Arijit's Weight Loss Diary

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arijitmitter

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i am from India. i have had strange trouble with weight gain most of my adult life ..

at 15 i was scrawny 5'3" and weighed 90 lbs. i also began some exercises that year [ if you can calculate back .. that was the year that Rocky IV came out so the connection is obvious :boxing: ]
by 18 i was a muscular guy and weighed in at a healthy 130 lbs and my height had also increased to 5'7"
at 19 i let go of exercise and added freshman 15 .. i was chubby 154 lbs through college :hurray:
at 21 i took to dieting for first time and brought it down to 110 lbs [ took 10 months ]
between 22 - 28 i let it climb back to 190 lbs
at 28 i took to diet and tons of body weight exercises and brought it down to 125 lbs [ took 6 months ]
between 29 and 30 i gained back to 190 lbs
at 30 i again dieted and exercised my way back to 125 lbs [ took 6 months ]
at 32 i let go of my 400 push ups a day habit again and have ballooned to current weight of 218 lbs

whew :rolleyes: what an account .. glad to have been able to get it off my chest ..
i want to get my weight down to 150 lbs by Christmas 2011 ..
will be back later to write more :coolgleamA:
take care all and god bless you
 
measurements are all important so here are mine -
Measurements 4/4/2011
Age 40 years , Height ( Inches ) 67.5 , Weight ( Pounds ) 218 , Neck 16 , Chest 42 - 45 , Waist 44 , Hips 43 , Upper Arm 13.6 , Forearm 11.5 , Thigh 22.5 , Calves 16.5 , BMI 33.60

and how do i plan to drop 68 pounds in 8 months . well my diet will be simple since i have to cook myself and in India diet replacement foods are not available . Indian cooking is very oily and spicy [ think curry :drool5: ] . fast food here does not mean burgers but kebabs folded inside deep fried bread called parathas . i also do not have a lot of time to visit the market . so every time i exercise and diet i like to stay with a no nonsense plan

8 cups tea / coffee per day [ no milk one spoon sugar ] , lunch and dinner will be one bowl chicken soup and 3 slices brown bread and one boiled egg , few low fat biscuits through the day to keep hunger at bay and a multivitamin multimineral tablet . total about 1200 calories .
cheat will be a 1 oz pack of Lay's potato chips and 8 oz bottle of Pepsi if needed . one large chocolate will be on standby if i need calories in a hurry [ example my computer broke down and i need to go buy a hard drive and fix it right now and reformat my computer in next six hours .. stress , stress , stress need 400 calories right now ]

the diet is brutal [ it is the same diet i have done before at 28 and 30 ] . i can maintain it since i am a single guy and my work is from home . my hours of work are strange . i wake up at 4:40 AM ; work from 5:15 - 10:30 AM ; have lunch at 12:30 PM ; sleep from 1 PM - 3 PM [ unless i have to leave home for some reason ] ; 4 PM - 8 PM work ; 9:30 PM dinner ; 10:30 PM sleep . so i put in 7 - 8 hours sleep but biphasic sleep .

exercise regimen . i love bodyweight exercises . at age 30 i could do 400 push ups [ 8 sets of 50 ] . i like bodybuilders but i do not want to look like them . i like the wiry feel of being like Bruce Lee [ almost same height and weight as me when i am in shape ]

my preliminary workout is following . it is to be done almost without any pause [ say 30 secs ] between sets and exercises . at peak fitness it takes about 7 minutes to complete

Push Up 15 x 2 = 30
Sit Up 15 x 2 = 30
Reverse Leg Crunches 10 x 2 = 20
Back Extension 15 x 2 = 30
Squats 15 x 2 = 30
Calf Raise 20 x 2 = 40

however i am not at peak fitness and i could hardly go from curling a Pepsi can to 30 push ups in a day . so i have set a 21 day target to hit the preliminary mark . then i will adjust it as need be .

what are the my main challenges .

from my previous experience i can say there is nothing fun about either dieting or exercising [ to drop weight ] . it is filled with hunger pangs , dizziness , cravings , sweat , panting and exhaustion .
the fun is at end of six months ; being able to fit into 30" waist jeans and having your skin wrap tightly around your jaws .
i do not believe in the " drop 1 lb a week it is safe and will stay off forever " school . unless a newbie dieter sees at least few pounds reduction quickly it is tough to sustain the motivation . if a 200 lb guy drops 10 lbs in 10 weeks he is most likely going to drop out of dieting . also " it stays off if you do it slowly " is incorrect ; fat people were born with a high number of adipose cells in abdomen and thighs and hips . they are never going to go away unless one does liposuction . all that the fat person can do is make them shrink by not eating and then maintain a high level of activity so that they do not enlarge to the previous extent . but a fat man can never be a thin man ; a fat man can only look like a thin man .

what chances do i have .

about 5 % chance of being successful and 95 % chance of dropping out anytime between tomorrow and December . weight loss requires mental calm and respite from stress . ideally one should choose a six month period when one is least likely to experience stress . but in India it is festival time between October and January and it is almost impossible to keep to a strict diet at that time . so i had to choose April - August as my core months . it will be hot outside with heat humidity index at 130 F daily ; nothing to do indoors but exercise [ contrary to popular belief exercise makes you feel cooler than if you have not exercised since exercise makes your body give up toxins ; this is especially true in a tropical country like mine ] .

okay enough words said .. i am now almost 3/4th way through my second day of exercise and diet .. all is going as per plan till now .. hope i can keep at it
 
6th of March . 3rd day .

total diet cheat in 3 days [ i calculate it by looking at my perfect low calorie diet and finding out how much extra i have had in form of junk food ]
900 ml Pepsi [ 1.9 pints ] and 3 oz potato chips = 1500 calories [ averages out to 500 calorie cheat per day ]
got to try to be free of this . also i smoke 2 cigarettes per day . have to try to be rid of that also .

the pain is starting . hunger pangs are bad as body loses last glycogen stores from my last full meal on sunday night . did 20 reps of most of the exercises i listed above but broken as 15 reps and 5 reps . joints are frozen due to long hours spent in sedentary work . today is day 3 ; so by day 10 i expect they will limber up . my target is day 21 for completeing the above listed exercises in about 15 minutes .

what is keeping me alive . endlessly watching Jack Bauer in 24 . would love to have a drink with him one day :beerchug: ; but he is fictional :( and also with it endlessly watching Rocky movies
my favorite quote from Rocky Balboa

“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place, and I don’t care how tough you are,
it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
You, me, or nobody, is gonna hit as hard as life.

But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward.
How much you can take and keep moving forward.
That’s how winning is done ! Now if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth.
But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers,
saying you ain’t where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody ! Cowards do that, and that ain’t you!”.
 
5th day . really happy . stress at work from yesterday but i have not succumbed to my body's sudden desire to have junk food . i met body's demand half way substituting junk with total 3 meals [ one on 4th day and two meals today ] of lightly cooked macaroni with very little oil and scrambled eggs and one half of roasted potato
this is a big victory . i was waiting to see my determination to give up junk food for good when stress hit :hurray:
but missed workout due to lack of time
 
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I remember having good chicken soup in Calcutta. It was near the metro station on a very big road in BBD Bagh. Very yummy. Though i used to feed the chicken lumps to the little puppies living in the garden near Hare Street Police station. Do you know the area i am talking about.

I'll spare you the long lecture about your food. But I think its very unhealthy.

I am sure the boys will enjoy reading about your weight training program. 400 pushups is quite impressive. Scary even. I can't even do 10.
 
fortyfour said:
I remember having good chicken soup in Calcutta. It was near the metro station on a very big road in BBD Bagh. Very yummy. Though i used to feed the chicken lumps to the little puppies living in the garden near Hare Street Police station. Do you know the area i am talking about.

I'll spare you the long lecture about your food. But I think its very unhealthy.

I am sure the boys will enjoy reading about your weight training program. 400 pushups is quite impressive. Scary even. I can't even do 10.
Click to expand...

sure I know the area .. nice to find someone here who has visited Calcutta :)

my diet is unhealthy .. i agree fully .. but i can do it since being single [ thus worry free ] and working from home it allows me to indulge in it [ actually it is modified cabbage soup diet ] . i can let myself become weak over six months if i do it in a planned manner and have a solid plan to be free of the weakness once the weight drop target has been achieved .

the first week ends today . it has not been very good . i kept to my diet for 4 and 1/2 days and cheated on it partially for 2 and 1/2 days . i hope i will not have unpleasant surprises at work like i had this week .

i will put my total cheat for the week at about 7000 calories maximum . that is an average of 1000 calories per day more than perfect low calorie diet . even at 2200 calories [ after cheat ] my total food intake every day has been less than the 3000 calories i used to have normally . i have not lost any weight at end of the week but i have had least amount of junk food in one week for long long time [ maybe five years ] .

small victory but a victory nevertheless :hurray:
 
Have you ever just tried going without junk food. If i were you, knowing how many calories you eat in junk food, why not replace the junk with real food.

Do you know about the glycaemic index and sugar spikes and things like that. You should consider researching them some. But a note of warning, do not give any weight to the glycaemic index of vegetables, except perhaps potato if you depend on them a lot. The main point of the GI index is that low GI foods will satisfy you for longer. So you will be able to avoid cravings more easily.

Junk food gives you sugar spikes. Hence why you need a whole bar of chocolate and not one piece, especially if you eat it on an empty stomach.

Going hungry for too long is what leads to the desire for junk food. Its better to eat something nutritious and low GI as soon as you start having signs of hunger. A piece of fruit doesn't really work either but a piece of bread would. But better to have an early meal and get the full benefit of that. On the other hand, a whole bowl of chopped fruit would work cause its got enough calories to satisfy the need for calories.

I am pushing this line because surely its not only about being slim and good looking. What about your health? You know! Your arteries and cancer prevention - speaking of which, you should move out of calcutta if you don't want to die young of lung cancer. That place is the most polluted city i have ever been too. It's the one thing i don't like about it. Why can't they do something there when they can in delhi and mumbai. Its a scandal that people have to breathe in this deadly air soup.

Can you not afford to have a cook bring in food for you. I know lots of middle class indians can. If you told them to make moderate size meals and what you wanted and didnt' want, this would be a far easier way for you to reach your goals. Also buy yourself a water filter. Or have i said that already.

Ok i know i am a bossy controlling cow lol but it is terrible to watch people struggle with their diets unnecessarily. All you need to do to avoid bad food in your city is choose dishes that are lower in fats and sugars. Skip the deep fried food and sugar in your tea and you would be a long way ahead. That's all you have to do.

If i lived in calcutta this is what i would eat

ok chicken soup once a day cause you obviously love it. But also with a piece of bread without butter or oil so that you have enoguh calories to sustain you. I mean if you are doing these heavy workouts you do need a reasonable amount of calories.

chick pea curry with chappati no fat. a good breakfast.

The other meal would be a working man's thali with vegetables, dal and rice, no chapatti or papadams, plus curd if its available and no top ups. Vegetable oil is not unhealthy. Just high in calories.

In between meals get fruit from the street if they sell it that way there. Or keep some in your apartment/office.

try to keep your salt intake down. Indians eat far too much salt. Perhaps one reason why there is so much high blood pressure and heart attack. Someone explained its because they sweat so much that they need so much salt. Well i think a compromise is probably worth considering. Just less salt cause you guys do eat too much of it.

Do you know that legumes and such like chickpeas and lentils burn through the bad cholesterol. Its very very healthy food. I know its often cooked with too much oil but i think if you are burning off the calories, its worth eating. Besides its yummy. And if its not yummy for you, you should find something similar.

Well sorry for my bossiness. Its difficult to see you eating such a limited diet when there's such a lot of good food available.

Oh make that a fish thali!

All this food would be easily compensated for by your weightlifting regime. Just don't have seconds or desserts and quit the sweet tea. All around india most chai wallahs were happy to make me chai binnar cheeni! Gosh i was trying to learn hindi when i was there and as soon as got back to mumbai, i forgot everything. But finally i can remember something. I should do. I had to say it several times a day.

Ok i've said all i think about your diet and now i will shut up and let you carry on as you want. No more guilt trips or controlling behaviour from me. Best of luck.

Send me a pm if you come over to my side and i will continue following your progress and give you moral support. :) if you want it.
 
I'd second fortyfour- or at least go along the same lines. You've got way too much rubbish in your diet, and you need to radically cut down. A thousand calories of junk a day? That's over half of most women's daily calorie allowance (and most mens' calorie allowance doesn't differ that much)! And "only" 7000 calories a week is two pounds, or nearly a kilogram (a kilogram is 2.2 pounds), if you look at in terms of what you have to restrict in order to lose weight.

Where fortyfour and I disagree (amicably) is that I think cutting down (in your case, radically), not out, is the answer. In my diet I plan to have one small serving of "bad" food between once every two weeks and once a month. One. A month. (not day, month, and I'd count some of the stuff you're recording as three bad things a day, and not necessarily small) And I intend to "save" my calories for it in advance, rather than doing what you're doing, which is more akin to taking out a loan. Your body is probably already paying the price (weight gain/ failed weight loss/ and lack of nutrition, which is just as if not more important), and you're setting yourself up for mortgage style weight gain/ health problems by so casually including rubbish in your diet. You cannot afford to incorporate rubbish in your diet every day. It's a treat, not a daily thing.

I also think you misunderstand low calorie diets. 1200 isn't an aim for everyone. It's a minimum that women should never go below (if they are extremely small and extremely sedentary- the vast majority of adults need more than that). If you want to look at calories, you need to calculate your own needs. I use this website: , which gives your BMR, which (I converted your figures into metric before running them through) is 2005.3. That's the minimum that you need if you were to do nothing but lie in bed all day. In order to maintain your weight, you need about one of the following figures (rounded to nearest calorie):
If you're sedentary, you need 2406 calories a day
If you're lightly active (light exercise 1-3 days a week), you need 2757 calories a day
If you're moderately active (moderate exercise 3-5 days a week), you need 3108 calories a day
If you're very active (very hard exercise/ sports or physical job), you need 3810 calories a day.

But this is to maintain your current weight, and that's not why you're here. In order to lose weight, you should cut between 500 and 1000 calories from the number that applies to you. (Roughly, 500 to lose a pound a week, 1000 to lose a kilogram) 1200 calories is not a safe diet for you (or for me, for that matter, I currently restrict my diet at just shy of 1740- and I'm shorter and lighter than you, and female). You cannot survive (or at least, be anywhere near healthy) on so few nutrients. And the rubbish you're eating on top contains very few nutrients. You need to use every calorie you've got to get as many nutrients into your body as you can if you're going to restrict your diet.

I'm not an expert on this, but I presume if you want to gain muscle mass (which I presume you do, given the program you used to have) you also need to pay close attention to your diet, and chips, chocolate, and fizzy drink isn't going to help you at all. You need to get that stuff out of your reach and find snacks which work better for you (I mostly snack on fruit and vegetables).

I'd recommend looking at nutritional guidelines in India (or elsewhere) to find out what you should be eating in order to get the nutrients you need. Alternately, I use the NHS website (as I'm in England), and I find it to be a good simple guide:

There's also a page for South Asian (which includes Indian) health in the UK:

Edit to add: I know I'm being harsh, but I really think you need to hear this. I don't want to upset you, just try to give you some awareness of how bad some of your choices are.
 
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Amy has done you a good deed in calculating all that for you. If you want to work it out yourself, you can do it on the nutritiondata.self.com website. You can do it in either pounds or kilograms, calories or kilojoules i think. Whatever works best for you. YOu can also learn more about the nutritional value of various foods there.

I double checked what i came up with my for myself on that website with my own diet book and got almost the same result. So i think you can trust it.

I understand that since you know about glycogen, there's a chance you know a fair bit about nutrition too. But me (and Amy probably too), given the diet you've chosen, we are not convinced, so we've tried to fill in possible gaps.
 
I might add that there's no need to starve yourself on calorie restriction (at least not at the level I'm eating, and you'll almost certainly need more than that). My own meals (which I understand may not work for you for cultural reasons and/ or availability of certain foods) very rarely leave me feeling anything other than satisfied (and when I do feel less than satisfied, it's because I've done something stupid like skip lunch or gone more than a couple of hours with no food). If my brief googling has given me the correct information, glycogen stores are built up through carbohydrate consumption, and this can be achieved perfectly well on a low calorie diet (or even a low fat/ high nutrient diet like fortyfour's if you don't want to calorie count). In addition, it seems glycogen is most important during exercise, and is stored, so is probably less of a concern for you (and me) given our sedentary activites are broken up by exercise, not the other way around. (Too much glycogen and it's converted into fat, apparently)

I honestly think the best place to start is nutritional requirements- for example, in the UK they recommend you eat 5 80g serves of fruit and vegetables a day, and up to 100g of meat (but no more than 80g of red or processed meat). Look to those sorts of guidelines (there's more details on the NHS website, and different countries have different guidelines- in Australia they recommend 2 fruit, 5 vegetable, for example- so you may want to check Indian nutritional guidelines- perhaps on this site? The National Insitute of Nutrition, I just found it on Google) as a way in which you should shape your diet- then think about how you can restrict it. (But keep in mind that every nutritional guideline I've ever seen has put things like chips, Pepsi, and chocolate into the "rarely" category as to how often you should eat it)
 
thank you FortyFour [ i do not know your name :( ] and Amy for your support , care and advice [ exactly the reason i became a member of this Forum ] :)

i seem to have not explained very well when i described my diet
8 cups tea / coffee per day [ no milk one spoon sugar ] ,
lunch and dinner will be one bowl chicken soup and 3 slices brown bread and one boiled egg ,
few low fat biscuits through the day to keep hunger at bay and a multivitamin multimineral tablet . total about 1200 calories .
what i did not add is i munch something like a seasonal fruit in between . i also will alternate my diet with garbanzo beans [ chick pea ] soup [ in place of chicken soup ] . not only that but my chicken soup has cabbage and capsicum soup added to it so that i do not miss out on my greens [ albeit as a soup ] .
now there is a point about diet which i am trying to bring out . some people are very comfortable with a diet plan where every day the items are different in order to break the monotony while some will rather have the same thing every day and keep a 400 calorie blank space which they can fill up with something of their choice [ much less hassle that way ] . usually women can make the earlier type diet happen and single men the latter type diet .

while i will like to adopt the the earlier type of diet i honestly have neither the time nor the ability to do it . also this might sound a bit odd but is true - across the Western world there are many products available which help with diet [ calorie restricted food alternatives ] . good example being Diet Pepsi [ thankfully it has made its way here also ] . Thousand Island reduced calorie Kraft will be welcome . it makes it that much easier to be on a diet when you are able to use low cal dressing ( hope i am able to convey what i mean )

while going without junk food will be best [ when on a diet ] it will also need me to have a Christian Bale lifestyle where all i need to do is diet and watch television while i drop from 220 lbs to 160 [ for The Fighter ] . normal people with hectic schedules and deadlines will succumb to fast food .

Amy one point you have misunderstood is i had 1000 calories of extra calories per day when averaged over the week . does not mean that i had 1000 calories of junk . i wrote i ate diet food for 4 and 1/2 days normal food for 2 and 1/2 days [ had 1 Pepsi and 1 oz potato chips every day ] . calculating it all , i had 7000 calories over and above a 1200 calorie diet . [ meaning i averaged out at 2200 calories per day even with all junk food added in ] . the 7000 extra calories was made up of 3500 calories pure junk and 3500 calories in shape of 5 meals of macaroni and cheese and a small slice of cake .

the major point is i did not fall of the wagon completely . i am back to my 1200 calories from today . the exception was triggerred by major stress at work which does not happen more than once a month . i can live with 4000 extra calories a month when and if such triggers repeat . i am glad i have not quit diet [ as previously i did between 33 and now ]

@ FortyFour .. India as you have seen is like Europe [ in fact Europe with common Parliament and common currency is aspiring to become like India in its political structure ] . every state in India is like a different country [ Germany , France and so on ] with completely different language , food , culture , customs , etc . Indians do not go and settle outside home state except for education and work [ just like most Germans stay in Germany and so on ] . India is a collection of smaller nations under one flag . we have 14 official languages and over 300 languages are used commonly everyday . hence good or bad i am happy where i am [ Calcutta ] since it is my home state . for tourism or work i may go to other states but that does not mean i can particularly identify with them or their people beyond polite chit chat about the stock market .
 
I admire your patience with us Arjit. What is your name exactly. I don't know when you first name ends or your second name starts. Mine is Andrea.

The point that Amy and I have been trying to make is that you diet includes too much junk food and not enough healthy food. I did miss the point that you were eating normal food for two days a week though. My "thing" is that if you eat junk regularly through out your diet, you will never be relieved of it. Weight will always dog you. As soon as you stop being vigilaent about your weight, you pile it all back on again. Now if a good proportion of your calories are junk food, its unlikely that you can keep up with the chicken soup regime or any degree of moderation when you reach your goal weight. Its just better to adopt good habits. I understand about being busy and not feeling inclined to spend time on making good food but if you don't give it some attention, you will always end up back at square one.

I know how india works in general. I've been three times and spent a total of a year there. I've seen quite a lot of the country, including well off the tourist trail. I understand that you would not want to leave Calcutta and i didn't really expect you would. I just wanted to exclaim about the pollution.
 
Hi Ari,

Thanks for posting more information and getting back to us. I agree with Andrea- I think you need to make junk food something you have once in awhile, at most, get yourself out of the habit. Plenty of people here manage that sort of thing and have other things going on. I'm a PhD student, for example (and I don't even own a television, let alone sit around watching it all day!), and if you read some of the diaries, some people seem to have very stressful jobs and still manage to (more or less) keep up the weight loss. I've had a few mistakes along the way, but I never would have said anything like your "I'll keep some junk food to hand just in case I need it"- when I've had food that's not particularly good for me, it's been mostly unintended or making the best of a bad situation (for example, I worked out the calories in a meal out with my boyfriend who took really wanted to take me out- and chose a lower calorie option).

At a minimum, don't plan to have junk (that includes things like diet Pepsi, which is nutrient poor even if it's low in calories) in your diet (cake and macaroni and cheese are junk in my eyes too- high calorie, low nutrient foods). I know you said you don't have time for a plan, but one thing that doesn't take much time is getting rid of the junk in your house and only having it every so often (start with once a week if once a fortnight or month seems too daunting, and work it down). My big weaknesses are chocolate and ice cream- I got them out of the house so I would have to go to the shop to buy some more, and I try really hard when I'm in the shop not to buy more, does that make sense? Surely these are simple things we have in common- we both store food in the house, and we both go shopping to get that food. Don't buy the junk, don't keep it around you, then you don't have it around to eat (and you have to make an effort to get it). At work, bring an alternative.

I know I can't speak to food choices in India- I know I have no idea- but Andrea knows considerably more than I do and has made some suggestions which I would incorporate into my diet if I were you. Cutting processed or nutrient poor food, which I keep hammering, is something everyone can do everywhere (do you not have a small amount of time at the beginning or end of the day to prepare and pack home-made nutritious snacks- fruit, a salad, something like that? I'd make other suggestions that seem more interesting too me but I don't know what's available there).

I don't plan. Really, I don't. I have a goal, and I document my food and calorie consumption, and I make choices when I go shopping (ok, I plan recipes before I go shopping and buy accordingly)- apart from that, I eat what works (that is, low or lowish calorie foods that keep me full and are good for me), make some mistakes, and try not to make the mistakes again. All of this started- and to some extent this journey of discovery is continuing- with me having more of an awareness of how many calories I needed and how many calories are in the food that I eat. If you look at my food diary you'll see there's a lot of repetition- I have porridge for breakfast every day (and while I vary the toppings, they're within a small range of things that work- berries or honey), I quite often have rye bread with light cottage cheese for lunch, and I've only used a couple of recipes for dinner (I make my meals in bulk, package them up individually, and reheat them). I do plan to get more recipes in, but my point is that there is a clear pattern to what I'm doing.

Have you calculated the calories in some of your food choices? I don't know how well this would work with Indian food (I'm pretty sure it's an American program, I sometimes have a little trouble with it), but if you make the food yourself (or can get someone to give you the ingredients and serves), this website might help you work out how many calories are in recipes: For other things, I look at nutritional information (for the amount I actually eat, or, failing that, how it compares to other things for the standard weight that everything's measured at, which here is 100g). I presume there are nutritional labels on food there? If not, at least some of the things you're looking at should have information on Google. It may be too much hassle to count things every day, which is why having a handle on your staple foods and the calories/ nutrients in them is important.

One of the big ones is that granulated sugar contains 20 calories per teaspoon (19.4 calories for 5g). That's a big hit of calories for very little bulk, for something that won't fill you, and for something with almost no nutritional value. Are you able to wean yourself off the sugar? (I have my tea and coffee with milk, no sugar- I've been told milk is more of a European thing, but there may be alternatives, and I know plenty of people who drink their tea with no milk, no sugar. To wean off, start using a little less than you have been, keep going until you find it tastes ok, then use a little bit less than that, until there's none left. Alternately- this isn't ideal, but it's better than the sugar- are there low calorie sugar substitutes like Splenda there?) Depending on the bread (brown is better than white), bread might also be quite high in calories and thus counterproductive.

Speaking of calories, I think you missed my point earlier. You cannot live on 1200 calories a day. Your body needs more than that just to survive. If I were you and wanted to calorie count, I would suggest a calorie goal of 1900 calories a day if you're not doing any exercise, 2257 if you're doing a little (1-3 days a week light), or 2608 if you do moderate exercise (3-5 days a week). That should lead to a loss of a pound a week. This diet should be rich in fruit and vegetables (I suspect you need to eat more vegetables- I'd recommend between 5 and 7 serves of fruit and vegetables a day), up to 100g meat (or meat substitute if you're vegetarian), a few serves of dairy or equivalent, and grains. Processed/ junk food should be included rarely (at most once a week, ideally less often)- although if you make mistakes you make mistakes, just try to do better next time (we can only do as well as we do each day, but you seem to be planning to eat junk food).

Off my high horse now (and back to work- I have a deadline!)
 
we therefore find that dieting is as much about dieting philosophy as about the diet itself .
i will put in my 2 cents which is bound to cause shock ..
think of the caveman . he ate raw meat and could not digest most of it [ since we lack the enzymes that proper carnivores such as lions , tigers have ] ; if i assume he also ate vegetables [ in the form of leaf ] he could not digest it [ since we lack the enzymes that proper herbivores such as cows , deers have ] . so either way he was doomed to suffer from some form of malnutrition until he discovered fire . he could after that roast his food and in time learned to cook using condiments and oil . his lifespan before he found fire was about 25 years [ i guess during 15 of those 25 years he had rotten teeth ] . after man learned to cook his life span went up dramatically . so he must have done something correct by learning to fry his food and add salt . but after doing it for 9000 years he made a mistake some time in middle of 20th century .
so neither is pure food sans sugar and oil very good [ look at the caveman ] nor is over processed food very good [ look at present day humans ] . it appears then that God or Evolution has designed us in such a way that every year for 9000 years our longevity rose and then we passed a line in the sand and it all became unhealthy . strangely enough that line in the sand cropped up when a breed of people we call dieticians arrived [ what i mean to say is that somehow the problem and the solution arrived together in curious coincidence ] . it also seems that God or Evolution was prescient enough to know that we will discover fire and that will take our lifespan from 25 to 75 and then dieticians will take over circa 1970 from Evolution .
my point being that at any point we do not know enough to make a decision about diet and neither do dieticians / food scientists know enough . dieting is like dabbling in the stock market . as investment guru Mark Mobius put it in an interview " there are hundred things affecting the stock market at any given time ; you and i may have spent thousands of hours analyzing 99 of them without knowing that the one we did not pay much attention to is bigger in weightage than all other 99 combined " . maybe poor little sugar granules which are blamed for being empty calories do more to keep us alive than all the organic greens combined ; maybe the humble egg yellow blamed for high cholesterol does something equally good and the problem is we shall not know it until we are 75 and the doctor tells us in 2050 " oh no you should not have avoided sugar / egg yellow when you were younger . it has L-Beta - something which reduces chance of kidney failure "
note that food scientists concentrate only on welfare of heart [ 99.9 % of the time ] forgetting that there are other organs such as liver , kidney , spleen , brain , lungs . who knows whether egg yellows while being bad for my cholesterol are not good for my cerebro spinal fuid or that in some way they do not help us produce serotonin .
Amy will you be shocked if 40 years from today you found that moderate intake of sugar [ 6 spoons per day ] prevented Alzheimers . will you wish to return in time and add a spoon of sugar to your coffee ? what will anyone do with a healthy heart and a failing brain .
basically my question to you is why do you believe what dieticians say ? it is not the branch of science that attracts the best and the brightest and it has not been around long enough to work through contradictions .
all i know is that i do not know and also that dieticians do not know [ in another 200 years maybe they would ] .
to paraphrase George Bernard Shaw " we learn from dieting that we learn nothing from dieting "
i approach everything i read with healthy dose of skepticism including words like " empty calories "
so what i am essentially doing is hedging my bets - having good boiled food diet with a one fourth portion of junk food thrown in [ kind of like putting some money in stock market and some in government bonds ] as long as totally calorie intake per day does not cross 1200 - 1600 spectrum [ low calorie regimen being needed for 3 weeks to jump start weight loss after which caloroes can be gradually increased or adjusted ]
 
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I'm sorry, but I think you're being ridiculous. Just because science changes and because it doesn't know everything yet, doesn't mean that we can't work with what the science has to offer at this stage. It is the best that we know at this stage. (Just because scientists once thought the earth was flat, doesn't mean that their new concept of the world being an oblate spheroid isn't right now) I don't understand the caveman analogy, either, I think you're pseudo-philosophising to justify your poor decisions.

Ultimately it's your life and it's your body. I'm done here- I've given you the best advice I can get my hands on, told you how I go about this, and you spew this "science doesn't know everything" rubbish. I know when I'm not wanted. Just because science doesn't know everything, to quote Dara O'Brian (before you ask, he's a comedian, but he has a point) "doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairytale most appeals to you".

And no, I don't want any sugar in my coffee, thank you. Sugar comes in many different forms and I'll get them in more nutritious forms.

I wish you the best of luck.
 
i did not mean to upset you . all that i am saying is i have 50 % faith in " diet science " . it has not been a branch of science long enough to earn the respect that some other and more established branches of science do . i am really appreciative of the advice you have given till now and read every sentence many times . however my contrarian approach to life tends to annoy people when they first get to know me [ i guess i chose the red pill from Morpheus :sifone: ] . please do not be annoyed . i am like this [ tend to drive people up the wall ] . let us not argue :argue: and please continue to comment on my post if you find something you want to comment on
 
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I've given all the advice that I have, and my approach (which is working) is very, very different from yours, so I don't think I have anything to learn here.
 
you have misconception about my diet and thinking . i do not think that junk foods are good and nor do i endorse them in any way . but to go from a normal 3500 calorie / day food cycle to a 2000 calorie / day diet food / healthy food / low sodium / low fat diet cannot be done in one day . i have given myself a 21 day break-in period during which time i cannot average more than 500 calories per day in junk food [ e.g potato chips ] and all the while i try to substitute with better options [ such as lime juice and water for Pepsi ] ..
kind of like weaning myself off drugs or cigarettes ..
however even after the transition is completed [ hopefully ] i have no objction to having some junk food now and then but it will be under strict control
 
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