Best way to lose weight?

[ballin]

Seeing as how this is a sports blog I assume some of you guys out there know a thing or two about staying fit.

So here's the situation: I'm currently a pretty muscular 5'9 185 lbs. Gaining muscle has never been an issue for me; it's this (relatively) thin layer of fat that I've been trying to lose that's been killing me. I've tried pretty much everything I can think of to lose these last 15 pounds of fat and nothing seems to really be doing the trick. Anybody out (who has had personal experienced losing weight) there have any advice?

[celticsclay]

I could potentially give you advice, but would need to know what your diet (detailed) and exercise regimine looks like for it to be relevant feel free to post that so other poster can chime in..

[moiso]

Obviously you probably know to take in less calories and increase your excercise more.  Small meals every few hours is helpful.  Reduce your carbs like bread, rice, pasta, and get plenty of protein and veggies.  Don't eat too close to bedtime.  Try doing cardio with no carbs in your belly and see how you feel- you will do more fat burning that way.

If you work out, compound exercise like squats, leg presses, deadlifts, bench presses burn the most calories and increase your metabolism.

Drinking water with meals is good.  A trick I use to reduce calorie intake is to eat a large pickle or two after eating some regular food- they can help fill you up and they have almost no calories.  

[moiso]

I could potentially give you advice, but would need to know what your diet (detailed) and exercise regimine looks like for it to be relevant feel free to post that so other poster can chime in..

thats true.  I just kind of went off blindly.

[zerophase]

you don't have to diet per say but i would look into what you are eating and the rations of your meals-- you shouldn't be stuffed after every meal. everyone is smart enough to know what is generally "healthy" vs unhealthy eating is.

as for the workouts i would look into doing some explosive cardio. instead of just running for half an hour make it into pick ups. play basketball... some sort of cardio that gets you from a rested heart rate to workout heart rate spike and then quickly bring it back down. also just continue lifting each day but try to avoid total body workouts... isolate each muscle and work it independently.

lastly, give it time. that last 15 lbs is very hard to lose if you're plateaued and generally fit.

[clover]

Frequent, small meals that always combine good carbs and protein.  None of all the stuff you know is bad for you, including white starches and sugar.  Unprocessed, whole food is best.  You want to keep up the weights an probably some cardio, so you don't lose muscle mass.

[JSD]

Seeing as how this is a sports blog I assume some of you guys out there know a thing or two about staying fit.

So here's the situation: I'm currently a pretty muscular 5'9 185 lbs. Gaining muscle has never been an issue for me; it's this (relatively) thin layer of fat that I've been trying to lose that's been killing me. I've tried pretty much everything I can think of to lose these last 15 pounds of fat and nothing seems to really be doing the trick. Anybody out (who has had personal experienced losing weight) there have any advice?

Very simple.

Couple things:

Knowing body weight maintenance is an important part of the equation because it allows you to set proper diet limitations. To maintain your weight, you need to eat roughly 2200 calories a day. http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

-3500 calories = 1 pound lost.

Therefore, if you eat 1700 calories a day, you'll end each day at -500, each week at -3500 and lose a pound.

Or

If you eat 2200 calories and run for -500 a day, you'll get the same result.

To maintain muscle, you must eat at least 1 gram of protein for every pound of your lean body mass (You're body weight without any fat). Any Google search will give you this info. So for you, eat about 160 grams of protein a day (based on an estimation that you're about 15% body fat).

Count calories, run and get the proper protein and you'll achieve your goals.


PS - Absolutely no alcohol.

[JSD]

Another thing, check out the forums at http://forum.bodybuilding.com/

You'll find helpful people who have a ton of knowledge there.

[Papatrichs]

have a depression ... either you lose weight or gain 15 pounds.... Just exercise and a balanced meal would be nice.

[CeltsAcumen]

Ok, Ill take a stab at it.  I recently had to make drastic diet changes bc of an auto immune disorder that got out of control about 4 years ago.  Here is what I did:

1.  Change to a partial-vegetarian diet.  Eating meat is fine but you have to limit your consumption and focus on the right types (organic, free range, etc.).  Which is great bc most meat produced in the US is EXTREMELY toxic for you to eat.  I eat 2 meals a week with chicken and that's it.  No Red meat.  No seafood of any kind.  Both are toxic. 

2.  Try and get away from white flour, white sugar, and most of all HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.  Read the labels you will be shocked at what has HFCS.

3.  No fast food of any type, the food they use is not really food and causes major problems.

4.  Eat "food" only, not processed food.  The rule of thumb is if you cannot understand the ingredients, don't eat it.

5.  Do some form of Yoga.  I prefer power yoga, but any is fine.

You have to change your entire way to thinking about food and exercise.  Food is fuel and exercise is to keep your body at peek performance.

I lost 77 lbs in a half of a year doing this.  I am now 6'4" 230(roughly, I don't weigh myself any longer bc its not the point of changing.)

If you follow these rules, you will lose weight and keep it off easily. Focus on being healthy and eating the right things and you will lose weight.

[JSD]

I eat 2 meals a week with chicken and that's it.  No Red meat.  No seafood of any kind.  Both are toxic. 

How is seafood toxic?

[CeltsAcumen]

All seafood is toxic, mercury poisoning is an example.  Any hazardous material binds with lipids tend to store in fat for long periods of time, especially animal fat tissue.  So anything toxic in the ocean is absorbed by animals in the ocean.  Any seafood human's eat are high on the food chain in the ocean which means those animals absorb not only toxic chemicals in the ocean but from eating other small animals. 

[blackbird]

As I got older I realized that my metabolism had slowed way down, so when I got to a point that I needed to lose 20 pounds or so this is what I did:

1. Stop snacking.
2. No more sweets or other junk food like fries.
3. No more alcohol.
4. Drink about half gallon of water a day.
5. Eat out less often (b/c the portions are usually gigantic).

and what people tell me I'm crazy for:
6. Skip lunch.

It wasn't a big deal because like I said my metabolism had slowed or something and I wasn't ever hungry, I was just eating because it was lunch time and eating was my habit. I have a bigger than average breakfast that sustains me until I get home from work.

Anyway, I lost 15 pounds pretty quickly. I still have the extra 5 pounds and also have to deal with a wife who insists I'm anorexic just because I'm not hungry. I don't exercise any more.

[crownsy]

This is a pretty specific one but if you have a smart phone, in addition to all these other great tips, grab an app named

mynetdairy

the free version is good enough, it allows you to set up a plan, defined by your age, weight, activity level (be honest or it doesnt work)

It then calculates how many caliories/ fats you are allowed per day to meet your goal

you can enter foods by creating them yourself, searching for them in a google like search bar (and it logs what others with the app have created, so rarley do i have to enter all the nutritional info by hand) and a nifty barcode scanner.

AS you enter things throughout the day, be it food or exercise, it calculates how many calories you have left to meet your goal.

Certainly more of a check on yourself than an actual weight loss method, but over three months it's helped me go from 232 to 214. It helps just to keep a lg of what you've had at hand to plan out your day/ know when you can sneak that snack and when you cant.

[ballin]

Thanks for the advice guys. I think what's 100% killing me is is the drinking (and worse, what I eat when I'm drunk) on the weekends. I'm probably gonna have to cut that out for a little bit.