ILE Weight Watchaz

Someone needs to invent a computer desk chair with built-in pedals so I can read ILE and burn some fat. Ideally the pedals should power a built-in radio or tape player or something to form some kind of incentive for pedalling. Please?

(sorry, this is probably is of no use!)

No I'm not walking from Streatham to Bothwell. I'm not that desperate.

Sarah do not give up beer. People become sourpusses when they go off the beer - Tim is the exception that proves the rule.

Well it's actually roundabout 122lbs at the moment. Although I have been as low as 119lbs, I think. And when the doctor measured me I was 1/4 inch under 6 feet. But as I said before, I'm still quite a bit taller than other people who are supposedly '6 feet'.

I am sorry to report that giving up beer has helped me lose something in the region of three stone this year. Not feeling well enough to drink alcohol is very helpful in achieving this dietary change, mind.

I cannot recommend illness or abstention as sensible courses of action.

I'll need to buy some scales. I dread to think what the first reading would be.

i think i'm gonna hop on the big old book-box scale in the back today. oh, the potential for horror is rife.

So imperialism is dead, then?

I have to boast about this somewhere.

Since July I've lost 10cm off hips and waist, and my body fat's down from 14.7% to 9.5%. My blood pressure's dropped to just-below-healthy-range (which apparently is excellent), and to fulfil thread requirements I've lost half a stone.

\m/ \m/ \m/ &c.

Pretty damn good.

I just learned today, from a trivia card, that Weight Watchers in Brazil is called "Vigilantes do Peso"

I had my 2nd weight watchers meeting yesterday morning, and turns out i lost 3 lbs and change in my first week. Not bad.

Brilliant!

You need to expect that the weight will fluctuate, so some weeks you might actually go up a little bit. All normal. (I've never done it but I know several people who have)

my main prob is how to work the beer in. Today being the super bowl doesn't help, but if it doesn't rain(ha ha), i'll go biking tonight.

AA & KF that's excellent news. we should use this thread to track our progress. in 13 days of sticking to approx 1200 cals per day (with two days going up to 2000 because of pesky lager) and around 1 hrs worth of exercise (40 mins aerobic, 15 mins anaerobic) 3 times per week i have dropped 3 pounds (from 177 to 174lbs), which i am quite pleased with but godddd i wish i could just have it all zapped out and be eating this way for normality, rather than waiting til JUNE for it all to be done.

im a bit concerned about hitting a weightloss plateau in a few weeks.

Wow, that's excellent. What happens in June?

Don't worry about the plateau; if anything, celebrate it. Plateaus are a good way of measuring chunks of weight loss.

Just so I don't appear callous or insensitive, I should point out that I've never been technically overweight (78kg is my highest ever, I think, back when I was unfit), and that my current efforts are all about building physique through heavy weights training. Even though I had aimed to drop some fat, this loss (and the scale of it) took me completely by surprise.

i just have a silly limit set for june whereby i aim to be slim enough to wear a particular shirt. and once im at the lower end of the healthy bmi range i'll stop being quite as strict on the NO TAKEAWAY, NO OIL, etc rules.

will the plateau just disappear naturally and weightloss continue, or do i need to ramp up the exercise or lessen calories to kick it aside? how long do they generally last?

i think im the typical chubster in that i was nice and slim just 3 years ago, but then moved in with a partner and food became a big focus, eating rich fatty food - suddenly realised that i wasn't looking how i used to and made a firm decision to reverse it. (i see it as a kindof parallel with the world economy haha - boom years guzzling chinese and sugarry drinks, now the bubble has burst and its time for cutbacks)

i do hope my exericse + calorie-cutting will work in the longterm (over a 6 month period) but im worried im doing things wrong, like eating too much salt or not eating enough overall and my body is entering starvation mode. i think i will be ok though. i have found it difficult to find good detailed articles about all this, though the ny times has some very interesting pieces.

the one thing i am most pleased with is that by learning about the calorie content of most foodstuffs (oil and butter and soft drinks are just insane!) means that i will be much more careful about this for the rest of my life, which in the very very longterm can only be good. also good as im quite the control freak and i feel im taking back control of my life and the food that goes into it. comes as a great relief after those awful pangs of blinkered guilt after gorging myself on curries, etc.

i am quite lucky in that my partner enjoys cooking and is also keen to lose weight and eat healthier. if i lived on my own again i doubt i could do quite so well. this new diet has given me more energy and i feel more chipper and less slobby in my day-to-day life too. im at danger of prattling on about the benefits to my friends too much though!

at the moment i would most like some advice on what kind of weight lifting is best for my situation, could you recommend some good websites/articles which go into this?

i just have a silly limit set for june whereby i aim to be slim enough to wear a particular shirt.

Not silly. This is precisely the kind of goal you need to keep you motivated.

will the plateau just disappear naturally and weightloss continue, or do i need to ramp up the exercise or lessen calories to kick it aside? how long do they generally last?

Plateaus can potentially last weeks. It's the way the body reconfigures. One week you can be eating perfectly and plateau; another week you can be eating cakes and lose weight. It's your overall diet and long-term loss that count.

i do hope my exericse + calorie-cutting will work in the longterm (over a 6 month period) but im worried im doing things wrong, like eating too much salt or not eating enough overall and my body is entering starvation mode.

If you're eating enough, you'll be fine. The trick is to get enough of all the major food groups and not overindulge (or underindulge) in any areas.

A lot of people think starvation = weight loss. It's bullshit. Carbs in measure are essential, for example.

What do you do with salt that has you worried?

the one thing i am most pleased with is that by learning about the calorie content of most foodstuffs (oil and butter and soft drinks are just insane!) means that i will be much more careful about this for the rest of my life, which in the very very longterm can only be good.

Definitely. Kids should be taught this stuff in school.

this new diet has given me more energy and i feel more chipper and less slobby in my day-to-day life too.

As long as you don't think about it as 'a diet,' you could be doing it forever.

Many people think of a diet as something temporary to do in order to lose weight. RONG.

at the moment i would most like some advice on what kind of weight lifting is best for my situation, could you recommend some good websites/articles which go into this?

I really can't help you with this (my trainer does all this for me!) but bodybuilding.com is a decent resource that covers just about every aspect of weight training you can think of.

Someone start an ILE Biggest Loser thread?

We've already got the statscock.

Oh s.rose, before I forget: Eating less will not necessarily cause you to lose weight faster. If what you're doing now is working, stick to it.

If you feel the need to reduce what you eat, do it gradually. Slice around 5% off your daily intake -- no more -- and stay with that for 2-3 months.

We tend to think our bodies are like a giant balloon, and if we put in more stuff it'll get bigger. It's more about cultivating an efficient metabolism.

One of the things I like about Weight Watchers the program is that's a well-thought-out systematic approach to losing weight and changing what one eats. With the weekly meetings, there's even more of an external reinforcing structure that I need, since i'm bad at changing long-term habits.

Also, i rode my bike to the supermarket about 20-25 minutes away, up & down the hills of NE Portland. That was overdoing it just a little, as i had a backpack full of groceries on the way home. Still, this should take care of at some of the beer I drank today.

What happens if, during a healthy period, we have a massive (one-meal) blowout that involves having seconds of three different kinds of pies until we're so full we're in pain :(

What happens? You feel guilty for a while, nothing serious happens and you don't do it again.

Also, calling it a 'healthy period' implies you'll stop eating healthily.

i dont think anyone in either thread has any issues with yr attempts or diarying itt man.

certainly i found it helpful last year when making progress and yr revive came at a timely moment for me

id like to be happy with my weight, everyone is entitled to that without a drive-by comment and id imagine our targets are well within the bounds of whats normal/healthy by any measure- even if not i cant imagine nu nu ilx would or could take issue with anyones efforts to make themselves the person they want to be- coming from whatever direction.

xp to peace, man –

Mad props to you for taking care of your bodily and mental health. It's best to drown out the noise, some of which is cultural in nature. The kind of pushback you're experiencing is generally less prevalent beyond the anglosphere, as the US, UK, Canada, Australia and NZ (but not Ireland) were all in the OECD's top 10 worst offenders for obesity rates in 2016. And on that note, good luck!

its true we do consider ourselves a separate state to NZ ;)

Nobody criticized you jfc. Trying to live a healthier lifestyle is wonderful but dieting is probably one of the main reasons behind your binging on sugar. The restrict/binge cycle is really really hard to break. I say this a a former anorexic and someone who has suffered from disordered eating (including binge eating) for decades - dieting the way that we know it is not healthy and sets people up to fail. Have you heard of intuitive eating? I highly recommend looking into it. Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch is wonderful as is Just Eat it by Laura Thomas.

some ppl need to learn how/get permission to relax their relationship with food in order to eat healthily, others need more structure to help them feel in control, this isn't hard

I'm supping a bulmers in a pizza restaurant today with a plate of chicken wings for starters. Safe to say the diet is well and truly fucked. But it does feel good.

x-post - Actually, it is pretty hard and complicated because we've been fed mixed messages for years by the media and psuedo nutritionists etc. Also, most adults have been so fucked by years of dieting that they know longer know how to listen to their hunger cues and feed themselves properly so it's actually far from simple at all.

I'd like to go on regret as being filled with regret for actually using actually in the above post.

Also I should have said many rather than most. Ugh.

it's not eating healthily that's easy but recognising that ppl have different & conflicting needs in sorting out their relationship with food. nothing works for everyone

I have a friend who says quitting soda was harder than quitting smoking, which I guess puts things into perspective

my spouse and i enrolled in one of those pre-diabetic programs last year. it was hard, mostly because i did not get on at all with certain other people in my group, but it did work very well for both of us; we lost tons. now that the group's over the challenge is to maintain. we're not "dieting" per se but i make the effort to snack less, try to keep track of what i'm eating, weigh myself every week. the hard part is to not spiral when i'm up. everybody goes up every now and again and everybody feels terrible about it, so terrible that the temptation is strong to give up because if one is going to put this much work into it and get nothing why bother? working on my depression has intersected pretty well with work on weight loss, in terms of allowing myself to "fail" and accept the consequences without judging myself for it. not a surprise given my tendency to stress eat, really!

I assume people are being responsible that for example, if they say they are doing 1400 calories a day that is filled with all veggies/unprocessed foods, whole grains, scant oil (not my flippant bottle of wine as 1/2 of your allocation). I think food is highly personal as evidenced in these threads and that article but everyone has a different tolerance to certain changes, different motivations, different goals. I don't think it has to be one thing all the time too since.

Thanks for the book suggestions, ENBB - I've been meaning to ask on here if anyone can recommend any good books/websites/advice for a healthier psychological approach to eating.

Anyone else have any suggestions while I'm here? Thanks!

(I liked and still like that article, as I do think it's a useful counter to the ideas that 1. losing weight is a simple, purely thermodynamic equation and 2. anyone who isn't doing it is lazy and too stupid to understand and making them more ashamed will help, because 1. nope and 2. thanks for your ideas which we have heard weekly if not daily all our lives, but most of us are already pretty fucking ashamed and shame is so, so counterproductive - but obviously if it makes anyone feel like there's no point in trying then that's a bad thing too.

Congrats to anyone having success via whatever methods, commiserations to those who aren't, and please be kind to your mind as well as your body either way. Love, one platitudinous fatty)

in short peace man, nobody has any issue with your goals or yr methods and keep on keepin on imo

weight is funny and personal and idk dudes arent v encouraged to talk about struggles with it or dieting or whatever so id ask you to kiu itt regardless of what reaction might be from anyone who has their own issues and probs in this area- hopefully thats an uncontroversial sentiment

xp hi aps, good post

xp Argh, by "anyone ~else~" I mean "anyone have ~any more~ suggestions" as I totally do not want to exclude ENBB from offering any more tips! Thanks, sorry, etc

hi deems!

APS - The Fuck It Diet by Caroline Dooner.

mrs mac's credentials as an ilxor wont be boosted by her having enjoyed and rather successfully used "french women dont get fat" as a template/guide but it has def helped her lessen a constantly watchful attitude towards all food and tbh i think she mainly just wanted to imagine life as a french literature graduate champagne executive married to a rich guy

nb I realise she wasnt a great ilxor candidate on other more obvious fronts ie consorting with known terrorists

I know for me food has been a very precarious issue: having had boulemia in my 20s, it was and still is very conflicted. But I don't have an emotional bond w food anymore. But I know it'll always be a struggle anyway. Just not a control issue anymore. Because I solved what the root of it was (mommy issues lol).

And it feels awkward to say it. I even felt a failure having boulemia. But fuck it. There should be no shame in it.

Having had.

Trying to live a healthier lifestyle is wonderful but dieting is probably one of the main reasons behind your binging on sugar.

Except that before I quit, there was no restriction. There's no cycle of dieting to speak of. I think I tried quitting sugar once before as a new years thing that was destined to fail anyway. I grew up just absolutely hoovering desserts. It didn't matter to me as a young man - I was rail thin until it started catching up with me in my mid-twenties and after that I certainly didn't stop eating things I liked.

While I've been attempting to eat more nutritiously in other ways over many years, I don't view my journey as "dieting" so much as quitting a drug. Which I've successfully done before with alcohol and tobacco. I didn't get sucked back in this time because the urge to eat sugar was just so overwhelming to me after being deprived of it. I was at total peace with myself for a long time.

But I kept ending up being peer pressured to eat sweets in social situations. Mother-in-law: "C'mon peace, you're not going to have a slice of my apple pie?" "I will graciously eat a slice of pie, mother-in-law, if it means so much to you..." etc. I thought I could handle returning for an occasional nibble, but the holiday cascade of situations like this ultimately led to recklessness and overconfidence. I mean, what would happen if I took the same approach to alcohol? I would be back to daily liquor store visits in no time!

Anyway, thanks for the advice all, and ogmar on the money.

prob maybe need to start a men-only weight thread idk? the issues seem to be insurmountably different and good ppl are getting upset over it.

prob maybe need to start a men-only weight thread idk? the issues seem to be insurmountably different and good ppl are getting upset over it.

― deemsthelarker (darraghmac)

the bullshit men are told about their bodies and the bullshit women are told about their bodies are categorically different varieties of bullshit, yeah. and as a non-binary person i get to deal with both kinds. lucky me!

i'm not sure the differences are "insurmountable". also as a non-binary person having a "men's" and a "women's" weight loss thread would reinforce once again what a misfit i am, but i guess i'm used to that.

Not sure there’s such a clear gender divide. As a male with food issues, something Caitlin Moran wrote about binge eaters really resonated with me when I read it:

Overeating is the addiction of choice of "carers," and that's why it's come to be regarded as the lowest-ranking of all the addictions. It's a way of screwing yourself up while still remaining fully functional, because you have to. Fat people aren't indulging in the "luxury" of their addiction, making them useless, chaotic or a burden. Instead, they are slowly self-destructing in a way that doesn't inconvenience anyone. And that is why it's so often a woman's addiction of choice.

Interesting perspective about the carers. But I don't get why that necessarily makes it a 'woman's addiction of choice'. I mean, dudes who don't remain fully functional aren't going to be much good in their stereotypical roles either.

in 80% of OA meetings i've been to i've been the only guy there. just saying.

Good to have that perspective. Possibly a lot of dudes just never choose to do address it? Out of pure curosity, I googled up OA meetings local to me and the closest one is held in a health care center located on - I kid you not - Milkshake Lane.

fwiw OA isn't for "fat people" per se, it attracts a lot of people with disordered eating. incl. women who have been surrounded by toxic sexist bullshit about weight their whole lives.

i got criticized for my weight & appearance a lot as a young kid & it sure did fuck me up, but it's pretty clear to me that as a man i have a lot more wiggle room in life & my issues w/food would be exacerbated considerably if i had to put up with the social messaging that women do

hmmm there might be something to the "carers" quote there

ok maybe not a gender specific thread just a thread where ppl are allowed to quit sugar without the yknow

Good god that carers definition in relation to binging: so me. :-( I am better at it but even at work I have been told I erase myself and comply too much. :-(