have no clue/need help - Healthy Lifestyle Message Board

lilmsmagic · 02-13-2006, 08:06 AM

i am wanting to lose weight in a healthy way. I know i should eat 6 small meals a day. i have no clue where to begin. i take a multi vitamin.(dont know if its the best one or not-dont know if theres a difference) i recently starting taking cla 369. and i started drinking a protein shake after my tae kwon do class. my weight right now is 148 and should be(or i want it to be) around 125. im 5ft tall. I must tell you i was anorexic about 15 years ago for app 5 years and over came it thru the grace of God. but now im suffering on the other end b/c i ruined my metabolism. ive had 4 kids in the past 12 years. i wear a pedometer to track my steps and force my self to hit the 10,000 mark every day. sometimes i exceed it(i do not wear it in tae kwon do-which i do 2x a week). i hear so much about different things that i am confused. I am very body conscious and very critical of myself. i enjoy exercising so that is not an issue for me.i do not understand all this professional weight loss talk so i need it to be in plain english. i am also a very picky eater. should i go get that vegtable powder stuff you pour in your drinks, should i stay away from starches, should i eat all protein, what is acceptable fat content, etc..... i am just soooo confused. please help. i DO NOT WANT TO BE FAT!!!!!! that scares the crap out of me. my weight consumes every sec of every day and i beat myself up when i do something bad.

MaxOT26 · 02-15-2006, 02:53 PM

First thing, you need to do is except that losing the weight is going to take time. Except that and don't put too much pressure on yourself. Having a positive attitude will take you much further in the long run then any diet!! You need to start off slow. Make daily and weekly short term goals. My guess is you have all the knowledge you need to get started you just need to sit down and develop a plan. If you give me your age and your body type (endomorph, ectomorph, mesomorph) I can give you a very good breakdown of what you should be consuming protein/carbs/fat wise.

gort · 02-15-2006, 03:42 PM

I know how frustrated you are because a few people in my family have gone through it for years. I think they have some bad habits as well as a lot of misinformation coming from the diet and fitness mega industries. The diet folks tell you fats are bad, fitness gurus are obsessed with glycemic indexes. I have to tell you right off that I am no expert on weight loss and have never had an overweight problem, (I am thin) but I do know a lot about healthy foods and I love to eat and prepare tasty whole food dishes.

You shouldn't be afraid of fats and oils or high glycemic fruits and veggies. Here's why:
Fats make up a large part of what our body is made of, and so we do need to eat lots of them each day--but real fats, not fake fats like hydrogenated oils. The brain is 60% fat - EPA, DHA, Lauric acid. EPA and DHA are essential fatty acids. That means we can't live without them and can't produce them in our body. We must get them from fatty fish like wild salmon (farmed salmon lacks complete omega 3), sardines, mackerel and anchovies. Smaller amounts of the fatty acids are in tuna and shellfish. Lauric acid comes from coconut oil - yes it's healthy and helps you lose weight. As long as it has NOT been hydrogenated. Chicken and beef also contain fatty acids that we need. Conventionally raised beef is lacking in CLA. This fatty acid is formed when cows eat grass, so you are smart to keep taking CLA capsules if you don't eat organic beef or butter. All of these fats and oils are also good for the heart. Did you know that LOW FAT diets are associated with sudden massive heart attacks and strokes? Trans fat (hydrogenated) is bad, real fat is good.

Healthy oils:
olive oil, coconut oil, sesame oil, grapeseed oil, peanut and other nut oils, avacado oil.

Not so healthy oils:
soy oil tends to promote weight gain, safflower oil, canola oil, corn oil

The healthiest diet isn't really a diet but consists of the 40:30:30 approach. That is 40% carbs 30% fat and 30% protein.

Thin people always eat breakfast. Overweight people rarely eat breakfast. This is bad for the metabolism and teaches the body to store fat.

About sugars. Another dangerous misconception running around is that all sugars make you gain weight. Refined sugar like white sugar, high fructose corn syrup, glucose are best avoided altogether. It's not hard if you prepare your own foods and stay away from almost anything in a box. White sugar began from a beautiful complex sugarcane plant and has been stripped of its minerals vitamins and enzymes. They bleach it, cook it at 1200 degrees F and what is left is pure carbohydrate. We can't absorb this properly without all of the nutrients attached. It sends blood sugar sky high, and gets stored as fat. The processed corn syrups, fake syrups, and glucose that are added to boxed foods are also "extracted" from the original food source without its surrounding nutrients to make it digestible and have a similar toxic effect on our body.

Real sugar, unprocessed, in its original form attached to its associated nutrients is good for us. These sugars are complex and are known as polysaccharides, oligosaccharides or fructo-oligosaccharides. They fight illnesses and prevent cancer just like anti-oxidants do. Complex saccharides are in fruits and carrots and corn and beets. Yes, high glycemic foods, and no they don't make you gain weight in their whole food form. Eating sweet fruit snacks like oranges, raisins, dried cranberries, carrot sticks can stop you from craving the bad sugar in fake foods. The food industry sells things with processed sugars added. The food mega industry knows fat people eat more and they can make more money if they keep the consumer fat.

It is good to snack on fruit, veggies and avacado / sesame dip, trail mix, mixed nuts (full of good fats that reduce bad fat and bad cholesterol in your body.) Oils become less healthy when cooked in high heat. This forms acrylamides, a damaging carcinogen. Coconut oil is stable in high heat to 375 degrees. Grapeseed oil is high heat stable too and adds no flavour.

Reducing and working towards eliminating packaged foods would be the most effective route to weight loss. Increasing your raw foods is a major help as well.

lilmsmagic · 02-15-2006, 05:59 PM

first off, to you maxot26, i took a test at a web site and it told me that i was inbetween an endomorph and a mesomorph. i am 34 years old. and whether or not it makes a difference i have had 4 kids. youngest one being 3. so this is not baby fat. im very strong willed, so when i set my mind to something i always achieve it. but i know that my metabolism comes in to play here, and i have totally ruined mine. i can look at food and gain weight. i dont eat after 6. but, i am soooo terrified of being fat that i read all my food labels and if it looks like it has too many calories/fat. i wont eat it, even if its supposed to be good for you. i welcome any and all advice, but remember i am truly terrified of trying to do this the "healthy" way. all i know is starvation. and that it worked for me before, but i have kids now that i have to take care of. so thats not an option for me any more.

to you "gort" the above also applies to you. like the snacks you were talking about. that trail mix and nuts and all, they just have too much fat in them and it scares me to death that i am putting that fat in my body. i dont want to be "thin". but i do want to lookk good, feel good and enjoy a long healthy life. but for some reason i just cannot justify putting fat into my body and still losing weight from it.

gort · 02-15-2006, 06:43 PM

I understand your fears about fat. It is the anti-fat propaganda in the media that has conditioned people into thinking all fats are bad. But it is true that the good fats help you lose weight and that avoiding good fats can cause weight gain and heart disease and depression. I suggest you keep to what you believe in for now but to also check some books on fat in the library or buy them. Two I can think of to set things straight are "Fat Wars" and "Eat Fat Look Thin." It will take some time for eating fat to make sense but I think when you understand it through research, you will not be so nervous about eating the healthy fats, eventually.

It is also worthy of note to know that the Atkins diet involved eating high fat low carb foods and resulted in substantial and longterm weight loss of its followers.