8

Well, don't give up!

Losing weight comes down to simply math, if you expend fewer calories than you take in, you'll eventually start losing weight. If you take in more calories than you expend, then you'll gain about 1 lb for every extra 3500 calories.

I suggest a combination of counting calories and fat and also increasing your activing level. Start slow if you have to, don't burn yourself out. A combo of cardio activity and strength building works well.

I'm 240 and I've lost nearly 30 lbs in the past 8 months. One pound a week is my goal because the faster you lose weight (with fad diets) the better chance you have a putting it back on. So...make it slow and steady. Good for you for trying!

Answer 9

Have you seen a doctor? You could have an underlying medical condition that causes you to be overweight. Sometimes a simple medication will be all it takes to get your body functioning normally and then you can lose weight. If there is no medical condition your physician may be able to help you lose weight through methods you haven't tried yet. Good luck! I also battle my weight. I know it isn't easy.

Answer 10

how about eatting normal no diets and try exercise like takeing a dance class? or karate!! Maybe it is from stress that it wont come off or from smokeing?? A lot could be the factor. cut out a lot of salt and sugar. sugar turns to fat. Also alcohol. Alcohol turns to sugar which in turn, turns to fat. eat a lot of vegitables and protien like chicken and fish. Also I tell everyone, take your vitamins they help your body stay ballanced!

Answer 11

Eat less and exercise more works every time. Keep a diary of everything that you eat and you may be surprised about what your actual intake is (especially carbs). Keep a diary of your exercise and plan to increase a little every week. It can be done. Good luck!