Help me adopt a healthful lifestyle (also, bike questions)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, I’m 33 and my BMI is 38.

Background on how I got here, and what prompted this thread:
I’ve been “trying” to lose weight for years, but I had a kind of epiphany today. I realized most of my overeating is emotional eating, and that underneath all my cognitive functions, I’ve harbored a belief that somehow eating will make me feel happy, and that every time I go to change my habits, I tell myself I just want to achieve a perfect eating high before giving it up. It seems really dumb when I type it, but remember this was pretty much an unconscious concept. Now that I’ve dug it up and examined it, I have admitted to myself that there is no such thing, that eating does not deliver happiness, and that if I continue to pursue that approach, I will just keep eating and eating in the vain hope of it finally working. Until now, I’ve actually been functioning under the theory, “If it fails to deliver, the answer is to try again and again until it does.” So now that I realize how irrational that is, I’m giving it up. I actually feel like I’m in mourning for my “food friend” and it’s painful to think of sacrificing it, but I feel like I finally can.

OK, enough background and armchair headshrinking.

Now I’d like to develop, as much as possible, the habits that healthy people have. On the food side, I know I need to limit portions, and concentrate on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while limiting animal fat and avoiding trans fat. However, I will never, ever be able to eat fat free cheese or sugar-free protein shakes and that kind of thing. I have a sensitive palate, so I need to find ways to make healthful food taste good, not just tolerable.

For exercise, I’m doing strength training twice a week with a trainer, but I have totally failed to get on a decent cardio schedule, so I need to work on that.

In addition to all that, I have a vague notion that I’d like to be more outdoorsy and active (my current hobbies all involve sitting), but not much clue how to go about doing that.

That brings us to the bike questions. Haven’t really ridden since I was a kid, so my skills are very low. Upright exercycles make my butt hurt for days afterward. I’d like to ride to the grocery store with Little Cinnamon in a trailer, so (esp considering my low fitness) I guess I need some low gears. I’m thinking a recumbent tricycle would be just the ticket, but cripes are they expensive! Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks for reading this. In addition to soliciting information, I hope that posting will give me some accountability and motivation.

2

Unauth…

I’m not sure how you feel about competition, but I always found sports leagues to be a fantastic way to keep my heart rate up (cardio) for 1 hour at a time. I just took a fencing class (surprsing level of exertion), I play a good deal of tennis, and love to swim.

All of these can be done to some extent at your current BMI. I find them WAAAY more entertaining than walking on fake stairs.

The diet is more important for weight loss than your exercise. Do the 6-meals/day thing, but MANDATE (to yourself) smaller portions. Schedule cheating into your caloric intake. You’ll cheat regardless…loop it into your plan!

My $0.02…

-Cem

3

Unauth…

I’m not sure how you feel about competition, but I always found sports leagues to be a fantastic way to keep my heart rate up (cardio) for 1 hour at a time. I just took a fencing class (surprsing level of exertion), I play a good deal of tennis, and love to swim.

All of these can be done to some extent at your current BMI. I find them WAAAY more entertaining than walking on fake stairs.

The diet is more important for weight loss than your exercise. Do the 6-meals/day thing, but MANDATE (to yourself) smaller portions. Schedule cheating into your caloric intake. You’ll cheat regardless…loop it into your plan!

My $0.02…

-Cem

4

I highly recommend biking to work if at all possible. It is always cheaper, it keeps you fit, and everywhere I’ve ever had to commute to (3 different cities, countless homes and workplaces) it’s been faster. If I can narrow down my fitness (I’m around your age, with a much lower BMI, and obesity runs in my family) to any single factor, it’s that. I can eat what I please and I don’t have to go to the gym!

The other quick and relatively easy habit to change is to give up fast food and soft drinks. Give it up cold for a month, and you will likely find that your first Big Mac or KFC combo after that is actually kind of gross and not tasty at all.

Also I’d recommend a vegetarian or low-fat cooking class. If you know what you are doing, cooking is easy and healthy and tasty.

Finally: Learn to love your veggies. For me this means never, ever boiling them (except for potatoes, if absolutely necessary). Boiling them makes them gross, and eating boiled veggies is more of a tribulation than a pleasure. Many veggies (beets, carrots, potatoes, yams, squash, eggplant, peppers, etc) can be roasted, and most others (greens, peppers, thinly sliced carrots) can be sauteed with lots of garlic. Or you can steam them and add lots of herbs and black pepper.

5

I’d suggest you start slow and not try to do it all at once. On the diet, try to cut out the largest non-essential calorie contributor first. Junk food? Soda? Candy? You don’t need to completely eliminate it, but make it the very rare exception instead of the rule. Around this time of year it is really easy to eat too much of the sweet stuff. Try to stay away from it, even if it sounds really good. There will always be more of it another time.

For exercise, don’t sit down. If your hobbies include lots of sitting, find other hobbies. Putter around the house. Play with your kid(s). Fix something. Break something. Paint a room. Vacuum. Wash the windows. Go for a walk. Christmas time is a great time to walk around the neighborhood and look at all the lights. Turn off the TV/computer/game system and/or put down the book and do something else. Anything else. Just make sure you aren’t sitting while you do it.

6

Unauthorized Cinnamon (love that user name), you mentioned focusing on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, which is true–but EVERY meal you eat should be built around protein. Eggs, cottage cheese, chicken, and seafood are all good ones for this. If you don’t have a protein base for your meal, you’ll digest it too quickly and feel hungry too soon. Of course, if you’re going to try the 6-meals-a-day thing mentioned above, each serving of protein should be small. One egg, 1/4 cup cottage cheese, maybe half a chicken breast, or just a few shrimp. Something like that.

Sometime in the last few months, Real Simple ran an article about how thin people stay that way. A couple of points I remember are that they go on a mini-diet every time they get more than a couple pounds above their ideal weight (a lot of help that is for all of us who are more than a couple pounds over!), and that they eat a lot of foods with a high water content, such as soup, salad, pasta, and cooked grains. You can eat a large volume of those foods without ingesting too many calories. Also, they keep a mental tally in their heads of when they’ve indulged and what they’ve done to work it off–dessert on Friday means an extra 30 minutes exercise on Saturday, etc.

I am having a Whole Grain Odyssey myself, right now. Wheat berries are my new favorite.

7

I’ve been on a healthy eating kick since mid-summer. The first thing I did (because of some reactions I was having after too much sugar (no, I didn’t see a doctor, but I finally made an appointment and I go Tuesday) was to eliminate almost all processed sugars - and I ate a LOT of sugar. I also made a point of reading the labels on food. I know the whole high-fructose corn syrup thing that I keep reading about may not be entire accurate, but I do try to avoid foods that have it in there, especially if it’s high on the list of ingredients. Breaking the sugar habit was incredibly hard, and I went through a time when I’d want a candy bar so badly that I could scream. When that happened, I’d have a piece of fruit - and if I didn’t have any, I’d walk over to the grocery store and get some.

I also kicked in lots of water - I have 2 33 ounce bottles that I fill daily. I usually get through one during the morning and another during the afternoon. I dropped my coffee intake from 2 mugs (4 cups) each morning to 1 mug (2 cups) and switched from the powdered non-dairy creamer to 1% milk (I’m still trying to get down to skim, but it just doesn’t taste right to me) and cut back to 1 diet coke a day. I used to drink my coffee in the morning, then diet coke the rest of the day.

I’ve dropped about 20 pounds since early July - slowly, yes and I still weigh too much, but one of the topics on my list to talk to the doctor about is kicking in some exercise. I’ve avoided a formal exercise program, but I know it will help me be healthier and I know that once I start doing it, I’ll end up enjoying it. I don’t know what it will be though.

8

I got on my bike for the first time in at least a decade on July 4th, 2003. My butt hurt for days, but by the end of that summer I was riding 12-15 miles twice a week. This past Saturday, I rode 20 miles non-stop (which I’ve been doing all summer). Bike riding is good, but like any exercise, you have to get over that initial hump of soreness as your body adjusts to the activity. I don’t feel any discomfort if I do two or three 20 mile rides a week when the weather is good. It’s all about making it part of your weekly routine. One of the things I did was to set a goal of riding to a town two counties away. I finally did it this Spring, only to find it was only a little longer than my training rides. Now I have made a new goal to work toward next Spring.

I have lost weight by just swearing off of sodas (now I have one on rare occasions) and really sticking to caloric reduction. If my breath doesn’t smell bad at lunch and/or dinner (from ketones due to protein and fat metabolism) I know I’m not in a weight losing mode. However, I don’t over-do it, and I have made a conscious effort to eat healthy, while allowing myself a piece of chocolate after dinner, and a couple of doughnuts at church on Sunday.

Vlad/Igor

9

This is what I was going to say. It’ll be a bit painful at first, but that will go away. When you go to buy a bike don’t go for a big comfy cushy bicycle seat, get a real seat. It’s much more comfortable in the long run.

10

Thanks to everyone for responding. Lots of great ideas!

Cemetery Savior, that’s a good idea. I used to play volleyball with my husband before I got pregnant, and I’ve never gone back. I will make it a priority to start playing this coming Spring.

cowgirl, I work at home, so that’s a short ride. :stuck_out_tongue: But seriously, I do think I will try to make the bike a major mode of transportation, even if I have to put training wheels on it. Especially with Vlad/Igor’s comment on the butt pain subsiding! And yeah, I’m lucky enough that I adore garlic, so I think bathing all vegetables in it will help!

Luckily I do like whole grains, and have already spent a couple years switching to mostly unprocessed starch. (KEY: Uncle Ben’s brown rice is gross, but brown basmati is divine!) And yeah, I do need to focus on lean protein. Growing up I was known as “the Carbohydrate Kid,” and I still have that tendency.

I really appreciate everyone’s input. Feel free to keep it coming!

11

I was just coming in here to say what has already been said about bike soreness. I bike in spring - summer - fall and every spring when I get on my bike after a winter off, I suffer greatly until my bike butt comes back.

The important thing is to get back on the bike even if you are a little sore. I guarantee it will only hurt for the first mile or so, then the soreness will go away.

12

Are you male or female,** Boscibo**?

Maybe that makes a difference? It doesn’t bother my husband but it does bother me. I ride my bike everyday for almost an hour and I couldn’t ride without a comfortable seat. Granted, I’m sort of an assless wonder but a gel cushion made all the difference for me.

13

Recumbent trikes are comfortable. I think you can get an EZ-3 for under $800. It’s not exactly a sporty trike but I think it’s a pretty good product. My SO has the aluminum version (EZ-3 AX) which is somewhat lighter but more expensive.

But if you don’t have balance issues or other problems, a recumbent bike may be a better option. Cycle Genius bikes start out at $499, and Actionbent bikes at $595 are up. I currently own a Bacchetta Giro 20 - it costs a bit more ($1350) but it’s a very nice bike.

There’s also another category of bikes called crank-forward (CF) bikes. They look like regular bikes but the cranks are placed further forward, and the seat somewhat lower. They usually have wider seats too. This adds up to a bike that’s more comfortable to sit on, and easier to put your feet down on the ground. RANS CF bikes have the best performance by far, but somewhat expensive ($995 and up). Electra Townie is closer to a standard bike design, and much more affordable (around $350, IIRC).

14

In March I was ~295 lbs, I’m now down to ~220 thanks to a diet and exercise program. It started by walking on the trail near work at lunch. Then I added some video aerobics and workouts on an exercise bike that had been acting as a clothes hanger for the last few years. Next I moved onto riding to work a few days a week on a mountain bike. Finally I bought my self a road bike.

Now that the weather has turned and the daylight grows short, I’ve had a chance to use the exercise bike again. I’ve found that the geometry/fit is much worse than either of my bikes. So you might find that a real bike, whether it be a trike, recumbent, or a diamond frame, will be much more comfortable than your exercycle.

The bike industry likes to divide the market into narrow segments, and you’ll find many of them have a hybrid/comfort category that will fit you. The geometry is a bit more relaxed, they have a more upright riding positions, and they don’t have front or rear suspensions (which add weight, suck power, and offer almost nothing if you’re riding on pavement). This class of bikes may be more appropriate if you’re planning to use a trailer or trail-a-bike, since they tend to mount at the seat post.

I would recommend that you go to a local bike shop rather than a big box store to buy a bike. Yes, they’ll have they $8000 carbon fiber/boron bikes you’d never see at Target, but they should also have lower priced comfort bikes and the experience to fit you to the bike and the bike to you. Subtle changes in saddle position, handlebar position, etc. make a huge impact on fit. And fit is what’s going to keep you on the bike day after day.

15

What’s your work situation?

I was able to bring a small refridgerator into my cube/almost office and it helps me a great deal. Not only is it more conveinent, I don’t go to Wendy’s and Taco bell any more.

I keep it stocked with some basic sandwich making stuff, some V8’s and now I have milk for multi grain cereal for breakfast instead of frozen breakfast burritos that I used to bring in from home and heat in the micro-wave.

I also keep things like fresh strawberries for a quick snack.

It saves me time and money AND I’m eating better. Instead of a double with cheese and fries, I have a turkey on rye with a side of cole slaw.

16

Walk. Park at the end of the mall lot and walk in. If you can’t hack walking up all the flights of stairs, take the elevator to a lower floor and walk up a couple of flights until you’ve built up endurance.

Fats are the worst foods by far in terms of calories per ounce so job #1 is eliminate the ‘bad’ fats (especially hydrogenated oils). Fried foods are bad bad bad unless lightly sauteed in a bit of olive oil.

Vegies - your microwave is your friend; I can nuke a ‘baked’ potato in 6 - 8 minutes and accompanying vegies in 2-3. And make a meal of that with some grated cheese on the potato, a slice of whole-grain bread, and milk.

I also suggest reading up on the satiety index. It’s a list of foods that make people feel full. It’s good that you’re defeating emotional eating, but actual physical hunger is still present and I’ve found that eating foods that make me feel full on relatively few calories helps a lot. For my money, potatoes are worth their weight in gold because they have by far the highest satiety score but don’t have many calories at all.

Don’t deny yourself treats but have them in small quantities. I love chocolate but will eat maybe one bite-sized bar per day. If I buy a KitKat, I have one stick per day. It’s about 25 calories that way. But you can’t wolf it. You have to savour it slowly.

Ditch pop. Studies have shown that people who drink pop gain weight and the people who drink ‘diet’ pop gain more weight than people who drink non-diet pop. There are heaps of really tasty herbal teas out there - my fave is honey lemon ginseng green tea - and they’re good for you.

Avoid fast food. If you need speedy dinners, you can buy nukeable frozen low-cal meals that are very tasty. I just about never buy pizza even; I’ve found I can make ‘pizzas’ at home that I like better; I use pitas or half-bagels and make veggie pizzas that are yummy - using lots of sweet onion helps a lot and reduced-fat feta goes a long way to adding taste w/o calories. I grew to hate pepperoni years ago and now can barely look at it - it’s soooo greasy.

I agree about including protein with all meals and have worked hard to find lower-fat proteins. I’ve found types of tofu I love; I discovered most of the stuff I didn’t like was cooked to toughness. I buy the firm herbed stuff and saute it in olive oil very gently with onions and peppers and herbs or spices per my mood. It makes a delicious meal when paired with some whole grains or another carb. I also found some vanilla-flavoured soy drinks which make yummy snacks and satisfy the sweet tooth. Bonus is that they’re also delicious on cereal.

It’s work to change one’s lifestyle and it takes a fair bit of experimenting to find healthy foods that don’t taste icky but the good news is that more are being developed all the time.