Weight Loss

So, you want to lose weight.

Welcome to C-C, my friends, and let us instill upon you the guaranteed to work C-C Diet. No pills, no fad diets, no bull. Only real hard science.

This post is not meant to be the end-all be-all of how-to guides. There are alot of topics I skip over or touch briefly, that you should feel free to investigate yourself. I just want to equip you with the knowledge you need to make good decisions and lose weight properly.

Table Of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 0: Are you really overweight?

Chapter 1: The Mighty Calorie (Introduction to the Calorie)

Chapter 2: Nutrition In A Nutshell (Introduction to Nutrition)
     Section 2.1: Carbs Are Cool (Carbohydrates)
     Section 2.1.1: Functional Fiber (Dietary Fiber)
     Section 2.2: Powerful Proteins (Protein)
     Section 2.3: Fabulous Fats (Fat)
     Section 2.3.1: Confusing Cholesterol (Cholesterol and it's connections with Fats)
     Section 2.4: Water You Talking About? (Water)
     Section 2.5: So, How Much Should I Be Eating Then? (Percentages of Carbs, Protein and Fats)

Chapter 3: Movin' Right Along - Exercise and Weight Loss (Benefits of Physical Activity)
     Section 3.1: Sweatin' Off The Pounds - Aerobic Exercise
     Section 3.2: Flexibility Training (Flexibility)
     Section 3.3: Govehnoh Ahnold Sent Me... To PUMP YOU UP! (Weight Lifting)

Chapter 4: Putting It All Together - The Road To Fat Loss
     Section 4.1: Deficit Spending (Figuring out your Caloric Deficit)
     Section 4.2: Your Metabolism And You: A Love Story (Metabolism)
     Section 4.3: Apples vs. Pears: I think you're all a little fruity (Body Shapes)
     Section 4.4: Putting It All Together

Chapter 5: Last Pieces of Advice
      Section 5.1: Getting Over Overeating (Emotional Eating)
      Section 5.2: Be Your Own Doctor - Get Some Patience (Patience With Yourself)
      Section 5.3: Going For The Goal (Setting Goals and Rewards)

Chapter 6: Living With Your Lifestyle Change
     Section 6.1: A Man, A Plan, A Recipe Book, and a Pair of New Shoes! (Planning Out Your Lifestyle Change)
     Section 6.2: Eat To Live - How To Begin To Eat Healthy (Putting Nutrition Into Your Daily Routine)
     Section 6.3: I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can (Adding Exercise Into Your Daily Routine)

Chapter 7: HELP ME!!! Common Problems Associated With Dieting
     Section 7.1: Me Vs. The Man In The Mirror (Self-Image)
     Section 7.2: Gimme Gimme Gimme Some Food After Midnight (Binging)
     Section 7.3: Killer Cravings (Cravings)
     Section 7.4: The Perils of Plateaus (Plateaus)
     Section 7.5: Eating Out (Dun Dun Dun) (Eating At Restaurants)
     Section 7.6: Crash And Burn - Why Repetition is NOT always Good (Burning Out)
     Section 7.7: Real Life Strikes Again! (Breaks And Vacations)

Chapter 8: Useful Links

Supplement 1: Stages of Dieting

Introduction: Why the other diets just don't work
So many of us have tried them all: Weight Watchers, Atkins, South Beach, none of them work. Some of them help you learn how to get the weight off, but the moment you stop, BANG!, you're back up again. Well, that sucks, doesn't it?
That's because the diet industry, all of it is, is designed to make sure that you, the average overweight American, don't succeed. After all, if you finally lose the weight and keep it off, than suddenly you don't need to keep buying their stuff. And they're out alot of money.

Here on C-C, though, we can teach you, from experience, how to lose weight, how to keep it off and we don't even charge!

Glad you found it useful :)

Very informative, easy to read and concise.  And I learned a few new things.  Thank you.

This looks like a big help, thank you....I have been doing my food and activity log for 3 weeks...not cheating and I am going to the gym 3 to 5 times a week....my scale hasn't moved at all...so I am going to go through this and see what I might be missing.

Thanks for posting it. 

thanks for posting this useful thread...I'd like to print it out and read throughly... we should have a printable pdf version or something:)

such a useful tool, this....

---------- i just heard a lecture by gary taubes who basically said the atkins diet was the only reality.   that carbs were all bad (but especially sugar and white flour/rice ).   his message was that sugar triggered insulin which potentiated the storage of energy in fat cells.   so, bottom line, sugar is the bad guy.   except that all carbs get broken down into sugar(s), so carbs = sugar = storage in fat cells.  

fats, oils, etc., supply calories, that's for sure but they don't trigger the storage of that caloric energy.

i may not have this exact, but i think that's about it . . .

 

big

Psuedoscience. Carbs are not the enemy. ESPECIALLY Complex Carbs.

wowwow  I love it!  Thanks so much HK!

No problem. Glad to see this old thread active again. :)

Hey Everybody.  Long time no speak...

I just wanted to drop in and leave a little note; I have been part of this group for a few months and diligently counted my calories and stayed within all the reasonable boundaruies and followed every suggestion and all advice to the letter.  I lost three pounds, gained it back, lost six pounds, gained it back, and got totally depressed.  THen I read elsewhere how counting calories is NOT the way to go.  So I researched a few different approaches and trends and diet fads and found  the right way to go.  I eat healthy veggies and egg whites for breakfast,"raw foods" throughout the day, and a sensible dinner of "whole" foods at night.  I can eat until I am STUFFED, the food is terrific, and I have no cravings.  I have lost 13 pounds in a just over a month, and to look at a processed chip, cracker, ground beef, or  any kind of snack actually sets off an alarm in my head screaming  "poison"!  I have so much energy and postivie outlooks that it is unbelievable. My hair is starting to shine, my eyes are whiter and brighter, my sleep is complete throught the night, I am happy to jump out bed in the morning and pop over to the scale.  SO I turned on a friend who has MS and he is totally amazed.  His whole left side was starting to paralyze a bit, he would have to nap in the afternoons and his weight was borderline obese.  He has dropped nearly twenty pounds, and the fatigue is gone, and his left side is less sluggish.  Not a miracle, but almost!   So I beg you, please don't think that you can eat a multi grain bagel and a slice of cheese with a bowl of boxed "health" cereal, and as long as you don't exceed 1200 calories, you will soon be svelt.  It just isn't going to work.  MOVE your body and eat whole natural food.  It is as simple as that.

Just looking at your old posts - you were eating 800 cal/day. That isn't what this site recommends, nor what "counting calories" means.

That's great that you are losing weight your way, and it sounds a lot healthier than what you were doing, but if you think that everyone here eats under 1200 calories, you'd be sorely mistaken. Just to clear that up.

Amethyst is absolutely right. You need to eat enough calories. You may be losing weight, but... at what expense?

This post is about Healthful Weight Loss. It was meant to give people the tools they need to know where to start and how.

I strongly suggest my "diet" which is, if I may pat myself on the back, a pretty straightforward and reasonable way to lose weight. No Tricks. No Pills, No Fad Diets. 

Just eat good foods, get active, and eat enough, but not too many calories.

That is the suggested way to lose fat and get healthier.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

I figured you would not understand .  I was doing it your way. It didn't work.  I made myself count more and more, and desperately ate less and less.  It didn't work, 1200 or 800.  I now consume HUGE amounts of whole foods, to the tune of up to fifteen hundred to two thousand healthy whole food calories.  I have no real idea.  I don't have to count anything and I eat six times a day.  I snack until nine at night.  The weight drops off.  My point is, don't count.... eat real food, nothing processed in any way.  NO diet- REAL food the way we were intended. 

To each their own, but I have had nothing but positive experiences since reading this post and joing Calorie Count.  Thanks for this post hkellick - I direct anyone who asks to this thread.

As someone who has been on weight loss "diets" since the age of 7, I am grateful for your easy to read format that reminds me to "be good to myself" above all else. A "diet" is really whatever we eat, be it bad or good, so to be reminded to make better choices daily and to combine that with the planning/organizational capabilities of cc+ is a true blessing. I reached my top weight of 270 lb (56 yo, 5' 4.5") and was fortunate enough to find this site on January 22, 2008 (the day after I consumed half of a new york style cheesecake, just because!). My journey started and by mid February I had lost 22 lb. Funny, when you reach middle age, even when you make changes for the better, your body may react in ways which seem contrary to your efforts. In my case, my cholesterol rose and my thyroid appeared to slow down. While I am now taking medications for those conditions, my GP told me to continue with my healthy eating and weight loss as this is best in the long run. Most days I have a difficult time eating enough calories without overdoing the cholesterol, fat and sodium. Oh well, I've always been one to take on a challenge! I tried eating some french fries a few days ago and while I did eat them, I didn't really enjoy them. How strange.

Anyway, my focus is on eating the "good" stuff and reading this tag every once in a while to keep my focus clear. Thank you again for a marvelous piece.

PS  What does "bump" mean? I see it often in this thread.

'bump' means you reply to a post without really having anything to say, just to get it back to the front of the forum, so everybody finds it again, sometimes important posts get buried in the forum and hardly anyone finds them there.

This is a wonderful post, so actually what you did mrsgraham was 'bumping' it and make me read it, hehehe, thanks for that ! 

Time for a bump.

I have a question about how to communicate in the community.  I want to know how to reply to a specific reply.  I have seen it blocked in the resply box but don't know how to do that   any help?

hkellick,

What a wonderful thread and I agree it needs a bump occasionally!  Calories do count and I appreciate your presenting a reasonable program in a concise way!

Thanks,

Barbara