beer belly has now reached epic proportions

boogieman

My g/f is doing the 5/2 diet. She says the fasting days are ok if she keeps busy at work and doesn't have a chance to think about food too much. She's lost nearly a stone in 6 weeks, so it definitely works. Exercise does help too and you don't need to do mental amounts. Just walking the g/f's dog for an hour or so every day since February has got my weight down by a stone and a half.

 

Oh and welcome back Carol.

RobDavies

You can still have kebabs - just go for the chicken shish, loads of salad but no garlic mayo. Nowt wrong with that at all.

stickyfiddle

I suspect the trick with the fasting is to find something you enjoy eating with fuck all calories in. 

chillidoggy

Let me know when you find it?

Col_Decker

And its begun.

 

 

Sort off

 

 

no food shall pass my lips this day, untill tea time at which point I will have sausage and mash. So I'm doing a 6 + 1/2 + 1/2 to start with. I can still eat fingernails though right?

Longtallronnie

I need to start eating less/exercising more. Since turning 30 a couple of years ago and giving up smoking I've been gradually gaining weight. My daily alcohol intake's gone up too. I'm up to nearly 11 stone at 5'6" which isn't horrendous but it's mostly around my gut. I was so used to eating what I want and staying at 9.5 stone.

I'll find eating less a struggle, I love my food, have a big appetite for a little dude and feel hungry most the time as it is! 

As far as exercising, I've got a bike which I intend to use before/after work and I might dig out that EA Active thing I bought for the PS3 two years ago. I used it once and my heart rate hit nearly 200! Maybe I'll start on beginner this time lol.

octatonic

Col_Decker said:

And its begun.

In terms of exercise, the best exercise is the one you are willing to do.

Running is more efficient than walking or cycling but if you hate running then you won't do it, at least not for long.

Find something you like to do and do it a lot, or find a bunch of somethings and do them a lot.

Re diet: I'm not a fan of 5/2 as I've seen too many people backslide into unhealthy habits.

Sausage and mash isn't really an ideal way to lose weight, even if you skip lunch.

You'll be more hungry after a day of fasting and likely to overeat- maybe not on the first day, but at day 100... you betcha.

Eating mostly vegetables with a small (say 150g or less) portion of protein and a smaller amount of carbs is the recipe for long term success.

You can vary the vegetables and the protein you have hugely and keep things interesting.

not_the_dj

Best of luck @col_decker

On my fasting days I miss breakfast (I often do anyway) then have a can of Heinz Big Soup at lunch. In the evening I have a single chicken breast of salmon fillet, with a few veg. That comes in a bit over the 600 calories, but the 600 is just an arbitrary figure that should be achievable.

The key is to keep busy. I think, like me, you spend most of the day sitting at an office desk...so eating becomes a nice distraction/anit-boredom thing. Also drink plenty...and when you do eat make sure you eat really slowly, that helps a lot.

randomhandclaps

Try walking to a kebab shop further away.  Start with one fairly local and work your way up to one a good few miles away.  It works for them guys who have to walk 10 miles for fresh water.

chillidoggy

I'm going in for my latest hernia op later on. It's nil by mouth from morning until the op tonight, so I guess if you have a lot of ops, then you could lose weight like that.

(I might ask them if they can do a bit of lipo while they're at it.)

bigdawg

at the end of the day the only thing that loses weight is calories out exceeding calories in - end of..  Doesn't matter if its 5:2, paelo, atkins whatever that is the only way it works, you can obviously as we have seen dress it up in all sorts of different guises.

Re the 5:2 it is still very much in its infancy and thers not a lot of scientific data to back it up (ie they don't know why it works!) but it seems to work, however some people I know who took the eat anything days to mean anything in any quantity put on loads fo weight at as a result.  Also I know of a couple of girls that passed out due to 600 calories not actually being enough.

To the OP personally I wouldn't just go out and start running, overweight and running usually end up with leg / knee / ankle injuries which brings your exercise regime to a crashing halt.  Michael Moore (yep that bloke in America about the guns and stuff) has recently lost around 2 stone - all he's done is make sure he goes for a 30 minute (brisk) walk every day - sounds simple, it is.  It's just that a lot of people don't even do this any more

Drew_TNBD

I run almost 7 miles a week judging by an average of 2k four times a week. I generally do more, but I'm rounding down.

I've lost a bit of weight, but not as much as I thought I would. I do have a habit of snacking, but I've tried to keep it to a minimum.

@Not_the_dj - what sort of food do you eat on your 2 fasting days?

not_the_dj

@drew_fx have a look at my last post on the previous page. What I also found is that it quite quickly altered my appetite, so I've been getting fuller quicker and eating less on the non fasting days. What I say about eating slow on my previous post helps in general as well.

Deadman

I've just started the 5:2 thing off the back of this thread and what I read on MR.

First day I've chosen to fast. No brekkie, green tea throughout and a weird combination ot tinned toms (love 'em), mussels and raw onion for tea. I'm full.

I hope I can keep it up.

Iamnobody

Healthy eating obviously but one exercise I would recommend is rowing.

Get a decent rowing machine, low impact good overall workout and will also assist with some muscle tone and definition.

Concept 2 are industry standard.

monquixote

Read an interesting article recently where a personal trainer tried out a few fasting based diets.

He recommended that even if you don't want to do a fasting based diet (He quite liked them, but also thought other approaches could work just as well) it's worth trying a 24 hour fast as it teaches you quite a lot about hunger. 

It's certainly been really useful for me to learn that being hungry is nothing to be afraid of and that if I don't eat I'm not going to pass out. If you ignore it hunger passes and often when you think you're hungry it's actually thirst, or boredom, or just the time of day that you usually eat.

Antique_Guitars

we needs pics!!!!!!!!!!!

Antique_Guitars

Kebab en all

Deadman

monquixote said:

Read an interesting article recently where a personal trainer tried out a few fasting based diets.

He recommended that even if you don't want to do a fasting based diet (He quite liked them, but also thought other approaches could work just as well) it's worth trying a 24 hour fast as it teaches you quite a lot about hunger. 

It's certainly been really useful for me to learn that being hungry is nothing to be afraid of and that if I don't eat I'm not going to pass out. If you ignore it hunger passes and often when you think you're hungry it's actually thirst, or boredom, or just the time of day that you usually eat.

Interesting stuff. I'm going to try that.

jonnyburgo

Don't eat as much and move more, ain't rocket science really. I gain weight when I work a lot of overtime, so more inclined to eat shit food at work. At home I eat healthily and exercise, plus I cycle to work (16 miles)

It really is a full time thing once you hit a certain age though, unless you are one of those freaks that pisses it up the wall every night, lives on chippy teas and still look like Bruce lee.

What does annoy me though is seeing all the scrotes around Salford who have never done a days work, live on ganga, Stella and Mcdonalds and are ripped to fuck.