Weight Loss Advice

Hey everyone. I'm not a body builder. I am overweight. I don't want to get all bulked up. (I don't like that look on women) I do want to lose about 25 pounds and tone my body. I want slim down without building bulk. I am currently 175 pounds and want to be 150. I don't know what my percentage of body fat is. Here are some pics of me taken a couple weeks ago. My hair is shorter but my weight is the same.

A more recent picture of me with my haircut. I'm the same weight as in the other ones.

I want to know if anyone can help me with a diet and excersise plan. I can't afford to join a gym. I need to know how many calories I should eat etc. Also does anyone know a good site for the calorie content in foods? I don't want to be obsessive about it. I just want a basic idea, to help me out! This is really embarassing for me I just wanted to be honest, so that people could help me. Please offer any suggestions and support you can. Thank you!

Hi Jen,

You don't need to worry about bulking up.

It's difficult for women to bulk even when they want to.

Just plain old walking is very good exercise.

What is your height? Dr. Barnard suggests the rule of 10.

Your ideal lean weight in pounds x10

That gives you a minimum calorie count, you can go higher, but never lower.

Try to eliminate any vegan junk food from your diet.

Eat lots of raw fruits and veggies with maybe some whole grains and legumes.

But concentrate on the raw fruits and veggies.

Dr. Fuhrman has a great book called Eat to Live

I bought a copy at our local Barnes and Noble.

http://www.nutritiondata.com/ lists info on most types of food

Broccoli for example

Hi, Jen!

Here are some suggestions for you.

The most important thing to remember is that losing weight is all about usinig more calories than you take in. There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so getting a 500 calorie deficit each day (though diet choices, physical activity, and the thermic effect of food) would allow you to to lose a pound of fat in a week (1-2 pounds of weight loss is good, as it is a pretty good indication that what you are losing is fat, and not muscle or just water weight).

Diet: I find that if one eats whole foods (vegan, of course!) and avoids the processed foods, it's pretty easy to lose/maintain weight. Making 'better' choices, choosing nutrient-dense/lower calorie foods over calorie-dense/nutrient poor foods (ie: an apple as a snack instead of a candy bar) is key. Your body wants nutrients, and when it is given nutrient-poor food, you can still be hungry, even though you have had more than enough calories.

Add more raw foods (a salad before lunch and dinner, fruits as snacks, etc.).

Try to eliminate any soft drinks from your diet, and replace them with water (you can flavor water with stevia or a flavored stevia).

Just getting rid of any foods that contain high fructose corn syrup/sweetener will help you drop some pounds, if you eat it.

Check out your local library, and see if they have a copy of "Picture-Perfect Weight Loss." It doesn't espouse any particular diet, nor is it vegan (though very vegan friendly), but shows in pictures the amount of various foods you can eat for the same amount of calories.

Joel Fuhrman's "Eat to Live" book shows a vegan weight-loss diet.

In addition to reducing the amount of calories you consume, you can take advantage of the thermic (heat-producing) effect of food, whereby you increase your metabolism by eating. Eat 5-6 smaller meals/snacks per day (but don't increase calories! Just split your regular meals into parts. I prefer having a bigger breakfast, so I don't split that, but take your lunch, split it into thirds, and eat 2/3 at lunch time, and 1/3 later as a snack---or earlier: between breakfast and lunch time. Same with dinner.

And eat most of your calories earlier in the day, when you need them. A good guideline is to fuel your body so that it has what it needs when it needs it, no more, no less. That's ideal, but if you eat most at breakfast, and decrease your intake after lunch, eating the least at dinner, that corresponds more to your bodies energy needs.

Also, according to Neal Barnard, any meal over 500 calories has more of a tendency to have some of the calories stored instead of burned, because our bodies can only process a certain amount of calories at once. (though YMMV, and some of the 'big guys' on the forum can certainly burn more than that effeectively, but you're not a 'big guy,' so I think it's a good guideline for you).

For exercise, a gym membership isn't necessary. I workout exclusively at home, to exercise DVD's.

Include both cardio and weight work (and don't be afraid of "bulking" "Bulking" is due more to genetics (stocky build, mesomorphic tendencies) and eating more calories that build muscle than to using weights per se. You can get strong without getting 'too big."

Doing just cardio can make you smaller, but you can end up being a 'thin fat' person, with a high percentage of body fat, even with a slim look, or just smaller and flabby.

I think everyone over 35, and every woman over 25, should train with weights for sooo many reasons.

Resistance training will also help increase your metabolism (though there is controversy about 'by how much") and help you burn more calories even at rest.

And weight training will help you create a nicely-shaped smaller body, rather than just a smaller body.

For your goals right now, I'd recommend cardio 4-5 days a week, including 1 interval workout per week (interval workouts burn more calories than steady state, but shouldn't be overused, because they are more taxing to the body, so once a week is a good start. Maybe moving up to twice a week, on non-consecutive days, later). Start where you are comfortable, maybe even just 20 minutes at a time. And vary your cardio to avoid overuse injuries (and boredom!).

I like step aerobics, kickboxing, rebounding (on a mini-trampoline), hi-lo.

Also, for weight work, a 'circuit'-type workout that includes both cardio and weight work (higher reps and lower weights) would work well for you.

If you are interested, to get you started, I would be happy to send you 3 workout DVD's and a CD that I'm clearing out of my collection (of 200+), for a SASE. "Slim in 6" has three workouts that are low weight, high rep and focus on leaning out the lower body in particular. It also includes a 15-minute ab workout and a 15-minute stretch. The program is supposed to be done every day, doing 1 workout for two weeks, then moving on to workout 2, but I wouldn't use it that way....too boring! I think you could get some good results alternating the different workouts every other day.

Kathy Smith's "The Rules of Fat Burning" has two, long-slow cardio routines, two interval workouts, and upper and lower body strength workouts. (they are both good DVD's for beginners/intermediates, but are not advanced enough for me right now....and I only have so many days in the year to do the workouts I'm keeping!).

The third DVD is a Leslie Sansone walking DVD (I use them when I do rebounding sometimes).

All three of these DVD's are very space efficient (no wide-range motiions that can't be done in a living room) and varied.

The CD is called "Cardio Coach" (www.cardiocoach.com ) and is a guided iinterval workout that you can use with any type of cardio equipment (stationary bike, treadmill, eliptical) I use it with my rebounder. You could even use it walking in place or jogging in place.

Let me know by pm if you are interested in any or all of these. I only ask that you 'pay it forward,' and if you find these are not for you, give them to someone else, or donate them to your local library.

If you have a Walmart near you, they have some racks with $1 DVD's on, including three workout DVD by Suzanne Cox ("The Fix," "Firm it Up" and "Aerobic Dance"). The music is kind of canned, but I was surprised by how good they are for the price. They combine dance-style cardio (disco, latin, different styles) and 'toning' work.

HTH!

If you have any questions on any of this, feel free to ask.

Ooops ! Double post (I guess it's so long, it screwed up the system, LOL!).

I'll make use of this space, though:

FYI: it's "neuter" (and I agree completely!)

thank you so much! My height is 5'7". My ideal calorie intake would be 1500? Is that correct? I will check out those books if I can find them. If not maybe I get get the store to get a copy in for me or buy online. Walking would be a good idea. I am doing the Walk for Animals for MSPCA on Sept 10th. Maybe I can shed some weight my then. I also have a metal DDR pad, It is in my room which gets pretty hot in the summer. I will probably do that a lot more when the snow comes lol. Any advice for the female problem areas? I have a feeling they will be a challenge

Some of the foods I like:

Hummus

Beans

Wraps (filled with hummus and fresh veggies/ beans w rice)

salads

fresh fruit, apples and grapefruit

dark greens, romaine, kale

spanish rice with onions ans pigeon peas

egglant

baba ganoush

indian and lebanese foods

veggie burgers

tofu

are these good foods to continue? are there any new foods I should introduce? I will share my progress with the forum and hope to help others as well. Thanks again. If anyone else has anything to share I appreciate it greatly.

I'm 5'10" and my ideal lean weight is 150 +or- a little bit.

At 5'7" you could probably go a little lower if you wanted.

I'll check Dr. Barnard's book when I get home.

Here is a link to Dr. Fuhrman's book

My local Barnes and Noble had more than one in stock.

This is a simple rule that I got from ravediet.com

RAVE stands for:

No Refined foods - refined foods are everywhere, just empty calories, no nutrition.

No Animal products - since you are vegan this should be easy

No Vegetable oils

No Exceptions

The closer that you follow these rules, the better off you will be.

Kathryn suggested to eliminate soft drinks, I would say eliminate coffee also if you drink it.

I was a 1-2 gallon a day pop/coffee drinker. But no more.

Now filtered water tastes great to me.

http://www.vegsource.com has some great videos to watch

How long have you been vegan?

How much of your current diet is refined foods?

Other folks have given you lots of great advice, and there's not much I can add to that. I just want to promote weight lifting as a good tool in weight loss. Don't worry about getting bulky! Like someone already said, gaining bulk doesn't happen at all easily for the majority of women. Don't be afraid to lift weights, and to lift heavy ones.

My friend who works out with me has lost something like 40-50 pounds in the past year or so, and she lifts heavy with me. She credits the weight lifting for a lot of her weight loss. And lifting heavy weights and getting stronger is fun as well!

Here's a great site to help allay fears of getting bulky and also to serve as resource if you do decide to lift weights.

http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/index.php

Yo, I'd add that you should find physical activity that you enjoy doing so you can do it frequently and for prolongued periods. Don't choose to do stuff that bugs you because it's harder that way, and you'll get better results and time will pass quicker if you're enjoying it. Maybe get a friend or friends to do something together, I dunno what you might be interested in, but whatever it is company is sometimes nice depending on the type of person you are. Find a way to enjoy it.

here's some suggestions which you may find interesting / tedious:

Walks on your own or with friends,

shooting hoops and playing around on a basketball court (alone or with friends, not necessarily play a game, just chuck the ball around)

ditto but with a soccer ball / american football etc

DDR with friends or on your own

shadow boxing

dog walking

dancing

exercises in the home without any other equipment: press-ups, ab crunches, star-jumps/jumping jacks, tip toes, squats... You can do these things whilst watching TV / DVD / listening to music so you don't have to think about them

I have lost 5 pounds since I started this thread... quite a while ago. I wish I had lost more. My new years resolution is to lose more. I hope to get down to my goal weight before my braces come off!!! I have another 20 pounds to go. I have found I like pilates and Wii boxing lol. I don't know if the Wii boxing will help, but hey can't hurt right? Pilates is fun but I can't handle doing it everyday. I am going to try to start doing it 3 times a week again. I find I lose weight better if I don't stress about it and stick to a routine Well wish me luck! I am also going to try to eat better. Tough around the holidays... I also want to experiment with multi cultural foods more but control my portions.

While you sound as if you might be somewhat disappointed that you only lost five that is a good trend and just slight changes could make you easily lose much more.

You showed that you can lose weight, by what you are doing now, so just decreasing your food intake a little bit more (nothing drastic just 50 to 100 calories less a day) and increase your energy burning (and it would be very simple: just add five or ten minutes to every other exercise session, or walk 30 minutes a few times a week, or add an extra exercise session every other week), would likely make you lose three or four or more times more weigh than you already have. So, see it would not take much effort (you probably would not even notice the extra exercise and slightly less food proscribed above) to lose a lot more weigh, so you should view yourself as having done a lot because you have set a foundation that will now allow you to obtain your goals in a consistent easy way, without changing much of what you are doing now.

I 100% agree with Richard. Playing DDR has made me lose so much weight (though I didn't play specifically for weight loss), but cardio you enjoy is the easiest way to go.

It is february 2007 I am currently 164 at last weighing I think i can lose more tho, so we will have to see... still hoping for between 140-150 for my goal weight!

It is february 2007 I am currently 164 at last weighing I think i can lose more tho, so we will have to see... still hoping for between 140-150 for my goal weight!

Awesome keep going strong, You're getting there.

congrats you are doing awesomely!

a great way to lose weight is avoiding processed and cooked foods.. eating them less often..