Weight Loss

[Trip]

Curious if anyone has like an exercise or breakfast/snack routine that would fit well with patrol schedule.

Hi Cntryboy, I tend to have a high metabolism and tend to be very active so I can eat a lot of food without gaining weight, so after a serious injury a year ago, my metabolism dropped like a rock from being confined to my house for about three weeks and limited exercise for the next two months. I also was unable to cook the healthy meals I normally made and started ordering pizza, subs, all that bad stuff so my weight jumped up of course. Most of it is back off by now but I can tell you that following South Beach concepts of eating foods with a low glycemic index was key. The nice thing about that is that I'm incapable of dieting as I love food too much - so you don't have to starve when you follow it. It's more about substitution.

When you asked about good snacks, I feel that is actually the key to making it all work, because you don't ever want to feel starved. I tend to graze about every three-four hours and one of my favorite snacks is low-fat mozzarella sticks with celery sticks. This is a 0 glycemic snack which means it doesn't trigger your insulin. If insulin is not produced, then food will not be converted to fat (I know that's not intuitive). Another good snack is a bag of walnuts (or any nuts actually). Ditto in that it doesn't trigger your insulin. The key is to not combine those foods with fat in them with anything that triggers your insulin. For example, you could eat a burger with cheese on it, but just don't eat the bread or use ketchup as they produce insulin.

Basically understanding what triggers insulin and what doesn't allows you to eat without ever feeling hungry. You just have to learn how many foods have hidden sugars in them. Fake foods like diet sodas are also a no-no because they are not 0 glycemic likeyou'd think. Another good snack is cheese, as long as you don't have the crackers with them.

I'm normally extremely active but when I was recovering from injury I had to take it slowly and one of my favorite tips was parking the car further away in the parking lot, taking stairs instead of elevators, taking a quick 10 minute stroll wherever possible....lots of little things added up to get my metabolism back up.

Hope this helps

[Adler]

Campbell soup diet with more exercise, even if it is brisk walking, tends to work. And drink lots of water.

You should have some food fat free and cholestrol free. No need of heavy exercise or any medication, just avoid choestrol and fat....

[kazz]

Read this recently . . . . sort of linked to the low GI food Trip mentioned above.

A different way to limit carbohydrate consumption is simply to limit the total number of Calories that you consume for each meal. This can be a very effective method for controlling blood sugar and losing body fat. Unfortunately, there's one BIG problem associated with this method - increased hunger! But what if you could eat less, and not be hungry? Is that possible?

A few years ago, a group of researchers from the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia performed an interesting study in which they compared the satiating effects of different foods. These researchers, lead by Suzanna Holt, include some of the same individuals that pioneered much of the work on the Glycemic Index. The result of their study, "The Satiety Index of Common Foods", was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 1995. In this study, the researchers fed human test subjects fixed-Calorie portions of thirty-eight different foods, and then recorded the subjects' perceived hunger following each feeding.

The results of this study clearly indicated that certain foods are much better than others for satisfying hunger. The researchers used white bread as their reference point, and arbitrarily assigned it a "Satiety Index" of 100. Foods that did a better job of satisfying hunger were given proportionately higher values, and foods that were less satisfying were assigned lower values. Among the most satisfying foods they tested were plain boiled potatoes, raw fruits, fish, and lean meats. Subjects that consumed the prescribed portion of these foods were less likely to feel hungry immediately afterward. Foods that did the poorest job of satisfying hunger included croissants, donuts, candy bars, and peanuts. (** No brainer there!!!!)

An important outcome of this study
Because of the limited size of the Satiety Index study, there's some uncertainty in the accuracy of the values that were recorded for each food. However, one very important general observation was made by the Satiety Index researchers. They noted that a common feature was shared by the foods with the highest Satiety Index values. All of these foods had high weight-to-Calorie ratios. In other words, these foods contained a greater amount of bulk for each Calorie. They helped make you feel full, literally by filling your stomach.

This suspected relation between bulk and satiety may seem obvious and trivial, but it opens the door to a very powerful theory - that it may be possible to predict satiety by knowing the nutrient composition of the food! And if that is true, some form of the Satiety Index could prove to be a more flexible tool for assessing diet than the Glycemic Index.

Read More Glycemic Index – NutritionData.com

[Switchback]

You should have some food fat free and cholestrol free. No need of heavy exercise or any medication, just avoid choestrol and fat....

I disagree... and so do most doctors. Exercise is a VERY IMPORTANT part of the total package. Exercise, diet (low fat, high fiber, etc.), and lots of water. Most of the time, you are hearing about your LDLs being too high. However, you may have decent LDLs, but too low of a concentration of HDLs.

Even doing everything right, your doctor still may prescribe meds for the cholesterol, as genetics are a b1tch!

For the weight loss, you really need to work the diet AND exercise. The goal is to burn more calories than you take in. You are only doing half the job by cutting calories. Exercising will help you burn calories more effectively with a two-prong approach. Obviously, you will burn calories when you workout. However, the extra muscle mass that you build will require more calories just to function, meaning you will burn more calories as you sit there on your couch, watching tv.

[Trip]

You should have some food fat free and cholestrol free. No need of heavy exercise or any medication, just avoid choestrol and fat....

Adler, I forgot that I had made that post back in July, but with all due respect, your post would appear pretty outdated according to everything I've been reading for years. First of all, one of the reasons they're predicting one third of this country will be diabetic in the next ten years is because we are all suffering from an attack on our pancreas due to refinement of foods, increased sugar, foods like carrots that look like they have nothing to do with sugar producing sugar (and overproducing insulin), and a whole slew of problems related to changes from technology and our "on the go" world where we don't take time to cook healthy wholesome foods at home anymore. Whether it's the GI index or what have ya, I look at the extremely abused pancreas, and look at ways to heal that, and getting rid of all fat doesn't do it and getting rid of exercise is even worse.

Getting rid of all fat is bad because there are basically only two ways to make something taste good: sugar or fat. If you lean totally away from fat, you will succumb to sugar in some direct or indirect way. You will lean toward something that will hurt your pancreas, which produces (or overproduces) insulin. And the hormone insulin is the culprit in so many health issues....some even believe in cancer as well.

And speaking of insulin, if you're one of these folks in really bad shape and your cells are "filled up with sugar" or what they call becoming "insulin resistant," it doesn't matter if you go from 2000 calories to 1000 calories, the body will just think it's in a famine, readjust, and treat the 1000 calories if it's now the norm. Folks with these issues have to both exercise as well as eat the bulkier foods kazz talked about to fix their pancreas before they can lose weight.

[Cat_Doc]

Funny you mention this. The county I work for, all offices of county government are doing this wellness initiative. They push wellness and physical fitness. We have a small gym in my substation, and our new main operations center that just opened, has a huge gym for everyone. What was the first thing they said? NO working out on duty, even on lunch. All employees.

Yeah, we just opened a huge gym at HQ with the same policy. It is all about Workman's Comp/Industrial. You get hurt in the gym, it was not work related since you can't do it while working. This is where liability lawsuits have brought us.

ps I don't know if this policy would actually defeat a workman comp claim as the agency provided the gym and equipment. Kind of like the liability release form Citizen Observers sign before going on a ridealong. The form is not going to be worth the paper it is written on in litigation.

[Switchback]

I can get hurt at MY gym, running on a trail, etc. As long as it is a fit-approved activity and I am withinour fit policy (current fit test, etc), it is workman's comp.

Workman's comp paid for my orthotics many years ago. I need them to run without hurting my knees and running is mandatory for our fit program.

[Cat_Doc]

I can get hurt at MY gym, running on a trail, etc. As long as it is a fit-approved activity and I am withinour fit policy (current fit test, etc), it is workman's comp.

Workman's comp paid for my orthotics many years ago. I need them to run without hurting my knees and running is mandatory for our fit program.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Arizona was forced to change it's laws a few years ago when workman's comp initially refused to cover a Phoenix P.D. officer who was seriously injured on his way into work, in uniform, in his POV. The contention of the officer's association was that nearly all officers monitored their radios while en route to the sub-station and often responded to hot calls for service. The law was changed to cover en route to work and en route to home after work as being worker comp covered.

As I mentioned earlier, I think the waivers we all have to fill out are really not worth the paper they are written on when it comes down to "All rise!"

[cntryboy0531]

Just an update. My weight went up to 231lbs. I made the decision to stick to calorie counting, and running on an Eliptical after work. I've dropped to 219, and will be dropping more. Quite happy, and I feel better. I'm trying to get down to 180ish. It'll take a bit, but I'm working on it.

[greg72982]

I once read that drinking alot of water helps also. I was doing that for a while and found it did work somewhat.

[tekjr1]

SBD is a good one. More of a lifestyle than a diet. I dropped 70 lbs but it takes exercise. Even just walking will help. Look into bodymedia.com and check out a monitor that shows your daily input vs output. Use more than you take in each day and it will drop. Best of luck.