a 100 year

[Samuel]

Since you are at the beginning and haven't started yet, I will offer you some information to help you do this the healthy way.

First thing you should do is find out what your EER (Estimated Energy Requirement) is. This will tell you what the minimum number of calories you should eat just to maintain healthy brain function. If you don't eat enough to keep your body alive and healthy, especially over a year, there are possible repercussions. Keep in mind if you spent every day lying in bed your body is still burning calories and you would need to eat calories to support the process of burning calories for energy. My EER based on my weight, height and activity level is in the range of 4-5,000 calories just to give you an idea of how ridiculously low the magical 2,000 calorie diet listed on every food label is, and it's most likely that way so they can round down the bad numbers.

Your diet should consist of 45-65% of calories taken in from carbohydrates, 20-35% from fats and 10-35% from proteins. Remember there are good fats, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. The bad ones to look out for are saturated and trans fats. Trans fats are tricky because a label could say zero but if it has 0.4 grams per serving or less, they can round down. Also remember that they choose what the serving size is. Look for partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredient list as that is the process that creates most trans fats found in food. Trans fats are really bad for you but that takes some chemistry to explain. Fish and vegetable oils are great sources of healthy fats.

Now for some math regarding your goal of 100lbs. There are 3,500 calories per pound of fat. So your goal is to burn 350,000 calories above what you're eating. That's 960 calories burned per day over your calorie intake. So look at what effort you will need to add to your normal daily routine to achieve that number. If I run 6-7 miles in an hour on a treadmill I will burn about 1,000 calories. You can do things like parking your car farther away and walk with purpose instead of letting your feet fall in front of you to keep you from falling over. Intensity is an easy way of burning more calories. If you have stairs in your house, go up them faster, take two steps at a time. The idea here is to burn more calories doing what you're already doing by going harder at it. Supplementing that with a morning run should get you to where you want to be.

Eating healthy without exercise or exercising without eating healthy will make it very hard to reach your goals. Keep a good balance of both and I am confident you can do it.

One tip to keeping yourself accountable to your friends, family and readers would be to keep everyone posted weekly or biweekly on your progress. I'll use an example I just saw on Julie and Julia and she used 435 recipes/365 days (Not positive on the recipe count). So on January 1st you'll start at 100lbs/365 days. Let the count down begin.

Two guys on The Biggest Loser this season lost over 100lbs in under 10 weeks, I think 7-8. While you might not be able to follow the 6+ hour workout regimen that they had or have trainer telling you exactly what to eat and have a fridge that magically fills itself with the right types of food, you are giving yourself 5-6 times more time to get it done. It's absolutely possible.


Good luck. You CAN do it.

HOLY JEEZ!

*takes notes*

Are you some sort of nutrition god?

To everyone else, thank you for your kind words. I am currently just getting the blog ready for the 2010 challenge. Writing some here and there, posting random stuff. Come Jan 1 ... business time begins.

[dsirkle]

Bariatric surgery will do it.

[dc4teg]

Bariatric surgery will do it.

IMO surgery is last resort, I think he has a great goal and I might take his idea and follow it myself!

YOU CAN DO IT

[p3titexburial]

I have ginormously high cholesterol so exercise and dieting right are something that I need to watch out for too. It's difficult when you start but once you start seeing results you're going to want to keep doing it.

I would also recommend do something you really love in terms of exercise--because if you hate it, it's just going to be that much harder. Running takes a heck of a lot of discipline and I can't even imagine doing it because I'm about as big a sofa spud as you can get. But with aikido, I'll trudge through rain and snow just to get to a class because I LOVE it. If you love water, or your kids love water (if you have any) or another friend of your's loves water, go swimming at your local YMCA twice or three times a week, do a few laps at the beginning and then play games like water tag or something, you'd be amazed at how you don't even realize you're burning calories until you see the results. When you're watching TV or on the computer, every ten minutes do a few leg and arm lifts, it's really helpful trying to inject some physical activity into everything you do. I find martial arts a good way to burn even though you don't realize it at the time, and aikido especially since you're not restricted by belt designations to what techniques you can practice and can't, and since you always have a partner to throw and throw you, you're going to enjoy it as a physical practice than some other ones.

Don't keep foods you know are harmful in your fridge, if you don't buy it, chances of you eating it when you're hungry are lower. If you're hankering for something sweet, go for a sorbet, or even better, freeze a banana/some grapes. If you drink clear soup (miso, chicken, vegetable) before you eat your meal, you'll eat less.

Learn to listen to your body, when you're full but not bloated and stop. The first couple times is kind of like, "I think I'm full, but I'm uncomfortable not being bloated..." because we like that feeling of being bloated but afterwards you'll find yourself uncomfortable BEING bloated and naturally eat less. If you're still hungry after, give yourself an hour or two and then eat a small meal again.

A lot of people eat out of boredom, which is a really bad habit and one that I found really hard to kick. But if I take up my time with things I have to do around the house, cleaning, mopping, washing dishes, buying things, fixing things, and just generally keeping busy, I don't even think about food until i slow down and it's meal time.

Drink. Lots. Of. Water.

Starving yourself isn't going to do anything, just make you miserable. But finding alternatives you can use is better. Cook with pam. Replace half your usual portion of pasta with frozen veggies/squash. Don't buy ready made food, cook it yourself (cooking will make you less hungry the longer you cook, I have no idea why, but it does.) Don't think about finishing everything on your plate, you can always save it for later.

I don't count so much as calories as I do what I'm eating. Ingesting an 80 calorie apple is different from ingesting 80 calories of butter, but even so, I have no idea how people can even reach a 2000 calorie daily diet. The things I cook, including 3 meals a day and snacks barely tops the 1000 mark but everyone's body has different needs.

Try looking up tips from the internet as well, but don't give in to those fast-solution or crash diet kinds of things, it rarely ever works and the repercussions aren't worth it.

Good luck!

[p3titexburial]

Oh, and don't shop for groceries when you're hungry, you're likely to splurge. =3

[withonor]

HOLY JEEZ!

*takes notes*

Are you some sort of nutrition god?

To everyone else, thank you for your kind words. I am currently just getting the blog ready for the 2010 challenge. Writing some here and there, posting random stuff. Come Jan 1 ... business time begins.

God? Heck no. Expert? Hardly. A guy who took a nutrition class to fill a transfer requirement? Yep. I found the information in the class to be very useful and eye opening. I retained more data from that class than any I can remember. I got over 100% on all but one test. Off the top of my head I can't tell you what every vitamin and mineral are used for or how their deficiencies or toxicities effect the body, but I know they exist and can be severe. Probably the most important class I will ever take and it has nothing to do with anything I am interested education wise.

I want to challenge you to something right now! Are you up for it!? You set a goal and a start date. That's good, but starting something like this on a specific day thereby cutting off a lot of things you are used to suddenly is very hard. I say start now. Use this week to start making some small adjustments. I don't care what it is, but change something right now that will help you with your goal.

[withonor]

I have ginormously high cholesterol so exercise and dieting right are something that I need to watch out for too. It's difficult when you start but once you start seeing results you're going to want to keep doing it.

I would also recommend do something you really love in terms of exercise--because if you hate it, it's just going to be that much harder. Running takes a heck of a lot of discipline and I can't even imagine doing it because I'm about as big a sofa spud as you can get. But with aikido, I'll trudge through rain and snow just to get to a class because I LOVE it. If you love water, or your kids love water (if you have any) or another friend of your's loves water, go swimming at your local YMCA twice or three times a week, do a few laps at the beginning and then play games like water tag or something, you'd be amazed at how you don't even realize you're burning calories until you see the results. When you're watching TV or on the computer, every ten minutes do a few leg and arm lifts, it's really helpful trying to inject some physical activity into everything you do. I find martial arts a good way to burn even though you don't realize it at the time, and aikido especially since you're not restricted by belt designations to what techniques you can practice and can't, and since you always have a partner to throw and throw you, you're going to enjoy it as a physical practice than some other ones.

Don't keep foods you know are harmful in your fridge, if you don't buy it, chances of you eating it when you're hungry are lower. If you're hankering for something sweet, go for a sorbet, or even better, freeze a banana/some grapes. If you drink clear soup (miso, chicken, vegetable) before you eat your meal, you'll eat less.

Learn to listen to your body, when you're full but not bloated and stop. The first couple times is kind of like, "I think I'm full, but I'm uncomfortable not being bloated..." because we like that feeling of being bloated but afterwards you'll find yourself uncomfortable BEING bloated and naturally eat less. If you're still hungry after, give yourself an hour or two and then eat a small meal again.

A lot of people eat out of boredom, which is a really bad habit and one that I found really hard to kick. But if I take up my time with things I have to do around the house, cleaning, mopping, washing dishes, buying things, fixing things, and just generally keeping busy, I don't even think about food until i slow down and it's meal time.

Drink. Lots. Of. Water.

Starving yourself isn't going to do anything, just make you miserable. But finding alternatives you can use is better. Cook with pam. Replace half your usual portion of pasta with frozen veggies/squash. Don't buy ready made food, cook it yourself (cooking will make you less hungry the longer you cook, I have no idea why, but it does.) Don't think about finishing everything on your plate, you can always save it for later.

I don't count so much as calories as I do what I'm eating. Ingesting an 80 calorie apple is different from ingesting 80 calories of butter, but even so, I have no idea how people can even reach a 2000 calorie daily diet. The things I cook, including 3 meals a day and snacks barely tops the 1000 mark but everyone's body has different needs.

Try looking up tips from the internet as well, but don't give in to those fast-solution or crash diet kinds of things, it rarely ever works and the repercussions aren't worth it.

Good luck!

Before I respond to anything here, check the bold. Water is so important. Not to mention that beverages are one of the biggest contributors to calorie intake and the worst contributor to nutrients. If you can cut out sodas (especially) and most juices, anything sugary, you will be off to a great start. One thing you'll notice is that you will eat more. That is a good thing, you'll want more food, so make sure it is nutrient dense. Fruits and vegetables are the best thing.

p3titexburial, I'm just expanding on the ideas you have presented, not attacking you.

Cholesterol...Sounds like a bad word, right? There are good cholesterols and bad ones. LDL's, low density lipoprotein, are the bad cholesterols. They transfer cholesterol to your body for storage. HDL's (high density lipoprotein) transfer cholesterol from storages in your body to your liver for processing to get rid of. Saturated and trans fats will increase your LDL (bad cholesterol) and decrease your HDL (good cholesterol). Polyunsaturated fats, monounsaturated fats and exercise can increase your HDL, thereby lowering your cholesterol.

Exercises that you find fun are going to be a lot more effective than ones that feel like work. If you don't like running there might be something that you enjoy that could replace it.

p3titexburial, either you're eating more than you think you are or you're very tiny, because 1,000 calories isn't enough for almost anyone.

Calculate your EER

Set the activity level to sedentary if you want to know the minimum calories you should intake. Setting higher activity levels will tell you what you should eat to maintain your current weight.

[Elise.m]

Calculate your EER

Set the activity level to sedentary if you want to know the minimum calories you should intake. Setting higher activity levels will tell you what you should eat to maintain your current weight.

Thanks for that! I've been eating about 2000 (Give or take 200) calories on my good days, and that says I should be eating 2500. I'll have to pass this on to some friends!

[Samuel]

Thank you all for your advice and support. I have a lot to think about.

Also .. it seems I have inspired?

http://100lbsin2010.webs.com

That was just started but a lady in my office. the emails I got was "Come and join my website. Thanks to Sam - I have a mission for the new year. I stole his idea, but going to provide him with as much support as I can and I hope you guys can do it for me!! "

[p3titexburial]

I'm quite tiny--4"11 and 110lbs. No worries, I know it seems strange but I think there's also some family influences in it. Not sure on the levels of each for my cholesterol but high enough for my doctor to freak out on. It runs in my family though, so I gotta watch out for it.

On the 1000 calorie thing:

A normal meal for me would be a bowl of white rice (or red, or brown depending on what my mom's feeling like making, or what's in my pantry) sauteed veggies (usually bok choi, spinach, or carrots, with PAM as oil, soy sauce, garlic), some steamed fish (rice wine, soy sauce, pepper, ginger) and a bowl of soup (miso, radish, bean sprout, seaweed etc). The meat gets switched around a bit but it's never a hunk of meat, usually strips with salted veggies, sometimes a tofu or shrimp dish. If I have this for 2 meals a day (probably around 500 calories total each meal) and have my usual steamed egg and fruit in the morning for breakfast, it literally barely tops 1000, probably 1300 if I'm pushing it. I don't eat many sweets (I get sugar migraines) and cake and pastries were never a big thing. Snacks (if I'm peckish) that are around the house are usually dried fruit, dried tofu skins, dried squid, octopus (cephalopods beware) pretty much anything that can be dried and seasoned. We eat early--5 is normal dinner time.

I'm going to try out that EER, it looks really interesting. Thanks!