Self intro / I have a long journey ahead of me...

[marffeus]

I have one word for you:  Atkins

Buy the Atkins diet book immediately.  The early 90's version is bets, not the new one, which is adjusted to sell their products.  People lose hundreds of pound son Atkins, no joke.

I've tried every combo of diet and exercise, and in my experience, Atkins is the best.  If you follow it, stay disciplined, and don't cheat, the weight will come off. 

Also, don't be a baby.  Screw a pinched nerve or any other pain.  No pain no gain.  I fast walk for 3 hours a day.  My feet hurt, knees, legs, hips, back.  Everything hurts.  Sometimes I think I have truly injured myself.  I'll take a day off, and I feel better again.  Once you start exercising your body's ability to heal itself gets really strong.  You just have to get up and do it.

As far as worrying what people think, you just need to STOP.  I know how hard this is, but you just need to stop giving a crap, and imagining the end result.  It's not their life, it's yours.

If you follow the Atkins diet, and exercise along with it, you can lose all that weight in a year.  That's being optimistic, but it can be done.

I second this post. Atkins is a great way to lose weight. You will deal with people saying its unhealthy (and to some degree, it's not the MOST healthy diet out there) but the weight will come off at an inspiring pace, and you will feel better, and best of all, have control over what you eat. It's amazing how carbohydrates when not regulated can really pack on the pounds, as well as lead to an addiction of food.

South Beach is actually a good diet to consider as well (it's higher in carbohydrates than Atkins) and is generally considered healthier.

EDIT: Also, for all the naysayers of Atkins, go Google studies done comparing Atkins vs other diets (high carb, low fat) and you will find that Atkins is actually the "healthier" diet when measured using typical health criteria (LDL cholesterol, body fat composition, etc.). It frustrates me to no end how people can offer their opinion on topics they have not taken time to educate themselves on first! I seriously believe within the next 10 years we will see a paradigm shift in what's considered a healthy diet, and lower carb diets such as Atkins or South Beach will be considered great alternatives for people. Until then, don't listen to what "experts" have to say; do the research yourself and you'll find out all you need to know!

[copious]

The Atkins Diet certainly has its loyal fans. I still think some diets are better suited to certain people. Each diet seems to have their own unique angle. For every good review, there may just as many bad reviews. It's important not to read just the ones we want to see. Some sources are credible, some aren't. While going to a weight loss clinic a while ago, they were not big fans of the Atkins diet. Atkins focusses on lowering carb intake (which I agree, can be a good thing) but also is heavily reliant on eating meat.  Since I don't eat meat anymore (8 years now), and don't intend to start eating it again, the Atkins Diet would not be the right one for me. But what I have taken from this is to watch the carb content in foods. I've definitely cut down on bread, rice, potatoes, etc.

To be honest, I'm leaning towards a very unscientific, very old, tried, test and true diet: consuming fewer calories than I burn! Yep, just cutting down on the calories, watching portion sizes and eating a healthy snack in between meals. That way I'm eating something every 3 hours and my metabolism won't slow down. I'm not sure I could totally adopt the raw food diet, but I've certainly increased my consumption of them. I've been slowly introducing exercise (more to come as my pinched nerve heals). So far, it's working! 15 pounds lost in about 15 days! Not bad, considering I haven't even been putting in 100% effort yet, but with results like this, it's very encouraging!

[marffeus]

The Atkins Diet certainly has its loyal fans. I still think some diets are better suited to certain people. Each diet seems to have their own unique angle. For every good review, there may just as many bad reviews. It's important not to read just the ones we want to see. Some sources are credible, some aren't. While going to a weight loss clinic a while ago, they were not big fans of the Atkins diet. Atkins focusses on lowering carb intake (which I agree, can be a good thing) but also is heavily reliant on eating meat.  Since I don't eat meat anymore (8 years now), and don't intend to start eating it again, the Atkins Diet would not be the right one for me. But what I have taken from this is to watch the carb content in foods. I've definitely cut down on bread, rice, potatoes, etc.

To be honest, I'm leaning towards a very unscientific, very old, tried, test and true diet: consuming fewer calories than I burn! Yep, just cutting down on the calories, watching portion sizes and eating a healthy snack in between meals. That way I'm eating something every 3 hours and my metabolism won't slow down. I'm not sure I could totally adopt the raw food diet, but I've certainly increased my consumption of them. I've been slowly introducing exercise (more to come as my pinched nerve heals). So far, it's working! 15 pounds lost in about 15 days! Not bad, considering I haven't even been putting in 100% effort yet, but with results like this, it's very encouraging!

15lbs in 15 days is great, congrats! Really, as long as you're happy with your diet, and it works, then I say stick with it. Atkins would be next to impossible as a vegetarian so that's probably not something you could pursue. You say you are restricting calories, but I'm just wondering if you are playing it by ear right now, or if you are counting them? As your weight loss continues, counting will probably become required to ensure the loss doesn't stop.

Good luck and keep us updated.

[copious]

Now that I've seen some positive results, I'm going to start writing down what I eat and following a food plan. At first, I was just cutting out late night eating and junk food. That was how I reduced calories, but I want to make sure I'm getting just the right about. Too few or too many can be a bad thing. I'll definitely keep you posted on the weight loss, and of course, once the time time comes, the gyne surgery. Because that is, after all, one of my primary goals (although the surgery will be about a year away, the time I estimate I need to get down to an acceptable weight).

[anon643]

eat 1500-1800 calories and start out working out 15-20 mins a day a few times a week until you can workout more. You will lose weight.

[anon643]

and FYI increased protein intake without carbs increases risk of heart disease because of high saturated fat. It increases calcium lost in the urine, excessive intake of meat is linked with colon cancer, and it's a burden on the kidneys. Atkins is a terrible diet, it puts your body in ketosis, that also makes your blood more acidic which can have other negative effects. Best way to lose weight is to control calories, eat balanced meals with complex carbs instead of refined carbs, eat veggies, fruits and lean meats (6-7oz!) for someone like you. Its smaller than you think. Replace EVERY beverage you drink with water, and do what i said above, and you will lose weight ina healthy way. You may not even need the surgery if your chest gets to a level that you are pleased with.

[anon643]

Another uninformed poster spewing nothing but garbage.

actually it's 100% informed, i'm a nutrition major and ANY medical professional with half a brain would advocate the same things because it is all based on scientific fact. You DONT want to be the person in the hospital with renal problems, trust me. DO YOUR HOMEWORK before advocating a terrible diet, homework means other materials besides the ATKINS book, wow.

[copious]

You may not even need the surgery if your chest gets to a level that you are pleased with.

That would be great if my chest gets flatter when I lose the weight, but I suspect I will still need the surgery. Even when I weighed 225 pounds, they gyne was still there and quite prominent. Thinking back to elementary and high school when I was only slightly overweight, I still had the boobs too... but it certainly can't hurt to lose the weight. Thanks for the extra tips. I've actually been following some of them already and have lost 15 pounds in just under 3 weeks. Now that I've seen this modest weight loss, it's really motivated me!

[anon643]

You may not even need the surgery if your chest gets to a level that you are pleased with.

That would be great if my chest gets flatter when I lose the weight, but I suspect I will still need the surgery. Even when I weighed 225 pounds, they gyne was still there and quite prominent. Thinking back to elementary and high school when I was only slightly overweight, I still had the boobs too... but it certainly can't hurt to lose the weight. Thanks for the extra tips. I've actually been following some of them already and have lost 15 pounds in just under 3 weeks. Now that I've seen this modest weight loss, it's really motivated me!

"Even when you weighed 225 pounds" Well what if you weighed 175-180 pounds? Take it slow and see what happens, if you feel that you need surgery then you can get it then.  I've gone from 275 to 210 using healthy techniques. It's part of why i decided to get into nutrition. I have the problem, that's why i'm on the site. I've told myself not to stress about my chest until i get a healthy BMI which for me, at 5'7 is 160-170. If it's a problem that i cannot live with anymore at that stage, then i will look into possibly getting it corrected.

[anon643]

Wow, if you're a nutrition major, then all your teachers should be fired.  What is this, some sort of online nutrition degree or something?

no i go to a very respected university in New York City, as i said, do your homework. Telling someone to do atkins is setting someone up for health problems in the future, without a doubt. Any dietetics/nutrition program from Harvard to yes, an online degree would advocate the same things that i just said above, period.

[copious]

My guess is that even when I lose the weight, I will still have the gyne. But of course, only time will tell. The boobs may not be as big, but if they're still there, I would like to get the surgery. It's been a source of misery and embarrassment for much of my life. It will take about a year to lose the weight, so there's quite a bit of time to read about gyne and become well informed of all the possibilities.

[gbymoobs]

I have no experience with the Atkins diet so I can not comment about it. I weighed 89KG at my heaviest and dropped to 72 kilograms at my lightest in a period of 3 months. The first 10 Kilo where gone in a month. I achieved this by doing the following:

Food:
- Eating 65% raw vegetables (lots of leafy greens) and low sugar content fruits.
- 10% sugar content fruits.
- Millet porridge, (made with water), some flax seed oil and some raisins. (millet does not get converted to sugar by the body)
- Once or twice a week I ate some fatty fish like salmon.

Drinks:
- Green tea
- Water
- Carbonated water with fresh lemon juice.

What not to eat.
- Alcohol
- Sugar content foods
- Foods with surrogate sugars.
- Saturated fatty products.
- White flour products.
- Processed foods.
- All other animal products, including milk, meat and eggs.
- High starch/carb products, like rice, pasta, potatoes.

Sports
-Went running five weeks a day, 50 minutes a day.

I felt tremendous at the time, the reason I gained about 7 kilo's back after 2,5 years of weighing 75KG,  because I went back to eating lots of cooked foods and starchy stuff like potatoes and rice and stuff.

As of 2 weeks ago I decided to go back to my old 65% raw vegan diet an I have already lost 2 kilo's. Please don't let yourself be convinced the a high fruit and vegetable diet shall not help you to achieve your goal's in a healthy manner.

[copious]

Mmmm, that sounds good! I wouldn't eat the fish, since I'm vegetarian (and have never liked fish anyways) but I get protein from other sources. I also don't like any caffeinated beverages, so Green Tea is out, but the rest of the stuff on your list sounds awesome. I already eat a lot of it, but can easy add in a few more. Great idea with the exercise - that's something I need to work on.

[anon85]

Wow, if you're a nutrition major, then all your teachers should be fired.  What is this, some sort of online nutrition degree or something?

no i go to a very respected university in New York City, as i said, do your homework. Telling someone to do atkins is setting someone up for health problems in the future, without a doubt. Any dietetics/nutrition program from Harvard to yes, an online degree would advocate the same things that i just said above, period.

All you're doing is regurgitating false media propaganda.  It's so painful to read what you've written, that I can't even bear to waste my time or energy to educate you or respond anymore.

All YOU have done is claim that the Atkins diet is great and healthy because the Atkins book says so. Last time I checked that was not a valid argument.

[anon643]

Wow, if you're a nutrition major, then all your teachers should be fired.  What is this, some sort of online nutrition degree or something?

no i go to a very respected university in New York City, as i said, do your homework. Telling someone to do atkins is setting someone up for health problems in the future, without a doubt. Any dietetics/nutrition program from Harvard to yes, an online degree would advocate the same things that i just said above, period.

All you're doing is regurgitating false media propaganda.  It's so painful to read what you've written, that I can't even bear to waste my time or energy to educate you or respond anymore.

media propaganda? Actually, its called organic chemistry, biochemistry, anatomy, and nutrition knowledge. Just stop now because you're making yourself look.....well, since this should be a friendly forum, I'm not even gonna go there.