Skipping meals when dieting

Short term "diets" fail. I call my diet what and how I eat. It's also long term.

Thelt,

There are all kinds of different ways to fast. Some do 24 hours once or twice a week (not in a row though). Some do partial fasting which is what I do but there are even variations of that. When you fast you eat less, and when you work out after fasting your body is in a state where it has nothing to use for energy except fat. You mix that with some low volume strength training and HIIT (high intensity interval training) and you've got a recipe for drastic and rapid weight loss. I've lost 38 lbs. since the end of December and I'm still loosing.

Here, I'll give you my diet and exercise for yesterday.

Get up at 6 for work. I'll usually have a big glass of water with a tiny tiny bit of OJ in it for a little flavor. (one of my secrets for when you get tired of just drinking water)

By around 9 or so my stomach will growl some and I'll be a little hungry but being hungry isn't a bad thing. I take it to mean I'm just burning fat.

Between 11:00 and 12:30 or so I'll eat a small to medium sized lunch I brought from home. Yesterday it was half a pound of shrimp, a big bag of microwave steamed vegetables, an orange, and straight water.

At 4:30 work is done and it was off to the gym. I did 30-45 minutes of weight lifting. I do a split routine. Chest/Back twice a week and arms (biceps, triceps, shoulders) twice a week. Yesterday was Chest/back. I do 3 exercises for each body part.

Chest is incline bench, cable crossovers, and pullovers.
Back is wide grip pull ups (which are hard as crap. I still have to use the machine to help me most days), Lat pull down, and bent overs rows.

I do 3 sets of each exercise and 5 reps. A big deal is I NEVER, NEVER work my muscle to failure and I never do more that 5 reps. The reason is above 5 reps you're going to work the muscle to failure. If you do that it's going to break down the muscle and it'll get bigger. I don't want bigger muscles. I want tight, strong, toned muscles. I want to look more like Hugh Jackman or Brad Pitt, not Hulk Hogan. My whole thing is loosing fat and defining muscle. This workout is getting me there.

After my weights I jump on my cardio machine of choice, the treadmill but you can use anything. On fridays I play basketball and run sprints in the basketball gym. On the treadmill I do HIIT. The basics are I walk/warmup on the treadmill with the setting around a 3. After a few minutes I crank it up to 6.5 or 7 and run for 60 seconds. Then I crank it back to 3 for 60 seconds. I cycle though that over and over for 10 minutes but the catch is that every cycle I increase the speed on the high side. So my second time around I'm at 7.5. Then back to 3.0. Then up to 8.0. Then back to 3.0. (always back down to your base.)

What this does is basically cause your body to think it's getting ready to really use some energy so it dumps and uses your carb energy or energy you've got handy. Within just a few minutes your body has nothing for fuel except.....wait for it.....FAT! Studies have also shown that if you do this long enough and hard enough your body will start to release HGH and that is the best stuff for burning fat. The best part is that it lasts for hours and hours. So instead of doing some steady 45 minutes walking on the treadmill I do HIIT that gets to the fat faster and burns it longer. Do some google searches and other will be able to explain it far better than I.

After the gym I head home and have dinner, usually around 7. I eat healthy until I'm full. Last night it was chicken wraps. Chicken breast cut up and cooked on the stove in olive oil with taco seasoning added. I use low carb wraps with a tiny big of cheese and tiny bit of ranch dressing and a LOT of green leaf lettuce. And an orange. I love oranges and usually eat 2 or 3 a day. I had 3 of the wraps. Then I had a sugar free chocolate pudding cup. There was quite a bit leftover chicken so I ate a few more pieces of that. Six or seven end of your thumb size chunks. I drank water.

Later that night my wife fixed some hot chocolate which I probably shouldn't have had but I did. It was the kind that had marshmellows in it too.

I would have done better and many days I do if I had not had the pudding cup or the hot chocolate but you gotta live and it not like I'm never going to have chocolate or sweets again. Just in moderation.

The day before for dinner I had half a pound of shrimp and two big pieces of oven baked salmon, a salad and water.


I found a blog http://fitnessblackbook.com/ and it's fantastic. From there I found http://www.marksdailyapple.com/.

The best way to loose weight is to completely educate yourself on your body uses food. Armed with that knowledge it was much easier for me to craft a "diet" that worked for me, was somewhat easy, and could be something for the rest of my life.

Trust me when I say I know it's not easy but it is easier than you think. I started off by replacing my bad food with not so bad food. Sugar free jello and pudding and Lays baked chips for snacks. Flavored water and juice instead of soft drinks. Then I started cutting out processed foods (most food in a box) and started buying a lot of vegatables, fruits and lean meats. I buy tons of those microwave vegetables, they easy and taste great. There are tons of cool salads you can make that taste great and are very filling. I eats a pretty good bit of bananas, oranges, strawberries, grapes, apples and many others. My meats are tons of chicken and turkey with some lean beef. I still have some baked lays once in a while but in the past a bag of chips at my house would not make it two days. Now they last me about a week. A pudding cup once in a while is good too or some dark chocolate.

I also don't sweat it too much it I eat some bad food. I just have to make sure I don't do it often. Last friday night a friend and I ended up at Burger King and I got a chicken fries combo with a fries and a coke and a plain cheese burger but that's the only the second time I'd had fast food all month and the other time was a grilled chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A. Also, at special events and times like birthday parties, christmas, etc. I don't worry about my diet at all. Life is too short and those times are few and far between. Just don't find something every week as an excuse to eat junk.

Read from those website I suggested and work out your own plan that best works for you. Sorry, this got so long but I've been really excited about the transformation my body has gone through. I didn't plan to take it this far. It kind of snowballed on me. I was just trying to loose some weight because my doctor was putting me on all kinds of meds for blood pressure and cholesterol and I got pissed at getting all these meds when I'm only 33.

Good luck!

(please excuse any spelling errors and such)

 

How long have you been dieting? Seems like several years now.

 

I am not sure if that question was meant for me but if it was the answer is pretty much always. I have struggled with my weight all my adult life. I lose it and then regain it. I think it is a pretty common thing for people to do this.....

 

I dropped 40lbs since having my baby. I can't skip meals or else I'm more than make up for it. I feel like I eat all the time now but its just handfuls of stuff here and there. That seems to work for me in just maintaining now but I have family memebers that will skip meals to lose and it works for them. I have 15 more to go until I have my high school weight back.

 

I have about decided that I am going to give up on dieting all together. I am going to try to eat better foods and focus on not over eating but sticking to a temporary plan to lose weight is just not worth it. You gain it back once you stop whatever you are doing.

 

That's the whole point Thelt. If I eat 10 cheeseburgers a day I'm going to gain weight. If I don't eat 10 cheeseburgers a day I won't gain the weight. If I eat a healthy balanced diet you will maintain your weight. If you eat a calorie restricted diet, you'll loose weight.

If you're eating a calorie restricted diet you'll continue to loose weight until you stop eating a calorie restricted diet. (or your metabolism catches up which takes months for overweight people and even weeks for at weight people)

So, of course you gain it back when you stop doing what you're doing and start eating the way you used to when you were gaining all the weight. Why would you expect a car to continue moving when you take your foot off the gas?

I've said it before. A "diet" is not a short term thing you do to loose some weight. It's how you eat for the rest of your life.

 

I think the trick is learning to be satisfied with less food. If I can somehow get used to eating a little bit less I will lose weight and keep it off. I just have to change what "normal" is for me.

I wonder how long it takes for your body grow accustomed to having less food. How long will you be hungry all the time before it goes away.

 

Were you ridiculed as a youth with taunts of "fatty, fatty, 2x4"?

 

I got picked on some but I do not remember that exact phrase....

 

These are some things that have helped me. Don't eat on the run, & take your time when you do eat. Make it a pleasurable ritual, as it was meant to be. Sit down at a table, use dishes (no eating chips out of the bag or ice cream out of the carton), eat slowly, & savor every bite. Do not do other things while you're eating. Focus on the food & the act of eating. If at all possible, make this a family event for at least one meal a day. Enjoy conversation while you're eating. Actually lay down your fork between bites. Really concentrate on the flavors of your foods. Chew slowly & chew longer.

Chewing more actually causes your body to feel full sooner. If you make eating a calm & pleasant event, you won't find yourself stuffing so much food in. And you'll enjoy everything you eat more than you do now.

Don't deny yourself things you really love. Just allow yourself smaller portions, & take the time to really savor every bite. Most of us tend to take that special treat & shovel it in, especially if we've been denying ourselves for awhile. Hold a bite in your mouth long enough to really enjoy it, & you'll gradually find yourself being satisfied with less.

Think of it sort of like good sex. Make the event last as long as possible & enjoy the foodgasm.