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Thanks to everyone for their input, encouragement etc.

My current living arrangements (Almost the literal "Middle of Nowhere") make walking to the shops a bit tricky, considering it's half an hour's drive away by car, but I will be using the Kinect for exercise. Been dancing with it for about half an hour a day so far and I'm tired by the end of that. I'm also never going to dance to Bananarama's Venus ever again, it just feels wrong...

I'll be enjoying a tight budget here, so I'll be forced to endure Mum's diabetic meals whilst I'm here, a massive change of diet compared to what I was used to in Swansea...

Two more suggestions, use a smaller plate for your main meals and chew each mouthful a bit longer than you do at the moment. It all helps .

Give up the beer and alcohol for 3 months, try and drink only sugar free beverages, mainly water.

That will make a huge difference to your waist line.

I also second the idea of writing down (everything) you eat.

I have a friend who was around twenty stone. When he analysed his lifestyle he found that he had about six cokes a day while he was working. He switched to water, and dropped four stone that year. He looks great after it. Sometimes a small change can make a big difference.

TonyB wrote:When he analysed his lifestyle he found that he had about six cokes a day while he was working.

A guy at my work got fired for doing the odd cheeky line!

at 23 and a half stone, i went to my doctors the other year for advice on bariatric surgery. My GP is a no nonsense kind of guy and he drew me a little diagram of calories in and calories burnt, he said that all you need to do to lose weight is less calories in and more calories burnt, its as easy as that.

the approximation you will find on the internet is that 3500 calories is roughly equal to a lb, so whether you save this by dieting or exercising is up to you. Half a pound a week over a year is26lb, almost 2 stone! and thats just cutting 1750 cals a week - 350 calories a day (about a bar of choc or can of coke).

I got down to 19.5 stone last year and thought it was easy, let slip a bit and went back to 22.5. Im currently at 21.5 (which considering it was xmas recently i happy with) and ive learnt a lesson about how easy it is to slip back into a routine.

One other piece of advice, it that when you feel you are ready for walking / jogging etc - train with a friend. Many a time i have come home and really cant be bothered to train, but as my housemate trains with me, i didnt want to let him down.

Good luck and keep us updated.

On a slightly more basic note, in terms of food input and output the equation is very simple. If what goes in is less than what comes out, you'll lose weight.

There was an item on Radio 2 yesterday whereby a woman who had tried just about every diet and not managed to lose weight with any of them has formed an action group to lobby Parliament to ban adverting of diets, slimming products and organisations such as Weightwatchers. She has followers who have also tried them all and not succeeded but I can't help thinking that just because one group doesn't succeed it's no reason to ban them or prevent others trying them unless they’ve been proved to be risky. OK, they're all big business and are there to make a profit but, despite the rip-off faddy diets and products many of them do actually work provided the process is followed strictly. It’s interesting that well know ‘large ladies’ Dawn French and Pauline Quirke have both slimmed down several stones in recent months, the latter is now advertising a diet food programme so presumably it worked for her. Fern Britton of course was well known for advertising Ryvita Minis to help reduce weight but resorted to a gastric band op to actually slim down – so did Anne Diamond a few years ago.

It’s far cheaper to just cut down on food intake, increase the exercise and let the weight slowly reduce but sometimes people need a helping hand – buddies, support groups etc can all be well worth trying.

Having said all that, I visited our local Health Centre before Christmas for a ‘free check-up’ on potential heart problems so diet, weight, cholesterol etc were all involved. The result was that I apparently have higher blood pressure than I should (probably from dealing with all the spammers on TM!), my cholesterol is fine at 4.7 but, investigating deeper, part of it is too low and I need to shed one and a half stones (21lb for our US readers). Existing diet is fine, plenty of fruit and vegetables, skimmed milk only, no added fats and rarely eating processed food or takeaways so the only ways for me to go are reduce portion size, more exercise and, the part which saddens me considerably, reduce intake of alcohol – mainly wine with meals but also the odd G&T or three. With any luck and a fair wind, all that might add 5 years or so to my life so I guess I’ll just have to do it!

The main point of any weight loss or fitness regime is that it has to be sustainable, it has to be a change to lifestyle that you're going to be able to keep up rather than some crash, lettuce leaf diet that you're never going top be able to stick to for more than a few months. That's the reason that so many people loose loads of weight, only to finish their diet, go back to their old lifestyle and pile it all back on again.

Exercise is the most important thing, despite what some people say, exercise will have a far bigger impact on you loosing weight than anything else. The main problem with people who are either over weight or lead a very inactive lifestyle is that their metabolic rate (the rate that you're burning calories) is going to be very slow. Just to illustrate just how a slow metabolic rate can affect you, at rest you could easily be burning at least 600 calories a day less than an active person would burn doing the same activites. Starting an exercise program will not only burn calories when you're exercising but you'll also burn off more when you're not. It doesn't have to be lung busting, just an hour or so a day walking a day is a good start (to be honest, to start with a hour walking is far better than doing harder exercise that you're not able to keep up with). When you've got yoour fitness up to a reasonable level, try going along to gym classes. Classes are far more fun that doing it by yourself and if you can find a friend to go along with, that'll help give you that little bit of extra motivation. Just remember that with any exercise, it's far better to do an activity that you can do for a reasonable length of time rather than one that forces you to stop after 5 minutes in a sweaty heap.

As far as diet goes, just be sensible. I'm not a believer in silly diets, just keep portions sensible, avoid processed foods, eat lean meats and plenty of veg. Pasta and rice are all good, make sure that you have a decent breakfast in the morning (porridge is great as it'll keep you full for longer), for lunch, eat wholemeal bread in your sandwiches instead of white as like porridge, it'll keep you full for longer. Soup and a slice of wholemeal bread is ideal.

One of the most important things in my opinion is to have a day in the week where you let your diet go and give yourself a treat for being good. Perhaps have a take away for dinner or a chocolate bar for lunch. BUT if you haven't been good that week and have slipped then there's no treat for you. It helps keep motivation up.

The first two weeks is always the hardest when you're changing habbits but if you can stick through that then you'll find that it all starts to get much easier. Do that and keep the weight loss at a sensible level (you might loose more to start with but when things settle down, you want to aim for about 1kg a week).

If you need any help or advice with anything, feel free to drop me a pm

Lady of Mystery wrote:The main point of any weight loss or fitness regime is that it has to be sustainable, it has to be a change to lifestyle that you're going to be able to keep up rather than some crash, lettuce leaf diet that you're never going top be able to stick to for more than a few months.

This.

Mandrake wrote:On a slightly more basic note, in terms of food input and output the equation is very simple. If what goes in is less than what comes out, you'll lose weight.

Unfortunately, this is a bit of a myth, at least in terms of calories. Michael Phelps (if I remember correctly) used to have a diet of 12000 calories a day (to burn which you should swim for something like 30 hours per day) and didn't gain a gram of fat. And the table I'm resting my laptop has probably enough calories for several days, but I doubt it make me gain weight if I ate it. This, as far as I know, is due to the way we count calories and to the fact that not every food is absorbed the same. Don't quote me on that, but if you eat something that spikes your insulin (mostly high glycemic index sugars) you are going to absorb much more of the other calories you eat.
So my suggestion (and it comes also from my personal experience) is: whatever diet you choose, even if it is apparently quite easy, stick to it religiously; whatever change you make could actually make it fail. Even a single candy can make the difference.
Also, there are a lot of hidden traps which can be quite difficult to spot: for example, even if sugar-free beverages have no calories at all, it appears that artificial sweeteners (apart from causing cancer in great quantities) can really be a diet killer, for reasons that at the moment elude me, so I'd avoid them as much as possible.

Some suggestions that have worked very well for me for keeping my hunger under control (keep in mind that I can gain and loose weight quite easily):
Never ever skip breakfast.
Write down your weight on a notepad every day. This has been scientifically proved to work for some reason.
Eat as much regularly as you can and when it's time eat even if you are not hungry: your body will avoid absorbing greedily the food it takes since it will know when more is coming.
If you can, do 4-5 small meals evenly timed instead of just 2-3 bigger. Although this can be difficult for logistic reasons, it really helps me keeping my hunger low.

Of course I'd double check all this with a specialist, but I think that none of the things I've said can hurt in any way.

All excellent points! In the example I mentioned, I think 'input' refers to having sensible sized meals through portion control and 'output' includes not only waste products but energy expended in excercise etc.

With all these super ideas I think we're just about ready to have words with lulu.com about publishing 'The TalkMagic Way to a Trimmer and Slimmer you'!

Mandrake wrote:With all these super ideas I think we're just about ready to have words with lulu.com about publishing 'The TalkMagic Way to a Trimmer and Slimmer you'!

LOL let's do it.

Anyway, Richard Wiseman has talked about it in his interesting "59 Seconds", so at least one (former) magician has already published some dieting advice...

Relish wrote: My GP is a no nonsense kind of guy and he drew me a little diagram of calories in and calories burnt, he said that all you need to do to lose weight is less calories in and more calories burnt, its as easy as that.

Basically, that's all there is to it! If calories in < calories out, you lose weight, so you have to either eat less or move more.

I gave up alcohol for 6 weeks a couple of years ago to see what it did to my blood pressure. I lost a stone with absolutely no effort and my blood pressure came down too. Nowadays I treat myself to a bottle of red on a Saturday night, and drink a couple of pints of real ale on a Tuesday during the league quiz matches and the same on Wednesday while I put the world to rights with some friends. My weight is constant. I know I'll feel great by dropping another stone, but as I'm normally at the high end of normal it's not such a big deal.

Tomo wrote:I gave up alcohol for 6 weeks a couple of years ago to see what it did to my blood pressure. I lost a stone with absolutely no effort and my blood pressure came down too

Oh thanks Jon, that's exactly what I didn't want to hear !

MiKo wrote: Richard Wiseman has talked about it in his interesting "59 Seconds".

I'm sure I got this for Christmas, where on earth did I put it?