2/10/2009 6:48:39 PM #

It's the old advice.  Eat less and exercise more.  But don't be disheartened.  My honest advice is to start a food log.  I use a private blog for mine.  Just start keeping track of what you consume.  You'll see some obvious things that are not making it easy for you to lose weight.  Then start looking at the food labels.  You'll be surprised at the calorie content of most things.  My cardiologist said to figure out what the weight was for the BMI I should be (using the upper end of the scale).  Take that weight and add a zero behind it to get the target calories for the day.  For me that worked out to something like 1650 for 165 lbs.  So I started tracking my calorie intake and making sure I stayed under that.  If I went over one day I'd subtract the excess from the next day.  I found that I actually needed to eat only 1430/day to get to the recommended weight with my limited programmer activity level.  Further blood work revealed that my cholesterol and triglyceride levels were good except for my good cholesterol (the kind really only increased by increasing activity).  I kind of slacked off and have regained most of my lost weight (I lost 40 lbs).  I'm just working on getting back on the wagon, but I'm trying to increase my exercise too so that maybe all of my blood work will be good this time.

The part that really worked for me was that I set that target weight as a goal.  I'm not sure what I need to do to maintain it.  But getting there in the first place is important.  I've been making healthier food choices lately too, just need to keep the amounts of those foods I eat in check and get moving I suppose.

One last piece of advice.  Don't restrict yourself from the things you love to eat, just make sure you aren't eating as much of them and eat them a lot less often.  For instance say your favorite food is pizza.  We all like to order a large pizza.  Invite a couple friends to join you for that large pizza or just order a medium and make sure it lasts you 2 or 3 days instead of one go (which I know I can down a medium pizza in one sitting given the chance).  I found that if I restricted myself from the things I loved most I would just start craving them and would binge on them at every chance.  The key is to just slowly reduce the bad things and increase the good things.  The good things will typically have fewer calories than the bad.  

Hope some of that might help.

Nick

2/11/2009 7:49:57 AM #

keep trying don't stop is the key to any success. May God be always with us.

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