Half the World Overweight: How They Plan to Lose It

I've lost about 10 kg during the last 6 months by eating healthier (lot's of fruit, vegetables, lean meat, fish) and by eating less. I still eat enough but before I sometimes just ate too much.
I also run regularly and now I go to a gym where I do cardio and strength training. I will loose another 10 kg until July and then it will be good. I will build more muscle and continue with a healthy nutrition and regular exercise to maintain my perfect weight once I've reached it.

I am not on a diet. I eat everything but make sure that healthy stuff is the main part.

I don't take any weight loss pills or supplements.

I cook most of my meals and rarely use convenience food. I buy more than 80% of my food in an organic food store.
Learning to cook is a great way to live more healthy.

I've also educated myself about nutrition and fitness. Reading good books can be very motivating. Unfortunately many books are crap. But there are some really good ones.
I especially recommend "The Body Fat Solution" by Tom Venuto and "The World's Healthiest Foods" by George Mateljan (see http://www.whfoods.org).

Training with friends is very helpful and motivating.

I have a written goal where I want to go and made a plan with smaller, short term goals. That helps keeping me motivated once I reach the smaller goals.
A written goal and plan is very important, in my opinion.

For me the solution described here works very well and I feel very good at the moment.

If I was going to be doing anything to lose weight, I'd be doing two things:
upping my sleep - I think that sleep deprivation is something we seriously forget in this whole equation and eating as few processed (especially diet foods) foods as possible.

I feel for the emerging market consumers who tend to follow American trends but just lag behind. They have yet to go through the phase where pills, powders and shakes are the trend... and do the yo-yo yourself ever fatter. I think the emerging markets have a lot to teach us about the difference between 'fitting in exercise' vs 'having a naturally active lifestyle'.

When we visited Beiging in 1990, there were 7 million bicycles - these riders would have said they didn't exercise. And every morning, you saw row upon row of Chinese doing Tai Chi and the youngers doing ballroom dancing... but when I spoke to our guide, she said they weren't exercising that was just part of life.

I thought this may be of interest with so many striving towards a healthier lifestyle. Big Daddy Weave frontman Mike Weaver took on the challenge of losing 90 pounds this year. He's doing this with the help of two health and fitness experts to guide him along the way. Mike has been tracking his progress online with the hope that his successes and struggles will encourage others to live a healtier lifestyle. You can go to www.90in09.com to check out Mike's daily updates, find healthy living tips and ideas, take on your own fitness challenge, and join the online community!

Half of the world, I don't believe it.
Most of the Earth's population is concentrated in Asia ans Africa.

Most of the poorest countries are concentrated there as well, so the fat people are not so much.

The change has to start from the mind, this is the answer.

Hi, Diet and exercise are paramount, but overweight people need to change their self image. Otherwise they'll lose weight and then put it back on. Visualization and affirmations literally make us who we are. Utilize these tools to get the body you want, and then follow thru with the diet and exercise portions of your plan.

Ryan

I'm guessing a lot of Americans probably say "I work out", meaning they burn 100 calories by walking for 20 minutes on their treadmill while the Asians who say "I don't really work out" bike 20 miles roundtrip to work every day. It's all about perspective, I suppose.

But seriously, how many people who resolve to lose weight actually do it? The resolution crowd at my gym has already started to dwindle and I'm betting that the numbers will get back down to November-December levels within a month or two.

I'm already in shape, so instead I plan on throwing out advice and thinning down one person at a time. It's why I have my blog.

But on the other hand... how many are actually willing to do this? Not many. All these people SAY they are going to make changes but in my experience I've found that people are just NOT motivated enough to stick to what they need to do and just end up going back to their old habits.

It's sad really.

Honestly, for me, as a 16 year old, I find this helpful. My eating habits, recently have been terrible! I eat very irregular meals, and it actually causes me to gain weight.

I think how much you eat at particular times of the day also is a factor to consider. I found that if I ate a lot of breakfast (eggs, toast, milk, porridge etc), a fair amount for lunch (usually leftovers from dinner), and a smaller portion for dinner, I lose weight.

cull the heard

herd...whoops

I agree with Markus, above, but I have no written goals, nor written plan. And I'm quite glad to see tne New Year Resolution people leaving, it was quite crowded for a bit.

Great post.

Half of all people are overweight because they have no plan to get to their correct, healthy size. That's why people who actually "stick to" a diet plan are destined to lose weight.

Find a plan that has proven results, stick to it, and lose weight!

Easier said than done, obviously....

I found that if I ate a lot of breakfast (eggs, toast, milk, porridge etc), a fair amount for lunch (usually leftovers from dinner), and a smaller portion for dinner, I lose weight.Diet and exercise are paramount, but overweight people need to change their self image. Otherwise they'll lose weight and then put it back on. Visualization and affirmations literally make us who we are. Utilize these tools to get the body you want, and then follow thru with the diet and exercise portions of your plan.

A person with a healthy metabolism eats as much food as he or she wants, exercises if it seems appropriate - or doesn't lift a finger, and does not accumulate body fat at the rate of 1 peanut per day like most citizens of industrialized nations (9 calories per day * 40 years = 40 pounds of fat accumulation from age 20 to 60 for example).

Exercise and eating less calories is a temporary fix that makes the fundamental problem worse. When you really understand the mechanisms behind fat storage and the human metabolism a totally different prescription emerges.

It is a divergence between appetite and metabolic rate that yields fat accumulation over time. It is too subtle to manipulate by "trying harder" or thinking positive thoughts about yourself. It is a physiological malady, pure and simple, and despite the bombardment of success stories and testimonials, this problem is getting out of hand.

The solution is really quite simple though - just counterintuitive to the mainstream dogma. The only solution that will ever work will be one that allows a person to eat until they are full, when they are hungry, and exercise if they feel like it. Anything that recommends using willpower or finding motivation is a failure.

I have done lots of work with weight loss clients using hypnosis and other techniques to deal with the mental approach to eating.

Time after time, I find that yo-yo dieters ultimately gain weight. Unless one address' the reasons why a person overeats in the first place they will be doomed to a cycle of unhealthy eating followed by dieting.

For many people it seems to me that eating is an attempt to feed the emotions rather than the body. If you feel emotionally empty inside then it's almost as if the food can give you that comforting hug.

Of course the effect is short lived as the meal is digested and so the person goes through the same cycle all over again.

The key to achieving a goal weight and staying there is to deal with the poor eating choice AND the emotional state of the person on the diet.

Only then is lasting, positive change achievable.

I have recently started using diet shakes, and they do indeed work, I have lost a good amount of weight.

I regularly bike ride to/from work.(15-20 min ride each way), and play some higher intensity sport twice a week.

However I know my weakness, I eat too much food, too quickly at sittings. I just love my food. Managing and reducing the amount of food I find the hardest thing to do. I plan on weening off the diet shakes to smaller meals. Each time I sit down, my partner reminds me...eat slow.

its a hard habit to break, but I hope this year to conquer it.

A higher standard of living is directly connected to the obesity problem we are now facing.

After the second world war the population in the (so called) civilized world was the healthiest it has ever been.

50 years on and the economy has driven a throw away society to fast food and slobbery.

Maybe, just maybe, the state of the current economic conditions has done the world a favour by focusing our attentions from what we want to what we need.

I am 18 and I was about 30kg overweight at last count (a few months ago).

The way that I am losing weight is by not trying to lose weight, but trying to be more active.

I have struggled with bulimia since I was 13. I have yo-yoed my way from average to technically obese in 5 years. And for a while I preferred to be bigger and mentally healthy. But then I realised I still wasn't healthy because I was using food as a coping mechanism.

So anyway, at christmas I stayed with Mum, and went to the gym with her for two weeks. Once I started getting fitter, I didn't want to stop so I joined a gym back home.

I have been going to the gym for six weeks or so, 3x cardio sessions with heart rate at 80-85% MHR each week, one combat class, and one strength training session. I have a crappy workplace, and where before I would have eaten 250g of chocolate after a bad day, now I go to the gym and work my arse off.

I love it, so much. My skin looks so clear and gorgeous from drinking enough water, and because I feel healthier I have been eating better too. I enjoy working out. I actually feel disappointed on days I don't go to the gym!

I mostly eat wholegrain rice, tuna, yoghurt, oats, tofu, pulses, fruit and vegetables, but it's not because I am trying to "restrict" what I eat- those are just the foods I feel like, and they give me the best fuel to live my life (I'm not actually cutting out red meat asmy whole life). I have a choccie bar a couple of times a week, and a few coffees, and I don't get into guilty panic about it. I still have too much diet coke, but it is a LOT better than what I ate before.

I haven't weighed myself yet- I didn't want to risk getting weight-obsessed until I had managed to fully cement my "good habits". But a conservative guestimate based on how my clothes fit puts me about 10kg lighter than when I started.

For me, a big part of weight loss is getting over myself. Not thinking that the world will end if I have a slice of pizza. Not eating nothing for three days because I want to look like Keira Knightly, then eating an entire packet of corn chips when the hunger signals became too much. I am never going to look like Keira Knightly, but I look like me, and I like that. It's still early days, but I haven't struggled to maintain my healthier lifestyle so far, it has been almost automatic and feels so good, so I'm hopeful that I will continue this way for pretty much the rest of my life!

Nice post!.. I think exercising is a most, and for me changing the diet is crucial but not any diet. It has to be a diet you can motivate yourself to stick to.