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Thanks for making this thread, Twee! For those of you who feel hungry all the time, there are things you can do to mitigate hunger: - drink water with meals. Drink water without meals. Just drink more water, it will help with your hunger (even if only temporarily). - protein and fiber are great for creating feelings of fullness and satiety. There's some disagreement on the role of carbs, but I've personally found that some carbs help with hunger, but too many carbs (and especially sugars) without enough protein and/or fiber to go with them will only make you feel hungrier. Sounds odd, but that's been my experience. - eat lots of low-calorie foods with your meals, that means your green leafy poo poo mom always told you you should eat. Some of that poo poo is really tasty, and the stuff that isn't tasty on its own can be made tasty without adding a bunch of calories. Spices are awesome. Those things will help with your hunger, but as long as you carry a calorie deficit, it's guaranteed that you will be hungry sometimes. You need to get used to it. It will get easier over time. You can do it. Just hang in there.
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Jul 13, 2014 01:51
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 04:05 |
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Fat checking in. 6'1" 41-yo male, 215 lbs right now, was around 310 lbs at peak. What made you turn it around? About four years ago my blood pressure started climbing. I went to my doctor and was quickly prescribed hydrochlorothiazide (aka HCTZ), a diuretic. It helped some, but not a whole lot, and I ended up on ramipril, then some other pill whose name I can't remember, but it was a time-release pill. At worst, my BP was up around 170/90. That was when I first started "trying" to lose weight. Trying is in air quotes because I wasn't terribly dedicated to the idea, I just started eating less volume and exercising every now and then. It didn't work out terribly well, as I still had no clue how many calories I was cramming into my gaping maw. A little over two years ago, my doctor informed me that my blood sugars were going up, and that I should start taking a pill to lower my cholesterol. Well, that did it. I realized that I needed to turn things around or I was going to die before seeing my grandkids. How did you start to lose weight? What exercises could you do, or was it all diet initially? I actually didn't start losing weight right away. I got myself a treadmill and started doing cardio 4-5 times per week. I started out doing 2.5 mph at 0% incline for 25 minutes, and worked my way up from there to my current default medium intensity of 3 mph at 12% incline for 45 min. It was very hard to get started, and as many people have noted, treadmill cardio is boring as gently caress. I got around this by setting up a monitor in front of the treadmill and watching a show (usually anime). It made the sessions bearable at first, then enjoyable as it became my "me" time. I made a rule that I'm not to be interrupted while working out unless somebody is literally dying. I look forward to the treadmill now, and unless I'm doing intervals I forget I'm even on the thing after a while. I significantly reduced my food volume. I stopped getting seconds at supper. My plate went from 1/2 potatoes, 1/4 meat and 1/4 veggies to 1/2 veggies, 1/4 potatoes and 1/4 meat. To get around my complete and utter lack of willpower I got all the junk food out of the house and stopped drinking pop completely. I never did fast food very often, but that dropped to nil as well. It's easier to make good food choices when you don't have any junk food in easy reach. Over the next six months, my profile improved dramatically: my BP had improved, my resting HR improved, my blood sugars improved enough that my doctor stopped talking about taking more pills, I had more energy and slept better, but I had only lost 10 pounds and I wasn't happy with my food choices. Despite my improvements in some areas, I was incredibly frustrated at that point, and did an assload of research. I realized that the biggest thing I was missing was tracking the calories in and out. Looking back it seems like such an obvious thing. Hindsight, eh? So I started weighing, measuring, and recording calories in and out, and making sure I carried my deficit. I stopped cutting out the foods I had been cutting because they were "bad", and just made sure my macros were where they should be. I went from 2-3 meals a day to 3 meals plus 2 snacks, which helped a lot with hunger mitigation. I started eating fiber like I wanted to poo poo a goddamn tree, which also helped with the hunger. I was much happier with my diet, and I started consistently losing. When I lost 10 pounds over the next month, and my scale showed 289 lbs, I realized that I was really doing it, and could become legit thin again. That was a real watershed moment for me, and I wept like a little kid. I've only recently (about 3 months ago) started lifting. Similarly to the cardio, I didn't like it at all at first. Even less so than cardio. I can't say I like the actual lifting now, but I do look forward to my lift days and enjoy the feeling I get afterwards. Seems kinda odd, but it's a step in the right direction and I'm sure eventually I'll like lifting like I like cardio. What do you think someone could have said to you to make you want to start earlier? What do you think you could say to someone in a similar situation? Nothing. I'd heard it all before. It wasn't what I needed to hear, it was what I needed to believe. And that was "you really can do it." That's what I tell people. It doesn't matter what your situation is. It doesn't matter what you have, or don't have. You can lose weight and not be totally miserable while you're doing it. If anything, it might have helped to not hear some of the things I did hear. "Oh it's easy." No it's loving not easy, at least not for everybody. If it really was easy we wouldn't have the current obesity epidemic, because other than a few very fringe individuals, nobody wants to be fat. "It's easy" rings of the same bullshit as anti-weed gloom and doom, it's obviously stupid and sends the wrong message. "It may be hard for you, but you can do it" is the hard truth people need to come to believe. Did you encounter chubby chasers? Did anyone tell you they found your obesity attractive? On your way up the scale did you think you were attractive for a while or never? Not that I know of. I did run into one girl who seemed almost oddly attracted to me... she might have been a chubby chaser but I couldn't say for sure. I've never thought I was attractive, so getting fatter didn't really change anything for me in that way. Just out of curiosity, have you noticed any change in how your friends, family, and strangers interact with you now compared to before you began your weight loss? Holy poo poo yes. Everybody constantly tells me how good I look now, to the point where it's actually getting a little annoying. The question people who haven't seen me in a while ask now is "where'd you leave the other half of you?" My go-to answer is "buried in my backyard." I never really felt like I was discriminated against or anything like that when I was super fat, but now that I'm merely overweight I'm starting to see differences in how strangers treat me. They're friendlier on the whole, but it's not like they've stopped being mean, it's more like they stopped ignoring me. I do still get the occasional dirty look when I go to a fast food place, and I guess that's the one thing I'd like potentially judgmental people to keep in mind... that fat guy you see at the McDonald's may actually be on the way down, not up. If you don't think he should be there, why are you there? Almost everybody has reacted positively to my change. I have one co-worker, though, who hasn't *said* anything, but started bringing sweets and poo poo in to share with the office after I started losing a bunch of weight. I don't think it's a conscious effort to sabotage me, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was a subconscious one. This is apparently a thing that happens sometimes, but I'm not troubled by it... free snacks! Besides the eating is there anything you miss or liked as a death fat? I have a pretty stiff bed, which wasn't much of an issue back when I had significant padding on my hips and shoulders. Almost all the fat stores left in my body are around my gut, so now I get some soreness from lying on my side that I didn't have before. I presume that once I have decent muscles in those areas it'll be less of an issue. Or I suppose I could just get a softer bed or something. Yeah that's it. What was the absolute worst thing being at your fattest? Gosh, there's so much to choose from. I'd have to say the general lack of mobility. Not being able to do something as simple as picking something up off the floor without it being a major production was depressing. How do you feel about the fat-shaming thread in GBS? Do you read it at all/frequently? Is it a motivation or source of shame or motivation through shame? The what thread now?  I get a lot of enjoyment out of the thread. I enjoy stirring poo poo up in there every now and then (read: on a nearly daily basis). Despite that, I agree with most of the messages in the thread: HAAS/HAES is maddeningly horrible, "fat acceptance" in general is pretty loving dumb, fat people should be told things like "you can and should lose weight, and here's how" by friends, loved ones, and health professionals, and feeders and other fat fetishists are horrible people who should be launched into the goddamn sun. However, I don't believe people should be shamed for whatever state they're currently in, because 99 times out of 100, it's just not helpful. In most cases, I believe it's truly harmful. Yes, smash whatever delusions they have ("I really eat very healthy!") with facts, but don't try to make people feel subhuman, because feeling subhuman is one of the things that leads people to just not caring about being fat. I'm aware there are people who have been motivated by the thread, and I think that's fantastic. I'm pleasantly surprised by that fact, but I think it helps that those people aren't being personally shamed in the thread, they're just seeing examples of what can/will happen to them if they don't turn things around. The first, best way to fight any kind of social ill is by education, and that thread is very educational if nothing else, so kudos in that sense. I think there are a few people in that thread who genuinely hate fat people for being fat, who do prop themselves up by feeding on and perpetuating the misery of others, and who probably need more therapy than the people they're mocking, but I'm betting they're the minority and most of the regular posters in there are just having fun. Geoj is my favorite poster in the thread, but just because I haven't quite figured him out yet... in most of his posts, he sounds like he's firmly on the bandwagon, but a few of his posts come very close to being obvious mocking of the mockers. Poe's Law I guess.
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Jul 14, 2014 02:29
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meataidstheft posted:Random question: I've been getting tired after meals (like having to take a nap tired) - that pretty much means I have diabetes right? I'm going to schedule a doctor's appointment next week. I experienced the same thing when I made my big shift in intake. You definitely want to get checked out (because it could be related to diabetes), but if your experience is like mine, it will go away after a while.
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Jul 14, 2014 12:46
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shipwrek posted:You can add me to the list of people that have started down the road to weight loss thanks to this and the fat shame thread. I was wondering how much people who have lost weight or are currently doing so like having a hard goal? Does having a 'when I'm this weight I win' attitude motivate you or maybe smaller incremental goals? I suppose it will be a different answer for different people; just curious what mental rewards you like to give yourselves. I have a final goal of 175 lbs. That's when I'll go back to a maintenance intake instead of a calorie deficit. It's a nice convenient number for setting goals in 25-lb increments. Screw mental rewards, I've set up a cash reward volcano for hitting those goals. It hasn't turned out to be the motivator I thought it would be, though. The positive changes in my body have become the biggest motivator. So far, I've reinvested those rewards into more exercise stuff... weights, good sneakers, etc. I'm no longer looking forward to getting a better computer, I'm looking forward to a bike and more weights.
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Jul 16, 2014 17:04
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Gindack posted:Well I decided to make some drastic changes as this thread made me realize how much of a fatty fat fat I am. Joined a real gym, met with a Dietitian and scheduled with a Personal Trainer once a week for now. Fourth day of my new diet (down to 2200 calories) a day it it loving sucks, not gonna lie. Worse part was that earlier I was watching TV (evidently that means feeding time to my brain) and I had to go to sleep to ignore it. Good for you! It does get easier. Believe it or not, if you stick it out you'll likely get to a point where you're eating 1500 calories a day and it'll be easier than what you're going through now. It takes a while for your body to adjust to the lower intake and stop sending you hunger signals like you're about drop dead of malnutrition, or at least that was my experience. And no matter how hard it is now, when I lost a bunch of weight and literally every aspect of my life improved, I felt like all that effort was more than worth it. Keep it up! I watch shows while on the treadmill, and it really helps a lot, but I have learned that food is a pretty common theme in media. It can be pretty distracting sometimes when you're working through hunger and you're watching people chow down on a bunch of stuff. Silver Spoon was particularly bad for this, as food comes up in nearly every goddamn episode (to be fair, it is about a dude going to an agricultural school).
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Jul 19, 2014 10:43
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Alcohol and/or other drugs never gave me any trouble, I suspect for the same reason why gin generally isn't a problem for an alcoholic who drinks scotch. I apologize in advance for how dumb this may sound, but when I watched The West Wing, Leo McGarry's descriptions of alcohol addiction sounded very familiar to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ma3d-YdLjCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6GxYVJcuo Among other things, he says "I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer?" Replace alcohol with food, and you've got the way I've felt about food my entire life. Is it an addiction, per se? I don't know, but if you look at many of the behaviors of addicts: hiding their use, denying their use, horrible feelings of guilt after using... these are all things that could have applied to me at some point in my life. I've treated the way I handle food in the same way many addicts deal with their addiction: I don't keep junk food in the house, I don't go to buffets, I try to avoid social situations where people will offer me food. I very strictly control my access to foods because it's the only way I can get a handle on it. I seriously wish I could stop eating altogether.
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Jul 22, 2014 17:07
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Laverna posted:I'm only slightly overweight, and that for only the past few years of my life, but I'm afraid that I'm well on my way to becoming obese or at least unhealthily overweight if I don't do something soon. I have an incredibly unhealthy lifestyle, I always have. I still have a childish diet (ew, vegetables!) and I haven't exercised ever. Until now I must have just had a really lucky metabolism or something, I dunno. I had to more or less hack around my laziness by making things easier/more appealing. I set up a monitor in front of my treadmill so I could watch shows to distract me from the fact that I'm on a goddamn treadmill. I don't really need it anymore because I now enjoy the workout, but getting over that hurdle took a while. In the end there's always going to be an excuse you can use to not do something. What you need to do is find excuses to do something. Look at the horrible body horror pics in the FiB thread and say "I don't want to become that!" if that works for you. Look at fit people doing loving awesome things and say "I want to become that!" if that works for you. Make it a real-life RPG and watch the good numbers go up over time and the bad numbers go down over time if that works for you. Pretend you're turning into a superhero, training yourself to become the next Batman if that works for you. Just find *something*. As far as the foods go, your attitude towards vegetables may have a lot to do with how your parental unit cooked them for you as a kid. It's pretty easy to turn yummy veggies into horrible bland, mushy poo poo. But, if you know what you're doing, it's also pretty easy to turn yummy veggies into even yummier veggies without significantly increasing their calorie count, if at all. Pick a vegetable, look up ways to cook it, try something! Turn it into an adventure. I guarantee you will find something you like. I don't venture into GWS myself, but I bet you they can help you out on that score. Also keep in mind that it is possible to train yourself to like specific foods. The whole idea of acquired tastes isn't fiction.
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Jul 22, 2014 23:34
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I have a question for the overweight/former overweight here: did/do you continuously gain weight if you're not controlling your intake? Or did you balloon up to a weight and stay there for years/decades? I went from about 135 lbs to 310 lbs in the span of three years, and then stayed that weight, with only minor fluctuations in either direction, for 20 years.
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Jul 24, 2014 16:34
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Twee as gently caress posted:
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Jul 25, 2014 01:37
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Godsped posted:I want to start but I just can't. My first goal is the 300 lb mark, then my end goal would be to fit into pants under size 40. Or maybe shop somewhere other than destination xl. I hate when people ask me where I get my clothes because I like to forget that it's a problem. It sounds like you're still living with your parents, and are they the ones cooking the meals? If so, talk to them about how you feel and what you want to do, and that you want them to help. The first step (for either you or them, whoever is doing the cooking) is to cook less food at each meal. You can't have three plates at dinner if there's only enough food for everybody to have a single plate. Not having food ready to go is a more powerful deterrent to overeating than a lot of people realize. Your first line of defense can be to limit your access to food. Get rid of all the junk food in your house. Make any convenience food in your house low-calorie. This will of course be much more difficult if you're living with family, but your family SHOULD support you in your efforts. You *can* do it. I know it sounds horribly trite, but if I can do it, anybody can. That's something I heard constantly but didn't truly believe until I did it. This is going to sound horrible and wrong, but it's true: I honestly went into the whole weight loss thing believing I would fail. I ended up proving myself wrong, and I've never, ever in my life been happier with being so completely and utterly wrong. You can do it. Start slow. You don't need to go immediately to your target intake, you can bring your intake down over a couple of weeks. That was helpful for me. You don't need to carry a 1000-calorie deficit and lose two pounds per week. You can have a 500-calorie deficit and lose one pound per week instead. Better to lose slowly than to push too hard and get frustrated and quit. Work your way up to a 1000-calorie deficit over a couple of months, even. Just start. edit: I see a lot of people talk about willpower in relation to losing weight. I don't know about other people who have lost, but I don't have one ounce more willpower today than I did two years ago. The reason I succeed today is not due to willpower, but to discipline. On the surface it may sound like the same thing, but the two are considerably different. It was really a question of overwriting old, bad habits with new, good habits. A few months of weigh/measure, record, check, feedback, restrict, and I now have habits that will stay with me forever. That first few months was loving horrible because of all the junk in the house. I live with four people who want junk food, and it was like the stages of grief trying to get rid of them. Ask, plead, beg, demand... I was just on the cusp of just throwing out their poo poo when they got the hint and stopped. Now, though, because of the discipline I've developed over that time, it doesn't matter. They can have their junk food and it doesn't bother me. I'm actually now having the opposite problem. I buy junk every now and then, because I think "hmm, I'd like some Doritos," but then they just sit around for weeks on end while I fuss over the budget. They don't fit into my macros, I'm having regular meals with my family, I don't want to go over my budget, it's not time for a maintenance day, I have all these established habits that keep me from eating them... so they just sit. Eventually I'll work them in but it's honestly more work than not getting them in the first place. Willpower is overrated. Discipline is everything. For me, anyway. Tinestram fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 11:15
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ChairMaster posted:Well there's a certain point at which eating right and walking to work every day isn't enough and you have to either cut calories to a bare minimum or start properly exercising and running and poo poo. I know for a fact that I don't have the willpower for either.
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Jul 25, 2014 13:01
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Falcon2001 posted:I'm probably going to regret posting in here because I guarantee I'm going to end up in one of the fat threads, but here goes. Your story sounds a lot like mine. Seriously, all this stuff: Falcon2001 posted:* My sex drive is pretty much shot and it's a big disappointment to my wife. She wants it regularly, like every other day, and I'm in the mood every week or so, max. ALL OF IT also applied to me, and more, so if you're getting redtexted, so am I, bro. Here's the good news: other than still not wandering around my house topless (loose skin is not sexy), everything else is fixed, and more. I used to snore, every night. I don't snore at all anymore. I could go through lists and lists of stuff that just got better. Sex drive? Oh yeah. Fat turns testosterone into estrogen, which in turns lowers your sex drive. Guess what happens when you start dropping fat? Here, I'll go one past you in the embarrassment department. I am the opposite of well-endowed. At my former weight, many positions we used to enjoy were simply impossible for us. Now we can do all that stuff again. It's loving awesome. Literally. I started a little heavier than you, and my knees fuckin hurt all the time before I started exercising. Which is why I say: start exercising. I know it's tough at first, but your leg muscles will gain strength surprisingly quickly. Walk lots. Walk everywhere. I get razzed quite a bit about the treadmill thing, but it helped so much, you really have no idea. Stop feeling ashamed. Overweight is just a state of being, and you can change it. That rear end in a top hat who gave you poo poo about chicken on a salad? He's a loving idiot, and probably wants you to fail. Ignore the gently caress out of those people. Hang in there. Get stronger. You can do it!
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Jul 29, 2014 18:36
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messagemode1 posted:I have more questions! - eating a fuckton of fiber and protein - drinking water all the goddamn time - eating small snacks between meals (ymmv, I hear a lot of people say this is "bullshit" but it helped me) - making drat good and sure I got enough sleep every night Has hunger always been at the same intensity or has it eased as you've lost weight/hit plateaus? I am less hungry, on the whole, now that I'm on a constant calorie deficit than I was before I started losing weight. It definitely seems odd to me, but I think the hunger response is a relatively fragile thing in human physiology and can be broken pretty easily.
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Jul 30, 2014 10:53
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Weener Beater posted:-Is it actually pleasurable to eat when you are unhappy with how you feel or look? Weener Beater posted:-Several people have said it is difficult to change. Why? How is it difficult when you know it will improve your situation over time Weener Beater posted:-to the folks that have started to change their lives, and those that have transformed themselves, the common thread is discipline. My therapist has said it takes 20-30 instances of conscious change to alter a habit. What are your thoughts? And do any of you have something that helps reinforce the changes you are making Nobody wants to be limited in their motion, feel bad, and look bad. But a lot of people get caught up in the false dichotomy of "I can either look good, or eat yummy foods." Tinestram fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Aug 2, 2014 |
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Aug 2, 2014 10:50
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Hopefully he'll be back soon. In the meantime, I'm also open to PMs.
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Aug 4, 2014 17:08
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Godsped posted:So I just got a little wake up call. I was working on a computer in a wellness training room, and I decided to step on the scale (last weight was 330 in January). That's a great first step. Getting help from a pro will make a big difference, in lots of ways. Think positive. You're young, so turning this poo poo around isn't gonna be as hard as it would be if you waited another couple of decades. Or years even. Stop telling yourself that you suck and this sucks. Think about how important a step it is to acknowledge you have a problem, seek help, and get started along the path. That's AWESOME.
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Aug 6, 2014 13:51
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but I helped the head if the athletic training program a lot earlier this summer and he still remembers my name, so I emailed him about it and he's offered to meet with me and go over possible programs my school can offer.
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Flaky posted:Then how come fat people exist?????
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Aug 31, 2014 20:35
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vyst posted:Oh god shut up we're going to get runupon cracker in here with his treadmill incline science.  Just kidding. I agree with Fatkraken. Actual hiking is awesome... if you can do it. Some people can't. Do what you can do, that challenges you, and that you enjoy, and you'll be far ahead of the vast majority of the population. Just move.
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Sep 17, 2014 15:29
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 04:05 |
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Flaky posted:What fat people have maintained a diet for a month? Be specific please, give concrete examples. That concrete enough for ya? Dick?
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Sep 21, 2014 02:31
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