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

Some of you may remember I went on a big weight loss programme about 7 years ago. Over the course of 6 months, I lost about 10kg and got down to a much healthier size. Unfortunately, I'm not been so careful since, and have put it all back on again. Three weeks ago I weighed myself and I was heavier than ever, at 89kg.

So I've paid for a year's membership in the gym, and have got a programme of exercises. I can manage getting to the gym twice a week, and have done my exercises twice so far.

It's early days yet, but I've already lost 1.3kg. Another 13.7 to go to reach my target weight of 75kg.

Of course I'll also have to be a bit more careful with what I eat. I might restrict wine drinking to only three days a week.

I could have written that very very post! I have lost weight, and then put it on, but I got to 93kg, (and I'm a lot shorter than you).

So far I've started training for a 5k race, and become vegan, that sounds fairly extreme, but it's been just fine.

I've lost a stone (14lbs/7kg) since I began my diet and fitness regime in Feb. Well done you and me

Well done all of you! I blame my mother for providing me with irresistible food. And myself for being lazy.

You certainly don't need to lose weight, Lanza, so why worry?

(Good luck, Gnomon!)

I recently reached a mass that I found intolerable. I'm not going on a specific diet or exercise regimen however. Instead I'm just making a conscious effort to make healthier choices when I eat and controlling my portions. More importantly, I'm trying to mitigate the sedentary nature of my job. When weather permits and the logistics of my job does also, I take a 20-30 minute walk around the campus ponds once a day. More importantly though, every two hours or every trip to the restroom, whichever comes first, I make a "lap" around my building. It's a 7 minute trip up and down hallways and a flight of stairs 4 times.

It still boils down to the basics of "Eat Less and Exercise More".

http://home.comcast.net/~k.e.miller/Eating%20less%20and%20exercise.html

Add me to the list of perpetual dieters. BG, I am doing pretty much what you are right now, trying to make better food choices, trying to eat sensible portions, trying to move more. My addition to this is an intermittent fasting plan. This isn't actually to lose weight, but to control arthritis inflammation. But, on those days when I do eat "normally", if I overeat, I won't lose weight, even with the IF. If I behave myself, I lose.

Good luck and congratulations one and all.

Has anyone read a book by Gillian Riley called 'Eating Less'. I think it's utterly fantastic..

Yes. I have a copy of it and recently ordered one for the library. It has helped me with my overeating.

I've recently been to her seminar, and she also does telephone coaching, both of which I've found to be excellent..

Congratulations to all weight-losers. It is not easy. Although I'm one of those types that can reduce consumption and lose weight as required. Recently I've lost 1.5 stone in 6 weeks, but it was unintentional.

However I do recall there was a good book by Magnus Pyke, the Minister of Food during WWII who advocated just slightly reducing intake, chewing once for each tooth in your head, taking your time eating and remembering your brain takes 20 minutes to register that your stomach is full.

Best of to you all.

MMF

MMF.

Z, Ben turned me on to Gillian Riley. She doesn't seem to be very well known on this side of the pond.

I'll stop by Half Priced Books after work and see if I can find her book there. (It's on my way to the bar. )

Sadly I doubt you'll be able to, she isn't very well known here either. But she is available at a well known online bookstore http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Less-ebook/dp/B005H0CALU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335453418&sr=8-1

Dang I miss Half Priced Books. I spent many a happy afternoon in the one on Broadway in San Antonio.

The thing about Gillian Riley is that she was a bing eater and was overweight as a result. She learned to control her eating, lost weight and has kept it off for many years. This gives her credibility, at least with me.

I don't belong here as I've never had a weight problem (yet).

But I heard someone on the radio saying that it is important to lose weight slowly.

Stay with it!

well done to all the weight losers. I've got a bit tubby around the middle so I need to get my sorry backside to the gym.

Despite having cut back to pastry and coffee in the morning and a balanced meal in the evening, I've put on 11 pounds (5 kilos) since my prior annual physical and am now at 223 pounds (100 kilos+), 25 pounds (11 kilos+) over what is considered the healthy maximum for my height.

Time was I could put away twice as much food as anyone else could eat in half the time and burn it off nearly as quickly.

Natural aging, one of the points I wish more were being done with, during one's forties, bile production increases, important to weight gain or loss, since fats are not absorbed across the intestinal lining unless they've first been emulsified with bile.

While I suppose the middle aged increase may have had considerable survival value for humanitie's cave man through medieval ancestors, definitely not pro-survival in today's economy of surpluses.

One would think that there would be a non-absorbable medication exploiting the principle, neutralizing the bile so as to block uptake of fats.

There isn't, so far as I know.

The Doctors tell me my blood sugar has gone so high I'm just a hair below the limit where they'd have to diagnose diabetes and counseled moderation on the point.

In my youth, it was difficult for me to put weight on.

It takes some getting used to having the reverse obtain.

What shocked me most in the first post was that it was 7 years ago! I did wonder at the time, Gnomon, if you were going to tell us what system you were using, but I can't remember if you did.

My problem is that I had my gall bladder out ten years ago and I've never really been sure what I can and can't eat, although really I should just stop eating fats and I should lose weight, shouldn't I, and it would be easier for the rest of my digestive system to cope. I was talking about this with Z and Bel when we met in Frankfurt last year, and we decided that I should concentrate more on proteins and less on fats. So now I just have to put it into practice.

As you've mentioned weight in relation to height, I'd just like to add here the BMI is balderdash.

http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/02/08/the-skinny-on-the-body-mass-index-bmi/

I've known this for over twenty years, yet I'm constantly amazed by how accepted and institutionalized it is.

When I was 21, I was as fit as I could ever hope to be. I was an active youth in college; bike riding, hiking back and forth to class over the hills in the Texas piney woods, generally running around playing silly games like capture the flag, &c. I also had a limited diet due to the poor quality of the school's food service contract. In my kinesiology (fancy word for P.E.) class, we did proper tests for percentage body fat. Mine was at 7%. I was 5'10" and 178 lbs. According to this, my BMI was 25.5, overweight. The problem is I do not have a standard body type that the BMI was designed upon in the 19th century (by a quack). I may be 5'10" but it's nearly all torso. I have a mere 30 inch inseam. To say that I was overweight at 7% body fat is ridiculous. Seriously, for what basis does the BMI use the Square of one's height?