Pica

exactly

SultanOfSwing

I just like eating things that are bad for me. Luckily, I'm not eating huge amounts, just enough to slow down any progress. Most weeks I can still lose a little overall but just not as much as I could.

If I cut out carbs I'll lose nearly 10lbs of water in the first week. No joke, I'll wake up in the morning and I've just sweat it all out. But carbs are my favourite things

Pica

i like carbs too, bread, pasta, spuds, rice but I only eat when I'm hungry and just enough to stop being hungry. many peeps don't allow themselves to reach that point of being properly hungry.
I eat once a day, early evening. Don't like hot food nor meat really- I think I've taught myself that.

SultanOfSwing

It's sweets for me. I eat them because I'm in my 30s and I can damn well eat sweets whenever I want

But I know what you mean. I was eating a 1,000 calorie deficit for a few weeks back in February and I was OK. If I can get in a run every morning, that's a 600 calorie cushion in case I get the urge for a Twix at lunch.

Pica

Personally I'd ditch the Twix ( you know what they taste like so it's nothing new or exciting).
It sounds crazy- "I have to do a run in case I want a Twix today".
Sit down one day and eat 15 Twix bars, then see how you feel about them.

sir_eccles

WEBlue

Hmmm, I'd have to disagree with this sentiment. The run is always a good thing...or whatever is your daily exercise of choice. Do something (even a brisk walk, which is as fast I go, personally) that gets your heart going & your limbs working, and do it every. single. day. Maybe only a short one, but NO skips, NO excuses.


Yeah, skip the Twix, that's good, that's best...but the exercise is the daily necessity for fitness. So you eat the Twix (or in my case the Halloween peanutbutter cups ), so be it--but NEVER skip the run/walk/whatever.

sir_eccles

There's a lot of evidence that denying yourself the treats ends up being counterproductive.

petitefrancaise

I've also been looking into various supplements and have been trying out some with the aim of figuring out why my weight wasn't going down despite doing everything I should be doing. The lightbulb moment for me was reading about stress/cortisol/insulin. Without going into details, my life has been extremely stressful in the last 2 years. So, a few months ago I started taking phosphatidylserine at night and berberine during the day. The sole purpose of these 2 was to see if their effects on blood insulin would help me lose weight. I've also been rowing and eating between 12 noon and 8pm only. I didn't change what I was eating since I consider that to be good anyway. Obviously I can't isolate what has worked but I am now back to my french sized clothes. I don't think rowing as exercise helped much because I'm not particularly good yet and not able to go that quickly - if it helped at all I think it was because it was actually fairly gentle stress relief. I've definitely built muscle and improved strength though.

I've never weighed myself so can't comment on that but I've gone down 2 sizes since June.

I do not believe that exercise on it's own will do much, I don't believe that calorie reduction or following a very low carb diet is sustainable.

Others mentioned getting blood glucose measured in various ways. I don't believe that is useful unless you are measuring it to see how fast your body deals with it (ie insulin). My fasting blood glucose was always higher than my diet warranted, when I looked into cortisol/insulin/stress and overnight glucose production, that explained that one. phosphatidylserine knocked that one on the head. As a bit of a health nerd, I'd love to get hold of a continuous blood glucose monitor.

On a related note, a drug given to diabetics type 2 to help remove sugar from their blood - Metformin - was shown to reduce their incidence of certain forms of cancer - down to almost nothing in some cancers. Pubmed has papers if anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole. Berberine is the "natural" or non-prescription supplement that does the same as metformin. I don't have diabetes so my dr was unlikely to prescribe metformin, so I bought berberine instead.

livinginnyc

This. I've always relied on my high metabolism & exercise 3 days a week to offset my love affair with pizza, but as I'm in now in my 30's, I'm trying to tone it down before things go south.

I've never been a huge lover of sugary drinks/soda/pop whatever you want to call it, but at the start of the year I did a 3 month pledge to stop drinking anything but water. It was hell, but cutting out sugar does wonders to drop off any bloat (especially after Christmas where I did fall off the wagon). I'm back to drinking wine, 1 cup of coffee a day but typically now just drink water with meals rather than a can of something. Feel all the better for it now too! I may some day also drop coffee out too

I'm also running more now too, despite almost destroying a pair of sketchers the other day stepping into what can only be described as the largest pile of .... i've ever (not) seen. Didn't notice till I got back.

rbackhouse

A word of caution

This was me 15 years ago. I felt I could depend on exercise (running 3miles 3 times a week + weight training) as I didn't really put on much weight while eating as much as I wanted. Carbs were my favorite. I also didn't get annual physicals so was not tracking my blood glucose levels. Fast forward to today. I'm now diabetic and continually watching carbs to avoid the spikes. The wakeup was a dr visit (i never got sick so didn't go much at all) where my glucose level was over 300mg/dl !!! The A1C came out at 11.9 !!!

I'm really not sure if this was all due to depending on a high metabolism and eating whatever I wanted but I wish I could go back and have caught it a lot earlier.

livinginnyc

Duly noted! Like I said, I'm trying to clean up!

N1cky

Went back to bootcamp last night, I was going fairly consistently 4 nights a week until June when work just got in the way. They then moved locations, so that was another excuse not to go...

Anyhow, renewed my membership, but only for 2 months to make sure I can actually force myself back into this. I was pleasantly surprised that last night wasn't totally horrible, although my arms ache as I haven't done anything with them in months. I have been walking a fair bit, I eat fairly healthily and am a good weight, alcohol is definitely my weakness. I realize I'm very lucky, unless I eat like a pig for months on end I don't really gain weight, but like the feeling fit and healthy bootcamp gives me.

Beaverstate

Well the Turkey day trot is over, 3.5 miles in a pouring rain at 47F. I need to buy some gore tex. Wore my sweats and gained a pound or two during the run. 5 months in and sticking to the every other day routine rain or shine.

SultanOfSwing

I wanted to go for a run yesterday but my knee was all jacked up for some reason. I slept with my arm all twisted last night so hopefully that's better so I can go to the gym, then I'll attempt a run over the weekend.

I need to get back at it before the Chicago weather forces me back onto the treadmill again.