4 minutes ago, unclemack said:

Breakfast is essential. Kick starts the metabolism. Over a period of three months recently I lost around 9 kg simply by eating clean, staying away from sugary or salty snacks, eating between four to six meals a day and going to the gym 3-5 days a week. Protein was either steak or chicken and lots of salad and cruciferous vegetables. Simple stir frys and brown rice were a treat. Alternated between oats and omelettes for brekky. Pretty easy if you prepare... and have some discipline.

I tend to agree about breakfast. and great work with the weight loss. no doubt the 4-6 meals grazing also helps with metabolism. as with coupled with exercise.  I like your ideal of eating clean... something I hope I can od more off and keep up

I tend to agree about breakfast. and great work with the weight loss. no doubt the 4-6 meals grazing also helps with metabolism. as with coupled with exercise.  I like your ideal of eating clean... something I hope I can od more off and keep up [emoji4]

Yeah. Well, living alone makes it easier as there’s no one else to consider. My meals are simple and straightforward. Don’t have to have what everybody else has so that alone makes it easier to achieve. Well done mate for your efforts so far. M

1 minute ago, unclemack said:

Yeah. Well, living alone makes it easier as there’s no one else to consider. My meals are simple and straightforward. Don’t have to have what everybody else has so that alone makes it easier to achieve. Well done mate for your efforts so far. M

thanks um, got lobbed a sausage in bread and then ate a choc dipped ice cream at daughters school christmas break-up... so only going to get harder over next few days. definitely easier during the day for me usually, but now kids on holidays will have to try work something out to stick to the plan !

 

my weigh in this morning showed I am 0.8kg aways from my christmas goal ! so not far off and still a few days to go ... so thinking I should get there

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/bah-humbug-what-you-should-be-eating-for-christmas-lunch-20181219-p50n5z.html

 

interesting article, according to dieticians what a christmas lunch should look like 

 

this is what they suggest...

 

"Christmas meal according to dietary guidelines:

 

Starter: Six fresh oysters or three large prawns plus four bocconcini, cherry tomato, basil leaf and pesto sticks on toothpicks.

Meat: 80g roast turkey slice or 100g of fresh seafood.

Salad: ½ cup of dry roasted starchy vegetables such as potato or sweet potato with 1.5 cups of steamed greens.

Dessert: One cup chopped fruit with 2 scoops icecream or small serve (40g) Christmas pudding or a small serve trifle with ½ a cup of custard."

 

**** bah humbug ! ****

 

as the article says, no chance..... while watching my intake that just isn't Christmas  

 

they do say you have to know your limits when sit down to lunch,

 

and ...

 

"Five tips for Christmas eating:

1. Choose small portions.
2. Listen to your hunger cues and stop when you feel full.
3. Include plenty of vegetables and salad.
4. Watch your intake of sugary drinks and alcohol - have iced or sparkling water on hand and add mint or lemon slices for extra flavour.
5. Balance Christmas eating with some activity - play cricket in the backyard or local park, or go for a swim with family and friends."

 

Unlikely our christmas table will look like the photo. we tend to go the bbq grilled options, be plenty of fruits and veggie and salad selections. but we are looking for a trifle this year. daughter and I will prepare. and what ever it is ... it will be scrumptious we hope. ! not sure on the five tips but energy wise that in itself is likely to take up anyones kilo joule intake in a day I suspect. but its only once a year and lets not hold back celebrations I say .... 

This sort of “ideal” Christmas meal info is fine if you have a poor diet but if you have been looking after yourself going in and do so going out then I say enjoy the day. Indulge and let your body take care of it afterwards. I’ve been eating well for a few months now and I’ve been in a situation where I had the opportunity to indulge in the food love of my life, Pizza, and I did so with relish. It was wonderful and didn’t impact me at all. Live life mate. Eat sensibly and forget this fasting rubbish. It’s simply not needed for a healthy life. M

I am very much relishing.... ! actually I find I relish even more... perhaps the absence makes heart grow fonder.  but what I am learning is to keep things in check. ie not get too carried away. 

 

a good surprise at weigh in today where I have got to my christmas day target ! having lost another kg since starting this thread

 

pretty happy with things and way progressing

 

 

Lost 35KG in just over 12 months..................Now 82.5KG.and I feel great.

What I did.:

I didnt use a diet I just used a pastiche of ideas. Minimal exercise because if youre eating too much of the wrong thing it cant work anyway.

Stay active and at one stage I was doing 30 mins on an exercise bike at work most days. Exercise isn't the essential ingredient in weight loss.

The biggest calorie burner is breathing.......keep doing that.

Get off Sugar immediately. Obviously fruit juice is just fructose in a concentrated form......BAD.

Youre better off having a glass of milk(low fat....not skim), yes its Lactose but not as bad.

Realise that bread, metabolises into sugar .  Multi-grain minimum, rye breads better. Strictly limit breads and rice. Rice and Pasta are the same,

most people ingest too many carbs for their lifestyle. Fats aren't the problem but sensibly only occasionally  eat salami or processed meats. Always get the skin off Chicken and Salmon.

Eat Proper nutritious meals. Meat, vegies and simple salads. I had a trail mix of nuts(almonds,dried cranberries, cocunut shavings) etc that I would snack on. For Lunch I would grill chicken, or eat Fresh Corn, or have simple coleslaw and tuna. Breakfast was mostly Raw Muesli with low fat milk and Cooked rolled oats when I could be bothered microwaving it.

Now I enjoyed Fondues, Cranski's etc along the way...........once a week. 

At times your weight Plateau's........he's what you do.......eat a high fat meal, anything you like, cheescake etc etc. This resets your body which has clicked into Keto starvation mode, and enables further weight loss. I did this about once a week.

Beer: get across onto Pure Blonde, less Carbs. Had many a blowout where I'd just relax and drink eight(sometimes a few more) MidStrengths in an evening....no Problems. Dont drink Carona....Corn Syrup derived beer "Spazes" out My body.....possibly yours as well.

You know something funny I think weight loss is fairly logical and straightforward..................I was at a Party the other night and an somewhat obese woman was giving me weight loss advice( explaining her approach). She seemed to know all about it.

Consider this if your Fat and you know stuff about weight loss consider the fact that what you have tried hasn't worked....and a New approach might be required. (Humans hate changing their thinking)

Avoid Miracle foods, they're a gimmick. Usually much cheaper and freely available foods with very similar compositions are by far the easiest answer. 

Why are there so many diets , so many "Miracle foods"........cause no-one makes any Cash (sexy sassy MONEY) by telling you to eat sensibly and avoid eating crap.

I wasted nearly 10 years being obese...............I feel better at 50 than I did at 40. All that was because I thought weight loss was difficult and I was too busy to start.

I dont miss crappy foods. I eat a Maccas Grand Angus and my taste buds knows its rubbish. Icecream isnt great anymore, Cakes are kinda.......big deal. My Body craves nutritious and wholesome foods. Thats what happens when you get the sugar out and allow your insulin to regulate itself properly.

This approach worked for me. I'm not saying its scientific but I'm just trying to help out if anybodys interested. I'm not an expert and I haven't written a book or am trying make money out of anything . Losing weight is simple , anyone can do it, start immediately and lose the excuses. Who Dares Wins.

 

 

 

Edited January 28, 20197 yr by SPANDAU BALLET

8 hours ago, SPANDAU BALLET said:

 

Lost 35KG in just over 12 months..................Now 82.5KG.and I feel great.

What I did.:

 

Congrats Spandau ! Read your post a couple of times. Quite an achievement ! And some great insights

 

love to get to 82.5 am about 8kg off at this stage ... and plateaued ... few times ! I got to my Christmas Day target plateaued with all the celebrations ... lost bit after New Years ... plateaued then lost a bit then family visited week before last ... plateaued  now fighting my way back down again and couple kg under Christmas target and 4.5kg off next target !

 

lose it ! says late feb will get to my ultimate goal. It I think that’s optimistic, still looking at late April to get there  if get there earlier all better ! School holidays soon over so can concentrate more what am eating and especially where just fending for self rather than tempted by what ever doing with the kids. For them though I share your approach that by 50(well before then am hoping) am pretty fit and more fit than was at 40 !

 

I support your stance on exercise. While in the gym I over heard one of the instructors saying to a newbie.. ok first thing gym isn’t about loosing weight. That you do with diet, eat healthy cut out the crap. Gym is about health and fitness and body tone. And I think he is so right ! I remember spending so much time in the gym and loosing sqwat ! Basically plateaued for as long as remember. I think exercise is still important for general health and fitness so will keep doing. My challenge is to not then over compensate that with food.

 

love food and part of enjoying life I just have to learn to still enjoy but limit !

 

confident having made some serious progress and good dent in things. Having dragged myself through a few plateaus ... your post is just encouragement further to get myself through this current one

Over my life I've been elite level athlete to morbidly obese and everywhere in between.

Latest effort has been to reduce from 145 kg to todays 129 kg.  Squash season starts next week and I'm fitter than last season after riding 50 hours over the summer.

 

+1 for myfitness pal, it syncs with strava too.

 

Keep at it betty boop.

7 minutes ago, warweary said:

Keep at it betty boop.

thank you warweary... thats an amazing journey you have been on. quite an effort  

 

I had a bit of a surprise this morning ! got into some smaller waist work pants I haven't worn in I dont know how long !!! my work belt I've got to the last notch !! oh this feels great. thinking back I'm actually 10kg lighter than I was this time last year which puts into perspective ... and im on the down ward trend again woohoo ! have to indeed keep at it as you say warweary

 

did have to squeeze in a light work lunch... hopefully doesn't impact but I managed to get a 4km jog in this morning before helping with getting the kids off to school. looking forward to a bike ride tomorrow morning ! 

On 20/12/2018 at 9:11 PM, betty boop said:

I tend to agree about breakfast. and great work with the weight loss. no doubt the 4-6 meals grazing also helps with metabolism. as with coupled with exercise.  I like your ideal of eating clean... something I hope I can od more off and keep up

I was watching a keto/fasting you tube video last night and they say fasting maybe 2 or 3 days a week is enough... BUT, snacking reduces the bodies ability to lose weight. The quoted a study done over 20 months where 2 groups ate the same calorie controlled diet, but 1 group ate it over 5 meals a day and 1 over 3. The group who ate 3 meals a day and did not snack lost nearly twice as much, even though calorific intake was identical. The body needs time between meals to use ketones as an energy source, and keytones come from burning fat.

 

Fasting works, but it doesn't need to be everyday. I'm fasting on 5 days a week, largely because it makes my morning rituals of getting kids to school easier. And I rarely get hungry on fast days

On 29/01/2019 at 12:44 AM, SPANDAU BALLET said:

Avoid Miracle foods, they're a gimmick. Usually much cheaper and freely available foods with very similar compositions are by far the easiest answer. 

Why are there so many diets , so many "Miracle foods"........cause no-one makes any Cash (sexy sassy MONEY) by telling you to eat sensibly and avoid eating crap.

I wasted nearly 10 years being obese...............I feel better at 50 than I did at 40. All that was because I thought weight loss was difficult and I was too busy to start.

I dont miss crappy foods. I eat a Maccas Grand Angus and my taste buds knows its rubbish. Icecream isnt great anymore, Cakes are kinda.......big deal. My Body craves nutritious and wholesome foods. Thats what happens when you get the sugar out and allow your insulin to regulate itself properly.

This approach worked for me. I'm not saying its scientific but I'm just trying to help out if anybodys interested. I'm not an expert and I haven't written a book or am trying make money out of anything . Losing weight is simple , anyone can do it, start immediately and lose the excuses. Who Dares Wins.

Excellent advice, and a lot of what I'm doing but I'm just trying to stay in keto when I can but not kicking myself for some bad days. Fasting and Keto don't make anybody any $$$, but it finally seems logic is overtaking the big food companies funding of research to fudge the results.

On 31/01/2019 at 8:06 PM, betty boop said:

thank you warweary... thats an amazing journey you have been on. quite an effort  

 

I had a bit of a surprise this morning ! got into some smaller waist work pants I haven't worn in I dont know how long !!! my work belt I've got to the last notch !! oh this feels great. thinking back I'm actually 10kg lighter than I was this time last year which puts into perspective ... and im on the down ward trend again woohoo ! have to indeed keep at it as you say warweary

 

did have to squeeze in a light work lunch... hopefully doesn't impact but I managed to get a 4km jog in this morning before helping with getting the kids off to school. looking forward to a bike ride tomorrow morning ! 

Awesome effort Betty. I'm close to losing 10kg from my start weight in late Nov, considering all I could manage in for 4 weeks from Christmas was not put weight on due to travel/holidays. I'm still travelling a lot for the next month but hoping lessons learnt can minimise or eradicate increases due to limited choices on the road.

15 minutes ago, blybo said:

Awesome effort Betty. I'm close to losing 10kg from my start weight in late Nov, considering all I could manage in for 4 weeks from Christmas was not put weight on due to travel/holidays. I'm still travelling a lot for the next month but hoping lessons learnt can minimise or eradicate increases due to limited choices on the road.

Oh good stuff ! Well done ! That’s quite an achievement  am still some ways off 10kg since started the lose it ! before Xmas But yeah like you it’s been quite a challenging time indeed to loose weight ! Coming upto some time of travel myself too. I too hope learnt something and  aren’t limited too much with healthier options or see a slide back wards ! 

 

Heres hoping i smash my next target in 3 weeks

21 minutes ago, betty boop said:

Oh good stuff ! Well done ! That’s quite an achievement  am still some ways off 10kg since started the lose it ! before Xmas But yeah like you it’s been quite a challenging time indeed to loose weight ! Coming upto some time of travel myself too. I too hope learnt something and  aren’t limited too much with healthier options or see a slide back wards ! 

 

Heres hoping i smash my next target in 3 weeks

Not going to tell you how to suck eggs... But intermittent fasting is something EASY to achieve whilst travelling! It's how I was able to balance out the rich and high carb foods in Italy. If my Italian was better I could have asked for more meals without chips or potatoes, but managed to keep carbs to moderate levels, only had pasta twice in 1 week! Trade fair had NO carb free options so excepted 1 slice of average pizza at lunch per day as not such a bad outcome seeing as though I only ate 1 breakfast whilst there!

 

It's interesting when having a "normal" lunch with Italian workers, more often than not they will have a salad. It's tourists that go crazy on pasta and pizza, not the locals. Each night my main meal was a meat with vegetables, and I usually skipped the "1st course" and went straight to mains.

mid week ! how are we going  

 

weekend got in the way of me. friday was a pasta dinner ravioli, creamy  mushroom sauce, vino  what more to say .... rest of weekend continued with some celebratory meals .... so naturally .... platued again for a day.... but on the down again woohoo... this roller coaster hehe

 

I have noted the positive benefit of an evening walk. walking with my daughter... really nice  

 

noted a good article below on the positive effects mentally of replacing junk foods with "whole foods" chucking out processed with more natural foods... vegetables and fruits and such. 

 

https://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/the-simple-change-we-can-make-to-reduce-the-risk-of-depression-20190204-p50vmu.html

 

as the article surmises.....

 

“Importantly, it's not an either-or question: diet and exercise improvements provide benefits to the whole person, including their physical health, in addition to other treatments [not instead of],” said Professor Felice Jacka, director of Deakin University's  Food and Mood Centre.

“This meta-analysis, combined with recent meta-analyses showing that a healthier diet is associated with a reduced risk of depression make policy change to address our terrible food environments an urgent imperative. We need to make healthy food the cheapest, most accessible and most heavily marketed, which is the opposite of the situation we have currently.”

 

coming up to a work day tomorrow which will miss opportunity for my morning exercise... and i have a strategy... my usual light breakfast... small fruit. will stick to light food options at lunch (usually have fruit) and come back and make sure I get in an evening walk.... hoping this works....to keep on track...

Broken through new barrier !

 

173 bpm heart rate on final sprint after 4.5km jog  felt like fastest I have ever run hehe

 

looking forward to 1.5km cooldown walk home !

lose it does try to inspire with motivational pop ups when achieve a milestone... apparently I have lost a couple of cats  

 

 

I have been quite inspired though, and what is motivating me is more the health gains right now. last weekend where for first time in my life I managed to run 10km...and even ran up a hill for the final stretch !  hoping not a one off, I repeated this again during the last week. Dont plan to do that often, but pretty chuffed where my fitness is ... any ways well on track for my next major miles stone.. and boy I am CLOSE  

 

 

 

Al, 10kms is no easy feat. 

Keep up the good work ?

Well done @betty boop .

 

I seem to have stagnated at 93kg for the last few weeks. Was on the road all last week and managed to stay pretty much in Keto and fasted everyday, but was probably having much richer food than I would at home. That's my travel done for a few mponths so hopefully can get back to some form of routine. We were planning on making a Keto pizza on Saturday (almond flour base) but with the fires, we ended up having 4 extra for dinner at short notice so just ordered from the local pizza place so had a cheat day.

49 minutes ago, blybo said:

Well done @betty boop .

 

I seem to have stagnated at 93kg for the last few weeks. Was on the road all last week and managed to stay pretty much in Keto and fasted everyday, but was probably having much richer food than I would at home. That's my travel done for a few mponths so hopefully can get back to some form of routine. We were planning on making a Keto pizza on Saturday (almond flour base) but with the fires, we ended up having 4 extra for dinner at short notice so just ordered from the local pizza place so had a cheat day.

 

thanks blybo,

 

yeah ive had that toowith the stagnation ... travelling really makes mess of things for routine...still trying to figure that out too ! I dont tend to travel for more than 2 days away though... so just wondering whether to swing into some sort of 5-2 starvation for those days away or something  

 

doing a couple of day trips this week, maybe will explore 5-2 or some version of that for those days

 

ps just as getting on top of things, was at a family dinner last night,, food drink merriment, gotta live life... yep will take that as a cheat day ! 

@betty boop I take a salad in an esky to have between appointments on day trips. Hardest thing is cutting back on water consumption whilst doing long Kim’s in the car

1 minute ago, blybo said:

@betty boop I take a salad in an esky to have between appointments on day trips. Hardest thing is cutting back on water consumption whilst doing long Kim’s in the car

thats an interesting thing on the water ... i find i drink a lot of water... 1.5L + a day... on long day drives... more than what id normally drink which is more akin to 1L a day. some would suggest should be drinking 1.5L+ a day anyways ? why would you want to cut back on the water  ? 

 

good to hear on the salad ! maybe something will explore. I have a little eski  

13 minutes ago, betty boop said:

 why would you want to cut back on the water  ? 

Less pea stops?

25 minutes ago, rocky500 said:

Less pea stops?

exackery. I also tend to get drinks from a servo so get tempted by the no sugar coke rather than straight water. I don't like cold water from the fridge either. I do intentionally have an electrolyte water each morning on a trip to make up for the apple cider vinegar concoction I have at home which gets salts added to it. That stuff is bloody horrible, but does seem to help with weight loss and also has a heap of health benefits, foremost for me is the reduction in blood sugar levels. I skull a diluted drink of that and then 2 big glasses of water to rinse the foul taste out of my mouth.

 

https://www.longevitylive.com/live-healthier/drink-apple-cider-vinegar-daily/

 

I usually try and drink at least 3 "bidons" of water when not travelling, which are 700ml cycling water bottles. I start each trip with a full 1 too.