Losing 20-22 pounds

[Miia]

Hello

I`m 5`5 tall and currently weigh 143 pounds. I want to lose 20-22 pounds. I don`t know how long it will take, lol. I have never had a diet before since I have never had any weight problems until now. I know that I`m not fat but I`m not thin neither and I want to be in a ridiculously good shape!

Plus, I`m super allergic so changing my diet and cleaning up my body will contribute to a better looking skin hopefully

My future diet (I`m not sure if this is the best solution...I would appreciate comments on it):
2/3 raw fruits and veggies (carrots, cabages, salads, olives, brocoli, leek, swede, bananas, apples)f
1/3 cooked ruits and yoghurt (2.5% fat), kefir (2.5% fat), low fat cottage cheese and cheese, brown rice and tatar porridge (I don`t know how you call it in English.
Lots of water.
Water-fast for 24 hours each week.


Not sure if I should give up coffe (I love it sooo much...) and not sure about meat either... real meat not sausages and such...

I would like to go 100% raw but given my current location (North, snow, freezing weather) I`m afraid I`d die.
Plus I have felt my whole life that I need meat (not much of it though) during the winter, and as the summer comes, my need for meat decreases naturally. I`m not sure if this is habit or if there`s a real basis for it?

So, I`m conducting this diet and will report here about my progress. If anyone happens to read this then they could share their opnions about the diet (is it okay for losing 22 pounds?) and about coffe and meat. Thanks

[Aleksander Krstic]

What makes you think you'll die because of raw? What makes you think you need meat?

[Miia]

Because I feel that I don`t get enough "energy" from raw food. Cold winters are really harsh and I have the illusion that meat keeps me ...warm?:P

[The Big D]

I'm assuming you're female.

The only protein I see in that diet is the dairy, and it looks to be almost entirely stripped of fat. Why? An all-carbs diet is THE single hardest diet to lose weight on.

Also, losing weight via diet (regardless of what) just plain sucks. What's the exercise plan?

[aelle]

Originally Posted by The Big D

Also, losing weight via diet (regardless of what) just plain sucks. What's the exercise plan?

This is what I've been wondering too. Especially since you say you "want to be in a ridiculously good shape!"
Dieting can make you lose weight and fat, but won't make you fit.

[JustinPopovic]

Big D and aelle are right on. The exercise plan is key here.

I lost a total of 40 pounds over the course of 1.5 years and the key was lifestyle and consistency. I knew that it would be too painful to limit certain foods from my diet so I just focused on eating "healthy". Meaning no junk food and no over eating. I also cut out all drinks except 1 coffee in the morning (no sugar) and water the rest of the day.

The key for me was exercise. I got in the habit of going to the gym 4-6 days per week and mixed weight lifting and cardio workouts. I found that going SUPER early like 5:30am or 6:00am for a workout also helped me create the new habit. There was something very motivating about being done my fitness for the day by 7am. I would have great energy all day.

Also, I recommend creating a list of reasons WHY you want to get in great shape. Maybe you wanna fit into a certain dress/outfit, you want to feel better, you want to look good for an event. List as many motivators as possible and put them on a mirror or some kind of poster where you can see them often. Train your conscious mind to make these images of a "healthy you" part of your subconsious. Then it is part of your life and lifestyle. At that point you ARE the healthy person and everything else falls into place

[Miia]

Hey,

everyone, thanks for commenting. Your advice and experience is much appreciated.

I lost a total of 40 pounds over the course of 1.5 years and the key was lifestyle and consistency

Congratulations JustinPopovic As much /little I have read, the way you did it is the perfect way to do it..slowly and consistently.

I forgot to mention the exercise part - I`m doing exercises for my abs, back muscles, and legs& arms every day (developed a counting system - started with doing each exercise 40 times, have progressed to 50 by now)+ stretching. I don`t have time to go to the gym on work days and on the weekends I go to my real home which is in the middle of the woods, so no gym as you can imagine. I know I probably should add something like running or dancing to my "exercises", something that would keep my heart rate up for a longer period of time and actually burn fat.... I guess I could go running..but it`s really cold outside so the idea isn`t appealing at all. For now I settled for just long walks twice a day during the weekend, not normal slow walking but I try to do speed walking. Would hula hooping qualify? *blushes* I know nothing about exercising and dieting and probably should do a research but I haven`t had time

Maybe someone could tell me what exactly am I achieving by doing those muscle-exercises? Growing muscle? Am I also burning fat and to what extent? Is it pointless as far as fat burning goes? On the muscle-growth level it`s not pointless since my muscles hurt like hell for the first two days - loved the feeling.

I found that going SUPER early like 5:30am or 6:00am for a workout also helped me create the new habit. There was something very motivating about being done my fitness for the day by 7am. I would have great energy all day.

This sounds wonderful and I would love to try it out but right now I don`t think I can fit it into my schedule

About diet -

The only protein I see in that diet is the dairy, and it looks to be almost entirely stripped of fat. Why? An all-carbs diet is THE single hardest diet to lose weight on.

Big D, would you elaborate on that a bit more? What should I eat?
About fat - I decided to not leave out meat after all - I get my fat from there. Also, I mentioned eating cheese which is full of fat. During the weekends when I go home it`s almost impossible to eat fat-free (the reason - family). We cook mostly wild animal`s meat such as deer`s... it has less fat than the regular meat you find in stores.

One of my main goals diet-wise was to cut off wheat products, I have achieved this mostly, but there was an occasion where (due to my inability to plan ahead) I ate 2 sandwiches and on one morning, when I had woken up at 6 am after going to bed late, I went to the kitchen and found freshly baked cookies on the table... I was just too sleepy to resist them, lol. I also haven`t managed to leave out coffee and champagne and sugar (I replaced the regular sugar with fructose though).

I´m not worried about sweets since I have pretty much hated them since childhood. I get my "sweets" from apples and bananas.
I`m also not worrying about sodas and such since I haven`t been into them in the first place...it`s water, kefir and coffee mostly.

and no over eating

This has been one of the main goals also...I`m an emotional eater. So far so good. After fasting and dieting the next few days, I am now able to eat less and still feel satisfied...before eating I consult my stomach now and ask it if it`s hungry... and listen to it

Oh, I`m experiencing so many thoughts and feelings while going through this process, our relationship with food is really complicated and interesting, hope I will have time some day to put all my thoughts on paper, er, screen. One of the surprising/silly feelings-thoughts that crossed me while starting this "trial" was the fear of dying ... I actually was afraid on some level that if I stop eating like I used to then I`d die or get sick because my body wont be getting enough energy, while in reality I was killing my body with too much junk... and overloading it with unnecessary work. I now try to listen to my body instead of my fears.

p.s. Progress update: I have lost 1.5 pounds so far (not in 5 days but rather like 10, I started watching what I eat a bit before making this thread). (weight is another complicated topic, I mean, it seems that it`s almost impossible to get an adequate weight number since it depends on so many things).

I have mostly managed to stick to my diet, minus the 2 incidents with bread. I have exercised since the beginning of this thread every day.

[The Big D]

Good to hear you're exercising.

As fas as optimal diet for weight loss, there's three issues with the all carbs diet.

1) Your body runs on blood sugar. Carbs are the easiest to convert to blood sugar by virtue of already being sugars or close to it. So a calorie of carbs produces more blood sugar than a calorie of protein or fat. In other words, carb calories count more.

2) You need protein to build muscle (which I'll explain why it's important in a bit).

3) Simple carbs (ie. sugars) cause blood sugar spikes, which cause insulin resistance over time, which in turn makes it harder to use sugars and easier to get fatter. Complex carbs, fats and protein are converted to blood sugar more slowly, so they don't cause this problem.

It sounds like you've changed the diet plan a little bit to be more balanced, which is good, but you should be aware of these issues.

As far as why muscle exercise is so important for weight loss, it's the single most effective way to burn calories. Exercising major muscle groups to exhaustion for an hour burns about 700 calories, which is more than an hour's worth of almost any type of cardio (except running). Both cardio and strength work also include an after-burn period, but I think strength training lasts longer. Past the after burn period, though, cardio's done whereas the benefits of strength training live on

1) calories spent "repairing" muscles (maybe a few hundred over the next few days)
2) calories spent building new muscle (maybe 1000/lb of muscle)
3) protein that would otherwise be converted to sugars is instead used to build the new muscles (roughly another 1000 per lb of muscle)
4) The muscle has to be fed in the future, and eats about 10 calories per lb per day.

That means that if you held diet constant, and put on say 6 lbs of muscle (realistic for a small woman), it would almost by magic consume 12,000 calories up front being built, which is over 3 lbs of fat. Then, over the next year it would consume 60 calories per day or a total of 21,900 calories for the year. That's another 6+ lbs of fat. The result is that at the end of the year you'll be 9-10 lbs lighter than you would have been (again, diet held constant) not even counting the calories burned working out, after burn, or repairing the muscle you already have.

In other words, building muscle can reshape your metabolism for life.