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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 23 Aug 2011 07:20 am |
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Hi Im Kate Im new to the forum, hello to everyone. Hoping to make friends and seek advice.
I am bipolar and have put on alot of weight due to my medication. I am on Quetiapine. So I decided to start trying to lose the 6 stone overweight, I have lost 11 pounds so far taking me down to 214 pounds (15.2 stone) in about a month, Height 5.4, but Im stuck, eek!!!! I have been the same weight for the last 10 days !!
I eat 1500 calories per day and go to the gym 4 times per week and burn off 400 calories in 30 -40 mins cardio and do squash for 1. 5 hours once a week burning off at least 600 calories. I dont do much weight training at the moment, just as and when I feel like it I go on a few machines for 20 mins, maybe twice a week.
My medication does slow down my metabolism and also makes me feel more hungry but Im doing ok with the calories sticking to them, although I do have one day off a week and I probably eat about double - 3000 calories in that day, would that make a difference ??
Im desperate to lose the weight and I know I have an extra hurdle with being on this medication but Im sure I can do it!!
Despite the scales telling me I havnt lost weight, I feel alot more fitter, can now run for 5 minutes where I could only do 2 before, Ive upped my intensity on the cross trainer and I can see that I have lost weight on my hips!! Its so frustrating tho cos I use the scales as a tool to how well Im doing!
Any advice ?? Shall I just ditch the scales ? Ill do whatever it takes ! I eventually want to get down to 10 stone, so I have a whopping 5 stone 2 pounds to go !
Any help would be really appreciated....x
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 07:44 am |
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Hi Kate.
Eating 6 days at 1500 and 1 day at 3000 is an average of 1715 a day.
Calories really DO COUNT and it is not possible to "out-train a rubbish diet".
Whilst you are significantly overweight it is OK to eat below your unadjusted RMR, for example I would consider it OK to eat 1300 or even 1200 a day.
Food choices are key - if you imagine that certain food groups don't exist then it will be a challenge to even eat 1200 calories.
how many calories could you eat if you ate as many vegetables, beans and fruit as you could?
On that day when you are currently eating 3000 calories - obviously you are eating something else. See if you can use the PORTION CONTROL method to just have a small portion of the processed or junk food that you want but otherwise continue with healthier and therefore low-calorie whole foods.
(and if you try to limit it to a small portion and find that you cannot, consider whether you are addicted to those foods)
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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 09:09 am |
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Hi Nir
thank you very much.
I will try 1200 or 1300 calories. But Im not very educated when it comes to knowing what to eat, I just eat low calorie and low saturated fat microwave meals about 500 or 600 calories each for dinner. Do you have any recipes or anything that can help me cook something with beans and veggies? I dont have a clue what to buy?- and I would prefer to make my own food as I can make it with less calories.
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 09:28 am |
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I may be twice as old as you but still not much clue on how to cook my vegetables, fruits and beans.
a tin of baked beans is an easy meal and potentially healthier than more processed stuff you can buy.
most of what I eat is basically a "salad" that consists of absolutely everything (raw vegetables, cooked potato cubes, different types of beans, chopped fruit) all mixed together - but that is just me and my relatively low expectations.
My sister likes to make a vegeterian chilli: a tin of chopped tomoatos and a a tin of red kidney beans make up the majority of the bulk - then just add some flavour (for example chopped onions)
if you are or want to be into cooking, this is a good place to go: http://www.fatfreevegan.com
Here is a picture to remember what foods to go for:
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jason1985
New Member
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 04:14 pm |
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Hi Kate please dont be so hard on yourself! Your motivation is great! and were it needs to be!
Remember Success also comes from Failure!!!
There's actually an easy way to loose weight based on calories!
1st off , like i mentioned in another thead/
Fat doesn't make you gain weight, Calories do.
You can check to see what your BMR is. Basically thats your Basal Metabolic rate.
Basically this is what determines how much Calories you burn when you do absolutely Nothing / or just when your sleeping.
You just need to enter your bodies attributes as in Age, Sex, Weight, Height.
Once you get that number of calories calculated. You then just need to decide to consider how active you are.
such as NON active to moderate (2 to 3 times a week, or even 7 days. All up to you :) and that will calculate how much calories you need per day to MAINTAIN the weight ur at now.
Once you know how much it is needed to MAINTAIN your weight the rest is simple!
minus -500 calories from that number to loose a pound a week
or add +500 to gain a pound a week.
the reason i say a pound a week is because thats a safe rate to loose weight. 1-2 pounds a week. for 500 is good enough for now.
500 x 7(days a week ) = 3500. 3500 calories = ~ to 1 pound. see ?
Go here to the online BMR calculator. I used this to gain muscle mass. but also i used it to help friends of mind loose weight.
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/ ,
after u go there then goto http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/harris-benedict-equation/
to see how active you are and to get the final rage of what calories u need to eat per day!
let us know how your doing ok ? everyone is here for you! including me! Thats why i just joined today so I can help everyone I can!
KNowledge is power indeed!
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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 06:18 pm |
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Hi Jason
Thanks for your reply. Its really nice that you want to share your knowledge and help people like meeeeeeeeeeee!
So I calculated my BMR which is 1752 then I chose lightly active (even tho Im a little bit more active than this) x 1.375 = 2309 calories per day to stay the same weight.
So then I deduct 500 calories off this to lose 1 pound a week which is 1809 J Im still going to stick to 1300 calories a day though cos its so hard for me to lose weight.
Most of my problem is my medication, it is near on impossible to lose weight whilst on Quetiapine and at present I cant change medications as it?óÔé¼Ôäós the most effective for treating my bipolar. Quetiapine is very well known to slow your metabolism down and make you very hungry even after you?óÔé¼Ôäóve eaten dinner at night. I have tried all other options to lose weight and I even tried to change medication but it didn?óÔé¼Ôäót suit me, so my only option now is to diet and exercise like crazy. However, even though Im working out and exercising its not uncommon for me to just stay the same weight but, the way I look at it is if I didn?óÔé¼Ôäót do all this exercise and diet I would just keep increasing in weight. I swear I would be like 17 stone by now!!!!
Im going to keep going but Im slowly loosing a bit of motivation, have been a bit upset today about it, because I feel I really want to lose weight but its not working or it is but very slowly.
For my size I should be loosing like 4 or 5 pounds a week in the beginning right? Then it gets harder to lose it, whilst mine its so hard from the beginning!
Sorry rambling on, just having a bit of a rant lol x
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jason1985
New Member
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Posted: 24 Aug 2011 06:40 pm |
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OK!!! no problem! just try not to go below 1000-1100. You dont want to eat too little for too long or your body will think ur starving and then your metabolisim will slow to a crawl!!!!!
Especially since you say ur on meds at the moment already causing difficulty for you. It happened to my girlfriend. I warned her but she didnt listen. she eat 1000 day
Sometimes less. Then for at least 5 days a week she was buring 300+ on treadmil.
that means at the time shes now goes to bed 1000 - 300 (from work out) = she only had now 700 total calories for the day.... DAILY!!! so she lost weight like crazy and got excited! she lost like 15 pounds in like 2 weeks or so. But then she Started getting sick with headaches and not sweating. then days later she noticed no matter how hard she worked out she just kept gaining and gaining. while getting sicker and sicker.
Even though she kept same calorie count (which was too low) and even though she worked out 5to 7 days a week , her body refused to shed a pound . It basically held on to everything. and anything she ate just added on to it.
So thats when she finally breakdown again crying and she decide to try the calorie BMR thing that i mentioned. She actually lost weight consistently by eating MORE lol. but not TOO MUCH. just at the right calorie range were your ONLY loosing weight, Not gaining or maintenance. :)
BTW anytime you want some inspiration about this, check on youtube, type in BMR and ull see other men and women saying how it worked and showing how to calculate it also :) so Maybe one day in the future if you get off your meds and ur still not getting to ur goal . Give it a try !
All the best ! we are here for you my friend!
OOPS! one more thing! how about this also! heres a quick tip! to inscrease ur fat burning alittle more , spread ur meals out during the day. even if u want to eat same about of calories.
If you had a twin with SAME exact problems ur going through, if your twin ate SAME foods as u but instead of 3 meals a day broke it down to 6 meals a day, ur twins matabolisim will be faster then yours.
Basically when ur body see's that ur getting consistant amount of food at a good rate it has nothing to fear in lack of nutriance so ur body will inscrease ur Matabolisim. thats why I also said dont go to low .(at least in calories) or ur body will say
"OH NO! she might not be getting food any time soon or at all, lets Slow Down the fat burning in case we get no more 'outside' energy. That way we can use the stored fat as energy." <-------------Thats what u DONT want!!! :)
Last edited on 24 Aug 2011 06:46 pm by jason1985
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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 26 Aug 2011 09:05 am |
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Hi Ive been prescribed zenical (orlistat) to help me lose weight because of my medications, what do you think ? It can only help, my mum was on them and lost 15 pounds, so hopefully they will help me lose weight. I know its kinda of cheating, but when you want to lose weight so much(Im desperate) they may be the answer to actually loosing weight rather than getting disheartened doing loads of diet and exercise and just staying the same weight!
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 26 Aug 2011 10:34 am |
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you might think that zenical is your 'license' to ignore everything I wrote above and eat a bunch of junky fat.
zenical is a cruel teaching tool - every time you make fatty choices, you will find the need to replace your underpants (this is the fat that is not being absorbed by your body)
a diet that is primarily vegetables, beans and fruit is
1) naturally low in fat (so zenical is neither required nor helpful)
2) fills up your stomach so you physically cannot eat more calories than you need
I am thin and athletic, so in addition to the 1000-1400 of healthy calories I can derive from vegetables, beans, fruits etc. I need to also eat an additional 1400 calories from calorie-dense sources (this I eat just before bedtime). Your diet should be very similar to the one I eat for most of my day (with the exception that you don't need those extra calories I eat at night)
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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 26 Aug 2011 12:17 pm |
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Im still going to carry on with the diet and fitness, Im not letting that slip, mainly because I want to be very healthy and get my body FIT. I want to be healthier in life so Im not going to go out and munch out on all fast foods, quite the opposite, cooking veggies and eating fruit all day with small amount of lean meat. Im also going to stick to 1300 calories per day. However, I think the orlistat will give me a boost and compensate for the side effects of quetiapine. 'Mind' (mental health charity) have told me that I cannot lose weight on quetiapine, despite diet and exercise so hopefully the orlistat will help actually LOSE weight. If I just did diet (stick to 1300 calories per day) and exercise without the orlistat I will just stay the same weight, which is good at least I wont put anymore weight on, but I actually want to lose weight. Im 15 stone, need to be 10 stone.Hope that makes sense.
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 26 Aug 2011 07:16 pm |
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| According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetiapine "Weight gain can be a problem for some patients, as quetiapine causes the patient's appetite to persist even after meals." In other words the pill does not contain calories or slows your metabolism down, it just causes you to feel hungry for longer than a person not on the medication - you have to be aware the hunger "isn't real".
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kap18
New Member
| Joined: | 22 Aug 2011 |
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| Posts: | 14 |
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Posted: 27 Aug 2011 07:09 am |
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there are also studies that have shown it slows your metabolism down, this is not on the information leaflet but it is well know among the medical field and quetiapine patients that this is the case.
It is very hard to fight the hunger late at night, as you are hungry even after you've eaten meals.
If you put quetiapine and weight loss into google, you will see a huge number of people struggling to lose weight on this medicine :( Its sucks.
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