Hello everyone - I thought I'd post my experience with loosing weight here, and provide some (hopefully) insightful approaches.

This is not a miracle diet or exercise program, merely what worked for me. I will suggest some "snack" foods, some intelligent ways to approach the problem, and some exercise guidelines, because you really need to attack the problem from many angles. But each individual will need to experiment to find what works best for them.

I've tried many diets, exercise programs, etc. I've found the only way to approach weight loss is to regard it as a big science/mathematical experiment. I've got an Honours Degree in Biology from the University of Waterloo, so this method made the most sense to me.

Mathematics:

Calorie
What exactely is a "Calorie" ? Well a calorie is roughly the energy needed to raise 1 ml of water 1 degree celsius. In early dietary science food was literally BURNED in order to determine the caloric output of each food. It should be no surprise that when you burn fats (fats are close in structure to wax, gas) they give off a very large amount of energy.

1 Pound of Weight Loss = ~3500 calories. This is your magic number to keep in mind.

Now: Figure out your "Resting" metabolic rate by using one of the many calculators available through google. Heres one: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

To figure out your "Resting" (Basal Metabolic Rate; BSM) enter your activity level as "little/none." Which is probably true of most people.

For me, Age 23, Male, 225 pounds (at the start of my journey) my number was ~2500 calories to MAINTAIN my weight. This means that if I ate 2500 calories of food in a day, I'd maintain my weight indefinately. To start the fat loss, it claimed I needed to cut that number down to 2125. For "Extreme" Fat loss, 1776.

Unfortunately, they do not qualify "Fat Loss". At this level, only slightly reduced from normal, you'd see a very gradual weight loss over a very long period of time - this is NOT rewarding and you will get discouraged.

You really want to use the "Extreme Fat loss" number as your goal. Its very difficult, but it IS doable.

Diet:

In order to achieve the goal of "Extreme Fat Loss" each day, you will need to suffer. There is no way around it. It will get MUCH easier after 1-2 weeks, the headaches will stop, the hunger pains will be completely bearable, even a "good" feeling because at 1-2 weeks you WILL see results. Get some advil to help deal with the headaches that will occur for the first week or two.

There are a few simple rules to help you:

1) WATER. Drink LOTS of water. 2-4 L a day. It will help keep your stomach distended, and you wont feel as hungry. Another benefit of water is many metabolic reactions at the biochemical level require water to operate at maximum efficiency. Always have a bottle (500ml) of water near you as you work or watch TV or whatever it is you do.

2) Things that are not water - Avoid these for the most part. All soda drinks, beer, wine, etc. are empty calories. A can of Coke is like 250calories towards your total = Unacceptable. Instead, have a Diet Coke which has 0 calories. Or avoid altogether. Coffee - milk instead of cream, 1 sugar instead of 2+, black if you can stand it, or switch to one "Green tea" a day. BEER - a big one for me - Give it up for a month while you experiment. Wine - at MOST 1/2 a glass with your dinner. Wine is still empty calories, but much better than beer.

On the benefits of green tea: If you can switch from Coffee to Green Tea you have really struck a giant blow against unhealthy diet behaviour. Green tea has less calories, but more importantly has a chemical known in lay terms as an "Anti-Oxident". An Anti-Oxident fights cancer, aging and cell damage by catching and absorbing errant "Free Radicle" species of Oxygen which is the occasional result of metabolism within each cell's mitochondria. Within each cell in your body, (other than RBCs), mitochondria carry out the final stages of metabolism (catabolic destruction of pyruvate; the unit most proteins/sugars/carbs/fats can be converted too before being fed to your mitochondria) and this process uses Oxygen as an electron receptor to convert chemical energy to electrical energy and back into usable "ATP," the chemical energy currency your body uses. Oxygen is used so heavily in this manner that once in a while when the process is screwed up an extremely reactive Free Radicle Oxygen (Oxygen with an unpaired electron) escapes. This can attack neighbouring DNA, which can occasionally cause cancer, but more likely causes cell death - this can cause visible aging if its a skin cell. For more info on Green Tea and it's benefits: http://chinesefood.about.com/library/we … 11400a.htm

3) Become a fanatical calorie counter. "Ever Vigilant, Ever Watchful" should be your motto when it comes to food. Read each label of each item you buy. Try buying small "flip" notebook, dedicating a page to each day, writing down what you eat (EVERYTHING, including drinks) and then totalling up the calories. Its surprising how fast that number can top 2000. This will help you to meet your goals, and put into perspective each peice of food you have.

Fat Free Yogurt: An EXCELLENT snack. ~80calories a pop. However, one of these little babies can help you avoid hunger for 1-2 hours! Peach, Raspberry, Blueberry, Strawberry - try them all to avoid getting bored.

Light Margarine: If you absolutely must spread butter on your toast, then instead of spending 80calories on butter, spend 15cal on Light "I Can't Believe Its Not Butter" margarine. It tastes exactely the same when its melted into your toast.

Granola Bars: READ how many calories they have. Some have 100 a bar, some have 400 a bar. Obviously you want the former. These should be an emergency snack at 11pm if you cant sleep because you are hungry. That or a fat free yogurt.

Protein Shake: A Powder you can add to milk to make a chocolate milkshake like (not as tasty tho) drink. A good lunch/snack if you simply must have that 200 calorie boost. Protein is the best type of calorie you can eat. More on this later.

Light Popcorn: Another great snack. You can have as much freaking popcorn as you want. Its like 1 calorie a peice. You will get sick of the taste before you get full from it. Try to keep it to a small bowl full; when the bowl is empty you wont feel like refilling it. Trick yourself psycologically like this as much as possible.

4) Snacking after dinner: Avoid at all costs. Only snack if you cant sleep because your stomach is complaining. These calories you eat before you go to sleep are the "killer" calories that get converted into fat, or at the very least minimize your efforts. If you can, have dinner at 6-7, go to bed at 10 -11 before you get hungry again. Drink a glass of water to trick yourself into feeling full

5) Breakfast - a biggie. If you followed the above rule #4, you should be able to have a healthy breakfast at 9am/10am. Ideally this is the 2nd biggest meal of the day; during the day you'll burn those carbohydrates before they get converted into fat by your body. Try 2 pieces of toast, a little yogurt and one egg. Or a bowl of "healty" cereal and 1 peiece of toast. Limit yourself to 1 cup of orange juice - 250ML. This should amount to a breakfast 300-600 calories that will tide you over for a LONG time. This will help you avoid snacks during the day. If you simply must have bacon (like me) reduce your intake to 2 little pieces and trick yourself by having little pieces of it just so you get "that taste."

6) Lunch - keep it small. More of a snack if possible. Have an apple or a banana. Then wait. You wont feel hungry after 10 minutes post-banana/apple. If you get hungry in 1-2 hours, have another small snack. A yogurt, granola bar or two cookies (NOT OREOs!!! you fatty!). Once a week you can "cheat" and have a 6" sub from SubWay, one of those 6g of fat or less subs, and pile on as many vegatables as possible. Keep sauces to a minimum. However, I've noticed on the days I buy food from a resteraunt/store my weight loss isn't as consistent. Keep eating out to a minimum; if you must eat out then make it a salad, 6" sub or sandwich. No pasta! No Pizza! Bad! Remember - Lots of water.

7) Dinner - the most important meal. From a weight loss perspective at least. This is where you can blow your entire day. Avoid large portions. Avoid Rice. Avoid Pasta. Avoid bread. Avoid Beer.

Your dinner should be consist of a portion of meat roughly as big as your fist, but not as "tall". Fish is your best ally here; lots of protein and "healthy" omega-3-fatty acids. Lean chicken NOT BREADED also a great option. If you must have red meat, you can have it once a week, but it must be lean, and no cheating on the portion size.

Pile up the rest of your plate with vegetables.

Avoid rice. Or Potatoes. At most have 2-3 of those small potatoes that are slightly smaller than eggs, or 1/2 cup of rice. These carbohydrates are basically sugar once your body begins to break them down.

My favourite dinner is a big salad (maybe 2-3 cups of lettuce) with lots of veggies, LIGHT salad dressing, and a few chunks of chicken or seafood. Another good dinner is a portion of fish or chicken with some green beans and 2 tiny potatoes. Fish can be prepared so many different ways its hard to get bored of; start with the least "Fishy" tasting fish meats like halibut, and try talipea, salmon, trout, cod, tuna, etc. Tuna is sort of fatty, so not too much.

Edit: "Lean Cuisine" TV Dinners are available that have ~300-500 calories. A Great way to save time and calories! I forgot to add this to the Dinner section, thanks sapling. There are many other "low calorie" TV dinners that can help you when you don't have time to prepare a low calorie dinner yourself.

A Neat Trick: Try reducing the physical size of the plate you eat dinner off of. Most people have 10-11" plates in their house, try switching to a 7-9" plate. It will look "full" and you will psychologically feel "full" after eating "full" plate, even tho its smaller.

9) Give yourself a break. If you try your best to reach your "Extreme Weight Loss" number, but miss by 100-200 calories, you're STILL ON TOP. w00t! Good for you.

10) Desert: You DESERVE it after such a day. Budget 200 calories and get yourself some Vanilla Frozen Yogurt, sprinkle a little fruit over it. (strawberry, blueberry, canteloupe chunks, a mixture, etc.). After dinner give yourself an hour infront of your favourite TV show, and sometime in the middle of your show grab yourself 2 scoopes of frozen yogurt, a little fruit, and a little chocolate sauce (stress: LITTLE. one spoon full).

11) Chocolate - Milk Chocolate is your Enemy. Get your hands on some > 65% cocoa DARK chocolate and try to get used to it. Have one ounce a day. The anti-oxidants within 1 ounce of chocolate make it a worthy use of your calorie budget. Instead of the above #10 desert, try having 1 ounce of Dark Chocolate to munch on. Eventually you'll LOVE it, although at first it can taste kinda bitter.

Exercise

This is easier than Dieting. But combining both will give you real results.

Make a promise to yourself: Every single day you will do 1 hour of SOMETHING.

That something can be: walking your dog, rowing, skiing (cross country), jogging, playing a sport. Anything.

Despite what most people think, one of the most effective exercises is: walking.

If you jump on (your? someones?) treadmill, set the incline to 4 or 5, and walk at 3.0-3.5 mph for 1hour (or 1 and 1/4 hours) you can burn ~500 calories without too much stress.

You can get a treadmill pretty cheap these days from your local big box store. Keep an eye out for sales, etc.

What I do (And what works for me) is slap a DVD from TorrentBytes into your TV, jump up onto your treadmill and walk until your legs hurt. At first you might do 200 calories, then 300, then you'll be able to walk 500 calories off in 1.25 hours (@incline 4 or 5, 3.5mph). Doing 500 calories a day is GOLDEN. For most people 500 calories is more activity than they do all day. Doing it in 1.25 hours of somewhat "Easy" walking is awesome.

If you're concerned with muscle tone (and not just weight loss) then 2-3 times a week do 200-300 calories on the treadmill and then do a circuit of 8-10 of the weight machines at your local gym. This will take 30-45 minutes. Get a personal trainer if you can afford it, and they'll show you how to use the machines, and you'll be surprised how much stronger you can get. At first it was difficult to do 30-35 pounds on the weight machines, now I do 100+ on most of them. I've tripled my upper body strength in some ways. Try each machine, setting the weight to something you can lift 20-25 times in a row without stopping. Then come back in 2-3 days and do the same thing. Each time it gets NOTICABLY easier, and you'll quickly find yourself adding 5-10 pounds to each machine in order to challenge yourself so that 20-25 reps is hard. This will continue for a while until you platteau, but by that point you feel mighty.

Hop on a big ball and do sit-ups until your abs hurt and you think you might hurl. At first this will be ~10 situps, but eventually you'll find 50-100+ easy.

Back to the Calorie counting - if you're hovering at your "Extreme Fat Loss" number, or even 100-300 calories above, doing 200-500 calories of exercise will put you back into the inevitable weight loss category. There is NO PHYSICAL WAY you can avoid weight loss if you're watching your calorie intake AND expending calories on excercise.

Edit: I forgot to say its difficult to start at 1 hour a day of walking. Start at 20-30 minutes and ramp up to it in increments. Start at a 0 incline too, and slowly build to 4 or 5.

Edit: The time of day you excercise can have an effect. Try different things. I found doing it AFTER dinner was the most rewarding in weight loss - you don't sleep on that big meal and turn it into fat. Just wait about an hour after dinner then start your routine infront of the TV. Also, excersizing after dinner releases endorphines and makes you feel great: excercise causes a surge of serotonin (neurotransmitter) in your brain - making you feel happier. Another HUGE benefit of the increased serotonin is it helps your body regulate your sleep cycle; you sleep more deeply and effectively with an elevated serotonin level. Don't believe me? Check out: http://www.biopsychiatry.com/serotonin.htm

Biochemistry Notes:

Proteins: Proteins are long chains of amino acids which fold into a vast array of enzymes and other biologically important compounds(collagens, muscle tissue, etc.). There are 20 essential amino acids which humans MUST consume to continue living. Many amino acids can be converted by your body into other amino acids, however this can be metabolically expensive and generally its better to just consume them so they are available to your body for use.

Proteins are the most "healthy" form of calorie intake, because your body uses them first to reconstitute used/dead cells, tissues, enzymes, etc. They are important in muscle formation, and so are frequently a very large part of a muscle building/weight training program.

Proteins that your body doesn't use (by not exercising) can be converted into fat. But converting proteins into fat is metabolically expensive and your body makes every effort to use protein in other ways.

If you're starving yourself too much, by taking in too few calories, you body can catabolically destroy muscle tissue in order to release the amino acids within so that it reconstitute your reserves of enzymes and other important compounds. For example; in order to produce hemoglobin, nearly all the amino acids must be availble to your bone marrow. Your body is constantly producing Red Blood Cells, which requires a steady input of hemoglobin. This process, muscle destruction, will happen only if your "reserves" of fatty tissue are depleted, thus putting yourself into this condition is favourable OVER THE SHORT TERM to loose weight. Consuming protein over other forms of nutrition keeps your body from going into this "panic mode." Over the short term you will loose this weight, but as soon as you return to your normal diet habits, those fatty cells will fill up again. The only way to rid yourself of fatty tissue permanently is long term, steady dieting, but not extreme dieting (not eating at all).

Sugars - These simple sugars are monosaccarides or disaccarides which are energy abundant and highly accessible energy supplies. Everything your tongue tells you is "sweet" is probably sugary. Your body does not store energy this way, it stores it as fat. Eating lots of sugar will give you a short term energy boost, but if you don't burn it off immediately your body will (and can easily) convert them into fatty acids. There is no diet around eating JUST sugar for this reason; it is the easiest way to "put on the pounds."

Fruits have natually occuring sugars which taste sweet but aren't nearly as bad for as manufactured "white" sugar which taste similar, but are a quick and sure way to get fat.

If you can, switch to brown sugar. Its less processed, not bleached, and contains a higher ratio of "healthier" sugars like those found in fruits.

Carbohydrates - Most people don't understand what "carbs" are. Ask the average person and they never mention sugar. CARBS ARE SUGAR. They are just long chains of sugar. Carbohydrates are polymers of monosaccarhides. Don't believe me? Grab a piece of uncooked pasta. Suck on it. Your saliva contains "amylase" which is an enzyme which breaks down STARCH (the most common carb.) the pasta will begin to taste sweet within 15 seconds. The Amylase is breaking the starch into simple sugars.

The problem with carbs is that they are EVERYWHERE. They aren't necessarily bad for you, its just hard to avoid them in massive quanitities. They give you a glut of sugar, and if you dont burn them, they can eventually be converted (via metabolically cheap pathways) into fat.

Carbohydrates ARE healthier than fats to consume because your body can easily access the energy held within to use - IF YOU USE IT. This is where the excersise comes in.

Fats - The most efficient way to store energy. Fat is roughly 2.5 times more efficient than carbs for storing energy. Your body is reluctant to use fat because it is "Energy storage" for emergency conditions. Fat storage is an artifact of prehistorical human evolution - if you manage to find a large meal, your body will use what it needs and then store the rest for emergencies when a meal isn't around. Unfortunately our meals are very regular, and VERY (overly) nutritious these days.

One important thing that most people DON'T KNOW is that your body absolutely MUST consume fat to live, every single cell in your body has a "lipid bylayer" membrane constructed from - you guessed it - fat. Many other important compounds have a fatty acid component, like steroids and cholesterols, which are important signalling chemicals. Note: you don't need much fat to meet these needs. A couple of grams does the trick.

Fats are diverse. There are 100s of different fatty acid residues known. What you need to know is that there are healthy, unhealthy and VERY unhealthy variations.

Essential Fatty Acids: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_fatty_acid
These are the healthy fatty acids your body needs to create new cells. The growing brains of children need these more than anyone else; much of the dry weight of a human brain is fat.

Unsaturated Fatty Acids: these are the most naturally occuring fatty acid type, containing double bonds which reduce the amound of stored energy within a fatty acid. These are less efficient than the next type:

Saturated Fatty Acids: sometimes occur in nature, but more likely occur due to chemical treatments from humans. These fats contain no double bonds, and are the most tightly packed form of fatty acid, having the highest energy per unit of all the fats. These are UNHEALTHY FATS. keep them to a minimum.

TransFatty Acids: 100% unnatural. They do not occur in nature. Your body cannot break these down completely and there is some evidence they cause a wide variety of health problems; clogged arteries, accelerated aging and even cancer. Avoid at all costs.

Anatomy/Physiology:

Each day you are alive your body constantly replaces skin cells, blood cells, etc. It should be no surprise that many of your internal organs also undergo gradual replacement. After a long term diet change (say, 3-6 months) your stomach will shrink. It will actually be physically smaller because its been remoddeled by your new lifestyle. At this point, even if you STOP your dieting, your stomach will be smaller. It will be harder to over-eat because your stomach will scream at you: "STOP - I'm FULL". Of course this is a reversible process, you can stretch it repeatedly and it will grow larger. But the offshoot of all this is that, once you've suffered through a 3-6 month diet of "Extreme Weight loss", you will actually be a different person inside, as well as outside. If you take a few careful steps to just "maintain" your new weight, you can return to some of your unhealthy habbits. However You may find they are no longer appealing; fatty foods may make you sick. At this point you are truly a new person! Congradulations!

VERY IMPORTANT: Muscle weighs more than fat. Almost 50% more than fat. So if you're working out 2-3 times a week, and doing 1 (or 1.25, like me) hour of cardio a day, you may actually gain weight, or loose very little weight at first. Your body is actively converting fat (and food energy) into muscle. You should feel stronger, at least, so take some satisfaction in that and look forward to the coming weight loss. If you can, get your hands on a body fat calculator machine (most clubs have them) to keep track of your body fat percentage.

My Progress:

I've done a lot of research across a variety of websites, diet books and biochemical textbooks, and these insights have helped me loose:

13 pounds in the last three weeks, and reduce my body fat percentage by 5% in the past 2 months because of all the weight lifting/cardio. (a huge leap!). Since my goal is somewhere around 180-190 pounds (I'm 6 feet tall; thats a good weight for a guy).


In the past 2 months since I started "Working out" I've tripled my upper body strength.

I hope anyone reading this can contribute to this thread their experiences. Good luck!