Ok, I eat the typical night shift mix of vending machine crap and fast food.
At home, I generally don’t eat well either, because of time and such.
consequently I am in the worst shape of my life.
In January I will be resuming my long neglected Martial Arts training. Until then, I am thinking of a radical shift in my diet.
What would happen if I were to cold turkey shift to drinking water/gator-aid/tea and eating only rice and vitamins and the occasional vegetable?
Since my working out won’t start until January, I’m hoping that if I do this I can shed some pounds before then so as not to blow out my knees…
Advice happily welcome, even if it’s to tell me why this is a bad idea. But if you’re going to say that, can you tell me why?
Well, first off, ya gotta eat more than rice and vitamins. Aim for a balanced diet: Rice, vegetables, and some protein either through lean meat, beans, yogurt, whatever you like.
Other than that, it’s not a bad idea. You probably will drop a few pounds by January, and feel better while you’re at it.
I’m not sure how “healthy” I’d consider gator-aid. What about fruit juice instead?
Well, how much overweight are you? In terms of how much extra fat does your body have to live on for the next six weeks while you’re giving it this minimum-calorie starvation diet? I’d guess that if you’ve got a fair amount of fat reserves, you’ll merely have the most miserable holiday season you’ve ever had. But if you don’t have that much by way of fat reserves, you could make yourself seriously ill.
Crash starvation diets are generally speaking not a good thing, IMO. Especially if you’re expecting yourself to keep up your usual work routine.
Does the martial arts training have to be full-tilt boogie all-or-nothing chopsocky? Are you about to be sent to Iraq with the National Guard or something? I’d say start slower, give your knees a break.
Rule of thumb for general “take it off and keep it off” weight loss is “A pound a week”. That’s with decreased caloric intake, increased caloric output. Eat less, exercise more–a pound a week goes in a safe, manageable way. So with normal weight-loss programs, you’d be looking at being able to lose maybe 10 pounds by January, possibly 15. So how much weight are we talking about here?
Starvation diets, I have no clue what the rule of thumb is. Check out some Biafra websites, see if they have any stats.
Hey, if you can start a diet the third week in November and make it stick through to January, you’re a better man than I am.
My suggestion would be to eat the healthier foods at the fast food places you go–get the chicken sandwich rather than the beef&bacon, or cheese rather than pork. Also, two of the minimal hamburgers are probably lower fat than one of the McHugeBurgers.
And start walking a mile or two a day. Don’t want to sneak up on your knees and yell “BOO!” They hate that.
Eating just rice won’t satisfy your requirements for nutrition. Rice and vegetables is a good start, but variaty is very important to get proper nutrition. IMO, vitamins aren’t a substitute for the real thing.
That’s a really bad idea. Aim for a balanced, low-calorie diet–not much less than 1500 calories per day. Include whole grains, vegetables, fruits, lean meats, and decent sources of fiber and calcium. Calcium helps to regulate the amount of body fat you have. Fiber slows down the absorption of fat. Take a multi-vitamin as well. And eat fish once or twice a week.
Nutritional aspects aside, you are far less likely to adhere to a radical change of habits than you are to a gradual one. For this reason I don’t think you should institute your diet change so quickly.
I think it’s best if you start by making small changes first, such as the ones Ethilrist suggested: eating healthier stuff at fast food places (avoid the deep fried stuff!), and light exercise. After a few weeks, once you’ve gotten used to eating more healthily away from home and working out lightly, you can work on eating well at home and exercising a little harder.
