h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm actually more or less the right wieght for my height, and I'm doing a (very little) bit of sports to get rid of a few pounds that I don't like, but summer is coming, I want to wear tight jeans and tops once in a while, and my mother has already started making jokes about it
does anyone have a practical idea?

Buy a hulu hoop,don't snigger ,it really works granted you can look a bit silly when you are doing the washing up.
They say belly dancing classes work too but I haven't tried that

hulla-hoops - good idea,thanks!

belly dancing i'm looking for stuff that i can do at home, and with little equipment. for example I'm already doing 2x2x25 sit-ups everyday, light ones, just enough to feel my stomach

but the hoops, i'm gonna look if i can find some

From what I know, it isn't possible to target certain areas of fat. So sit ups won't help on the love handles any more than for example running will. It is the fact you excercise at all that matters, causing you to burn calories. So the excercise you do doesn't have to involve the stomach.

Try the toy department for your hula hoop they are half the price of the ones you get in the sports shopsPick a glittery one like mine

I live in iran - the foreign made toy hoops will be probably 10 times as expensive as the domestic made ones i have to see what the shops around my home have to offer.

sit-ups... so THAT's why my waistline isn't getting slimmer! but it does excercise the stomach muscles?

The stomach muscles will change yes. But the layer of fat in front of them will not change, anymore than it would with running or other physical activity.

Hula hoops are more fun than sit ups and all that hooping has to do some goodWorks for me but I probably love the glittery hoop too much
Any way I really wanted a space hopper(had one as a child and loved it)but my boyfriend said absolutely not

i don't know what a spacehopper is, but if you want it, get it. Maybe you could get your boyfriend something he wants and has been denying himself so he will shut up about it, but basically, even as a husband he should not do this

Same answer as every other "how do I lose weight/get thin?" question.

Eat less.
Drink less alcohol.
Exercise more.

That's it.

However much you're eating, eat less. However much alcohol you're drinking, drink less - stop altogether ideally. However much you're exercising, do twice as much. Change won't happen fast, but it WILL happen - simple thermodynamics.

H.

You never had a space hopper They are like a big rubber balloon with handles (that were shaped like ears)that you sat on and bounced around as a child you had space hopper races in which I was successful
Sadly I haven't seen an adult version and for some reason my boyfriend doesn't relish the thought of me bouncing around dementedly on a spacehopper(he is still trying to come to terms with the hula hoop

I think my american cousin had one! but they moved out of the country when the revolution started

I don't drink alcohol, or even alcohol-free beer. Simply don't like the taste. I do like fried stuff though, and even if it's not fried, I add butter or cream for the taste (and we don't have the low-fat, low-calorie stuff here either) It seems that the steam-cooker I have been putting off buying just moved up in the shopping list

my main problem is that I have osteoporosis and a weak imune systeme (seem to be related) plus heart-stutter so I have to be very very careful about my excercises, or i get sick and goodbye to exrcising for at least one month I'm not giving up though

Better forget the space hopper thenif you have osteoporosis
The hula hoop would be fine though
My cousin is a nurse and says you are genetically programmed to store fat in parts of your body,and eating habits are often not to blame.So butter is fineSo just blame your Mum for your love handles next time she mentions them

She will blame me right back! She was quite slim herself, and stayed so through 2 pregnancies, but lost her figure over me (here we say that a daughter takes the mothers beauty away...) although she looks quite nice...

I used to be about 50 Kg with 1.78 m, and gained weight on purpose to raise my immune system - 20 Kg controlled weight gain over 2 years, without drugs or hormones. My current problem are the 5Kg I gained on a trip to thailand last winter hotel food I managed to loose 2 Kg, but the rest seems to be glued on

1.78 and 70 kgs doesn't sound bad.

You body won't store fat if you don't give it fat to begin with. I think the fat storing also depends on your origin. Apparently mexicans tend to do that alot.

German on mom's side, Iranian on dad's side. my father's family are thin to the point of being sceletal, as i used to be. Mom says *she* gets it from her maternal grandmother's side, he tended to be "stocky".

I'm not very unhappy with how i look, but it was a bit of a shock when I couldn't wear my "evening" black skirt in the hotel, and on the other hand the doctor said more weight than this will cause problems with my knees

But Mom and me will go shopping on sunday - she needs new frying pans, and i'm going to look for the steam-cooker

Knee problems with that weight? Sounds strange to me.

Buy a new skirt and don't worry about the love handles

I don't know how to explain this in english, or without actually showing it but: when I straighten my legs, my knees bend a bit in, instead of stopping at a natural angle (and I have X legs too). its got something to do with the muscles in the back of the leg being too long or too weak to hold the angle. which, according to my doctor, means that my knees always have had the "talent" to develop problems.

And shortly after we moved here, I hurt my left knee. its complicated, but the soft tissue *inside* the joint somehow got hurt. I could not bend my knee for at least two weaks, but there was no outside swelling or bruising, so i didn't go to a doctor and kept running around doing stuff for the new house. it kept getting worse and worse until i finally visited a specialist, and by that time the damage was done and irreversible (plus that my first physiotherapist was an idiot and actually aggravated it...)

So, I'm banned from bycicling, walking on sharp slopes, using too many stairs, running... the best therapy is walking in water and that is of course when my chronic sinus infection acts up

I've adjusted, it's not as bad as it sounds (except when some idiots tell me to stop pretending - I asked my mom if I have to show a death certificate to make people understand that I'm sick), but it still pisses me off: if I had done sports as a child, most of these problems would have been prevented or at least diagnosed earlier. But I wasn't allowed to do sports, because I was too weak and fragile... its a vicious circle

70ish kg with 1.78m sounds pretty much healthy and normal.

I'm quite interested in how you managed to put on 20kg in 2 years though. Tips for us who're fed up with being skinny?