Anyone lost 20 pounds lately? How?

Hi, looking to lose abt 20 pounds ( more would be good but 20 lb is fine to start with)...if anyone did this recently pl so post on this thread.... people like me need to get going & cud use your help & advise....any regimes you followed would also be appreciated if shared, so lets all resolve to lose to gain this new year08!

I lost 22 pounds last year. Combination of daily excercise and following a low-carb diet as much as possible. Ate 6 small meals a day rather than 3 big ones. Tried to eat low glycemic index foods only. And dranks 2 liters of water a day. No fried foods, no sodas, no juice.

WOW, what a great achievement!!
Could you please eloborate on your daily diet.

Thanks,
Punitha

Originally Posted by pmahensa

I lost 22 pounds last year. Combination of daily excercise and following a low-carb diet as much as possible. Ate 6 small meals a day rather than 3 big ones. Tried to eat low glycemic index foods only. And dranks 2 liters of water a day. No fried foods, no sodas, no juice.

This is my current diet - believe me that even with eating cheese and nuts, I can loose around 1 pound a week even if all the excercise I do is 15 min walk after breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Breakfast - Omelette made with 1 whole egg and1 egg white, some low fat cheese and some veggies. Eaten with some salsa on the side OR 1 slice bread with 1 slice cheese toasted OR 2 soy based burgers with 1 slice cheese and some salsa on the side.

1-2 hours after breakfast - 1 glass buttermilk with a tadka of curry leaves, ginger and mustard seeds , 1/4 cup dry roasted mixed nuts

Lunch - 2 chappatis or 1/2 cup rice with a bowl of daal and 1 cup vegetable curry. I supplement with a protein shake which has 20 gms of protein.

1-2 hours after lunch - 1 small apple OR 1 small Banana or 1/2 grapefruit with 1/4 cup dry roasted mixed nuts and 2 slices low fat cheese

Dinner - 2-3 chappatis or 3/4 cup rice with bowl of daal or yogurt and 1 cup vegetable curry. Optional Protein Shake.

After Dinner Snack - 1 cup warm milk and 1 sugar free tapioca pudding (available at trader's joe).

Best Vegetable Choices - Cabbage, Cauliflower, Capsicum, Okra, Kohlrabi, Squash of all kinds, Eggplant, Zucchini etc. I don't avoid potato per say, just make sure it's not the main veggie. Like today for lunch I had cabbage curry with a few pieces of potato.

Hope this helps.

Is the protein shake substitute or supplement?are they not high in caloriescan you tell us which brand?

I had been following low gycemic Index diet recently...but did not do well in the exercise part and so I got dejected and I'm back to zero........

Any tips?

Its a supplement. Since I am vegetarian, I use it to boost the protein intake. Found at whole foods, it's called bio-chem whey protein. It's a powder you mix into water. 1 serving has 100 calories and 20 grams of protein and just 4 grams of carbs.

For excercise, I would suggest breaking it up. Like I walk from one end of my house to the other 15 minutes each after breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's 45 minutes a day!

Hi,
Its good to hear that you lost so much weight.
But my problem is due to hypo thyroid and PMS, my body is always swollen and it is bit difficult for loosing weight.

~Punitha

I will be the last one to lose weight since I have pcos and pre-diabetes. In the past, I would excercise like crazy, diet like crazy and nothing. It was quite frustrating esp seeing all my friends being skinny and eating 2 times as much as me.

But low-carb diet makes all the difference. I will encourage you to try it. You can lose weight on low-carb diet without excercising or minimal excercise. If I can do it, anyone can !

pmahensa,
your posts r encouraging....I have been crazy like you execising spending more than 1000 calories...but nothing worked for me ,I got frustrated and I'm just reading how people are doing...

I'm a vegetarian..but most low carb diets seem to include meats and losta fat of course... so i was wondering if this would work for me....

Another thing..you say u follow a low carb ,low GI diet but your sample menu seem to include rice...so what kind of rice you use?I was using rose matta rice for a while cooking it by boiling method draining off the excess starch...

Nothing seem to work for me....

I'm doing the lowcarb/low-gi the vegetarian way .. eating everything but in moderation .. it is very hard to sustain in the long run not to eat indian staples such as rice and roti and I'r rather develop a lifestyle that I can sustain over a long period of time and also not have to cook separate items for my husband and myself!

1/2 cup of rice for lunch is a very small quantity ... I have a set of measuring cups
and contains just 22 grams of carbs. Since my lunch goal is to have between 30-45 grams of carbs the 1/2 cup of rice is not a lot, especially compared to what we regularly eat .. before this diet I would easily eat a cup or cup and half. I use basmati rice being north indian, boil in microwave and then drain off the starch.

I alternate between rice, rotis and low-carb tortillas. So I am not eating rice every day.

Yep I am also concerned abt fat content since my dietician told me I can have unlimited amounts of cheese. So I buy low-fat sliced cheese and also low fat string cheese. And eat healtly nuts such as almonds, walnuts and in limited quantity, peanuts.

The key to losing weight is to eat more protein and less carbs. Being vegetarian this is hard, because even the most protein rich foods such as daals contain more carbs than protein. For example, 1/2 cup of cooked beans contain 15 grams of carbs and 8 grams of protein. The best sources then become cheese, which has no carbs, or nuts (1/4 cup nuts have 5 grams of carbs and 5 grams of protein). Or soy based products such as nutrella and soy burgers. But if you are of child-bearing age, you have to watch out for the soy as it can decrease fertility. So definitely not something to eat everyday. And if you eat them, eggs are really good. 1 egg has 6 grams of protein and no carbs.

The diet plan I have posted earlier puts me at the most at 1600 calories per day. Norm al woman needs about 1800 per day and around 2200 if you excercise. So weight loss will definitely happen. The additional benefit is that since the balance of protein and carbs in your diet is better, it conditions your body to lose weight even without excercise .. sounds too good to be true but it is true ... due to a medical condition I cannot excercise for the past 1 month, all I have done is walk 15 minutes after each meal and still lost 4 pounds in 1 month !