Hi, so I've been trying to lose weight for 3 months now. I'm 15 and my belly has not lost a single inch, neither I have lost mass. Can anybody help me?
MONDAY - WEDNESDAY - FRIDAY
Breakfast: 2 slices of bread, 2 cups of grape juice.
Lunch: Small steak (1.5 times the size of my hand), rice, glass of pineapple juice, small ice cream as dessert.
I don't eat anything else after lunch. Sometimes, a glass or two of grape juice. Even more rarely, a small toast.
TUESDAY - THURSDAY
Breakfast: 2 slices of bread, 2 cups of grape juice.
Lunch: Rice, beans, a lot of salad. Glass of soda.
After lunch, the same proceedure is followed as of Mon/Wed/Fri.
SATURDAY
Breakfast: Nothing.
Lunch: Pasta, oranje/pineapple juice. Small ice cream as a desert.
Dinner: Same as of the other days: basically nothing. But I sometimes order a pizza and drink soda.
SUNDAY
I rarely eat anything at all on sundays, other than a couple toasts and chocolate with milk to fool my hunger.
I walk about 1 mile every day, and on mondays I go to the gym and work out for arround 1 and a half hour.
Can anyone very carefully explain why I'm overweight? Thanks.
First, you're starving yourself. When your calorie intake drops too far below your rest metabolism, your body starts locking down every calorie it can find into fat and will induce feelings of fatigue to convince you to sleep. Essentially - when you eat too little, your body goes into a hibernation phase.
The other 'problem' is the juice. While it is certainly better than soda - juices are high in sugars that your body will 'lock in' if it thinks it needs to hibernate to survive. People will tell you to stay away from sugar and sweets - what you need to monitor is your intake of calories. While there is some research to suggest that the body prefers to digest complex carbohydrates as opposed to absorb simple sugars (or, rather, it is less damaging to consume carbohydrates) - there is also a direct correlation between the release of the government's food pyramid (and its focus on grains) and the rise of obesity.
Offset every grain with a legume/bean. If you want rice - have beans with it. Macroni&Cheese with baked beans is a very good combination (particularly if you can get the whole wheat).
This is because human cells require amino acids to create proteins - unfortunately, no plant (that I know of) contains -all- of the amino acids we need in sufficient amount to properly repair our bodies. However - different plants contain different amino acids. Whole grains should be offset with a legume/bean (peanut butter and the bread of a sandwich, for example).
The government's food pyramid radically over-states the importance of grains. More of your calories should actually come from fruits and fats/oils than from grains. Contrary to popular belief - there is nothing wrong with fat in meat. In general, since it is the store of various nutrients for an animal - it is fairly encompassing source of nutrients for people.
That said - salads with fruits mixed in (if possible) are a good way to go. If not or on a budget where this is difficult - vitamin/mineral supplements can be used. Do a bit of research on the different varieties - what matters in vitamins is not whether or not the vitamin is present, but how it is 'packaged.' The body doesn't like to absorb many compounds 'in the raw' - it likes to absorb them when attached to other organic molecules. Which is another reason why some of the daily recommended values are skewed off the charts - many of them are based around testing that was done using raw vitamin supplements that are poorly absorbed by the body in that state. To get the daily recommended value of Vitamin C from oranges, alone - you'd have to eat like a whole bushel of the things. That's how much difference the 'packaging' makes.
The other big thing is sunlight. Get out in the sun.
This is contrary to what current dogma is - but the skin converts sunlight to vitamin D using cholesterol. Vitamin D is a major energy catalyst in the body - used for an incredible number of things. Put short, you need it. This also helps keep you more active and is generally better for your emotional health, too (although be warned - studies have shown that sunlight is as addictive as cocaine).
