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tryingToReachMyGoal
New Member
| Joined: | 22 May 2005 |
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| Posts: | 25 |
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Posted: 22 May 2005 10:32 pm |
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| hi, im 14 year old boy 5-5 and 176 pounds. I really need help on putting up a good didet and exercise program. my goal is to be at the average weight for my age and height by the end of the summer. For diet i was thinking 3 bowls of total a day, it has 100% of lots of vitamins that i need and its very healthy and only 100 calories per serving. For exercise, i have no problem waking up an hour or 2 earlier to get exercise, im usuallt too tired to exercise when i get home from school. SO i can wake up early to get an hour or 2 of exercise in, but i don't know what to do. The only thing i have is a stationary bike and 10 lb. weights. Is there any routine that i can go with to help me and that will keep me healthy at my age. I really want to lose weight and change my life style.
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peterinwa
New Member
| Joined: | 30 April 2005 |
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| Posts: | 35 |
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Posted: 22 May 2005 10:50 pm |
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Congratulations on deciding to get into better shape!
With the exercise, begin with very little and increase slowly so you don't hurt yourself and most importantly so you enjoy it and will keep it up. My coaches at school were all real jerks. Only interested in the star athletes. But if you can find one that could give you some advice that would be great. If not, a little time on your bike and very light exercises with weights is a good place to start. Just take it easy!
About the food... what you propose might help you lose weight but you need to eat a variety of healthy foods to be healthy and enjoy it. If you don't, you aren't likely to keep it up. It would be great if you could start reading some about nutrition so you learn what foods are important. Generally speaking all the processed stuff is not very healthy and will make you fat unless you eat very little of it.
Perhaps your school has a nutritionist you could talk to? If your school system serves any meals they likely have one.
You also need to understand the difference between vitamins and nutrition. Vitamins are necessary for a healthy body (like oil in a car engine) but they are not the same as nutritious food (like gas in a car).
I wish you success and hope you will read-up some. The FAQ on my website are a good place to start, but I'm sure your library has some good books.
Peter, caloriesperhour.com
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flyawayana
Senior Member
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Posted: 23 May 2005 06:06 pm |
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hey, im happy for you that you want to change your lifestyle! actually, im so happy you worded it that way. im glad you didnt say .. i want a diet. you said, i want a different lifestyle. thats a big step right there! cause lifestyle is the thing that will make or break you.
now. this eating plan of yours needs some help. alot. i know commercials on tv say "eat this cereal and lose weight" first things frist - STOP LISTENING TO THE MEDIA. read things by research scentists, if it sounds whack, it probably is.
please dont resort to eating cereal 3 times a day.. you arent in prison .haha. anyway, that would give you about 300 cals with the cereal, plus the milk.. so, depending on the kind of milk you use, it would end up being about 500-600calories a day. your 14 you said? you still growing, you need more calories and nutrients than that. and your male. so, you need more than that. i think that a boy your age should be getting 2,000 - 2,500 calories a day. now, theres are two different kinds of calories - useless and useful. thats the way i think of it anyway. anything thats refined, bleached, processed, presereved... isnt going to have many nutrients, but it will still be packing the calories. eat things like whole grains, whole wheat, try soy based dairy, but if thats pushing it, at least try cutting out the whole milk if thats what you eat now. eat vegitables, fruits... you can eat a lot more than you think by eating healthy. an example . a medium apple is 90 calories. a hersheys choc bar is about 200 or 220 calories. and i think we both know chocholate isnt in the food guid pyrimid :D
i also suggest to you that you speak to a nutritionist, or a personal trainer at a gym. just please dont commit your life to what these people say. read up on your own also - there are some poeple out there that have whack ideas for weight losss.. thats for sure.
you wanted some ideas for the 10 pound weights... well, you want to work all the muscles so you are "balanced" for example. your abs and your back. if you do 20 situps, do 20 back extentions. if the muscles get uneven in strenght, you can end up with some bad back pain in the long run.
anyway, heres some basic things i can come up with right now - curls (biceps) kickbacks (triceps) bench press (pecs, or chest) flye (lats, or uppper back) upward press (deltoid, or shoulder) lunges (for quads, gluts, calves, hamstring) crunches or sit ups and back extensions. theres a ton more - im sure if you look up at the libarry or even internet you can find some. thats great that you want to excersize too - thats a key part in healthy lifestyle. biking is awsome, personally i love it. a suggestion too, check out your local high school, do they have a pool? the one near me does, and they have open lap swim in the evenings and morning... swimming is a great workout..if you like water. haha.
anyway, im sure im driving you nuts by now talking so much.. good luck!
fly
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Dave Brown
Senior Member
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Posted: 24 May 2005 10:22 am |
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Hello Trying,
My wife and I have successfully raised five normal weight kids by feeding them mostly good quality food. I realize that most nutrition experts believe that a healthy diet is a low-fat diet consisting of mostly fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, whole grain bakery products, and limited nuts, red meat, fish, and chicken. While we would agree that this sort of eating pattern is mostly OK, we would not limit our intake of fat-containing foods or buy low-fat dairy products. The notion that fat makes you fat is bogus. There's no scientific justification for recommending such a diet.
Since you obviously know how to surf the Net, I suggest you type "The Oiling of America" into a search engine and find out what Mary Enig, PhD and Sally Fallon, MS have said about the sorts of fats that are currently used to produce bakery goods, prepared foods, and snacks.
Sally Fallon is a nutrition scholar and Dr. Enig is biochemist who has specialized in studying fats and oils. They have a website you can explore with lots of interesting information about how your body responds to different kinds of fats. That's right. Not all fats are the same. Some will unbalance your metabolism and cause you to gain weight. Others will normalize your system and promote weight loss. Laboratory experiments have demonstrated that rats fed 60% fat, 20% protein, and 20% carbohydrate will gain or lose body fat according to the type of fat supplied in the diet; this with identical caloric intake. On corn oil they gain. On the sorts of saturated fats found in butter and palm kernel oils, they lose.
So take time to inform yourself about fat metabolism and share the information with your parents. It'll help them select better foods when they grocery shop.
As far as exercise is concerned, it's not necessary to exercise to lose weight. Emmanuel Cheraskin has pointed out that no animal in nature exercises to control its weight. Like humans, some animals have a tendency to become fat but this is genetically determined and relatively rare. For example, to study obesity drugs, researchers use strains of inbred mice that gain weight very easily. But only about 25% of each batch of mice will have this characteristic. The rest are normal.
If you are hungry a lot and tend to overeat, it could be you're consuming too much fructose, the major sweetener in almost everything these days, especially pop. Fructose makes people hungry because much of it is converted to triglycerides (blood fat). High triglycerides block the movement of leptin (a hormone produced by fat cells) across the blood-brain barrier. The leptin is supposed to tell your brain when you've had enough to eat. If your appetite doesn't turn off, you may tend to overeat or consume lots of snacks and sweet drinks.
That's all for now. Hope this isn't too complicated,
Dave Brown
Last edited on 25 May 2005 05:40 am by Dave Brown
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peterinwa
New Member
| Joined: | 30 April 2005 |
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| Posts: | 35 |
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Posted: 24 May 2005 07:45 pm |
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Dave,
That's really an interesting point I hadn't thought about before:
"...no animal in nature exercises to control its weight."
I try to emphasize that exercise is not the solution to weight loss; eating well is.
http://www.eatwellandexercise.com
However, in the same breath I think it is important to point out the importance of exercise for health.
I know I'm kinda going around in circles here, but the reason that animals don't have to go to the gym is that they exercise naturally! And man did too... gathering food and running away from bigger animals... until he got "civilized."
Like the other animals, we do need to keep moving!
Peter
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Dave Brown
Senior Member
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Posted: 25 May 2005 06:10 am |
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Peter,
Ever notice that animals don't cook their food. Back in 2001 I stumbled across a website wherein one fellow described what happened when he switched to raw eggs, raw meat, and raw milk. He claimed that during the first year after the switch he gained 26 pounds; one inch on the waist and the rest on his arms chest and legs.
I've experimented with L-arginine and have, on occasion, given some to others to see how it would affect their muscle mass. It comes in powder form and can be taken on an empty stomach with water. Once absorbed into the bloodstream it crosses the blood-brain barrier and triggers the release of growth hormone. Growth hormone builds muscle whether one exercises or not.
I gave some to a friend two weeks before the doctor removed a cast. He was recovering from a broken wrist. The cast was loose when I gave him the powder but became tight again by the time the doctor removed it.
I've got an article in my files about a German child who was born with lots of extra muscle. Doesn't have to lift weights. His body metabolism just releases chemicals that stimulate muscle growth. Pretty weird, wouldn't you say?
Still, I'm with you on the importance of exercise and just plain movement. Just bouncing around circulates the lymph system and stimulates the immune system.
If you want to get into some really interesting information about the biochemical and physiological variations that make some people (or animals for that matter) naturally active while others are more sedentary, I suggest you obtain a copy of Biochemical Individuality by Roger J. Williams, PhD. The book is unique. For more information try doctoryourself.com.
Thanks for your response to my post.
Dave :D
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Talula
New Member
| Joined: | 4 May 2005 |
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| Posts: | 5 |
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Posted: 25 May 2005 04:43 pm |
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| Walk!!!! I lost 40 lbs in three months walking 5 miles per day. Ii takes me about 1hr and 15 minutes to walk that far. Good luck
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JRae
New Member
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Posted: 28 May 2005 10:52 am |
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| Dont eat "whites"! Avoid them like the plague. That is white sugar, white flour, white rice, white pasta and ANYTHING MADE WITH THEM. They are like drugs and will cause you to eat more and more whites which make you hungry and overweight. Dont eat Total cereal, read the label. If you want cereal, eat SLOW cooking oatmeal or any WHOLE GRAIN, which eliminates almost everything on the normal grocery shelf. If you must use sugar, substitute Splenda. Read all labels carefully for any kind of sugar. Learn the different names for sugars, there are many. Dont drink fruit juice, eat the fruit. Dont use diet dressing, most are full of sugar. Eat unbreaded meat, eggs, veggies,fruit, cheese, yogurt...good healthful whole foods. Dont touch chips or crackers, read the label! You can eat pizza, but dont touch the crust! Eat BLUE BUNNY low carb yogurt for a dessert (made with Splenda). I eat like this and lost SIXTY pounds in 8 months and NEVER COUNTED A CALORIE THE WHOLE TIME! This is also known as the low carb diet. Not no carb. Healthy carbs only. Watch out for bread- whole grain only and only 1 or 2 slices a day after you've lost some weight. Use a piece of lettuce for a sandwich cover. Dont eat huge meals but eat a good breakfast and frequent healthy snacks. Never let yourself get hungry. Briskly walk 2 miles 5 times a week, it only takes one half hour. This is such an easy way to lose you'll think you fooled everybody! P.S. Let Mom read this and get the groceries for you. The whole family will feel great.
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Dave Brown
Senior Member
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Posted: 28 May 2005 04:53 pm |
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For JRae,
Most of your recommendations are excellent. I have, however, reservations about splenda. Like almost any chemical added to foods or found in drugs, some people can have adverse reactions (see mercola.com - do a "Splenda" search) while others are seemingly unaffected. Moreover, there is no long term analysis as to Splenda's effect on people who don't seem to react to it. The effects can be accumulative. So do be careful. If you start experiencing health problems a few months (or years) down the road, try eliminating splenda from your diet.
Dave Brown
Last edited on 29 May 2005 07:35 am by Dave Brown
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Peter
Founder, caloriesperhour.com
| Joined: | 24 May 2005 |
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| Posts: | 4179 |
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Posted: 28 May 2005 07:26 pm |
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JRae, I don't personally eat a lot of the foods you recommend but I sure like your message which is basically that we just need to learn to eat healthy foods and get in a little exercise and everything will take care of itself.
I switched from Raisin Bran to oatmeal with raisins and a tablespoon of ground flaxseed for breakfast. The less processed -- the more natural -- the better.
I see you said, "If you must use sugar, substitute Splenda." I find that once I stop eating so much junk my raisins taste like candy and now I couldn't imagine using sugar or a substitute.
(But just so I don't sound too cocky... as I type this I'm sipping on a Diet Pepsi and I'm sure if I would look the ingredients would read like rocket fuel!)
I'm starting to drop a new tag line around my website:
Learning to eat well is the only solution for long term weight loss.
Amen.
Peter
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flyawayana
Senior Member
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Posted: 30 May 2005 09:37 pm |
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splenda can calcify your kidneys if used too much.... theres a lovely thought.
fly
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Spaz Cadet
New Member
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Posted: 1 June 2005 09:30 am |
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Talk to whoever buys the food in your house about your goals.
And since you're somebody's kid, you're going to come up against something many of us come up against when we go home to visit, or were growing up: It feels good to feed people, and it's going to feel weird for your mom or grandma or dad or whoever to feed you a kind of food he or she isn't used to making and isn't the usual homemade stuff they cook to show their love.
The basics of a good diet include fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats, whole grains and low fat dairy. It means eating a lot of different things (Total may have 100 percent of certain vitamins, but foods have all kinds of chemicals in them, most of which science has no idea what they're doing to our bodies (for good and ill)) and that means asking your home's cook to start taking that into account. Eating well might turn into a family project!
Also, definitely exercise. You're 14, and this is a great time to set your body to be flexible, strong and healthy for the future. Read up on aerobic and weight training as exercise. There are a lot of books at the library to check out and resources on the internet. Walking and running are a good place to start.
Good luck, and right on!
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spensar
Member
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Posted: 6 June 2005 06:00 pm |
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"...no animal in nature exercises to control its weight."
That's a bad analogy. Animals in nature don't have supermarkets, office jobs, buses, cars or houses. They exercise all the time. If humans worked as hard for our calories as wild animals, we would all be lean too. Animals get fat, just like humans, when they don't have to do physical work for their food. In our society we have easy and cheap access to enough food energy to never have to engage in hard physical activity. A balance to that is we need to try and inject the missing activity into our lives, and choose well from the overwhelming food options we have. Not helping is that it is cheaper to eat really badly that really well.
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Seragilo
Senior Member
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Posted: 7 June 2005 01:33 am |
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Ummm, Spensar, I am pretty sure that the point made with the phase.....
no animal in nature exercises to control its weight
was a short form of what you just wrote out, so in truth it is a great analogy.
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Dave Brown
Senior Member
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Posted: 9 June 2005 09:18 am |
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Spensar,
Visit a zoo sometime and note how many of the animals are over weight. Those animals don't have to search for food. It's all provided for them.
Got an e-mail response from a New York Times science reporter who wrote a book about fitness. She said, "I have written repeatedly that exercise advice that is so often given, walk for 30 minutes most days, or in its most recent incarnation, walk for an hour a day, has never been shown to result in weight loss."
A few days earlier I recieved the following e-mail from two retired public health scientists who write books and articles about nutritional issues:
"The popular press, including the NYTimes are carrying the establishment answer to the obesity problem, namely failure to exercise. In our opinion, exercise is of little value in weight control. Most important is the quality of the nutrition. Fat, protein, and low glycemic carbohydrates are the correct answer."
"We are currently writing a paper in response to the New Food Guide Pyramid (MyPyramid) which recommends exercise for weight control, to explain our judgment that exercise will not solve America's weight problem. We will send you a copy when it is completed."
Beyond doubt, some people are able to lose weight by exercising. Others cannot. Still others lose weight by altering the quality of their food intake. Laboratory animals can also be made to gain or lose weight by manipulating the diet.
So let's say we stop kidding ourselves about the value of exercise for weight control. While it is obviously helpful in some cases, it is way overrated as a weight control strategy.
Dave BrownLast edited on 9 June 2005 09:28 am by Dave Brown
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flyawayana
Senior Member
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Posted: 9 June 2005 03:33 pm |
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dave brown. thats a load of ****.
sorry, but it is. diet and excersize are BOTH key points in a healthy lifestyle for weight loss, weight maintainance, HEALTH maintaince or improvement.
maybe for someone it was altering the diet that made them lose the weight. then agian, maybe they ate pizza and ice cream all the time. almost any alter to that would result in weight loss dont you think? while excerzie may not be the one "icebreaker" for some people, it still does result in a healthyer person. (lower blood pressure, lower resting heart rate, definietion in muscle tone, ability to do more, longer endurance for everyday activites etc etc.
and, you have to think about why ecersize isnt working for some people. look at their caloric intake, maybe they are still eating too many calories and not burning them off in their day. and look at their workout regimine, maybe its only for 20 min a day, or only 2 or 3 days a week. of course that wont result in weight loss. or maybe they THINK they are working harder than they are, when really theyir heart rate is barely moving up... which, also wont get anyone anywhere with weight loss or increased fitness.
we all have our own point of veiw, and opinion. some are just more true than others.
fly
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Dave Brown
Senior Member
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Posted: 9 June 2005 05:01 pm |
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flyawayana,
You said, "We all have our own point of view, and opinion (same thing as point of view). Some are just more true than others."
I define truth as what is so. Truth = reality. We formulate explanations about natural phenomena (like obesity) according to what we know. How close explanations fit with reality depends more on the quality of our knowledge than on the quantity.
Even though I've been studying nutrition since 1977 and have read thousands of pages of material about weight loss, I'm still seeking answers. My opinion is subject to modification if new evidence comes to light indicating that my understanding of something is inaccurate. So read the following quote from an essay by John Stuart Mill. About 15 years ago I got a little bored just studying nutrition so I read some philosophy books to stimulate my thought processes.
Here's the quote:
There must be discussion to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yeild to fact and argument; but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it.
Very few facts are able to tell their own story without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgement, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed upon it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand.
In the case of any person whose judgement is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that can be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and to expound to himself and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of the human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carring it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for being cognizant of all that can at least obviously be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers - knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter - he has a right to think his judgement better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process."
Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion by John Stuart Mill
Thanks for your comments, fly.
Dave Brown
Last edited on 10 June 2005 04:05 am by Dave Brown
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