Is Weight Loss Always Possible With Diets?

[Ace1234]

Obviously you didn't read what I posted. I wrote that I have a very well balanced diet, and exercise routine.

I've been to doctors and they don't know why when I exercise and kick my own butt for 90 minutes that I don't lose any weight. I have to work four times harder than a woman who doesn't have PCOS.

I don't have time to work out 4 - 6 hours a day.

I limit myself to 1400 calories a day. For my height and weight, and the exercise that I do everyday except on Sunday as it's the Lord's day, I should be burning about 600 calories a day. My BMR which is the metabolic rate that my body should be burning calories if I were to do NOTHING at all, I should be burning 1873 calories with no exercise at all. So, eating a 1400 calorie diet that is 400 calories a day without even exercising. The 90 minutes that I do everyday is an additional 200 calories that I burn daily.

So, you're continuing to act like a know it all by posting something from a website "assuming" that it applies to every single woman on the planet with PCOS.

So, tell me, Doctor Drew what am I doing wrong with my exercise routine and diet of 1400 calories a day since you're acting like you're a licensed doctor?

From your pic you certainly don't look fat, even if you've gain weight. With respect, you're a very beautiful young lady, don't think different. You may always carry some extra weight, sometimes it's worse to starve yourself, better to carry some extra and be healthy.

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

you're a very beautiful young lady

Genuis!

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

Classik Shame on you Shame shame this is the Christmas season baking goodies is a big part of the season and you go and throw gluttony in the oven.


Date bars, oatmeal cookies, banana nut muffins, pecan pie bars. Sugar cookies, lemon bars... pumpkin pie, mince pie, cinnamon rolls, cocoanut and banana cream pies.....

These might just do for Xmas!

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

Also, Riniel, I agree with the others, you are indeed a beautiful young lady!!!!

You saw well!

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

I simply do not believe what you are describing is physically possible. Based on my training in engineering and science, I believe it is simply not possible to gain weight if you burn more calories than you consume.

There is a lot of sense in this.

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

Unless, of course, you eat a block of steel, or something similar.

Dude, you are funny.

 

[jasoncran]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

yup, handy.i know of some skinny gluttons.

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

Are all our forumers comedians? Are you a comedian too, Dora the First Lady. You are very funny.


Few hours to Xmas...sorry Christmas. Let's persecutive the kitchen.

 

[handy]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

One of the more interesting reads about gluttony comes from C. S. Lewis, who nails the essence of gluttony. It comes in Chapter 7 of "The Screwtape Letters".

I know that "The Screwtape Letters" can be found on-line, in its entirety, at a number of sites, so I'm trusting that the copy right laws are being adhered to. This is such a good discussion of this important topic that I want to quote it here...I'll leave the link in place, so we shouldn't get into too much trouble.

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,
The contemptuous way in which you spoke of gluttony as a means of catching
souls, in your last letter, only shows your ignorance. One of the great,
achievements of the last hundred years has been to deaden the human conscience on that subject, so that by now you will hardly find a sermon preached or a conscience troubled about it in the whole length and breadth of Europe. This has largely been effected by concentrating all our efforts on gluttony of Delicacy, not gluttony of Excess. Your patient's mother, as I learn from the dossier and you might have learned from Glubose, is a good example. She would be astonished—one day, I hope, will be—to learn that her whole life is enslaved to this kind of sensuality, which is quite concealed from her by the fact that the quantities involved are small. But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience,
uncharitableness, and self-concern? Glubose has this old woman well in hand. She is a positive terror to hostesses and servants. She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sign and a smile "Oh please, please...all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast". You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. At the very moment of indulging her appetite she believes that she is practising temperance. In a crowded restaurant she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, "Oh, that's far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it". If
challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste; in reality she does
it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is
offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.

The real value of the quiet, unobtrusive work which Glubose has been doing for
years on this old woman can be gauged by the way in which her belly now
dominates her whole life. The woman is in what may be called the "All-I-want"
state of mind. All she wants is a cup of tea properly made, or an egg properly
boiled, or a slice of bread properly toasted. But she never finds any servant or
any friend who can do these simple things "properly"—because her "properly"
conceals an insatiable demand for the exact, and almost impossible, palatal
pleasures which she imagines she remembers from the past; a past described by
her as "the days when you could get good servants" but known to us as the days when her senses were more easily pleased and she had pleasures of other kinds which made her less dependent on those of the table. Meanwhile, the daily
disappointment produces daily ill temper: cooks give notice and friendships are
cooled. If ever the Enemy introduces into her mind a faint suspicion that she is
too interested in food, Glubose counters it by suggesting to her that she
doesn't mind what she eats herself but "does like to have things nice for her
boy". In fact, of course, her greed has been one of the chief sources of his
domestic discomfort for many years.

Now your patient is his mother's son. While working your hardest, quite rightly,
on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of
gluttony. Being a male, he is not so likely to be caught by the "All I want"
camouflage. Males are best turned into gluttons with the help of their vanity.
They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique
themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really "properly" cooked. What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit. But, however you approach it, the great thing is to bring him into the state in which the denial of any one indulgence—it matters not which, champagne or tea, sole colbert or cigarettes—"puts him out", for then his charity, justice, and obedience are all at your mercy.

Mere excess in food is much less valuable than delicacy. Its chief use is as a
kind of artillery preparation for attacks on chastity. On that, as on every
other subject, keep your man in a condition of false spirituality. Never let him
notice the medical aspect. Keep him wondering what pride or lack of faith has
delivered him into your hands when a simple enquiry into what he has been eating or drinking for the last twenty-four hours would show him whence your ammunition comes and thus enable him by a very little abstinence to imperil your lines of communication. If he must think of the medical side of chastity, feed him the grand lie which we have made the English humans believe, that physical exercise in excess and consequent fatigue are specially favourable to this virtue. How they can believe this, in face of the notorious lustfulness of sailors and
soldiers, may well be asked. But we used the schoolmasters to put the story
about—men who were really interested in chastity as an excuse for games and
therefore recommended games as an aid to chastity. But this whole business is
too large to deal with at the tail-end of a letter,
Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE


http://www.mylibrarybook.com/books/676/C.S-Lewis/The-Screwtape-Letters-7.html

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant discourse on the true nature and sin of gluttony.

I'm now off to persecutive my kitchen in making cookies and treats!

 

[Classik]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

One of the more interesting reads about gluttony comes from C. S. Lewis, who nails the essence of gluttony. It comes in Chapter 7 of "The Screwtape Letters".

I know that "The Screwtape Letters" can be found on-line, in its entirety, at a number of sites, so I'm trusting that the copy right laws are being adhered to. This is such a good discussion of this important topic that I want to quote it here...I'll leave the link in place, so we shouldn't get into too much trouble.



Brilliant, absolutely brilliant discourse on the true nature and sin of gluttony.

I'm now off to persecutive my kitchen in making cookies and treats!

very interesting!

Few hours to Xmas...sorry Christmas. Let's persecutive the kitchen.

I'm now off to persecutive my kitchen in making cookies and treats!

:toofunny
Didn't I rightly say Dora is a comedian? You are absolutely hillarious.


My uncles and aunts are home (including the snoring aunt)...and my mom has ever been busy persecutiving the kitchen.

Join me and let's persecutive....sorry persecute the kitchen.

The stomach is the scape goat. I agree. But how often could we open and shut the door to the toilet?

 

[handy]

Re: Is gluttony a sin?

2 Looking everywhere....nope, no mods around...Mike isn't here....

The mods will probably petition to have us put on Santa's "naughty" list for this but...


Drew, glad to see you concede " this is not true for all"...it certainly isn't true in my case. I've long since lost/got rid of the diet, but it was very precise. I bought a little kitchen scale and measured everything precisely. I didn't cheat.

Drew, my hair was falling out and I was gaining weight like you wouldn't believe, plus I felt terrible. I was terribly worried...I wasn't about to cheat.

Most likely the weight gained in the 5 days wasn't due to fat conversion...it was most likely due to water/salt retention. Folks with thyroid disease are especially susceptible to water/salt retention.

For instance, another completely reliable personal ancedote from your's truly...a couple of months ago my doctor put me on a water pill. Now, here's another one for skeptic's anonymous, but I didn't change my eating habit's at all...not a bite less than my normal diet. And, because this was the time my back was out of whack, I wasn't exercising at all, 'smatter of fact, I was spending most of the day in the recliner. It would have been likely that, due to the eating but lack of normal exercise, I should have gained weight.

I dropped 12 pounds in 3 days.

Naturally, that wasn't fat...it was all water. And, I believe that the weight I gained during the 5 days of the extreme diet and exercise regimen the doctor had me on (both times) was most likely water gain as well...but that's part of the problem with a wonky thyroid. And, someone can look like a popover muffin whether the weight is fat or water.

This is the reason I believe that I always plateau at losing 15-20lbs and cause my thyroid to go wonky if I start to lose much more than that...because the first 15-20 lbs is water and then I get down to real fat conversion, which causes real changes in my body and causes the medication to be less effective.

As I mentioned before, I do well at maintaining the weight I was at when I was finally diagnosed with the thyroid disease, but not at dropping below it. I wish I could jump in the way-back machine and go to the time I first started gaining weight and get to the doctor's right away. It's very possible that I could be a still trim 118 pounds. But, I let it go for too many years and gained too much real weight in the process.

I'm fat, Drew. But it's not because I'm a glutton...I eat a pretty dog-gone healthy diet...plenty of fresh veggies and fruit...good meats and I'm very limited on the high carb things. I also exercise...not only on the treadmill but also just doing ranching work, which is fairly physical in nature. But, I don't lose weight and have to work at keeping weight gain to a minimum. It is hard and can be depressing. But, since I've decided that I'm only going to worry about my true health rather than what I look like, I also allow myself to truly enjoy things like pizza, chalupas, pepsi, and Christmas cookies. Just not everyday, not all the time.

Actually, given C. S. Lewis' insight to the matter of gluttony, and considering this:

"But what do quantities matter, provided we can use a human belly and palate to produce querulousness, impatience, uncharitableness, and self-concern?"

I wonder if I focused so much of my attention to getting back down to 118 (I was 110 in high school, but no woman of my age is going to weight what she did when she was 17)...I would actually be more "gluttonous" in that I would be wallowing in self-concern...not to mention impatient and grumpy which, admittedly I can be when having to diet.

Which is a beautiful segue back to the OP and subject at hand, don't you think?

 

[Mike]

I've separated some posts from an existing thread, since they were off topic from the original OP. Have a fruitful discussion!

 

[handy]

I've done a bit of discussing how my thyroid being wonky has led to excess weight gain as well as a seeming inability to lose beyond a certain weight.

Today I read an article that I found both relieving (in a way) as well as sort of depressing.

I think everyone agrees that it's hard to lose weight and hard for those who have lost weight to keep it off.

According to this article, it's even harder than anyone has previously thought. This article was written by someone that I can readily identify with. She eats a healthy diet, she is healthy, describes herself as, "in my case, my cholesterol and blood pressure are low and I have an extraordinarily healthy heart", which I also have, and I have decent blood sugar levels as well...really, I am healthy.

It is being found that, for those who lose weight, the body actually works hard to put the weight back on again. Those who lose weight experience a change in how their brain works when it comes to food. From the article:

Another way that the body seems to fight weight loss is by altering the way the brain responds to food. Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist also at Columbia, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track the brain patterns of people before and after weight loss while they looked at objects like grapes, Gummi Bears, chocolate, broccoli, cellphones and yo-yos. After weight loss, when the dieter looked at food, the scans showed a bigger response in the parts of the brain associated with reward and a lower response in the areas associated with control. This suggests that the body, in order to get back to its pre-diet weight, induces cravings by making the person feel more excited about food and giving him or her less willpower to resist a high-calorie treat.

Another part of the article that I readily identified with was the story of a woman who participated in a highly controlled weight loss and maintenance program. I had mentioned in the thread this one was taken from that I have decided that I "don't want to live" the way I would have to live in order to get down to and maintain a slimmer figure. While I'm impressed with this woman's determination to maintain what is still a very heavy weight, most likely since she's a woman, an obese weight...I don't want to do this, I'd rather live a normal life and enjoy...as long as I remain healthy.

From the article:

Janice Bridge, a registry member who has successfully maintained a 135-pound weight loss for about five years, is a perfect example. “It’s one of the hardest things there is,†she says. “It’s something that has to be focused on every minute. I’m not always thinking about food, but I am always aware of food.â€
Bridge, who is 66 and lives in Davis, Calif., was overweight as a child and remembers going on her first diet of 1,400 calories a day at 14. At the time, her slow pace of weight loss prompted her doctor to accuse her of cheating. Friends told her she must not be paying attention to what she was eating. “No one would believe me that I was doing everything I was told,†she says. “You can imagine how tremendously depressing it was and what a feeling of rebellion and anger was building up.â€



(Oh, can I ever identify with that! It is so frustrating to have others judge you as either lying, cheating or even "mistaken" about what you know you are doing!!! -handy)



After peaking at 330 pounds in 2004, she tried again to lose weight. She managed to drop 30 pounds, but then her weight loss stalled. In 2006, at age 60, she joined a medically supervised weight-loss program with her husband, Adam, who weighed 310 pounds. After nine months on an 800-calorie diet, she slimmed down to 165 pounds. Adam lost about 110 pounds and now weighs about 200.


During the first years after her weight loss, Bridge tried to test the limits of how much she could eat. She used exercise to justify eating more. The death of her mother in 2009 consumed her attention; she lost focus and slowly regained 30 pounds. She has decided to try to maintain this higher weight of 195, which is still 135 pounds fewer than her heaviest weight.



“It doesn’t take a lot of variance from my current maintenance for me to pop on another two or three pounds,†she says. “It’s been a real struggle to stay at this weight, but it’s worth it, it’s good for me, it makes me feel better. But my body would put on weight almost instantaneously if I ever let up.â€



So she never lets up. Since October 2006 she has weighed herself every morning and recorded the result in a weight diary. She even carries a scale with her when she travels. In the past six years, she made only one exception to this routine: a two-week, no-weigh vacation in Hawaii.



She also weighs everything in the kitchen. She knows that lettuce is about 5 calories a cup, while flour is about 400. If she goes out to dinner, she conducts a Web search first to look at the menu and calculate calories to help her decide what to order. She avoids anything with sugar or white flour, which she calls her “gateway drugs†for cravings and overeating. She has also found that drinking copious amounts of water seems to help; she carries a 20-ounce water bottle and fills it five times a day. She writes down everything she eats. At night, she transfers all the information to an electronic record. Adam also keeps track but prefers to keep his record with pencil and paper.



“That transfer process is really important; it’s my accountability,†she says. “It comes up with the total number of calories I’ve eaten today and the amount of protein. I do a little bit of self-analysis every night.â€



Bridge and her husband each sought the help of therapists, and in her sessions, Janice learned that she had a tendency to eat when she was bored or stressed. “We are very much aware of how our culture taught us to use food for all kinds of reasons that aren’t related to its nutritive value,†Bridge says.



Bridge supports her careful diet with an equally rigorous regimen of physical activity. She exercises from 100 to 120 minutes a day, six or seven days a week, often by riding her bicycle to the gym, where she takes a water-aerobics class. She also works out on an elliptical trainer at home and uses a recumbent bike to “walk†the dog, who loves to run alongside the low, three-wheeled machine. She enjoys gardening as a hobby but allows herself to count it as exercise on only those occasions when she needs to “garden vigorously.†Adam is also a committed exerciser, riding his bike at least two hours a day, five days a week.
Janice Bridge has used years of her exercise and diet data to calculate her own personal fuel efficiency. She knows that her body burns about three calories a minute during gardening, about four calories a minute on the recumbent bike and during water aerobics and about five a minute when she zips around town on her regular bike.


“Practically anyone will tell you someone biking is going to burn 11 calories a minute,†she says. “That’s not my body. I know it because of the statistics I’ve kept.â€



Based on metabolism data she collected from the weight-loss clinic and her own calculations, she has discovered that to keep her current weight of 195 pounds, she can eat 2,000 calories a day as long as she burns 500 calories in exercise. She avoids junk food, bread and pasta and many dairy products and tries to make sure nearly a third of her calories come from protein. The Bridges will occasionally share a dessert, or eat an individual portion of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, so they know exactly how many calories they are ingesting. Because she knows errors can creep in, either because a rainy day cuts exercise short or a mismeasured snack portion adds hidden calories, she allows herself only 1,800 daily calories of food. (The average estimate for a similarly active woman of her age and size is about 2,300 calories.)

Again, I admire her....but I don't want to live like that. That, to me, is not living life abundantly.

The article is long, but well worth the read and well worth taking into consideration. Because, honestly, for all those who want to try to patronizingly say that "Yes, it's hard, but you can do it...you just need will-power"...well, even the medical and scientific community are beginning to admit that they don't even know exactly how and why the body does what it does when it experiences weight loss.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

 

[tim-from-pa]

Pertaining to the OP. Too much caloric restriction can actually make one gain weight (and obviously low of energy) since the body is going into starvation mode.

Aim for many protein foods, some fat, especially monounsaturated and saturated fats and little carbs.

Examples would be meats, eggs, butter, raw vegetables (aka salads) some nuts, olive oils.

For example. Breakfast can be eggs and a serving of meat, very little grain stuff (maybe a piece of Ezkiel bread)

Lunches and dinners can be similar to each other with a serving of protein (steak, fish, etc), warm veggies (and butter to put on them) and a salad. Cook with Olive oils.

Stay away from processed vegetable oils and Canola oils ---- very bad.

Likewise, stay away from too many cereals in the morning and especially "whole grain" breads that they try to push because they usually consist of a major additive of corn syrup and other processed additives. It's basically sugar and starch in a bun. For that matter stay clear of overly starchy vegetables such as potatoes. And fruits in moderation one or two a day (as opposed to fruit juice)

If you need milk, get a goat or cow. You can do like the Norwegians are doing right now with their butter shortage and then churn your own butter.

This is Atkins-like but usually a person can eat the likes of food that I stated all they want, and won't have a blood sugar problem any longer or a weight problem.

 

[Hitch]

Pertaining to the OP. Too much caloric restriction can actually make one gain weight (and obviously low of energy) since the body is going into starvation mode.

Aim for many protein foods, some fat, especially monounsaturated and saturated fats and little carbs.

Examples would be meats, eggs, butter, raw vegetables (aka salads) some nuts, olive oils.

For example. Breakfast can be eggs and a serving of meat, very little grain stuff (maybe a piece of Ezkiel bread)

Lunches and dinners can be similar to each other with a serving of protein (steak, fish, etc), warm veggies (and butter to put on them) and a salad. Cook with Olive oils.

Stay away from processed vegetable oils and Canola oils ---- very bad.

Likewise, stay away from too many cereals in the morning and especially "whole grain" breads that they try to push because they usually consist of a major additive of corn syrup and other processed additives. It's basically sugar and starch in a bun. For that matter stay clear of overly starchy vegetables such as potatoes. And fruits in moderation one or two a day (as opposed to fruit juice)

If you need milk, get a goat or cow. You can do like the Norwegians are doing right now with their butter shortage and then churn your own butter.

This is Atkins-like but usually a person can eat the likes of food that I stated all they want, and won't have a blood sugar problem any longer or a weight problem.

Penn man speak truth.

I was put on low carbs (100g per ) as described above. I pretty much avoid grains. Eat 2-3 lbs of home roasted almonds a week and Im down 30 pounds since last March. I havent had to worry much about fats, I use butter and olive oil. Im at 3-6000 mg of fish oil per and as prescribed Chrorium Picolinate (1) per , thats all for supplements.

I miss corn chips, bicuits&gravey and milkshakes ,but Im with in 10 pounds of my high school weight, and Tricky Dicky was in office then. Went from tight 38s to loose 34s.

ps I 've gotten so used to this one I forget about it sometimes. For years I would grab a roll of tums going to work, and another coming in. That was to help the Prilosec I was taking.. We bought baking soda in 5 lb bags, I would stash some in my truck , like drugs, for emergency stomach treatment. It was a constant battle either take something or fight the pain. Since the end of March Im off the Prilosec and I doubt I've used a whole roll of Tums over the last 10 o months.