Can't lose weight?

Question

Hey guys, i need your help. I use to weight 180lbs then i got a boyfriend and i was always busy, we were always running around doing stuff so i was very active. Well we broke up in may and now I am back to my normal weight of 180lbs. I go to the gym atleast 3 times a week. I have not lost any weight. I am not an active person though. I have no idea what to do to lose weight.

It's so easy to put it on but it takes forever to get it off. I am thinking to sticking to one meal a day. That is what I did before, but that was hard because I love food.

Any suggestions....I need some

Answer 1

First, for all of the "quick and easy" weight loss diet pill suggestions, remember, if something sounds too good to be true... it probably is, particularly if you have to pay for it.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount 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

Eating just one meal a day is no good! That doesn't give your body energy it needs all day to function properly! Your body will also wanna hang onto that meal because it will fear you not eating again...The best bet is to eat 5-6 small "meals" throughout the day to keep your metabolism revved up...A healthy breakfast, a snack, a healthy lunch, a snack, a healthy dinner, a snack...and drink LOTS of water! Since you are not an active person, the initial exercise you start doing should jumpstart your weight loss for sure. Whatever you do, don't get aggrivated if the weight doesn't start coming off as fast as you would like...take your time, do things right and you'll keep it off!! It takes 3500 calories to gain 1 pound of fat....So if you watch your caloric intake all week and do a little exercise to burn some calories all week...you will start to drop weight. Go online and find a BMR calculator...it will ask for your height and weight and then tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain your weight and just live...breathe, poop, sleep, wink, all the normal bodily functions. Now subract 500 from that daily amount and that is what you should eat to lose approximately 1 pound a week....Now to burn off an additional 1 pound a week do enough exercise to burn 500 calories a day. You should start seeing results in a short amount of time if you stick with it. Try and not think of exercise as work...but as a stepping stone to a "new" you, at least on the outside! Set yourself small goals along the way instead of focusing on a big goal....say like 5 pound increments or pant sizes or inches lost per month. The scale does NOT always show our results correctly, get out a tape measure and start measuring yourself....measure about once a month and you will start to see noticeable drops in inches all over. I wish you the best of luck, losing weight can be a tough road, but YOU CAN DO IT!!!!

Answer 3

The bad and most ordinary thing about people who want to lose weght is that they always make a mistake with the food, the amount and quality. That is the main problem.The most effective way of losing weght is to stop eating sweets and unhealthy stuff, drink 2 litters of water every day and separate your usual portions into 6 small meals a day so that you have an even distribution of calories during the day. Do not rely on calories though! It does not matter how much you eat, but what you eat. For example, if you only eat fatless meat and vegetables, you're gonna lose weight in no time. If your diet consisits of sugar, many carbohydrates and fat, even if you take only 1 000 calories a day you're still not going to lose weight. One secret though which i think should be applied in any case: if you realy want to lose weight and change your life, then you must work very hard for it and you have to have a realy strong will. Just forget you're on a diet! Do something very intresting to distruct yourself and in a few weeks you will be surprised! Just don't do the mistake I made telling myself: "OK, life is short, you've got to live it, eat as much as you want!" Believe me, after that I gained 10 kg in just 2 weeks!

Answer 4

First off, diet alone will not be the answer. You NEED to include a cardiovascular activity and not just 3 times a week. There are many ways to lose weight quickly that are very unsafe for your heart so don't be tempted by a "crash" diet because you'll just gain all the weight back after not too much time. What is your height? Wondering how much you need to lose?

If you LOVE food, then that is probably where most of your problem lies. You have to learn to LOVE the foods that our good for your body and to get rid of all the JUNK foods like for instance "fast food" and "sugary foods". The less you eat of sugary foods, the less you'll crave it. And you have to concentrate on drinking at least 1 gallon of water a day. Can you discipline yourself enough to start with your diet (eating healthier) and perhaps walking one block a day and then increasing each day a little farther?

You need to AVOID foods HIGH in fats. Become a vegetarian (even better if you go VEGAN), for that is the healthiest way to eat and just think of all the poor, suffering animals in factories just to become a part of your dinner plate.

Some of your problem may also be obsessive/compulsive disorder where you obsess about food all day hence "hard because I love food". If that is your problem you need counseling and possible drug treatment.

Good luck!

Answer 5

You might think about trying The Movie Star Diet. I lost 50 pounds with it after only five months, and I couldn't be happier. I've tried a lot of different diets (Atkins, South Beach, and Weight Watchers, etc.) and none of them worked anywhere near as well as this one. It's definitely worth a shot if you really want to see a difference in a short time.

Answer 6

DON'T GIVE UP keep going to the gym and control your eating you'll be ok and gurl you need to eat atleast 3 times a day the food does not make you fat it's the way you eat it and the time eat in the breakfast lunch dinner use allot of vegetables in youf food like beans, carrots, lettuce drinks min 8 glass of water a day and put the radio on and dance all around your house you have to have fun while doing it you'll have a blast be creative with your food go colorfulllllllllllll

Answer 7

I will try to keep it simple. Your metabolism is basically the rate at which your body burns calories to create energy. So the faster your metabolism, the faster you burn calories and the easier it is to lose unwanted weight. To boost your metabolism naturally you just need to eat the right foods.

You can sit down and literally eat a 1,000-calorie dinner and yet be absolutely starving just a few hours later and the reason is simple: Because your body didnt get what it needed in those 1,000 calories so it sends signals to your brain telling you to ingest more calories and thus, the late-night cravings. That means that the surest way to end those late-night cravings and keep your weight loss goals on track is to eat a more balanced, nutritious diet that actually gives your body what it needs.

It's VERY EASY to lose weight if you eat the right foods. Check out Dr. Charles Livingston's video here: http://www.sexyjese.com - it will blow your mind.

Answer 8

Okay gurly, its really easy and simple. Your already active an stuff so your good on that part. I so understand how you feel about you love food. Just change your eating habits. It really works. and dont think of it as losing weight or a diet. think of it as a new way of life. You gotta eat more healthier foods and smaller portions. I dont mean eat a piece of bread and call it a day! lol i mean eat baked chicken instead of fried, dont eat as much as you usually do and the weight should gradually come off. but it dont happen over night. Well, i hope this works for you.!

Answer 9

After reading this I just have to share something because I spent several years switching from diet to diet without experiencing any real results until I discovered Pams magic plan (i found it on google). Without a doubt the most weight loss that I have ever achieved and it is still working to this day.

Answer 10

Know why all those "Mail me the meal" things work?

PORTION SIZE.

Plan out your weeks worth of food.

Menus.

Everything you are going to put in your mouth.
Make it complete.

Buy those things at the grocery store.

Nothing else.

You will always know what you are going to eat.

Eat NOTHING else! Stop the diet soda!

Yes STOP!

It is so bad! There is stuff in there to make you hungry.

Drink GOOD water and if you must have something to entertain your taste buds put some lemon or a tea bag in it.

Answer 11

Having seen this I really want to share something because I spent years going from diet to diet without seeing any results until I saw Pams magic plan (i found it on google). Without a doubt the best weight loss that I have ever achieved and I am still trim to this day.