Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SinclairLondon]

Protein shake with fruit in the morning.

Lunch. Chicken or Fish, vegies, go easy on the WHITE rice.

Handful of nuts when you get hungry later and some fruit.

Protein Shake.

Dinner, similar to Lunch.

Desert. Have yogurt.

DONT DRINK SODA.
DONT EAT RAMYEON.

[SinclairLondon]

[Patrick Bateman]

There isn't much one size fits all (pardon the pun) advice to losing weight, but I'll throw in my two cents:

Cardio. Cardio. Cardio. No excuses, no exceptions, get out there and get moving. If you are physically able to run, you need to do it. Don't allow yourself to make poor excuses like, "I'm too tired" or "Its too cold outside." It's important to break out of that kind of mindset. When you are actually working out, set a reasonable goal and make sure you exceed it.

Drink a lot of water and increase the amount of fiber you consume.

Seriously watch your portions. If you are counting calories, this is extremely important. Most people don't have the foggiest idea what constitutes a correct portion. For example, I love Frosted Mini Wheats. Before I started working out, I would just eye how much was my serving assuming it was equivalent to a portion. When I started to really care about this stuff, I checked and I was having over 2 "portions" in one bowl! I then started literally counting the number I had, and that's what I ate. I know this kind of thing sounds extreme, but I lost around 130 pounds at my peak (it's now plateaued to about 110 after I stopped working out 6 days a week and became much more liberal with my eating). All of that without any pills or specialized diet.

As far as the snacking goes, if you are trying to lose weight, I think it's best to avoid snacking. Your body is smart and intuitive, if it needs something it will let you know. If you aren't hungry, don't eat. When you get hungry, eat an appropriate amount, and don't indulge because you think you deserve it. If you get hungry outside a regular meal time, eat something, but don't eat something because it's snack time.

Also, brush your teeth around 8 PM to help prevent late night eating.

Good luck!

[Vagabundo]

actually, if I watch my diet and do my lifting, I don't need to do cardio (and I despise doing it)

I hope you guys caught the latest research which disproves the "breakfast is super important meal of the day" Myth.

Since most people eat a bunch of calorie laden crap, they're better off skipping breakfast as it is.

[drydell]

As a counter to some of the low-carb advocates on Daves I would recommend a high carb starch based diet to getting lean and healthy.

That means eating lots vegetables, fruit, whole grains (brown pasta, bread, rice etc),beans, seeds and legumes - a plant based diet.

Cut right down on or eliminate meat, dairy, simple carbs (white pasta bread rice), sugar and all fats and oils (olive oil isn't a health food sadly)..

exercise every day if possible
get 30 mins of sunlight every day if possible
Minimise booze.
Try and get good sleep

Why should you do such an "extreme" diet?

I'll give you one reason. It's very very likely that you already have atherosclerosis to some degree. The American G.I. casualties brought back from the Korean and Vietnam wars were autopsied and already had atherosclerosis aged just 19/20 after eating a Standard American Diet ... Read Caldwell Esselstyn on this (he was,literally, the top US cardiologist surgeon-general who now has Bill Clinton following a whole-food plant based diet following his heart surgery)

A friend of mine from back home has already been diagnosed with having had "silent" heart attacks - he's not even reached 40. It was shocking to find this out. But out of everyone he is the one who loved his greasy ribs....

Some of the advocates of this diet are
Caldwell Esselstyn
Colin T Campbell
Dean Ornish
John Mcdougall
Jefff Novick
Joel Fuhrman

It's a way of eating that has been sidelined by the Atkins/Zone Low Carb popularity over the last decades. But there's a lot of very respected scientists and clinicians who promote this (there's a good reason Clinton wasn't following advice from Taubes, Mercola or Eades etc)

A new movie is just out following this very subject - check out the trailer ...
http://www.forksoverknives.com/

[RMNC]

[DorkothyParker]

Exercise is good, yeah.

HOWEVER, I lost more weight in 2 months just cutting down on rice and instant coffee than I did when I was running 10k on the treadmill 4-5 days a week. Granted, I probably gained some muscle weight. But the real problem was that I was sooo hungry all the time. I think if you can balance exercise and diet, you are a rockstar. Most people aren't rockstars.

If you are totally lame like me, just do calorie restriction, drink lots of tea, and keep on with little calorie burns. (My work is 1.3 miles away and I walk to and from daily. Sometimes I jog because I sleep in too much.) On the weekends, I'll do some casual trail hiking. (No special shoes, but I get nice and breathy). I try to be jittery and, again, I consume copious amounts of tea so I am not hungry and also to burn a couple extra calories. (Hey 40Kcal may not seem like a lot, but it'll aid you in at least not being obese in 20 years!)

I think by now you all know my big complaint about the "all or nothing" weight loss mentality. It gets discouraging, it feels like too much. Small changes can be effective and you can always build on them as you go. It's less drastic and it feels less like work and more like just being you. Y'know?

[drydell]

[teacherinseoul]

Here's my take on the controversial topics:

1. Cardio won't necessarily help you lose weight because moderately intense exercise tends to make you hungrier (hunger driven by lower blood sugar). And if you have food impulse control issues, being hungrier is a bad thing. Walking does work, but you need to do a lot of it.

2. Alcohol has a complex relationship with obesity. There is more than one study (use google) showing that extra calories from alcoholic beverage consumption don't lead to weight gain. Speculation is that alcohol raises metabolic rate (i.e., through wasting heat) and can interfere with digestion of fats.

3. Portion control is fine if you have discipline, but a lot of overweight people don't have the discipline. It's better to qualitatively change your diet to include foods for which portion control isn't necessary (or as necessary). You can eat as much homemade soup, fruit, green vegetables and semi or unsweetened yogurt as you like.

4. Diet soft drinks may be better than regular soft drinks, but they should be cut out of your diet if you want to lose weight. Research on this topic isn't clear-cut, but there is a correlation between soft drinks and obesity. And there's some reasonable speculation that artificial sweeteners may increase appetite.

I agree on the "brush your teeth" early tip.

[wishfullthinkng]

Although there have been some good replies here, you might want to first run your numbers and do your regiment by the book. I have a strong feeling many of the contributors aren't even aware of what a calorie really even is...

First, determine your current weight. Then determine your target weight. Find the daily caloric intake for someone your current weight and find the daily caloric intake for someone your target weight. Proceed to start eating towards the daily caloric intake of your target weight in a gradual graded process that you are comfortable with. If you are feeling enthusiastic you can always go whole hog and not do it gradually but it might leave you feeling irritable and lacking energy.

You can also exercise to help burn off excess calories quicker, but contrary to popular belief exercise is not mandatory, unless you sit on a couch all day long. If you are an average active person who doesn't always ride in elevators and escalators or take taxis then your daily calorie burn from your activity level should be fine. Don't get me wrong though, exercise is a good supplement.

Also as some people have said, cut out soda. All soda. Soda is one of the easiest and quickest ways to add 100% completely unnecessary and unhealthy contributions to your body. If you are a heavy drinker, drop the beer and stick to vodka sodas. Eat 5-6 meals a day rationed between your daily caloric allotment. If you are a person like myself who does not have the time to do that, then try to spread it out as much as possible.

Yes you can go do Muy Thai and sweat it all off, but that is not developing a solid dietary core to continue with in the long term, and is actually pretty unhealthy, as losing a lot of weight in such a small amount of time through strenuous physical exertion that you haven't trained for and copious sweating taxes the heart and organs. If don't build a solid dietary base and continued the cycle of getting fat and losing it dramatically and quickly you would soon find your body in a far worse place than you originally started.

[highstreet]

weight is lost in the kitchen.

add cardio to lose fat quicker and lift weights if you dont want to be skinny-fat.

[teacherinseoul]

There is at least one weight-loss guru advocating the creation of metabolic spikes through cold showers and brief exercise. It was a fascinating idea, but not something that I will try since most of my extra pounds are gone (and the practices seem a bit extreme).

Basically, the idea is that metabolic rate is responsible for burning most calories. If you increase this rate, then you lose weight. Two ways to produce this increase are a) cold showers which put your body into shock mode, and b) short-term exercise (a couple of minutes) that will give you an elevated rate for a while after you have finished. The latter idea supposedly means that you can do 20 min. per day, spread out over 10 sessions, as opposed to one consecutive hour per day.

Anyways, these are not my ideas. But feel free to experiment and report back.

[RMNC]

[Vagabundo]

[drydell]

@RMNC

Well first of all you copied and pasted someone elses comments off the internet and made it look like your words http://www.enlita.com/node/50 ...Is that what passes for critical thinking these days? - bit of a poor effort if you ask me...

I'm not inclined to respond to each point as you didn't even formulate your own thoughts on the matter...

but I will say that as much as i wish olive oil was a healthy food (i love my cooking oils and dressings) I'm now 100% convinced that it's not...Mcdougall was simply pointing out how it's a junk food like sugar is (he does not recommend adding sugar - he's a wholefoods only)