Hey everyone,
I've been contemplating joining a weight loss online community for quite some time now, I'm looking forward to hearing any advice or comments from more knowledgeable individuals. I'm 29 years old and have never really given the food I eat much thought. Up until the beginning of my diet almost 2 weeks ago, I've snacked on potato chips and chocolate cookies in the middle of the day, a few times a month I would eat pizza, drank beer a few times a week, and have never given it much thought, because I see a lot of fit people that eat these types of junk foods. I'm still puzzled by this phenomenon, but as far as I understand now, everyone's body just works differently, the metabolism functions at different rates and so on. Incidentally, over the years I've heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that it's best to eat a heavy breakfast and a light dinner, and I've been following this "strategy" for 8 years or so.
One of these days I've heard someone mention that beer has a lot of carbs and that's what results in one gaining weight. That was the moment when I sort of got the ball rolling and few days later I was already obsessed with what I was eating. I cut out all the junk food, I don't eat junk food, processed meats, don't drink beer and my only major source of sugars are oranges and carrots to a lesser extent.
To avoid going into a hungry diet, I thought - I'll just eat healthy and as long as I'm always full, I shouldn't have any trouble avoiding the junk food. So I've learned how to cook (I've never cooked before in my entire life) and I'm even enjoying it. I bought a scale and was shocked that on the BMI scale I was only 1 deviation away from "Obesity."
The following is what I eat now.
Breakfast:
A cooked meal consisting of either salmon, pork chops, or chicken strips. A large number of raw broccoli and a tomato or two, some kale. Everything is organic, the fish is a wild catch, not farmed. Free range chickens.
Snack:
A handful of almond nuts
Lunch:
Salad from "Chopt" consisting of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, carrots. Sometimes one egg goes into it.
Snack:
A small bag of carrots
Dinner:
Cucumber, lettuce. Sometimes an orange.
*I drink a lot of water and green tea throughout the day, sometimes up to 10 or more cups of water and green tea. This is not new to me, I've been drinking water/green tea in high quantities all my life, but it has never seemed to have the positive impacts that some people speak about on the internet. On the other hand, maybe I would've been in worse shape than I am, had I not drank so much water, haha.
Results:
I quickly lost about 5 pounds and was very happy. In the last 3 days, however, my weight has plataead. I've found an instructional exercise on YouTube that first started out (lesson 1) at 15 minutes, then in a few days I progressed to 30 minutes, it's pretty high intensity a works out most of your muscles, but its a cardio exercise. By the end of it I'm sweating a lot and my heartbeat is up significantly, - which, I assume, is a good thing. In the last few days I've stopped exercising because my muscles are very sore, I'll give them another day to recover and then will resume. I always try to walk as much as possible, like taking the stairs whenever I can, instead of the elevator. A few times I've walked home from work, but it's 12 miles and just takes too long.
Now that I am no longer dropping in weight, I've started researching more myself, asking others for opinions and have encountered a lot of inconsistent opinions out there. For instance, I've cut out all the bread and bread-related foods out of my diet, but now I'm reading that they're actually goof for you, if they're whole grain breads, but then there are opinions that it's better to avoid those as well, and eat something else instead. Also, apparently there's a minimum number of carbs that one must eat per day and opinions on how much also vary a lot. In addition, I've read that sleeping 7-8 hours is important for weight loss and I actually normally sleep for only 6 hours or less, which has probably contributed to my weight problem. On top of that I have a stressful job and have had a growing amount of stress in the last 5 days and it's also possible that I've stopped losing weight because of my stress and deprivation of sleep? And it seems like I may not be losing weight because I'm NOT eating enough? Am I eating too much or not enough, lol?
My goal is to somehow work an 8 hour long sleep cycle into my schedule, but so far I've been unsuccessful.
Sorry for the long intro, just needed to vent a little, it's kind of adding to my stress that I'm not seeing any changes in weight in 3 days now.
Good to be here
I've been contemplating joining a weight loss online community for quite some time now, I'm looking forward to hearing any advice or comments from more knowledgeable individuals. I'm 29 years old and have never really given the food I eat much thought. Up until the beginning of my diet almost 2 weeks ago, I've snacked on potato chips and chocolate cookies in the middle of the day, a few times a month I would eat pizza, drank beer a few times a week, and have never given it much thought, because I see a lot of fit people that eat these types of junk foods. I'm still puzzled by this phenomenon, but as far as I understand now, everyone's body just works differently, the metabolism functions at different rates and so on. Incidentally, over the years I've heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and that it's best to eat a heavy breakfast and a light dinner, and I've been following this "strategy" for 8 years or so.
One of these days I've heard someone mention that beer has a lot of carbs and that's what results in one gaining weight. That was the moment when I sort of got the ball rolling and few days later I was already obsessed with what I was eating. I cut out all the junk food, I don't eat junk food, processed meats, don't drink beer and my only major source of sugars are oranges and carrots to a lesser extent.
To avoid going into a hungry diet, I thought - I'll just eat healthy and as long as I'm always full, I shouldn't have any trouble avoiding the junk food. So I've learned how to cook (I've never cooked before in my entire life) and I'm even enjoying it. I bought a scale and was shocked that on the BMI scale I was only 1 deviation away from "Obesity."
The following is what I eat now.
Breakfast:
A cooked meal consisting of either salmon, pork chops, or chicken strips. A large number of raw broccoli and a tomato or two, some kale. Everything is organic, the fish is a wild catch, not farmed. Free range chickens.
Snack:
A handful of almond nuts
Lunch:
Salad from "Chopt" consisting of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, carrots. Sometimes one egg goes into it.
Snack:
A small bag of carrots
Dinner:
Cucumber, lettuce. Sometimes an orange.
*I drink a lot of water and green tea throughout the day, sometimes up to 10 or more cups of water and green tea. This is not new to me, I've been drinking water/green tea in high quantities all my life, but it has never seemed to have the positive impacts that some people speak about on the internet. On the other hand, maybe I would've been in worse shape than I am, had I not drank so much water, haha.
Results:
I quickly lost about 5 pounds and was very happy. In the last 3 days, however, my weight has plataead. I've found an instructional exercise on YouTube that first started out (lesson 1) at 15 minutes, then in a few days I progressed to 30 minutes, it's pretty high intensity a works out most of your muscles, but its a cardio exercise. By the end of it I'm sweating a lot and my heartbeat is up significantly, - which, I assume, is a good thing. In the last few days I've stopped exercising because my muscles are very sore, I'll give them another day to recover and then will resume. I always try to walk as much as possible, like taking the stairs whenever I can, instead of the elevator. A few times I've walked home from work, but it's 12 miles and just takes too long.
Now that I am no longer dropping in weight, I've started researching more myself, asking others for opinions and have encountered a lot of inconsistent opinions out there. For instance, I've cut out all the bread and bread-related foods out of my diet, but now I'm reading that they're actually goof for you, if they're whole grain breads, but then there are opinions that it's better to avoid those as well, and eat something else instead. Also, apparently there's a minimum number of carbs that one must eat per day and opinions on how much also vary a lot. In addition, I've read that sleeping 7-8 hours is important for weight loss and I actually normally sleep for only 6 hours or less, which has probably contributed to my weight problem. On top of that I have a stressful job and have had a growing amount of stress in the last 5 days and it's also possible that I've stopped losing weight because of my stress and deprivation of sleep? And it seems like I may not be losing weight because I'm NOT eating enough? Am I eating too much or not enough, lol?
My goal is to somehow work an 8 hour long sleep cycle into my schedule, but so far I've been unsuccessful.
Sorry for the long intro, just needed to vent a little, it's kind of adding to my stress that I'm not seeing any changes in weight in 3 days now.
Good to be here
