It's your window to weight gain!

[substitute]

According to my physician, I am at risk for, or may already be in, insulin resistance syndrome. It's now called "metabolic syndrome" which seems insufficiently precise to me. But he makes a convincing case.

Therefore, the best thing I can do for myself is to get to my target weight of 200 lbs in one year. This will be ~50 lbs, or 1 lb per week.

I repeat, I have to lose 50 pounds in one year.

Aiiigh.

I'm already eating a much better diet than I was a year ago. This is why I weigh ~250 rather than 275, which is where I started on this journey. However I suck at the exercise. There is an exercise machine in the house that my mom used before that I can make use of, so I shall. I sweat like a freaking PIG when I exercise and hate to do this in front of strangers so the health club is a big washout. Paxil is great for making the depression go away but it makes me into a kind of perspiratory fountain apparatus.

And walking is to smile. It burns like 1 calorie per 1000 miles. Anyone else tells me to try walking, I'm splattering lipids all over them from my bulging midriff.

It surprises me that I am overweight. I was always a skinny kid. Stupid depression, stupid depression meds. Blurg.

Comments

[stimps.livejournal.com]

Diabetic exchange diets are pretty helpful (or were to me) when I was using it more religiously. I did indeed lose 1-2 pounds per week, and I learned a lot that was of long term use for how to eat (I just slacked off -- but it *is* possible to eat this way for most of the rest of your life, it's not like a Diet(tm), it's a way of eating.)

I was on the 1500 cal a day one, but there are other variations... basically you start at one (for you, say, I would suggest the 1800), and if it's not working well, or you are not getting enough to eat, then you go up or down by 100 calories in either direction until things are working out.

Check out http://www.well-connected.com/report.cgi/000042_6.htm for a basic idea. There are tons of websites that give you lists of the kinds of things you can eat (anything really) and how much constitutes a serving as per the layout.

This page has some interesting info for vegetarian food (http://www.scienzavegetariana.it/nutrizione/vrg/diabetes.htm), http://www.umassmed.edu/diabeteshandbook/chap06.htm has a bunch of general info for all diets, also http://www.veggieheadonline.com/diabetes.html and http://www.diabetic-diet-and-recipes.com/html/exchanges.php3.

Something I found useful was to go to the doctor or at home or whatever and weigh myself once a week on the same day at the same time. Keeping track of progress, but not doing it too often. I kept that information in a book, along with measurements of my upper arm, upper chest, waist, hips, and thighs, to give me an idea not only of how much weight I was losing but also where things might be shifting to, if I were feeling that things weren't happening very quickly for me.

Anyway, I'm planning to go through the same crap at the moment, so if you need encouragement, just poke me when you need to. I have more specific docs around here somewhere about the exchanges. I'd basically set up in advance what I was going to eat from day to day -- making up a sheet that I'd pin to the fridge of what my eating plans were going to be for the next few days, so I'd always know, and be able to stick to it that way. The only difference with the way I ate and the way the diet was set out is that I basically gave myself as many vegetables as I could eat (other than potatoes and corn), because they're pretty light, calorie wise, and good for you elsewhere. I ended up feeling like I never stopped eating... breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, snack. And lots and lots of water. Hurp!

Like I say, I could have gone on doing it for a long time, but I eventually stopped paying as much attention to serving sizes as I should have. Hurp. And now I must pay. Oh well.

Honk. Let me know how it goes, sir. And stuff. Maybe we can have a small club with me and thee, discussing how it's going. =)

[stimps.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, p.s.

Can totally relate to sucking at the exercise. I have the recumbent bike in the back room, but I get embarrassed to use it when hj and fimm are around because I don't want to Sweat like Le Hog when anyone can see me. Sigh. I really *am* sloth.

thank you!

[substitute.livejournal.com]

Good info, bookmark bookmark

My diet is pretty good. I need to cut out a few things but mostly it's the exercise that needs to change. I plan to carry around an anvil or something.

Also hack off both legs 364 days from now to meet deadline.

whelp

[marm0t.livejournal.com]

Hi, see this boat? We're both in it.

Things that helped me lose ~70 lbs in 2001:
- vegetables
- fruit
- more vegetables
- diet shakes, a la slim-fast, in lieu of snacks
- a 2000-calorie-a-week exercise goal, periodically met
- period of unemployment DURING WHICH I LOST MOST OF THE WEIGHT (see: lack of job stress, sufficient time in which to exercise)
- more fruit
- even more vegetables
- *complete* avoidance of resturants for 5 months
- *complete* avoidance of people eating things I couldn't
- having nothing in my kitchen that wasn't a fruit, a vegetable, or a dietarily-sanctioned food

Things that helped me put most of it back on in 2002:
- abhorrence of exercise
- boredom with vegetables, fruits
- job stress
- overextended schedule
- vending machine
- utterly sedentary desk job & hobbies

Last week, I started adding diet shakes, fruits & veggies back in, and got back to the gym for 1300 calories. I hated it. It sucked. I lost five pounds.

If you need a cheerleader, I'm happy to be of service.

Re: whelp

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

2000 calories of exercise in a gym? well I personally can't contemplate it. Weight training isn't all that intense, calorie-wise, so that would be much more than an hour a day, unless I'm totally mistaken.

Or do you do aerobics, treadmill, etc.?

It's just math.

[marm0t.livejournal.com]

My particular program defines exercise as "moving your body through space," and does not have any specific requirements as to how you arrive at your 2000-calorie expenditure. You can walk dogs, mow the lawn, walk through the mall, go rollerskating, play a sport... or you can, as I do, go to the gym, and bring magazines and cds to help the time pass as quickly as possible.

At my weight and age, moderate aerobic activity burns about 15-16 calories per minute. At that rate, burning 2000 calories per week means spending about 30 minutes four times a week, 45 minutes three times a week, or 1 hour twice a week. It's not that difficult to contemplate.

Obviously, as Ig points out, if you're only walking, it's going to take a longer period of time to arrive at that kind of calorie-expenditure goal. I choose to use an elliptical trainer because that gives me a decent calorie-burning bang in a relatively short investment of time.

Though it doesn't give you that kind of calorie bang, weight training does burn some calories, and moreover, it increases the amount of metabolically active tissue in your body, so it's important. I try to work in a few sets at the end of each aerobic session.

[flipzagging.livejournal.com]

Maybe the exercise calorie counts I've been using are on the low side. From what I can see, 15 cals/minute would be very vigorous activity, like running 7.5 mph (12 km/hr). I personally couldn't sustain that on the road for an hour. Even 30 minutes would be quite challenging.

But now that I think about it, your choice of the elliptical trainer is probably the easiest way to get to that burn rate. No impact, constant activity. Some of the people using that machine seem almost superhuman (to me), they move at a high speed for a very long time.

PS

[marm0t.livejournal.com]

During my weight loss, I ate corn and potatoes. In fairly large quantities. Like, daily. I ate anything even loosely termed a "vegetable." And I lost multiple lbs per week. My diet instructor laughed when I expressed concern about the corn, and said she'd never seen a case where eating corn niblets resulted in significant weight gain.

Because, two things: as it turns out, corn and potatoes are better than Hershey's. And: you really can only eat so much corn.

YMMV, especially if your thang is insulin-related, but really if you think about it, it all boils down to crowding out fattening food with less-fattening food.

Oh yeah, one other thing: keep yourself full. I ate a lot, and often. I eat far less now... and I weigh far more. Life is strange.

Good luck!

Re: PS

[stimps.livejournal.com]

That's cool, but corn and potatoes do get turned pretty quickly into sugars, which is pretty dangerous when you've got insulin and blood-sugar related problems like I do. If I eat a big serving of potatoes, I get high and sugary in a verrrry short period of time; same with corn. Whole wheat pasta, no prob. So I'm just sayin'. =)

[scromp.livejournal.com]

Yeah.. eating a raw potato spikes your blood sugar higher than eating *a cup of sugar* because it's metabolized easier. That makes my head hurt just a little bit.

[marm0t.livejournal.com]

But from a calorie perspective, the potato totally wins.

[scromp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's very much a special case for diabetics. Potatoes also have a lot more vitamins than a cup of sugar if you eat the skin. :)

[stimps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that freaked me out too, when I first found out. WHAT BUT I READ OH SHIT. This explains so much not only of my pre-diabetic stuff, but also why I had so many problems with getting tired (the spikes & all). Sigh. Oh well, I'm MUCH BETTER NOW... I think.

Re: PS

[marm0t.livejournal.com]

Yep. That's why I included the YMMV disclaimer above. From a calories-to-food-mass perspective, there's nothing inherently evil about corn and potatoes, so if blood sugar isn't an issue and weight loss is, you're a lot better off sating your snack urges with those kinds of things.

Re: PS

[stimps.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the poor old potato gets such a bad rap. I mean, they're so USEFUL! =D I love potatoes personally, I just have to watch it, or eat them with a lot of things that take me longer to digest or I get the carb floaties. =)