Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Prescription Weight Loss

-- deleted post --

I certainly don't think that a perscription medication will do the trick. In my experience people lose weight in the short run but are never able to keep it off in the long term. As you grow older, your metabolism slows so it may be harder to lose this weight than it was 8 years ago. A diet in which you eat several times a day, as well as your bike riding may help. Overall, you are already far more healthy than you were 4 months ago. You have already improved your cardiovascular health and hopefully made fitness a long term part of your life.

I tend to disagree with the pharmaceutical method as well, as most of the compounds have long term risks and given the short time they've been in use, their long term effects haven't really been evaluated. The Prednisone messed up your metabolism for a bit, OK, but it's not unlosable. In my opinion, pharmacological or surgical weight intervention should be reserved for morbid obesity situations where there's loss of the ability to exercise, or a metabolic disease mechanism contributing to the weight gain.

You are already doing it the American way and it isn't working!

Here is a secret weight loss trick: Become a vegan for the rest of your life!

Just kidding, kind of. Your diet is probably not as good as you think it is. You know what you are doing wrong, you just aren't trying hard enough. Stop eating red meat. Stop eating cheese. Stop eating white bread, stop eating dessert. If you would rather let drugs do the work for you, why don't you try methamphetamine? Its cheap and it works!

Weight loss drugs work just like crash diets-- as soon as you stop artificially bolstering your metabolism, you will gain weight back fast. If you stay on the drugs or a grapefruit juice fast for a long time, it will make you sick.

You have to figure out a change you can make and keep up with for the rest of your life. Its your choice! if you would rather eat 3 cheeseburgers a week than be healthy, you better do a lot of cardio to work them off, or get used to being fat. Maybe you can live with only ONE cheeseburger a week, and do a moderate amount of exercise, and eat other healthy foods to balance your diet. You just have to make it a priority.

I'll third the opinion, to stay away from the chemicals, the problem with the pharmaceutical approach, is that it is an appetite suppressant, but it doesn't fix the underlying problem, and that is knowing how to eat properly. So, once you have lost the weight you want, to go off the meds, your appetite comes back, you start eating again, and all the weight you lost finds you again, problem is, it brings a few new pounds it found along the way, so you end up heavier then before.

I think, really the first step, is to learn to respect yourself, would you expect someone you respect to visit a home full of garbage, probably not, so you need to realise your body is your home, and if you respect yourself, then you don't want your home full of garbage. so quit eating it.

So what should you eat? Highly nutritious, low calorie foods, so you meet your nutritional needs with the fewest calories. The recommended weight loss, is 2lbs a week, 2lbs is 7000 calories, so you need to make sure that what you use, exceeds what you consume by 1000 calories per day. You can either cut back on what you eat until your 1000 calories short, add 1000 calories worth of additional physical activities, or a combination of both. Realise that processed foods, usually have the nutritional value processed out, leaving just the calories, you don't want this....

Oh well, I need to actually go to work now, so more tomorrow.....

-- deleted post --

weight watchers. its a lifestyle change

Of course standalone pharmacological management of a lifestyle disease won't work by itself.

That said, there is nothing wrong with a multi-factoral approach to lifestyle change and subsequent weight loss, and pharmacological treatment can certainly be an effective part of that approach.

There is an incredible volume of medical literature available within the public domain, most of which focus on interventions with efficacy at a population level. Exercise and diet are both proven modifiable risk factors for obesity (amongst many other diseases with high levels of morbidity and mortality). There are also many pharmacological treatments that, while they have not proven to be significantly efficacious in isolation, can provide an important pillar to a comprehensive approach to obesity and weight management.

Yes, there certainly are risks involved with any pharmacological treatment which is why there is the important piece of advice that should always go with this kind of discussion. Go see a doctor. A good doctor.

If you want to lose weight, diet. If you want to keep the weight off, you need to be comprehensive in your approach. If all else fails, get a healthy illicit drug addiction going.



(also ^^^^ +1 Weight Watchers)

Here is the deal - if he is unable to loose weight despite being active and having a proper diet then he may need medical help. I'm not going to suggest weight loss pills, but I am going to suggest that he sees a doctor about this issue.

Get checked out by a doctor at a health & wellness center. They can calculate your metabolic burn rate and see if everything is OK. An example of an issue they may find would be that you may have slow metabolism from an underactive thyroid or some other common medical reason. The treatment for that is to take a synthetic thyroid pill every morning to get you back to where you should be. Or they may find that everything is OK and then give you a special diet based on your personal needs.

Well how about the no cheeseburgers, dessert, and white bread that I eat now?

So oddly this is exactly what I did, I cut out all white bread, no fried sides when we eat out. That made a huge difference. Then I cut out all the Soda pop, (Diet and everything) any added salt and anything that is fried. Like it has been said before, you have to make changes that you have to be able to live with for the rest of your life, it's not a diet it's a life style change. So in 4 months I've lost 22 lbs, I had a bit of a set back when I had to lay off the biking heavy for 2 weeks due to injury. But I am back at it now and over the time I was off I was able to at least maintain my weight and didn't gain.

You know now that I think about it, it's been nearly 4 months since I had a cheese burger :).

So eating in moderation. Biking an average of 4 times a week. And four months of results later. I've lost 6 pounds. I've tried to lose weight for the last year and it's only been 6 or so pounds then it comes back on steadily. About two years ago I had to take three 2 week rounds of prednisone. After that I had gained 25 lbs. Here's my question. Is prescription weight loss a bad idea? Not to lose the weight I need to. But to get me started? Understandably it's a life style change. But I find myself frustrated. About 8 years ago I lost 60 lobs. In the last 4 years it has come back. So it's not like I don't know how to lose weight. Would you consult a physician if you were me or.... Would you just change it up a bit and really kick yourself into bootcamp mode (I was in the army for a short stint) and see what I lose? I'm thinking the later. But maybe the "American" quick and easy way is tempting me.

Pills and chemicals are a bad idea, not only because they usually don't work and may be harmful, but because they foster the idea fat people are helpless victims. OK, rant over before it began. :-)

Unless you have a medical condition that causes weight gain or slows metabolism, you should lose weight with the simple rule that if you burn more than you take in.... etc. My guess, and this is not a flame nor an attempt to troll, is that you are overstating the calories burned and underestimating the calories taken in. This is easy to do. Take it from me. I've been there. In fact, I am living there now, since recently my eating habits haven't been conducive to weight loss.

I would recommend to start counting those calories.. Get a date book and write down everything that you eat or drink that has calories.. Go online and find a BMR calculator.. For men, you should be shooting for 2300 calories or less per day. Once you start having deficit calorie days and add some riding you will see the weight coming off slowly but surely. Another great item to have is a pocket calorie book, 8.00 at any book store, it has many fast food places listed as well.. This will give you a better judge of how many calories you are taking in each day.. The Calorie King book is seen as the best one on the market.. The book has many national fast food places so you can see what is calorie dense and what is not..

http://www.amazon.com/Calorie-King-Carbohydrate-Counter-2007/dp/1930448139/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-7148922-9174819?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183493975&sr=8-1

Great advice so far.

I "though", I had done a pretty good job of modifying me diet. I did all the classic things that are associated with eating "healthy". Yet I never lost any weight in a year of "eating healthy". I finally started journaling EVERYTHING I ate or DRANK(very important) and the numbers didn't lie. Despite the "healthy" foods, I was still taking in way to many calories. I wanted a life style change not a crash diet. Therefore I didn't cut out every single junk food, fast food, or take out or any of the classic "unhealthy" foods, I just learned to incorporate them into my diet of healthy foods. Therefore I wouldn't get burned out and didn't felt like I was missing out on many of the foods that I enjoyed. I tailored my diet to have a 1500 calorie goal. I was amazed at how much food you can consume and still only take in 1500 calories if you pay attention to what you are eating.

I did the same for my exercise. I started out walking/hiking so I bought a pedometer and journaled my steps and miles every day. Then I'd figure out how many calories, I burned. Again I wasn't burning nearly as many calories as I thought. Therefore I figure out how big of a calorie deficit I wanted and made sure I walked enough each day to burn that many calories. Then I added in bike riding, which allowed me to cut back on the walking/hiking. As I've lost weight, I've added things like jogging or leg squats to my to my walks/hikes and pushed my bike rides farther and longer to increase the calorie burn.

Great advice so far.

I "though", I had done a pretty good job of modifying me diet. I did all the classic things that are associated with eating "healthy". Yet I never lost any weight in a year of "eating healthy". I finally started journaling EVERYTHING I ate or DRANK(very important) and the numbers didn't lie. Despite the "healthy" foods, I was still taking in way to many calories. I wanted a life style change not a crash diet. Therefore I didn't cut out every single junk food, fast food, or take out or any of the classic "unhealthy" foods, I just learned to incorporate them into my diet of healthy foods. Therefore I wouldn't get burned out and didn't felt like I was missing out on many of the foods that I enjoyed. I tailored my diet to have a 1500 calorie goal. I was amazed at how much food you can consume and still only take in 1500 calories if you pay attention to what you are eating.

I did the same for my exercise. I started out walking/hiking so I bought a pedometer and journaled my steps and miles every day. Then I'd figure out how many calories, I burned. Again I wasn't burning nearly as many calories as I thought. Therefore I figure out how big of a calorie deficit I wanted and made sure I walked enough each day to burn that many calories. Then I added in bike riding, which allowed me to cut back on the walking/hiking. As I've lost weight, I've added things like jogging or leg squats to my to my walks/hikes and pushed my bike rides farther and longer to increase the calorie burn.

+1, This is the way to do it.

I also read a web book that really got me thinking about this http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/, it's called the hackers diet. Despite the name it is quite serious and a good start to a lifestyle change. If you get a chance read it.

Great advice so far.

I "though", I had done a pretty good job of modifying me diet. I did all the classic things that are associated with eating "healthy". Yet I never lost any weight in a year of "eating healthy". I finally started journaling EVERYTHING I ate or DRANK(very important) and the numbers didn't lie. Despite the "healthy" foods, I was still taking in way to many calories. I wanted a life style change not a crash diet. Therefore I didn't cut out every single junk food, fast food, or take out or any of the classic "unhealthy" foods, I just learned to incorporate them into my diet of healthy foods. Therefore I wouldn't get burned out and didn't felt like I was missing out on many of the foods that I enjoyed. I tailored my diet to have a 1500 calorie goal. I was amazed at how much food you can consume and still only take in 1500 calories if you pay attention to what you are eating.

I did the same for my exercise. I started out walking/hiking so I bought a pedometer and journaled my steps and miles every day. Then I'd figure out how many calories, I burned. Again I wasn't burning nearly as many calories as I thought. Therefore I figure out how big of a calorie deficit I wanted and made sure I walked enough each day to burn that many calories. Then I added in bike riding, which allowed me to cut back on the walking/hiking. As I've lost weight, I've added things like jogging or leg squats to my to my walks/hikes and pushed my bike rides farther and longer to increase the calorie burn.

+1. The biggest reason that people assume weight loss doesn't work is that they don't work at it. Instead, they talk about 'eating light', which is a sort of catchall phrase meaning "I'll not make any lifestyle changes." It makes them and their friends/enablers feel good without causing them to give up any part of the lifestyle that made them fat.

I had a hard time losing weight just by changing a few eating habits so I started Weight Watchers and it worked great.

You are already doing it the American way and it isn't working!

Here is a secret weight loss trick: Become a vegan for the rest of your life!

Just kidding, kind of. Your diet is probably not as good as you think it is. You know what you are doing wrong, you just aren't trying hard enough. Stop eating red meat. Stop eating cheese. Stop eating white bread, stop eating dessert. If you would rather let drugs do the work for you, why don't you try methamphetamine? Its cheap and it works!

Weight loss drugs work just like crash diets-- as soon as you stop artificially bolstering your metabolism, you will gain weight back fast. If you stay on the drugs or a grapefruit juice fast for a long time, it will make you sick.

You have to figure out a change you can make and keep up with for the rest of your life. Its your choice! if you would rather eat 3 cheeseburgers a week than be healthy, you better do a lot of cardio to work them off, or get used to being fat. Maybe you can live with only ONE cheeseburger a week, and do a moderate amount of exercise, and eat other healthy foods to balance your diet. You just have to make it a priority.

+1 This really is the "right way" to do it.

Get a book called "Eat To Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It will revolutionize what you "think" is a healthy diet. The book isn't even truly about "weight loss", it's about being healthy (and weight loss is a big part of that). Essentially the book describes the perfect diet as being "mostly vegan". He doesn't tell you to completely stop eating meat, but explains (in cold hard facts) why your meat (and all animal product) consumption should be very low - not just for weight loss, but to help prevent cancer, diabetes, and LOTS of other potential issues.

I will part from popular opinion here for a minute.

Pills can play a PART of the solution. For me, phentremine has been a huge help...

1.) It helps build the habit of eating less. Your less hungry, and the pill making you less hungry all the time helps you get into the habit of eating less.

2.) It gives you alot of energy. You get in the habit of doing more. Now, after getting used to doing more, even without the pills, I am much more "bored" just sitting around, and end up doing more because I got used to keeping myself busy...now inaction just bugs the hell out of me.

Now, I still take them...but its rarely....and less often. With just a month or so of them, I've gotten myself into better habits, and I don't need them to keep it up...

As far as the "almost vegan" thing...not for me.

For me I did what was above....

I did not actually write it down but I could see how it would help. I think for me the best thing I had going was a heart rate monitor and it showed calories burned....That really helped me get an idea of what 100 calories was and how hard it was to counter act that 100 calories...

I learned that Fruits are the devil....they make you think they are all good for you and it is healthy to eat them but you can eat so much of them that you might as well be eating a Big Mac.....

When you start looking at Calories out and calories in then there is no doubt why you are not loosing weight..

I think the Journal idea is a good one.....it will give you a basis of when you are taking in....post up your Journal, it would be intresting for us to see and hear opinions on what your eating....

:)

I learned that Fruits are the devil....they make you think they are all good for you and it is healthy to eat them but you can eat so much of them that you might as well be eating a Big Mac.....



Really? I usually try to eat at least one and sometime two peices of fresh fruit daily. If I eat two peices this only amount to a couple hundred calories and little or no fat. Compared to 700 calories and 30 grams of fat in a Big Mac with cheese.

+1 for journaling your food. Write down everything! I am using Fitday.com...works like a champ. Plus the graphs are fun!

+1 to this - unless you have some undiagnosed medical condition you are probably eating more than you think and burning fewer calories than you think.

What has worked for me

1. Start keeping a log of EVERYTHING you are eating and be honest with yourself. You can be eating a very healthy diet but eating too much (this was largely my problem). Buy an el-cheapo scale to check quantities especially on meats. Watch out for hidden calories and calorie dense foods. For example when eating out a lot of restaurants slather butter on everything. Also try to maintain a proper balance between carbs, protein, and fat. Note I try to do this with every meal.
2. Read the label on everything processed that you eat. Be very careful of high fat or high sugar in processed foods. This seems to hit me personally really hard so I've become a dedicated label reader.
3. Start keeping log of your exercise as well. Be careful most online resources overstate calories burned ,some of them excessively. It take a long time and a lot of work to burn off 100 calories.
4. Don't use exercise as an excuse to over eat or as an excuse to eat something bad. I have a friend that does this and has a hard time losing weight off. Personally one "bad" meal with stall my weightloss for several days.
5. Make sure you are getting enough calories. I went to a wellness center and had them measure my metabolism then set a number 1000 calories less than that and have been following that.
6. Figure out if you have any triggers that make you eat wrong or improperly. It might be a food, it might be a stressor, boredom, etc. If you have triggers once you are aware of them you can start to deal with them.
7. In addition to weighing yourself take some body measurements. When your weightloss stalls, and it will, chances are your measurements will continue to change. I've found this to be a positive motivator.

Most of all keep a positive attitude, you are going to have ups and downs. Work for the lifestyle changes that you need to maintain your weightloss. It took you a long time to put it on and it's going to take a long time to take it off.

Scott

+1 to journaling. I started journaling my food intake as well. In the morning a light breakfast (oatmeal or a little cereal). Then around 10am I munch a banana or some other fruit.
I hardly go out during lunch and always bring a sandwich packed with salads, cucumber, mustard, avocado and turkey to work. Eat some tomatoes and pickles with it. Then around 3-4pm when the little hunger strikes again I eat a lowfat yogurt with some granola. Before the exercise bike ride in the evening I munch on a slice of bread with either peanut butter/banana or some ham or turkey. Or maybe a very small dish of dinner.
Then I hop on my bike for an hour or two every night.

I'm down 15lbs to 196lbs since I started Jun 10th with serious exercising and change in eating habits.

Oh.. and I drink only water, or natural fruit juice when there is no water available at work. But I'm trying to keep the juices to a minimum as they are alot of calories.

Thomas

My doctor had me lose weight starting 2.5 years ago (went from 365 lbs to 190 lbs and have kept it off for one year so far), and the doctor and my dietician prescribed a food and exercise program much like what I see above. I feel that those issues are mostly mechanical, however, and that losing weight and keeping it off is not a mechanical issue at heart. It is also a mental and emotional issue for me. My doctor and dietician had me attack the problem from 3 directions.


Food and Exercise.
Mental/Accountability.
Emotional Aspects of Behavior.
The food and exercise parts were by far the easiest. They had me eat a balanced diet and plan my meals, which includes planning emergency foods that you can eat at most fast-food places and restaurants when something like real life comes up, such that I NEVER went more than 5 waking hours without a snack. The goal is to not have BIG MEALS or LONG SKIPS between meals (ALWAYS EAT BREAKFAST, NEVER SKIP A MEAL!!!). The idea here is to even-out your blood sugar as much as possible the entire time that you are awake. You don't want any big spikes in blood sugar (like when you eat too many carbs at one-sitting), and you don't want any big dips in blood sugar (either from not eating often enough, or the big crash following a previous spike in blood sugar earlier). Big drops in blood sugar can make some people have binge cravings, and if it happened to me late-in-the-afternoon, I used to pretty much eat until I went to bed. I was unable to control myself with willpower at that point, and learning how to avoid letting it happen was HUGE in helping me control my behavior. At first, they had me on a balanced diet consisting of around 1800 calories a day. There are lots of decent food plans out there that work. Just don't pick one that severely restricts carbs, fat, etc. because you can't keep that up for the rest of your life. You eventually want to be eating in a way that you can eat and be happy with for the rest of your life. Forever.

You already exercise, and there is plenty of good advice here on BF about that.

The mental part centered around accountability. This is not the same thing as blaming myself for what I did wrong. I wrote down everything that I ate, and took it into the dietician twice per week for face-to-face review of what I ate. They also weighed me at each of those visits. They did not admonish or yell at me, we just went over what I ate in a clinical way, they asked me how I felt on the days that I ate too much, etc. Looking at it dipasionately that often along with a third party really opened my eyes. I could easily lie to myself and/or overlook the amount of food that I was really eating (especially when I did not eat and was hungry all day, and then pigged out at night, but had no idea how many calories were involved until I wrote it down), until I was forced to face it dispasionately twice per week for a while. What is really happening with your body sinks in, and sticks. You don't need a dietician to do this. There are free programs, support groups, and some online weight loss blog communities that do this for each other.

You may not have emotional issues with food, but I did and still do. I used food to calm myself down. I never considered myself very emotional, until I started seriously losing weight. Then I figured out that I used food to elevate my blood sugar to the point where I was artifically calmer almost every day. I used to eat to stay alert and calm at work (sometimes boring yet meticulous job), and basically to calm myself down whenever I experienced any strong emotion (anger, hurt, even too happy, etc.). I used to think that the intensity of my daily emotions was...sort of childish and unacceptable for an adult man to have to deal with. Without food, I had to re-learn how to deal with these perfectly natural strong emotions on a daily basis in a socially acceptable way. I went into counseling to deal with these issues, but many other people deal with these issues on their own, or with the help of family, friends, support groups, etc.

I just thought that I would chime in with some less-mechanical advice. Sorry so long, and have a great week.

I think it's worth getting a doctor's opinion to find out if there is some underlying medical condition that affects how you need to go about changing your lifestyle. Re: drugs, if you care about your health at all (as opposed to just getting skinny for the beach and damn the consequences), you really want to make them the tool of last resort -- for any condition. Drugs aren't free, and they're not without side effects, and they often force you into other restrictions on your life (must take at x time, can't eat/drink this, must eat that, whatever). Perhaps worst of all, even though a drug is effective for you now, that doesn't tell you that it will continue to be so in the future.

As for lifestyle changes, I agree with others that it's supersupersuper important to get away from vague and meaningless phrases like "eating light" or 'exercising regularly", and starting to quantify what goes in and what goes out. This is a step that you must take and a skill that you must learn if you're to become and stay healthy. I have a brother who's recently lost quite a bit of weight on Nutrisystem, and while I am happy to see him at a much healthier weight, I know that he doesn't have the skills to do it on his own. Nutrisystem, for those who don't know, is a program that provides your food. They give a nod to exercise, but it's pretty much all about getting people to lose weight through calorie and portion control. Calorie and portion control is great, but not if someone else is doing all the counting and thinking for you, because as soon as you're not eating their food, you have to make decisions that you don't have skills for. So last week there we are, on a family vacation, and I got to observe that my brother still will eat whatever's in front of him, however much it is, that he'll graze on unhealthy snacks, that he doesn't have any realistic idea of how many calories he's burning through exercise, and that even when he's eating healthy food he's eating too much of it. It's a great example of how someone can have a very mistaken impression of how healthy their eating habits are and how vigorous their exercise is.

I learned that Fruits are the devil....they make you think they are all good for you and it is healthy to eat them but you can eat so much of them that you might as well be eating a Big Mac.....:)

The issue is that fruits supply a good hunk of the nutrients you need, as well, certain vitamins and other things, come with the calories. Where as the Big Mac may supply some of your protein needs, it's debatable how much of a burger patty is beef and how much is various fillers. The BM also provides a lot of fat, and a good dose of sugar (the special sauce, is probably a high sugar salad dressing), so it meets 5% if your nutritional needs and (with the fries and sugar laden soda pop), 60% of your calorie needs. A piece of fruit, on the other hand may meet 5% of your nutritional needs, and 5% of your calorie needs.

I understand all of you that have listened to my comment with horror....let me clarify my thinking....I personally am an over eater....I can make rice cakes a bad meal on short time...SO the weight loss industry makes people think (in general) that fruit is a good thing....replacing those 10 cokes you have a day with OJ or feel free to insert your favorite fruit juice is still not a good thing....

I do agree fruit is good but it is not a direct replacement for all of the intake if you are a over eater. (I personally feel many over weight people are)

So that is where I am coming from.....I mostly eat dried fruits now....I don't drink much fruit juice anymore....I am a fan of unfiltered apple juice though....so that is my weakness....
:)

A lot of the recent research has convinced me that diets don't work, pills don't work, surgery doesn't work, nothing works. Short of starving yourself (which is almost impossible to sustain), your body will naturally go to the weight it feels comfortable at, its set point. There are a number of hormones and neurotransmitters that makes this happen--things we have no control over.

I'm male, 5'11". I weighed 320 pounds at one time, about 7 years ago, and felt horrible and had life-threatening health problems like CAD and diabetes. I've gotten down to 180 a couple times, but my weight always crept back up to about 210 to 220. I now think that's my set point. I feel healthy at that weight, and I'm neither hungry or overstuffed. My cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure are all normal at this weight. It's not as thin as I'd like to be according to our culture, but it's a hell of a lot better than the 320 of 7 years ago!

I do have to work to keep it at 220, or I'll creep up again even higher. But at least I don't have to be hungry or deprived, and I don't feel weak and tired, as I did at 180. I feel strong and healthy! I LIKE THAT FEELING.

BTW, IMO the OP is doing very well, but might stronger and lose some weight with more exercise. I need 60 to 90 minutes a day (averaged over a week) and some of that must be truly challenging exercise. YMMV, of course.

Does your significant other also have trouble keeping his/her weight down? If so, its DEFINITELY your diet and activity level that needs a fix. Married people tend to eat alike and exercise alike -- they eat the same thing for dinner and breakfast every day-- if your girl is skinny and you pack on the pounds, then maybe you need to get your thyroid checked-- if both of you have some extra baggage, then both of you need to work together on it.

Reality check: go to a dietitian and have them explain the math and see exactly how small a recommended portion is. (have you ever eaten one serving of cereal? I haven't!) Its kinda yucky feeling to realize you have been eating for three your whole life, but it might help you get rid of your illusions.

and finally, being on your feet is not the same thing as having an active job-- a bike messenger is an active job-- being on your feet all day just means your joints ache without burning many more calories than sitting all day.

I gained 50 pounds one year when I was a waiter-- I justified all the **** I was eating by saying hey Im active I need food! But really, I was not burning off what I put in.

Fruit juice != fruit!
Fruits fill you much more than fruit juice ever can since you eat the fiber with the fruit and the solid part. A glass of fruit juice might have 4 - 5 apples in it for example and you can drink that down in almost one sip. But eating an apple or two might satisfy you for a while and provide the fiber and nutrients your body needs.

I understand all of you that have listened to my comment with horror....let me clarify my thinking....I personally am an over eater....I can make rice cakes a bad meal on short time...SO the weight loss industry makes people think (in general) that fruit is a good thing....replacing those 10 cokes you have a day with OJ or feel free to insert your favorite fruit juice is still not a good thing....

I do agree fruit is good but it is not a direct replacement for all of the intake if you are a over eater. (I personally feel many over weight people are)

So that is where I am coming from.....I mostly eat dried fruits now....I don't drink much fruit juice anymore....I am a fan of unfiltered apple juice though....so that is my weakness....
:)

I'll agree with you, swapping 10 cokes for 10 apple juices, is not a good thing, but at least you have defined the problem. Which means your on the road to recovery.

You have already taken the first step, defined the problem, so now you need to find out why, you should
first talk to your doctor, and get a full checkup, to rule out medical causes, if there is no medical cause, then your doctor can refer you to someone to see if there is a psycological cause. Don't be afraid of that word psychological, it's doesn't mean your nuts, it means that you may have a reason for over eating, and if that reason can be discovered, and treated, then you don't need to over eat anymore, and that will allow you to work out a proper diet and exercise program, to get your weight under your control.

I think your right about many overweight people, the cause may be relatively minor, but they over eat a little, get fat, get depressed, overeat more, get fatter, get more depressed, overeat still more, and begin a downward spiral.

-- deleted post -- Now no one has to cry about it.

For those of you who would like some good solid weight loss info, Jillian Michaels from Biggest loser show has a radio show here in LA on Sundays.. Follow the link below and you will see mp3's of her shows for the last 4 months.. If you right click you can download them..

http://www.kfi640.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=SUNDAY.xml

I understand the concern for my diet, but it is slightly aggravating. The original question just wondered if it was a good or bad idea. And to answer previous questions no my significant other doesn't have an issue with weight loss and/or maintaining. We both have healthy diets. Mind you I'm using the word healthy as healthy option/society wise. Not healthy like health nut type. My diet isn't what concerns me. I have lost weight on my current diet before. And an excessive amount of weight at that. Not Tom sized but a solid 60-80 lbs. I dropped from 280 lbs to 235 lbs in about 4 months and then from 235 to 210 in about 2 more months. The concern I have is that I have not seen a noticeable (number-wise) weight decrease. Now I have noticed more muscle tone in my calves and thighs. But I'm under the impression that muscle's weigh more than fat is not a valid excuse for incomplete weight loss. I ride with a heart monitor. Tonight I put in a 15 mile ride (before torrential downpours). Heartrate of about 167 avg. I stuck to the top range of my MHR. Not getting into the anaerobic zone though. My maintained speed was about 19.5 mph (Just wanted to say it, since my average is usually a little lower, see e-penis). So here's my theories (sans diet).

1.) My metabolism is whacked and I need to get that working right
2.) I'm not eating enough (frequency) and need to increase me food intake with several small meals instead of the 2 possibly three that I'm eating now.
3.) I need to eat like a rabbit (Lettuce, fruits, and sunflower seeds for me) lol

I'm thinking a combination of my second theory and maybe up the anty on the biking should take care of it. That's my final answer. We'll keep trying different things until it works. Will let you know how it goes.

P.S. I've never been an overeater. Just bad eating habits. Skip breakfast always (I eat breakfast maybe 5-6 times a year). Eat late then sleep. Whenever I've lost weight from the increased exercise I alway maintain it on the same diet as I had before the loss. It comes back on after years and always around real bouts of bad eating habits.

So really you just wanted an answer to the question, "Should I take diet pills?" And we wasted your time by giving you a lot of extraneous information. Oh well. Sorry....I guess.

The answer to your question is NO.

Enough said.

I learned that Fruits are the devil....they make you think they are all good for you and it is healthy to eat them but you can eat so much of them that you might as well be eating a Big Mac.....


In that case, fruit is not the devil, but the devil is in your overeating on them. You can eat too much of anything. That's not the food's fault.

I understand the concern for my diet, but it is slightly aggravating. The original question just wondered if it was a good or bad idea.

So you didn't want advice, but merely confirmation of your already made decision. Lovely.

A lot of the recent research has convinced me that diets don't work, pills don't work, surgery doesn't work, nothing works. Short of starving yourself (which is almost impossible to sustain), your body will naturally go to the weight it feels comfortable at, its set point. There are a number of hormones and neurotransmitters that makes this happen--things we have no control over.


Balderdash. "Set point" is fat acceptance BS. Your body wants to maintain the weight its currently at. Nothing more than that.


I'm male, 5'11". I weighed 320 pounds at one time, about 7 years ago, and felt horrible and had life-threatening health problems like CAD and diabetes. I've gotten down to 180 a couple times, but my weight always crept back up to about 210 to 220. I now think that's my set point. I feel healthy at that weight, and I'm neither hungry or overstuffed. My cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure are all normal at this weight. It's not as thin as I'd like to be according to our culture, but it's a hell of a lot better than the 320 of 7 years ago!

I do have to work to keep it at 220, or I'll creep up again even higher. But at least I don't have to be hungry or deprived, and I don't feel weak and tired, as I did at 180. I feel strong and healthy! I LIKE THAT FEELING.

BTW, IMO the OP is doing very well, but might stronger and lose some weight with more exercise. I need 60 to 90 minutes a day (averaged over a week) and some of that must be truly challenging exercise. YMMV, of course.

Your own life experience refutes the "set point" BS. If set points existed, you wouldn't have been able to drop from 320 to 180. As for not remaining at 180, that's your choice.

Incidentally, congratulations on the weight loss.

Balderdash. "Set point" is fat acceptance BS. Your body wants to maintain the weight its currently at. Nothing more than that.


I'm going to disagree with you there, but only slightly.

There are places where your bone structure/musculature set you up. If you have been overweight since childhood, your bone structure will be much larger than a skinny person. I cant find a watch that fits my wrist to save my life, and my wrist is literally skin and bone. There is a point you get to where your body is, in fact, in harmony.

When bone/muscle/fat percentages are where they need to be, thats where you should be. I have a buddy who (before i know him) was over 400 lbs. he got down to 180, and looked great. Hes 135 now, and he looks really wierd. Hes not in proportion. Wide shoulders and hips, skinny stomach, big neck, big knees, lower legs look to small.

This is the exact reasoning behind the BMI numbers being complete and total BS (aside from the fact that they were invented by a statistician, with no medical knowledge for the purpose of census data and were never meant to be a medical tool)

Now, when someone says that they are 400lbs, and thats where their body is happy, is full of ####. When most people say that, they are just trying to fool themselves. But there IS actually a point that your body wants to be, and the weight number you end up at might not be the ideal number.

I'm going to disagree with you there, but only slightly.

I don't even think there's a disagreement. I was refuting the NAAFA cr*p Roody was misguidedly serving up. I don't disagree with your point.


There are places where your bone structure/musculature set you up. If you have been overweight since childhood, your bone structure will be much larger than a skinny person. I cant find a watch that fits my wrist to save my life, and my wrist is literally skin and bone. There is a point you get to where your body is, in fact, in harmony.

When bone/muscle/fat percentages are where they need to be, thats where you should be. I have a buddy who (before i know him) was over 400 lbs. he got down to 180, and looked great. Hes 135 now, and he looks really wierd. Hes not in proportion. Wide shoulders and hips, skinny stomach, big neck, big knees, lower legs look to small.

This is the exact reasoning behind the BMI numbers being complete and total BS (aside from the fact that they were invented by a statistician, with no medical knowledge for the purpose of census data and were never meant to be a medical tool)

Now, when someone says that they are 400lbs, and thats where their body is happy, is full of ####. When most people say that, they are just trying to fool themselves. But there IS actually a point that your body wants to be, and the weight number you end up at might not be the ideal number.

Haha... NAAFA ...

I actually chuckled when I read that, I had forgotten all about that rediculous organization.

Logging everything you eat may be a good idea, but after a few months of doing that on Weight Watchers I wanted no more of it. I still find it difficult to do.

My wife is good at watching food labels. Because of her we eat more fiber and less fat, more fruit and less desserts, not to mention smaller portions. If I could suggest one thing it is that no one try to make many changes at one time. Make a small change and when that has been integrated as a habit make another. I think long term change will last if changes are made gradually.

Losing six pounds over four months does not sound too bad. Someone posted that losing weight by exercising alone will result in a loss of about 1 to 1.5 pounds per month. Even with fewer bad eating habits I am grateful for a steady loss at that rate. No matter what I try, that is about the rate I have been seeing for the last year. With Weight Watchers I lost about that amount per week, but the changes I made with WW were not permanent enough and I put most of the lost weight back on over the next four years.

Cycling at a heart beat of 167 sounds too high. Most things on weight loss and heart rate suggest weight loss works better at around 70 percent of maximum heart rate--longer and slower. Download and read Cycling and Health (http://www.bikeforums.net/www.selleroyal.com/news).

Weight loss is slow business. We get too impatient, especially when we read about someone else dropping lots of pounds in a few months while we seem to be stuck on the same number for a couple of weeks.

Mind you I'm using the word healthy as healthy option/society wise. Not healthy like health nut type. My diet isn't what concerns me.


Yes, you are totally right! Go tell a doctor you need weight loss medicine.

Yes, you are totally right! Go tell a doctor you need weight loss medicine.

Why bother with a doctor? He can get it online.

Haha... NAAFA ...

I actually chuckled when I read that, I had forgotten all about that rediculous organization.

Yes, NAAFA, also known as the death cult.

Everyone, by the respone in the last couple posts obviously I jaded your feelings a little. I'm sorry if it came across that way. For me I was frustrated because I was just wanting a response to the question in that scenario. I figured this would be a place to ask since there might be people that have used an option like that before. It didn't mean that I was going to go that route. I just wanted a little guidance. The overwhelming response about my diet wasn't the response I needed. I appreciate the response about my diet, but on the same token to each his own. There has been numerous people on this board who have lost weight. All the people did it in slightly different ways. Some just watched there diet (ie. types of food), some moderated their food intake, some had gastric bypass (with other lifestyle changes), some already had a fine diet and worked out, I'll guarantee somebody took weight loss pills. I was trying to direct my question at those who had. I come from a long line of people in the medical field. There is 2 doctors, 3 nurses, and a Drug Rep in my family. So I know the consequences of that route. I apologize for offending anyone or for seeming like I didn't care about your responses. Maybe we need to have a thread called "Weightloss: What Worked For Me..." stickied at the top of the forum. I can imagine it'd be a great resource with the experiences that you guys have all gone through.

We both have healthy diets. Mind you I'm using the word healthy as healthy option/society wise. Not healthy like health nut type.

I think you're humpty-dumptying here, but you have a couple hundred million potato-heads who will say you're right, so go for it. The truth, though, is that "society" doesn't know jack **** about healthy eating, so if you're using the conventional so-called wisdom as far as what constitutes a "healthy option" and what constitutes a "health nut", you've bought into a mindset that's been programmed by a marketing machine that makes a lot of money selling an unhealthy lifestyle. Healthy eating isn't a matter of popular opinion, it's a matter of biological fact -- ignore that at your peril.

As for your "health nut" label, let me remind you that your ancestors, and mine, have evolved through tens of thousands of years in which almost everybody did hard physical work all day (because they had to), and ate a modest quantity of lean and unrefined foods (because that's what they could get). If someone lived like that today, you'd no doubt sneer at them and label them as a "health nut", but those are the conditions for which our bodies are optimized. Those are the conditions that existed right up to my grandparents' time. Now in just two generations, we have a situation of caloric abundance combined with sedentary work and lifestyles. That's much, much too fast for our bodies to evolve to cope. We need to be eating and using our bodies more like our ancestors did -- once again, that's simple biological fact.

You can choose the drugs. I think that's stupid. Even the legitimate ones are trying to short-circuit biological processes that are incompletely understood at best. But it's a societal ill of ours, that we do stupid things and then hope for some technological genie to fix the problem. It never does. Solve the problem at the root; don't do the wrong thing and then go looking for technological whiz-bang to clean up the mess afterwards.

Just to be clear here: My position is to use the tools available. Pharmacological and surgical approaches do work, some better than others. Optimally, if you can lose it without Pharm or Surgical intervention, by lifestyle change, then that is biologically and behaviorally the best way.

If you do need intervention techniques, then by all means, use them, but be fully informed as to risks and complications. As you know, I did use the surgical intervention route, because I was for all intents and purposes, circling the drain. Surgical, though, in the long run is not a magic bullet, because you have to do the same life change as you would without it. All you are really doing is bypassing a large portion of your nutrient receptors. I went the route I did, risks and all, because I HAD to to stay alive.

EDIT: Pharmacological has these issues as well, in that you do need to make behavioral changes that you would have to make anyway. Just my take.

Everyone, by the respone in the last couple posts obviously I jaded your feelings a little. I'm sorry if it came across that way. For me I was frustrated because I was just wanting a response to the question in that scenario. I figured this would be a place to ask since there might be people that have used an option like that before. It didn't mean that I was going to go that route. I just wanted a little guidance. The overwhelming response about my diet wasn't the response I needed. I appreciate the response about my diet, but on the same token to each his own. There has been numerous people on this board who have lost weight. All the people did it in slightly different ways. Some just watched there diet (ie. types of food), some moderated their food intake, some had gastric bypass (with other lifestyle changes), some already had a fine diet and worked out, I'll guarantee somebody took weight loss pills. I was trying to direct my question at those who had. I come from a long line of people in the medical field. There is 2 doctors, 3 nurses, and a Drug Rep in my family. So I know the consequences of that route. I apologize for offending anyone or for seeming like I didn't care about your responses. Maybe we need to have a thread called "Weightloss: What Worked For Me..." stickied at the top of the forum. I can imagine it'd be a great resource with the experiences that you guys have all gone through.

This subject is very controversial in general. I’ve known people that have lost weight and kept it off in several mechanical ways. This includes people that utilize an initial period of severe calorie or food-group restriction (diets), eating only when you are hungry and only what you want to eat (the “listen to your body, it knows what is good for you” approach), and the drug (remember phen-fen?) and surgery routes. They all work. Keeping it off forever is the problem.

To do that, you need to totally change how you deal with food on a physical, mental, and sometimes emotional level. We are talking about a life-long and drastic changes concerning something that you have to do every day for the rest of your life to stay alive. Nothing else will work. No pill, surgery, special diet, etc. We are not animals that you can put into a cage that only have access to the foods that some research scientist gives us. We have to make FREE choices every day. For many people with a significant weight problem, for whatever reason (genetics, stress, inability towards delayed gratification, etc.), making the right choices FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE can be damn difficult.

For me, it took a lot more than a “just do it” attitude, and planning to burn more calories than I consume. It took and takes constant awareness, and asking myself WHY I’m eating each bite before I allow myself to take it. My motivation is much like Tom’s, in that I had limited choices. It was change or watch myself die.

My 2-cents.

Fruit juice != fruit!
Fruits fill you much more than fruit juice ever can since you eat the fiber with the fruit and the solid part. A glass of fruit juice might have 4 - 5 apples in it for example and you can drink that down in almost one sip. But eating an apple or two might satisfy you for a while and provide the fiber and nutrients your body needs.+1
I couldn't' agree more.

Balderdash. "Set point" is fat acceptance BS. Your body wants to maintain the weight its currently at. Nothing more than that.



Your own life experience refutes the "set point" BS. If set points existed, you wouldn't have been able to drop from 320 to 180. As for not remaining at 180, that's your choice.

Incidentally, congratulations on the weight loss.

I believe a clarification of "set point" is in order here. The term is not "fat acceptance BS" as far as I can tell. It is used within the fitness industry to describe a period where your current metabolism resists further change. This may actually be the body's way of telling us that progress is too quick. Some people refer to these periods as plateaus. "Set point BS" would be when someone uses lack of progress in weight loss as a sign that they have reached an ideal weight. At which point, I agree, they are full of BS.

The difficulty is in determining what the cause of the lack of progress is. It may be a return to bad habits in eating, but it can also be caused by no increase in volume, intensity, or both in exercise. The fact of the matter is that we get into ruts very easily. Careful attention to the training journal is just as important as careful attention to the food journal. Simply getting out to ride may not do you as much good now as it did six months ago, especially if the intensities of the rides are the same. The body is an incredibly adaptable machine and needs to be pushed just a little bit on a regular basis.

So the take-home point here is that you have to stick with the good eating and hard training for the long haul. Things like weight loss pills (to get back to the main topic) are useful tools (yes, I have used them with success with no ill physical effects or mental trauma) when used at appropriate times. They can also become a crutch to those who are looking for the quick fix and are unwilling to develop the necessary life changes to see success in fat loss.