Just eat less and move more?

[fattygettingthin]

I'm very overweight. Have about 9 stone to lose, I'm so ashamed. I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes yesterday. The dr who was also overweight told me all the things I'm now likely to get, and how I should lose weight as a matter of urgency. They even offered to refer me for weight loss surgery right there. I asked for some advice on losin weight alone and they suggested weight watchers and swapping coke for Diet Coke .

So my aibu is; how the fuck am I to lose 9 stone without surgery? I have a gym membership but I don't think I use it well. I 'workout' for an hour or so 4 times a week but really it's just playing at using my membership and I know I need to be better. But how? How do you learn how to workout properly?

All the workouts I see online are for like mega body building men! And suggestions of eating protein and working out for 4 hours a day. I need help. I know I need to do this. Is it unreasonable to want to see little workout cards near the machines in the gym?

What do you eat for breakfast when you so 'low carb'? Is weight watchers worth it? I have a 12 week membership now but I don't want to eat 'lite' yogurts full of sugar and sweeteners. It feels like a mammoth task that I can't do.

If you got to the end well done!

Oh and when I low carb I don’t usually eat breakfast (after a few weeks your appetite decreases markedly) but if I do it’s quite often egg based, but I actually more often that not just have a leftover dinner meal in the morning. Which might sound odd but there’s really no need to have a ‘breakfasty’ breakfast. I have eaten curry for breakfast, and all sorts!

@InanimateCarbonRod I does work though and you don't have to be hungry if you eat the right foods.

A lot of other people eat yogurt, but I don’t like yogurt.

Another tip my ds has been using is to watch supersize v superskinny.

He likes the fact that it shows other people who are "big" and loves the advice given and the differences shown in what the 2 people eat, has given him lots of motivation.

He watches old episodes on YouTube.

So sorry that you've had your self esteem knocked, it can be a real blow to your confidence. You shouldn’t feel ashamed, it’s very easy to put weight on, but it’s a bugger to shift it. You’ve had a wake up call, and now is the time to make some lifestyle changes so that you can live a full and happy life. Type 2 diabetes can be reversible, and it’s within your power to try. Don’t look at it as I have 9 stone to loose, break it down into nice small achievable chunks. Think “I have a stone to loose”. When you’ve done that it will boost you a bit, and you start over with “I have a stone to loose”.

You need to log everything you eat, so you can see where the calories are coming from, It will help you make clear informed choices.

My fitness pal is excellent and it’s free, I’ve lost a stone and a half, my partner has lost a stone, simply from being more aware of what we were eating. And yes we both exercise and walk more. It’s not restrictive you can still have a treat, but manage it as part of your diabetes. If you’ve got no one to support you, weight watchers or slimming world could be an option as it’s motivational, there will be plenty of people there in the same boat, and you can share experiences, recipies, tips and ideas. I didn’t join, but I have friends who are part of their programme, and they rate the information and help they’ve been given and have lost weight as a result of joining. As you have a gym membership, get the gym professional to review your exercise programme in line with what you want to achieve, you may be exercising but it may not be right for you.

If you enjoy food and cooking, I recommend the hairy dieters cookbooks, easy recipies and low calorie. Good luck on your weight loss journey.

I have found the first 3 weeks of low fat, low carb, smaller portion dieting to be the most painful. During this tough time, you think about food non stop, it's very hard.
After about 3 weeks, your stomach has shrunk and actually you find your hunger is satiated by smaller low cal amounts.
You sound motivated. Start and don't stop. If you stop, you have to repeat the 3 week pain barrier again.
I had 2 stone of very hidden belly / torso fat. It's the worst type. So do this to help yourself and prolong your life. Slow loss is fine. Just think of it as all down down down....and loss is a good loss.
Also visualise each pound of loss as a large tub of margarine gone from you....that is very motivational I found. You can do it.

I did a CUTE shakes breakfast with some fruit, a soup lunch (any low cal soup and NO bread, apple in the PM, lots of tea. DInner is low fat, no carbs and small. Supper (oh yes) another CUTE shake and some Zero fat natural yogurt. No snacks at all. You can loose around 2-3lbs per week on this. I take Maca root caps, safflower oil, tabs and spatone iron drink. Feel excellent - nice hair, skin, energy and good libido too!

Hope this helps!

Hi OP - I 'only' have a target of 4 stone to lose which I started in Feb. Broadly low GI - but not obsessive so I have just cut out white flour, white rice, potato, sugar and fruit juice.
I don't bother with calorie counting or portion control, just eat loads of green veg, fruit (mainly berries for desert every day) , oily fish, meat, eggs etc. I drink lots of water and have cut back on but haven't completely given up coffee or wine.
Lost just over 2 and a half stone so far and feel so much better already.

Breakfast seems to be an issue for many, I have anything from porridge, shredded wheat or a fry up. (No sausage because they contain flour).
May be worth a try?

It should absolutely not be low fat, low carb!!

Go to the bootcamp thread. It’s high fat, low carb which is the way it needs to be to work properly and to leave you feeling satiated and never hungry.

My advice (as a BIG loser- 6stones+, and normaliser of pre diabetes) Is Lchf/paleo/primal style of eating.

Marksdailyapple blog, Robbwolf.com and dietdoctor (Lchf) are all excellent, sensible and free online resources (free, but there are books, and for one of them, a subscription service, if you want to go down that route).

I’d say that as you have such a lot of weight to lose, the chances are much higher that you have significant “carboholic” tendencies and as such, you may find that it’s much easier to go very low carb (20g or less a day, keto) than eating a more liberal low carb diet (50-80g day), as that might be too much to cut your carb cravings, at least initially.

Forget “low fat” “low calorie” - pretty much anything with that on the label is a chemical shitstorm, as other pp have mentioned! Focus on foods that are, as much as possible, still in their natural state, and as unprocessed as possible - and served with their naturally occurring fats (full of nutrition!).

You know, if you want the social support of going to WW or a similar group- go, it doesn’t mean you have to eat any of their branded foods, or follow any parts of their diet you chose not to- they won’t be policing your kitchen

My Fitness pal is a great tool- you can change the macros in “settings” to match your chosen diet, you don’t have to leave it at the standard high carb/low fat setting - I have mine on 10/65/25 carb/fat/protein for example.

Good luck!

Well done for going to the gym regularly, great step in the right direction. It would be worth your while paying for a personal trainer session. They will advise you the right way to use the equipment for maximum effect. Ask them for a print out of your exercises and explanation of how to carry them out. I did this a couple of years ago when I had back problems and needed a good set of core exercises. It was well worth it.

(Not to argue, and obviously it does work for lots of people, but it’s not very enjoyable. There is some merit to low fat, low carb if you’re restricting calories but there really isn’t any need to restrict calories - you can do the same job in a much more palatable way!)

I know lots of people have suggested low carb already and I've only read half the thread :) But, actually low carb is increasingly being recognised as particularly good for diabetes. Read up on the low carb boards here, look at the resources for "bootcamp" and think about how you can change the way you eat. You probably won't "get rid" of your diabetes, though some picked up early do manage it, but you stand a very good chance of getting both weight loss and good control if you can follow this path. Very best wishes with it!

OP I've been having a think about motivation as I too need to lose weight. I was trying to understand the psychology of staying overweight when I hate it and it's unhealthy.

I haven't got far in terms of finding reading material but this series of three short articles about motivation was quite interesting.

Good luck.

psychology today weight loss motivation

OP, I am also on the 100lbs + thread in the weight loss section, with Post (who has done it! Hooray!). I'm 45lbs down myself, so a way to go yet. I've done Slimming World several times in the past, but I am a binge eater - being able to unlimited pasta etc was bad for me, I didn't learn to tackle the root cause of my obesity. I lost weight, sure, but piled it all back on again afterwards.

This time I'm doing MFP. I'm learning how many calories are actually in foods and starting to make better choices about how to spend my calories to keep me full for longer. I feel like this time I'm making a change to my lifestyle and my habits.

I'm losing about 1.5lbs a week average, and currently not doing exercise. But I'm starting to think I might want to, which I never thought I would say!

Fitbit
My Fitness Pal.

That's all you need, burn more calories than you eat and you WILL lose weight. It's really that simple.

Forget abut all the blood type diet, sugar free diet etc....

Please go and see a NUTRITIONIST
One that will help you find the right diet for you with DIABETES (not the same than if you just want to loose weight).
One that will check there isnt any underlying condition behind your weight (eg thyroid issues)
One that will be able to give the support you need to actually loose the weight.

Yes some of those diets are actually really good. But just loosing weight out of will IS extremely hard and the reason why most people just out the weight back on. That’s also why there are plenty of studies to say that going in a diet doesn’t help loosing weight.
What you need is a whole lifestyle change and a change in the way you are eating and handling food. Not just a diet to quickly loosing weight.

Btw, you can stabilise your blood sugar without loosing weight as such. It is likely that you will loose some weight BUT it will be a side effect of avoiding the peaks in blood sugar rather than want8ngnto loose weight iyswim.

Low carb. Works wonders for both weight and blood sugar OP!

Well done you. I tried to keep it simple. I just ate proper food - no processed muck. And I started walking.i started with 30 mins a day and built up. I'm sitting in a train at the moment heading to the airport for a flight to Peru. Walking helped me lose 4 stone and now I'm doing the inca trail to Machu Picchu. Good luck with whatever you decide to do

I really want to insist
You CAN be obese and have NO issue with diabetes.
You CAN have type 2 diabetes with no weight problem.

Yes there is a correlation in that often people who are eating too much are also eating the wrong type of food.
But losing weight is NOT automatically going to stabilise the blood sugar.

The URGENCY for the OP is to stabilise her blood sugar NOT to loose weight.

Have a look at Rebelfit :)

My daughter is type 1 her dietician Said your better off eating full fat than diet products! We carb count so we can work out how much insulin is needed(carbs turn to gloucose) look for a app called carbs and cals. Me and My husband are cutting out bread and trying to eat healthy also cutting down on portion size! Take baby steps and don't try to cut out everything at once...good luck you can do it.

hazell42 wow exciting!!

Any well balanced low carb way of eating will absolutely stabilise blood glucose levels. It’s not a difficult thing to do once one understands how to do it.

You don't need to exercise and you don't need to pay anything to anyone.

First of all eat nothing until lunch time and ideally make it a late lunch and that includes no milk, no sugar. Drink water.

Then make sure your lunch is loads of veg with some fish or meat and lots and lots of good fats like olive oil, avocado etc.

No snacks ever.

If you are hungry later at night have a light meal at dinner time - eg tin of sardines with 2 raw carrots.

As Holger says the low carb way of eating balances things out.
Also the intermittent fasting from the night before until as long as you can manage the next day works too and rests the body and of course doesn't cost a penny.