One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.

I know several people who've had great success with the Atkins diet. It is the only diet that I have seen that really seems to work across the board without making the person completely miserable. I have been really impressed with the results.

But whether or not you go on a diet, here is my advice...

Stop focusing on being overweight and how unhappy it makes you and start focusing on what it would be like to be thinner, how good it would make you feel, how your life would be different, etc. Get in the habit of really creating it in your mind, like it's happening right now, like you already are that thinner person. While you are imagining it, try to really mix a lot of positive feeling into it. This works!

If you keep focusing on what it is you don't want and feeling the negative emotion with it, you just get more of it.

Sometimes there are physical reasons, such as an overactive thyroid, which complicate one's desire to be thinner. In this case, I believe, there is medication that can be prescribed to assist the body in bringing back into balance that which nature otherwise would not have allowed.

If you are serious about losing weight, then you must consult your doctor. Having done that, the next step would be to change your eating habits. Take a good look at what you are consuming and why you are consuming it. Are you eating because you are truly hungry or are you seeking solace through the emotional gratification of your taste buds?

I agree with Tom. Low-carbing is the way to go. I've done it since last summer with great results.

I done an easy diet when i was a little big now the abs are coming in. My co-worker told me to eat 3 meals a day and drinks lots of water which i di and it actually worked.

Yeah, it's good to drink lots of water... but the three meals a day you eat have to be somewhat healthy for the diet to work... or you have a good metabolism...

It's a good idea to do regular excersise when trying to lose weight. A half hour walk everyday combined with a balanced diet can do wonders.

Thanks for all the suggestions you guys.

Well good luck whatever you decide to do. My suggestion is to set a target weight as your goal. Stay 100% commited to it until you reach it.

Its not.

Its the committment to the diet that's hard.

One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.


Hi! :tiphat: It Takes lots and lots of hard work to control your Weight. What worked for me was joining a health club. I found a personal trainer who helped me work on my problem areas. The rest was up to me. Three or four days a week is Ideal. When I started my weight was 265. Now I’m down to 230. My Goal is 175. Good luck in your efforts… :thumb:

Willdraw,


WHY do you want to loose weight? And when I say that, I mean, what are the REAL REASONS? We all know the basic ones, feel good, look better, better stamina, better sex life, live longer, etc, etc. But I have found that about 97 times out of 98, it is something deeper than these surface ones. So put together you list of reasons WHY you are committed to nt just loosing weight, but BANISHING THAT EXCESS FAT from your Body, now, and forever! When you know and are excited about the WHYs, the REASONS, the REAL PURPOSE behind your goal, you'll have a far greater likelyhood of doing the Actions listed above on those days when you might elect to skip a day.

Think about Your WHY,
and You'll find you no longer have to Try.

One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.

Hi, Wildraw

Here's a link to a post I made in the Fitness, Health and Wellness forum:

http://www.successvibe.com/showthread.php?p=3087#post3087

Is that a diet you might try?

Losing weight is not hard at all. The only things thats real hard is the deceision to lose it. To make a unilateral, committed decision to do it, then following through is the toughest thing. I should know, I'm about 50 pounds overweight myself.

As for me, I have never had a weight problem. The genetics on both sides of my family have been predisposed to being some what skinny, so I wont pretend to have advise on weight control. However I will make suggestion based on how I have acheived long term success with those things that have been stumbling blocks or negative influences.

I have always made a concerted effort to learn about and understand my body and how it responds to certain stimulus, i.e. specific foods, soft drinks, cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, sleep, exercise and anything else in my environment that has shown to effect me in a positive or negative manner.

Then establish personal principles based on that information and do my best to live by them.

There are millions of experts and advisors in the world, all of which are usually well meaning, but often misguided, but none of them can know you as well as you can know yourself.

I believe that no one has a snow balls chance in hell unless they become experts on themselves.

In short...

Know thy self.

When I used to go to the gym, there was a personal trainer who suggested if you want to loss weight, you should do 40-60 minutes of cardio, with switching machines everyday or so to work out different muscles. THIS WORKS VERY WELL.

I find if I stick to cardio for that amount of time and do it everyother day, I see results quickly. But too, it depends on the amount of food you eat too. So, cut down your portions, eat fruits and veggies and stick to 40-60mintues of cardio everyother day.

IT works I promise you.

One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.

Its literally a battle to lose weight, with the good and the bad. And we all know what the good is (exercise, food dicipline, and healthy habits), and we also know what the bad is (junk, bad habits, alcohol).

If there was a way to make the bad pleasuable enough for us to want to do it, we would all be thin and healthy.

Reality is different though.

I am studying this subject because although I do not suffer from being overweight, I do suffer from not being able to get rid of those last 5-8 pounds that are not allowing my abs to show. I know some of you are thinking Big Deal, well it is a big deal for me because I am very goal oriented and this is one of those goals I am having a rough time achieving.

I will let you guys know what I find out.

I've already come across several theories but none have worked for me, I will only report on what I find to work for me.

I ask that you extend the same curtesy on your posts. Thank you.

:thumb:

I am studying this subject because although I do not suffer from being overweight, I do suffer from not being able to get rid of those last 5-8 pounds that are not allowing my abs to show. I know some of you are thinking Big Deal, well it is a big deal for me because I am very goal oriented and this is one of those goals I am having a rough time achieving.



I tried a straight veggie and fruit fast for 3 days, and lost eight lbs. You could do a jump start/drastic diet like that, then work on your abs with crunches and other work out methods.

I tried a straight veggie and fruit fast for 3 days, and lost eight lbs. You could do a jump start/drastic diet like that, then work on your abs with crunches and other work out methods.


Loosing weight is pretty darn easy, it's making sure you know what are doing and sticking to it.


But the thing is, most people don't really want to loose WEIGHT, which also consists of muscle, they want to loose FAT, which you go about totally different.


The absolute best way for long term results at least for men, is to BULK UP and then TRIM DOWN.

it actually sounds conterproductive, but it works.

The first 2-3 months, you want to put on as much mucscle mass as possible. You do this by eating 6 meals a day, all small, that have right around 22 grams of protein in them, and workout 3 days a week.

If you do this right, you will notice a change pretty quickly, within the first two weeks, even if you can't see it, you will feel it.

Now, once you are ready to loose weight, just cut down on the calories, and still exercise every other day, but now add cardio, High INTENSE cardio 6 days a week.

The fat will fly off. 1. YOu have bulilt muscle, so some of the fat that was there at first is gone, and mu scle has taken it's place, but when you exercise, muscle burns 48 calories while fat burns 2 or something close to that, so you get more bang for your buck. 2. High Intense workouts insure you burn FAT and not MUSCLE.

What I would do is run wind sprints. It's more efficent, gets to the point and you don't burn msucle, you are burning fat. The longer you work out, the more muscle you are burning.

That's why you want to still workout every once in a while to keep as much muscle as you can.

When I was in high school, I was 135, i played basketball and it was hard for me to keep weight because of the running.

When I got out of school, I started my own company, and i stayed in the office 18 hours a day. I balloned up to 210.


I am now around 180... pretty close to my idea weight... when I was 135 I was too skinny... I am natrually stocky so my idea whight is probably 175 because I don't want to loose my mu scles in the process of being skinny... however when I was 210, most of it was fat.

Hi.

I can certainly empathise with the first poster.

I think a lot of people have given solid advice but, unfortunately, a lot of it is misguided.

The secret to successful weight loss is to change your mental attitude towards it. You need to be excited about losing fat every day. If it was simply a case of knowing what exercise/eating to do, then we’d all be slim!

I was your typical fat guy not so long ago. Struggled with my weight for years, seeing it go up and down. I would go to bed one night thinking I was ready to diet the next day but, of course, I would wake up feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.

What changed it for me was deciding to take action one night. I had got sick of writing plan after plan on my computer, so I decided to be ruthlessly honest with myself for a change. I decided to make a night of it. I went out and got all my favourite vices - chocolate, takeaway, Cokes and cigarettes. I then came home, opened up my computer and started a word processing document.

I turned on my bedside lamp and ensured I had total peace and quiet. Telephone and TV were off. I then just started writing, with absolutely no plan or agenda in mind. I just wrote *what I was thinking*. It was like I was having a conversation with myself. I wrote about how I felt, what I felt I was doing wrong, why these things were happening etc.

I kept writing for hours. I actually churned out around 7000 words in five hours, fuelled by copious amounts of caffeine, sugar and nicotine! By the time I finished the document, I knew my life had changed. I immediately left the house and went for a 2 hour walk.

Let me give you some pointers which I discovered for myself while writing:

1) LET GO OF THE PAST. Don’t worry about all the past times you’ve failed. Don’t dwell on what could have been or should have been. It’s all ancient history now. It’s brought you to THIS point right here, right now. All you need to think about is NOW and the FUTURE. To this end, tell yourself that from midnight, you will start a new chapter in your life. As soon as midnight strikes, you will be starting DAY 1. The next day will be DAY 2. A week later will be DAY 8 and so on.

2) STATISTICS ARE YOUR FRIEND. The use of statistics provides a fantastic, easy way to get excited about weight loss. Get your set of weighing scales and weigh yourself. Get a measuring tape and measure your waist and chest. Write down these figures. Ensure you weigh yourself in pounds (Lbs).

Now, let’s say you weigh 230 lbs, but your ideal weight is 169 lbs. You give yourself your first boost by saying “Okay, I’m 230 lbs. But I SWEAR that this is the heaviest I will EVER be. I will never, ever exceed this weight again. From here on, it is all downwards. Each time I step on those scales, I WILL see a lower number from the last time. I will chip away each of those pounds, one at a time.”

Start making as many calculations as you can. For example, you can say “Okay, so I’m 230 lbs and want to be 169 lbs. That means I have 61 lbs to lose. If I can lose weight at an average of 3.5 lbs a week, then I will have lost 14 lbs in 28 days’ time. That means I will be weighing 216 lbs on November 28th, and I will only have 47 lbs to go. After another week’s dieting, I could have lost 17.5 lbs and only have 43.3 lbs to go. Of course, with water retention, it’s possible I could lose around 10 lbs in the first two weeks.” Just write down as many statistics as you can. Get excited. Start seeing the actualisation of your goals. Start to write down potential dates for reaching certain landmarks, e.g. “So, by DAY 36, I could be 198 lbs, which isn’t necessarily lean, but good enough for me to feel confident and fit into my old Gap jeans again” etc.

Remember, always use statistics to constantly motivate you and act as a measure of your determined progression.

3) DECIDE UPON A PLAN. Whatever plan you choose is your choice, but you should know two things: firstly, it MUST include both dieting and exercise. Secondly, any plan you do will be done in BABY STEPS.

My personal preference was to do Atkins to get the bulk off, and then ease into a standard low-calorie diet. It was also important for me to exercise every day. Now, due to past failures, I wasn’t going to set myself impossible goals (only to let myself down). Once upon a time, I had been a very fit and strong individual capable of doing 15 pull-ups, 150 push-ups and running for 45 minutes. Now, I couldn’t manage 2 push-ups. Fact is, I had to come to terms with this. I had to ACCEPT I was starting from scratch. That’s the best thing I ever did, and the best thing you can do.

Again, tell yourself that you’re going to BUILD this up. Tell yourself that your numbers for exercise will only increase in time, never decrease. I decided to keep things very simple to start with: I set myself the goal of walking for 45 minutes each evening, and doing five push-ups throughout the day and doing one set of bicep curls every two days.

I just maintained this for a couple of weeks. Then, when I felt I could and WANTED to do more, I did. I suddenly found myself doing a total of 20 push-ups throughout the day and walking for 90 minutes. I also found myself adding weight to the dumbbell and throwing in a set of shoulder presses too. Of course, after another week or two, the push-ups had gone up again, and I was even jogging for 60 seconds during my walk.

Just focus on building up, one step at a time. Don’t go setting yourself huge gym plans or ridiculously complicated dietary plans. Keep things as SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE as possible.

4) WRITE YOUR STORY. Open another word processing document. Now, write about a day-in-the-life of YOU, at your ideal weight and exercise capabilities. Imagine it is two or three months down the line. Imagine how you will look, what you will be wearing, how people will react to you, how the opposite sex will size you up, how you will feel about yourself, how you will live your day with this new self confidence.

Write a little story about an average day in your life at this point. Start with you waking up in your bedroom at 6am. Write about what you’re wearing and the general aesthetics of your body. Write about the exercise routine you go through before having breakfast. Write about the adventures you have at the local nightclub that evening.

Basically, start fantasising. Because all of this CAN become a reality. What you’re essentially penning here is your goal, in a particularly vivid form.

5) EMBRACE MIDNIGHT. From midnight, it all starts. From midnight, you will no longer put junk food through your mouth. From midnight, you WILL be losing weight. From 00:01, the weight will begin dropping off you. At 00:01, you know you will have reached the peak of your weight gain, and will never exceed that number again. In fact, as every second ticks by from now on, you’re losing weight.

6) EMBRACE EXERCISE. It’s difficult for many people to bring themselves to exercise. It’s a lot easier to procrastinate. But what you’ve got to do is use statistics to your advantage. Work out the total amount of calories burnt if you did all of your set exercise for all of the weeks ahead. Remind yourself that for every SECOND you exercise and sweat, you’re chipping away at that weight loss total of 61 lbs. You’re a sculptor with a chisel, and you’re chiselling away at that lump of marble!

7) GET A HAIRCUT. Make this a DAY 1 priority. Go to the hairdressers and get a nice, clean, short haircut. If you’re a bloke, have a shave too. Feel refreshed and ready to go.

8) LOSE THE WEIGHT!


These are just some pointers. I hope you find them helpful - they certainly worked for me. Just do whatever it takes to get in state, and good luck to you!

One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.

As a number of people have already said, "losing weight" is easy. Just stop eating (of course, when you start again, you'll not only gain back what you've lost pretty quickly, but probably another 5-10lb besides).

Losing weight healthily, without damaging yourself, missing out on critical nutrients, and while staying vibrant, energetic and in love with life, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. And keeping it off is another thing altogether.

As a personal trainer, something I've noticed is that different things work for different people. Something that works well for a friend, or for another member of this forum might be perfect for you... or it might not have any effect at all.

Low-carbing does seem to work for many people to get them to their goal weight - but I haven't heard from anyone personally who's been able to keep weight off for more than a few years.

I can tell you what worked for me, if you're interested - I lost 25kg (about 55lb or so) over the course of 15 months. Basically, I found exercise methods that I intrinsically enjoyed, and set up routines in my life so that exercising became easier and more convenient than not exercising.

I changed my eating habits - aiming to get as much fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains and lean protein in as I could, then implemented two rules. The first was that nothing was forbidden - I had no 'can't have's. However, I did have a lot of 'have-to-haves' (the aforementioned fresh foods, a certain amount of water, etc). If I was craving chocolate, for example, I could have a bite or two - but not until *after* I'd eaten my 'have-to-haves', and only if, when I checked in with myself again, I genuinely still wanted it. My second rule was that anything I ate, had to be eaten mindfully. I had to taste - and enjoy - every mouthful of it. And I had to stop the *moment* it was no longer pleasurable. It's amazing how much less you eat of anything before it becomes enough when you eat mindfully!

And that was it. I didn't do it all at once - and the exercise routines I was following at the end bore very little resemblance to the ones I'd done at the beginning - as I stopped enjoying various exercise methods, I looked for new ones that would keep me inspired and enthusiastic. Sometimes I slipped up, and I learned not to beat myself up about it. That was the period of my life that 'fall down seven times, stand up eight' *REALLY* became my mantra!

So yeah, that's what worked for me - no set diets - no real calorie counting (I liked to have a rough idea of how many calories I was eating, and how many I was working off, but I tried not to let it rule my day or my eating choices). I can tell you that the person I became in the losing (not the loss itself, but what I discovered during the process) made enough of a difference in my life that I decided I wanted to train to be a personal trainer when I got back home to NZ - which I did last year. I'm not doing it full-time as a job, but it's one of the services I can offer to my stress management clients :-)

Hope you find that helpful - if you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

Best wishes, and may every day bring you closer to your optimum life



TANJA

One think that would make me feel really sucessful is to lose a certain amount of weight, but nothing I've tried works so far. I had no problem quitting smoking. I quit drinking. But no matter what, I can't seem to get control of the weight thing. Anyone hear have any advice on losing weight.
Hi Willdraw I just read your quoite and I feel as if I could help u. Ive been a little over weight from I was a baby until one day as I cn remeber saying to myself "If I want to loose weight I can its all about confining in yourself and have a little motivation :yup: that I could have done and I did. I weighed 220lbs and I now weigh 180lbs and I am still working to loose 30lbs more. I hope this advice will help u as much as it helped me. Be good. please reply to me and tell of your advice to mine. :wave2:

Good advice. I had to get honest with myself and watch when the emotional eating took place. You really have to stay motivated too. I am always motivated the first few days of a diet, but then on the third or fourth day, I say, "what the heck, I can snack." I do not believe in weighing in everyday, but I believe in weighing in every third or fourth day to stay motivated. Even if I lose 1/2 lb., I feel more positive about the dieting.

Tanja - I couldn't have said it better myself!

Personally, I'm not overweight. My weight (or should I say fat) only sneaked up a little when I was pregnant and between having my two children. It came down after my second.

However, I'm pretty sure that I could easily get fat if I let myself. So how do I NOT let myself?

1. I exercise regularly. For me it's natural - it IS natural for the human body to move isn't it? I do cardio, bodyweight exercises and occasionally some weights for about an hour a day, most days.

2. I eat moderately. Small serves. No low-carb dieting for me. Just a balance of carbs, protein and fats. However, I do opt for low GI carbs. I also don't deprive myself of sweets. In fact I have chocolate every day - but the secret is, only 2-3 squares of chocolate. And while I'm stricter during the week, I'm less so on the weekend.

All this works for me.

i know its easier said than done but

1) consistency... keep a pace you can handle when doing cardio + weight lifting or bodyweight exercise... gotta make a habbit out of the workouts and eating healthy... dont let the weight scale discourage you or the way you look.. it might not seem like your losing weight or the scale is fluctuating alot... but it is working in the long run.... try not goin on the scale too much.. i know it can get a bit curious but it does more bad than good.

2) lean meat, fruits, veggies ... im not too much of a nutritional expert but i know enough to stay away from sugary foods and junk food.... that stuff poisons your body... make a habbit out of not eating that kinda stuff... i started by eating junk food only once a week then once every 2 weeks then once a month and so on till the time i would be sick of even looking at junk food or certain foods that are bad for me.

3) your goal has to be strong enough to make it happen in reality

Hope you reach your desired weight and good luck.

o and a thing about metabolism... ppl can correct me on this if im wrong but........ eating 5 or 6 smaller meals (every 3 hours in the day) instead of 3 big meals can make the metabolism faster.... working out + cardio also increases metabolism