Fitness advice please

walters123

Looking for a few tips to get my weight off currently 17st and would like to get down to 14 stone.

Over the last few months I've given up the pop and only drinking sugar free squash I've also changed my milk to red top.

Food is usually pasta rice jacket patatos with chicken.

Also do I need to start using protein powder

sevenxl77

Difficult without knowing what your goals are as the title is for fitness advise but the post is about dropping weight

If all you want to do is lose weight then you just need to eat less calories regardless of what it is. Protein powder will only add unwanted calories for this.

Give My fitness pal a go, work out how many calories you need to maintain and then how many you need to lose weight. You can then work out your daily foods from there.

Showoff

Agree with the above use MFP to workout how many calories you need to maintain your weight and then log EVERYTHING you eat into MFP and see where you may be going wrong.

It's very easy to scoff a biscuit and forget it's probably 200 calories, 5 biscuits with a cup of tea and you've almost consumed half your daily allowance of calories. It soon adds up. So get MFP and log everything. It's pretty easy to use, you can scan barcodes to look up items and pretty much everything is in there.

Losing weight is very simple! Eat less calories than your body needs to maintain your current body weight and you will lose weight. Eat more calories than your body needs and you will gain weight.

If you exercise as well as eating less calories, you will lose weight faster (as you'll burn more calories) or exercise will allow you to consume more calories before gaining weight, it's that simple.

For example:
If MFP says you need 2,500 calories a day to maintain your body weight, eating 2,499 calories a day or less, you will lose weight.
Eating 2,501 calories a day or more and you will gain weight.

If you jog for 30 minutes and burn 200 calories you can eat 2,699 calories and still lose weight.

Would you rather have that biscuit and run for 30 minutes, or just not have the biscuit in the first place...?

Makes sense?

The key to successful weight loss over a period of time, is not to be too strict on yourself. You've got to live and enjoy yourself as well. So if you have a night out and overindulge a little, it's fine, just make up for it over the following few days and try and stay under you totally allowance for the week.

Crash diets work in the short term, because people eat a LOT less calories than their body needs to maintain their weight, but as soon as they go back to eating normally again and eat over their daily calorie needs consistently the weight comes back. This can also be compounded by the fact that their body may go into starvation mode and try to hold onto as many calories as it can, as it doesn't know when it's going to get the next feed.

A very effective way to lose weight is intermittent fasting. There are several variations on this like the 5/2, but an easier and not so harsh plan is the 16/8. This is fasting for 16 hours and eating all your meals in 8 hours. Putting it in simple terms, don't eat anything before 12pm or after 8pm.

You'll save 300/400 calories by not having breakfast and not eating after 8pm will stop the evening snacking and it's easy to remember and stick to.

Forget protein power unless you're weight training and not getting enough protein from your usual diet.

Wardy257

The body is quite capable of dealing with small changes in calorie consumption as its pretty much impossible to eat exactly the same number of calories every day. What matters is consumption over 100s of days. Fro example, if over 100 days you are, on average, 200 calories less per day then you will lose some weight. How much weight you would have lost will vary from person to person.

Showoff

Totally agree. I didn't mean day 1 weigh yourself in the morning and eat exactly 2,499 calories and on the morning of day 2 you will weigh less.

It's how many calories you consume on average over a period of time that counts.

Hence I also said, don't worry if you have a blowout from time to time, but just try and stick to less than (my example of) 2,500 calories per day on average for the week. I only say over a week and not longer, as it's easier to manage and monitor.

ShaneD94

I've been in a pretty similar boat to be you. Originally I was just over 24 stone but I'm down to 18 now. Like above the best thing I ever did was start using MFP (My Fitness Pal) to log all my daily calories. You just need to make sure you log everything and I mean EVERYTHING to keep you on track (even if you know you've eaten nothing but junk). Eventually logging becomes a habit. It makes you really consider whether you need the snack you're about to devour.