1. Major Help Required – Apply Within!

   Hello everyone, I found this site a few weeks ago and have read quite a number of posts and threads in quite a few area’s and I’ve found out that you lot seem to know what you’re talking about with a lot great answers and advice to peoples ‘issues’ so I thought I would join and see if it can work for me too.
   I need to be honest with myself and need some major help with my weight /body image issues that I have carried for decades now as I am not getting any younger and have realised that I need to seriously do something about it but I just cant find the drive or get the willpower to succeed.
   I am a 50yr old guy, 6′ 1″ tall, weighing 18st 7lbs, I have been overweight for all of my life; from a very young age I was always told to ‘clean my plate’ and ‘eat eveything up’ as wasting food was frowned upon… later on, as I got older I presumed that this was the normal thing to do and still do to this day.
   I am self employed as a landscape gardener so it’s not as if I sit around all day watching TV, so I am fairly active in that respect, I just find that I am eating the wrong things more for convinience than anything else, If I domnt make a packed lunch I will find myself going to Greggs or the local chippy or macdonadls KFC etc… and even if I do remember to make a packed lunch, it’s always the wrong food, sandwiches on white bread, ham, cheese & mayo, bag of crisps, chocolate biscuits, not healthy at all.
   I dont like fruit, I hate salad, I hate excercise, at home I tend to be lazy, whereas at work, I’m always grafting hard; if I find myself getting hungry after my evening meal, I’ll grab a biscuit or two or three, a cake maybe, crackers n cheese of some toast covered in butter and after I’ve eaten it I’ll feel guily as sin and promise myself that it wont happen again…. but it always does.

   I’ve tried just about every diet there is, Atkins, soup, cabbage, calorie controlled,but it always ends in failure so I need something that I can stick to and get myself into shape and not feel/look fat!!
   I need your help guys and I’d like you to be brutally honest and help me focus on the ‘right direction’.

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2. You like to present a challenge, don’t you?
   I in return will challenge at least a few things you have said.

   ‘I hate exercise.’ Heard that one so many times and so far never failed to find that it is a case of people not having found a type they enjoy. Easy for me to say as someone who loves shifting iron and running, so easy to ignore. Of course there is the fact I hated PE at school because focus was on team games I hate, and embarassing the little guy which was me. I had to find what I enjoyed and that is something we can help with but you need to guide us on. Tell us what you do enjoy, that could be TV, computer gaming, beer, nature watching, embroidery etc. As long as it’s not Morris dancing we should be able to give you some assistance finding something you can do and enjoy or do while enjoying something else.

   Landscape gardener, always grafting hard. Done groundwork for landscapers in the past and they do work hard, but not all of the time. A lot of planning and detail has to go into your work so you will be highly active at times and slow at others. It’s more than I do sitting at my desk but realism is important when assessing what you do.

   Diet is standard UK trash, especially Greggs, how anyone eats food that tastes second hand I don’t know. I was brought up the same way, basically force fed but being built like a twig this never made an impact. You have done the usual drastic diets that don’t work so now I will advise something that will, and it involves a really difficult ingredient, patience. You’re 50 years old and have been overweight your whole life, this won’t be fixed on a 2 week program, more like 2 years to get you rolling well on the right track and enjoying a changed lifestyle.
   Main rule. No major changes, your diet is rubbish, no nonesense there, but you are used to it and drastic changes will make you really miss the parts you have left out.
   10% shift system. Basically the start will be a straight forward 10% cut of your diet accross the board. Pretty much the same food, but less of it all round. You will feel this at first but not to an extent that you can’t tolerate and it will soon become the comfortable norm. Once you are fully comfortable this way, you cut again until this an other things are giving you an average loss of 1 or 2 pounds a week.
   Introduction of vegetation. There are things out there which have used photosynthesis to grow and aren’t covered by fruit or salad. Find some you like and eat them. It could be peas, or passion fruit, I don’t care, just start eating some of it. As you cut intake your body will start looking for nutrients and start appreciating th evegetation, but it can only do this if they are there. I’m not saying go vegan or hit 5 a day tomorrow, just add a bit.
   Ditch the saint or sinner attitude. We all eat some trash on occasion, and if it’s in balance there is no problem doing so. Your balance is way off at the moment but we’ll get you there over time. This is not quick fix it’s fix and stay fixed.

   If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re probably right – Henry Ford

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3. Diets are fads. Eating good isn’t. You need to kick your own ass for letting yourself eat what you eat. You need to get used to eating the things that you hate. You need to go to the store and walk by all the crap that you usually buy and fill a cart to the gills with nothing but good food, and stick to it. If being lean and healthy were easy, then everybody in the world would look great, but nothing worth having comes easily. I’m telling it to you like this because I’m the worst when it comes to diet, but I break myself in half training and I know when to say no.

   Go and buy a small, pocket sized note pad and write down everything you eat every day for a week. At the end of that week, sit down and look at it, and realize all the junk that you put into your body that doesn’t need to be there. First, cut the snacks out. Eat crappy lunch and dinner for a couple weeks, but don’t eat your snacks. Replace them with something good(Fruits, veggies). In a few weeks, go back and look at your meals and make some changes to them. The main problem people have with changing anything is that, most of the time, sudden and extreme change is rejected. You can’t go from eating KFC and cake to salads and fruit over night. That’s too much change and mentally, you think that you can’t do it and you’ll reject it.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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4. Thanks for the great answer guys… I know what I ‘need’ to do, it’s all about finding the motivation to do it. Justin, believe me, I’ve kicked my ass plenty of times, but being totally honest with myself, it could be I just haven’t kicked it hard enough!
   At the moment, business has quietened down a wee bit as landscaping tends to be seasonal (Mar-Oct) so I think now might just be the right time to help keep me focused (no passing Greggs everyday) and I have more time to think about planning meals and preparing them.
   From what I’ve read would I be correct in thinking that the way forward is a high protein diet with plenty of vegetables and some types of fruit?
   The costs of buying fresh fruit, veg, meats etc can be an issue this time of year also, so would a whey protein supplement be of benefit to increase the amount of protein intake required, or will that be of no use?
   Exercise: I used to love walking but for the past few months I’ve been suffering with plantar fasciitis (pains in heel/ankle) in my left foot which means I cant walk as much as I used to and most steps can be quite painful. I have ordered some supports that raise the arch of the foot but wont know if these will help until they arrive, hopefully, they will help and I can get out walking when I’m not working.
   Crazy Old Man, when I sat down and thought about it, you are totally right, not all of my time at work is spent actually working! A lot of the time I am driving, planning, marking out, preparing etc, I guess all I remember after a days work is the actual physical stuff.
   I started a new regime of eating healthily yesterday, I still had a treat, peanut butter flapjack and a hot chocolate (40cals) before bed and I woke up this morning ready to start it all over again…. one day at a time.
   I know you guys are there to help and knowing that there is support out there, might make it just that more easier! Thank you!

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5. I wouldn’t bother with whey. I used to drink it, and I’ve used a used a bunch of different kinds, and it’s honestly a waste of money. No supplement, besides actual steroids, is going to do your body any better than real food, and steroids are terrible for you anyway. Not that you’re lifting weights or going for muscle size or anything, but on a side note, I actually noticed more gains in my size when stopped drinking protein shakes and just ate food instead.

   Is it a sugar addiction that you have? Or do you just like food? My problem is that I just love food. I barely eat sugary stuff, but I can easily eat dinner left overs for breakfast and lunch the next day. I would take a hamburger over a milkshake as a night time snack any time.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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6. I think I just like food! I gave up on normal sugar last year, and substituted it for the 2 cal a spoonful stuff, I cant drink tea or coffee without it! If I feel hungry, I’ll eat, but instead of one or two slices of toast, I’ll make four, or reach for a bag of crisps, pouring a second into the same pack to make it look like I’m only having one. Biscuits are another downfall, we buy chocolate ones for the kids, twix, tunnocks, penquins etc and I’ll always wat to finish off a meal with something sweet, am I craving sugar, I dont know??

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7. Craving sugar, being in a “routine”, It’s all the same if you ask me. The best advice I can give you is to change one thing at a time. I used to bring dinner left overs for breakfast and lunch. I decided that I had to stop that, so I started buying oats, Greek yogurt and bringing milk for breakfast. I still have dinner left overs for lunch though. Just try to change your diet one meal at a time. It’ll be much easier that way. If you try to change everything at once, you’ll get overwhelmed and regress.

   I get the kids aspect of it. I have two girls, and a boy on the way(though I haven’t mentioned that here, yay me!), so there’s always ice cream, cake, cookies and all kinds of sweets laying around. Not eating that is just a matter of will power. The biggest motivator for me early on in diet and exercise, before I had kids, was noticing results. The first time I really noticed results, I wanted more. It became addicting. When you actually see that you’ve made improvement, then you’ll know that your work is paying off an you’ll want to keep on going. At least, that’s how I am.

   You tell ’em I’m coming, and Hell’s coming with me.

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8. This is learned from studying nutrition with and without sport and of all things evolution and anatomy. The human animal is designed for a diet high in complex carbs, as supported by the small molars, weak bite force and abundance of amylase in our saliva, moderate fats and protien with minimal sugar and salt. Basically the opposite to how the modern world eats.
   The percentages will shock you because you have been fed the muscle magazine diet advise plan as most have for decades. Calorific intake should consist of 60-65% carbohydrate (maximum 5% of this portion being sugar the other 95% as starch), 25% fats and 17.5% protein. There are variations based on genetics, activity etc. but these are the fundamentals and nothing you do will reverse the protein and carb percentages as fad diets and supplement sales pitches suggest.

   In the wild protein was hard to come by, as where fats and salts so we are designed to crave them, basic survival at work. Now of course it’s easy, a trip to the shop or takeaway and there it is in over-abundance. In fact the diet you have is almost certainly far too high in protein, sugar and fats now so proportionately low in complex carbs aka starch. I can say this not just based on your post but the fact you live in the UK and are likely one of the majority for whom this is the case.

   If you were the sort of person who would find a sudden shift and the hunger you would get from it easy I would try getting you to the right balance quickly but you aren’t and that places you firmly in the majority. Accepting this and changing gradually will work and in a few years you will look back on the diet you have now wondering how you ate it without being sick. The key here is time and patience working toward a good balance. The good news of course is that with high protein foods being your enemy not your friend it could make your lean time of year easier to survive. Starchy food is cheap but of course bland so we’ll increase these gradually to level you out. The usual trick is flavourings which is something to watch, most sauces are 1,500% sugar or therabouts ( I can exaggerate on occasion) but a bit of wine thrown in is a good way to add flavour. One day at a time exactly as you said.

   I am used to people, self included, thinking things that are inaccurate, like you with work life. The difference between those who improve and those who don’t is whether we are willing to reflect and check our assumptions, something I do a lot, never satisfied me.

   Not walking comfortably makes activity hard, because most things will involve at least some moving on your feet. There are some things that could be good in the list below though I do accept weather could make some less desirable, being paid to be out in the rain and choosing to do it is very different.
   Jrahien may see this and give some ideas to help you with remedial activity too, he is very good and if he disagrees with me follow his guidance in preference.
   Cycling, guessing you walked in nice places, most are good to ride in too
   Swimming, the age old low impact staple
   Controlled weight training, would have to set this up to avoid any potential pain, could be circuit style
   Bowling, would be very good for mobilising your ankle, and yes I do mean crown green not alley
   Not a long list not sure what sorts of things you like yet.

   We are always here so there will be plenty of support as needed. We do occasionally disagree as you will expect, choose the advise that suits you best and go with it.

   If you think you can, or if you think you can’t, you’re probably right – Henry Ford

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