My NON diet is working better than my diet/exercise I was trying

[Ottakee]

I had lost 70+ pounds a few years ago and then slowly, esp. when I hurt my ankle and couldn't exercise much, I put 20-25 of that back on.

 

I tried following Weight Watcher points, cutting out all pop, exercising faithfully 5-6 days a week, etc. and I did not lose a pound--didn't gain any muscle either.

 

Well, I got sick of that and fell off that bandwagon and since have been loosing about 1-2 pounds a week. I am drinking pop (real stuff, not diet), eating some fast food (but the value/kid size stuff), walking with friends 2-4 times a week and horseback riding along wtih doing chorse but no formal aerobics, etc.

 

WHY is that working better than the other plan which SHOULD have been working?

[Jean in Newcastle]

I don't know, but nothing's working for me. If you figure it out, I want to know!

[Parrothead]

Just go ahead do me a favor. Have your thyroid checked.

 

 

Otherwise :hurray: for the weight loss.

[KidsHappen]

Is it possible that you were consuming too many calories or using too many calories and therefore your metabloism slowed down? Once increased calories or decreased expenditures, your metabolism picked up? I don't really know but I have been on the thin side all my life and have been able to eat whatever I wanted. However, in the last few years my appetite has waned and I frequently don't eat and have slowly been putting on the pounds. People keep telling me that I need to eat more. :confused:

[Ottakee]

Just had my thryoid (and all other bloodwork) checked. Sad to say, nothing wrong with my thyroid. The rest of the blood work was perfect--sugars, cholesterol, etc. My blood pressure was 106/70 so the nurse asked if I had done anything that morning or just come in---well, I had been outside doing chores for an hour before my visit. It is just naturally on the lower side.

 

I am just healthy but fluffy :-)

[Melissa in CA]

I don't know, but nothing's working for me. If you figure it out, I want to know!

 

I've been on the HGC diet for the past 21 days and have lost 12 pounds. ;)

[LauraGB]

I had lost 70+ pounds a few years ago and then slowly, esp. when I hurt my ankle and couldn't exercise much, I put 20-25 of that back on.

 

I tried following Weight Watcher points, cutting out all pop, exercising faithfully 5-6 days a week, etc. and I did not lose a pound--didn't gain any muscle either.

 

Well, I got sick of that and fell off that bandwagon and since have been loosing about 1-2 pounds a week. I am drinking pop (real stuff, not diet), eating some fast food (but the value/kid size stuff), walking with friends 2-4 times a week and horseback riding along wtih doing chorse but no formal aerobics, etc.

 

WHY is that working better than the other plan which SHOULD have been working?

 

Are you maybe eating less all around? I like WW recipes, but I always substitute their recommended low fat/no fat ingredients for full, and other "fake" stuff for real stuff. And I load on the oil. And I don't gain weight. But, I'm full when I'm done eating that way.

 

Maybe it's psychological. I've wondered about that. It seems like with so many things (not just weight), when we really want it, we must just secrete some hormone or something that stops it from happening. When we aren't thinking so hard about it, Voila! There it is. Hmm...have studies been done??

[Negin]

I tried following Weight Watcher points, cutting out all pop, exercising faithfully 5-6 days a week, etc. and I did not lose a pound--didn't gain any muscle either.

Well, I got sick of that and fell off that bandwagon and since have been loosing about 1-2 pounds a week. I am drinking pop (real stuff, not diet), eating some fast food (but the value/kid size stuff), walking with friends 2-4 times a week and horseback riding along wtih doing chorse but no formal aerobics, etc.

WHY is that working better than the other plan which SHOULD have been working?

A few years ago, I thought I was watching my intake and I was for the most part. Eating super-healthy, etc. I worked out furiously and for at least an hour daily - Jillian Michaels, Tae Bo stuff. I was as strong as an ox, but the pounds would barely come off and very, very slowly. I was very toned, however.

 

Then I got swine flu and the pounds fell off. I'm talking about 10 pounds in less than a week or something like that. No workouts. Barely ate anything.

 

I have realized that for me, weight loss is about 90% intake. There are lots of studies and articles on this. I can link them if anyone is interested. Exercise no longer helps me in the weight loss department. Great for overall health, but not for weight loss. I no longer workout as intensely as before. It seems that the more intensely I worked out and particularly when exercising for longer sessions (longer than 40 minutes or so), the more my appetite would increase. Not immediately, but shortly after.

 

 

Your portions are probably less and your appetite may have gone down since you workout less. Just a possibility.

 

I've been on the HGC diet for the past 21 days and have lost 12 pounds. ;)

Melissa, so proud of you! :party:

 

The pounds that I have left to lose are also slowly coming off at last. I love hcg as you may recall from previous threads. :D No diet is perfect for all. Also, diets are only good as long as you stick to them, but this is what works for me and for now.

 

Maybe it's psychological. I've wondered about that. It seems like with so many things (not just weight), when we really want it, we must just secrete some hormone or something that stops it from happening. When we aren't thinking so hard about it, Voila! There it is. Hmm...have studies been done??

I believe in this a lot. So often this really does apply to me.

 

Decided to post my stuff in case anyone is interested ... or maybe not :lol:

[Negin]

Exercise is wonderful for preventing all sorts of diseases – heart disease, cancer, diabetes, protecting the bones, lifting one’s mood, boosting metabolism, and so on. But in general, for weight loss, exercise is not all it’s made out to be. Lots of research has shown this. In terms of weight loss, diet and aerobic exercise provide only a very marginal benefit when compared to diet alone.

I have numbers to prove it - since I weigh and measure on a weekly basis - the times that I have lost the most weight are when I exercise moderately (not for an hour or more a day, like I used to) and eat MUCH, MUCH less.

My body has changed. It's not the body I had in my teens, 20s, or early 30s. I used to be able to eat that slice of cheesecake AND run 4 miles the next morning AND not ever gain. I can’t do that anymore.

I have more recently found that that when I exercise intensely for 45 minutes or more per day, my appetite increases. I get the most results from eating much less and exercising moderately – for about 30-45 minutes per day, or at least most days. That's just my experience. Again, I have numbers to prove it.

For me, weight loss is pretty much 80% what I eat and 20% what I do. As with most things in life, the usual 80/20 Principle applies. My dh (and others have said this also), say that it may be more like 90% what I eat. I'm actually am agreeing with that more and more.

When it comes to weight loss, intake is the major factor. When it comes to overall health and longevity, exercise is essential also.

I no longer exercise for 90 minutes a day, and sometimes not even every day, since it’s not always possible.

I tell myself to exercise for health not necessarily for weight loss. Exercise is not a weight loss solution.

 

[Negin]

Exercise is important, but it may negatively affect your weight loss for three main reasons:

1. Exercise makes you hungrier, causing you to eat more –

Maybe not immediately, but eventually. Burn more calories and the odds are very good that we’ll consume more as well.

I know that when I exercise very intensely and for more than 45 minutes or so, my appetite can be insatiable.

For lots of people, when exercise is bumped up considerably, appetite is also increased.

"The most powerful determinant of your dietary intake is your energy expenditure," says Steven Gortmaker, who heads Harvard's Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity. "If you're more physically active, you're going to get hungry and eat more." Gortmaker, who has studied childhood obesity, is even suspicious of the playgrounds at fast-food restaurants. "Why would they build those?" he asks. "I know it sounds kind of like conspiracy theory, but you have to think, if a kid plays five minutes and burns 50 calories, he might then go inside and consume 500 calories or even 1,000."

Gortmaker and Sonneville found in their 18-month study of 538 students that when kids start to exercise, they end up eating more — not just a little more, but an average of 100 calories more than they had just burned.

 

2. Exercise causes feelings of entitlement. You may want to reward yourself because you worked out so hard at the gym.

People may think they can eat more, because they exercised for 30 minutes.

 

3. Exercise does not burn that many calories. Couple that fact with being hungrier and you may eat more calories than you burned. Exercise does help burn calories -- you just can't eat more because of it.

To demonstrate the calorie intake versus exercise principle:

Elliptical training for 44 minutes/500 kcal burned = 1 Honey Bran Raisin Muffin from Dunkin Donuts

Kickboxing for 25 minutes and 272 kcal burned = Grande Starbucks latte with whole milk

Jogging for 60 minutes and 470 kcal burned = 1 slice (1/6 of cake) of Sara Lee Cheesecake, chocolate swirl NY style

Pilates for 30 minutes and 119 kcal burned = 5 pieces of hard candy

 

[Negin]

To burn sufficient calories to lose one pound of body fat, you might:

 

• Briskly walk a total of 35 miles
  
• Swim moderately fast for 6 hours
  
• Dance for 12 hours
  
• Play about 12.5 hours of golf, carrying your own clubs
  
• Jog for about 29 miles
  

 

At the same time, you would need to monitor your eating habits to ensure that you are not increasing your calorie-intake in line with your increased exercise! And we all know that it’s much easier to eat 1000 calories than it is to burn 1000 calories!

If you're looking to control your weight, exercise is the least efficient way to do it. You'd have to run for hours to keep the cookies you ate from adding to your waistline.

[Negin]

“Overexercise—for a variety of reasons—actually makes it harder to lose weight. Overly strenuous exercise—especially combined with insufficient sleep, unrelenting stress, and poor eating habits—can push your body into survival mode, raising your level of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol’s job is to boost energy levels by any means necessary. If these levels stay high for too long, cortisol starts breaking down the cells in nerves, muscles, and bones, converting them into energy. In the short term, it’s a rush. In the long-term, it’s debilitating.

Cortisol has another job: storing energy where the body can get at it quickly. And guess where that is? In the most accessible place, biologically—belly fat. Ongoing high levels of cortisol lead to weight gain, fatigue, nervousness, and possibly osteoporosis (loss of bone mass).â€

 

We all need to move more, yet this doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to stress our bodies at the gym. Our leisure-time physical activity (including things like golfing, gardening and walking) has decreased since the late 1980s, right around the time the gym boom really exploded.

Very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. To burn calories, the muscle movements don't have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day – functional fitness such as housework, walking the dog, raking the leaves, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, walking while carrying groceries, walking instead of driving when possible, etc.

 

It's how much you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain.

 

http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/articles/aerobicexercise.htm

 

http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/

 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/08/27/earlyshow/health/main5269114.shtml

 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/phys-ed-why-doesnt-exercise-lead-to-weight-loss/

 

Someone here posted that there’s a Gary Taubes video where he talks about how when we increase our exercise, our appetites naturally increase to adjust. Conversely, when we reduce our caloric intake, our bodies naturally reduce their energy output to adjust. The video is long, but definitely worth watching! He describes (in general layman's terms) the biochemistry of how weight gain and loss occurs, and it's very valuable information.

http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216

 

 

 

Remember: Weight loss begins in the kitchen!

 

In order for me to lose, I need to eat MUCH, MUCH less ... which is really, really hard for me to do.

If I want to maintain, I need to eat about the same or slightly less and maintain the same level of workouts.

 

A friend of mine wrote this:

Just for a personal experiment, I did nothing but yoga for a week, cardio for another and weights the last (and I'm talking heavy weights) – there was NO change in my weight (not up or down). Meaning that it doesn't matter what type of exercise you do, as long as you do them, you will lose at the same rate, if that is your goal. I get so tired of hearing that you have to do cardio to lose weight.

When I was doing HCG or any other diet that I was on, it didn't matter what I was doing, as long as I was eating less than I normally ate.

When I did Body for Life, I was lifting the heaviest weights I had ever lifted (125lbs. was my 6 rep bench press and 195lbs. was my 6 rep squat) and I was smaller, tighter, and weighed the least amount I had weighed in a long time. I just wanted to get the point across that ANY exercise will benefit your weight loss goals. It's the controlled eating part that is most necessary to the weight loss effort.

 

In Good Calories, Bad Calories, Gary Taubes debunks the myth that exercise equals weight loss (and the old calories in, calories out myth). While exercise has many other benefits, to promote exercise as the solution to weight loss exclusively is doing people a great disservice. People who are more than a few pounds overweight, insulin resistant, or diabetic really need to concentrate on a permanent change to their diet -- and I mean severely reducing their carbohydrate intake. A nice long walk along and strength training are far more beneficial to this group of people than cardio. Wait to do cardio until you are thin, you are doing it for fun, and it is less stressful to your joints.

[Peela]

I think one of the problems with weight loss is food obsession. When you cant have it, a piece of chocolate cake can be unbearably tempting.

When you can have it- it's not such a big deal. Thats my experience, anyway.

Also, real food like pop with sugar is at least real food and your body knows it.

If you have "relaxed" about your diet, but are also somewhat conscious and careful with it, but not to the point of being obsessive and calorie counting or denying yourself your own special treats- I think it can be helpful because you don't then do the rebound, pendulum thing, where you deny yourself then indulge yourself in equal proportions. Just eat normally and have a healthy attitude to food, get some exercise. Enjoy food. I think the love hate thing with food is unhealthy- it is a sign of an unhealthy relationship to food.

[Melissa in CA]

Great posts Negin!

 

All I know at the moment, is that on the HCG diet, eating a mere 500-600 calories a day (without hunger!), I have never felt so good and I am NOT exercising! Now, I do want to start taking some long walks, light yoga, or something, but for now I am just following my diet. I feel great, and I feel physically STRONG! I'm now down 13 pounds, with only 13 lbs to go to get to my goal weight. LOVE HCG!!!!! :D

[RanchGirl]

Ae you eating more protein now? I'm reading Gary Taubes book right now Very interesting!

[Negin]

I think one of the problems with weight loss is food obsession.

If you have "relaxed" about your diet, but are also somewhat conscious and careful with it, but not to the point of being obsessive and calorie counting or denying yourself your own special treats- I think it can be helpful because you don't then do the rebound, pendulum thing, where you deny yourself then indulge yourself in equal proportions. Just eat normally and have a healthy attitude to food, get some exercise. Enjoy food. I think the love hate thing with food is unhealthy- it is a sign of an unhealthy relationship to food.

:iagree: :iagree: :iagree:

Peela, my biggest problem when it comes to food is moderation. I so often have an unhealthy relationship with food.

The funny thing about me is that when I have a love/hate relationship with food, I usually lose weight.

But when I am more moderate, anti-fad diet, anti-any-diet, but just into more moderate and healthy approaches - I tend to not only maintain, but also gain. :confused:

Trust me, I don't want to be this way. But I have learned that when for example, I'm on hcg or other strict approaches, I am more focused and disciplined. :confused: I wish that the moderate and healthier approaches worked better for me. My mom, for example, does great with that. She's soooo thin. She makes it all sound so easy. But what works for her never works for me.

 

All I know at the moment, is that on the HCG diet, eating a mere 500-600 calories a day (without hunger!), I have never felt so good and I am NOT exercising! Now, I do want to start taking some long walks, light yoga, or something, but for now I am just following my diet. I feel great, and I feel physically STRONG! I'm now down 13 pounds, with only 13 lbs to go to get to my goal weight. LOVE HCG!!!!!

Melissa, so happy for you!

:party:

I'm also doing okay considering. Feeling quite content. I'm currently 10 pounds over my wedding-time weight. If I lose anywhere from 1-10 pounds, I'll be delighted. I'm very focused on waist measurement for overall health and I'm happy with that also.

 

I'm reading Gary Taubes book right now Very interesting!

I really would like to read Gary Taubes's book ... along with a million other books that I'd love to read. ;)