I lost over 60 pounds thru changes in diet before I ever set foot in a gym. Exercise was great for toning and shaping, and keeping the weight off, but did nothing for me until I learned to eat right.

That's a lesson I'm learning now. Cutting out the shit and eating more protein. Doing the Dukan Diet at the moment and it's nice for now but eventually it wants you to reintroduce bread.

A little bit of exercise is good but for other purposes.

I've been thinking a lot about that woman who sent the letter to the Free the Animal blog. Her results were amazing and she's a mom who has to feed her kids on top of it. Second thoughts on this dukan thing as I'm sick of eggs already and their 'support' website is functioning minimally at best. I have lost around 10lbs already. Pretty sure cutting out the processed crap has helped as well.

May I ask a delicate question Amy - you don't have to answer. Does your diet (I mean that in the nutritional/everyday sense, not the weight loss sense) give you toilet troubles? I eat much like you do in that I don't worry about fatty meat, butter, cheese etc, but I find that including rice, bread, pasta in my intake helps a lot in that department.

@Ltw

Eat lots of veggies with your protein and you will get PLENTY of fiber in your diet! For instance, last night I made one of my favorite meals: I stir-fried a pound of meat with a head of red cabbage & half pound of carrots. I promise you will have no bathroom problems if you eat that!

@Ltw

Eat lots of veggies with your protein and you will get PLENTY of fiber in your diet! For instance, last night I made one of my favorite meals: I stir-fried a pound of meat with a head of red cabbage & half pound of carrots. I promise you will have no bathroom problems if you eat that!

People seem to forget that "cardio" exercise is to strengthen you heart, hence the name "cardio". Exercise is used to strengthen your muscles; diet is used to control your weight.

I think part of the reason that people think running will help you lose weight is that we tend to be very self-selecting when it comes to exercise. The people who gravitate towards distance running tend to be extreme ectomorphs -- people with naturally low body fat and low muscle. Running is easy for them because their bodies use a lot less oxygen than the rest of us. But they're also naturally skinny, so people think "Oh, he's so skinny! It must be because he runs a lot!" when the reality is that he'd still be really skinny if he sat on the couch watching TV.

Eat lots of veggies with your protein and you will get PLENTY of fiber in your diet!

I do, *sigh*. But I still find grains necessary. I'm not worried about my weight so I don't fuss about it much.

I think part of the reason that people think running will help you lose weight is that we tend to be very self-selecting when it comes to exercise.

Very true. I can't run - and I mean can't. My knees and ankles just won't take it. Cycling and swimming are fine. It varies so much with your body type. Back when I used to cycle lot, I trained with a guy - Italian background - who had the perfect physique, strong, wiry legs, and a skinny upper body. I had to drag my top heavy (by cycling standards) body up hills behind him, always lagging. The only time it worked in my favour was on a long flat ride where we hit a 10km stretch into a savage headwind after about 90kms on the bike. With my upper body strength I could keep going and he could stay in my slipstream. He tried to pull out to take his turn in front, but just couldn't do it. Then he had to tow me the remaining 60kms home because I was stuffed.

And yet, eating habits be damned, the skinniest and most in shape people I know are the hard-core physically active. I'd rather be a bit bigger and strong than skinny and weak.

I despise running myself-I MGHT run if a psycho with a knife was chasing me-but I adore lifting weights. And hiking. And skiing. And wakeboarding. And walking my dog now.

Ltw, take magnesium daily. It's extraordinarily important. If you do, you will never have "toilet troubles." Learned this from Dr. Eades.

Eades writes in The Protein Power Lifeplan (with his wife, Dr. Mary Dan Eades) that if he could only take one vitamin, it would be magnesium. He blogs about it here, and has this to say in the comments:

I use magnesium citrimate, and I take 300 mg per day at bedtime. Any good chelated magnesium will do. Just look for one with 'ate' on the end of it, as in magnesium aspartate or magnesium citrate. And be careful in checking the doses because chelated magnesium isn't all labeled the same. Some list the actual magnesium on the label and will say that each pill contains, say, 150 mg of magnesium. Others add the weight of the chelating agent (the substance that ends in 'ate') in with the magnesium, so you might find a brand where the label says each pill is 1000 mg. This means the magnesium plus the chelating agent adds up to 1000 mg. The best way is to look for the RDI on the back of the bottle. Take enough pills to get the RDI each day, and take them at bedtime.

I agree with the author's question about whether we change more than one variable when we attribute our weight loss to counting calories on the treadmill.

I blogged about the futility, or inanity of exercise for weight loss:

http://segamartinez.blogspot.com/2011/02/calories-out-myth.html

So we have a population of runners who are, say, 10-15 pounds overweight, even after running upwards of 50 miles a week. The logic of the conventional wisdom looks at it from the calories-in/calories-out perspective and would postulate that a man who puts on 10 pounds from his early 20s to his early 50s and runs 50 miles a week in that span, would possibly estimate he burned about 100 calories per mile. And since he ran 50 miles a week, it amounts to 5,000 calories a week. Over a year it’s 260,000 calories burned. So after 30 years of habitual running, he theoretically burned 7.8 million more calories than if he skipped the running sessions altogether. And after these thirty years, he's 10 pounds overweight.

10 pounds = approximately 35,000 calories (1 pound of fat is roughly 3,500 calories)
35,000 / 30 years = 1167 calories per year
1167 / 365 days = 3.2 calories per day

Are we to believe that if he could go back in time, and jogged an additional 0.032 miles per day, about 50 meters, he would have been 10 pounds lighter? Let's fire up the Delorean and tell the 20-year old guy to run an additional six seconds per session to keep the weight off! Better yet, tell him to run for an additional 20 seconds and he'll be around 20 pounds underweight when he reaches 50 if we are to believe the conventional wisdom. Perhaps we should call this the Delorean myth.

The stages of my life as defined by orange-flavored powdered drinks:
Tang
Gatorade
Metamucil

(Amy, I know you don't need fiber with your diet but I'm working the joke here, OK? Someday this funny will pay off. Probably about a day before I kick off.)

I used to be a runner. My leg muscles were extremely toned. I also had been doing a low carb diet during that period of time. I also did weight training and don't remember ever feeling ravenous. I do remember spreading my meals out to 6 meals a day instead of three. I ate a lot of eggs, chicken, tuna, cheese, and yummy steak. I wish I could get back into the no carbs. it was the healthiest I've ever been but I'm a ridiculous carb addict. A doctor told me years ago that carbs are the devil. If you look at a any low fat version of something, you'll see the carbs are double.

Exercise helps you curb your appetite and stops you from nervous of or anxious eating. When I do hard workout s I simply cannot binge and don't want junk food.

Yes, Amy, I found that overall, my health, my skin, hair, nails, and my energy level was best when I was doing no carbs. After the initial sluggishness I felt completely invigorated. Its troubling to me that its so hard to get back into considering I remember how wonderful I felt constantly. I'll get there.

I don't suppose there's any such thing as low-carb pancakes, is there? No? Didn't think so. *Sigh*

I really wish Taubes did some research on anti-psychotics that make people put on a ton of weight. I was always naturally very skinny (size 0) and then along came Seroquel and it made me gain a TON of weight. I did a little experiment where I cut carbs and I loose weight FASTER than the majority of people who go low carb. To loose 14lbs it takes me less than 3 weeks.

Another thing to think about is Seroquel is also known to cause diabetes....must be that it makes your body react to carbs 10X what it normally would

Thanks Gary but screw you too. His thesis helped me loose weight with the low carb. It is great but I am also exercising and running. I believe it is helping me loose weight and damn it to hell I do actually be able to run and to be stronger. So I will continue with both low carb diet and running. Of course I will be be aware that the running will affect my hunger. That is why I eat after running not before.

Yes there are people that do become slim through exercise actually one of them is a sort of a hero to me and inspired me to improve my life (You too Amy) Helped give some perspective - Name is Ben Davis google "Do Life"

Also Amy as you mention you are on Ritalin and that can affect hunger so your helpful drug is also helping you also as a hunger suppressant. I found with Ritalin actually reduced my eating a bit.

Well, if I jog three miles a day, that's 300 calories. Adds up over a week.

Some say increasing muscle mass is good, as muscle eats calories all day long.

BTW, the Gold's Gym in H-wood has incredible looking people. Outside the gym, not so much.

Might be a clue there.

I wonder if you weren't on the Ritalin if you would have been heavier before the no carbs. I ask not to prove you wrong but because my oldest son was on Ritalin and ate the same and didn't do anything differently but began to lose weight on it. He wasn't heavy to begin with so it is something I'm curious about. I believe the no carbs is why you lost the 15 and maintain it, but how long were you on the Ritalin? Were you ever heavy?

Well, I dropped the Dukan diet and bought some coconut oil (I found it in Norway!). I feel a lot better and have some energy to boot. Had 2 tablespoons (approx.) of mini-smarties though :/. That Dukan diet uses a lot of dairy and to be honest, I detest dairy products, so another bonus. Thanks Amy.

Straight-up cardio alone is basically useless. But it's not fair to condemn every type of exercise on that basis. Weight training in particular goes an enormous way towards transforming your body shape and overall appearance. You can have two women who are both 5'5 and 130 pounds but one of them is 18% body fat and the other is 30%--you can bet that they're going to look hella different and wear vastly different sizes as well. If you look at people who make a living off their bodies--celebrities, models, actors, body builders, etc--if they could get the look they wanted without ever setting foot in the gym, then why would they spend hours working out? Obviously diet is crucial, but most people are not going to get the body they want without working out for it.

And I completely agree with TestyTommy's statement about certain body types naturally gravitating to running. I ran cross country and track in high school and never lost weight from it--in fact I GAINED weight from running because it bulks up my lower body--but it took me years to make the connection because of the ingrained mentality that running makes you thin. Now I just run 1-2x a week for fun and because I like having a little bit of a booty, but lifting is truly what keeps me thin. Which ironically is the exact opposite of what most people assume.

I lost about 25 pounds about 12 years ago without deliberately changing my eating habits much. An hour every morning in the gym (and I don't pussy around when I excersize), squash two or three times a week and riding my bike to work.

In all fairness, the better shape I'm in, the less I like sweets. To an extend where I will hate chocolate and candy when I'm in really good shape, which means my excersize will make me change my eating habits.

And I like excersizing. I know that to a lot of people, breaking a sweat is worse than root canal, but I thoroughly enjoy it and I'd play squash and ride my bike (with a 130 pounds of kids and trailer dragging after me) even if it were unhealthy. Still changing my diet to eating more protein and less carbs, though, but not really for my weight, which is fine.