THE FORKNCORK DIET - formerly 'Inspiration Needed'

[DonalH]

Soak the porridge overnight. Even made with water it then tastes creamy.

I agree with Melendez on the full milk bit. Let's face it, none of us are trying to lose the last few ounces to fit into a size zero frocks. Lets pick the low hanging fruit first.

[Ernie Whalley]

Lunched on smoked chicken breast*(my own), plus salad of rocket and cherry tomatoes dressed with olive oil/white balsamic. No bread. Did have a cappu though but I'm restricting it to one such a day.
* chicken was spatchcocked, flattened then smoked, roasted 240 degs over a bed of Lapsang souchnong and orange slices, with a little 5-spice rubbed into the skin. A long-time favourite.

[burkean]

Ernier - what sort of a smoker do you use and do you do this outdoors etc? Would be very interested in the method.

[petitechef]

Donal that's brilliant!

[Ernie Whalley]

Burkean, if you click 'chicken' on the tag cloud on the home page the recipe 'Smoked Chicken' the recipe containing the methodology will come up. I vary the spices from time to time. I use a roasting tray and trivet in my fan oven. These days I've upped the setting to 240C because I imagine (probably wrongly but it seems that way) that the ESB have turned the available power down to conserve supply. At the lower heat (220) the chicken is slightly juicier though, so I may go back to it.
The tea and citrus contributes a pleasant, mild smoke. If you were using smoking sawdust - which I've done from time to time - I'd recommend something like a Brooks smoker (try fishing tackle shops), or a big old biscuit tin. I now use my pizza oven, which needs a few cracks filling after a hard winter.
Lining the base of the roasting tin with foil enables you to throw out all the crap in one go - recommended!

More chicken last night - the legs rubbed with various hot spices, roasted and eaten with stir-fried veggies + chopped mango and half my usual portion of rice. I did allow myself a small blob of plain yogurt and a little lime pickle. I chucked away the crispy chicken skin where, I'm told, the fat lurks - how self-denying is that!?
No booze for 3 days now.

Anyhow, well done, Donal mate. I can't compete but I'm pleased enough with the 5.4 lbs so far. Onwards and downwards.

[Hanna]

....I chucked away the crispy chicken skin where, I'm told, the fat lurks - how self-denying is that!?
No booze for 3 days now....

I applaud your self control! Chicken skin is where 50% of all of the calories and fat lie. I love it though....

I'm off the drink myself since New Years Day.....

[brava]

HI all

I lost of weight last year (using the public humiliation approach of weightWatchers...) and some of the things that worked for me were:

The idea of offsetting - nothing's off limits but if you must have the glass of wine/ choc biscuits, balance it with very low cal choices elsewhere (ww points made this easy obviously)

Each week is a reset - if you had a bad one, then next week is separate and you can start over.

Keep the fruit bowl full and varied, lots of water (and not so healthy, but lots of coffee helps too)

Alcohol is not your friend - not only does it go straight to the scales but, as one ww leader said, -when do you ever finish a bottle of wine then yell, I'm starving knock me up a salad while you're in the kitchen!

Donal, what a fab week (and Ernie too). I always found that I had one good, one not so good even doing the same things, so I averaged it over a fortnight to see real weigh loss (if that makes sense). The rate does slow down a bit too, but I found it helped to have (nerd alert!) an excel spreadsheet that tracked from beginning to target and let me see how I was doing over time

[Hanna]

lots of water (and not so healthy, but lots of coffee helps too)

....

Good point! Coffee is a great appetite supressant.

[chefsmith]

This thread is keeping me going, but i admit, im struggling with the carbs cut-down.

Im off the booze since x mas, and feel great, been a sneakty pint here and there, but im way, way down what i normally consume.
The smaller portions i can handle, the asking myself if i really want that extra portion or if i really want that cake.
The eating late at night which was my biggest crux has calmed down alot and im walking alot more, skipping lifts and escalators and generally throwing myself into more physical work, i work really hard anyway and am generally exhausted on my days off, but im taking solace when i feel really exhausted that i must have pushed myself that bit further.
Haven't had a take away since x mas either.

But back to the carbs, this is where im struggling, my body is literally screaming out for them, i have cut right back even most days trying to have none, but i never feel full, never feel satisfied and always lay in bed dreaming of baguettes and sandwhiches.
I know this is most likely an addiction 'come down' more so than body needing ?
How bad for you are they really? and any good alternatives? almost all carbs i do take are natural, fresh or home made breads, nothing artificial or full of sugar.

I'm not sure how much weight i've lost but i can physically feel the difference in my clothes and energy levels, also my wallet is heavier from the lack of booze and take aways.

[shortcircuit]

I imagine (probably wrongly but it seems that way) that the ESB have turned the available power down to conserve supply.

I think you might be wrong on that one Ernie, the ESB supplies a house with a connection of steady voltage, how much power is drawn into the house depends on the rating of the equipment connected on the other end. The only thing that limits this is your main fuse.

It's not like the water where they reduce pressure to limit supply!

[Melendez]

The reason low carb diets work is that it virtually rules out any pleasant type of snack. There's nothing wrong with keeping carbs at the same proportion they always were, or even higher if you cut down in fat, as long as you have the self control to stop snacking. There is only one formula that controls the amount of fat you will lose -> (Calories eaten - calories burned). Everything else is just psychological and nutritional. I'm not saying the psychological aspect isn't important, it is THE most important. If it wasn't, everyone who wanted to lose weight, would, and very few do, permanently. If you're having a hard time sticking to a low carb diet maybe another one is better suited to you, these things will only work in the long run if you are willing to accept them as a permanent lifestyle change, which it doesn't sound like you are.

Personally I find exercise is the key. It's not that you'll burn many calories in an hour's exercise, you don't, food control will always be the main determinant of the calories eaten v calories burned equation, but you'll find when you come home red faced and exhausted after an hours gym session which has eaten up two hours of your life, you're less likely to swig back a glass of wine and packet of crisps when you get home, which would nullify the entire calorific benefit of the gym session. My problem is i go at obsessively for two or three months, lose a bucketload of weight, then go on holidays or get bored with it and find, within weeks, I'm back where I started. I reckon I must have lost nearly twice my current bodyweight (not insubstantial) in various diets over the last 15 years. I'm holding out with leisurely walks and slight cutbacks at the moment after the Christmas and will rejoin the gym in Feb when the initial rush dies down. This time it will be a permanent lifestyle change, maybe.

I'm keeping an eye on this thread for fresh ideas.

[Hanna]

....But back to the carbs, this is where im struggling, my body is literally screaming out for them, i have cut right back even most days trying to have none, but i never feel full, never feel satisfied and always lay in bed dreaming of baguettes and sandwhiches.....

I think this might not be a great idea. Your body needs a certain amount of readily available fuel, especially in the morning/afternoon. Cutting out all carbs/more carbs might send your body into starvation mode, where is scrabbles furiously to hold on to your fat, because it thinks you're literally starving.

I'd try go get some whole grains in - porridge/wholegrain bread/brown rice/pasta etc every day, earlier on. In the evenings, proteins calorie for calorie have a higher satiety level, so lean meats with lots of veg/pulses should satisfy you. I'd also recommend a sucky sweet if you find you get hungry in the late evening - they really help!

It gets easier, too. Your body will adapt to the new eating pattern of food intake and you'll struggle less with the craving. Hang in there!!!!

[bigjoe]

the program I was on about was called

10 things you need to know about loosing weight.

most of it is now up on youtube. below is 1 of 6. the other 5 should appear near it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVSDHwA6nFw

some interesting points.

[Melendez]

A couple of other things people should acknowledge from the outset. Over a sustained period, you will only lose 2lbs of fat per week (I say "only, when you think of the size of 2lbs of lard and lose that 10 weeks in a row it's a substantial amount, more than your Christmas Turkey). You have to consume 3500 less calories than you burn to lose 1lb, so you will need to consume 1000 calories a day less than you are burning to lose 2lbs in a week. Initially you can lose a little more than 2lbs of fat but not as much as 3. In the first couple of weeks, if you increase your water intake regularly you can lose over a stone. This will mostly be water, as the body is used to us underhydrating and stores it. When you start taking water regularly (3 litres per 200lbs bodyweight is about right - proportionately up or down) your body quite quickly adjusts and doesn't bother storing it anymore. Although not fat, It still is a permanent weight loss as long as you keep up drinking the water, and has the same effect in that it will make exercise easier, take pressure off joints just as if you'd lost fat.

You can calculate your BMR (calories needed to breathe for 24 hours) on calculators all over the web and then apply a factor to this based on your daily activity levels (in fact skip the BMR and just find a calculator that does that) to get your daily calorie needs to maintain your weight. Then eat 1000 calories less. If you create a bigger deficit than 1000 calories you will lose more than 2lbs of weight a week, but you will be losing lean muscle tissue as well as fat. This can have have a negative effect as your body can break go into starvation mode and use all sorts of trickks to shut down your metabolism, leaving your BMR far lower than it should be, and having knock on nutritional effects. Sadly as your weight reduces so to does your BMR. For those who like to get obsessive about these things Fitday.com has handy little tools for doing this and allows you keep a food and activity diary which can be worth doing for a couple of weeks, until you hit a rhythm. Weight training is a good idea for maintaining as much muscle as possible. It is not possible to actually grow muscle on a calorie deficit, although by educating the muscles you have you can get stronger, and as you lose weight the muscles can become more defined. As mentioned by Christine on page 1 muscle mass does have a higher calorie requirement to maintain than fat, so the more muscle mass you can maintain the easier it will be to lose weight in the long run.

Apologies if that sounds like a lecture from a dieting failure, and I appreciate I am repeating a lot of Christine's\Hanna's first page post, but hell, what can I say, I know what to do and why, I just can't seem to do it.

[DonalH]

I think ye are absolutely right guys if you are talking about a normal weight loss situation. Unfortunatley I'm not talking about a few pounds or even a few stone here. I am aiming to lose about 4 stone. So, if in a couple of months I am down to losing a couple of pounds a week then I will be happy - I like to notice results sooner though to give me encouragement.

I spoke earlier about picking low hanging fruit. This is the easy bit for me. We are all aware that this rate cannot continue.

[Ernie Whalley]

Gyms, alas, are not for claustrophobics with a low threshold of boredom and knackered knees

[Hanna]

Gyms? Bleurgh - stuck in a room breathing other people's sweat.

[Ernie Whalley]

Couldn't agree more, Hanna.
Years ago I used to go to a gym, 8 in the morning before work. There were 5 in the class, me and two other wimps, one normal and a Leinster rugby player trying to make it back after injury. We all rushed to be first on the circuit apparatus, or at least get there before the rugger bugger. After he'd used one of the gizmos the handles and the saddles were caked in sweat, really sticky and horrible. It was like he was trying to shag the apparatus to death. The room smelt like a Maltese knocking shop as well.
After 5 weeks I'd had enough. I went out and bought a rebounder, excellent thing. I'm on my third now and still use it daily or I did until my knee packed up. I'd thoroughly recommend one to anyone who doesn't have much time for exercise or the inclination to jog. Also bought some light dumbells and a second-hand Bullworker (used twice, don't know where I put it). My cousin Freddy and I were very impressed by the Charles Atlas stuff in the mag ads when we were kids. We craved a device that would help us kick sand in people's eyes on the beach. We never had enough loot to buy one, even between us, and by the time we got to a beach we were more interested in chatting up girls!

[Ernie Whalley]

Shock, horror!!!
First day in six I haven't witnessed my weight drop!
Have I hit the wall?
VERY depressed.

[brava]

Donal, that's what I lost in about 6 months. The pace did slow down a bit (at one stage I had a formula to work it out - obsessed: moi?) but not as much as I expected it to. I lost a stone in the first month, the next one took 6 weeks, then 8 weeks...

Ernie - stop weighing yourself everyday, you will go up and down. Once a week is a much better measure. Don't give up!