Weight loss / exercise tips?

My (unacceptable) tip:

Quit SL and get outside

(Rather you than me, though )

I eat fairly healthily... suppose that's one of the big advantages of still living with parents at 21, when the body tends to start to give way My father cooks, he's keen on mediterranian-style food like pasta, tomatos and olive oil (I sound like an Olivio advert.)

But I also drink a fair amount of beer, and that really piles the pounds on.

Went to the gym regularly last year... that worked very well, but winter came and the idea wasn't as attractive. Seems if you go to the gym and then quit for a while, it's a way of doubling the weight you had originally taken off

Intend to rejoin once summer arrives, and hopefully keep it up through next winter and beyond. I'm not into all these supposedly dangerous Atkins diets or milkshake slimming techniques - good old fashioned hard work is a tried and proven technique, so that'll do me nicely.

First off I don't recommend Atkins. At the very least consult your doctor before getting heavily into it - about vitamin suppliments and the like. Some basic nutrition: carbohydrates are your bodies main source of energy, sugars are 'quicky' energy, and proteins are building blocks. Cutting out the energy of your diet forces your body to essentially eat itself, I mean your body is not hungry because you are eating but it still doesn't have the energy it needs. This means lots of weight loss fast. But it is not healthy for everyone! Existing medical conditions and medications can be adversly effected by extreme diets (any extreme diet, and atkins is an extreme diet).

I am not a doctor btw. And I too don't have over-weight problems. My drawer at work is an atkins dieter's worst nightmare - I have 2 boxes of cheese-its, a box of wheat-thins, a box of saltine crackers, mac n cheese and granola breakfast bars. About the only not high in carbs may be the popcorn but I'm not sure about that. Oh and I don't mean snack size boxes. While in college a common late night snack was an entire pack of saltines (1/4 of a normal sized box).

Diets are best consulted with doctors! (heh jumping back to the point). As you have said Eggy your diet this time is different than last time, that is the situation surrounding it is different. It might be a good idea to get another diagnosis, another talk about diet. Losing 20 pounds is a lot different than losing 80. Isn't your medical completely covered over there anyways?

My advice eggy (besides visiting a doctor to discuss this all with and get some REAL advice) would just be increasing the amount of workout you do in very small increments. Each week or so do a couple more of everything, bike a little further, run a little further, do an extra situp each . Your body will tend to form itself to what you are doing, which means if you pick one level of activity and just do that then you will see some immediate gains and then they will slow down. Well, they will slow down anyway, but slowly increasing the load you put on yourself will keep your body working.

Dr Atkins was a very tall man who weighed 195 when he was hospitaliized after his fall. Any of his subsequent weight gain was due to fluids that were pumped into him before his death the following week. PETA has a special interest in making the Atkins diet unappealing, so don't expect the whole truth from them.

I heard that today too David. I just thought it was funny when I heard the other blurb yesterday. I had a nice big slab of beef for dinner. I enjoy being at the top of the food chain
Whatever works for ya, that's what you should do. Too many people have a vested financial interest in making dieting seem complicated and mysterious. It's hard to make a million in the diet industry if your book just says "eat less."

Whoa, so many replies. Let's start at the beginning:

Aurelie (et al) - it's good to hear that you're getting good results, but I wouldn't even begin to consider Atkins as a viable alternative
First of all it's just wacky and counter-intuitive, and on top of that I don't like the taste of fat, or beef. Also, greasy foods (even our typical codfish covered in olive oil) gives me heartburn. Coffee is the same. The prospect of getting bad breath / BO completely turns me off to any diet involving ketosis.

Chip - food is indeed an addiction. I had a lot of problems cutting down at the beginning, I was often hungry and looking at my watch, waiting for the next "fruit time". But after the first week or so, it was the opposite. I'm having trouble finding room for the bi-hourly apple/orange/pear, which probably means I should cut down on the meal size again.
My biggest problem is the habit of filling up the dish. I need to get some smaller dishes and bowls so it won't visually seem like I'm eating too little.

Pituca - I actually had to look up what people mean by mediterranean diet. Whoever came up with that term was certainly on crack
No one eats like that around here. That sounds like something out of the middle ages when meat was a luxury. Today, its fish that is a luxury, being twice as expensive as meat. It definitely looks like it might be healthier, but sadly I can't drastically change what I eat because I'm still living with mom and so I'm subject to her dietary habits.

Devlin (and MJ) - Thank you, that's exactly what I'm doing. Why not follow your own advice, devlin, werent you the one who weighed 300 pounds

Del - I did quit SL. Mostly. I just log in once in a while to take care of some loose ends and chat with my old friends. As for getting outside, I would love to, but living in the middle of the capital, all that getting outside would bring me would be lung cancer.

Ama - We do get free doctors around here, but we get what we pay for
They are IDIOTS! Completely ignorant bastards. I can get more info out of google. So many times I have been misdiagnosed, or even worse, NOT diagnosed. I complaint about something and she tells me not to worry, its normal, or its nothing serious, or even refuses to look at it.
I recently found out that I have psoriasis, by talking to a friend of mine (who is a med student though) about a skin problem I've had for 3 years, and then googling about it. My stupid doctor wouldn't even take a look at it, the first time she said it was nothing and that it would go away, the second time she thought it was just dry skin and prescribed me some moisturizing cream, the third time she thought it might have been a fungus and prescribed me some anti-mycotic. I'm never going to set foot on a "free" doctor again unless my life depends on it.
The psoriaris cream is working wonderfully though, my hands are MUCH better now.
I've also had a life-long history of suffering from bouts of dizziness, starting to see black and even fainting once, and lately I had sudden bouts of hunger accompanied by shaky hands and even cold sweats. Where was my doctor during all of this?
1st diagnosis: "Dont worry, its nothing, its normal, and it will go away"
2nd diagnosis: "Well you're really tall, and when you get up all of a sudden your blood has difficulty getting to your head on time"
3rd diagnosis: "Dont worry, you probably just have low blood pressure"
4th diagnosis: "So you're telling me that after going without food for a while you start feeling faint and very hungry? Well thats what you get when you dont eat for a long time. You get hungry."
Turns out I have hypoglicemia

Getting any useful advice out of a portuguese doctor is like getting blood from a stone. You see, these people are paid according to how many patients they can get rid of in the same day. They are actually instructed not to waste more than X minutes on each patient.

I wasn't really looking for diet tips, I think I got the food thing under control, it's mostly the exercise bit I need help with. I have been steadily increasing it, but I dont know if I'm doing it right.
Like, for instance, when do I know it's working?
Should I do 5 miles (which doesnt get me very tired), then stop, then do another 5 miles?
Or is it better to do 10 miles and get all sweaty and panting, with my muscles all hot and burning?
When I did some body building, 5/6 years ago, I was often sore for days in a row. These days, I'm never sore for more than 5 or 10 minutes.
Does that mean I dont exercise enough?
I need a personal trainer more than a doctor, but alas I cant afford anything like it

Yes, I weigh almost 300lbs. I eat what I want, and get zero excercise. I LOVE the taste of fat. And yes my heart is probably on the verge of quitting. I get chest pains and 'attacks' of some kind that send me to bed. Not sure exactly what it is, but don't really care. So, if I suddenly dissapear off the face of SL without a goodbye, you can guess what happened. If I do leave for other reasons, I will say goodbye.

Devlin, you're mad
I weigh(ed) close to 300 pounds myself which is part of the reason why I'm doing all of this. Of course I'm only 24 years old so it's a lot easier to get huge amounts of exercise every day.

Hehe, Eggy, you better not come to the States and eat at a chain restaurant. You order an appetizer, they bring you enough for six people even if there's two of you. You order a salad, it's meal sized. You order a pasta entree, they bring it in a bowl that quite literally looks like it should be at the center of the table serving a whole family. And they're always advertising on the menus how much "value" you're getting. Like we're all starving here in the U.S., and we have to stock up on those extra calories to make it through the day. Then they act like you're nuts when you don't want to take the remainder of your gargantuan meal home with you. Like you go to restaurants to stock up for the week.

It's such a relief to go to a nicer restaurant these days, where they give you normal portions. It's funny, isn't it? You have to pay more to get less. I'd like to eat tapas more. I went to a Spanish restaurant a couple of times and it was a nice way to get just what you wanted.

Hey Chip, you ever been to Jaleo in Bethesda?

I had forgotten why I resolved to never answer an Eggy post, he just can't help insulting.

I think that's missing part of the story there. I can't say if the diet works or not, but I believe that his problems were totally unrelated to diet. If some source you've visited mentioned that without any other background information...time to start questioning that source, I think!

huh?