Advice please!

[8ball2253]

Hi everybody, I'm a long-time lurker of these forums, but finally decided to register when I couldn't find the answers I was looking for.

Just a bit about me, I'm 20 years old 6'3", currently studying medicine (2 years left) and weigh about 210lbs which I want to get down to about 180lbs. This is just a rough estimate that I want to lose but ideally I'd like to lose my stomach and chest fat which I'd say is a fair bit. My motivation for losing weight is the career I'm going into; plus I've been wanting to do it for a long time!

My days are usually quite hectic. I spend most of my day in the hospital only to come home and study. I tend to work more than the average student so finding time to head out to the gym is an absolute no because it impacts too much on my time for work. Most of the exercise I get is about a mile or two walk a day in commute and walking around the hospital. So my first question is can I lose this amount of weight (no target date in mind) without going to the gym?

I understand that about 80% of your ability to lose weight comes down to diet, so this is the biggest thing I've had to change. My previous diet consisted of large portion sizes with lots of pastas, meat (mainly chicken and lamb), white rice, and brown bread. Simply because I'm so busy during the day I only had a chance to eat maybe once or twice a day so I'd really eat large. Breakfast was something I tried to do but I wasn't really a morning person so sometimes I'd skip, or if I overslept and risked getting late.

My current diet I have been on for 2 weeks and quite frankly I'm enjoying it. I feel much more energetic and not nearly as hungry as I used to be. I would like some advice on the diet as this is my sole means of losing weight (i.e. without the intensive exercise)?

Current diet:

Breakfast (usually between 8-10am weekdays, and on my days off I tend to wake up after 12 so I go straight to lunch): 2 weetabix biscuits, one chopped banana, semi-skimmed milk

Snack (between 10am-12pm, if I get time and not with patients): piece of fruit, usually an apple or pear

Lunch (between 12-1pm): half tin of tuna with handful of spinach leaves on a small wholemeal roll with one half lightly buttered with bertolli. Any piece of fruit if I haven't had my snack due to patients

Afternoon snack (between 2-3pm): Muller light yoghurt, any of the fruit flavours

Evening snack (sometimes I miss this if Im studying, 5-6pm): Another piece of fruit, apple/pear

Dinner (between 7-8pm): Handful of spinach, half a large carrot, handful of sweetcorn, very small amount of cheese, 1/4-1/2 red pepper, small amount of red onion, six slices of cucumber. A very small amount of the blue lid low fat salad cream and this salad will be served with any of the following: 250g prawns, 1 grilled chicken breast, 1-2 boiled eggs, 1 fillet of grilled salmon

With my dinner I'll have 250-300ml of innocent strawberry and banana smoothie, or a 250mL 175 calorie 1% fat canned chocolate mint milkshake

I don't eat anything after 9pm.

Throughout the day I aim to drink 2L of water, especially after 9pm to fight off hunger if I'm staying up with my flatmates.

I know this is a very large post but if anybody can point me in the right direction to losing my weight I'd be really grateful! Now off to study...

 

[lelpr]

Sounds like you are doing well as drinking lots of water and eating tuna, fish, chicken, eggs are all good protein foods. Use could try herbalife shake for breakfast as weetabix or other cereals don't have protein to fill you up. I have a herbalife shake for breakfast and lunch, and also have their snack bars or soup in between. I am now a distributor if you wanted to buy product or more advice - (you can message me lesley pretty on facebook).

 

[Zest for Life]

No need for herbal life unless you want to go down the food replacement route.
Looks like your new diet is good.
no one needs to exercise to loose weight, but if you do you'll loose it faster and be leaner healthier and fitter, if not you may loose weight but will not be toned.

 

[trw1972]

Food sounds good to me!

One comment, id say diet is 50% of the equation and exercise is another 50%- as another person mentioned you may lose weight without exercise but a lot of it wont be fat loss

Lets say you have 25% bodyfat right now (around 36lbs) and you lose 20 lbs weight without doing any exercise...

id be surprised if more than half of that weight loss would be fat, the rest would be muscle..

The result being that you would be 20lbs lighter, but not look an awful lot better.

If however you did some sort of cardio (either a sport, or walking, or jogging) and did maybee an hour or two a week at home doing push ups / pull ups / squats (no gym required) you would probably lose a little more in that time and most of it would be fat..meaning you would look a lot better.

I imagine as a medical student though you know the reasons for all this etc (our bodies thinking storage of fat is good)

 

[spangles]

although it's mostly natural sugar, your diet is very high in sugars... and this isn't great for providing slow-release energy for people in a busy job.

if you are finding yourself hungry you could swap out some of the fruit and the smoothie for veg or protein snacks instead (carrot is quite high GI too, so won't fill you up - but cucumber or broccolli etc would, or a small handful of nuts).

I recommend reading up on GI / GL. not all fruit is the dieter's friend!

regarding exercise - try to up the pace of your walking. a mile or two of walking at a pace that gets you slightly out of breath, twice a day, is a good starting point for exercise. strolling, however, achieves very little.

 

[8ball2253]

hi everyone!

although it's mostly natural sugar, your diet is very high in sugars... and this isn't great for providing slow-release energy for people in a busy job.

if you are finding yourself hungry you could swap out some of the fruit and the smoothie for veg or protein snacks instead (carrot is quite high GI too, so won't fill you up - but cucumber or broccolli etc would, or a small handful of nuts).

I recommend reading up on GI / GL. not all fruit is the dieter's friend!

regarding exercise - try to up the pace of your walking. a mile or two of walking at a pace that gets you slightly out of breath, twice a day, is a good starting point for exercise. strolling, however, achieves very little.

Food sounds good to me!

One comment, id say diet is 50% of the equation and exercise is another 50%- as another person mentioned you may lose weight without exercise but a lot of it wont be fat loss

Lets say you have 25% bodyfat right now (around 36lbs) and you lose 20 lbs weight without doing any exercise...

id be surprised if more than half of that weight loss would be fat, the rest would be muscle..

The result being that you would be 20lbs lighter, but not look an awful lot better.

If however you did some sort of cardio (either a sport, or walking, or jogging) and did maybee an hour or two a week at home doing push ups / pull ups / squats (no gym required) you would probably lose a little more in that time and most of it would be fat..meaning you would look a lot better.

I imagine as a medical student though you know the reasons for all this etc (our bodies thinking storage of fat is good)

No need for herbal life unless you want to go down the food replacement route.
Looks like your new diet is good.
no one needs to exercise to loose weight, but if you do you'll loose it faster and be leaner healthier and fitter, if not you may loose weight but will not be toned.

Sounds like you are doing well as drinking lots of water and eating tuna, fish, chicken, eggs are all good protein foods. Use could try herbalife shake for breakfast as weetabix or other cereals don't have protein to fill you up. I have a herbalife shake for breakfast and lunch, and also have their snack bars or soup in between. I am now a distributor if you wanted to buy product or more advice - (you can message me lesley pretty on facebook).

lelpr: don't particularly want to start herbal life, i don't need meal replacements

Karen27: thanks for the reply! i knew the weight loss wouldn't be toned but i'm glad to know the diet will provide some sort of weight loss

trw1972: thanks for the reply! i understand the physiology behind fat sparing and muscle loss but i really didn't know that my diet without exercise would restrict my ability to losing just fat and lose muscle as a result. i would have thought a high protein diet would neither cause muscle gain (as i am not working out) or muscle loss but i guess I was wrong!

spangles: hmm i can't really see myself eating vegetables all day everyday, i'm trying to get my 5 a day in with fruit aswell. will the sugar be hindering me in any way to losing weight? if so then i may reconsider

Based on everybody's replies, I did something I thought I'd never do today. Signed up for a gym that one of my housemates goes to!

I appreciate the exercises that trw1972 wrote out for me but I think to get better results and to encourage myself to be more active I need to hit a gym. I used to go last year but had to leave due to exams, and exam food made the lbs pile back. This year however exams are less centred around book work and more around working with patients and learning diseases, so I'm sure I could spend 2 hours Mon Wed Fri to go to the gym.

My biggest battle was the diet and as it has been going okay for almost 2 weeks now I can see myself sticking to it in the long run as I think the initial struggle is over for me. Now its getting active. I didn't want to put too much on myself in such a short space of time.

 

[Faxman]

8ball, your diet doesn't look bad at all to me. Are you losing weight on it already?

 

[8ball2253]

Hi Faxman, no idea yet. Stupidly, I haven't got any weighing scales with me at university so I'll never know if I've lost weight or not. Last time I weighed myself was at home just before I left so I'm guessing I'll just have to weigh myself at the gym or just wait til I go home for a surprise?

 

[spangles]

there are some probs with eating all that fruit / smoothies.

firstly, fruit has more calories than veg, because sugar is calorie heavy. this will mean that you can eat less food, the more sugary it is. If you had less fruit and other carbs, you could eat more.

you need to log all the calories of everything, including the fruit, and if it's below your BMR, you will lose - try the 'my fitness pal' app, which calculates your ideal healthy calorie intake, and if you log what you eat, it tells you how many cals you've had. no need to do it every day (though some find it motivating), but so you're sure to start with.


the second problem is that sugars / simple carbs make you more hungry than foods with a low glycemic index. if you eat something low in sugars / starchy carbs, you will feel fuller longer, which makes dieting much easier.

then there's the link between fructose and your triglyceride levels. If you suffer from high cholesterol, as many larger people do, this can be dangerous (triglycerides are a blood fat linked to heart disease).

Lastly, fruit also drives up blood glucose - which is clearly a problem for those with diabetes, but there are persistant, well-documented links between sugar consumption and the onset of type 2 diabetes.

 

[Batman]

Well done on your focus! Sounds like you are doing this the healthy way so far, just be sure to mix it up regularly as you WILL eventually get bored, and when we are bored we tend to get back to bad habits! Good job on the gym too - Ive just re-joined mine and am enjoying it so far!

 

[Zest for Life]

Well done on the gym membership, make sure you go!
Keep us posted, are you going to start a diary?

Spangles, wow, your up on your nutrition knowledge, if o got any questions I'm going to be pestering you!

 

[spangles]

heh. scratch a lifelong dieter and you'll find a huge amount of nutritional knowledge.

 

[8ball2253]

there are some probs with eating all that fruit / smoothies.

firstly, fruit has more calories than veg, because sugar is calorie heavy. this will mean that you can eat less food, the more sugary it is. If you had less fruit and other carbs, you could eat more.

you need to log all the calories of everything, including the fruit, and if it's below your BMR, you will lose - try the 'my fitness pal' app, which calculates your ideal healthy calorie intake, and if you log what you eat, it tells you how many cals you've had. no need to do it every day (though some find it motivating), but so you're sure to start with.


the second problem is that sugars / simple carbs make you more hungry than foods with a low glycemic index. if you eat something low in sugars / starchy carbs, you will feel fuller longer, which makes dieting much easier.

then there's the link between fructose and your triglyceride levels. If you suffer from high cholesterol, as many larger people do, this can be dangerous (triglycerides are a blood fat linked to heart disease).

Lastly, fruit also drives up blood glucose - which is clearly a problem for those with diabetes, but there are persistant, well-documented links between sugar consumption and the onset of type 2 diabetes.

hey spangles thanks for the informative reply! interesting post you have there on use of fruit in a diet, i'll keep that in mind, but I really do find it hard to get my 5 a day in terms of fruit if I don't eat it during my snack periods.

i registered on the myfitness app and its great! i know that my BMR is 2100 kcal and according to the app today I've had 1618 kcal today and burned off 238 kcal so im just below 1400. I understand the body entering 'starvation mode' below 1200 but I'm not concerned about that because I know I'm not starving myself, it would have become evident by now after 2 weeks (i feel I have MORE energy than I did before).

one question though, from what I've studied I know cholesterol is made up of HDL, LDL and IDL lipids, HDL being the better one as it is responsible for taking LDL deposits back from the body cells and into the liver (i could go into the physiology of this but I won't bore you guys ), so my cholesterol being at 577mg for the day (the recommended is 300) is that a cause for alarm? or is it just the app can't differentiate between HDL and LDL?

Well done on your focus! Sounds like you are doing this the healthy way so far, just be sure to mix it up regularly as you WILL eventually get bored, and when we are bored we tend to get back to bad habits! Good job on the gym too - Ive just re-joined mine and am enjoying it so far!

thanks batman! I really am trying to stay focused, I'm only 20 and I've got my whole life ahead of me with such an amazing career, I don't want to cut it short with something completely within my control

Well done on the gym membership, make sure you go!
Keep us posted, are you going to start a diary?

Spangles, wow, your up on your nutrition knowledge, if o got any questions I'm going to be pestering you!

thanks karen! I'll definitely try my best to keep with the gym regime, after all its only gonna benefit me hey! I'm keeping a diary on the myfitness pal, is that what you are referring to?

btw my hometown is berkshire too (slough), currently at uni atm

 

[8ball2253]

nevermind, i found the cause, i said i had 1 cup of boiled eggs LOL

that came out to like 577mg of cholesterol, i changed it to one and it said 227 now

still seems a tad high, might consider taking the actual yolk out of my hard boiled egg

 

[spangles]

fraid you'd better ask someone with qualifications about that. i'm just a self-taught amateur!

 

[Zest for Life]

I don't know what my fitness pal is???
I mean on minis, in the diary section.
Slough, are you training at wexham then?
Funny how Berkshire sounds nice a green with sprawling countryside, then they put Slough and Bracknell in it!
You should start a diary!

 

[8ball2253]

nah im up in manchester right now training, ill be back in slough in 2.5 years

oh okay, i'll look to see what I can do on top of my busy schedule!

and yeah, berkshire really is beautiful isn't it

 

[trw1972]

hi everyone!









lelpr: don't particularly want to start herbal life, i don't need meal replacements

Karen27: thanks for the reply! i knew the weight loss wouldn't be toned but i'm glad to know the diet will provide some sort of weight loss

trw1972: thanks for the reply! i understand the physiology behind fat sparing and muscle loss but i really didn't know that my diet without exercise would restrict my ability to losing just fat and lose muscle as a result. i would have thought a high protein diet would neither cause muscle gain (as i am not working out) or muscle loss but i guess I was wrong!

spangles: hmm i can't really see myself eating vegetables all day everyday, i'm trying to get my 5 a day in with fruit aswell. will the sugar be hindering me in any way to losing weight? if so then i may reconsider

Based on everybody's replies, I did something I thought I'd never do today. Signed up for a gym that one of my housemates goes to!

I appreciate the exercises that trw1972 wrote out for me but I think to get better results and to encourage myself to be more active I need to hit a gym. I used to go last year but had to leave due to exams, and exam food made the lbs pile back. This year however exams are less centred around book work and more around working with patients and learning diseases, so I'm sure I could spend 2 hours Mon Wed Fri to go to the gym.

My biggest battle was the diet and as it has been going okay for almost 2 weeks now I can see myself sticking to it in the long run as I think the initial struggle is over for me. Now its getting active. I didn't want to put too much on myself in such a short space of time.

Hey

There was a study - they got two groups of overweight people on a low calorie high protein diet-



one did cardio 4 hours a week

the other did resistance training 4 hours a week

despite the high protein intake the cardio group lost signifigant lean bodymass despite the high protein content - the resistance group actually kept all their lean body mass despite the calorie restriction.

So it doesnt look like high protein alone is enough for muscle sparing.

Ahhh just found the article

Effects of Resistance vs. Aerobic Training Combined With an 800 Calorie Liquid Diet on Lean Body Mass and Resting Metabolic Rate

 

[Batman]

Dont forget to choose a low-cholestorol spread from now on - there are loads out there that are supposedly heart smart...keep the yolk of the egg its the nicest bit and switch your spread!!

 

[8ball2253]

Yep batman i will remember that.

Just had the strength to walk away from a slice of carrot cake in the kitchen and an offer of celebrations chocs and on my 3rd water bottle

Was hopefully looking to hit the gym tonight but the GP has kept us later than usual so I'll go tomorrow cuz I'm only in til 12