Weight loss / exercise tips?

Have any of you ever been on a diet or exercise plan? Successfully? How much did you lose, how long did it take you, and what did you do?
Does anyone know a GOOD website about exercising or dieting, as in, one that ISNT trying to sell me something?
I could use some pointers if anyone out there has any experience in this sort of thing

The Second Life Diet works very effectively for me....

I lost about a stone in a month after I first found Second Life, cos I kept getting so engrossed that I forgot to eat at all. In fact, once when I was particularly engrossed, not only did I stay up right thru from Friday evening to Sunday evening, but I survived entirely on coffee for the duration.

Prolly not healthy, but it works! I have a 2 inch thinner waist now than I did before I started SL in October.

Oh. You actually wanted real, sensible advice, huh? Sorry.

BUT... Eggys are supposed to be nicely rounded, aren't they?

LOL Kris. What on earth is there in SL to "engross" you?

Hey! Bring back the real Eggy. The one who loved Second Life!
Do ya really have to ask what's so great about SL?

Building! Scripting! Friends! Building! (OK so I really like building)

I started in October and am either totally addicted or still in some kind of 'honeymoon' period or something. There has not been a single day when I haven't put in at least 4 hours. And as I say, I've been on for 72 at a time sometimes.

If I was to become a permanent resident of SL and give up RL completely I'd *still* never be bored. I have about a million-and-one things I wanna get round to doing/trying in SL. (And if I ever saw you these days, I'd come bug the hell out of you with a million-and-one questions on how to do them )

Hey, Lindens. Gis a job as a permanent resident? *sigh* Perfection on a stick!

Erm. Sorry. You can all go back to trying to make Eggy thinner now...

Hey Kris, I'm not dead yet
If there's anything at all I can help you with, then sure, by all means ask away.
I like SL, but unless I wake up one day and find out that i have become a disembodied spirit or been uploaded to a computer I need to take care of my body. Building/scripting can be fun, but life can't all be fun and games. I have a college degree to graduate from and SL among other things has delayed that considerably.
It's just a matter of being responsible and setting priorities.

I'm very glad to hear it



Ty! Prepare to be bugged... I'll make a list!



Wow! (Cue stupid stunned animation and arm flailing)
You can do that?! I lost all ability to be responsible or rational as soon as I found Second Life. Which is why I may as well live here permanently, cos my first life has gone down the toilet thanks to Linden Labs (look, someone has to be to blame and it couldn't possibly be me). The slogan on the website should say 'Second Life... more addictive than crack cocaine'

So the least Philip could do to make it up to me is employ me!

Jump on the bandwagon these days with Atkins?
My dad's looking into it atm, and effictively it appears to be a 3-week fast first off with a controlled reintroduction of foodstuffs after. Combine this with light exercise (clicking a mouse doesn't count *grin*) such as the occasional swim, and you should be okay.

Bear in mind the important bit with Atkins is you _need_ to take vitamin supplements, as you don't get everything required from what the diet specifies.

Also try a google for "The hackers diet" - has had good noises about it. It's dieting from an engineering perspective. I'd try it myself if I wasn't so crap about foodal organisation

Here we go:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

I'm not really on a diet, I'm eating everything I used to eat, just in smaller quantities. A diet is something that has a beginning and an end, and after it ends you usually gain your weight back.
But anyway I got the food thing covered, I was just wondering about the exercise bit, like whether its better to 4 series of 5km or 1 series of 20km... you know, stuff like that.

That hackers diet website IS TEH R0XX0RZ!
I read about it on slashdot like years ago, but I had completely forgotten about it

I found a few websites that might help you out

http://www.hoptechno.com/book11.htm

http://www.naturemade.com/WellnessTopics/wt_abstract.asp?topicid=3&msid=66

http://www.tudefitness.com/

They're just some sites with tips about exercise. Also, i think Pilates is a great was of exercising. It's relaxing, fairly easy and great for toning and strengthening...

http://www.pilates-studio.com/

Thank you victoria
I'm reading the hackers diet website... boy that guy must have been a total mess! His exercise plan is way too easy, I'm over his 20th rung or so with my current exercise plan. It's amazing how you can be well past the obesity threshold and still "fit" enough to do all this exercise. The human body is a remarkably adaptable thing

Hackers diet? Hehe, what do you expect?

Anyway.... yeah I successfully gained about 20+ pounds by...oh you want to lose weight? Well crap... just do what I did to get underweight: drink lots and lots of tea. No, really, it works. Well, I think. But if you're full of tea you'll need to eat less. lol

I heard that cappuccino is good for losing weight.. just have one when you feel hungry and it makes you feel, well, less hungry! I heard that it stops your boobs from getting smaller as you loose weigh too... <g>

Dr. Atkins was obese when he died. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for his diet plan

One of the best diets I know is pretty much cut out the truly junkie foods, eat smaller portions, and get a brisk fast walk for at least an hour a day.

Stick with that for a month or two, then after you get the 'habit' of physical exercise down, try jogging or bike riding for at least an hour a day.

Increased physical activity is a LOT better than some goofy diet, and you don't have to give up all the junkie food you like, just a lot of it.

That's worked for me, Jellin. I've lost 7 or 8 pounds since the holidays by cutting out snacks, not eating desserts, eating more stuff like marinara and less stuff like alfredo (that's the one that sucks), and being careful about portions. I've been able to stick with it because it's relatively painless, and it's worked slowly but steadily.

But I just ordered a rowing machine and when I start using that I expect things to get more complicated, since I'll want to be adding muscle mass.

Good luck, Eggy.

*sigh* well it looks like I'm on the right track, I'm just sort of impatient. I cut down lunch and dinner servings to about half of what I used to eat, and I'm eating a piece of fruit every 2 hours or so, plus sugarless yoghurts and 2 slices wholewheat bread now and then.
Oh and I'm drinking about a gallon of water a day.
As for exercise I'm far beyond "brisk walks"
Today I already rode my bike for 20km (12.5 miles) and I've done 4 series of 20 sit-ups, 20 push-ups, and 20, uh, dunno the english word for it, lifting your body off the floor, like in a push-up, but using your back muscles instead of your arms
I weigh myself every week and it looks like I lost about 20 pounds in the past 4 weeks. But the rate seems to be slowing down
I was hoping to be more or less slim by the time my swedish friends came to visit me in july-august, but at this rate it looks like it's gonna take at least until next christmas
Thing is, when you're as fat as I am, losing 20 pounds makes absolutely no difference in the way you look! I was already fat in high school and I need to lose 80 pounds to go back to my high school weight, or 100 to go into the "ideal" weight range according to most of the BMI thingies I've seen on the web.

That's a whole lot of weight to lose, Eggy. I'd seriously think about talking to a doctor about that. I've heard that the faster you take weight off, the easier and faster it is to put it back on. It's impressive how hard you've worked at it so far. I hope you keep yourself healthy.

Well, the diet plan I'm following was actually prescribed by my doctor. Not right now, though, but the last time I dieted. When I was around 10 or 11 my doctor said I needed a diet and so she prescribed me this eat-every-2hrs plan.
The rationale is that if you eat a few light meals between the big ones, such as a piece of fruit or a yoghurt, your body won't go into "starvation mode" and so you will be less hungry when its time to eat the typical artery-hardening portuguese meals, such as, for instance, the infamous "Carne a Meda de Mouros" which consists of pork cooked in lard, with potatoes and lots of garlic but no veggies
Also, when your body goes into this "starvation mode" thingy it more readily absorbs nutrients, and makes you crave high-calory foods.
I lost 20 pounds in 3 months back then, but I wasn't exercising, and I had a lot less weight to lose. That was about the only time in my life my stomach didnt protrude from the rest of my body. Unfortunately my family made a crucial mistake that kills any diet, which is to tie it to a special kind of food, in this case an icky green soup that I was forced to eat every day at every meal. So I got sick of it and threw away the whole diet thing, quickly regaining all lost weight
This time I'm not even on a diet, but rather trying to get accustomed to eating reasonable amounts of food, without cutting out anything in particular. In fact I spent a week eating some apple pie every day and still lost 5 pounds, and last week I actually ate chocolate cake several times

I'm on the Atkins diet right now, and i've had some pretty amazing results, i think as far as diets are concerned (if you want to be on one), then its just a matter of finding the right one for you. Not all diets are for everyone.

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm not a dieter. It's difficult for me to gain weight and easy for me to lose it. But... I think food is an addiction. Changing your eating habits is just like trying to quit smoking. You're going to go through withdrawl. But when people go through food withdrawl they don't look at it the same way as they'd see nicotine withdrawl. People tend to trust hunger as their body's way of telling them about a legitimate need. But that's not really the way it is. We don't need nearly the amount of food that people usually eat. You can easily live a perfectly healthy life eating only one meal a day and a couple of light snacks. You just have to survive through the withdrawl until your body gets used to getting a lot less food each day. There's no easy way to kick an addiction. I think one of the biggest reasons that people don't succeed in dieting is that they expect to find an easy and painless way to shed pounds when they should be expecting the same kind of hardship a heavy smoker goes through when kicking a dependance on nicotine. That's why people make millions selling muscle twitch belts (exercise while you sit on your fat ass!) and "shed pounds while you sleep" pills. See food as the addiction it is and your chances of long term success will be a lot better. If you're eating three meals a day, chances are you eat too much.

One thing comes to mind "Mediterrean diet" seems like a natural where you live Eggy. It is not a diet but a way of life.

My tips for weight loss:

1. Eat less.

2. Exercise more.

Aw man. Devlin already posted what I wanted to say. Good advice man.