Losing weight questions on this site?

Question

There are a lot of questions here about losing weight by trying all the different kinds of fancy name diets- How many people can honestly say on here that they lost weight and kept it off and maintain an healthy life style from using these fad diets. The key to managing your weight and living a healthy lifestyle is real simple- practice eating small well balance meals throughout the day. Use your common sense you know which foods are good, which are bad- one needs to tell you that and exercise a couple times per week include cardio and weight training- it take's motivation, dedication and work that's all folks-

Answer 1

I agree with you... and here is my typical answer to those questions.


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

In your opinion, Roy.

If you're speaking of the Kimkins Diet it's based on Atkins which has been around since 1972 and the Stillman's diet which was published even earlier.

Well balanced meals provide mediocre weight loss. This can be devastating to an obese person on the verge of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, kidney failure or dying from a heart attack.

This is why insurance companies, who hate to part with a dollar, will pay $30,000 for gastric bypass surgery. Obesity is dangerous, very dangerous. The entire point to gastric surgery is to lose far more than 2 lb a week.

Isn't the appeal of the Biggest Loser that we see people losing 10-15-20 lb EACH week? Doctor supervised with athletic trainers encouraging that fast loss. Hmmm, what's their diet? Lean low carb, exactly like Kimkins.

What about people who do follow non-fad diets like Weight Watchers? Why aren't they all at goal? Why do they quit? Why do they cheat? Why do they rejoin, rejoin, rejoin? Slow weight loss with balanced meals isn't the answer.

Kimkins gives people an opportunity for fast weight loss. To see results in a few days for their hard work. Imagine if you weigh 300 lb and lose the recommended 2 lb a week? It would take months to drop just one size! And, think of the junk they would still have to eat to slow weight loss down to 2 lb a week!

At the Kimkins site there are 300+ pound members losing 5% of their total body weight in a week! A week! They're so excited, they see hope -- they might live to see their grandchildren!

Maybe your way works for some, but not for everybody. We criticize what we don't understand.

Answer 3

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 4

His question was "How many people can honestly say on here that they lost weight and kept it off and maintain an healthy life style from using these fad diets?"

And my answer is: Probably only people who have anorexia. They started a fad diet, it worked, so they continued to eat that little amount (which most fad diets require), and they just went on that path of losing weight till they die. They went along with a fad diet and they kept the weight off.

Answer 5

If anyone reads this...and has a real eating problem, and is sick and tired of hearing how you don't have the motivation nor the dedication nor the discipline, but food and exercize seem to be ALL you think about, check out this book: How Much Does Your Soul Weigh by Dr. Dorie. She has been through it and gets it. She will address more than just "following guildelines and having dedication." Anyone who hasn't had a food problem wouldn't understand, so ignore the judgement and pick up her book.

Answer 6

Well I can tell you I used Weight Watchers and it worked and I have been maintaining a healthy weight for 8 months. So before you make assumptions for everyone, maybe you should find out first.

Answer 7

Fad diets do work for people who only need to lose a few pounds. For people who are obese, they require a life change. But for those of us who sometimes gain a few pounds, every few years or so we can go on a fad diet and lose it.

Answer 8

participate in sex atleast 3 times in a week

Answer 9

we love chips but three cups of popcorn is just as satisfying

Answer 10

crank your ipod as you walk at 3 5 mph for 23 minutes

Answer 11

you dont have to make a three digit number your weight loss goal aim for a certain dress size or waist measurement