Hey **Illuminatiprimus **, I meant to say this earlier, but thanks for your very thorough answers! They’ve been a great asset.
Don’t thank me, thank my total lack of anything better to do on New Year’s weekend. 
Seriously though, you’re welcome. I’ve struggled with sustaining my weight and figure at a point that I’m happy with over the years and I appear to have cracked it now as I’m in the best shape I ever have been - I’m happy to try and help others achieve the same thing, especially if my advice actually helps! Again, my dad has switched to my diet and lost a stone in less than three months so it seems to work for people other than just me.
Can anyone recommend a decent smoothie receipe? Because of my schedule, I’m hoping to quaff a smoothie at work, instead of my usual routine which is this:
Wake up between 7-8am, depending on what time the 2 year old wakes up.
Eat bowl of cereal or a PB sammich.
Eat lunch around noon, usually another sammich, ramen noodles, or Mac-n-Cheez.
Have a snack at work around 4pm.
Eat a Microwave Budget Gourmet thingy around 7pm at work.
Get home close to midnite, eat “dinner”.
Go to bed around 1-1:30am.
I want to stop eating that budget gourmet thingy at work, but I know I should have something there. I was thinking that a smoothie might work.
Suggestion?
Here’s what I use…
You will need:
A Vitamix 4000 or similar high-powered mixer/blender that can deal with ice and frozen foods
2 bananas
250 mL (1 cup) of frozen fruit
125 mL (1/2 cup) of water
15 mL (1 tbsp) hemp oil or flax oil
Put the bananas or other soft fruit in first, then the frozen fruit. pour the water overtop, then the oil. Mix until smooth. Pour into a mug and drink. 
Yields about two mugs of smoothie.
If it’s too thick, add a little more water and remix.
The advantage of this is its great flexibility… you can make the smoothie with just about any fruit and vegetable mixture that goes well together. Experiment! My trainer sometimes uses a base of zucchini or Thai coconut. (I keep telling him he has to get a show on the Food Channel.)
You can substitute other fresh fruit such as apples or oranges or pears or coconut for one of the bananas, but I find that having at least one banana provides a sort of base for the thing. If it’s too sweet, add spinach or other dark greens–these will provide body while diluting the sugar. Cabbage is not such a great idea.
I found that you only need a small amount of dark red fruit like strawberries or raspberries. Three or four strawberries, for example, seem to be plenty for flavour, and adding a lot more increases the number of small seeds in the smoothie dramatically.
Tristan - lots (I appreciate you just want a smoothie reciepe but I’d rather comment on your whole diet; hey, I’m bored and it’s another hour and half to bed time).
You’ve got a good breakfast, throw in some fruit and make sure the milk you use is (at least) semi skimmed in your cereal. You’ll never catch me recommending skimmed milk, it’s white water. Make sure your sammich is brown bread and that you’re eating chunky PB (as opposed to a white sammich with smooth pb, which is far less devoid of nutritional value). As it’s breakfast feel free to have two, you’ve probably got room for it (assuming you follow my advice below on dinner you may want two as well).
Try and have a slightly better lunch - noodles is a good basis as its carbs but you need vegetables and protein mixed in, chicken, brocoli, carrots and some boiled egg would do the trick. Whole brown rice with vegetables also good, or a standard meat and two veg meal (e.g. pork chop with sweetcorn and potato wedges) is equally as good - the key is a balance of the food groups and making sure it’s not rich in added fat, sauces or condiments. Feel free to eat anything from MacDemons as long as you’re willing to throw it back up again after you’ve finished. Don’t like the sound of that? Then don’t eat there. Lunch should be your main meal in terms of getting a good balance and being full. Have dessert if you want it, but ask yourself whether you could live without (chances are you can, it’s not a treat if you have it every day).
I’m not sure what your budget gourmet meal is, but neither the of the words “budget” or “gourmet” suggest to me that it’s a nutritious meal. Like I said in my previous post on diet, make your evening meal as protein-rich as possible with as little carbs as you can (or none if you can manage it) - think fish, eggs, dairy (I don’t know if cheese actually does cause nightmares if eaten in the evening), white meat like chicken or ham or nuts like chashews. The gourmet part of your meal sounds like it may be heavy in sauce which is usually just fat, mayonaise, salt and oil (and won’t be very rich in anything good if it’s also budget). It may feel strange to start with eating only piece of cooked chicken for dinner, but you get used to it quickly.
Try and make your dinner as small as possible. 7pm is a perfect time to eat if you’re going to bed at 1.30am, and you shouldn’t eat later than 8pm. A smoothie at night isn’t really what you want as it’s largely fructose, water and carbs which won’t help you sleep and won’t be metabolised (it’ll be straight to your gut/butt/love handles). If you want a liquid dinner have some milk or runny scrambled eggs (although obviously not every night as you should only be having about three servings of eggs a week max for cholesterol reasons).
Cut out the second dinner at midnight- if there was one thing I would change about your diet it would be that. There is no possible need for it other than the psychological wish to put food in your mouth (which can be cured by a class of water or using willpower; once you’re used to not eating late you stop wanting to), and whilst you didn’t say what it consisted of you really don’t need it, whatever it is. Much better that you wake up hungry in the morning and have a good, filling and carb-rich breakfast than eat anything that late at night. Also you may wish to try and go to bed earlier as I doubt you’re getting enough sleep, you should be aiming for between 7 and 7.5 hours sleep and at the moment you sound like you’re only getting about 6 to 6.5 (if you have a two year old I appreciate this may be difficult and is probably the reason, but try it anyway if you can - the extra energy will make those fewer waking hours more productive).
Throughout the day you should be trying to drink about a litre of water neat (every cup of coffee or regular tea should be substracted from that total), the other litre will be in your food so that should be enough. Try and avoid caffeine if you can, green tea is a great beverage once you get used to it. Finally how much physical activity are you doing during the day? Does your job involve sitting at a PC all day or is it a standing/walking/carrying job? Your level of activity (including recreational exercise) will inform how big your portions of food should be. If all you do is sit around and occasionally get up to change TV channels you don’t need to eat much - cut down on the size whilst trying to ensure a good mix of the consituent parts of your meal. If you do next to zero activity a day (like you proof read at home for a living and only stand up to go to the toilet or stetch to get work from the printer) then you only need to eat two meals (breakfast and lunch) and you don’t need dinner, replace it with a protein bar or a glass of milk to keep your digestion working, but you wouldn’t need a third meal.
There, pretty thorough by my own (self-confessed) expert standards. 
Hope tha doesn’t sound too painful or impractical, happy to offer further advice if you want it.
You can get even more basic than that, if you like. Last night I peeled two oranges and stuck ‘em in a blender with eight ice cubes, a bit of Splenda and a dash of grenadine. (I also added a splash of gin, but hey, it was New Years’ Eve.)
One orange is roughly 65 calories, so for 145 calories (more if you add gin), it’s pretty darn tasty.
But like Sunspace said, just grab some fruit that you like and some ice cubes and you can’t go far wrong. Fleshy fruit, like oranges and bananas, make the thing a bit more solid — I think grapes or apples would end up being pretty runny on their own.
Gonna make a banana smoothie? Feel free to add some nonfat or skim milk.
Watch out for those “instant smoothie” packets you get at the grocery store. Odds are you can make one yourself for less money, more nutrition and fewer calories by leaving out the packet and adding in another banana.
I weighed in yesterday at 208.4 and today and 208.8. It’s starting to come off.
Not only that, but someone who hadn’t seen me since September noticed I was getting in shape. How cool is that?
This morning I weighed in at 208.6. Even though I suspect it’ll end up dropping again in the morning — I ate kind of late last night — I’m still going down, so I can’t complain.
Also, when I first started lifting weighs I found I was tiring easily and doing 10 reps, 5 reps, 3 reps, and pooping out. Now I can do 10, 10, 10, 10 and feel good.
How y’all doing? Are you lifting big heavy things like you promised yourself you would?
I’m in. Here’s my story:
I’m 5’11". 2 1/2 years ago, I was 185lbs and 12% body fat. I worked out 2-3 hours 4x a week. I played basketball 5 times a week, played in a flag football league which played 2x a week, and was learning to surf. I was not “huge”, just really toned and in shape. I was benching 190-200 with dumbells. Then, one fateful afternoon, I got bumped while playing basketball, and when I landed, tore my ACL, MCL, and both meniscus. 2 surgeries and 6 months later I could finally walk without crutches. I began dating someone seriously, and working alot to try to catch up on bills, and my trips to the gym ended. Now I weigh 200-205 and have gone from a 31-32 inch waist to a 34. It’s actually gotten to me psychologically, as it’s embarrassing for me to know I’m this out of shape and fat. I started working out this week again, and playing on a football team again last month. The supporting muscles in my knee are very weak, so I can’t run or plant like I’m used to, and it has been giving out on me while I run downfield (which results in me falling on my face). I’ve been given the name Forrest, because I wear a huge mechanical knee brace, and everyone tells me one of these days it will just explode and I will take off and run like I used to be able to.
At any rate, I’ve always been able to take fat off in a hurry, when I get motivated to. I have no problem carbing out and doing a high protein diet for 4 or 6 weeks, which is what I’m starting. My goal is to be back down to 185 in 3 months at the latest, and to get my knee stable enough to sprint and cut on it with out worrying about it giving out. Today was the first game where I didn’t eat it once, but I still stumbled a few times. I would imagine it will take 9-12 months to get back where I was strength wise, but until I see where I’m truly at and how fast I’m getting it back I won’t make any goals in that area.
Ok - I’m in too!
[I’m really glad I found this thread - thanks, guys!]
Here’s me, now: 46 years old (today), 5’9", and 255 lbs.; my goal is to be at 200 by this date next year. I’m a type 2 diabetic, with HBP. My doctor has told me that if I can lose even 10% of my weight that those two problems might go away.
What I do - I was working out at the Y three-five days a week - mostly spinning, which is like stationary bikes on steroids - until I got pretty sick in November, and have slacked off since then. I feel better now (finally), but it’s hard getting back in the saddle. I’m committed, though, because I have a 4-year old daughter, and I really want to see her grow up. I’m also in Weight Watchers, though my weight has held steady because I haven’t been very good at sticking with the plan. I AM going to change that, however.
A question about that Tom Venuto book - has it been worth it, to those of you that use it? I’ve looked over the site, and I’m a little turned off by the hype factor. What’s the (pardon me!) straight dope on that one?
Thanks -
Jammin’
I have a Tanita body fat scale, and the body fat analysis part is not worth the metal and plastic it’s made of. I’ve lost 47 pounds in the last 18 months, I’m within my healthy weight range, and I’m 10 pounds from my goal weight. The scale, which is very, very accurate with regards to the weight aspect, still shows my body fat percentage at something like 39%. My husband, when he was at his fittest, was measured at the gym once (calipers, I think) and showed something like 12%, but the scale said he had something like 25% body fat.
So how’s everyone doing? Fish? Tomcat?
Weight holding constant even over the holidays and a couple of recent parties, staying comfortably in the 174-178lb range each morning.
Still dealing with strained hip so no running but regular lunchtime walks, long bike rides on the weekend. Last night’s workout while vegging six supersets of 50 pushups, 20-30 crunches (always my weak point) and 30 chair dips.
Eating normally (I don’t think of it as a diet anymore, it’s just my regular healthy eating habits)…typically give myself Saturday night to cut loose a bit, if I want a pizza or something that’s when I’ll have it. Potluck Monday night had people hauling out the entire dessert production of a small country, I managed to hold myself to a couple of Oreos off the top of the Oreo chocolate chip cheesecake.
I weighed in today at 208.0. That’s down 2.0 pounds so far.
Update: I have neither a scale, nor have I gotten around to measuring myself, but I will this weekend, I think.
Last weekend, the wife and I went out, and I picked up a workout DVD, and we bought a Gezelle Glider (my wife’s prefered work out method). I did the glider on Sunday, the workout DVD on Monday, the Gazelle again on Tuesday, and today I did dishes.
I’m making sure that my cardio workouts are at least 20 minutes, as I have heard and read that 20 minutes is the minimum to get actual cardio impact.
What sucks, of course, is that I’m getting sick… so this may put the cardio on a back burner. Lame.
I have shifted my eating pattern, for the most part. I have a bowl of cereal or something when I wake up, and then for lunch I’m having whatever the family had for dinner the night before. Then at work I’m having a light meal around 8 or so, and occasionally a small treat (an orange, one scoop of ice cream, a few graham crackers and 10oz of milk) about an hour before bed.
I’m working on eliminating that snack/treat when I get home too.
I’m probably down .5 kilo today because of the induction period with low-carbs. I start swimming on Monday night. Not much else to report.
Hey, I’m up 5 pounds! What do I win?
Not worried about it tho. Just the result of pigging out over the holidays. And my running buddies took some time off, so I had trouble motivating myself. It will come back down.
Glad to say I’m still doing my measly few push-ups and crunches. Still haven’t missed more than 1 day in a row. I’m up to 2 sets of 8 push-ups, and about 60 crunches.
Has anyone ever done the 100 pushup challenge?
The idea being, you can train yourself in a matter of a few weeks to be able to rip off 100 pushups at a go.
The trick is, after you wake up, you set an alarm, and every hour on the hour, you crank out, say, 10 pushups. Or 15, of something close to your max (assuming your max isn’t like, 50).
You do this every hour. All day long. Every day.
Within a few days, you’ll find yourself being able to do more pushups on your max. So you up your numbers, and within a few weeks, you can crank out 100 good pushups at a go.
I haven’t tried it, because I would look like an ass if I got down in my cube and cranked out push-ups every hour at work. But I’m tempted.
Go for it! 10 an hour will only take you a few seconds and it’s not going to leave you stinky and work-unacceptable. If you are exercising and your coworkers are sitting on their butts, how does that make YOU look like an ass? Many people take a few minutes each hour to get up, look away from their monitor, stretch, etc so pushups seem totally reasonable to me.
I dunno if 10 per hour will get you to 100 nonstop that fast but I bet once you’ve done 10x10 in ten hours that you’ll feel like cutting the interval down and soon you’ll be at 10x10 in maybe 1 hour and so on.
What worked for me was to just do as many as I could, rest (minute, not an hour), repeat, until unable to do any more. When I started that was something like 20, 15, 5, urk. My initial goal was to get to 100 (total), regardless of how many sets it took. Numbers kept going up. I’ve been as high as 75-80 on the first set followed by sets of 50 until pooped, now I just tend to do them in sets of 50 even (supersetted with other exercises) and cycle through a bunch of times. I did 400 in short order one time and could certainly have done more.
I was surprised - it’s not that hard - the important thing for me was to remember how many I’d done on each set and then try to exceed that (even if by only one rep) the next time. Normally workout like this every other night.
A few comments:
Don’t weigh yourself every day. Your body weight fluctuates daily by as much as a kilo or two depending mostly on hydration. Weekly weigh-ins are much better for getting an idea of your actual weight loss, and don’t promote the emotional yo-yo daily weighings might cause. Try to weigh at the same time and at the same state as previous. For example, I used to weigh in on Saturday morning after going to the bathroom but before breakfast.
It is possible to both gain muscle and lose fat, as long as you are not drastically restricting your calorie intake. I think that many people confuse losing fat with losing weight. It’s possible to change your body composition significantly while not losing weight, or actually even increasing in weight.
I only slightly changed my eating habits when I wanted to get back in shape a couple of years ago, but my total calories were close to what I started with. I upped the protein intake a bit, tried to cut fat, but by my estimates I’d only cut about 100 calories a day from my diet. Four months from the beginning of my workout regime, I’d gone up about 100% in the amount of weight I could handle on any given exercise. You can’t have that kind of performance gain without increasing muscle mass.
If you’re overweight, you’re taking in more calories than your body needs for your level of activity and your body composition. Unless you cut your intake drastically (which is not recommended) you will still probably be taking in more calories than you need. Exercise forces your body’s systems to prioritize. Calories that would have gone into fat storage get diverted to repairing damage and building new tissue in an attempt to adapt to new conditions. At the same time, you’re also using up energy stores in your activity and boosting your metabolic rate.
I didn’t do enough cardio in my exercise at first, basically just did weight lifting, and I still lost a lot of fat. I got noticeably more muscular, to the point where my clothes fit differently. It was actually a lot easier for me to start seriously running when I’d lost some of the fat and gotten some decent muscle first.
Don’t overdo it when you begin exercising. If you make yourself so sore that you can’t move for a few days, you’ll be a lot less likely to keep it up. If you injure yourself, you’ll have a forced hiatus that will make things worse. Start slowly, set reasonable goals (revise if necessary once you start) and progress from there. I speak from experience since I was formerly fit and thought I could start out with a much more ambitious exercise program than my level of fitness at the time would allow. Even if you start slowly you’ll still be a bit sore, but that’s better than being so miserable that you’re thinking that life for people who exercise really sucks.
You won’t see results very fast at first, but you’ll feel them right away. It took over two months of steady exercise 2-4 times a week for me to start seeing real changes. I knew I was doing something good for myself based on how I felt and on how my capabilities had changed, but I didn’t start seeing the gut go away. Then, all of a sudden, I started dropping fat like crazy; I lost a few kilos in a really short time before leveling off again. I started taking photos twice a week at about week three and you could actually see the reduction between one week and the next when I hit that point. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see changes at first. It’ll happen, just keep it up.
Or at least if you do, don’t assume that since you’re not steadily dropping weight all the time at every weigh-in that something must necessarily be wrong.
If you weigh yourself every day, it’ll look like this: 200.0, 200.5, 199.9, 200.4, 199.8, 200.3, 199.7, etc. You’ll gain a bit some days because you’re carrying around fluid that your kidneys are still working on, or food that you — let’s face it — that you haven’t crapped out yet.
Don’t get discouraged. If your habits are good, and you exercise, and your total calories + exercise is less than your body weight X 10, you will lose weight. 10 calories sustains 1 pound of body weight per 1 day, approximately. If you weigh 200 pounds, maintaining that weight takes approximately 2000 calories. It will work, even though you may not always see it working. Just keep it up.