In which I make a predictable post about losing weight

[chess]

I am fat. Now, nobody is to say 'you're not fat' or 'I'm fatter than you', because although it is true that I am not clinically obese and many people are fatter than me, I am carrying rather more than a few pounds over. I am, in fact, ten stone, which is a good half stone more than I should ever be, and it shows. I don't fit any of my jeans. I need to lose weight.

Apparently I shall lose all my excess pounds if I go for an hour's walk every day. I plan to try this, although I have no idea how it will work in term time (I'm presuming for then this means an hour more than the hour I do anyway going in and out of town, and term tends to be short on spare hours). I was vaguely planning to do an hour's swimming a week, as an 'on top of the walking I do anyway' thing, but the plans were quite vague as I'm not particularly conveniently situated for any swimming pools, driving to them seems to be missing the point a little, and I have to find the Motor Proctor on a full moon Tuesday with a following wind (half an hour from 2-2:30 one day a week, or 6-6:30 a couple of others which gives me that little missing-Hall problem) before I have permission to car around Cam anyhow. And I am confidently informed that I don't swim fast enough to lose any weight by it, even though this is because I Have No Muscles and hence am actually putting in a fair amount of effort to not move very far.

Does anyone have any Top Tips For Losing Weight? I haven't consciously decided I need to lose weight before; it's just sort of happened when it needed to. But I have been A Big Lazy Blob over the summer, having gone into it needing to shed a few pounds, and now it's getting kind of serious.

Comments

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

You said you didn't want answers about you not being fat, so I won't say that. But I do have experience of feeling too fat and resolving to Do Something about it. So this is what I'd say:

First and foremost. Any change in what you eat is not a 'diet' - it must be permanent or you will never keep any weight off, ever. Same with increased exercise - it is not a penance, it is not a temporary thing until you lose enough weight, it is a permanent change in your lifestyle. Personally, I find increased exercise far easier to stick to than changes in diet; your mileage may vary.

Diet wise - well. The other posts had good, sensible advice - the main thing is to remember that it's a permanent change not a temporary one, and so you shouldn't pick something you won't be happy living with forever.

Exercise wise - twenty minutes' aerobic exercise a day is what we should all be doing. It will be bloody hard work at first, but it gets easier remarkably quickly. By 'aerobic' I mean that you exercise just hard enough that it's difficult to think about anything but exercise while you're doing it, and you get out of breath - but not so hard that you couldn't keep it up for the entire time. It's hard to judge at first, but becomes easier; it doesn't matter at all how much work you're actually doing! All you are doing is working at between 60 and 80 per cent of your maximum effort for 20 minutes. Suitable exercise - jog around College at a slow pace. If this takes you less than 20 minutes, jog round again. Carry a large bottle of water. Stop as often as you need to, but start again before your heart rate returns to normal. Do not drink too much water or you will get a stitch, but do drink some or you will fall over.

Swimming wise - it's not speed of swimming that makes you lose weight. It's the increase in heart rate that results from the exercise. So as long as you swim hard, it doesn't matter how fast you're going.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm 11 1/2 stone *and* shorter than Chess...

You can diet to loose weight fast and then eat sensibly to maintain weight... if current eating is not putting on weight it's fine. Problem being gaining weight.

Now I like the diet Angel was on and plan to try it, vegan-ness probably interesting. As Chess is an inverterate carnivore - try the Attkins diet, I think it sucks and is icky (I wouldn't want to eat all that meat) but it might work for weight loss whilst getting to eat the meat.

Oh and walk rather than spodding aimlessly.

[requiem-17-23.livejournal.com]

Well, if we're going to talk weight - my BMI says that I'm clinically obese. Heh.

And I'd recommend /against/ the Atkins diet, cause it's unsustainable. Fooling your body into burning fat is all very well, but it then catches on and you are back where you started, but with bad breath and high colesterol.

[simonb.livejournal.com]

Its now seen that the Atkins diet works thanks to protein being an appertite suppressent rather than any wonderful fat-burning effects from not eating much carbohydrates. When they've compared the calories eaten by people on the Atkins diet with those eaten by people on a traditional calorie controlled diet they've found that they are eating about the same number of calories. Its thanks to this that people on the Atkins diet loose weight. However as you say, its unsustainable and leads to a much higher load on bodily functions.