I'm getting fat! I need your help

Okay, this is a bit exagerated maybe, but I am starting to finally need to pay attention to this. For starters, I’ve never really payed attention to my weight at all. I am considerably lucky with my body type. I basically had a sixpack until the first year of college, and now, I really haven’t changed except for a bigger layer of fat. I am about 5’7 or 8 and I weigh about 140 pounds. But I haven’t weighed myself in ages. But I really have prided myself on looking fit. Well, I just had my 24th birthday yesterday (YAY!) and I feel that the time has come to do something about being fit.

Eating: I’ve always eaten quite lightly. I am a very picky eater, but I do like to eat bad things. I don’t like sweets in particular but I do like pork and beef. But I don’t gorge myself on crazily bad foods.

Exercise: I’ve never had any outside walking around. Nobody has a car here where I live (at least people my age). I could possibly buy a bike to go around with instead of the bus. I may start running. I’ve never had stamina, but I think it would be nice to build it up.

But the main question I have is this. What would be my goal? To build up some muscle? The idea is that the more muscle mass you have the more calories you burn all the time, right? Maybe I should be eating more healthily? I really think I’m going to switch to diet cola. Its really a huge amount of calories for absolutely nothing. 210 calories per half liter bottle (16.9 oz).

Anyone have any ideas? This isn’t meant to be some kind of crash course thing, but rather a lifestyle change. I’ve always known that one day I’d need to do something to maintain myself fit-looking, but I have never had to till now. Well, I think I see the signs that I need to start. I think a good start may be to simply buy a bike and start drinking diet cola. But maybe it would be a better idea to drink a diet version of something else, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out.

Well, maybe you know my type, but I just want to know what the most appropriate thing for someone of my body type should do?

I’m sure there’ll be lots of good advice coming your way so I’ll (try to) keep my ideas brief and focus on the dietary stuff instead of the exercise.

  • Eat a high-fiber breakfast cereal. At the moment I’m addicted to hot oat bran. Much smoother than hot oatmeal, but it still has a ton of fiber and lots of protein to keep you full until lunch, which prevents snacking on junk. Avoid the “kiddie” cereals which are loaded with sugar and look for the ones on the top shelf or in the Natural/Health Foods section.
  • Lots of fruits and veggies, especially the colorful ones like red/orange/yellow peppers, broccoli, kiwis, bananas, etc.
  • The more foods you can prepare yourself instead of from a box mix or a frozen dinner or eating out, the better off you’ll be. If you’ve never learned to cook, look for classes at a community college and/or get a book on the basics. I personally do like Rachael Ray’s 30 Minute Meals. (I know they’re not gourmet and lots of people hate her. But being able to put together a meal in 30 minutes - or there about… what she can do in 30 minutes is more than what the average “real” person can - is really helpful. It takes that long to order take-out and have it delivered. And it’s much healthier to make it yourself.)

Good luck and good for you for deciding to do this. A co-worker’s husband, who’s ~40, just had a heart attack scare (not really a heart attack though), and they’re just now having to make the changes you’re attempting. It’s a lot easier at 24 than it will be at 40.

Take your weight, multiply by 12 = daily calories needed to maintain your current weight.

Eat less = lose
Eat more = gain

A pound of fat is about 3500 calories. A 3500 deficit = 1 pound of fat lost.

A 3500 calorie excess = 1 pound gained.
Avoid ‘empty calories’:

-Worst empty calories = beverages, because they add calories & no nutrition and don’t fill you up. Sweets and sugary foods are the second worst kind.

Yes, muscle mass helps burn more calories at rest. 75% of your battle will be to eat the proper amount of calories per day, while getting lots of satisfying nutrition with them.

The goal is to build a lifetime of good habits because this problem is going to be with you for decades just like most people. It is often easy to stay slim and trim when you are very young just because that is just the way that bodies are. You get to find out your adult pattern later.

I would recommend no radical changes at all. People often switc to crazy diets that aren’t sustainable and that doesn’t do anybody long-term good. Most diet books are crackpot and should be banned form the galaxy.

People tend to greatly underestimate the value of moderate excerise. Walking around more will help. You don’t have to spend two hours a day at the gym. That isn’t sustainable either. Just fit in more excercise where you can and make it a priority that is always somewhere in your mind. Take a two mile walk a few times a week or do something you enjoy outside that requires activity.

Have sensible eating habits. It doesn’t require a slide rule to do. Just eat the same number of calories as you burn and you will never gain an ounce. Combine that with a mix of healthy foods including lots of vegetables and your nutrition will take care of itself.

This is an ultra-marathon, not a sprint.

Small sidenote: most people are very, very bad at estimating calorie intake. If you want to count your daily calories (hey, it’s fun), pay close attention to packaging for a while, and weigh/measure everything you eat, at least until you get a good feeling for proportions/calorie load. It can be an eye-opening experience.

And yes, get a bike. It’s usually faster than the bus, and always cheaper. Plus, it’s the best way to remain motivated to exercise: you don’t need to go to the gym, you just need to go to work.

Just wanted to say that 24 is about when my bad habits started catching up with me.

That’s a good time to nip it in the bud before all of a sudden, you’re 180 and really need to work to get healthy again.

I have a wild ass theory (worked for me so far; I’m 48, thin and insanely healthy) that eating lots of fiber & good stuff - beans, fruit, vegetables, whole grains - lets you get away with eating crap like Starbucks quad caramel sauce lattes and Peanut Butter Passion ice cream because it all slides through your system more efficiently and doesn’t turn into fat.
Also - just me personally - I avoid fake food and will not, on principle, eat anything labelled “diet” “low-fat” or “lite.” Hell, if they can’t even spell “light” correctly I’m certainly not going to eat it. If you notice, most people who buy diet foods are - well, fat. And most overweight people stay that way. So by my (possibly illogical) reasoning, diet foods don’t make anyone actually lose weight. Plus they usually taste like shit.
Also exercise, walking is becoming a lost art. Get dressed. Go out your front door. Walk in one direction for ten minutes, turn around and walk in the other direction for ten minutes. That’s more walking than most people do. Twenty minutes ain’t nothing, most of us piddle that away online without even thinking about it.
Oh, and if you have a dog, walk it. :slight_smile:

Fit “looking” isn’t really the goal. “Fit” is the goal. At 24, you’re just about at the point where your metabolism starts sliding inexorably downhill. Figure it’s inevitable that you’ll put on 10 or so pounds just because your internal engine isn’t idling as fast as it does in your teens or early 20’s. But you want to maintain some basic level of fitness. Walking is good. Avoiding elevators and taking stairs is good. Racquetball is excellent. Any kind of exercise that you enjoy enough to keep it up. Cut back on the junk food.

(I’m not sure that bike riding in NYC contributes to longevity, though)

Thanks for the replies, guys, I’ll definitely do some of these. One thing I really want to do is to start buying more food at a time. That way I can kind of plan things and don’t end up buying less healthy things every time I go. Oh, and I don’t live in New York anymore, I live in Denmark and its a very bike-friendly place. Also, I don’t normally even eat much at all. As far as walking is concerned, I average normally 20 minutes a day. Thats because there are times when I probably walk over an hour. Hey? What can you do when the busses stop? Taxis are way too expensive here.

Coincidentally, someone just emailed this diet to me. It might work very well for you - I imagine you can find most of the ingredients in Denmark. :smiley:

Author Unknown

    Most diets fail because we are still thinking and eating like people. For those us who have never had any success dieting, now there is the new Cat Miracle Diet! 

    Most cats are long and lean (or tiny and petite). The Cat Miracle Diet will help you achieve the same lean, svelte figure. Just follow this diet for 4 days and you'll find that you not only look and feel better, but you will have a whole new outlook on what constitutes food. Good Luck!  

     
    DAY ONE

    Breakfast: Open can of expensive gourmet cat food. Any flavor as long as it cost more the .75 per can -- and place 1/4 cup on your plate. Eat 1 bite of food; look around room disdainfully. Knock the rest on the floor. Stare at the wall for awhile before stalking off into the other room. 

    Lunch: Four blades of grass and one lizard tail. Throw it back up on the cleanest carpet in your house. 

    Dinner: Catch a moth and play with it until it is almost dead. Eat one wing. Leave the rest to die. 

    Bedtime snack: Steal one green bean from your spouse's or partner's plate. Bat it around the floor until it goes under the refrigerator. Steal one small piece of chicken and eat half of it. Leave the other half on the sofa. Throw out the remaining gourmet cat food from the can you opened this morning.  

     
    DAY TWO

    Breakfast: Picking up the remaining chicken bite from the sofa. Knock it onto the carpet and bat it under the television set. Chew on the corner of the newspaper as your spouse/partner tries to read it. 

    Lunch: Break into the fresh French bread that you bought as your part of the dinner party on Saturday. Lick the top of it all over. Take one bite out of the middle of the loaf. 

    Afternoon snack: Catch a large beetle and bring it into the house. Play toss and catch with it until it is mushy and half dead. Allow it to escape under the bed. 

    Dinner: Open a fresh can of dark-colored gourmet cat food -- tuna or beef works well. Eat it voraciously. Walk from your kitchen to the edge of the living room rug. Promptly throw up on the rug. Step into it as you leave. Track footprints across the entire room.  

     
    DAY THREE

    Breakfast: Drink part of the milk from your spouse's or partner's cereal bowl when no one is looking. Splatter part of it on the closest polished aluminum appliance you can find. 

    Lunch: Catch a small bird and bring it into the house. Play with it on top of your down-filled comforter. Make sure the bird is seriously injured but not dead before you abandon it for someone else to have to deal with. 

    Dinner: Beg and cry until you are given some ice cream or milk in a bowl of your own. Take three licks/laps, and then turn the bowl over on the floor.  

     
    FINAL DAY

    Breakfast: Eat 6 bugs, any type, being sure to leave a collection of legs, wings, and antennae on the bathroom floor. Drink lots of water. Throw the bugs and all the water up on your spouse's or partner's pillow. 

    Lunch: Remove the chicken skin from last night's chicken-to-go leftovers your spouse or partner placed in the trash can. Drag the skin across the floor several times. Chew on it in a corner and then abandon. 

    Dinner: Open another can of expensive gourmet cat food. Select a flavor that is especially runny, like Chicken and Giblets in Gravy. Lick off all the gravy and leave the actual meat to dry and get hard.

Quit or cut back on soda, period. Even diet sodas aren’t good for you. If biking is practical, then by all means get a bike and use it. The diabetic diet is a fairly healthy diet for anyone, not just diabetics, and you can customize it to your own needs. I had pretty good success with (shudder) Richard Simmons’ Deal a Meal (or some such name) diet, when I stuck to it. It involved a basic diet, with allotments of meat, dairy, fats, veggies, etc. on cards, and you were allowed so many cards of each type per day. It really made me think of my food choices. Also, thinking of Richard Simmons just plain killed my appetite, so it was a double whammy.

When I was a teenager and young adult, I only exercised in PE. However, I did a LOT of walking. Lots and lots of walking, and I didn’t think of it as exercise, I thought of it as shopping. When I had a knee problem, and later a back problem, and cut back on my walking (because I’d hurt so badly for the next week) I started gaining weight. If you can walk, get out there and walk. If you can carry hand weights and/or a backpack while you walk, that’s even better.

Good luck.

I love the cat diet!

Yeah, I used to be VERY bad about my habits! About two years ago, I’d eat at McDonalds all the time and drink mountains of coke and drink tons of thick German beer when I went out (often), it was very fun, and I didn’t seem to put on weight. Personally I don’t think my metabolism is that much slower now, its just that its been a steady accumulation since I was about 18 and now I’m finally at the point where I need to pay attention to it. Obviously getting more fit is the key, not just fit-looking, but I’m not going to go crazy by any means. I just realized how many calories were in beer! That’s really ridiculous. Its the same as cola, pretty much, so I’ll have to get rid of that.

get rid of the pop, or drink it sparingly…

don’t eat to get stuffed.

if you’re hungry, drink some water first. sometimes your body mixes up the signals and just wants SOMETHING in its stomach.

if you can walk somewhere, do it. if you don’t like treadmills, or some such things, swim. that’s a great exercise.

watch your alcohol intake. that’s got a TON of calories.

eat more rice.

check catalogs or websites online for weighted vests or some such things. http://www.weightvest.com/

they’re exactly what they sound like and they’ll increase whatever caloric burn you normally have just from going about your business.

oh yeah, your muscles have memory, too. keep them in the state you wish to have them…flex your stomach when moving around…like lifting a box…or bending down to get something out of a cupboard…turn live into a series of little exercises

I’m in the same position as the OP, if a little older and a little later at reacting to it. I’ve started to change my diet, but it’s slow – I’m a chronic snacker, especially since I’m at a desk all day long.

Right now I replaced triple-triple (10% cream) coffees with double-double (2% or 1% milk) teas, and morning junk food snacking with fruit and sometimes a salad. That part’s been pretty easy. It’s the afternoons I’m working on – I still snack on crap and I’m really not gaining (or rather losing) much here. So I’m going to be cutting that out altogether, possibly replacing it with something better – a stick or two of celery and some salt or cheese, maybe.

I do walk a fair bit though – never had a car, so it’s public transit for me, and my daily grind usually involves a daily total of about 30 minutes to an hour of walking. I walk at a fairly brisk pace as well, so I imagine that will help a bit. I may buy a bike for the summer.

I can agree with reading the packages though: It was a real eye-opener when I’d read the nutritional information on the sides of packages and realize just how much of the stuff I thought was harmless was so laden with calories!

I also agree with having to make your diet totally sustainable. Fad diets are bunk and will never, ever work. You have to do it sensibly, because it really is about taking in fewer calories than you burn, and it’s that simple.

I’ve taken to setting a limit for myself: The closer the number of calories contained in the food is to the weight (in grams) of the food, the better. So if I have to buy a frozen dinner, say, I’ll pick something healthy (usually something with fish or white meat, vegetables, possibly a bit of rice or pasta) and try and make sure that if it weighs 250g, that the calories be as close to 250kCal as possible. (Under, of course, is always better) I’ve sort of come to call it the ratio system, so if I can find something that’s 1:1 then I’ve got a good way to limit my caloric intake.

I figure my body needs about 2000-2500 calories a day, so I’m trying to keep my intake below that. IT’s a bit hard when many of the things you buy don’t list caloric intake (like fruit or vegetables), but most of these seem to be around 0.5:1 calories:grams ratio, so you get some good stuff in your body without packing on the calories.

Interesting, I like your ratio system. Thanks for the info

I hear ya, Merk. Keeping this girlish figure has definitely become more of a challenge for me in the past couple of years. There’s some great advice in this thread. I especially like the point about avoiding “diet” food. Here are a couple more hints.

  1. Sweat every day. I don’t know how popular gyms are in Denmark (moving there is one of my dreams, by the way), but consider joining one. Good gyms will offer a variety of classes as well as equipment. When I go to my aerobics classes regularly, I have more energy, sleep better, and fit into my tight jeans. All plusses.

  2. Don’t buy sweets at the store. If you want something sweet, make it yourself. It forces you to consider: “Do I really want chocolate chip cookies or is it just a passing craving?” Also, you’ll know exactly how much butter and sugar went into those cookies (and they’ll taste far better than Chips Ahoy).

Mmmm…beer… Beer is my big temptation, and I refuse to give it up. I’ll cut back, but damned if I’m going to switch to diet Coke and vodka or some such nastiness.

I have a very simple approach, that when I follow (sometimes I stress eat - oh well), works very well for me.

Eat what you ordinarily eat - just less of it if it’s relatively healthy.
Avoid candy bars and soda. If you MUST have a candy fix, go with something like a semi-sweet chocolate, as opposed to a snickers, or m&ms. You just don’t need the extra sugar.

Instead of candy bars and soda, treat yourself to low fat/no fat frozen yogurt. It’s much healthier. You tell me, which is more filling - a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia or a couple of candy bars? Also, supposedly dairy assists in weight loss.

Remember - caffeine and alchohol stimulate the appetite. If you need caffeine, you might have poor sleeping habits you need to address.

Avoid deep fried foods.

Avoid high fat foods.

Don’t deprive yourself of any particular thing though, otherwise you’ll end up craving it and binging.

Drink LOTS of water. If you’re hungry, drink water. If your stomach’s growling, drink water, then eat.

It’s a matter of moderation & common sense.

If I don’t look fit, then I don’t really care if I am actually fit. Both are my goals.

My advice is try to eat “5 a day for fitness,” that is, five fruits and veggies a day. It’s difficult at first, but I’ve noticed that since I started eating so many veggies I am not always hungry for a bunch of junk. Some easy things to start with are carrot juice, V8 (low sodium variety), and fruit. I personally find fruit easier to eat than vegetables.

Avoid excessive alcohol, it’s just pure sugar that converts into fat. And it makes you lazy.

And…aerobic exercise at least three times a week for 30 min. It’s the only way that I’ve found to really keep my weight down and also develop my body.

Working out and eating right is difficult at first, but once you start to notice the difference it makes, you will find that it gets easier and easier.

I absolutely wouldn’t sweat the diet if you’re not gaining weight and aren’t eating lots of high fat foods. In most people the body’s pretty good at matching calorie intake to calorie expenditure, and you’re doing better than most, so it really doesn’t sound like you need to make changes there. In fact the regulation of calorie intake is a pretty intricate system and I’d be loathe to try and “fix” it if it ain’t broke.

It sounds to me like what you’re describing is the realization that you’re no longer “fit.” i.e. you’re sedentary and you dont have muscles no more. Instead when you push on your abdomen all you feel is the fat. You need to exercise, and if you’re sedentary basically any exercise that you can keep up long term is going to do wonders for you.