Invisible wrote:
> scott wrote:
> 
>> That is exactly to be expected, when you are younger most people can
>> eat what they like with little or no exercise and won't get fat. 
>> Usually during your late 20s / early 30s that changes, it's just life.
> 
> I don't get it. I finished growing 10 years ago. Why the sudden change
> *now*?

	I was just like you. For about 8 years, my weight remained at 60-62 kg.
I could eat whatever I wanted and it wouldn't make a difference.

	Then suddenly I was carrying extra weight around, and my trousers
wouldn't fit. Really bad sign.

	So I lost (some) weight. Basically just ate less - that's all.

-- 
"Strange, I don't remember suffering from memory loss."


                    /\  /\               /\  /
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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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> I was just like you. For about 8 years, my weight remained at 60-62 kg.
> I could eat whatever I wanted and it wouldn't make a difference.
>
> Then suddenly I was carrying extra weight around, and my trousers
> wouldn't fit. Really bad sign.

Ditto here, I was always around 70-75kg from about 16 years old up to 25 or 
so, my weight did not change hardly depending on if I ate three huge 
unhealthy meals a day with no exercise (while working over the summer 
months) or eating relatively little with a lot of exercise.  Then suddenly 
my weight started going up, trousers were tight and I rocked in at 83kg on 
the scales.  Since then I have to work quite hard with what I eat and 
forcing myself to find time to exercise to keep my weight below 80kg. 
Luckily my gf is quite a health food fanatic so that bit is relatively easy 
for me.

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scott wrote:
>> I was just like you. For about 8 years, my weight remained at 60-62 kg.
>> I could eat whatever I wanted and it wouldn't make a difference.
>>
>> Then suddenly I was carrying extra weight around, and my trousers
>> wouldn't fit. Really bad sign.
> 
> Ditto here, I was always around 70-75kg from about 16 years old up to 25 
> or so, my weight did not change hardly depending on if I ate three huge 
> unhealthy meals a day with no exercise (while working over the summer 
> months) or eating relatively little with a lot of exercise.  Then 
> suddenly my weight started going up, trousers were tight and I rocked in 
> at 83kg on the scales.  Since then I have to work quite hard with what I 
> eat and forcing myself to find time to exercise to keep my weight below 
> 80kg. Luckily my gf is quite a health food fanatic so that bit is 
> relatively easy for me.

I've been 80 Kg for years...

Wait, how tall are you?

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> I've been 80 Kg for years...
>
> Wait, how tall are you?

179cm

If you divide your weight (in kg) by your height^2 (in metres) that should 
be between 20-25.  For me, 80kg corresponds to the upper end of the scale, 
so I try to keep under that.

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scott wrote:
>> I've been 80 Kg for years...
>>
>> Wait, how tall are you?
> 
> 179cm

OK, I'm quite a bit taller than you (188 cm).

> If you divide your weight (in kg) by your height^2 (in metres) that 
> should be between 20-25.  For me, 80kg corresponds to the upper end of 
> the scale, so I try to keep under that.

Hmm, so 80 / 1.88^2 = 22.63

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> Mmm, interesting. I had no idea starch was so great. Well, at least I can 
> still max out on pasta and potatoe wedges then! There's no way I'm going 
> to willingly eat slimy fish though. :-P

There are lots of different types of fish, not all are slimy.  Potato wedges 
are often not very healthy if they have been fried in bad stuff, check the 
packaging.

> Well, at work I have cheese sandwiches. Given that there are no food 
> preparation facilities of any kind, I'm struggling to think what else I 
> could possibly eat. Crisps? That hardly seems like an improvement.

I have no food preparation facilities here either, but there are much 
healthier things to eat than cheese sandwiches (I guess you are having white 
bread still, right?).  First make sure you're eating brown bread and not 
white, then you can have soup with it (there are millions of different 
flavours and viscosities, don't tell me you hate all of them), salad with 
chicken or tuna, even just cutting out half the cheese and replacing it with 
some salad will be a good start.  If you prepare food in the evening then 
make a little more and take it to eat cold the next day if suitable (do you 
have a microwave at work?).

> I often have cheese on toast in the evening, but that's just because 
> there's usually no "real" food in the building.

What, you're incapable of stopping in a supermarket on the way home from 
work?

> When it's available, I tend to eat pizza (so... basically cheese then) or 
> cook some chicken. Or some other kind of meat. Or maybe just noodles. (Not 
> very filling though...)

Get some of those big packets of frozen chopped up mixed vegetables from the 
supermarket, whilst not as good as the fresh stuff it's much faster to 
prepare and is almost as good.  Then throw a bit of chicken in the oven, 
boil some noodles/rice/pasta, heat up some tomoato-based sauce (or make your 
own if you are getting in to it) and you've got a really healthy, tasty and 
quick meal.

> I spent 2 years of my life cycling over 2 hours per day. It made NO 
> DIFFERENCE at all.

Perhaps because you weren't having a weight problem back then?  I did a huge 
amount of exercise at university too and it didn't affect my weight at all. 
But then neither did junking out for 3 months with no exercise so it doesn't 
really prove anything.

> And let me tell you, each day I arrived at my destination *exhausted*. 
> Still it made no difference.

But I bet at the end of the 2 years you could make that journey way faster 
than at the beginning, if not you are not human!

> I agree. I'm a sprinter, I never could do long distances.

It's just practise.  Do 1 minute longer each day, that's definitely possible 
to sustain for a few weeks, also don't start out sprinting, start out 
thinking you're going to sustain this for 30 minutes - it makes a 
difference.

> Er, yeah, right. I know of people who have been doing that for decades and 
> still can't lose weight.

While eating healthily the whole time? Don't believe you unless they have 
some medical condition.

> Well, I recently had a blood test specifically looking for cholesterol, 
> and apparently they found nothing unusual.

Young people who are not obese rarely do, but you're on the slipperly slope 
now and the longer you go without acting the harder it will become...

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>>> I've been 80 Kg for years...
>>>
>>> Wait, how tall are you?
>>
>> 179cm
>
> OK, I'm quite a bit taller than you (188 cm).
>
>> If you divide your weight (in kg) by your height^2 (in metres) that 
>> should be between 20-25.  For me, 80kg corresponds to the upper end of 
>> the scale, so I try to keep under that.
>
> Hmm, so 80 / 1.88^2 = 22.63

See, perfect! So what's your weight now then, given that you've been 80 for 
years and you've recently gained a load?

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>> Hmm, so 80 / 1.88^2 = 22.63
> 
> See, perfect!

Heh. Well considering that I've always been skin and bones, you'd hope 
so. ;-)

> So what's your weight now then, given that you've been 80 
> for years and you've recently gained a load?

This is the operative question...

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>> Mmm, interesting. I had no idea starch was so great. Well, at least I 
>> can still max out on pasta and potatoe wedges then! There's no way I'm 
>> going to willingly eat slimy fish though. :-P
> 
> There are lots of different types of fish, not all are slimy.

Perhaps. But the guidelines specifically call for slimey fish.

> Potato 
> wedges are often not very healthy if they have been fried in bad stuff, 
> check the packaging.

If we're making our own, usually vegetable oil. If they're bought... who 
knows?

>> Well, at work I have cheese sandwiches. Given that there are no food 
>> preparation facilities of any kind, I'm struggling to think what else 
>> I could possibly eat. Crisps? That hardly seems like an improvement.
> 
> I have no food preparation facilities here either, but there are much 
> healthier things to eat than cheese sandwiches (I guess you are having 
> white bread still, right?).

What can I say? White bread has a nicer texture. :-P

> First make sure you're eating brown bread 
> and not white, then you can have soup with it

Mmm, cold soup... :-S

[Sure, I could use packet soup instead. But I fail to believe that 
eating redydrated soup dust is more healthy than eating a cheese sandwich.]

> salad with chicken or tuna

Cold meat. Yay. :-/

> even just cutting out half the cheese and 
> replacing it with some salad will be a good start.

Hey, why not just go the whole hog and eat bread on its own?

> If you prepare food 
> in the evening then make a little more and take it to eat cold the next 
> day if suitable (do you have a microwave at work?).

Don't have a microwave. The only thing we have is boiling water for 
making tea.

>> I often have cheese on toast in the evening, but that's just because 
>> there's usually no "real" food in the building.
> 
> What, you're incapable of stopping in a supermarket on the way home from 
> work?

I won't bore you with the political details. Suffice it to say that if I 
was living by myself, it would be a total non-issue. I'd buy the food I 
want to eat, and I'd eat it. The problem is my mother... Let's not even 
go into that one.

>> When it's available, I tend to eat pizza (so... basically cheese then) 
>> or cook some chicken. Or some other kind of meat. Or maybe just 
>> noodles. (Not very filling though...)
> 
> Get some of those big packets of frozen chopped up mixed vegetables from 
> the supermarket, whilst not as good as the fresh stuff it's much faster 
> to prepare and is almost as good.  Then throw a bit of chicken in the 
> oven, boil some noodles/rice/pasta, heat up some tomoato-based sauce (or 
> make your own if you are getting in to it) and you've got a really 
> healthy, tasty and quick meal.



>> I spent 2 years of my life cycling over 2 hours per day. It made NO 
>> DIFFERENCE at all.
> 
> Perhaps because you weren't having a weight problem back then?

No, but you would have *thought* I'd get at least slightly fitter, no?

>> And let me tell you, each day I arrived at my destination *exhausted*. 
>> Still it made no difference.
> 
> But I bet at the end of the 2 years you could make that journey way 
> faster than at the beginning, if not you are not human!

Travel time at the start of my course: 1.2 hours.
Travel time at the end of my course: 1.2 hours.

Nope. No measurable difference.

(Let us not even go into the fact that 1.2 hours to travel 4.6 miles is 
an average speed of something like 5 MPH, which is pretty slow for a 
bicycle...)

>> I agree. I'm a sprinter, I never could do long distances.
> 
> It's just practise.  Do 1 minute longer each day, that's definitely 
> possible to sustain for a few weeks, also don't start out sprinting, 
> start out thinking you're going to sustain this for 30 minutes - it 
> makes a difference.

I think the key here is to find something that I can realistically stick 
at. I mean, currently I have barely enough time each evening to do the 
stuff I *want* to do! So cutting out a huge chunk of that time to do 
something mind-blowingly boring and probably futile isn't going to be easy.

>> Er, yeah, right. I know of people who have been doing that for decades 
>> and still can't lose weight.
> 
> While eating healthily the whole time? Don't believe you unless they 
> have some medical condition.

Well, my mum seems to eat nothing _but_ dead plants. And she's still huge...

(It's quite amusing to be told "you eat so unhealthily, you're going to 
get really ill" by a woman who eats nothing but supposedly "healthy" 
food and is never the less criplingly unhealthy...)

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Invisible a écrit :
> I think the key here is to find something that I can realistically stick 
> at. I mean, currently I have barely enough time each evening to do the 
> stuff I *want* to do! So cutting out a huge chunk of that time to do 
> something mind-blowingly boring and probably futile isn't going to be easy.

You'd have to find something that you find interesting even just on the 
intellectual level, I believe. That way you'll get exercise without 
being bored...

For me it's been martial arts. I think anything that has a complex 
technical component would fit the bill though... Not necessarily 
something very violent, take aikido for example. Something technical 
enough that it keeps your brain working a bit. Plus you'll learn some 
Japanese :-) Plus there are more girls in aikido than in other arts :-D

-- 
Vincent

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