zeropulse, imax80, alsa0903 :

The danger when cutting out a lot of carbo and quantities of meals, is that you run the risk of losing muscles as well, not only fat. You can do it for awhile but if you're not extremely careful, when you get back to normal eating, you find yourself bingeing on carbo stuff even more and put on more weight. You also run the risk of health problems due to lack of nutrition.

zeropulse : the thing with getting a trimmer tummy, is that you actually need to do muscle toning and a bit of carbo fasting. cardio, crunches would help but it may need to be a more all-round-body exercise that pushes your cardio hard. hmm....you may have to find one of the fitness buffs to do it. syd g, pizzaboy, iamyuanwu, mofonyx, are folks i look for help but there's others who would be willing to lend a hand to gals. Also, read up on the first 10-20 posts where we talk a lot about milo and all.

alsa0903 : the problem with meal replacements is that you can only do so much about it before you run into health problems especially those that you can't see physically or feel it and it requires tests to really tell what has happened. the best is to actually eat more vegetables and fruits and between the 2, more vegetables than fruits.

tengster : one day, when got time, we really should redo this thread and actually get V2 up with a first post about a guidance for proper meal planning. So many extreme diets that needs to be debunk.

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Added on May 24, 2009, 2:11 amzeist : cheese is ok as long as it's low fat or you can manage your weight when eating normal cheese.

This post has been edited by myremi: May 24 2009, 02:11 AM

neuroticmind : Well, if you really want to take sugar, you have to bum up your exercise plan just to burn off that sugar.

If you take a peek at www.bodybuilding.com, you'll start to notice that a lot of bodybuilders and other fitness folks do not take jam or if they do, very very sparingly.

Just remember, it takes about 14 days to break a habit. May be tough to do but hey, sometimes it's good to drop the bad habit.

It's been years since I last had jam. I can't stand the sweet taste of it and it makes my teeth ache. Even a little bit is overload for me. Just never got used to it. Even putting butter on bread, I'm not used to it.

This post has been edited by myremi: May 24 2009, 04:46 PM

Syd G is more scary than me! Even I'm afraid of her sharp wit!

starting V2 with a complete overview of proper dieting is going to be one hell of a pain to just right.

I'll see what I can do next week. Off for a week holiday during Gawai hols since factory is close.

neuroticmind : Oh, I took a look at some shops for Bento containers. I bought it from Parkson last Friday night. It was either for RM114 or RM144 with a free travel mug (Thermos brand).

http://www.lelong.com.my/Auc/List/2009-06D...-JBA-1801GY.htm

Comes with 3 containers and a chopstick.

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Added on May 25, 2009, 11:16 amNote : The volume is slightly more than what is the recommended intake for ladies though. So I use the top jar for my breakfast meal and the other 2 for my lunch. I don't fill up the biggest jar completely.

This post has been edited by myremi: May 25 2009, 11:16 AM

Nitrofang, that you?

LOL! Hi hi...

Hmm...the only thing I know about dropping BF is that you would have to seriously review your carb + fat intake and reduce it drastically. Also, you may also need to relook your fitness regime too especially on cardio. Not all cardio are the same but I'm not in a good position to explain much on it. I've look at a few people on how they drop their BF and it's not easy. They go on a carbless diet and then add some carbs back into their meal to stop the BF loss. But they still do the shredded diet on and off every year though to maintain their BF. The fitness regime also doesn't look easy. You may have to check with the fitness buffs but if you don't go to a gym at least 5x a week to reduce your BF, well, they may be very sharp.

On another note, wanna join us for the 2nd LYN FATSO Challenge (25 May - 30 June)? It's just a bunch of people motivating one another to get through it.

Hmm... I'm not sure but you might want to check up with the other body builders here about dropping BF. You may have to go on a total carbless diet for a couple of weeks and see what happens. You would also need to be careful when you're getting off a carbless diet that you don't go on a carb bingeing mode because your body would crave for carbs more after going off a carbless one.

I'm doing the PN diet plan where part of the 10 habits, to eat carbs after exercise. I'm still having trouble trying to meet the carbless requirement, especially since I only exercise 3x a week so that means 4 days no carbs. I find that I have to constantly keep eating veggies or fruit just to keep the carb cravings off. ATM, trying to do the transition to a carbless breakfast and it's not exactly easy.

I made Tabouli Salad and a Spinach, Cashew Nut and Feta Cheese Pesto tonite. The Tabouli was a refreshing change from the boring Garden Salad. The pesto was amazing. Probably 52-80 kcal per teaspoon, I couldn't tell because the recipe calls for low-fat feta cheese and I couldn't get it. I can't remember but I think one serving of that pesto was about 1 serving of vegetable alone (I cooked about 3 handsfull of spinach and blended it with the nuts, cheese, pinch of cumin, pepper, 1 tsp lemon juice). I got the recipe off the PN site.

Another potential shopping place is Daiso. It's a Japanese 100 yen shop so everything in there is RM5. I bought one of my containers there. It's a microwaveable 2 stack container - lids are not microwave proof but you can remove the lid when microwaving. It doesn't keep food warm though. You'll need to buy a lunchbox strap to hold it in place, it's not quite airtight.

Skipping makes it worst because your body is not getting enough nutrients to function properly or to combat any bacteria/viruses that you come into contact with.

Work stress and diet stress.

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Added on May 26, 2009, 1:29 amOn a site note, dish planning :

http://www.amazon.com/Salter-1450-Digital-...e/dp/B000JNU95Y

Very $$$ though.

This post has been edited by myremi: May 26 2009, 01:29 AM

I know it's cheaper. I'm also lazy.

On another note, think I have to seriously up my fish oil intake. Since reducing carbs a lot to lose weight, I can feel the skin of my hands and face drying up, what more my arms and legs. Maybe add some flax seeds.

And I just realised that I need to get some glass containers for salads. Not sure whether the dressings will react with the plastic materials or not.

God, the laziness was bad. Urgh. I can be a classic case of things gone bad.

I'm suspecting it's the fat so slowly ramping it up. Took an additional tablet of cod liver oil and it's clearing up. Don't think I'm dehydrated as I take quite a lot of water easily.

tengster : Yep. Taking more fish oil tablets. Just surprised at the reaction. I think there's probably a lot more oil in the veggie + meat dishes outside for economy rice since when I did Atkins 5 years ago and I used to go out and eat with colleagues. Did some pampering last nite with facial and body moisturizers so things are better this morning.

As for the knee problem, nope, not shoes. I stop wearing heels and wear proper shoes that provide support. I also know the knee is link to my back as it occured when I was on a trip to US last Xmas. It was a long long long flight.

When lying down, I cannot life my right leg up perpendicular. This is one of the ways that doctors check to see if anything is wrong with the spine. Left leg can go full straight up but not the right. It's happened before when I had the prolapsed disc. I'll have occassional back problems as it's common for ppl with spinal cord problems.

Losing weight is helping. And today it's almost normal. Surprisingly not much pain.

neuroticmind : I went back to Parkson this evening because realising that I don't have a good glass container to keep salad that may have some lemon juice in them. I bought some Glasslock containers since they were water tight and there was a 50% promotion going on. It's still not so cheap but the lady at the counter mentioned that it doesn't break so fast.

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Added on May 27, 2009, 11:17 amneuroticmind : 900 ml glasslock was RM44, down from RM89. They ahve it in all shapes and sizes but not cheap. For microwave, oven, dishwasher, etc.

This post has been edited by myremi: May 27 2009, 11:17 AM

I'm using the thermos one everyday now for both breakfast and lunch.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/Myremi

I think today's lunch is not in there. Will upload tonite.

tengster : It's longer. Add an additional 5 hours from Dallas to LA. And if you add in all the waiting time, I think easily reach total 5-8 hours. So all in all, it was a tiring trip.

You seldom see my cardio report because I only arrived back in Kuching on 16 May. Then jet lag whacked body up and down plus backpain. Even keeping posture is difficult because of the economy class seat lah. Only managed cardio twice since I came back, including today. Next is Friday.

presario9 : eat more veggies and fruits (more veggies though). It will help.

aPiT_OxyMoxy : Portion control has always been a strong and fundamental method for weight control. Glad that it works out for you. You're putting on weight because of carbs or sugar? Or uncontrolled eating?

The thing is this : once you grow older, you reach a point where your body flicks a switch and says "Ok, no more growth. I'm now aging" and your metabolic rate states to slow down.

And I think tengster probably found another weak point in your portion control. Where is your cardio exercises? It just means a form of exercise that builds your stamina. And if your outdoor activities doesn't make your muscles ache, then you're not doing enough activity to burn off the calories.

richard, hmm....I guess trim down your exercise duration while you're under stress. Since you're still learning to cope with exams and dieting. Hopefully, you can get used to it after your current exams. You'll find that exercise will become a stress reliever once you get used to the routine.

I would say don't do that to dinner. Just eat healthy options like lunch and you should be fine. If you're extremely worried, just skip rice on alternate days. Don't cut out veggie and meat.

sky.live : For me, I notice that I fluctuate in-between 2 days of weighing is if I cheated on food or I didn't exercise 3-7 days. That cheat on food can also mean carbo portion cheat since I eat carbo once a day (excluding veggie and rice) atm.

As for scale being faulty, can also happen if you didn't get a reputable scale or it's getting old.

No transfat nutrition labelling : Reason for this could be because the US guidelines for it is < 0.5g of transfat can be labelled as no transfat. And yes, some margerines have less then 0.5g transfat, looking at the FDA article about it.

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Added on May 28, 2009, 8:56 am
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_fat#United_States : about the controversy about the < 0.5g transfat for labelling as zero fat. It's in the US portion.

http://www.fda.gov/FDAC/features/2003/503_fats.html : Tub of margerine.

So, anyone want to contact Gardenia for clarification?

This post has been edited by myremi: May 28 2009, 08:58 AM

Give it a few more days and see what happens at next weigh-in.

The creepy thing is that your stretch marks on the right side of your belly is the location of one of mine too. *shudder*

Took me awhile to get onto a carbless diet. You can do it slowly but remove it from each meal. The first few days are hard because your body is craving for it. But afterwards, it's easier. Just don't surround yourself with carbs and if you can, throw it out of your kitchen. I can't because I live with family who are still taking carbs.

Having said that, I'm not totally carbless. I try to time it such that I take it after exercise. I take a lot of veggies and some fruit (usually only 2 servings of fruits daily compared to 5-6 servings of veggie).

You'll also find that you have to take more snacks but that's ok as your main meals would be slightly smaller.

charge-n-go, zeist, neuroticmind : not totally carbless lah! carbs after exercise! adoi!

richard : how long are you alone at home? can you make arrangements with relatives living nearby to help feed you? if you can't cook, the other way is tuna + tomato/cucumber/lettuce + wholemeal bread.

check with iamyuanwu how he manage meals while in college. i remember him saying that he didn't do much cooking in college and he was already working out in a gym then.