ITT, share your experiences with nutrition, diets, cleanses, etc.

Most people will say that diets don't work. But most people will diet at least once in their lifetime. And some of those diets have some crazy side effects. Let's swap stories.

Like Alli, the weight loss pill. Worst side effect? Anal leakage. Apparently Paris Hilton was on the pill and had an unfortunate mishap at New York Fashion Week.

Have you tried Atkins? South Beach? Blood Type? Cabbage Soup? I tried the Cabbage Soup Diet in high school. Worst. Gas Ever. Great if you're a wrestler trying to drop weight fast. Otherwise, you will repel the masses with your horrific aroma.

This thread is inspired by a conversation I had earlier this week with a fellow t-dubber about doing an all-juice cleanse. Was wondering if anyone on here has done one? Or has experience with cleanses? I did an acai berry cleanse but it had some very unpleasant side effects. Like Alli, but not as bad.

Ew.

8/19/2011 7:36:19 PM

I've lost a lot of weight on Weight Watchers, but then stopped counting points and gained it all back.

I have also lost 40+ pounds of weight using Slim Fast and Right Size. I am down 25lb right now using a combination of the two. I prefer Right Size, but it is pricey compared to Slim Fast.

FTR, I always buy the powders and mix my own. Blender Bottle FTW!

8/19/2011 7:48:31 PM

I know quite a few people who had success with Weight Watchers. I think that program works because you can still eat almost everything, just in moderation. So you don't feel deprived.

What's Right Size? I used to love Slim Fast shakes, but then I started having issues with dairy.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 7:54 PM. Reason : e]

8/19/2011 7:51:25 PM

Paula Deen is getting a dietary smackdown from Tony Bourdain:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/19/paula-deen-anthony-bourdain_n_931264.html

Quote :

" Paula Deen-Anthony Bourdain Feud: Paula Fires Back Yesterday, Page Six revealed the harsh words Anthony Bourdain had for Food Network chefs in this month's TV Guide. He criticized the morality and culinary acumen of Rachael Ray, Guy Fieri and Sandra Lee -- but he saved his harshest critique for Paula Deen. He called Savannah's Crisco savant "the worst, most dangerous person to America,” explaining that her connections to food corporations and disregard for healthfulness made her a threat to cardiovascular systems across the country. Page Six reached Paula for her response to the attack, and she was relatively measured. She told Bourdain to "get a life," and explained that her mission, unlike his, is geared toward struggling working families. She elaborated: “You know, not everybody can afford to pay $58 for prime rib or $650 for a bottle of wine. My friends and I cook for regular families who worry about feeding their kids and paying the bills . . . It wasn’t that long ago that I was struggling to feed my family, too.” Although eating on a budget and maintaining a marginally healthy diet are in no ways mutually exclusive, it's probably a keen line of response on Deen's part. Since Bourdain has pledged, via Twitter, to "just shut up" the next time someone asks who the worst chefs on the Food Network are, this could be the end of the feud for now. Deen also appeared on Fox News to talk about her reactions to Bourdain's comments. She seems surprisingly placid in the video; though she admits she was "shocked" to hear what her fellow chef had said, she says she "learned long ago that you can't please everybody." Here's the video. "

8/19/2011 8:08:31 PM

http://www.colonblow.com

8/19/2011 8:12:58 PM

The only "the __ diet" type of thing I have tried was Zone. And that wasn't even necessarily to lose weight but mostly to improve performance and well-being, at the recommendation of my trainer. I didn't follow it too strictly, but trying it was what led me to start eating meat again because I realized how much better I felt when I ate fewer processed carbs. And I didn't want to rely on soy and whey too much to get protein, which I was starting to. I still aim for Zone macronutrient ratios but I don't count blocks or anything. And I'm starting to try out more paleo meals now.

One of my good friends lost a bunch of weight on WW. It worked really well for her, but she's afraid to stop counting because of the fear she'll gain it back. One thing I've noted is the mentality that lower points = healthier, which I personally disagree with a lot of the time.

8/19/2011 8:18:25 PM

i just stopped eating like shit and started exercising 5+ days/wk and lost 100lbs in 1 year...no fad or program followed

although i did starve myself in the early stages...it was effective but wasn't smart in hindsight

8/19/2011 8:21:02 PM

Right Size is very similar to Slim Fast with one big difference, an appetite suppressant.

Both are meal replacement shakes. Both have pretty good nutritional value. One has something in it that doesnt make you as hungry.

8/19/2011 8:26:44 PM

Stay away from anything described as a "cleanse." You don't have toxins in you and that stuff in your colon is poop. Deliberately starving yourself is not healthy.

8/19/2011 8:35:24 PM

http://nut.sourceforge.net/

Calorie counting and exercise.

Works every time.

8/19/2011 8:35:47 PM

Diet, what's that? I've never seriously attempted the ones mentioned below, unless I count cutting out drinking in the middle of my academic semesters.

I'm definitely not attempting any sort of calorie restriction now in the middle of training for a half-Ironman tri- the one and only time I tried this while prepping for a shorter distance, I ended up eating an entire 1 lb block of cheese at 3 a.m. and had severe GI distress the next day.

8/19/2011 8:48:44 PM

I've done a juice "cleanse" for a week, and it actually did make me feel a lot better, though it does do some weird things with your GI tract for the first day or two. It was a good jumpstart into incorporating more raw fruits and vegetables into my diet and as a result, I've been slowly but steadily losing weight without doing anything but that.

Just replacing processed food and starches with natural and more nutrient rich foods has really helped with my quality of sleep as well as how I feel throughout the day. I had gotten used to being in an energy slump after lunch, but while I was doing the juice diet I never had any energy problems and slept better than I have in as long as I can honestly remember. Even since I stopped and just went to a more natural diet, I have become very aware of how sluggish I actually feel after eating heavy, carbohydrate loaded meals.

I wouldn't advocate going hardcore on a juice fast for like a month or anything unless you need to lose a ton of weight, but eating nothing but raw fruits and veggies and fresh vegetable juice is definitely worth considering for 5-7 days every so often.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 9:25 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2011 9:24:13 PM

8/19/2011 9:56:10 PM

Atkins sucked.

Best way I've kept weight off is eating a balanced diet high in vegetables and whole grains and exercising a lot. Go figure lol.

8/19/2011 9:57:14 PM

Quote :

"Stay away from anything described as a "cleanse." You don't have toxins in you "

8/20/2011 1:02:14 AM

I am also a big fan of eating seasonally, and it's nice to put local and homegrown veggies in your food. We made pasta tonight with homemade tomato sauce. I'm going to have the bf give me the recipe and can that shit soon <3.

8/20/2011 1:22:34 AM

Quote :

"I wouldn't advocate going hardcore on a juice fast for like a month or anything unless you need to lose a ton of weight, but eating nothing but raw fruits and veggies and fresh vegetable juice is definitely worth considering for 5-7 days every so often."

The conversation Lucy was talking about in her OP was between me and her. My boyfriend and I decided to do a all veggie juice cleanse (I hate the word cleanse btw but can't think of a better word) mostly because he's been having some stomach issues when eating certain foods and he wanted to start over from scratch. I said I would do it with him (we live together).

Day 1 was hard! I was a bit of an idiot and did 20 minutes of HIIT and then a 4 mile run first thing in the morning so obviously I had a lot of calories to catch up on and after 3-4 16oz of pure juice, I was dying. I go into meltdown mode when my blood sugar gets too low and I took a nap (I never nap). My bf said I needed to eat something so I found an all veggie soup recipe on the website we are roughly using and made that. We both enjoyed the soup and realized that since neither of us is overweight we probably need to incorporate actual veggies in our diet.

Day 2 I woke up with the same headache I had from Day 1 and I knew the only way to fix it was to eat some oatmeal so I had 1 cup of rolled oats with a banana and 1 cup blueberries and it worked. I had 32 ounces of juice and for lunch I had 2 cups of leftover soup but was still starving so I made 2 eggs. Dinner was veggie tacos with steamed broccoli, baked asparagus, and grilled pineapple. We were going to eat the tacos in lettuce wraps but I didn't have the right kind of lettuce so we used small low carb whole wheat high fiber tortillas I had in the house instead.

So what I have learned in the last few days is that you need a LOT of determination to do juices only. I am not so sure I am someone who can purely juice for more than a day. My boyfriend's stomach problems have gone away though so I'm happy about that because this is why we were doing this in the first place. We're going to keep going but make modifications through out the week and we're okay with that.

8/20/2011 9:40:54 AM

imo, actually studying and having a basic understanding of nutrition is far more beneficial than learning about any particular "diet".

I put diet in quotes because I think using the word diet in this sense perpetuates ignorance in some ways when it comes to nutrition. The word diet should be used to denote your overall and general nutritional intake for a given period of time. And that does fit the bill when talking about the prescriptive plans when you're actually using that plan. But I think that use of the word makes it harder for people to realize that everyone has a diet at all times. You don't really "go on a diet" so much as change your diet. And knowing/understanding your current diet is important if you're interested in adjusting or maintaining your current health or body composition.


I think the number one problem with prescriptive diets is that most people using them don't quite understand how/why they work in comparison to their typical diet. They simply follow a very direct plan. And having it spelled out is great so you can start right away, but it's important to learn why it works.

Having that background knowledge is important to help resist "yo-yo-ing." I think some "diets" get a bad rap because as soon as the user is happy with their progress they return to their previous diet, which most likely was not conducive to their goals. They don't have the knowledge necessary to make adjusts on their own that would allow them to maintain what they achieved with whatever prescriptive diet they used (they only know their typical diet and the prescriptive plan that was geared toward making changes). Without understanding what's necessary to maintain, they "yo-yo" and that is blamed on the diet they used rather than their ignorance.


All of that being said, I've used low-carb diets with great success at various times over the past 10 or so years. I've also used diets specifically intended to help add mass.

8/20/2011 10:56:34 AM

^ very much agree to your post. I think that's why Weight Watchers works for so many people - because they teach people the background of why you need to eat this and that and how it is important to you. Then people realize, "not only is this going to help me lose weight but it's also beneficial for my overall health."

Gimmicky diets make laugh. I know someone who did the South Beach diet and lost a lot of weight but it's not a sustainable diet for the most part and I kept telling her in the beginning that any diet that tells you to cut out fruit is not really something you should be participating in. The minute she stopped the diet, she gained all the weight back.

I think it's really important that people finds what works for them because I have learned in my struggles that works for one person might not work for me. I have finally figured out that going as natural as possible is what is best for me. I have to especially watch my dairy intake. And I'm okay with that because I'm seeing the results I've wanted to see for the last 4 years.

8/20/2011 11:12:55 AM

i try to stick to the "shop only on the exterior of the grocery store" rule and it seems to work to keep the weight off i lost.

i also love Accelerade for a post workout drink

8/20/2011 11:37:45 AM

Cleanses? Really? How about razor blades?



Try thinking about "Diet" as more diet, and you'll be off on the right foot. Lifestyle changes...

[Edited on August 20, 2011 at 11:41 AM. Reason : h]

8/20/2011 11:40:27 AM

I do the low to no carb diet. Have lost over 100 pounds but gained about 10 back this year cause I got lazy. Working on it again. Went from 280ish to 170. Seems to work for me.

8/20/2011 12:55:04 PM

It is all about lifestyle change, not dieting.

A few years ago I lost about 85 lbs by working out every day and eating good, clean, healthy foods. Changes in my life caused me to stop working out and drift away from the good eating habits I had developed and so I gained all of the weight back and then some. Now I am on WW and to be perfectly honest, it is a LOT like what I was doing back in the day, but with a formalized means of ensuring that I am eating good, clean healthy food. I love WW because it also makes me accountable for the choices I make.

In the end, it really is just about making a decision to become healthy and letting every decision after that be a direct result of the initial decision. With that chain of decisions, you have a change in lifestyle.

8/20/2011 1:34:18 PM

Quote :

"It is all about lifestyle change, not dieting."

DING DING DING!!!!

As if that wasn't really common knowledge already, following it is the hard part. The key a lot of people seem to miss is don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because you ate 5 pieces of cake the last time there was a birthday celebration at work doesn't mean you should give up and eat McDonalds for every meal. It is like people get this attitude of, "Oh well, I didn't eat healthy for lunch today so screw it I am just going to eat like crap from here on out." If you eat a crappy meal here and there it doesn't really matter, just try to stay healthy most of the time.

8/20/2011 1:54:25 PM

^ agree. This is why I favor cheat meals over cheat days. It allows me to continue to eat healthy until my meal and then I get to splurge a bit and then move on.

The only reason I do cheat meals is because I have NO self control. I am not one of those "oh just have a piece of chocolate and craving is satisfied and moving on" types. I'm glad I recognize it so I can stay in control but man it sucks.

8/20/2011 2:09:45 PM

My cheat meals tend to be cheat days, as they involve lots of alcohol and memory lapses.

Yeah, my diet would benefit from a decrease in alcohol consumption.

8/20/2011 2:31:57 PM

Every single person in existence is on a diet. A diet is nothing more than an eating regime. Stop buying into gimmicks and find a regime that involves a balanced and moderate diet, and an active lifestyle.

Quote :

"It is all about lifestyle change, not dieting."

Quote :

"The key a lot of people seem to miss is don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Yes, and yes. Goddamn, these people just saved everyone in this thread a fuck-ton of money.

8/20/2011 8:48:13 PM

Quote :

"I am also a big fan of eating seasonally, and it's nice to put local and homegrown veggies in your food."

Such an awesome idea and concept. Urban agriculture is for the winz. Having individual sustainable farms is how people used to live. Such a neat dream at least for the present and future.

As for diets-
I have done just the zone diet. That tends to be very good for me when not pregnant. I was able to work out longer, maintained a great weight along with great blood sugars! I also liked cooking the meals and eating the snacks.

When pregnant, I get very insulin resistant so I tend to drop my carb count lower, up my protein and good fats substantially.

My carb count for the day was:
B-15
Sn-15
Lunch-30
Sn-15
Dinner-45
Sn- 20-30

This was just to sustain my "pregnancy dawn" meaning my almost complete insulin resistance in the morning and slowly balancing insulin levels by the end of the day. I would eat a "larger" snack before bed just to make sure I was not having 3am low blood sugars.

So cleanses don't work? I always wanted to do one just to see if my battle from time to time with IBS would stop.

8/20/2011 9:46:57 PM

I don't want to be a negative, but ^^ just isn't universally the case (plus you're making some silly assumptions).

The lifestyle change thing is crucial when talking to people who are looking to make considerable changes to their health, fitness level or body composition. They need to understand that their current condition was caused by their lifestyle, and they need know and understand what it will take to not just achieve their goals but to maintain what they achieve. But there are a lot of people who are interested in achieving goals that don't require much long-term change at all, but rather just a little bit of strategically applied knowledge.

A person who is 15lbs over their "ideal" weight, and has been at that weight consistently for 3 years, but is generally fit, healthy, and has a "healthy" diet that (obviously) allows them to maintain that weight, doesn't need a major lifestyle change. A temporary change to their diet with the intent of losing weight (plus maybe a slight adjustment to their exercise routine) will suffice just fine. Once they hit their target weight, they can then adjust their diet back to almost exactly what it was... with maybe just slightly less caloric intake.


Again, it's not that the people saying this are wrong. You couldn't be more right in certain situations. But not everyone needs to make some major, drastic change. There are a shit-ton of people who are generally fit and healthy who will make slight or just temporary changes to their diet and exercise regiments to achieve specific results.

[Edited on August 20, 2011 at 10:04 PM. Reason : ^]

8/20/2011 10:03:50 PM

Quote :

"Yes, and yes. Goddamn, these people just saved everyone in this thread a fuck-ton of money."

I don't think anyone has spent a "fuckton" of money. I think people are sharing experiences and talking about what has/hasn't worked in the past.

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 9:42 AM. Reason : Edit]

8/21/2011 9:42:13 AM

Cleanses just sound unhealthy

8/21/2011 10:52:34 AM

Well it's funny. My boyfriend and I did this all veggie "cleanse" (again I hate this word but for lack of a better word....) and I was expecting my GI tract to be turned all sorts of upside down but it never did. I already ate really clean and consumed on average 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies a day to begin with.

We did it to see how my boyfriend's stomach would hold up. He's been having some stomach aches and issues and we thought if we started him over from scratch we could then try to figure out what exactly bothers him. This is the longest he's gone in a while with no stomach aches.

We only did this for about 4 days but I think we're going to start incorporating some more stuff in to see how he feels.

8/21/2011 11:37:18 AM

^^^ When you see posts with pics of all the diet books people read, all the time they spend 'researching' (I use this in the most liberal of senses) diets, etc., I conclude people spend money on the obvious. Fuckton is my subjective, idiomatic way of expressing the quantity of money spent.

^^^^ I'm actually on-board with you on this one. I agree change doesn't have to be drastic, but it is still change. I'm all about people enacting change for a healthier lifestyle, but I hate people spending so much time/energy on 'dieting' for the wrong reasons. Personally, I can't stand our culture's definition of 'overweight,' especially when 1) a good chunk of the population advocating said standard don't bother living up to it, and 2) many people who have the socially acceptable body shape are, in actuality, in terrible shape. Not 'skinny' =/= unhealthy. The other side of dieting is the people who have a cultist mentality about it; people who are otherwise rational about where they get data from jump on board a diet craze. It's like Crossfit - long before Crossfit existed, people were doing functional fitness regimes, but now people shell out time and money over a name. Same thing with diets - eating healthy, in moderation, and with an active lifestyle, is not a new concept. Unless you got some pre-existing medical thing going on that precludes you from eating certain foods, stop freaking out over diets/cleanses/etc. Thus ends my rambling digression.

8/21/2011 12:03:14 PM

If it was "obvious", I don't think we would have a 33% obesity rate in this country. Hey, maybe millions of people are suffering from obesity, diabetes, and heart disease but at least they didn't have to read books!

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 12:26 PM. Reason : captain obvious]

8/21/2011 12:25:18 PM

Logical fallacy. Having knowledge and acting upon it are two different things. Just as I'm sure that the vast majority of people who smoke know it's bad for them, yet continue to smoke, most people who are obese realize that eating shitty food and never working out make them fat. Please try again.

8/21/2011 12:41:29 PM

Quote :

"most people who are obese realize that eating shitty food and never working out make them fat."

Gluttony and sloth.

I see.

8/21/2011 1:08:07 PM

Hawthorne actually has a bit of a point. Whenever I watch any of those weight loss shows on tv (biggest loser, I used to be fat, extreme makeover weight loss edition) in the beginning they all say that they know they are eating poorly and are overweight but they have given up hope and feel they are destined to be fat forever.

8/21/2011 1:18:59 PM

Some people think they're eating healthy when they actually aren't. There are a lot of "healthy" foods that cause confusion. Typically not a problem if, as mentioned higher in the thread, you stick to shopping in the perimeter of the grocery store. But there are a variety of dietary pitfalls, like:

Low-fat and fat-free products, which often contain more sugar to improve the taste
Cereals and spreads ... where people tend to screw up on serving sizes
High-cal salad toppers
Ready-made salads and wraps that are marketed as "healthy" but can sometimes be the most unhealthy items on the menu

I could go on and on, but I think a lot of folks are simply confused about what's healthy and what's not.

^ And agreed. Once you reach morbid obesity, it seems a lot of people feel that it's out of their control. A lot of those contestants have been fat since childhood. When you're a fat kid, you will basically always feel like a fat kid. Like it's in your DNA. So why not just enjoy bad foods?

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 1:25 PM. Reason : k]

8/21/2011 1:23:53 PM

I agree with iheartkisses. For a while I thought I was eating healthy but when I realized I had a food allergy that was going to make me take a step back and really think about every single piece of food I put into my body, I realized that there was tons of room for improvement and once I made those changes I started to see the goals I had been striving for all along.

To me it's not even about counting calories. As long as I stick with my lean meats and tons of veggies (steamed, baked, grilled, raw) and watch my carb intake, I'm pretty good. I feel like once you get a system down that works for you, it's much easier to stick to it. I make a majority of my longer prep meals on Sunday's (hard boiled eggs, soups, bake chicken, etc) so then I just need to portion it out the night before and bring it to work with me the next day.

8/21/2011 1:43:07 PM

Quote :

"Some people think they're eating healthy when they actually aren't."

This is what I was getting at. Also, if you think overweight and obese people never work out, you are delusional.

8/21/2011 1:47:33 PM

^ Agreed. I teach fitness classes and have a lot of regular students who are overweight or even obese. Many of these students will also go to a zumba class following my spinning class.

It's crazy. If you're working out that much and you aren't losing weight, you either need to look at your diet or see a doctor about your thyroid.

With the proper diet, you don't have to go overboard on working out. 30 minutes to an hour a day for your workout will suffice.

8/21/2011 1:53:50 PM

my wife and I have been drinking Herbalife shakes for breakfast for about 6 months now. We both lost some weight and have good energy. Allie's sister works at Carolina Nutrition and sells Herbalife, so she takes their vitamins and supplements daily on top of 1/2 shakes a day, and she is in great shape. We have a few other friends who have their own custom Herbalife diets and have gotten to a comfortable weight level.

Overall, I would recommend looking into Herbalife. Its something that I believe in and have seen work

8/21/2011 2:06:51 PM

I had to go on an extreme diet when I was first diagnosed with insulin resistance... Though I guess you could consider it more of a lifestyle change because I stuck with most of it. I have tried the Alli pill and I don't understand the side effect of anal leakage - don't fart and you should be good

8/21/2011 2:10:53 PM

So much for my fart-lighting party trick

8/21/2011 2:23:59 PM

I did atkins when I was in middle school and it worked well. Then I tried the anoreix diet for a few months. That was the only time in my life I felt skinny, but I got really sick with bacterial infections all over my body and decided it wasn't worth it. In college I mostly just counted calories and exercised. The only time I've done a cleanse is when I get a really bad stomach virus I've found the best diets for me making my own with foods I enjoy. I really hate that I really love food.

8/21/2011 2:26:35 PM

The body is amazing at adapting to the stimuli you surround it with.

If you are overweight and start an aerobic/cardio program, your body will change in a variety of ways. One of those is lower body fat percentage... However, if you keep overfeeding it, and after your aerobic capacity adapts, you will stop losing weight and/or begin to gain again.

A lot of people don't realize that the major piece to the weight loss puzzle is simply diet; specifically calories in vs calories out. Right behind that in importance is protein intake and training.

Another huge obstacle is that when you train very hard and burn a significant amount of calories, hunger tends to sky rocket. Not necessarily immediately after training, but you will be hungrier due to a variety of metabolic signals in your body. So... what ends up happening is overweight people will bust their ass in the gym, then subsequently cave to the hunger pangs the training induces. This is especially true on diets that are high carb/med-low protein.

8/21/2011 2:32:47 PM

Quote :

"Also, if you think overweight and obese people never work out, you are delusional."

Never said they didn't, but that goes back to what I said about eating poorly. Several people have said this already; if you go work your ass off, but you don't eat properly, you accomplish nothing. It's about lifestyle change, and the point I'm making, albeit a bit caustically, is that one need not pour extensive money and time into some fad diet. Healthy eating, active lifestyle, and, since it was brought up, willpower and motivation, are all that you need.

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 3:50 PM. Reason : .]

8/21/2011 3:49:26 PM

http://www.marksdailyapple.com

8/21/2011 4:35:40 PM

I never been on a real diet (ex: "South Beach Diet", "Weight Watchers", etc) but last summer I got up to 193, the most I've ever weighed, and decided to start eating better and exercising better. Previously, I had pretty much only lifted weights...never done much cardio. I started running at the gym and eating better. I lost 20 pounds, and have stayed around that weight...anywhere from 172-176.
My "diet" was pretty simple:
Don't overeat in one sitting
Drink plenty of water (helps with appetite...so does chewing gum)
Eating smaller portions...maybe it's a psychological thing, but if it's on my plate, I will want to finish it (no matter how much it is). So if I put less on my plate in the first place, I'll finish it and hopefully not want to go back for more.
Don't eat junk (soft drinks, chips, etc).

It worked pretty well, but I've become much less disciplined recently. One thing, as stupid as it sounds, that helped me a lot was realizing that in order to lose weight you can't feel full all the time. Sometimes you'll feel hungry and you just have to ignore it.

[Edited on August 21, 2011 at 9:01 PM. Reason : formatting]

8/21/2011 8:59:34 PM

Set 'em up

8/22/2011 11:58:30 PM