In today’s Reader Mail:
Dear BS:
I know you don’t often talk about weight or stuff like that there, but I really like your attitude about things in general and I thought you might have something worthwhile to say about it. I weigh more than I would like, and I haven’t been able to drop the weight no matter what I’ve tried. I’d love to know if you or your readers could mention anything that’s worked for them. I guess maybe you could tie it in by showing some cute workout clothes?
T.
We do have so much to say about this. We don’t really talk about weight on the site because we don’t really talk about it much in real life, and this is because we are absolutely, totally convinced that there is an absolutely one-to-one relationship behind how much thinking goes into the weight-loss efforts, and how difficult it is. We mean that when you obsess over everything you eat, you (er, we) spend all day obsessing over food, which cannot possibly make you want to do anything but eat it, and constantly. So we are really big advocates—and let us say here that our medical expertise goes as far as our AP class in biology, which was taught by a chiropractor and included extra credit for reading that book about the guy who goes and lives in Alaska with wolves)—of only thinking about it in an additive sense: More, I should eat more of that nice yogurt and fruit, and less, I am such a bad person for eating all those cookies.
We were fat 13-year-olds, so we feel like we’ve paid the fat dues. (When you are fat in middle school, you are fat forever, is our position.) We will say in our opinion that there was nothing better for us than running a marathon, because we were so sure we were going to die in the middle of it if we didn’t train, that we did. (This is basically what it takes to motivate us.) And we just absolutely positively defy anyone to do an ashtanga or a hard vinyasa class four or five times a week and not lose weight. We just wouldn’t believe it. That said! We were just recently informed by our team of health professionals that our thyroid may be giving us the big middle finger and slowly bidding us adieu, and that getis super common (“We diagnose it three or four times a day,” our nurse says) and easily controlled through medication. (Yoga Journal also says it can be cured by doing shoulder stand six minutes a day, and we’re not sure where we stand on this yet.) Anyway, now that we know a tiny bit about this and are absolutely not at all experts we are telling everyone we know that we are, in fact, experts, and that they should get tested for it if they’re, as our nurse described it, “having trouble with weight that just won’t come off.” Apparently the medication for it will not, give you rare, much-worse diseases (“I’m hanging up on you if you don’t stop being so silly,” our nurse said) and one of the side effects is mania and weight loss. To which we say: no sweat!
That was the long answer. Short answer: a vigorous yoga practice (which can be done at home, on the cheap, if necessary, once you know enough to get the poses’ alignment in a non-injury way)—we recommend TK. The first time we did one, we only got through eight minutes. And a fun, group-oriented long-term athletic goal, which for us was running the New York and Dublin marathons with some of our best friends from college. They were both awesome.
We are sure Lil B. will have something to say about all this as well, and of course we would love to know what has worked, rather than what has not, since we are keep it all positive-like here.
Above: Prana top, $46
I agree that every time I FOCUS all my energy on losing weight it doesn’t budge. When I focus on eating right, treating myself in moderation and being healthy, I usually come back to the my “normal” weight. I can’t do a lot of the intense aerobic exercises like running, etc because of dancing on too many cement floors in college and now my hips, knees and ankles hate me. But I TOTALLY agree with the advice on yoga. I teach adult dance classes and I think they are also great….and fun! I think it is something to do with stretching. You will feel so much better after stretching…
BS, I didn’t understand: what Thyroid condition is it that is super common? And. . . TK? Thanks!
I tend to get bored during yoga, but I love Pilates because its relaxing like Yoga but you move around a bit more which prevents me from getting bored.
Drink lots of water.
Don’t let yourself get too hungry. Its better to have a midafternoon snack like some yogurt or nuts or fruit to keep you going rather than sitting down to dinner ravenously hungry- you will overeat if you do that.
Eat breakfast. This used to be so hard for me because I do not have much of an appetite when I wake up, but once I made myself do it for a few months, it was fine and now I can’t bear to go without my oatmeal in the morning.
Get on a schedule. Try to eat at the same time every day.
Add a veggie. Look at whatever you have prepared and add another side vegetable.
Approach what you eat from a nutritional rather than weight loss angle. What I mean by this is focus on all the good things you can eat and what they do for your body (for example, since I started eating healthy foods, my hair and nails grow super fast and I hardly ever get sick) rather than focusing on “bad” foods.
And honestly, if you can afford to, see a nutritionist a couple times. They can really help you impliment changes to make your diet healthier. I did this (to gain weight, actually, but what really stuck with me was the tips for maintaining a healthy weight and diet) and it was so good for me!
Running is the best thing you can do for your body.
I am far from athletic and for the first 23 years of my life was convinced that I couldn’t run for longer than five minutes. But the TV, an iPod and being able to pace yourself on a treadmill at the gym has allowed me to push myself far beyond my expectations.
I compete in my head with the other people in the room and try and outlast them, run faster, whatever.
It gets me to drink water (which I tend to have a difficult time doing) and I can eat what ever I want (within reason) and still lose weight.
Run. Just start, if I can do it, anyone can.
Sigh. We were thinking this day would come, and we’d have to spill our secrets.
We are not as free thinking as your regularly scheduled writer. We don’t have time for yoga 5 times a week (man, we wish we did. We’ve thought about how to make our schedule work so we could, but it just didn’t work). We will sometimes obsess over what we eat. We have only run a mile under 10 minutes once in our life, and we credit that to a very special gym teacher who allowed us to run with a Walkman (which was very taboo).
We still can’t run a mile under 10 minutes, probably not even 12! And we are recently feeling a bit like a pudding after gaining back about 10 lbs that we lost. We, actually, are a little preoccupied with this and we just spent 3 minutes looking at our reflection in the bathroom mirror at work wondering wtf happened.
We believe in a mass-marketed weight loss program involving points – it’s worked twice. We know, we know – if we’ve had to do it again, it didn’t work. That’s not true, though. We’re just lazy. The thing we like about it is it teaches portion control. We will never be the type to eat a salad. But now we know that one slice of pizza is enough. We lost 10 lbs on a diet of pre-packaged oatmeal, turkey sandwiches, pizza, and a pudding cup. Honestly. Our boss has lost 40 lbs on the same program, but she eats nothing but carrots for breakfast, cauliflower for lunch, and a small bit of meat for dinner.
We are trying to make a positive change, though. We are training for a marathon (which we hate, but we are doing it). We are riding the stationery bike or elliptical on our off days (we are lucky enough to have a gym in our office). We are sleeping in on the weekends. As far as food, well. We do our best to watch our points, but we are slightly less strict if we are eating healthier – which we think we are. We are staying away from some of the more processed frozen dinners and cooking. A little. We are going to TRY to drink more water, even though we hate it.
And we also are having our thyroid checked; we recently found out it runs in our family, and it would explain why we cannot lose weight no matter how hard we try (this is not an excuse or a cop-out to eat more pudding), we cannot stay warm, we are always tired, and we cannot remember anything.
Our bottom line: do what works for you. Don’t get discouraged if what works for us, or your neighbor, or your sister doesn’t work for you. If it’s a mass marketed diet program, that’s ok (btw, you can easily find their guides on eBay if you fear meetings like we did). If it’s eating all organic, great! If you want pudding, have a cup! But at the end of the day, diet and exercise are what works. And you’ll only keep it up if you don’t hate it.
We’re hoping we’ll have some insight after our doctor’s appointment.
And we mirror Julie’s sentiment – if we can run, anyone can. Really. Anyone.
We should add that we absolutely do not support our boss eating only carrots and cauliflower at ALL. We’re not sure how healthy it is, but mostly, she’s not happy doing it. And if you’re that miserable, why bother? I’d rather have a cupcake and run an extra mile than eat steamed vegetables all day.
I totally understand. I work out and watch what I eat so much more than I did a few years ago, but keep gaining and gaining. I really think it has to do with how sedentary your job is. The only thing I can think of is that I now work a desk job. When I worked retail and went to school I had a much easier time losing weight. If I would gain, I would just add some activity and lose some food and I would be fine. Now, I can work out everyday for over an hour, watch what I eat, and nothing works. It’s so frustrating! I know that a year ago I tested borderline for a thryoid problem, so my doctor ordererd another test which came back normal.
Yoga, seriously, go to yoga. I’ve been “athletic” looking my whole life. i started yoga a year and a half ago almost, and my body is totally different. I was always a runner, that’s pretty much what i did, and the occasional lifting session. but i cannot say enough about a rigorous 3-5 times a week yoga practice. just go, and go and go and eventually you will start to see a difference. its not instant, but it changes you from inside out. Promise.
the thyroid problem is (i assume) hypothyroidism. i have it and it can sometimes make losing weight a pain. BUT it is treatable with meds, so it really becomes less of a big deal once you figure out the right dosage.
i managed to lose weight this summer by paying more attention to what i ate and exercising on a regular basis. the exercise consisted of walking/jogging for 40 minutes a day with my dog (mostly walking). to watch what i ate, i bought myself a pretty notebook and wrote down everything that i ate, how much of it i ate, and when i ate it. it really made me think about portions and about when i was most likely to get hungry. for instance, i crave salty things in the mid-afternoon. now that i know this, i make sure i have something healthy and salty to snack on, rather than just indulging in a bag of chips.
i’m really bad about exercising regularly. i’m 100% sure that the only reason i did it (and still do it) is because of my dog. he was overweight (in a cute way! but still, a bit chunky) but i wanted him to be healthier and live longer, so i started taking him on long walks and then jogging with him. he’s lost weight and so have i – plus i got to bond with my pup – a win/win/win situation!
I agree that training for a marathon is a great way to lose and keep weight off. If you train with a group, it’s much more fun (Team in Training is a good one). I also love Pilates. And if you’re not so much into exercising, I think Weight Watchers is a really good program that focuses on eaty healthy. I’ve done it (online) on and off for years whenever I want to lose a few pounds.
Also, the weight watchers cookbook has some really tasty recipes! Oh, and I’m a huge fan of cooking light magazine as well and you can get all their recipes online at http://www.cookinglight.com. I make their jasmine rice stuffed peppers (Aug. 2006) once or twice a month!
I found super success with the South Beach diet. That, and upping my physical activity on any level (walking 30 minutes a day will do wonders) have helped me greatly.
i have been recently seeing a lot of information coming out that eating 2 eggs in the morning instead of something like cereal makes a person, on average, consume less calories throughout the day. just a small tidbit.
i read this really in-depth atricle about insulin and fat and glycogen stores once, it was really confusing and made weight-loss sound almost impossible. but it said something to the effect that when you overload on carbs, your body can only hold so much glycogen( and after that it spills into your liver, which converts it to fat. so, it’s maintaining a balance of sugars.
also, adding any sort of weight lifting will help burn more fat.
the basic point about weight loss is to eat less. it doesn’t matter what you eat, just eat less of it. eat frequently, drink water, and try to listen to what your body wants.
i also read a book awhile ago that put what seemed to me to be the right perspective on the matter: french women don’t get fat, by mirielle guiliano. it talks about weight loss as a result of really caring for yourself, rather than weight loss as the central goal of life. it also has some tasty french recipes.
honestly, if you start running every day, you can eat whatever the hell you want.