[Archived] Losing Belly Fat

[cletus]

I roughly followed a weight-watchers style diet a couple of years ago. I gave up simple things like bread, cheese, sugar, beer & sweets. Then i replaced these things with freshly cooked food (chicken & veg etc....) NO READY MEALS!!!

In six months i lost 3stone.

I looked & felt alot better.

Unfortunatley, i found following the weight-watchers life-style got a bit boring & with my new found healthy body i started going out a bit more. It soon went t1ts up, cos after i`ve had a drink ALL my self control goes out the window & kebabs, pizzas etc....soon came back on the menu.

In my view weight-watchers-style diets work, BUT you have to stick to it.

[tcj_jones]

And that's the problem - it isn't natural and people cannot stick to rigid diets indefinitely.

I believe that you can diet initially in order to get to a healthy weight, but then have to gradually adopt a more balanced diet and lifestyle.

[S15]

Plenty of stands/farmers markets in my area to get fresh, locally grown fruit.

I live in London for 9 months of the year and you're spot on, there is.

However, you've missed out the most important part of my point.

The price.

[LeChuck]

I live in London for 9 months of the year and you're spot on, there is.

However, you've missed out the most important part of my point.

The price.

Most of the little fruit and veg stalls are cheaper than the supermarkets where I live, in some cases quite significantly cheaper. The same goes for butchers etc. as well.

I think you probably haven't looked very hard. There was a program on BBC a few months back where they had one family doing their shopping at the supermarket as usual made another shop around at small, independent places...turned out it was cheaper to avoid the supermarkets in the end.

[thenodrog]

I'd say philip's suggestion is perfectly reasonable. I know when I travel spending time in the car, no exercise, eating from boredom and eating more than usual I pile the weight on. Given philip's reason for being in Lanacshire I'd imagine eating properly was the last thing on his mind.

On the other hand the idea of a sedentary lifestyle, beer and poor food certainly account for the increasing number of over-weight individuals we see in society.

This is rubbish of course Paul! You have in fact agreed with my point not Gunners. Philips post make it sound like we cannot get oranges and paeches in the UK and that only the ones that were picked 10 seconds before are any good. The UK has one of the lowest cost food prices in the world as a %age of the average income. The fault imo lies with our eating habits and lifestyle.

I live in London for 9 months of the year and you're spot on, there is.

However, you've missed out the most important part of my point.

The price.

Gunner and Shillitoe, Fruit here is for nowt.. we just don't buy enough of it.

http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price...ranges_2Kg.html

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/food/tesco-value-s...in-light-syrup/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/200...17/foodanddrink

Every day on holidays I'll eat yoghurt and fruit for brekky, here I'll have a bacon butt and I'd wager most will do the same so just what is the difference her that makes us consume fat's and starchy carbs in such proportions? I repeat cost is no reason imo.

btw Gunner... Everybody seems to be assuming that you were in peak physical condition when you were in Malta but how do we know that you were not suffering a degree of malnutrition when you came back from Malta? People often can be too skinny for their own good.

[Andy3809]

I travel a lot and eating properly is hard, the choices are restrained and the motivation is difficult.

From my experience, exercise is more important than nutrition, but if you can keep the nutrition up as well, the results are greatly improved.

But if your nutrtition is ######, just work your ass off at the gym.

Completely the wrong way round mate and a common misconception. A good diet is 90% of looking good and being in good shape...

For example you do 30 mins on a tredmill. The computer will tell you that you've burned say 200 cals. Now take into consideration that during the 30 mins on the tredmill your body will have naturally burned around 100 cals just standing there.

So you have actually created a deficit of only 100 cals and not 200 like you think when your watching the little screen. And whats 100 cals... A couple of biscuits maybe or half a mars bar? Dip a hobnob in your tea that night and although you will be fitter and have benefited from the exercise your weight will sadly be no better than from before you went to the gym...

Myself and a mate used to do the 1000 calorie challenge on our cardio training days. This was up to 2hr's of full effort on tredmill, bike, steppers and rower but using the same principle 300-400 would have been burned just sitting there. So the actual deficit was around 500-600 which is one cheeseburger. And that's 2hr's of full noise by two fit guys...

A point that really brings this home is a marathon. If you ever get chance go and watch one of the bigger one's and just look at how many large overweight people finish it. You'll be shocked as I was when I did the edinburgh. You've got men and women who are fit enough to finish 26 miles of running yet due to eating more food (norm heavy carbs) they are prob classed as overweight/borderline obese.

Sorry to ramble on but I trained for years and although I was strong and had heaps of muscle I always ran slightly heavy and you see loads of people in gyms everywhere who are the same. As soon as this principle was explained to me (a lot better than i've done) I dropped two stone and am now in the best shape of my life. Exercise is important but without a diet overhaul you'll just be fitter and fat not fitter and slimmer esp when the exercise will increase appetite. Weight training will also increase the amount of calories you burn 24/7 and is more beneficial than low steady state cardio. And ditch the pasta meals that were always seen as good 'diet foods' for lean meats with plenty of veg...

[philipl]

Thank you 'drog for telling everyone what you thought I had written but had not.

On a serious note, thanks to Andy3809- plenty of interesting points there.

If I was making any points when in reality I was asking a question it is these:

- piling the weight on when under great stress being with your Mum 24x7 in an icu was a dumb thing to do on my part but weight watching was not at the forefront of my mind at the time

- fruit and veg is cheaper and much more readily available in Malta than Lancashire so yes it is easier to do something about excess weight in the sunnier climes. Not saying it is impossible in Lancashire.

[benhben]

Its soooo boring eating veg though. How come all the nice tasting foods are bad for you, and health usully means bland and boring. I havent got the willpower to resits the temptations.

[Mike Graham]

watch what Benni Mac puts in his mouth and how he exercises and then do the opposite....you will loose those spare tyres in no time.

[tcj_jones]

Vegetables are great! It's probably more a case of you not being overly adventurous in the kitchen. Not that these are particularly adventurous, but they taste great!

Get some carrots, a suede and a potato. Cut em up; whack em in a pan of boiling water; drain; add some milk, butter, salt and pepper; mash it all up and you've got some easy root veg mash. Add it to your roast chicken with some peas and pour a bit of gravy over and you've got an easy meal!

The supermarkets do these really great trays of mediteranian vegetables - peppers, cherry tomatoes, onions, courgette etc - with some nice seasoning that you just throw in the oven, in the tray. 20 minutes later and they're ready - easy.

All supermarkets do great ready made soups that you just microwave or heat on the hob - there are so many different varieties that you'll always find some you like, even if you're not a massive soup person.

If you really, really just aren't a veg person, then sneak them into meals like you would do for your kids. For example, make your usual spag bol, but put a bucket load of mushrooms, onions and peas into the mix. Kedgerie is so easy to make - boil some brown rice, cook a load of fish, and crack some eggs, and then mix it together. Then add a crap load of every type of veg under the sun and mash it all in together. Add some seasoning - doesn't have to be fresh, but helps - and you got a meal that you can.

Asparagus wrapped in bacon and put in the oven for maybe 15 minutes - tastes great.

If you're having a BBQ, why not get some chicken breast and marinade it however you like but, inbetween the chicken, put some big pieces of onion, pepper and mushroom - I find they all taste great on the BBQ.

Even if you're having a ready meal, get some frozen peas, mix into the meal and then heat as you would normally.

[67splitscreen]

This works, I know cause I tried it, better than I expected.

Burn the ....

[tcj_jones]

I've had a lot of problems with my IBS recently and, funnily enough, my doctor recommended today that I cut down on the amount of fruit and veg that I'm eating! It seems that you really CAN eat too healthily!

[colin]

So, to to summarise: to lose weight you've got to consume less calories than you burn off in your normal day.

The easiest way of doing this is to eat less calories than you use. Your average starving third word child will be able to tell you about that; ditto the average anorexic.

However it also helps to do a bit of exercise. Not only does this make you feel good, it also gets you fitter, and it burns off a few calories. Although if you go for a three mile jog & then eat a Mars bar you're p155ing into the wind.

Just as an aside, my daughter has recently acquired a liking for making cakes. Last weekend we did a "butterscotch banana cake." About 400g butter; 200g sugar; 150g golden syrup. "Serve warm with clotted cream" it said.

It didn't add "then go to your nearest A & E."

It was good though.

[philipl]

I've had a lot of problems with my IBS recently and, funnily enough, my doctor recommended today that I cut down on the amount of fruit and veg that I'm eating! It seems that you really CAN eat too healthily!

What's an IBS?

Have to agree with you- been eating lots of delicious peppers, tomatos carrots, aubergines, herbs in olive oil and fresh fish and oodles of almonds, peaches, plums and figs with hardly any bread, pasta etc recently and found the old weight not shifting despite plenty of walking and swimming.

[Ozz]

It's like the RBS but not quite as much of a pain in the arse.

[LeChuck]

What's an IBS?

Just Google it!

Partly inspired by this thread I've starting eating healthily this week - lots of vegetable soups and fish with roasted/steamed vegetables. I also knocked together a great vegetarian chili using mixed beans to replace the meat.

Soups are a great and easy way to get plenty of vegetables in your diet. Just fry an onion and some garlic, throw in whatever vegetables you can find, cover with water and add a stock cube and you get something better than anything out of a can. Pea and mint is my favourite at the moment, it's about £1 for a huge back of frozen peas and about 50p for the mint, and it makes loads. Thankfully it freezes well.

Any cheap soup recipes would be great by the way.

[T4E]

It's like the RBS but not quite as much of a pain in the arse.

[Paul]

This is rubbish of course Paul!

No sunshine it's just you spouting your usual, know-it-all, look-at-me, rubbish. Suffering from a lack of attention? Or have we finally found a subject you can't even pretend to have some knowledge of?

[colin]

IBS is probably Irratible Bowel Syndrome.

It's one of those things that are funny to 15 year old boys who also find breast feeding in public a good laugh.

It's not funny for the grown-ups who suffer from it.

[thenodrog]

No sunshine it's just you spouting your usual, know-it-all, look-at-me, rubbish. Suffering from a lack of attention? Or have we finally found a subject you can't even pretend to have some knowledge of?

So you are saying that fruit is expensive and unavailable in the UK are you Paul? You must be if you are disagreeing with my point and my query in my original response to Gunner.

Please try to read and understand the posts, and please stop making a fool of yourself in your obvious and blinkered attempts to attack and provoke me. Unfortunately for you your intellect doesn't match your ambition.

[Tris]

So you are saying that fruit is expensive and unavailable in the UK are you Paul? You must be if you are disagreeing with my point and my query in my original response to Gunner.

Please try to read and understand the posts, and please stop making a fool of yourself in your obvious and blinkered attempts to attack and provoke me. Unfortunately for you your intellect doesn't match your ambition.

Gordon for the record this is your "original response" on the subject - direct from page 1

Unless you are wanting to compete on some Maltese beach in your speedo's with all the Russians Gunner don't bother with all that apart from maybe Brians advice. It's just middle aged spread. Perfectly normal. Never mind all that other stuff, you won't live any longer it will just seem like it. Most aspects of longevity are stored in the genes.

Nothing helpful there, nothing to do with the fresh fruit and veg subject. Just provocation. And you continue to provoke right through to this latest post which is designed to provoke Paul.

As you know, I normally agree with you on ICBINF subjects, from politics to restaurants via good local butchers. Unfortunately in this particular thread, you're making yourself look like a proper school playground @#/?.

Leave it out. Show some respect - you crow about the lack of it all over the rest of this bit of the MB.

[Silencio]

I also think the British tradition of having your main meal in the evening is what might make it difficult for us to lose weight. To do all your activity for the day and then come home and eat the usual mix of potatoes and meat before "winding down" just means everything sits on your body until the next day.

When I came back to live in Seoul, I continued to eat heavily in the evenings and wondered why I was losing no weight despite doing at least an hours worth of exercise every day. In the last 3 weeks, I have begun to eat only fish, vegetables and fruit in the evenings (I go to the gym in the mornings or around 3pm) and I have lost around 5kgs.

My skin and body shape is much better and dropping WHITE RICE/POTATOES/BREAD/PASTA from my evening meals is, I am sure, the main reason. It may take a week for your stomach to adjust to the lack of carbs in the evenings but I think it's well worth the adjustment. I am also finding that I am sleeping much better than before...

[Paul]

So you are saying that fruit is expensive and unavailable in the UK are you Paul? You must be if you are disagreeing with my point and my query in my original response to Gunner.

Please try to read and understand the posts, and please stop making a fool of yourself in your obvious and blinkered attempts to attack and provoke me. Unfortunately for you your intellect doesn't match your ambition.

The only remarks I have made on this thread have been in relation to philip's request for ideas on how to lose weight and secondly to say I understand how, in his recent situation, it is easy to forget about good diet. I have made no comment at all about the availability and price of food in the UK or Malta, somewhere I have never visited.

This is a clearly a subject where your vast life experience is lacking, that is the diet, weight and exercise aspect. For some reason you find it necessary to enter the debate by suggesting there is nothing philip can do about his weight as it's genetic and secondly to round on the suggestion fresh fruit etc is not available in the UK in the same manner as Malta. The general availability and "style" of food shopping along with local eating culture is vastly different in northern Europe compared to the Mediterranean, which I guess is the Maltese style. This, I would suggest, is the general point philip was making in his earlier remarks, it does therefore have an impact on one's ability to eat a healthy diet. In stressful or different situations one is far less likley to think about diet and simply eat.

If you have nothing sensible to contribute I'd suggest you stop using this thread as an opportunity to demonstrate your ignorant, bullying, schoolboy mentality. It isn't necessary to have an opinion on everything, especially when one is so clearly ignorant of a given subject. You need to find a hobby.

[thenodrog]

Gordon for the record this is your "original response" on the subject - direct from page 1

Nothing helpful there, nothing to do with the fresh fruit and veg subject. Just provocation. And you continue to provoke right through to this latest post which is designed to provoke Paul.

Provocation in that first post Tris? Where? Unless a intended humerous reference to Gunner in speedo's is provocation I don't see any. And if that is considered provocation then heaven help our society in future.

I shouldn't need to justify or explain myself but I will.

As in original response to Philips 2 posts here......... http://www.brfcs.co.uk/mb/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=794910

Read from there please Tris. Nothing insulting just a point to Philip, Shillitoe and Paul that shovelling fruit down is something that we can easily do here but don't. The availability of fruit is nothing to do with location. I suggested that there must be something else other than the availability of fruit which influences our diet / lifestyle.

If I was abrasive earlier (and I was) thats cos Paul's post just 2 above was an obvious and unnecessary attempt to goad and insult. When others show respect then I may well do to.

btw Cheer up Tris your current malaise will soon be over and the 'fat slug' SA will likely soon be gone..... Prem managers only last about 2 years and some bigger / more ambitious club than ourselves with more resources is bound to come in and nick him.

[thenodrog]

The only remarks I have made on this thread have been in relation to philip's request for ideas on how to lose weight and secondly to say I understand how, in his recent situation, it is easy to forget about good diet. I have made no comment at all about the availability and price of food in the UK or Malta, somewhere I have never visited.

This is a clearly a subject where your vast life experience is lacking, that is the diet, weight and exercise aspect. For some reason you find it necessary to enter the debate by suggesting there is nothing philip can do about his weight as it's genetic and secondly to round on the suggestion fresh fruit etc is not available in the UK in the same manner as Malta. The general availability and "style" of food shopping along with local eating culture is vastly different in northern Europe compared to the Mediterranean, which I guess is the Maltese style. This, I would suggest, is the general point philip was making in his earlier remarks, it does therefore have an impact on one's ability to eat a healthy diet. In stressful or different situations one is far less likley to think about diet and simply eat.

If you have nothing sensible to contribute I'd suggest you stop using this thread as an opportunity to demonstrate your ignorant, bullying, schoolboy mentality. It isn't necessary to have an opinion on everything, especially when one is so clearly ignorant of a given subject. You need to find a hobby.

For some reason Tris does not like me replying to you in the same manner that you address me, so just this once I'll let your smarmy last paragraph ride. But do me a favour and google the following two words in bold itallics obesity genetics. It should keep you quiet for a while if nothing else.

I wonder if Humble pie is fattening?