surgtech1956

Do you have a system for cutting calories to lose weight? For one thing, I always eat breakfast. Lunch and snacking is my problem. I work in a hospital(operating room), sometimes lunch is 5 hours or 8 hrs into my shift(10 hr day). Where during the day do you cut your calories? Whats a normal day of meals like for you?

doctor j

I eat oatmeal for breakfast, soup and bread for lunch, and usually a frozen diet meal and bread for supper. I have a banana between breakfast and lunch and another banana between lunch and supper. During the day, I drink about a quart of coffee and chicory. The bananas, an occasional orange, and the coffee get me through the work day.

I have a weakness for chocolate, salty snacks [I]etc.[I]. I really have to be careful.

jppe

You have a real challenge with such an irregular schedule but stay the course. First, find out how many calories per day you're taking in now. Next determine how many calories you need to get to a weight reduction you're targeting. This next part will seem trivial, but it is the most important. Write down everything you eat each day along with the calories. I think you'll be surprised how it adds up. Don't cheat on writing everything down. Even fruit has calories. Sodas and fruit juice has tons of calories.

You can find a calorie counter online or in a small handbook. After a while you'll have them memorized.

Snacking is acceptable-just use good snacks. Try keeping some nuts, carrots, bananas or orange slices available that maybe you can get in a few bites when you only have a few minutes. Hopefully that will curb some of the hunger edge and get you through to when you can have a nutritious lunch or dinner-witih acceptable quantities!!

If you can do this for 2-3 weeks, it will become 2nd nature.

John E

To lose weight, I had the best success when I restricted calories from fat. Avoid liquid calories, empty calories, and refined sugars and grains.

I am a hard-core "morning person," rising at 4:15 +/-10 minutes almost every day, without an alarm clock. Breakfast is my most important meal of the day, starting with a grapefruit and two other pieces of fresh seasonal fruit, lentil sprouts and tofu for protein, and a big bowl of steel-cut oats sweetened with toasted wheat germ. If I go out to lunch with some of the other guys at the office, I cut back on dinner. Perhaps because I was a chubby teenager, I have to keep myself very slightly hungry to keep my weight from creeping slowly upward.

Allegheny Jet

I've done the Ab's Diet with success due in part to the amount of nuts, peanut butter and mid meal snacks during the day. Prior to the diet I never ate breakfast, now days I look forward to eating soon after getting up in the AM. I was already doing many of the exercises the diet recommended doing as part of the muscle building.

nwmtnbkr

Do not skip meals--reduce your caloric intake and increase your caloric expenditure. Over a two-year period, I lost well over 100 pounds. I've kept it off for 5 years. I found that keeping a food/exercise diary is critical to help you make changes to bad life-long eating habits. The maximum caloric intake for me, without calculating calories expended by exercise, is 1400 per day. I created my food/exercise diary using an Excel spreadsheet with links to websites that provide calories for foods eaten as well as calories expended by various forms of exercise. The spreadsheet also has formulas that do all the math. I still use the spreadsheet if I find my weight changing. I'm religious about entering data on everything I consume, even water. It's very easy to under estimate how much you're eating. If you want a copy, I've posted it to box.net. https://www.box.net/shared/nfc6435sq2

One thing that I added to my diet and still use daily is flax seed. It was recommended to me by a doctor when I began my diet. It is high in Omega 3 oils, which are good for you. The Omega 3 oils in flax seed help you attain that full feeling. You need to break the husks with your teeth to get the benefit of the Omega 3 oils, so you want to pulse it lightly. A small coffee grinder works well. If you grind it in bulk, store it in the fridge because, like the oil, it can go rancid if left at room temperature. I leave it as seed until I use it. I lightly pulse 3 tablespoons and mix it with my quick oats for breakfast. I will also add 3 tablespoons to my salad for lunch. Remember to drink plenty of water, especially if you use flax seed. You should drink water anyway. It's extremely healthy for you.

Good luck.

RonH

Eat a filling breakfast (oatmeal, fruit, yogurt) and eat protein bars instead of snacking when you don't get to eat lunch until 6-8 hours later. The protein bars are filling without all the empty calories that snacks have. These are tasty and work well.
https://www.pureprotein.net/


Then when you do get a chance to eat you won't be ravenous. Eat sensibly when you have lunch. If you can take your lunch then you'll know what you're eating and how many calories are in the meal.

NOS88

My wife is much better at this than I am. She snacks frequently, and always has low calorie healthy snacks at her disposal. She takes rice cakes, dried fruits and nuts, fresh fruit, and fresh veggies to work with her on a regular basis. Additionally, she only drinks water during the day, no soda, juice or other drinks with calories.

capejohn

Read the labels and you see where your weight comes from. More than 15 grams of sugar and 120 grams of carbs daily and "here comes the belly fat" from insulin storage.

Try it for one week and see what happens. 15g sugar, 6 servings of carbs daily. One serving is 5-20 grams of carbs. 21 grams is two servings. No cheating.

HIPCHIP

My nutritionist taught me to keep a calorie diary/log. I noticed that when I log everything and can see exactly how many calories I'm eating, I push myself to stop when I hit a certain amount (which for me is around 1200 cal a day).

cyclinfool

It is easy to start with a routine, hit your goal and then fall back. It is also extremely hard to work a long stressful day and feel hungry or lathargic from not eating quite enough. My job requires solid concentration and I find it hard when I am hungry.

Take a look at the dash diet - there is a lot that can be found on the Web, it will teach you portion control and calorie counting. Also try to do most of your cutting back in the last meal of the day, that way you can save your intake for when you are at work and probably need it the most.

Pat

Well, as far as eating, I saw something not so long ago that said do not eat anything your great grandmother would not recognize.

I think they mean by that stufff like vegetables, fruit and so on.

With your schedule, I bet it is very tempting and convenient to head to the vending machines to get a quick energy boost. You are on your feet all day and you need some boost. The problem is that standing is wearing, fatiguing but it does not burn many calories. So try to skip over to snacks you can bring like apples, grapes, oranges and so on.

Try to avoid anything with loads of sugar (snickers bars for example) or piles of fats (almost any kind of potato chip). Virtually everything in the vending machine has one or the other if they don't have both.

If you eat in the cafeteria be careful about salads. Salads dressing often has piles of fat in it and as such is extremely dense in calories. Fats have 7 calories per gram vs 3.5 calories per gram for carbohydrate or protein. Also fat is not really bound up in water. If you eat some fruit, it is mostly water so you are getting something with electrolytes, water, fiber and a few calories. A better deal.

Something you might try is to learn how many grams of fat, carbo, and protein as well as calories there is in a serving in almost everything you eat. There are things that I do not eat anymore because I do not think they are worth the cost in calories. There are other calorie dense foods that I do eat every now and then because I am willing to pay for them. But we all have a certain calorie budget and if we go over it we pay in weight gain.

sauerwald

I have always been someone who needs a big breakfast, and if I don't start out with a filling breakfast, the rest of the day is going to be a disaster. I tend to eat cereal, often oatmeal, with ground flax seed mixed in. I will also have one or two pieces of fruit, depends on what is in season, orange juice, and a piece of toast, bagel or english muffin.

One of the biggest liabilities is that I work in an office where one of the admins keeps a big bowl filled with candies on her desk, and if I am feeling a bit hungry and walking by, I will snag a couple of those - to combat this, I have put a bowl on my desk which I keep stocked with fresh fruit. If I am feeling hungry, I will snack on the fruit. Today it contains some Mikan Tangerines, grapes and a bananna.

I also have cut way back on the amount of meat, especially fatty meat that I eat. I rarely eat meat at more than one meal per day, and the meats that I eat tend to be small servings of lower fat cuts.

I have tried cutting back on overall calories, but find that I have a very hard time doing that, my best strategy is to eat a big breakfast, small lunch, moderate dinner, snack on low fat things during the day, and regulate my weight by the amount of exercise that I do. If I alter my commute route to add a few extra miles, I find that it is far more effective than trying to eat less.

It has worked for me - 8 years ago I weighed 30lbs more than I do now, and I was recovering from a heart attack (I was 44). Today I feel much better, and my cardiologist is happier with me.

stapfam

I don't have a weight problem but could do with losing a couple at present. I find that home cooking is best for NOT gaining weight. I have to eat at Midday and if I go to a takeaway for a sandwich-Find them not too appetising and after a week of bought food- I will be at the top end of my weight. However- a Packed lunch with a sandwich- fruit- a bit of "Rabbit" food (I do not like salads) and a yoghourt or such and I am not hungry in the daytime and I do not gain weight.

But Exercise is best for "NO" weight gain. Cut exercise and I put on the couple of lbs. 50 miler at the weekend and it can be two slices of PIE and still no gain.

jdon

Get up, water, water, water

Breakfast for me is 2 cups of coffee ane of the following, 2 eggs with toast (no butter), oatmeal and banana, whole grain cereal with low fat yogurt or toast with peanut butter.

water, water, water

Lunch: Spinach salad with grilled chicken or salmon or 1/2 tin of tuna, 1 cup of coffee

water, water, water

Snack: banana with a few walnuts

water, water, water

Dinner: 1/2 plate of steamed veggies, 6 oz meat/seafood/poultry, 1/2 cup of some sort of starch.

water

Evening: glass of wine, scotch etc. One cookie

water

I should add that I supplement as needed to support endurance rides. Even with a big messy burger and a slice of pie once in a while.

Don in Austin

This series of books is pretty good. Some of the numbers will blow your mind! https://bookstore.everydayhealth.com/...FQshnAodByjFzw
Don in Austin

Daspydyr 

My wife and I use the Idiot Proof Diet. Google it. You choose the foods that you use during the 11 day cycle. It prepares a daily menu guide and a shopping list. There is also support for about any diet topic you can think of.

you also eat 4 times a day! Cool for us snackers.

Once you buy the food you can easily prepare it and pack it in a small ice chest of lunch chest. Easy, cheap and effective. Just look at me now!

palookabutt

I've had success with two methods: "the drip" and what someone on these boards referred to as "King-Prince-Pauper". Both have worked well for me.

The drip: eat every 2 hours for 5-6 meals. Divide your daily caloric intake accordingly. I usually add a lot of bulk fiber such as oatmeal, bran or beans to feel full, and water to chase the bulk fiber.

King-Prince-Pauper: breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a pauper. I usually divide it 50%-30%-20%. After such a big breakfast, I rarely feel hungry by lunch; then after lunch it's easy to keep going on just a snack before bed.

daredevil

I view it as not being rocket science. Know your calorie intake/burn daily and if calories need to be cut, try to find the easiest places. In the end, it's all a matter of self discipline. Some people have it, some don't. I tracked the calorie stuff on line for a period of time until it became second nature. As for when or what I eat, it varies and doesn't matter. I've been steady as a rock weight wise for years.

surgtech1956

Thanks everyone for the great tips/advice. Yesterday I didn't get lunch till 230 and today I had lunch at 1100. I brought fruit and yogurt. Yes, standing all did is fatiguing but doesn't burn many calories. I tend to want high fatty foods if I miss meals or eat lunch late. I'm going to try the flax seed.

trekmogul 

I was a 245lb overweight 55 year old man this September of 2009. One day i said i need to do something about it and by Dec 30th I have reduced my weight to 175lbs and maintaining to this day. this was done wiht no books, no reading anything, no quacky BS diets. It was done by controlling what i put in my trap. It does not take rocket science to shed weight, however what it does take is will power and dedication beyond understanding. I am doing less then 1500 calories a day and can account for every single thing that goes in my mouth.

I am currently in Hot and Humid Colombo, Sri Lanka. This is a small island nation off the southern tip of India. All i have eaten while here is fresh fruits and boiled vegetables and chicken and fish.. All i can say is if you set your mind to it, it can be done.

PS: Wish i had one of my bikes shipped with me as the rattle traps i been renting are junk from China..



Cheers, Jerry in Sri Lanka..

TromboneAl

I've been interested in this topic, and have done a lot of reading (despite being the same weight that I was in high school). The two most convincing books I've read are Good Calories, Bad Calories, and The Low Glycemic Load diet. I've come to the unpopular conclusion that carbohydrates are the culprit in our current obesity epidemic.

Willpower and calorie counting work great -- for about 5% of the population.

Here's a quote from the glycemic load book:

stapfam

There are a few long rides that I have done that have completely depleted me of energy and I needed FOOD. I am not one for Fast food- In fact I can't stand the taste of it but after 12 hours riding all I wanted was grease. Kentucky Fried Chicken and lots of it.

BluesDawg

I have gradually moved towards a healthier diet over the years, even when I'm riding a lot. But every year when I ride the Bicycle Ride Across Georgia, which is about 60 miles a day for a week, my friends and I get a craving a few nights for mass quantities of any food available. We seek out all-you-can-eat buffets and refill our plates multiple times with fried foods, carbs, gravy, whatever. We call it feeding at the trough. But we don't do it as often or as enthusiastically as we used to do.

ModeratedUser150120149

We need to keep in mind there is no magic in maintaining an appropriate weight. The forumla is simple: Body Weight = Calories Consumed - Calories Burned. If more calories are consumed than are burned then there will be weight gain. Or, if there are more burned than consumed there will be weight loss.

What is also simple is to understand there is a difference between Appropriate Weight and Fitness. A person can have an appropriate weight but may not be fit.

The key is not to succumb to the Diet Industry under whatever guise. Instead, there is no substitute for discipline to have an amount of food appropriate to the amount of exercise a person gets.

Remember the food industry is more concerned with short term profits than your long term health.