Didn’t fall down today. Not too sore, considering.
But Jane and I are both tired of starving ourselves and still not losing weight. So we are undertaking a new weight loss push. I hate walking. I hate walking with a passion. But Jane loses weight best when she walks. So I’ve agreed I’ll walk to support her. Twice a day. Sigh. And—we have resolved to pick the far backside of every parking lot, park there, and walk to whatever store, give or take the presence of shopping cart repositories to help us with the load. This can actually add up. We did two back-of-the-parking lot hikes today.
I’m back at work with the Mantis, but Jane asked me to lay off it today, since I have a persistent headache from the fall yesterday: didn’t hit my head, but the jolt gave me a mild bit of whiplash.
So wish us luck. It’s not reasonable we starve as we do and never have desert and exercise and still can’t lose weight. So we’re going to try Something Different, and just walk more.
Congratulations on your walking program! If it’s any consolation, I used to hate walking too. Then my employer (University of Alaska) ran a “Start Walking” program to encourage employees to walk 10,000 steps or do the exercise equivalent every day. By the end of that, walking became really easy. Now I take the bus to/from work instead of driving, & frequently in seasonable weather even get off a few stops early in order to walk more. I also bought a Concept 2 indoor rower a couple of years ago — good way to get exercise indoors, with low impact on joints.
I wish both of you the best. Maybe members of this community who also want to take some bodyfat off can lend support by joining in? If there’s one thing that Start Walking program taught me, it’s that doing things together really helps keep the motivation up.
I overhauled my diet (not just “went on a diet,” but completely changed it for good) at beginning of 2006 after my mom’s death from complications of diabetes — b/c I’m prediabetic & didn’t want to become fully diabetic. Got completely geeky to figure out what to do — most of the diet books are offtrack in one way or another, esp. for people who are insulin resistant. In 2008 I redoubled my geekery, & through exercise plus diet (this time I really did go on a diet), lost 40 lbs. that year. Unfortunately life stuff in 2009 got me lazy, I’ve regained about half of that, but I’m getting set for another effort. I do best when I write about it, so my blog is going to start getting populated with dietary/exercise geekery again.
If I were to sum up the best info I have for weight loss, it’s: (1) sufficient protein; (2) lots & lots of nonstarchy veggies, esp. greens; (3) essential fatty acids (omega 3s); (4) do not do not do not eat carbs unless you have earned them through exercise. This last is a standard good piece of advice that I see across the board from the only people who seem to be on top of the fat loss game, who are geeky about it — which funny enough turns out to be people in the fitness/bodybuilding end of things. Best names I know: Lyle McDonald, Alan Aragon, John Berardi.
I’ll add my voice to the pro-walking, low-carb advocates – it’s done wonders for me. I used to hate walking. Then I started getting more obsessed about photography, which has given me an incentive to walk; and with increased fitness walking has become easier – and since going low-carb, my fitness has improved considerably.
Something Different has been known to shake up the metabolism. That’s about where I am, also, after 3+ weeks of eating out in Sydney. I have to get my mind around it first for it to be effective.
Where I especially went off my game in the past year was being a sucker for those great pumpkin scones at Starbucks – we have one right here on campus. But Monday when I tipped the scale at 197 — huh uh, I gave ’em up. 500 calories per scone? Oops. Down to 191 today — prob. water weight lost b/c of not eating so much refined carb.
I try to not even look at the pastry case at the one in my building. Usually I’ll get either a fruit-and-cheese tray, or a yogurt. (For a while they’d have pumpkin empanadas in the fall. Think turnovers with a mashed-and-seasoned pumpkin filling.)
I have to agree with these folks, low carb saved my life. I’ve dropped between 60 and 80 lbs, not sure, didn’t weigh during those last, dark days of despair. Found out I’m gluten intolerant when I went low carb in 1998 in a move of desperation given the nutritional climate in those days. It’s not much better now but there is a lot more real information on the Internet (blogs, pubmed database, etc.) to counter the propaganda from the lipophobes.
Fat is not bad for you, humans ate it for millennia, as much as they could get their little hands on, just not these new polyunsaturated, industrially extracted franken-oils that turn out to be very bad for you.
There is way more to it than that but this is your blog and not mine. I’ll be happy to elaborate if you are interested.
For most people it is just calorie in vs calorie out. For my mom who has a thyroid problem it isn’t that simple. Still, there are some basic truth to that. It is hard to lose weight based on diet alone. I go on five mile power walks. My mom goes to Curves. She used to do other things, but she found switching things up every few months works better than one thing for years. Outside of that you attempt to eat things that are green as well as avoid things that are in the gold-brown range. Also take a look at your liquid diet. Kids drinking large frou frou drinks from Starbucks think about the caffeine but usually not about the meal-sized calories involved. Quit soda. There is no point to it. Even the sugar free stuff just gives your sweet-tooth a foothold. Gotta reset your taste buds back to a normal range of sweet.
The big thing is do not starve yourself. Your body reverts back to ancient times and interprets starvation as real starvation so when you do eat a meal it begins to store more fat than it normally would as a survival mechanism because it is anticipating lean times. The best thing to do is keep your metabolism going all day with small snacks. Wake it up within an hour of getting up in the morning and stop eating by seven at night. Then your body isn’t triggered to store fat as much since it is content all day. I am kind of fortunate to not have typical hangups. Since I was really little I had no interest in milkshakes, McDs, or other pitfalls. I’ve not had soda in ten years since the acid kills my throat. I could eat popcorn by the bucket, but I got an air popper that fixed that particular problem. Everyone has things about themselves they need to master, but along the way you usually find new things to like that are actually good for you.
sweetbo: right-on about the drinks. Just drink non-calorie drinks: water, unsweetened coffee or tea — skip the lattés, soda pop, etc. (I have wine sometimes, beer occasionally if I’m not in fatloss mode.) Fruit is better than fruit juice, which is mostly just sugar too.
Re: starvation — The “diet” I followed two years ago is a modified protein-sparing modified fast (PSMF) designed by Lyle McDonald called “Rapid Fat Loss.” PSMFs are used a lot clinically (look it up in Medline). The science of it is: when you actually starve, your body starts eating into its protein stores — your muscle — in order to make enough glucose to keep your brain working. So you lose muscle mass. A PSMF “spares” your protein stores (muscles) by giving you enough dietary protein so your body can use it to make the glucose it needs, instead of taking it from your muscles. You just eat that amount of protein, a small amount of essential fatty acids, nonstarchy veggies, certain vitamins/minerals (magnesium is v. important!), & that’s it. McDonald’s design also gives people a couple of “free meals” (he calls it that instead of “cheat meals”) every week so you always have a “light at the end of the tunnel” & don’t feel so deprived.
I’d use it for about five or six weeks at a time, eating about 800 cal/day (except “free meals” when I could eat as much of whatever I wanted). And strangely enough — I didn’t feel starved at all — at least for me, the carbs & the blood sugar highs/lows are what seem to really cause the hunger pang stuff. When I add more caloric ballast, I add it on top of that basic protein + nonstarchy veggies + omega-3s core. That caloric ballast is always made up of carbs and fats — people who are insulin resistant (carb sensitive) should emphasize fats over carbs, & people who are insulin sensitive especially if they’re super-physically active should emphasize carbs over fats. (Carbs are always necessary to fuel high energy aerobic exercise like running, rowing, etc.)
One quick & dirty way indicator of insulin resistance (hence at risk to develop Type 2 diabetes) — if you tend to gain your body fat in your tummy (apple-shape). (Pear shape — most fat gain in butt & thighs — is not as risky a way for fat accumulation.)
I seem to recall that you need to eat within two hours
of exercising, or your body just stores it away for a
later usage.
Between that and the “starvation storage” trigger it’s
not hard to see how losing weight becomes so difficult.
I for one want you to master the art of never falling.
A selfish whim of mine.
Carbs are not necessary for high energy aerobics, for which I do cycling (mostly into the wind at the AFB in Hampton, VA…) and I do not have any problem on zero carbs just going and going and going. Fat burning works just fine for that and in the bonus there’s no muscle soreness the next day.
How do you cycle mostly into the wind? Using a wind tunnel? 🙂 Figured they had them there at NASA Langley…
“How do you cycle mostly into the wind?”
This is one of those time/motion problems many of us got in grade school. Imagine you ride at 10 mph against the wind and 20 mph with the wind. Then if you go 10 miles upwind, it will take you an hour; but the return trip, at 20 mph, will only take half an hour. So, you ride mostly upwind, by time.
And on a similar note, falling is very easy and safe. Gravity is a great help. It’s the sudden stop that hurts. :>
Actually, that problem is a great example of geometric mean from a book I’ve been reading “Understanding Middle School Math”. I have a project at work to help improve the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in our local public schools. Nothing related to my job other than I work for a technology company.
Ya know (intentional “illiteracy”), CJ being an ex-teacher, she might be interested in setting up a discussion area for teaching (passive, I know: trying for a gentle suggestion–my college English teacher required justification for breaking any English rules, but I digress….)
In my mind, the current 3 Rs obsession misses a couple Rs, at least: reasoning–logic, testing conclusions; and research–not just studying an instance of the 3 Rs, but also autodidactic study of absolutely anything. I have rarely started any project without autodidactic study of options–mostly Computer Science, but also Information Science (you don’t always need the power of computers) and a bunch of other topics. It is Reading, Reasoning, and Research that gives me the ability to be adaptive–‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic less so, if you’ll grant reasoned speaking (debate, extemporaneous speaking, et alia) into Reasoning.
And working for a lot of technology companies. digging in with research, reasoning, and autodidactic study is far more valuable than learning instantly-obsolete information by rote.
(Autodidactic = Aut-, self; didact, study: self-study, teaching oneself.)
Well, from everything I’ve read — from fitness experts who deal with this stuff all the time — if you were an actual performance athlete (for example, someone who raced) you’d pretty quickly hit a wall if you didn’t use carbs.
Hence the spaghetti dinner before a marathon. Y’know, most food was conceived back when people did physical labor for a living and to stay alive in general. All of this desk work is really warping what would normally be ok food.
The Wall is what I don’t hit because it isn’t there unless you’re in a glucose metabolism. If your muscles are adapted to and using fatty acids instead of carbs it is entirely a non-issue – all tissues except red blood cells, the cornea and a bit of your liver can use fatty acids for fuel with no problem. The by-products of the fatty acid spiral are CO2 and H2O – not lactic acid. Look up Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his work and life with the Inuit and his comments on how these people had excellent health, strength and endurance on a diet that included almost no carbs. This is the harshest environment I can imagine living in, one where weakness or lack of endurance could easily mean death.
Until someone’s willing to pay for the studies, and do them appropriately (i.e. using adapted athletes instead of folks who are put on a low carb diet one day and asked to perform the next) you won’t see the body of research and will only have the personal stories of people like me who live it.
I have been doing Weight Watchers on-line since January, and have to say that I am happy with the results so far. No way I can just give up carbs… life might be longer, but what’s the point if you are miserable? No, what it’s made me do is actually plan meals instead of saying “I have a half hour to grab lunch… I’ll just hit Mickey D’s.” Now I sit down on Saturday, figure out what I am going to have on the weekdays (weekends I am more lenient about, since that tends to be the time that I eat all the odds and ends I have left over), go shopping on Sunday to get exactly what I need, and cook Sunday so that I am ready the rest of the week. It’s helped the food budget as well, since I no longer do the “those grapes look good, I’ll pick some up, and some of those peaches, and…” and then never get around to actually eating them. Nope, now I know that I have planned to eat a cup of grapes a day, so I buy only the amount I need and portion it out to take with on the appropriate day. And I eat a lot more veggies since you are supposed to get 5 servings a day, and if I think ahead I am actually more likely to plan side dishes that I actually like and will eat as opposed to just opening a can of green beans and heating them up.
And the important thing about eating the proper portion size of protein is that you need a lot less than you think, and that presentation is important. The seasoned pork loin recipe I made for this week states that a portion is 4 oz, which should be approximately the size of a deck of cards. I actually weigh that out, and have learned that if I slice the pork thinly (so it’s about bite size pieces), I stop at 3 ounces, because it just looks like a lot of food at that point. So I try to do things that need to be sliced or chopped up before serving (soups, stews, salads, pot roasts, etc), because it both stretches the meat out and makes it easier to get even more veggies in the diet. And when you do that, then you can buy less meat, and that brings the budget down even more.
I can’t give up carbs – bread is my downfall – but I could restrict my intake. I’m having either this or that or the other, not all of them (whether bread, sweets, potatoes, whatever). I’ve also cut starch from my main meals – no rice, potatoes, pasta, since I’d rather have ice cream or chocolate or another slice of bread, and I don’t miss it at all.
Also, on the meat: better a small amount of high-quality meat than a pile of bleh. Just as with everything in life.
One thing I do in parking lots is jog from the car to the store front, and while I don’t attempt to park at the furthest point (and our car parks are a trifle smaller), I no longer try to get as close as possible. It’s exercise that eventually adds up.
Another comment on walking for exercise… pick nice places to walk. You may want to walk around your neighborhood so you can say hi to all the neighbors, or go find some nice outdoors areas (parks, riverbanks, etc.) so that you are out to enjoy nature, and not focussing on “how much further do we have to go???”
Or get a puppy! Taking a dog for a walk is great motivation. 🙂
Did you ever get a new member of your household?
Yep… I am currently fostering-to-adopt a pretty little female brindle greyhound named Katie. It’s been rockier than my first dog, but we seem to be getting into a bit of a routine. It’s being very “interesting”… Trink is a very calm, sedate dog inside, but loves to go for walks and meeting new people and dogs. Katie is a bundle of energy inside, loves to play with toys, steal items and take them to her bed, and shred paper (I am definitely going to have to improve my housekeeping standards!), but is terrified of meeting new people and going for walks and strange sounds outside. I am bringing in a behavorist to give me some advice on the best ways of dealing with Katie, since she is so eager to try and bond and extremely curious… there is a lot of potential in this girl if I can get her past her fear that the world is going to eat her!
I’ve just finished a two year period without a car, during which walking everyday became a basic part of my routine. I should note that this was not a careful plan for health and happiness: my 20-year old Civic was t-boned on the driver’s side — with me driving, I might add — by an cell-phoning-red-light-running idiot, and a week later I lost my day job…
Anyway, my point is that I have experienced a surprising number of unexpected benefits. I’ve been writing at a café downtown, which is about a mile through quiet neighborhood streets, and the time spent walking is perfect for mulling over ideas and trying out sentences on flowerbeds, squirrels, and the occasional startled passerby. And I now know a lot of those passers-by, and their dogs and children. AND I took to doing most of my food shopping via a backpack, which meant picking out lighter foods (by which I mean low in mass, and often smaller in size), and buying more fresh stuff more often.
Mind you, I did just finally buy a new car (a sliver Honda Fit, which I have named Luna) and I did drive it straight to Trader Joe’s to buy boxes of rich, heavy, delicious foods and drinks, and from there to Home Despot for any number of weighty matters, and from there to REI to buy some new shoes, ‘cuz the hiking boots were done worn through. But when I head to the café, it’s still on foot, just in case the flowerbeds have any new suggestions, story-wise.
I understand you. I went to school in Baltimore, and while we had a car between us, it had to stay garaged 9 blocks away in the opposite direction from any place we actually wanted to go to, because that was the only garage space we could rent. Which was a lot happier situation than being t-boned by an idiot and set afoot!—but it meant we used that car about twice that year, had no time (grad school) to use it, and consequently walked. Walked. Walked. We knew all the shortcuts, all the alleys, we knew the squirrels, and every brick in that built-in-1700’s section of Baltimore. (Our apartment building cornerstone said 1712, and the painted-shut window box generated a running Arsenic and Old Lace joke)—
Understand my ideal weight is 142, and my height makes me a size 12. In those days I got down to 126 and a size 9. I was so thin it literally hurt to sit on a hard surface, and my idea of a snack was a dozen jelly donuts (all mine.) And I have few photos from that time, but I look cadaverous.
So we are going to try the back-of-the-parking-lot walking bit; we are going to hike not only around home, which can get boring, but from several venues where we regularly go: the rink, Lowe’s, several other stores. We’ll see how well we stick with this in summer heat (Spokane can hit 100;)but we may start mall-walking. We both need this. I always say walking is dangerous, and walking is productive of injuries (we’ve both hurt ourselves in a months-crippling way in the all-city race, Bloomsday—so we’re doing none of that.) But we are going to give it a try.
Going walking from the place (the rink) where you work up a sweat and before I take to the garden and wrestle with the rototiller is going it a bit much—but if that’s what it takes, that’s what we’ll do. And if it lets me have a jelly donut now and again, that would be really nice.
Instead of a new puppy, I think putting Ysabel on a leash & taking her out for a walk would be just the ticket!
Now that is a sight I would like to see! 😆
Ooooh, Her Furry Grace informs you she does not DO walks. She is carried by staff.
My sister tried this with one of her cats. It did not end well.
I had both my cats trained to walk on leash, but have let it lapse on one of them (the one that I am not worried about suddenly darting over the wall and staying away for days). It wasn’t that hard, but you do have to basically go where the cat wants. They do not follow you at heel! But the one that still goes out on leash is trained to jump up on the back of the sofa and step into her harness. It makes life much easier.
This is entirely off subject, and probably belongs in the Lolcats thread, but anyone wondering if they should get their pet an iPad will want to look at http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93582?fp=1 before making a final decision. It appears to split along species lines.
I over indulged in too many celebrations, starting last Thanksgiving, and have managed to gain back almost half of the 35 pounds I lost two years ago. I thinks my initial problem was too many parties with all sorts of goodies set out. I find it difficult to control portions when indiscriminately grazing. I also completely broke my rule of eating only at the table. SO… I am back to my rules and ramping up to more exercising…other than the stretches I have to do morning and night……also It’s getting warmer…..so we are outside working in woods and garden. Prog and I both like to cook so we make yummy food and use very few prepared foods. Almost anything can be healthy…..even pizza if it’s done right.
Reading all these comments is a *huge* boost to sticking to an eating plan. I’m trying to think ‘eating-health plan’, rather than DIET. I find it takes about three weeks to establish new habits……. 🙂 😀 😆
Wow, nothing like food to bring everyone out of the woodwork, huh? 😉
I’m starting to walk again everyday (I’d stopped due to the shoulder surgery) because it’s the only way I lose weight as well. It’ll be a couple of months before I can even think of running, but I’m afraid of putting weight back on from inactivity.
I’m diabetic, on insulin, and I absolutely recommend that everyone avoid this possibility like the plague it is. I was overweight most of my life and I’m paying for it now.
Let me say this, then I’ll get off the soapbox: regular exercise is the most beneficial thing you can do for your body. And diets don’t work long-term. Eat healthy foods, in sufficient quantities that you are satisfied, and use your body every chance you get. It’s the only way to live well.
End of rant. Good health to all of us!
Well, we can all report in on this thread, or I’ll keep making little threads if it keeps everybody motivated. Let’s see if we can gig each other into some good habits and exchange of ideas.
Here’s a low carb enchilada recipe…if it helps. One consolation is that Mexican cooking need not be high carb.
1. handful of chicken bits, browned in Virgin olive oil or microwaved. (0 carbs)
2. 2 tbs diced chiles added to chicken. (abt 3 carbs) keep cooking.
3. add quarter cup green chili sauce (canned, abt 2 carbs)
4. drop onto wholewheat low-carb tortilla (12 carbs)
5. add cheese. (0 carbs)
6. roll with flap down. Add cheese for garnish. Pour 1/4 cup green chili atop (2 carbs). With spinach salad, actually constitutes sort of a balanced meal, especially if you add tomatos (Jane avoids them) and/or guacamole, or can eat onions, which can help add volume.
Microwave 1 1/2 minutes. Serve with side of salad with vinaigrette.
You can sub canned pintos, dosed with taco spice, for the protein; or hamburger. Or shredded pork. Or just cheese.
19 carbs, with chicken, beef or cheese, slightly more with beans. Low fat (olive oil). High flavor.
Walking is the only exercise I can consistently make myself do, but I’m fortunate enough to work 2 blocks from Lake Champlain. Knowing that I can walk along the lakeshore on the Bikeway for 45 min. every day, with wind and water and seagulls is a huge incentive to actually get outside. I hope you can find a lovely space to walk, so it becomes something to look forward to, rather than a chore. (Just getting out of the building is a reward in and of itself.)
And I wish I could offer low-calorie recipes, but I’m more of a baker than a cook, and it sounds like anything I offered here would be the bane of everyone’s diet… as well as my own, frankly. I need to lose 28 lbs myself. 🙁
One of my favorite “exercises” that’s really just fun is putting on a dance music playlist on my iPod & rock out for awhile.
Thanks to this thread, finally set up the “Start Walking” spreadsheet in Google Docs for my coworkers & me last night: we’re going to do a “virtual hike” along the Iditarod trail (the one the dogs race every year) from Anchorage to Nome by October 31. Really its 1.7 million steps or their exercise equivalent — average of 8,400 steps/day. This is our substitute for the Start Walking program the university did four times but isn’t doing now. (Last time we “climbed” Mt. Everest.)
That’s a neat idea. A compared-against-the computer itinerary. A pity one can’t integrate it with Google Earth and do it on a treadmill!
Quick, some programmer contact Google or NordicTrack and make a mint!