Fatter than God

[Trilby]

I am getting so fat---so freaking fat! I need some real, live solutions to this problem that don't include #1) wiring my jaw shut, or, #2) surgery. Now. I KNOW about eating right and all that. What I want to know is--has anybody tried TrimSpa or HydroxyCut or any of that stuff? Does it help/work? I like easy--I like chemical solutions, so this would be wonderful if it DID help, but I don't feel like shelling out 40.00 for a bottle of stuff if it won't help.

[Undertoad]

always read iotd

[Trilby]

dammit!!!!

[Elspode]

As far as I have been able to tell (and my wife is on the verge of having weight-reduction surgery, so I've done some research), the *only* things that work are:

1) Eat less, exercise more
2) Endure some sort of physical modification

All the rest is patent-medicine, snake-oil, hucksterism.

[Trilby]

els--how much torture did your wife have to go thru to get an OK on the surgery? Did she have to prove that she couldn't lose weight on her own? Lots of documentation?

[BigV]

I agree with Elspode. To weigh less, you have to burn more than you eat. No other non-surgical way to do it. You have to operate at a calorie deficit. Like paying off credit cards, two big things stand in your way. One is the with credit cards, you have to live below your means as you pay down the balance. With the diet, you have to eat less than you want / can. And the second thing is that in both cases, this is an change and an uncomfortable one. And, sadly, the discomfort is most easily removed by the very actions that got things to this point in the first place. Eat, spend. It is HARD.

I've had personal experience with both the jaw-wiring-shut and the stomach-stapling routes. One was my ex-fiance' and the other was my ex-sister-in-law. The results were dramatic. The weight does come off, lots and fast.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I read somewhere recently, scientists studying how the brain receives and send signals, discovered an anomaly.
The signals to the brain for hunger and anxiety are identical.
That makes hunger so difficult to dismiss.
I want...no I NEED, chocolate...now.

Well, nothing beats the thrill of surgery, but if you want an alternative to having staples in your pyloric valve or whatever:

The absolute number one worst way to lose weight is to cut back on calories and not exercise. The body's metabolism thinks you're still a small furry mammal living through bad times back when that big old meteor hit and changed the earth's climate and got rid of all those nasty dinosaurs. Your metabolism will slow down and go into survival mode, and you'll remain plump on one slice of bread per day.

If you drink, stop. There are SO many empty calories in a single glass of wine or a shot of Jack!

Avoid dairy products as much as possible - they all come from the milk of a cow. Do you know what cow's milk is supposed to produce? An eight hundred pound animal, minimum.

The human metabolism has evolved to support a diet of lean meat, whole grains and fruit and plenty of time spent on the move searching for food and avoiding predators. This means avoid McDonalds, avoid processed foods, and refined sugars, and start spending more time at the gym or even just walking.

You need to jump start your metabolism again. Walk every day, if its physical do it. Take up gardening, sign up for a line dancing class, park your car at the farthest spot rather than the nearest.

Good luck to you!

[Fudge Armadillo]

Originally Posted by marichiko

Well, nothing beats the thrill of surgery, but if you want an alternative to having staples in your pyloric valve or whatever:

The absolute number one worst way to lose weight is to cut back on calories and not exercise. The body's metabolism thinks you're still a small furry mammal living through bad times back when that big old meteor hit and changed the earth's climate and got rid of all those nasty dinosaurs. Your metabolism will slow down and go into survival mode, and you'll remain plump on one slice of bread per day.

This statement is not entirely correct; your metabolism will slow down if you make a dramatic cut to your average caloric intake, but in order for this to happen, you need to reduce it to well below what you burn every day (an average person would burn around 1700 calories a day with no exercise). To slow your metabolism down a significant amount, you’d probably have to cut your caloric intake to ~1200 calories. If you cut it to 600, you can really slow it down, but it’s hard to get any reasonable nutrition at that level.

Originally Posted by marichiko

If you drink, stop. There are SO many empty calories in a single glass of wine or a shot of Jack!

Wine has far fewer calories that most other beverages. It is far better to drink wine than beer or soda (or even juices, if you are concentrating only on calories).

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-001-02s02yv.html

Originally Posted by marichiko

Avoid dairy products as much as possible - they all come from the milk of a cow. Do you know what cow's milk is supposed to produce? An eight hundred pound animal, minimum.

Whole milk is fairly high in calories, but reduced fat (and skim, for that matter) milk really isn’t. A cup of 1% milkfat milk has about 100 calories. Dairy products are in general fairly high in fat (which is a better reason to avoid them than for caloric levels).

Originally Posted by marichiko

The human metabolism has evolved to support a diet of lean meat, whole grains and fruit and plenty of time spent on the move searching for food and avoiding predators. This means avoid McDonalds, avoid processed foods, and refined sugars, and start spending more time at the gym or even just walking.

Humans have likely not evolved their metabolisms at all over recorded history. People can subsist on rather bland and homogeneous diets quite well; the only survival advantage to eating high on the food chain is that you can get more caloric density. Humans do not need to eat meat, whole grains, or fruit to survive.

Originally Posted by marichiko

You need to jump start your metabolism again. Walk every day, if its physical do it. Take up gardening, sign up for a line dancing class, park your car at the farthest spot rather than the nearest.

In order to lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than you expend. Exercising and burning an extra 200 calories per day does you no good if you eat an extra 200 calories per day. It is harder than most people think to burn calories by exercising. I spend around 30 minutes a day on my spinner bike running my heart rate at around 190 and I’ll burn only around 350 calories each session (it takes about 3500 calories to make a pound). Most people can’t run their heart rates that high for nearly that long and will burn calories much slower. You will never be able to lose weight until you get your diet under control.

[Tonchi]

Strange how nobody has pointed out that a good round of athletic sex burns a great number of calories, and tones a lot more muscles than a spinner bike

But as far as diets, I've had great success with Slimfast as a maintenance tool. I didn't have to drop a huge amount of weight, but I was becoming very "fluffy" from all the donuts and fast food in the office environment. Slimfast worked perfectly, because that way I got plenty of energy with no headache or tiredness while typing at a computer. Then when you leave the office you do your exercising and can eat a "normal" meal and skip desert. After 3 days on Slimfast, you actually do not WANT to eat anything more than a normal meal. That 3-day window seems to be key, I noticed the same thing when I did the Atkins Diet back in the early 70's when it first came out. So if you can hold to the discipline for 3 days, many of the cravings will go away. But of course, if you are morbidly obese, none of this will help you because your metabolism no longer recognizes the signals which govern normal hunger and satiation and has run away with your body. Having your stomach stapled is to essentially remove most of that organ which processes alimentation, and that seems as extreme as using abortion as your sole means of birth control. It should be the absolute last resort and only if a doctor with no vested interest in selling this surgery has said you have no other choice.

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

This statement is not entirely correct; your metabolism will slow down if you make a dramatic cut to your average caloric intake, but in order for this to happen, you need to reduce it to well below what you burn every day (an average person would burn around 1700 calories a day with no exercise). To slow your metabolism down a significant amount, you’d probably have to cut your caloric intake to ~1200 calories. If you cut it to 600, you can really slow it down, but it’s hard to get any reasonable nutrition at that level.

Folks will go on crash diets out of desperation and not worry about nutrition. This is very counter-productive. You yourself admit that low caloric intake will slow down the metabolism. That was my point, also.

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

Wine has far fewer calories that most other beverages. It is far better to drink wine than beer or soda (or even juices, if you are concentrating only on calories).

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-001-02s02yv.html

The body will burn the acetates which are a product of alcohol consumption in preference to burning stored fat. Thus the calories in a glass of wine or shot of vodka are far more lethal than the calories in a can of soda pop.

http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/...ch/alcohol.htm

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

Whole milk is fairly high in calories, but reduced fat (and skim, for that matter) milk really isn’t. A cup of 1% milkfat milk has about 100 calories. Dairy products are in general fairly high in fat (which is a better reason to avoid them than for caloric levels).

I didn't say avoid dairy products merely because of calories. I stated that cow's milk - from which dairy products are all derived - is a substance dedicated to the production of an animal which will one day weigh 800 pounds or more. Why eat dairy products if you want to be a slim 120 pounds?

Originally Posted by Fudge Armadillo

Humans have likely not evolved their metabolisms at all over recorded history. People can subsist on rather bland and homogeneous diets quite well; the only survival advantage to eating high on the food chain is that you can get more caloric density. Humans do not need to eat meat, whole grains, or fruit to survive.

I did not state that humans have evolved their metabolisms over recorded history. Human history is a mere blink of the eye to Old Mother Evolution. Our metabolisms remain the same as they were when we were wandering around in the plains of Africa. Whole grains, fruit, and lean meat are not high on the food chain - OK, meat is, but fruit and grains are NOT. And, no, we don't need to eat these things to survive, but you were worried about nutrition in the first paragraph of your response, why are you forgetting it here?

[itsjulie]

I have tried both. And I should add that I am a person that doesn't even take an aspirin for a headache, but a friend took trimspa and lost so much weight I tried it. I think the stuff I tried is now illegal to sell.

I have to say when I started taking it I probably needed to lose about 15 pounds. I lost about 5 the first week. And I felt like shit. People at my work would ask me why my hands were shaking - it was terrible. It made me very hyper.

Now, I think I am at a good weight and try to get to the gym a few times a week. Cardio, cardio, cardio is the only answer to lose weight, that and of course reducing your calorie intake. It takes a few weeks, but once you increase your cardio the weight will come off.

[Sundae]

Brianna - I promised myself that I would start living healthily on 1 October, and I genuinely believed it. I just seem to be on some sort of downward spiral though..... Had a healthy dinner last night then got up on auto pilot at about 22.00 and bought a pizza from one of the many take-aways on my road. If I don't put a stop to this soon I'll look like Catal Huyuk (following your fat god theme there).

I've lost weight before - sadly I'm a yo-yo dieter. I'm 5'8 and have been every weight from 120- 220lbs. Not sure how to break this cycle. I know I can LOSE weight, so its just a case of waiting til my mind-set is right & going for it again. Sadly I know I can also GAIN weight again. I'm not happy with my weight at present but I know I can resolve that. The trickier question is how I stop myself putting it back on again.

I have lost weight through purely cutting down my food intake before. It was the hardest way to stick to, but even with a dramatic decrease in calories I don't believe my body hit starvation mode. I found that weighing myself every fortnight showed a consistent weight loss. When I weighed myself every day the small losses & occasional gains could have lead me to believe it wasn't working.

Last time I combined healthy eating with rigorous exercise once I'd lost the first stone. Exercise alone would not have worked for me. I had over 50lbs to lose and was gorging on fast food and drinking far too much. I was lethargic, depressed, not sleeping, ashamed of my body etc etc. A healthy diet has to be the place to start, surely?

Would I consider surgery? If I had the money - yes.

End of me, me, me post - sorry.

[Trilby]

Oh, Sundae Girl, you and I have all that in common! I have weighed anywhere from 120-220 before, too! I ALWAYS say, "OK, now I'm going to be healthy!" and blow it in 24 hours. I get sad, depressed and ashamed of my body, too, and then the downward spiral of self-loathing starts and drinking sounds like the cure, no? Wow. Thanks for sharing your story. It has helped me today. Thanks Feels so good to NOT be alone!

[Sundae]

I took all my fat clothes to the charity shop last time, as I swore I'd never ever let things get that bad again. Am now faced with replacing them all - maybe if I go into the charity shop again they'll all still be there, freshly washed & pressed for me

Please tell me if you come up with any great solution! I tried diet pills once (no idea what they were called, but they came in an electric blue bottle & it was rumoured that Britney Spears used them). I got them from a friend who they disagreed with and they disagreed with me too..... They made me so nauseous I couldn't work or sleep, and I felt like I was living in a bad cartoon - twitching & jerking all over the place. Found out afterwards they were absolutely packed with caffiene (which I have always been sensitive to). Taught me to check what I was putting in my body in future!

Being in the same situation myself means I can't offer any words of wisdom, but you have my support for what its worth. And its good to know its not just me. Right, off to get a jacket potato with chilli, cheese & sour cream. Ahem.