Poll: Are you dieting to lose weight?

Skinny people represent!

Definitely not on a diet. In fact, my mum says I don't eat enough ;)

WW is the way to go!

Of course, if you go to the extreme with WW, it becomes either vegetarianism or the Atkins diet.

"I'm not really on a 'diet' but I'm managing to lose weight anyway?"

'Cause that would have to be my answer. Or something.

Brain is mushy. Just ignore me.

What about I don't believe diets work? :) I mean, having a healthy diet is good, but "diets" just aren't effective in the long term.

amen.

Right on sista'!

definitely. most of the short term diets that allow you to lose a lot of weight really fast (really, people, what's the hurry?) are detrimental in the long run, and don't always guarantee the ability to keep the weight off.

if you have the will power to follow Atkins or South Beach, you have the will power to follow a balanced diet, too. yes, you won't lose weight ultra fast, but it will come off. and you'll keep it off, too.

Well, I think the hurry is about motivation. It's hard enough to make a life change but without some good results quickly it's easy to despair. Seeing the results quickly or in larger chunks becomes a positive reinforcement thing. Slow and steady may win the race but it's hard for some folks to stay in the race if they don't see the scenery shifting much.

I don't disagree with most of what you said. I'm just trying to speak to your question of "what's the hurry?".

Some people need to follow types of diets but personally I think that's your doctor's call. I believe in the saying, "eat 80% healthy 80% of the time" - just having a balanced diet with the *right* kinds of foods in it. The problem with diets like Atkins is that it not only takes out the bad carbs - it takes out the good ones as well. In the end I think they do more harm than good.

and many people are morons.

my aunt put her infant daughter on the atkins diet because she thought she was getting fat.

my aunt is a lackwit extraordinaire, but still.� it disgusts me.� and she won't listen to me.� I mean, I'm a gigantic fat slob-pig...� what do *I* know about health and nutrition or anything, for that matter?

The atkins diet freaks me out. I work at Subway during my breaks and people get those "atkins wraps"...y'know, the wrap with chicken, bacon, extra mayo, extra oil, and other extra stuff. It's like, they have one excuse to be "good" and they just ignore everything else! PEOPLE! *grrs*

well, when i go to subway, depending on what part of the carb-cycle i'm in (if i'm eating higher or lower carbs that day) i'll either get wheat bread or the atkins wrap, but instead of the bacon and cheese melt, we get double-meat turkey with veggies and pepper-jack (because you� need a bit of fats with every meal).

i agree, when i was on atkins i was a bit of a fool, having 4 eggs with bacon and melted cheese for breakfast, but you can also cut carbs (not to the atkins limit of 20 but if you just cut down to 75-100 a day and make sure you get some exercise) AND eat healthy together.

my aunt put her infant daughter on the atkins diet because she thought she was getting fat.

That is so sad.

Did she, um, consult the baby's doctor or anything, because most doctors (the competant ones at least) would highly discourage that. (Unless the kids was a freakishly huge kid like they show in the Inquirer all the time).

my father's two sisters (well, my dad's one sister and his other sister's husband and their respective families) put their kids on diets regularly

the kids are tiny mleeps to begin with, except for Zane, because he was the other one in the family blessed with adrenal hyperplasia.� fun times.

the rest of the kids (and my aunts, and most of my family on that side, save my sister [who is gorgeous and solid but not fat by any stretch of the imagination], zane, and me) are so skinny that it hurts to look at them.�

I mean, if my aunt wants to compliment me, she says, "Leah!� You look so thin!"

Which is utter bullshit, because I weigh slightly upwards of 250.� but yeah.

will stop ranting because if I don't now, I never will.

Well it's because most "diets" are just that "diets". A true "diet" is learning to eat within your metabolism and what your body needs. As noted early, most people want that huge loss to motivate them, but that's just not healthy. If someone looses more than 2-3 pounds a week, it can be damaging. Luckily, the with WW, I've found that the first week tends to post the largest loss (myself it was 6 pounds, then I normalized to average 2lbs per week).

Loosing weight is a simple formula. Burn off more calories than you take in. It's a matter of determination and will power. I lost 50lbs on Weight Watchers and have kept it off for over 2 years now. Anyone can do it, most just need encouragement and reinforcement during those low periods.

I liked the weight watchers program. I lost 35 pounds. Unfortunately I gained it all back because I stopped being careful. And started dating a good cook.

Ah yes...good cooks are bad for diets. :)

You can make very good food with low-fat, no-fat substitutes. Weight Watchers has some really good recipies and they have a cool book of substitutes for high-fat or high calorie ingredients.

Quit Drinking-health improves
Quit Smoking-health improves
Quit Food-starve and die

Yeah, it's not like you can just throw down your fork and say "that's it! No more food. I'm going cold turkey starting today!"

"I'm only going to eat cold turkey starting today"?

that might work, I dunno... :-P

*decides now to have a turkey sub tomorrow for lunch*

-- Pauley

Pauley, you're such a ham

What, you have some kind of a beef with him?

You're too chicken to back those words up

C'mon gang... shouldn't we be focused on keeping the peas?

*hides*

need to get on that... exercise too. Walking a few miles every day is cleary not enough. Why oh why must I live in a place with limitless ice cream?

I am not really that overweight, and I plan to stay that way. I do lots of sit-ups in the mornings and nights and try to moniter what I eat (but I don't really succeed, hence the workout). I am in pretty good health, but I need more willpower. Any suggestions?

-Diet Magical Bob

So last year I got it in my head that I wanted to enter a few triathlons. I'm not sure where it came from, really... I hated running and I'm a terrible swimmer. But I like cycling. So, I decided I was going to enter a bunch of tris.

(Probably was just a way for me to waste money, come to think of it. Have I shown you my recording equipment? Have I shown you the date on the last tape I made?)

In any case, so in mid-March I signed up for a sprint (read: very short) triathlon that was happening in May. To keep myself honest and as a way to sort of judge my progress, I also signed up for about three other tris, and a bunch of little fun-run 5K races and whatnot.

Once I had the date on my calendar, the exercising became somewhat mandatory. What can I say? I'm goal-oriented. Debbie considers it a failing of mine :-) So I started running twice or three times a week, cycling as often (and bike-commuting to and from my train stop), and swimming frequently.

I was at about 185 when I started, at 6'0" or so. Not a bad weight -- I wasn't really exercising because I was worried about my weight or anything. About the only way that my diet changed was slightly less sugar intake, I think -- I stopped drinking pop for a long while, but replaced it instead with those Ocean Spray Cran-Whatever drinks, which really aren't that much healthier.

By the time the first tri rolled around, I noticed that I had dropped thirty pounds. My wetsuit was almost too big on me.

I kinda abandoned triathlons after July or so (ended up doing three, and that was pretty much it). I'm still trying to get myself motivated to sign up for a few late-season ones this year, especially since a friend of mine who is even less athletic than me has signed up for a couple and is already gung-ho training. But the odd thing is, my weight hasn't yet gone back up, and I'm even back to drinking pop from time to time again.

So... yay exercise. Or maybe I'm just a freak. But I think it's a little of both :-)

I've been fortunate in that a great deal of the weight I gained when I was pregnant has pretty much just melted off. I put on 34 pounds and I've lost 27. But I've got this stretched out floppy stomach now that I'd like to tone up and I want to build up some stamina because I get tired far too easily. And Andy, well, he kinda gained sympathy weight. So we both need to shape up. I know us too well to think that we'd ever stick to a diet, so I'm hoping that if we go ahead and join the YMCA like we've been talking about and actually go there and swim or work out a few evenings a week and limit our portions to more sane amounts, we'll start to look and feel better. I mean, lord knows we're going to need our energy!

I don't think that I need a diet and I tend to -hrm- forget to eat anyway from time to time. Every so often I have to decide between a real late dinner of going to bed. And I usually opt for the latter.

OTOH I'm not as skinny as some people might think. I'm just fat in in a hidden way ;)

OTOH I'm not as skinny as some people might think. I'm just fat in in a hidden way ;)

same here, y0. bleh.

im not as skinny either!! everyone seems to think i'm a rail and always tell me how ridiculous i am for dirnking lite beer or odering salads at the fast food joints when i really want a burger. but i could stand to lose a few in the gut area. I lost 25 pounds in the summer but im still paranoid of gaining it back. I try to be careful of what i eat but sometimes i get into modes where i eat whatever, whenever, then feel guilty.

all my life ive had weight problems, been on diets, had eating probs, and im sick of it! i wish i could be happy with how i look but i guess that'l never be the case. oh well. right now im enjoying being young and being able to eat crappy and drink my beer and not excessively gain weight. *crosses fingers*

I was on the Atkins diet on and off for 2 years, and i lost 30 pounds (roughly) and thankfully, never gained it back.

Around the beginning of February of this year i started a diet and exercise program with my boyfriend. I've only lost about 4 pounds, but i've been gaining muscle. We bought a digital body fat caliper, and my initial body fat percentage was 24.3%. Now it is 17.3%. I went from a size 13/14 to a 7/8, and now my 7/8s are getting big.

What i do is cardio warmups with weight lifting 4 days a week. on the off days i try to do some cardio, but we're awful busy right now.

The diet is:
breakfast: protien shake consisting of 1 cup of plain Silk soymilk, Soy Isolate protien powder, 1T of natural peanut butter and a little less than 1/4 cup of raw oat bran. (it tastes awesomely like no-bake cookies. mmm.)

mid-morning snack: normally either an apple and some peanuts, or peanuts and string-cheese, or string-cheese and apples, or celery and peanut butter, or something of that nature.

Lunch: Something with moderate carbohydrates, a little bit of fats and high in protien. chicken sandwich, chicken soft tacos (Fresco style from teh 'Bell), pita with tuna salad, etc.

Mid-afternoon snack: anything like the morning snack or a moderate-carb energy bar, with at *least* 25g of protien, 30 preferred.

Dinner: very low-carbs at night, high protien, lots of veggies, low-fat. my favorite is Shish Tawook with veggies and hommous. :D

</tmi>

sheryl, yay you!! :D

you must be sooo hot now, considering you were a hottie before the weight loss :)

me too, i went from a 13 to a 7, whee!

i went on the atkins diet too, once, for a week. by the end of the week i was shaking and having massive carbo cravings... i found a bag of peppermint patties in my cupboard and that was the end of that!

jen

I know that I need to lose weight, and I plan to... someday. Because of my height, I don't look "big." To the point that when people find out my weight, their response is usually, "You don't look it." Of course, maybe they're just being polite. :-)

But I think the key to my weight loss will be exercise. Controlled diet will come along eventually. I just need to get back on the bike or start walking more. I mean, do I really need to drive to the grocery that I can see from my front door?

anybody have good suggestions for trying to gain weight in a reasonably healthy way? i found two books about it, but both are out of print. it's actually not easy to do...

It depends upon your metabolism, but the general idea is the reverse of weight loss. You want to take in more calories than you burn off in a day. It's important to take in the "right" type of calories otherwise you will start building up fat which is not what you want.

You want to take in more proteins and complex carbohydrates, which means more meats, breads, supplemented with fruits and vegetables (vegetables other than so-called "zero calories" veggies such as cauliflower, carrots, etc).

You also want to do toning exercises to build lean muscle mass. You don't want to do bulk up weight lifting because then you are buidling muscle which will burn more calories.

Consider ramping it up slowly because if you are not used to eating bigger portions, it will take time for your body to grow accustomed to larger portions and relearn where "hungry" is.

Hope this helps, it is fairly hard to do if your metabolism is fairly high.

Where's the "No, diets are evil and I never considered it even whe I was a bit overweight"? It's diets and ads like it that contribute to eating disorders. Don't support the diet companies that are causing people to starve themselves, not to mention the people who are actually on the diet, who are basically doing that too.

to paraphrase margaret cho:

every time you think to yourself, "I'm so fat" or, "I'm so ugly", that's not the real you talking.� that's billions and billions of advertising dollars.

Exactly.

Unfortunately, they talk really loud.

not going to answer this.

I'm huge... but it's because I'm 7 months pregnant :).

Weight FELL off after the first baby and I'm hoping for the same this time...

Due to a pre-natal stroke that left a good amount of my cerebellum scarred, and the fact that I really can't eat large amounts of food, I am dangerously underweight. I am 18, male, and 103 lbs. I really think a diet would be bad for me at this point. ;)

OK the thing that motivated me to make this poll was that everone seemed to be on the Atkins diet yet no one voted that way. Very strange.

everyone at my office is. it gets on my nerves, for a reason I can't fathom.

It gets on your nerves perhaps because it's the stupid fad du jour, and people are treating it like real science.� Well, that's why it gets on my nerves anyhow.