Anyone want to do a weight loss challenge?

[Mark Karacsonyi]

I am in the middle of a weight challenge right now. Am at the age of 57. So far I have gone from 33% body fat, to 26. My goal is 22%. I eat more steamed veg, keep portions low, and fish and chicken. I must say being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, does put another perspective in life. As my personal trainer says, it’s 90% diet. 10% exercise. Starting to love the kettle bells and TRX trainer. Take it slow, take it easy and record your workout progress along with your weight and body fat % readings, it’s good to reflect back on later. Swap beer for red wine too

 

[Just4Fun]

I am confused by the terminology.
What is the difference between "do a weight loss challenge" and "lose weight"?

 

[Dibs-h]

Marmite. Love it cheese and marmite on toast

If like me you hate Marmite - you'll definitely lose weight if you have that on toast.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

What about the B12?, my doctor said it only comes from meat and recommended I eat meat once every 7 - 14 days

Marmite, eggs, and dairy. Harder, but certainly not impossible, for vegans. Quite a few cereals have B12 added.

I'm not veggie BTW, but I was for about a decade.

 

[niemeyjt]

I am broadly following a high proteins - low carbs diet as described by johnny above. I had started in that direction before getting hit by Covid having been recommended to watch "That Sugar Film" (have a hunt around and you will find it on the Internet). It runs contrary to the advice of many - and hence why I said get a proper blood test done before you start just to make sure it won't have a detrimental effect on a pre-existing condition (a friend put his cholesterol through the roof by following the Atkins diet).

It turned out that I am pre-diabetic like others on here - hence why I said to do daily blood sugar tests - home test kits are readily available. I am determined to avoid Metformin with dietary control - and a high protein diet is a way to do this.

But as I said in my earlier post - measure your food and use a smaller plate - eat less to lose weight if that is your sole objective.

Exercise - maybe it won't help lose a lot of weight - but it will improve your heart and overall health - my blood pressure has dropped from 150/120 to 110/80 - and you can get home test machines for this as well. Yes - I have an added issue that I am trying to rebuild muscles destroyed by Covid - and exercise does seem to help that (as does walking up and downstairs) - so I walk for this even if it does not lead to weight loss.

And I do take extra vitamins and minerals - partly to counter the steroids and partly to speed repair of nerves - B1, B2, B6, B12, C, D3 plus selenium, magnesium, calcium and zinc. This was advised by a pharmacist friend - and no, she was not selling them to me - it was her free advice. Whether a "normal" person needs them is up for debate as Sporky says - but I think I will always now take a multi-vitamin pill when everything else is sorted.

Actually my weight is now stable, even after a "bad" Christmas - and my BMI is around 27 - so I could afford to lose a bit more - but that is now very much a secondary concern for me.

So to summarise, my two top recommendations would be 1) weighing portions and controlling food intake and 2) measure your weight, blood sugars and blood pressure and maintain a daily log to track what food affects you in what ways and identify trends and provide incentives as well as an early warning of any adverse reactions.

I like Marmite.

 

[D_W]

@D_W How's your consumption of fizzy drinks David?

Zero. I eat my calories. So, the only thing I really need to do is change the food composition, and that's all I'm doing. More bulk, less carb dense (especially carb dense dry) food.

Not temporary - the diet part is fun to see numbers, but i'm getting older and I want to change things so as not to have problems later. I'm carrying about 50 extra pounds, which doesn't cause any problems right now, but I think it will cause problems later.

I don't have great genetics in terms of appetite (I eat too much), but am lucky with a lot of other things (no sugar issues, no blood pressure issues, etc - no metabolic or blood panel issues at all). I think for a lot of folks, making a change after problems start is an improvement, but it'd be better not to have to recover from them and one thing that sticks in my mind is that the later you go in life, the more cutting out lipids causes cognitive issues (losing weight late in life and cutting fat out of a diet is highly correlated with dementia).

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

And I do take extra vitamins and minerals - partly to counter the steroids and partly to speed repair of nerves - B1, B2, B6, B12, C, D3 plus selenium, magnesium, calcium and zinc. This was advised by a pharmacist friend - and no, she was not selling them to me - it was her free advice. Whether a "normal" person needs them is up for debate as Sporky says - but I think I will always now take a multi-vitamin pill when everything else is sorted.

I reckon mostly most people don't need supplements, but they're not ruinously expensive and I doubt they do harm.

I have potassium (for leg/foot cramps at night) and chromium (seems to reduce my otherwise Godzilla level hangriness).

 

[Cabinetman]

Zero. I eat my calories. So, the only thing I really need to do is change the food composition, and that's all I'm doing. More bulk, less carb dense (especially carb dense dry) food.

Glad to hear it! Next time you’re in the supermarket and you see somebody with about half a trolley full of the stuff you can guarantee they are a chubkins.

 

[D_W]

I reckon mostly most people don't need supplements, but they're not ruinously expensive and I doubt they do harm.

I have potassium (for leg/foot cramps at night) and chromium (seems to reduce my otherwise Godzilla level hangriness).

if supplements aren't addressing something, they're generally associated with higher mortality (as in, people who take supplements regularly for no reason have slightly lower life expectancy.

I doubt it's the supplements so much causing the problems, but rather eating whatever they're delivered with (impure bits with the supplement and fillers that come with them).

I do take vit D, though, as I don't get out much. That's it for me. I'd love to have a great story about how it pepped me up, but I can't tell any difference since starting to take it about a year ago.

 

[Cabinetman]

I reckon mostly most people don't need supplements, but they're not ruinously expensive and I doubt they do harm.

I have potassium (for leg/foot cramps at night) and chromium (seems to reduce my otherwise Godzilla level hangriness).

Magnesium is very good for leg and foot cramps as well, the sort that’s easy for the body to use is a relatively new one from the MIT clever people in the states. MagnesiumLthreonate Ian

 

[D_W]

Glad to hear it! Next time you’re in the supermarket and you see somebody with about half a trolley full of the stuff you can guarantee they are a chubkins.

You're headed over here soon, right? I think there's more "people of bigness", but also more people into fitness - so it's like a big divide between the two. I remember when I was a kid, people around age 45 pretty much packed it in and got baggy jeans and let their upper bodies rot. Not necessarily that they got fat, they just started acting like old people.

 

[Cabinetman]

if supplements aren't addressing something, they're generally associated with higher mortality (as in, people who take supplements regularly for no reason have slightly lower life expectancy.

I doubt it's the supplements so much causing the problems, but rather eating whatever they're delivered with (impure bits with the supplement and fillers that come with them).

I do take vit D, though, as I don't get out much. That's it for me. I'd love to have a great story about how it pepped me up, but I can't tell any difference since starting to take it about a year ago.

Maybe not, but there is a recent study from Germany that pretty conclusively shows low vitamin D with a very bad outcome from Covid.

 

[D_W]

Actually, I should mention above with waiting until late in life to lose weight - no change in life expectancy. There was a multi-thousand person study of *outcomes* in a community called "leisure world" over decades here.

I used to go bonkers over the fact that everyone was getting statins here because the research for statins was based on supposition (as in, not on a controlled study, and where there was one, the only mention was "reduction in minor events" on groups of about 45 people).

Then, your island did a solid - one of the death charting groups actually compiled mortality with and without statins, and more or less, if you're not 65-70 or older or have already had a serious event at a younger age, statins do not increase life expectancy. For older folks, they increase life expectancy somewhat.

Point I'm slowly making is a small population study of outcomes is far better than small study stuff funded by someone selling things. And the study was compiled by p-docs, not college freshmen.

If a reasonable sample size doesn't find something in actual outcomes, the odds are not in your favor to worry about it.

 

[Jameshow]

You're headed over here soon, right? I think there's more "people of bigness", but also more people into fitness - so it's like a big divide between the two. I remember when I was a kid, people around age 45 pretty much packed it in and got baggy jeans and let their upper bodies rot. Not necessarily that they got fat, they just started acting like old people.

When I was there 2 years ago we got the impression that Americans were bigger overall whilst UK were more likely to be either slim or very over weight....?

But perhaps we like in an area of depravation and have jobs which means we meet people who are obese.

 

[D_W]

Maybe not, but there is a recent study from Germany that pretty conclusively shows low vitamin D with a very bad outcome from Covid.

Many of those studies do - what they don't do is necessarily tell you whether or not you can use supplemental vit D to change your outcome.

Immune function is the reason that I take it, though - across the board. Mine wasn't low on my blood panel, but I have had asthma all my life (it just rarely actually appears - a few days a year - and it's more of the nuisance type than the person flopping down on the road because they can't breathe).

 

[D_W]

When I was there 2 years ago we got the impression that Americans were bigger overall whilst UK were more likely to be either slim or very over weight....?

But perhaps we like in an area of depravation and have jobs which means we meet people who are obesity.

it depends on where you are - things are different in various regions. If you go to suburbs, you're likely to find less obesity than you will in rural areas, and more people doing serious regular exercise. And then by region beyond that (as in, philadelphia is likely to have a higher % of people overweight than san francisco, and probably higher than chicago).

(I just looked at the CDC map - I would've guessed above that income is the differentiator - higher income, lower obesity. It is. But the CDC also maps it to level of education - which obviously is tied to income. Life expectancy is also highly tied to income to a point, too -but also by profession. I tease my parents because they groan about all of their years being teachers, but they saved their money and retired at 54. Life expectancy for teachers is higher than it is for white collar workers in general, and white collar workers much longer than blue collar on average.

And having seen a lot of folks talk about how dangerous their jobs are and how their life expectancy is so short because of it, some occupational information has become available in the last couple of decades (?) - and jobs like police and fire overall have no shorter life expectancy than the general population - whatever hazards there may be are balanced out by generous retirement benefits avoiding poverty in retirement.

I had a broadcast engineer tell me once that the job was so hazardous that everyone makes it to retirement and dies within two years. He saw it in a newsletter for the group, therefore it was fact.

I asked him "so, this job is so hazardous that it kills everyone within two years after they stop it, but it doesn't cause anyone to die while they're doing it?" His answer was "yes". I don't actually know what a broadcast engineer is, but I'm guessing it's not the same thing as like an electrical or mechanical engineer - though I know a few engineers in my neighborhood who won't be swayed from their irrational fears by actual odds and outcome data.

 

[Droogs]

Since They discovered that I have Haemochromatosis and at the same time as having Lymphoma at the start of the current lurgy pandemic, I have put on ~20Kg. Partly due to having a year of steroids that raised my metabilism by around 400% and being locked in my flat not even allowed to go into the garden. During that time I was constantly ravenous, even while I felt like dung. For me it was also complicated by the fact that my Haemo could not be treated while I was getting Chemo/Radiotherapy. These complications included the fact that I had to avoid eating most veg due to iron and vitiman C content. Vit C can increase the bodies absorption of iron by as much as 3 times. During this time my liver function fell to around 40% and caused my pancreas to fail giving me secondary type 2 diabetes. Until all this happened I had been around 100 - 103KG in weight @ 185cm with a pinch test fat % of around 10 - 15%, even into my 40s due to being fairly active with climbing, cycling (~400mi per week), hiking and the crazy sport of endurance marching (Yomping) picked up as a young 'un in the army.

Now after having to basically sit on my arsecheeks for 2 years I've gained that 20Kg and put on 6" in waist size. I now have 2 perpetually conflicting conditions that need to be balanced in terms of diet as what is good for the diabetes is very bad for the Haemochromatosis and vice versa. I now make nearly all my food from scratch, including having to make my sausages, pasta and bread etc from raw ingredients. No ready made packet or tinned food nor cereals or most veg for me. It is a pain but also quite enjoyable. Over the last 5 months I have gradually been able to bring my weight down to around 115Kg and hope to get the last 15KG off over the course of this year. As the dietician, haemotologist and diabetologists have told me. the secret is not to just stop all the bad "treats", starve yourself and have rapid weight loss. You have to take the weight of gradually in order for it to stay off. Choose ingredients that are very tasty but take a long time for your body to digest and this will reduce how much you eat far more effectively and only gradually introduce more intensive excrcise as your weight comes down. This way it becomes part of your lifstyle and you are less likely to stop paying attention to your food and exercise regimen once you reach your target weight.

 

[Dibs-h]

For the last few months I've been slowly altering my diet to something slightly higher in protein and lower in (refined) carbs.

I love bread, so have switched to dark rye bread (something I discovered in the Baltics some years ago).

Weighing food is a good idea imo - although I think you may need to work out the macro composition so as to keep it balanced or how you need it.

I'm hoping to get back to lifting heavy weights this month - something I used to do before, not only did it help with fat loss, improved tone\musculature but vastly improved my posture and rid me of muscle twinges in my back.

 

[artie]

I am confused by the terminology.
What is the difference between "do a weight loss challenge" and "lose weight"?

I think losing weight, is when you lose weight.

a weight loss challenge, is when you lose weight with others and keep tabs on how each is getting on.

 

[D_W]

You have to take the weight of gradually in order for it to stay off. Choose ingredients that are very tasty but take a long time for your body to digest and this will reduce how much you eat far more effectively and only gradually introduce more intensive excrcise as your weight comes down. This way it becomes part of your lifstyle and you are less likely to stop paying attention to your food and exercise regimen once you reach your target weight.

this is sort of true (the rate of weight loss), but less of a clinical thing (dieticians will always argue about causes, but I don't know that they're necessarily rigorous - more of a belief kind of thing from one to the next) and more of a continuance thing. A diet that is in place with no plan at the end is destined to fail unless the person in it is the rare type who will continue to weigh and just cut back on food (but I guess that's an unexpected plan).

The trick with about everything (your situation is more complicated) is to find something you'll do and not find excuses not to. I haven't really had a longer term goal because I don't actually feel bad when I'm overweight - i feel the same. And when I lose weight, I don't actually feel different, so I don't have this kind of youtube video thing of "wow, I've never felt better in my life"

100% agree on not eating stuff that's bland for no reason - it just leaves a further urge. Sugar is a problem for me, too - if I eat sweet stuff, then I will want to eat more sweet stuff - same with refined carbs. If I don't eat them, then I don't have an urge for them. Inertia, I guess.