No. This thread is not about use of illegitimate supplements. In fact, it's not about supplements at all. It's about modifying your behaviors and activities to promote weight loss.
Two week ago I order "Pure Garcinia Cambogia extract" fat buster through amazone. It work great and I will see result with in few days.
i am trying to eat less.
but i get hungry then willpower fails, and after a few days i binge
i am trying to eat less.
but i get hungry then willpower fails, and after a few days i binge
Eating small- to medium-size meals every three to four hours, however, fills you up without resulting in a layer of flab. Opt for low-calorie, low-fat choices, like cottage cheese or tun. Take snack labeled low fat or low calorie. Wild rice, oatmeal, or whole-wheat tortillas once a day can make a difference to weight loss is well.
Health and Fitness Tips
Thanks ,I found your thread quite informative . Right now I am looking to bulk up but also want to have a slim waist line ( 6 pack ) . My BMR is 2000 and I am aware that I would have to eat more than that to gain muscle .It seems ever time I get strict with my diet I get closer to the abs I want but then I get smaller in the muscle department.Is it my diet or my training ? Any suggestions ?Fat Loss - How to Lose the Bulge and Gain the Ripples (An AT special post!)
By Brent Sallee (SociallyChallenged)
Alright, everyone, I decided to write this article because I see a lot of the same questions over and over and over again. I figured the most logical action to take would be to toss a sticky up here addressing the essence of all these questions. Therefore, I'm going to address the topic of fat loss - nutrition, exercise, how to maintain muscle, how not to fail midway.
NUTRITION WHILE DIETING/CUTTING
This is the area that most ATer's have questions about. The simplest aspect of losing weight is that you have to be in a caloric deficit. The problem with many diets (or views of diets) is that people think they have to starve to get thin. This is completely wrong. If you don't eat enough, your metabolism dips and actually starts burning fewer calories. In essence, your body goes into a starvation mode, which tries to SAVE energy as much as possible (aka saving fat). The first thing you should do if you want to lose weight is look up your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This is the amount of calories your body needs to function. You must be above, even if only slightly, this while dieting at all times or else your metabolism will crash. BMR is different from your caloric maintenance. BMR is the amount of calories required by the body to survive (not including locomotion, digestion, thought processes, exercise, etc). Caloric maintenance is the amount of calories required to maintain weight at one's particular activity levels (which DOES include all of an individual's daily activities). You need to be in between your BMR and you caloric maintenance to lose weight. This way you maintain your normal metabolism (compared to the crash you would experience if you dipped below your BMR), but are still in a caloric deficit (allowing you to lose weight). Only use the BMR section of the following link - ignore the "Total Energy Requirement" section. It's completely off base. Check out the link here.
Secondly, you need to use your newly found BMR and apply it to your diet. You want to keep a record of your diet because, even if you're eating the right foods but are eating TOO MUCH, you're still going to gain weight. There are websites that you can do this on, such as fitday.com or the nutrition section of sparkpeople.com (which I find has a larger database of foods). These sites will often tell you what % of your calories is coming from the 3 sources - either protein, fat, or carbohydrates. The source of your calories is very important.
During diets, you usually want to stay away from a high amount of carbs. Also you want to stay away from carbs that maintain a high glycemic index (GI). Carbohydrates that have a high GI are foods that create a strong insulin response. Insulin is an anabolic hormone that allows broken down carbs to enter the cell. However, it also signals fatty acids and amino acids to be stored. Maintaining smaller insulin spikes benefits dieters since it allows for less counteraction of the goal of weight loss. Some good carbs that have a low GI are whole grain breads, brown rice, oats, milk, whole wheat spaghetti, sweet potatoes, beans, etc. Check that list for foods and if you can't find if a food has a high GI, google it or ask here in the H&F forums. However, I would like to mention that the GI scale does have some problems. For example, steamed carrots have a very high GI, while pure fructose (a refined sugar that has such health detriments as diabetes, insulin resistance, and increased obesity as indicated by recent research) has little to no GI response. Use your own logic here.
Also, a specific mention about dietary fiber. Fiber comes in two forms: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber mainly bulks up to make you feel full and allow for smoother (but slower) conductance of food through your digestive system. Insoluble fiber increases transit time and keeps you "regular." Having a diet high in fiber frequently allows you to control satiety, as well as decrease your risk of many diseases (colon cancer, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, etc). In this thread, satiety is most important. Increasing the amount of fiber in your diet will make you feel fuller for a longer period of time. Some foods high in insoluble fiber are: anything crisp and/or leafy that comes from the ground. That means celery, lettuce, green beans, asparagus, seeds, nuts. Some foods high in soluble fiber tend to be starchier veggies like peas, beans, grains, etc.
Protein is also very important during a diet (along with weightlifting), especially if you're looking to maintain your muscle while losing the fat. Many suggest that you should try to get at least 1.0g of protein per 1 pound of lean muscle mass in your diet. It is perfectly ok to get more in your diet and maybe even a little less, but just make sure your body has a constant supply of protein to repair and maintain your muscles with. I'll mention this later in more detail, but you really must lift if you want to maintain your muscle mass while dieting and losing fat. You don't wanna diet and work hard and just end up being a skinny fat guy.
Lastly, let's talk about fats. Fats, especially in America, have always been a sort of taboo. They're not the devil, I promise. However, there are certain fats that are healthier than others. Although your body does need saturated fats, those are usually found in most meats, cheeses, and butter. They're easy to get into your diet. The best fats for you are monounsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids polyunsaturated fats (which reduce inflammation and have other health benefits). Sources of monounsaturated fats are olives, olive oil, peanut butter, nuts, avocados, etc. Sources of omega-3 fatty acids are usually fish. I highly recommend grabbing some enteric-coated fish oil capsules since it's the easiest way to get some very healthy fats. Here's a link to the benefits of fish oils. Also, when you eat fats, they slow your digestion. This makes you feel more satiated and will let you eat less. Picture them as sort of the "anti-carb." Polyunsaturated fats are still under some debate, but your body needs some of them as well. Polyunsaturated fats have been found to break up into free radicals and may potentially create a greater spike in bad cholesterol than saturated fats. But everything in moderation is the key here.
Ok, now to tie the 3 sources of nutrition together. There is some debate as to what percentage of calories should come from what in your diet. Personally, I have cut using a 40% fat/40% protein/20% carb diet. My brother has cut on a 30% fat/30% protein/40% carb diet. I would say to use the latter since cutting a ton of carbs out of our diet is fairly difficult. Keep in mind, this is NOT by grams, but by calories. That's essential since fats contain 9 calories per gram, while protein and carbs contain 4 calories per gram. Having 30% of your calories come from fat allows your body to slow digestion a bit and lets you feel much less hungry. If you're doing it right, you should feel slight to no hunger with this %. 30% protein is important to muscle maintenance. Protein is digested more slowly than carbs as well so ingesting it results in a increased duration and degree of satiety. The 40% carbs lets your body restore your glycogen stores and supplies your body with necessary energy. Carbs aren't bad, but you want to limit them for hunger's sake while cutting/dieting.
Here is a general list of good things to eat. This is by no means a limiting factor and there are some other great foods. This just helps with creativity for meals and for some people who don't know what's healthy and what's not. This was posted at the musculardevelopment forums, I think, however I'm not sure. Whoever made it saved me a lot of work though, so be appreciative to them
Protein
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
Tuna (water packed)
Fish (salmon, seabass, halibut, sushi, mahi mahi, Orange roughi, tilapia, Sardines)
Shrimp
Extra Lean Ground Beef or Ground Round (92-96%)
Venison
Buffalo
Ostrich
Protein Powder (Whey, Casein, Soy, Egg)
Eggs
Low or Non-Fat Cottage cheese, Ricotta
Low fat or Non fat Yogurt
Ribeye Steaks or Roast
Top Round Steaks or Roast (stew meat, London broil, Stir fry)
Top Sirloin (Sirloin Top Butt)
Beef Tenderloin (filet mignon)
Top Loin (NY Strip Steak)
Flank Steak (Stir Fry, Fajitas)
Eye of Round (Cube meat, Stew meat, Bottom Round)
Ground Turkey, Turkey Breast slices or cutlets (*no deli or sandwich meats)
Complex Carbs (nothing enriched, bleached or processed if possible)
Oatmeal (Old fashioned, Quick oats, Irish steal cut)
Sweet Potatoes, Yams
Beans (Black eyed, Pinto, Red, Kidney, Black)
Oat Bran Cereal, Grape nuts, Rye cereal, Multi grain hot cereal
Farin (Cream of wheat)
Whole Wheat frozen Bagels, Pitas
Whole wheat or Spinach Pasta, Whey Pasta
Rice (Brown, white, jasmin, basmiti, arborio, wild)
Potatoes (red, white, baking)
Fibrous Carbs
Green Leafy lettuce (red, green, romaine)
Broccoli
Asparagus
String Beans
Spinach
Bell Pepers (Green or Red)
Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower
Cabbage
Celery
Cucumber
Carrots
Eggplant
Onions
Pumpkin
Garlic
Tomatoes
Zucchini
Fruit (If acceptable on diet)
bananas, oranges, apples, grapefruit, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, lemons or limes
Healthy Fats
Natural Style Peanut Butter
Olive oil, Safflower oil
Flaxseed oil
Fish Oil
Nuts (peanuts, almonds, walnuts)
Dairy
Eggs
Cottage cheese
Milk
Yogurt
EXERCISE WHILE DIETING/CUTTING
The goal while dieting is not to lose both fat and muscle weight, but only fat weight. In doing so, you have to do some sort of resistance training. This resistance training will allow you to maintain your lean muscle mass (and potentially increase it slightly) while losing fat mass. To maintain your muscle mass, it is optimal to do a low rep, high weight type of workout. These workouts under bulking conditions would cause you to grow, but since your body is dealing with less energy than normal, its job is to maintain. A good lifting program should consist of compounds lifts (squats, deadlift, rows, pullups, chinups, bench press, etc. Google compound lifts). Compound lifts are beneficial due to their utilization of several muscle groups at a time, their development of stabilizing muscles, and their real world functionality. Often times, people will revolve their workout plan around upper body alone. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. To get strong, be in shape, and lose weight, you must utilize compounds movements that will utilize upper body, back, and lower body on a regular basis. When you lift for your legs and back, your body creates the biggest hormone response that will promote muscle growth. Essentially, people need to squat for big arms. These programs are good examples of what I've said: Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe- it's worth buying the book, Stronglifts 5x5 beginner program, or one could even do Crossfit for both resistance and cardio training - they have a free workout every day, so if you have a gym or weights, you can do it. This leads me into what kind of cardio you should do.
Cardio, while dieting and cutting, can be of any intensity, in reality. To directly prevent muscle loss, high or medium intensity aerobic exercise is suggested, but low steady state cardio is fine as well if you can get some protein in you as soon as you're done. Crossfit utilizes high intensity cardio and really gets both aerobic and anaerobic workouts out of the way, if you have access to the tools for it. High intensity interval training is the most common form of cardio for this and can be done with almost anything - running, swimming, weightlifting, using an elliptical, running up stairs, rowing, etc (look up Tabatas if you want an insane high intensity workout). Usually you want to do a set amount of time of high intensity work and then rest for 2-3x the amount of the work time. For example, you could do 30 seconds of work and then rest for 60 seconds. If you're new to it and have trouble with that, you may rest a bit longer, but the less rest you can take, the better. Usually, for beginners, you should just continue doing rounds until you can't any longer. I say this because people are all in different sorts of shapes and setting an impossible number of rounds as a goal will be discouraging. As you get better, you can increase the amount of rounds you can do and you can decrease the rest time. Also, as a sidenote, if you consider yourself largely overweight for your height, this may very well be too much for your body and heart to handle. Instead, you can start with some walking or jogging. If you're at this point, jog and walk as much as you can. Start with walking a mile each day and then try to increase either your speed or distance (or both even). When you hit a point that you've lost some weight and feel like you are ready for the next step, ease into HIIT.
In this original post, I said that high intensity training is the best way to go. However, it is potentially dangerous for those people who have no exercised in a very long time. It is also demotivating since it really lets you know how out of shape you are (even for those who aren't in that bad of shape). To correct this, I suggest working up to them over several weeks' time. You can do a medium intensity cardio exercise for a slightly longer amount of time with or without intervals. This could entail something like running 800m repeats with a 3-5 minute break in between runs until you don't want to do it anymore. It could also entail things like rowing, swimming, biking, etc. What I will say though is that you should probably not do too much long, endurance cardio. This tends to conflict with goals in losing weight while keeping muscle.
Perhaps the most important aspect of losing weight is learning how to incorporate everything into your daily life. Often times, people jump into a massive change in diet and exercise and find themselves binge eating, giving up, losing confidence, or altogether stopping. To prevent this, you should try to bring each aspect you want to change in one at a time. For example, clean up your eating first. Get your macro %'s in tune, make sure you're in a caloric deficit but above your BMR, make sure you're eating veggies and fruits, and make sure you're looking for things you're doing incorrectly so you can fix them. It's not going to come all in one day. It's a learning process, so take your time in acquainting yourself with a new way of eating. I would suggest taking several weeks to equilibrate and to get into the habit of eating right. Next bring in exercise into your routine. Get started on a lifting program and explore the weight room. Research the exercises and how to do them (form is IMPORTANT!) before you go to the gym. If your form is off, especially when lifting heavy, you can injure yourself. Don't start with a massively heavy weight. Just get acquainted with it. If it feels too light, raise it. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself. You want the set to be hard, but not impossible. Be slightly cautious at first, but learn to push the limits of your strength. If you raise your weights 5 pounds a week on most compound lifts, you'll be progressing nicely. At this point, if you feel like you're getting the hang of things, introduce the high intensity training (if you want to. It is not necessary for weight loss). This may be disappointing at first, but, heck, I was a sprinter for 4 years and I tried to hop into HIIT sprint training and it kicked my butt. I could do half of what my goal was. That's why I say go in and do as many rounds as you can and try to improve each time you do it. You usually wanna do HIIT 2-3 times a week max since your body will already be getting worked plenty by weight training.
I think that's really all I have to say about fat loss. I was going to incorporate a muscle gain tutorial, but I realized nearly the exact same plan applies. The only difference is you must be in a caloric surplus, meaning you're eating over your caloric requirement.
Let me know what you think about the thread/article and I'll edit it as it comes along. Thanks for reading and if I left out anything, feel free to add to it!
Special thanks to:
brikis98
KoolDrew
For a first-hand account on losing weight, refer to brikis' blog post on how he lost 43 pounds in 8 months. I hope this brings a realism and encouragement to everybody's progress.
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I use my fitness pal for some things if they don't require a lot of ingredients. Generally though I just add the calories from the nutrition label and divide by the number of servings
I mean for things like already prepared in restaurants, or specifically in my case, my work cafeteria. Some of the stuff is pretty easy (cup of melon, cantelope and pineapple for example), but some of the stuff is hard. How many calories was the corned beef on rye I had today? I don't know the amount of meat used and I can't exactly break out the scale.
I mean for things like already prepared in restaurants, or specifically in my case, my work cafeteria. Some of the stuff is pretty easy (cup of melon, cantelope and pineapple for example), but some of the stuff is hard. How many calories was the corned beef on rye I had today? I don't know the amount of meat used and I can't exactly break out the scale.
Spend a year tracking your food every day, and you'll be pretty good at eyeballing the macros on a dish at a restaurant. Especially really basic items like sandwiches. Only things that you can't tell are if they cooked it in x tbps butter or olive oil since those types of things get absorbed in the food. But, in that case, just be generous in your estimation if you are trying to cut or conservative if you are trying to bulk.If you know what a 1/4 or 1/3 pound hamburger patty looks like you can estimate the weight of the corner beef. And the rye is easy to get numbers on.
You basically have to break it down to the components and make a best guess. If you are lucky, you can find a chain restaurant that serves something very similar and find the nutritional info for it online.
You have to basically give it your best guess and when in doubt add 10-20% on top of your best guess.
Spend a year tracking your food every day, and you'll be pretty good at eyeballing the macros on a dish at a restaurant. Especially really basic items like sandwiches. Only things that you can't tell are if they cooked it in x tbps butter or olive oil since those types of things get absorbed in the food. But, in that case, just be generous in your estimation if you are trying to cut or conservative if you are trying to bulk.
I went on this weight loss crusade 4 years ago because my knees were always sore from basketball.
Anyway I had no idea how to eat and was an all you can eat restaurant lover, I'd do things like eat entire boxes of fried rice for dinner etc.
I was at the gym a lot and played a lot of sports but I weighed around 180 and was 5'11. I was what most people call skinny but I knew I could lose some weight.
Anyway its been 4 years and I weigh 155 ish now. And I think after that journey of learning self control the key to all of this isn't measuring all your food. Its to just not give in to the gratification of it. Food makes you feel good. I felt great eating.
I'm probably a happier person in general now for a myriad of reasons but for me food is almost a chore half the time.. I eat the same stuff all the time and its just an obstacle in the way of other things I enjoy. So I guess my perception or food has changed.
If you I guess get yourself to view your daily eating as just refueling a car and only eat for pleasure once in a while its a lot easier. I think america has just made how we think about food the reason we always overeat. You have to think about it different and it'll help a lot
I went on this weight loss crusade 4 years ago because my knees were always sore from basketball.
Anyway I had no idea how to eat and was an all you can eat restaurant lover, I'd do things like eat entire boxes of fried rice for dinner etc.
I was at the gym a lot and played a lot of sports but I weighed around 180 and was 5'11. I was what most people call skinny but I knew I could lose some weight.
Anyway its been 4 years and I weigh 155 ish now. And I think after that journey of learning self control the key to all of this isn't measuring all your food. Its to just not give in to the gratification of it. Food makes you feel good. I felt great eating.
I'm probably a happier person in general now for a myriad of reasons but for me food is almost a chore half the time.. I eat the same stuff all the time and its just an obstacle in the way of other things I enjoy. So I guess my perception or food has changed.
If you I guess get yourself to view your daily eating as just refueling a car and only eat for pleasure once in a while its a lot easier. I think america has just made how we think about food the reason we always overeat. You have to think about it different and it'll help a lot