I just lost 12 lbs. in 6 weeks. High triglycerides scared me enough to get serious.

I kept a rigorous food diary for four weeks so I could know what 1500 calories a day looks like. I eat oat bran, flax meal, and a serving of legumes every day. No cookies or candy. No soda. Lots and lots of non-starcy vegs. some fruit. a wheat-free day now and then. Most importantly, I measure. I don’t trust myself to eyeball. I keep measuring cups and spoons on my counter. At any meal, aside from the “free” veggies, I limit myself to half-cup portions, and fats by the half teaspoon. I like what I am eating. I also now remember what hungry feels like! I had eaten compulsively for so long that I forgot what hunger was.

utter nonsense. just more rationalization for the slothful.

exercise 6 days a week for the rest of your life.
period.

The authors conclude that while people do burn more fat when they are exercising than when they are not, they have no greater ability to burn fat over the next 24 hours than on days when they are couch potatoes.

“If you exercise and replace the calories you burn, you’re no better — with regard to how much fat you burn off — than if you didn’t exercise,” says Melanson.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30826120/

Current weight 218 with a target weight of 185 by summer’s end. Weight loss will be accomplished by walking 5-10 miles a day (combined with stretch routine) until 205 lbs when I will start running and start the PT pyramid http://www.military.com/military-fitness/fitness-test-prep/pt-pyramid for strength training.

I am also using pranic breathing technique while walking 7-1-7-1 count (breathe in through nose 7 steps, hold one, release through mouth 7 steps, pause 1, repeat) to expoand lung capacity and relieve stress.

Hope this helps and Ill be back with weekly progress and a picture when I meet my goal.

And I suspect everyone knows a rare, lucky skinny person who eats constantly and never moves. For fun, my roommates recently calculated the “weight watchers points” that a skinny friend eats in a day. According to weight watchers, a person of his height/weight should only consume about 21 “points” daily. In a day, he actually eats about 80!! He clearly is not the most healthy person, yet he look rail-thin.

So even the appearance of fat is a poor proxy! No wonder people struggle with health decisions. The signals are hard to find.

Most people who are unhealthy or ‘out of shape’ recognize that fact (wheezing while walking, never mind climbing stairs; last years clothes won’t fit; snacks are bigger and more frequent), but are often unwilling to recognize that they need to be their own catalyst for change.

For any change to be effective, you must first know yourself and be honest with your self assessment. If you can’t - you need to accept honest external assessment (from a local gym, health club, medical clinic: wherever you’ll get a rational unbiased opinion).

BMI might work as a ’scare tactic’, but it’s so riddled with ‘get out clauses’ (I’m big boned, I’ve got a large frame, …) it loses it’s effectiveness for any but the honestly committed (in my opinion).

Likewise other ‘un-guaged metrics’ (weight) are open to too much ‘interpretation’ that allows those challenged by commitment or change to stay as they are (but I’m light on my feet!).

In the end - for anyone in this situation (as I was a year ago) — you need supportive friends and family. And fat people DO go to the gym. I did! I still do. I’m no longer as fat as I was, but it will be a while before my body image catches up to reality.

In the end it’s about finding a healthy approach to life. (After all I want to make it EASY for medical science to keep me alive and enjoying life for another couple of centuries at least!)

But weight itself can serve as a pretty poor sign of fitness, too, for the same reason. I have a friend that looks almost model-like in skinny petiteness, yet she weighs about fifteen more pounds than I (who does not approach waif-er thinness) do. All of that weight comes from muscle- the girl is cut out of friggin’ rock.

Yet many people in her position would stress over the number of the scale, which seems horrific for her height. A weight number can tell us nothing of the distribution, or the habits that have contributed to it. So what metric can we use?

Personally, I advocate the hardest yardstick of all- just eyeballing one’s habits. The body self-regulates pretty well, and a little bit of motivation and mild discipline can pick up what slack natural instinct leaves.

I find that after establishing a routine of vigorous exercise, I begin to crave regular doses of it like any other necessary aspect of a healthy lifestyle. I suppose if guilting oneself with a numeric weight serves as the only effective motivation to exercise, in some cases, it may not be utterly useless.

However - plug my numbers into a BMI calculator and I am still obese (BMI = 30.5). with less than 10% body fat. At 205lbs I am still ‘overweight’ despite the physical exam indicating that is my lean mass!

I need to start cutting into my muscle mass to get into normal range (185lbs = 24.4)

To get to the low 20’s I need to be 160lbs (=21.1). I think my legs weigh more than that! If I were 160lbs I’d be in emergency for malnutrition!

I’ve had a larger than 44″ chest since grade school. I’m not muscle-bound, I’m not built like a power lifter. BMI is just wrong.

BMI assumes only one dimension is important. (height) Anyone who’s flown as much as I have knows that we are all three dimensional - and every one is important for comfort!

Height, depth of chest, breadth of chest, density of bone tissue, all contribute to significant deltas. BMI is only meaningful if your body dimensions are ‘average’.

(Sorry Erich - don’t mean to imply you are average)