Technical Designer Wanting to Lose Weight

by Time for Change

I've been over weight for over 10 years. As soon as I lose the weight I gain it back and more.

Comments for
Technical Designer Wanting to Lose Weight

Want to Lose Weight Just do it Then Part 2
by: SLY

Part 2 - Want to Lose Weight Just do it Then
by: SLY

Oh yeah - and you're going to have to move your butt. I work in IT, so I sit on my butt all day every day. But that's another thing you don't have to do all at once. Just start out with the simple stuff, and add a little bit at a time.

Get a pedometer and just wear it. Don't do anything different for a week or so, just see what your normal day looks like. Write down your steps. Then figure out how you can add a few more in a day. Get a dog, so that you have to take him for walks. Find something fun that you like to do that gets you out and moving your butt.

Like eating, if you try to change too many things all at once, it's overwhelming and it hurts.

Just keep track of what you're doing and periodically take a look and find something you can do a little more of, and something new to add.

It doesn't matter what, just move your butt. You add a little muscle and you feel a little better and you can do a little more and pretty soon you're active.

Forget losing 25 or 50 pounds. That's the easy part. Focus on how you're going to change your life for the rest of your life to be more healthy - THAT will get rid of the weight and keep it off.

Want to Lose Weight Just do it Then
by: SLY

Want to Lose Weight? Just Do it Then!

I lost 70 pounds, and have kept it off for a year now. You can do it, but you have to get your head right. You have to really understand in your heart that the way you eat now does NOT work, and that if you're going to be a healthy weight that you have to change your life forever. You can't lose it and go back to what you were doing before, you have to change and stay changed.

Step one is retraining your taste-buds. Our biology urges us to prefer sweet, high fat foods because for all of human history until the last few years, calories were hard to get. So you're fighting biology, but you've got a great big brain to help you do it.

So start by making small changes, one at a time. Here are the steps I went through:

1. Cut way, way back on sugar. I even got rid of diet drinks because they TASTE sweet, and for me, that just makes me want more. I didn't pay any attention to anything else - just getting rid of "sweet" in my diet - for several weeks.

2. Then, I added in massive quantities of vegetables. I didn't worry about what else I was eating - I just kept the sweets out of my diet completely, and made sure that half of every single thing I put in my mouth was a vegetable.

Vegetables are very low calorie and high fiber - if half of everything you eat is vegetables, it's pretty hard to eat enough calories to keep gaining weight, and you'll probably start seeing good losses when you do this.

3. Once I'd been eating low sweets high veggies for a couple of months, I started cutting out high fat protein sources - more chicken and fish, less fatty choices. I even started using some vegetarian options for protein options, occasionally, although you have to watch out because some vegetarian options can be pretty high calorie.

4. Finally, I got my diet more finally adjusted. I eat three meals a day, and 2 or 3 high protein low cal snacks - a handful of nuts, or some yogurt, for example. My meals are half veggies, 1/4 low fat protein, and 1/4 everything else - a mix of fruit, dairy, and starches.

You're not going to lose five pounds a week doing this, but you'll consistently lose, and you can keep this up. You haven't made drastic changes all at once, you're changing one thing at a time, making it a habit, then adding another change. You haven't cut your calories so drastically that you can't stand it. You haven't started obsessing on every calorie you put in your mouth. You're just making better choices that keep the calories down as a side effect, and you're eating often enough that you're not hungry.

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