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I lost 55 pounds in 7 months through good old fashioned starvation diet.
I didn't give up carbs at all. Every day I have oatmeal with rice for breakfast. Often have rice for dinner.
I wish I discovered this earlier, but fried onion with carrot and quarter apple is a ridiculously delicious side dish that fills you up for criminally little calories.
My dinner was always some meat and a serving of pasta/potato/rice and a big salad.
Just embrace the hunger, it's not a big deal as people make it to be.
You get used to it after six months. Initially,it can be somewhat unnerving to be hungry over 12 hours each day, yes.
Have you been able to keep the weight off, though?
Sauce absolutely shouldn't be considered a vegetable. Tomatoes are fruit, not vegetable. I don't know why you say "it is a concentration of several tomatoes it's high in sugar and reacts in the body just like a carb."
If you're talking about jarred commercial crap sauce like Prego or similar that you get on the center shelf in the supermarket, then yeah it's crap.
If you're talking about real tomato sauce, made in a pot on your stove, there's zero added sugar to it unless YOU add sugar to it. It's not necessary, if you're using ripe tomatoes. A single whole tomato has only 1% of a daily allotment of carbs, including non-sugar dietary fiber. It is also loaded with vitamin A and C - around 1/4 of your entire daily recommended amount, in a single piece of fruit.
You're right. A tomato is a fruit, but all fruits are carbs too because they contain fructose, a naturally occurring sugar. When you make spaghetti sauce you're not eating one lone tomato, which won't hurt you. You're actually eating several tomatoes chopped up together. More tomatoes=more fructose=more carbs.
Yes, most jarred spaghetti sauces are crap. Homemade spaghetti sauce is only slightly more virtuous. I pulled out the recent edition of the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and looked up the recipe for marina sauce, page 220 (because it contains the nutritional info.) The recipe is easy and uses two 28-oz cans of San Marzano tomatoes and has an optional 1 tsp of added sugar. Each half cup serving is 50 calories with 10 grams of carbs. It's not that one little teaspoon of added sugar that drove up the carb content, it's the fructose in the nine or ten tomatoes you're eating with your pasta. That's why I called spaghetti sauce a "concentrate" because you're actually eating several tomatoes when you eat spaghetti sauce.
6. I went back to my roots. By this I mean that I once again include at least two veggie sides with my protein, and going back to eating Eastern European foods, which is my heritage. I extend this to many other former Soviet Bloc countries like Georgia.
7. For me, the weight loss was wanted, but it was not the goal. My goal was to simply get/be healthy. I am still overweight, but no longer obese. I am inching closer and closer to my ideal weight, but like I said, that is not my long-term goal. For some, health is a measure of lack-of-disease. For others, it is about eating certain foods only, or, not eating certain foods. Of course, there is overall level of activity to factor in, too. And then, to others still, it is about detoxing and other fads. Health is an overall mind/body thing.
What are common Eastern European vegetables? That's my heritage as well. Besides cabbage, seems like all family recipes included white foods like potatoes, dumplings, stuffing (can't spell what they called it), etc.
Breakfast most days is Quaker Oats uncooked and soaked in whole milk for about an hour.
For a snack I usually eat about 200 calories of pistachios every day. That's about 50 of them. Another thing I snack on is one of those small cans of Vienna sausage but not every day.
Lunch/Dinner I eat mid-late afternoon and either frozen chicken tenders, tuna or lunch meat sandwiches, tuna or sardines mixed with rice, sometimes tuna or sardines with potato or tortilla chips (a meal I call fish and chips). Fresh fruit also at this meal.
I'll also eat something sweet many days. Maybe a Swenhard's or Little Debbie's pastry. I find it important to not deprive myself of anything but keep it moderate. I keep track in my head of the day's calories and try to keep it to 1500-2000 Occasionally I go over but not by much.
Portion size is everything. You can still foods like pizza and rice and lose weight, but you just can't eat as much, and you have to balance out the rest of your meal. A half cup of cooked brown rice topped with a lot of vegetables and lean protein is a balanced meal. A piece of veggie pizza and a big salad works, too.
Very slowly, over 18 months, I lost 40 lbs. paying attention to portion size. No special diet, no banned foods, no magic pills. A year+ later, it’s remaining stable. I enjoy pizza once in awhile and a cheeseburger about once a month.
You're right. A tomato is a fruit, but all fruits are carbs too because they contain fructose, a naturally occurring sugar. When you make spaghetti sauce you're not eating one lone tomato, which won't hurt you. You're actually eating several tomatoes chopped up together. More tomatoes=more fructose=more carbs.
Yes, most jarred spaghetti sauces are crap. Homemade spaghetti sauce is only slightly more virtuous. I pulled out the recent edition of the Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook and looked up the recipe for marina sauce, page 220 (because it contains the nutritional info.) The recipe is easy and uses two 28-oz cans of San Marzano tomatoes and has an optional 1 tsp of added sugar. Each half cup serving is 50 calories with 10 grams of carbs. It's not that one little teaspoon of added sugar that drove up the carb content, it's the fructose in the nine or ten tomatoes you're eating with your pasta. That's why I called spaghetti sauce a "concentrate" because you're actually eating several tomatoes when you eat spaghetti sauce.
First of all, if you're concerned about carbs, you wouldn't put tomato sauce on spaghetti. You'd put it on chicken, or meat, or fish, or roasted vegetables, or something other than spaghetti.
Second of all, if you're doing that, you're not using a half cup.
Third, counting carbs is a sure-fire method to losing weight - for a few months, maybe a year or so. It's also a sure-fire method to getting over it, and gaining all the weight back once you've hit your target weight and realize how unsatisfying it is to count carbs.
Fourth, I wouldn't use canned san marzano tomatoes.
Fifth, total carbs is not 100% sugar. It includes dietary fiber, which YOUR BODY NEEDS to digest food properly. While all sugar is carbs, not all carbs are sugar. The dietary fiber in tomatoes makes up around 30% of its total carb content. So that 10 grams of carbs is only 7 grams of sugar. The other 3 carbs is dietary fiber. And that's for a half cup. If you want to cut down on carbs, swap out the spaghetti for chicken parm, and only use 3 tablespoons.
Sixth, obsessing on carbs, or sugar, or any other specific nutrient or food item is a recipe for failure.
Choosing HEALTH over WEIGHT is the most efficient path to success.
Have you been able to keep the weight off, though?
So far, no problem and it's been over a month or so.
I actually even lost few more pounds.
It's a very common , cringe-worthy misconception that getting back to your normal eating habits must result in instant weight gain. And that may be true for people eating nonsensically.
The only adjustment I made is reducing amount of bread and sugar in my oatmeal and increasing amount of salad. Other than that, I have an oatmeal for breakfast, some meat for lunch and a normal dinner. Just like I did.
I wasn't drinking any sodas, eating pizza or donuts or any other ridiculous nonsense. I have been watching my calories closely for many years, but that only removes weight gain from the equation.
I simply gained weight in past due to certain events beyond my control. My metabolism won't magically revert to "old weight". Been there, done that.
I also confirmed that I now have a working solution to the problem of social visits and consuming unexpected large amounts of brownies or similar high-calorie BS.
I simply do fasting for 24 hours next day and make sure I burn 1,200 calories extra in walking (meaning I am in heavy calorie deficit for the day). I've done that 4 times in last month and not only I didn't gain weight after such social visit, I actually lost few more pounds.
No more guilt or worrying that I will gain weight
I simply compensate for any extra calories within 24 hours of consuming them before they get a chance to convert to fat.
I can totally see doing that happily for the rest of my life
So far, no problem and it's been over a month or so.
I actually even lost few more pounds.
......
I can totally see doing that happily for the rest of my life
Win:Win
It's great that starving yourself is working for you in the short term, but a month is nothing. Get back to us in a year or two and let us know how you're doing. Conventional, and even medical wisdom is that severely restricting calories is unsustainable (and unhealthy) in the long run.
It's great that starving yourself is working for you in the short term, but a month is nothing. Get back to us in a year or two and let us know how you're doing.
Actually, not true, based on my very own empirical evidence.
2 yrs ago, when I lost about 20 pounds in one of the 3 juicing runs, I actually gained them right back within 2 weeks, because the day after I lost 20 pounds, I got back with my ex-GF and I allowed her to put me on the all-you-can-eat chinese buffet lunch
Granted, all-you-can-eat chinese buffet lunch, was never part of my normal diet, but still this proves that I gained the weight back in under 2 weeks (relatively recently).
And I didn't this time and it's been more than double that time already. In fact, I even lost few more pounds!
Of course, if I start overeating in future or eating some ridiculous nonsense, that's totally on me and I deserve every pound I gain
Quote:
Originally Posted by fleetiebelle
Conventional, and even medical wisdom is that severely restricting calories is unsustainable (and unhealthy) in the long run.
I'm old enough to realize, from my very own painful experience, that all this medical research is just averaged out across entire population to provide some rough guidelines for the Gen Pop that consumes sodas, pizzas, burgers and other fast food brutalities on a daily basis.
That "medical research" certainly never worked for me in dieting until I found out the hard way why- during last 6 months - the severe calorie restriction was the only way for my specific metabolism to bring in weight loss.
You gotta apply common sense and do what makes sense for you.
In my case, common sense tells me to include as many veggies as possible in my diet, reduce sugar and pasta/bread carbs and prepare every single meal by myself from raw ingredients.
I'm pretty sure from nutritional standpoint, my meals have never been so balanced as they are now.
Could my nutrition be better ? Sure, there's always room for improvement. Is there a valid reason to introduce changes to my nutrition now ? Absolutely not.
I was eating low carb for a year, and still watched portions, unlike the hardcore keto diet. If you can avoid white flour, sugar, and fruit, you can still have a couple of pieces of pizza or pasta once a week and continue to lose. It’s the hidden sugar that will get you. When you crave bread, there are lower carb choices like Ezekiel bread or Pita or tortillas. Read the labels on everything. If you’re shooting for under 25 carbs a day, you obviously aren’t eating a piece of bread with 45 grams of carbs in it. Be intentional.
In answer to your question...
Typical meals were, eggs for breakfast, sometimes with bacon or vegetables or cheese.
Ham or turkey and cheese, wrapped around a pickle, or wrapped inside lettuce. Or a salad with meat.
Dinner was meat or fish, any vegetables, including high carb ones, like root vegetables and beans.
Lots of avocados, olive oil, hard boiled eggs, tuna, and small amounts of hard cheeses.
Last edited by gentlearts; 05-03-2021 at 10:17 AM..
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