Ok, I just had to share this

[matty-hodgson]

*Makes a face at matt and points him to this thread*

http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...ing-world.html

Read that before you mock mate !

I wasn't mocking, merely just making a joke, based on your "Location". Surely living in a land of pastys won't be good for losing weight?

[SiM]

Losing weight this fast with so little food and without resistance training is a great way to lose muscle. If this is in your goals then congrats, otherwise I suggest you slow down a bit and follow a program designed to lose 'fat' rather than 'weight' (fat and muscle)

[Behemoth]

I wasn't mocking, merely just making a joke, based on your "Location". Surely living in a land of pastys won't be good for losing weight?

It's not inside the pasty thats the problem. Its just the pastry which is full of fat which if you eat too much of it puts the weight on.

I've not had a pasty now for months, well a proper pasty that is. Don't like the excuse of a pasty thats a Ginsters !

[Lucio]

Losing weight this fast with so little food and without resistance training is a great way to lose muscle. If this is in your goals then congrats, otherwise I suggest you slow down a bit and follow a program designed to lose 'fat' rather than 'weight' (fat and muscle)

TBH, getting into shape isn't my concern, it's about actually getting down to a point where I can buy clothes in a shop, and be able to walk upstairs without getting out of breath. I'm never going to be a muscle bound bloke as I'm just not that focused on exercise (though admitedly the aerobics class is fun actually)

My biggest concern right now is getting most of the fat out from around my internal organs, because no one belives my current weight, and therefore it means a lot more of it must be internal and killing me. Since I left my soon to be ex wife, I've stopped wanting to die young and would actually like a chance to reach a semi-decent age.

[TooNice]

Congrats! I've lost roughly as much weight as you did between my highest and now, though it took over twice the time (7.5 weeks). In reality, it's probably less (2.5-3kg) given that I was on a bit of creatine at my heaviest - earlier during the diet - so I probably lost all the water retention weight after I stopped taking it. Then again, I wasn't overweight. After countless failure at a very vain goal, I've decided to go for a diet first approach for a change.

Basically, my BMR is allegedly around 1500 cal per day, but after finally adding it all up, I found out that I eat 3 times that on average. Yeah, there are days where I eat in excess of 5k (then again, I wouldn't have guessed that a large Super Supreme at Pizza Hut is over 2.7k cal ). At least 1500 cal of my daily diet came from snacks. I am not talking about natural fruits and nuts, I am talking large packs of Doritos in single sittings PLUS 400g of Cadbury Fruits and Nuts. And I moan about gaining 3kg in the past 5 years or so!

Oh and I also remember SiM mentioning in another thread, paraphrasing, "Wheat, wheat, wheat, what's balanced about that??". Made me smile because during my previous attempts at getting a six-pack, I would substitute my very unhealthy eating habit with a loaf of wholemeal bread (800g) and 200g of salmon per day along with some protein supplements. In fairness, that's just over 2k of cal and despite getting stuck at a four-pack, my strength did grow gradually (till I stopped).

Anyway I don't think I can afford to lose whole lot more weight now. My goal was to drop 3kg of fat, and I think that I have dropped at least 2kg of it. However, my performance has plateaued recently, and I worry that the risk of losing muscle will increase at my current calorie intake (deficit).

I'll probably stick with my diet for another week or two, before increasing my daily intake by 100-200 cal every week until I find a proper balance to gain muscle without too much fat.

And sorry for hijacking this thread for my own celebration, I am just quite chuffed even though there is still ways to go (a bit more muscle/strength aside, there is still some love handle and the lower abs, while beginning to be visible is still soft and spongy - e.g. still mostly fat

[SiM]

TBH, getting into shape isn't my concern, it's about actually getting down to a point where I can buy clothes in a shop, and be able to walk upstairs without getting out of breath. I'm never going to be a muscle bound bloke as I'm just not that focused on exercise (though admitedly the aerobics class is fun actually)

My biggest concern right now is getting most of the fat out from around my internal organs, because no one belives my current weight, and therefore it means a lot more of it must be internal and killing me. Since I left my soon to be ex wife, I've stopped wanting to die young and would actually like a chance to reach a semi-decent age.

Fair enough. In that case, well done.

Given your goal is to increase lifespan it is probably worth reading up on the diet/lifestyle that would promote this. Losing too much muscle is not ideal (remember the heart is a muscle). I'm not going to pretend to know anything about this topic but I can recommend Jonny Bowden's books.

@TooNice, a whole load of bread!?! Who gave you that idea? In fact wheat when processed correctly (in the old school way) is not that bad. The problem is that grains contain phytic acid which binds to the minerals in the grain (some grains are worse than others, wheat is one of the worst). If you prepare the grains properly (soak in acidic water) you can actually absorb some off the nutrients in the grain. Problem is that this process is not as fast so the bread manufacturers stopped doing this because they could maker more money baking quicker using shortcuts. The other issue with wheat is the gluten, which is best avoided as it's a low quality incomplete protein that a lot off people have intolerances to without knowing.

[g8ina]

You've done damn well so far Lucio, but yuou will almost certainly find that after the first few weeks, the weight loss will be less every week.

My ex wife was up at 21 stone, started by losing 8-10 lbs a week for the first 4 weeks, then within 3 months it had settled at 2-3 lb a week. After just over 14 months she had managed 9 1/2 stone. This gives the skin a better chance to shrink with you loss, and it will also reduce the prospect of stretch marks (though not by much tbh).

Are you planning to do the rest on your own, or are u planning to join a slimming club of some sort. Sliming World is good, with their red and green days.

However you do it, stick to it buddy...

Congrats.

[TooNice]

@TooNice, a whole load of bread!?! Who gave you that idea?

"Wholemeal bread good", "Salmon, good fat" so I figured the easiest way was to combine the two keeping in mind I don't cook. I had to eat that much to feel full, and to be honest, the lack of fat in the diet (only about 10% of calories if I remember right), took a lot of discipline just to follow for a month.

Given that the alternative (well, what I normally eat) consists of rotating between KFC, McDonald, BK, pizza, kebab and various Indian/Chinese take away 6 times a week, twice a day, at much higher calorie intake, I figured it would be considered an improvement of sort

Then again, maybe not, at least the rotating through the later might somehow provide a greater diversity of nutrients *shudder* But yeah, it's work in progress (not cooking is still a huge limiting factor), I've been tweaking to give more diversity since I started my diet.

[Lucio]

Then again, maybe not, at least the rotating through the later might somehow provide a greater diversity of nutrients *shudder* But yeah, it's work in progress (not cooking is still a huge limiting factor), I've been tweaking to give more diversity since I started my diet.

There's a couple of basic things you can still "cook" without any skill or experience

- Pasta and a stir in sauce; a little high in fat but only about 400 calories, pasta is easy to boil up as you just check it every couple of minutes to see if it's gone soft (pick piece out with a fork and bite it)
- Microwave rice and ready to eat chicken, the stuff from Tesco's is quite reasonable and the coated stuff has a lot of flavour
- Many of the pasta based microwave meals aren't too unhealthy either, most are around 400-500 calories and the ones without cheese tend to be low in fat too.

[TooNice]

Well, I am not too bad with a microwave, but I am not sure how it affects food (I hear bad things even though there are supporters too: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/health/17real.html). But yeah, previously, whenever I do not go out, it's MW food with some attention paid to the content.

Cooking rice isn't too much of an issue as I have a fancy singing (literally) rice cooker from Japan, but rice (white in particular) is apparently not that great. But I do have about 1.2kg of Japanese rice left that not about to let it go to waste, so it's once a week for me (might mix with brown).

The main thing I need to sort now is veggies. My latest addition is 100g of kimchi per day, mere 33 cal, though high on sodium. I've been looking at steamers, but not made a decision yet.