It must be getting towards "wear less clothing" season.

[digitaldiscipline]

At the bottom of any effort to lose weight, things are fundamentally even simpler than playing Rock, Paper, Scissors. However, that doesn't stop folks from tweaking and repackaging those two basic notions, whether it's merely to make a buck or for an honest desire to help people get healthier with a multitude of angles. Whether the author is catering to one demographic by offering New Age "natural foods and spiritual cleansing" or speaking to aspiring physique competitors with a "lean muscle and fat loss" program, at the bottom, all weight-loss regimens focus on the two basic fundamentals:

Eat less and exercise more.

[excerpted from my column at shrinkgeek.com]

Comments

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I'm not on WW, but from speaking with several folks who are (or have been), there are provisions in the program to accommodate and encourage exercise; it's the flexibility of that particular program that says, "We know you sit on your ass all day; if you do, you get to eat X amount of food. However, if you go for a walk or play tennis or do yardwork, you can eat X+Y." That basic structure, to me, makes a lot of sense.

The hardcore programs for fat loss and muscle development, at least the ones I'm liable to come into contact with (like the Velocity Diet) are of the "WE ARE NOT FUCKING AROUND. IF YOU WANT RESULTS, DO EVERY FUCKING THING WE TELL YOU TO FOR ____ WEEKS, PERIOD. THIS INCLUDES EVERYTHING YOU EAT, AND EVERY WORKOUT YOU ENGAGE IN. YOU'RE IN THE ARMY NOW, SHITBAG."

Some folks need that, but whether or not they're disciplined enough to adhere to the program isn't something the authors have any control over.

ANY health program only works as well as the person doing it sticks with it.

[critus.livejournal.com]

Long time WW member here - Exercise is a huge part of the program and emphasized pretty heavily from your third week in.

[vatine]

There's a super-quick way of losing at least a couple of kilos. Lop a leg or an arm off. Involves neither eating less, nor exercising more. It is rather irreversible, though. :)

More to the point, I tend to point out that what people want to do isn't (in general) losing weight, they want to lessen their fat content. At least I've found that when I do that, my over-all mass stays roughly the same, only replacing the fat mass by muscle mass (last observed when I started fencing, dropped some 3 inches around my waist rapidly, but didn't lose even 1 kg of body-mass). But, as you (I think it was) have commented on earlier, it seems my musculature isn't QUITE ISO-standard.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

You forgot the secondary drop in weight from blood loss. ;-)

[vatine]

Oh, I was mentally considering the lopping-off to include industrial-strength cauterizing. You mean you use anything but a thin stream of molten granite to lop bodyparts off?

[etcet.livejournal.com]

generally, i consider amputation to be done right when it involves an edged weapon, motor vehicle, or chainsaw.

bonus points for combinations, of course.

[vatine]

Can we work in molten granite, too?

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Every single diet regimen I've ever even looked at involves me eating more. So much so, in fact, that I can't keep up.

I probably average 1000 calories a day, most days. Apparently, I would have to actually get up to maybe double that, get my body accustomed to it, THEN start eating less and moving more. I manage, sometimes, for a few days, but I can't keep it up and next thing I know, I'm back to eating a grand total of 3 granola bars, a cup of coffee with half and half, and a veggie burger. I rarely feel hungry. (I also rarely feel full.)

Of course, then there's the fact that going to the gym made me so depressed, I used to cry for the entire bike ride home. 5 months of 1+ hour mixed workouts at least 4 times a week plus riding my bike daily, and I lost nothing -- not a pound, not an inch -- except my will to live. I don't know if I'm over that or not, but I'm (understandably?) scared to go back to a gym in case it sends me back into that tailspin again.

I really would need some kind of bootcamp to get myself on a healthy track.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Hm. My initial thought is, while not quite to the "double your calorie intake" level, that your body is so accustomed to getting so few calories on a long-term basis that it works like hell to hold onto every one it gets, which is why the "increase what you eat" thing would be part of a weight-loss plan. also, and this is more or less assumed given what your average noshings consist of, spacing your meals throughout the day, and eating many small ones, is one of the "tricks" to weight loss - a) your blood sugar won't spike, causing your body to try and store the excess as fat, and b) digestion is calorically demanding, so doing it more often burns more calories.

tentatively? i'd recommend trying to add some protein to your daily stuff - whether it's via beans or meat or some other source - throughout the day.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, no doubt: I'm in starvation or famine mode.

And, like I said, I will work for a while to get myself out of it, but work picks up or I get lazy and I'm right back to eating not enough. And, of course, most easy to eat, easy to store packets of food are pure carbs, unless I give up my pesco-vegetarianism. I feel like I'm stuck between several rocks and hard places.

I've been trying to speed up my metabolism by actually eating something every morning, that something involving a LOT of cayenne, but I don't think it's working. Paul makes me eat, but that usually involves some high-fat crap like mac and cheese, pizza, or fish and chips.

Also, I don't notice my blood sugar spiking or dropping. Paul notices his quite clearly, but I can't tell at all.

I'm really ready for my food to come in pill format so I don't have to think about it. I love good-tasting food, but clearly, I have a terrible relationship with the stuff.

I guess this is just my knee-jerk reaction against the eat less/exercise more mantra, because obviously, I can't eat less. I need to eat more, eat better, and exercise more, clearly.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to speed up my metabolism by actually eating something every morning, that something involving a LOT of cayenne, but I don't think it's working.
Greenbush.net actually sells capsules of pure cayenne powder (I have some, actually, for exactly this reason).

Green tea has been shown to elevate one's resting metabolism slightly, so, in conjunction with getting plenty of water, if this is an option...?

Blood sugar levels, unless they go way one way or the other, are fairly subtle things to surf unless you're keenly attuned to how your body reacts to it (something diabetic folks learn of necessity, for instance); mostly, moderation via slow-release complex carbohydrates is better for you (and your weight) than the sugar rush of simple sugars.

as far as the "eat a pill and survive" thing goes, strict adherence to the Velocity Diet is actually fairly close - five protein shakes a day (and a protein/carb shake post-workout), a small handful of pills (multivitamin, fish oil), and that's about it. i honestly don't feel hungry throughout the day (i do the breakfast/lunch/afternoon/workout shakes, and then go off-program and eat relatively healthy "real food" in the evening). admittedly, this isn't for everyone, and along with it is a prescribed exercise regimen (which i also deviate from, but in the direction of "doing more" rather than "skipping"). it's not for everyone, and it has a relatively non-cheap up-front outlay to get the month's worth of shakes and capsules, but it does do what it says it will (assuming relatively strict compliance) in terms of muscle development and weight loss.

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I've been taking ~1000 mg green tea per day for a while, too. I don't like to drink the stuff. But I LOVE to drink that cayenne lemonade from the "master cleanse" -- or a version of it which is so hot, most people gag when they smell it. I chug a glass of that down every morning.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

oh. man. i love cayenne lemonade. i was making dragon-breath tea when i had a cold the other day - cayenne, lime, garlic, some other spicy stuff....