[Andy]

Glad to hear that you are looking to improve your health. Just remember to take it slow and build up your exercise routine slowly. You can over do it and feel to bad to try and continue. Kind of a stall out the gate.

Do you have access to a private pool? Swimming is low impact and good overall for the body.

[BarbieGrrrl]

swimming is good low impact exercise and yh hiding breasts might be a problem but if u go when its just lane swimming only adults are there so they wont really pay attention.

im trying to loose weight while growing breasts too so far just eating healthier and less is doing good if u dont eat much try to eat more often but low fat foods(celery is the best if u like it because its -calories) this will speed up your metabolism

and if u think u need to hide your breasts to exercise what about doing an exercise dvd/game at home also doing little things like walking around more(try parking the car a 30min walk away from work/shops) or toning trainers(they actually do help) or wear the strap on ankle and wrist weights to do the cleaning at home or i like yoga, belly dance and cylcling even sex is good cardio....just think every little bit of exercise helps plus once u loose some weight ul be healthier so you'd maybe be able to play squash then.

[dargona]

I've recently started calorie counting and for the first time in a while I am losing weight. I'm a healthy vegetarian in the first place, but I was stuck at 180 pounds for a while. After nearly 3 weeks to a month of calorie cutting, the first 2 weeks being rather extreme -- I'm somewhere in the 165-168 range now.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

This Hacker's "Diet" is a non-bullshit approach to weight loss and weight management from somebody in a similar position as yours -- he does a lot of sitting in front of a computer. He's an engineer, and wrote some of the original AutoCAD software.

You don't have to go extreme, but you do have to eat less for it to work. I cut my calorie intake for a couple of weeks way below my fat burning threshold for my weight (I probably took in 1000-1200 calories at most) when 1500 was considered "fat burning"

At first I felt a lot of hunger pains but I treated this as "My body is dipping into my fat reserves. Each time I had these I let them go on for about a hour and then ate a light snack to curb them. This worked incredibly well for me. Lately I feel constantly full and don't really need to eat much to be satisfied.

Good luck

[bryony]

I've recently started calorie counting and for the first time in a while I am losing weight. I'm a healthy vegetarian in the first place, but I was stuck at 180 pounds for a while. After nearly 3 weeks to a month of calorie cutting, the first 2 weeks being rather extreme -- I'm somewhere in the 165-168 range now.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

This Hacker's "Diet" is a non-bullshit approach to weight loss and weight management from somebody in a similar position as yours -- he does a lot of sitting in front of a computer. He's an engineer, and wrote some of the original AutoCAD software.

You don't have to go extreme, but you do have to eat less for it to work. I cut my calorie intake for a couple of weeks way below my fat burning threshold for my weight (I probably took in 1000-1200 calories at most) when 1500 was considered "fat burning"

At first I felt a lot of hunger pains but I treated this as "My body is dipping into my fat reserves. Each time I had these I let them go on for about a hour and then ate a light snack to curb them. This worked incredibly well for me. Lately I feel constantly full and don't really need to eat much to be satisfied.

Good luck

Hi D,

you need great strength of will to count calories... well done you, if you can!

My feeling, for people who don't have the additional challenge of vegetariansim, is that carb counting is effective without the requirement of feeling hungry!

Good luck!

B.

[Pansy-Mae]

I've recently started calorie counting and for the first time in a while I am losing weight. I'm a healthy vegetarian in the first place, but I was stuck at 180 pounds for a while. After nearly 3 weeks to a month of calorie cutting, the first 2 weeks being rather extreme -- I'm somewhere in the 165-168 range now.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

This Hacker's "Diet" is a non-bullshit approach to weight loss and weight management from somebody in a similar position as yours -- he does a lot of sitting in front of a computer. He's an engineer, and wrote some of the original AutoCAD software.

You don't have to go extreme, but you do have to eat less for it to work. I cut my calorie intake for a couple of weeks way below my fat burning threshold for my weight (I probably took in 1000-1200 calories at most) when 1500 was considered "fat burning"

At first I felt a lot of hunger pains but I treated this as "My body is dipping into my fat reserves. Each time I had these I let them go on for about a hour and then ate a light snack to curb them. This worked incredibly well for me. Lately I feel constantly full and don't really need to eat much to be satisfied.

Good luck

Hi D,

you need great strength of will to count calories... well done you, if you can!

My feeling, for people who don't have the additional challenge of vegetariansim, is that carb counting is effective without the requirement of feeling hungry!

In the last week or so, I've managed to lose 4 of the 5lbs that I put on whilst away over Christmas, although i still have make inroads on the extra 5 or 6 lbs that I've put on in the previous 12 months. I use Tesco's low cal ready meals as a basis, they come in at about 35-450 Cal ( according to the label that is!). They aren't exactly haute cuisine but they are reasonably edible for a week or two. The trick is then not to fill up on snacks when you think you get hungry, but eating more fruit instead of a bag of crisps deals with that. Largely it is simply a question of training the stomach not to expect large meals.

[dargona]

cal. counting can be extremely exhausting, but what I do to make it easier is plan on 3x 400 calorie meal portions a day, and have room for a few snacks throughout the day. When you bring it down to this level it's not as difficult to follow.

At first you will be extremely hungry as your body wont be used to taking in a smaller amount of food but if you do the hunger pain trick, within a week or two you'll have no problem being full from the smaller portions.

[dargona]

I recently started snacking on fermented cabbage (kimchi) which I find to be delicious. It's only 10-20 calories a serving!

Cabbage is also versatile in soups. Soup got me through the first couple of weeks pretty well. I made simple low calorie chinese-inspired soups from recipes online that were delicious.

When snacking, try and keep snacks below 140 calories, and whenever you eat, supplement your food with an 8oz serving of water. Water has no calories and will expand your stomache, telling your brain that you are full.

[dargona]

Most vegetables are fairly modest in calories as well. What I've been trying to do lately is stack my meals as follows:

200-300 calories from a protein source. I tend to use tofu, tempeh, nuts, beans. Meat eaters should choose fish (from what I hear fish is excellent overall) or chicken -- but then again I'm not an expert on that subject =D

Then use a considerable amount of vegetables alongside of your protein -- Pan-frying broccoli florets in 1-2tbsp of olive oil comes out great every time. If you like your broccoli less crunchy then cover the pan while it cooks.

http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-b...grams=78.0

27 calories per cup of chopped broccoli! This is an excellent filler.

You will want to take in whole grains as well, but try and limit the portion as grains/breads are calorie dense. You don't need to have these at every meal portion either. Sometimes I choose to make a meal with just protein/veggies.

Browse around for low calorie options, it isn't as difficult as you think. Nearly a month ago I was in a completely different mindset about low-calorie until I read a good portion of the hacker's diet and it made sense. Once I applied it to my lifestyle the changes were almost instantaneously realized.

The other thing that I agree with the hacker's diet is that you shouldn't use exercise to "lose weight", but instead exercise to be healthier. I won't go into extreme detail as to why; it's already written down in that link I sent previously, but essentially the amount of non-stop exercise required daily to burn a minimal to moderate amount of calories is likely far less than enough to make a major difference.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/SM00109

This is a list of various exercises and how many calories you might expect to burn performing them.

In my opinion: it's easier (and less time consuming) to eat 500+ calories less each day than it is to burn 500 calories off via exercise.

So do I not exercise? No, I still exercise at my job (I'm on my feet a lot) and at home through situps/crunches/light pushups etc, but I don't do these activities to lose the weight.

3500 calories is roughly the equivalent to a pound in fat weight. If you cut 500 calories from your "maintenance calorie count" each day then within a week you will lose a pound; without getting scientific and technical it really is pretty much this simple.

http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Is a tool to find your daily caloric needs for weight maintenance, fat loss, and extreme fat loss. From there you can plan how big (calorie wise) to make your meals.

[DiBi]

it's not the first time that i see on this forum (and not only here, tbh) some unjustified loathing for carbs...
now, i think it's time to demystify this myth about carbs=eval

http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieta_mediterranea

it is in italian, but i think google translate will do a good job.

btw i've been grown up with pasta everyday, not doing too much sport, i still eat pasta or rice and bread almost every day and i'm around 60/65kg...

it's true, carbs are transformed in fat if you don't burn them (and to transform them you burn a part), but the fat you eat (especially animal fat, like pork meat, butter, etc) is already fat and need no transformation, it's ready for accumulation

Dargona, try to count the calories of this:

put 3/2tbps of high quality extra virgin olive oil in a pan with a clove of garlic and a bunch of clams (live, with the shells), put them on the burner til the clams are open, add a sprinkle of white wine and of lemon juice, in the meanwhile cook some 80/100gs of spaghetti (italian ones, like DeCecco, Garofalo, Voiello, only italian pasta is guaranteed to be made with hard wheat, by law) in one liter of water with some salt (the ratio is usually 1lt of water and 10gs of salt for every 100gs of pasta), strain it one minute before the suggested cooking time (pasta must not be overcooked, it's sacrilege and it's less digestible) and saute it in the pan with the clams, add a bit of fresh parsley or basel and enjoy, if you like with a glass of white wine.
I guess you won't get overweight with this and it will satiate your stomach and satisfy your mind

[dargona]

I can't count the calories without knowing the product(s) but you can use http://caloriecount.about.com to count up recipes. Also I don't eat animals/seafood/etc so that recipe doesn't help me much, although it could be good for others.