Girlfriend has tried fasting but it doesn't seem to work. Any advice?

[Ulic]

What did she drink during her fast? Any sweet sugar drinks or fruit juice? Google intermittent fasting. 16-8. Much easier to follow. As with all diet's it's a lifestyle change. Not really sure you will see anything from a 2 day fast. I imagine that it would be hard to measure 1 pound. Maybe she drank a lot of water before weighing herself. Maybe she was a little dehydrated at the start of her fast. 

[blazes]

On 9/3/2018 at 7:20 AM, balo said:

Tell your girlfriend (I assume she's Thai )  she needs to move her body . There is no point in fasting if she just sit on a chair all day . 

 

To burn calories a good start is to walk 4-5 km's daily and if possible go to a gym and work out. I walk 5 to 10k daily and can eat normal food without gaining weight.  

 

So a combination of less intake of food and more activity during the day will help her lose weight. But she needs to change her old habits , I know most Thais are lazy when it comes to just walking 300 meters , they would take the bike instead. 

 

 

No Thai will walk 4-5 kms a day!!!!  If you can get her to do ONE km you would have achieved a small miracle...

[blazes]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread.  I've done some fasting and like many people here I found that hunger pain went away after 2/3 days, but never more than 1 kg weight loss.

 

We really must know how tall she is.  If less than 5'3" she really doesn't need to fast.

 

Generally, while exercise is obviously good and necessary, it is rarely enough to be a factor in losing weight unless you really put a lot of energy into the exercise.

[Retiredandhappyhere]

10 minutes ago, blazes said:

There's a lot of good advice in this thread.  I've done some fasting and like many people here I found that hunger pain went away after 2/3 days, but never more than 1 kg weight loss.

 

We really must know how tall she is.  If less than 5'3" she really doesn't need to fast.

 

Generally, while exercise is obviously good and necessary, it is rarely enough to be a factor in losing weight unless you really put a lot of energy into the exercise.

I think you mean that she does not need to lose weight if she is MORE than 5'3" in height. If LESS, she may do.

[Vacuum]

10 minutes ago, blazes said:

Generally, while exercise is obviously good and necessary, it is rarely enough to be a factor in losing weight unless you really put a lot of energy into the exercise.

You're right, 1kg is about 7 500- 8 000 calories. Walking quickly (speedwalking) would burn about 250 calories per hour. Do the math.

[AussieBob18]

IMO the best method is to implement some changes to diet - but extreme exercise is over rated - the issue is metabolism.  Thais have a naturally high metabolism, but when they either eat too much or get older, it slows down.  Best way to lose weight permanently for an 'older' Thai woman (over 40) is to eat less carbs (including much less rice and nil bread or buscuits etc.) and drink a lot more water - a lot more.  If consuming any alcohol, then stop that completely - and get a lot of sleep (long sleeping reduces weight).  After doing that for a month her diet will 'adjust' and she will be used to not eating as much rice, and staying away from all other 'grass' based stuff like wheat, corn, etc etc.  The largest mammals on earth eat 'grass' - humans can do it, but when they do it a lot their bodies tend to store the grass based carbs for 'later'.  After a month she will have lost a little bit of weight, but the body will start to 'find' the ideal weight as the loss of 'excess' carbs and fats becomes normal.  It will seem to stabilise at a weight, and then all of a sudden she will be 1kg lighter, and then it will stay there.  Putting on weight is easy, losing weight (properly) takes a long time as the body has to be re-adjusted to what is the ideal weight given the diet and daily use of the body.  She should use a set of scales and weigh herself every morning and before going to bed every night.  Once the weight stabilises, then it becomes a matter of the occasional 'treat' (ice creams, alcohol or whatever) and what impact that has on her weight. Some things she can eat heaps and her weight wont change - other things will cause an immediate weight increase. And remember, sometimes for no apparent reason the body will either drop weight or increase weight - no one really knows why.  But having said all that, if she is over 60 then it is a good idea to have a few kilos of extra weight - available for when she gets a serious sickness or accident.  Same for blokes too.

 

If she is younger the issue of exercise comes into it as she needs to maintain her metabolism (if not already lost). So in addition to the diet change and a lot more water, a younger Thai woman needs to also do a lot of frequent minor 'eexercise' - that does not mean jogging, running, gyms, but it does mean being 'active' for most of the day - no sitting on TV too much - do gardening, cleaning, fixing things, etc. - and night time exercise helps too ? 

 

If it is a male Thai (or any male), then the issue of exercise does come into it a lot more than diet. Males still need to cut down the grass based foods and drink a lot of water, but 'heavy' exercise for 10-20 mins twice a day over 2-3 weeks has a big impact on weight, and then males can eat more.  If a young woman starts a regime of heavy exercise over a period of time, then any food that is consumed will be mainly put into 'long term' storage - there is a whole industry out there telling them different, but it is a lie for the vast majority of women once they pass early 20s.  Older blokes should also walk every day or other mild exercise as that has a stabilising or lowering affect on their metabolism. 

 

[Kurtf]

Fasting isn’t A healthy way to lose weight. Especially if a person reverts back to eating huge amount of carbohydrates like rice when ending the fast.

Read up about a ketogenic diet and see if you can convince her to stay on that kind of diet. She WILL lose weight guaranteed. But it isn’t easy. And be healthier all around.

[anon4637435435]

not making fun but fingers down the throat and a coffee enema will take several kg off pretty quick depending on the size of the person. Then eat lean meats, fruits and veg and only drink water. Steer towards higher protein everything and limit rice intake!

if your wife is old or has medical conditions it can be more dificult to lose weight.

in my younger years i went from a monster 115kg to 69kg in 5months but i excercised alot. Tricks i used is still enjoy everything but have half like half a cup of coffee, half a glass of juice and if you do this long enough you train yourself not to need much food to be full. Excercise is key and good nights sleep is vital which a lot of people  never mention and no alcohol. Now an old guy and a hell of a lot stronger due to work, working out and such i cant lose weight at all. stuck at 105-108kg.

If your wife has a stressful job, long work hours and that type of thing which sort of leans a person towards more energy food to keep going will make things near impossible.

50kg aint much though. my wifes anorexic and 60kg at 5'5.

Also muscle mass weighs more than fat. stick to aerobics. add strain and weights and youll go backwards if on a healthy diet.

[lvr181]

On 9/3/2018 at 11:25 PM, Nice Boyd said:

Have her start in Cocanut oil 4 or 5 tablespoons a day,it will make her appetite diminish , and not be so hungry all the time and she will lose weight


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

Better to use bananas! Two good effects :-

 

1.)  Makes you feel "full" therefore removing the feeling of an empty stomach. Not need to eat/snack as often. And rice is a high GI food! Bad. From experience, I know that having eaten some rice it is not long afterward I feel hungry again and wanting to eat again. Common with high GI foods.

 

2.)  She doesn't appear to be overweight which is good. Because that can cause high blood pressure. A silent killer. It can lead to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure and brain disease.To lower your blood pressure it is recommended to eat more potassium. As a matter of fact, bananas are rich in potassium. One average-size banana has around 12 percent of your daily value of potassium. Even the Harvard School of Public Health recommends eating potassium-rich foods to push your blood pressure down.

 

Use a BMI indicator (find online - preferably one that asks about M or F and waist size) of what is a healthy weight range for her, too low a weight is as bad as being overweight. And keep in mind that waist size should be close to half of your height. It is a GUIDE nothing more nothing less.

 

And hope you can work something out. Beware of those sites trying to flog a product!

 

The bottom line is, eat less calories than what you are using up, but keep eating healthy. HTH 

[elgenon]

Yes, exercise is very important. If you just lay about you are not burning a lot of calories.

I can lose at least a pound a day by eating a salad with rice vinegar and vigorously exercising. If you eat smaller amounts you start to feel full on smaller amounts. It's always best to do a sustainable change in your diet. If you fast and then go back to the same habits you are negating any benefits. Go for the long term not the short term and be patient. It does take a while to for your body to figure things out. It stores fat and calories for a reason.

[lvr181]

4 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Yes, exercise is very important. If you just lay about you are not burning a lot of calories.

I can lose at least a pound a day by eating a salad with rice vinegar and vigorously exercising. If you eat smaller amounts you start to feel full on smaller amounts. It's always best to do a sustainable change in your diet. If you fast and then go back to the same habits you are negating any benefits. Go for the long term not the short term and be patient. It does take a while to for your body to figure things out. It stores fat and calories for a reason.

So true.

[AlexRich]

No point in losing weight only to put it all back on quickly over the coming couple of weeks. Your girlfriend needs to find an eating routine that she can happily live with and that keeps her weight to a level she is comfortable with. If she consumes less calories than she burns she will lose weight ... so an exercise routine coupled with a healthier diet would do the trick. Some people report that intermittent fasting, say, eating only between 10am and 6pm, can be beneficial to weight loss. You drink water and sleep the other 16 hours. It gives the body a rest from breaking down food and allows it to concentrate on repairing cells and other good works.

[RickBradford]

On 9/3/2018 at 8:06 PM, RichardThailand said:

Did you every try for more than 3 days?  I'm interested to hear your experiences also.  Did you find you were hungry at the start but then that feeling of hunger went away?

Has she tried intermittent fasting? Essentially, all it means is skipping breakfast every day so that there is a 16-hour window when no calories enter the body. This reduces insulin and causes the body to look around at retrieving fat as an energy store. (Thai monks fast every day, but from midday to sunrise).

 

Dr Jason Fung is very good on this stuff. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIhhrYjVhOk) is a good intro. Loads of videos.

 

He points out that an important notion which Jesus Christ, Mohammed, and the Buddha had in common was that they proselytised on the benefits of fasting.

 

Some people go to greater extremes - a 22-hour window, (OMAD, or one meal a day).

 

For the first 3 days, the mind/body will expect breakfast at the regular time, but come 10am, that feeling of hunger has gone. It gets easier and easier as time goes on.

 

 

 

[whaleboneman]

On 9/3/2018 at 4:55 AM, Esso49 said:

You didn't say how old she was or how tall she is but sexual activity could burn of calories better than 50 hours of fasting which is hardly enough. I would expect 50 hours of something else over a 7 day period would see some difference.?

You want to give Richard a heart attack?

[hobz]

Try keto for two months or so. It's literally like cheating... U can eat how much u want just as long as you keep net carbs below 20grams per day. 

Then after she starts craving carbs again you can switch to a more maintainable less hard core diet.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 hour ago, blazes said:

No Thai will walk 4-5 kms a day!!!!  If you can get her to do ONE km you would have achieved a small miracle...

Walking is boring. Pole dancing for a couple of hours a day is probably a better exercise.

[NoshowJones]

On 9/3/2018 at 6:55 PM, Esso49 said:

You didn't say how old she was or how tall she is but sexual activity could burn of calories better than 50 hours of fasting which is hardly enough. I would expect 50 hours of something else over a 7 day period would see some difference.?

My wife is about 50 Ks, but is 5ft 9ins tall.

[thailand49]

First, it isn't rocket science or is it?

 

Regardless of her age she didn't gain the extra weight overnight or 3 days?  It takes hard weight and most of all patience and will power!  

Instead  of just feeding her and enjoying the good  life which if you think about it I'm sure when you first met her she was slim or near starving with a 100 baht budget a day with food.  Now with you she is tagging along eating just as much as you are eating, with a allowance to eat without thinking now she is bother to look in the mirror and thinking I better do something because maybe she noticed something of your wandering eyes?

Get the walking shoes on and join her and work it off along with a good diet plan if you are lucky might see some results in a month?

Good luck?

[NoshowJones]

On 9/3/2018 at 9:29 PM, theguyfromanotherforum said:

Fasting?

 

Give me a break. She'll just gain more weight once she start eating again.

 

And why at 50 kilos she needs to lose weight?

 

Ridiculous.

Not necessary, she may only be about 5ft tall, what is the average height of a Thai girl? 

I think I read somewhere it is 5ft 1ins.

[stephenterry]

3 minutes ago, elgenon said:

Yes, exercise is very important. If you just lay about you are not burning a lot of calories.

I can lose at least a pound a day by eating a salad with rice vinegar and vigorously exercising. If you eat smaller amounts you start to feel full on smaller amounts. It's always best to do a sustainable change in your diet. If you fast and then go back to the same habits you are negating any benefits. Go for the long term not the short term and be patient. It does take a while to for your body to figure things out. It stores fat and calories for a reason.

Vigorously exercising may make you fit, but not healthy, because it's anaerobic - which means (without oxygen) that your body is shunting blood sugar from your internal organs to feed the muscles, and thus kidneys and liver will lose oxygen and that's dangerous to health. And you won't burn off the 'stored fat'. 

 

Aerobic exercise (with oxygen) like walking is far more beneficial to HEALTH, and after an initial warm-up period of around 15 minutes to allow the the fatty acids to be distributed evenly so your body uses up fats - AND when exercising, your heart rate - 180 minus your age as a rough guide -- is at a level where you can still talk without gasping, that's ideal as your body WILL use up fats, not sugar and your oxygen supply won't be diminished.  Once the body is trained into this regime - the warm up is critical - fats will be burned off.

 

And as a footnote, when I walk around the park early morning at a pace that ups my heart rate, but doesn't hinder me talking to my friend, I see many lady Thais doing exactly the same. So it's a fallacy to believe no Thai ladies would walk anywhere.

 

 

[jak2002003]

Suggesting that someone stop eating all food for up to 6 weeks to loose weight is just stupid and dangerous!  Your body needs nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc to stay healthy.  Depriving it of these for weeks will result in damage to your health.

 

I read through all these posts and I see the same old weight loss myths popping up.

 

To loose weigh the healthy and less stressful way is simply this:

 

Consume fewer calories each day than your body needs.

 

Slow weight loss over several weeks / months is the way to go.  This way the weight will stay off.  Quick fix diets may loose some weight, but once over people tend to get even heavier than they were before the diet.

 

Exercise is healthy for your heart and body... but not useful for any real weight loss as it really only burns a small percentage of the calories up.  Your bodies own metabolism uses up most of the calories.. even just resting.  

 

Choose to eat healthier foods (ones with lots of fiber, lower in calories).  Give up all the processed junk food... fast food, sweets, cakes, pies etc.. and ALCOHOL (which has a lot of calories in it).  Choose foods that will make you feel full and are slow to digest.

 

No need to torture yourself with fasting, eating disgusting tasting slimming foods, getting chemical injections or tablets and the rest on the nonsense.

 

And, those people thinking carbs are bad, or coconut oil is super, go and look at the latest research findings!!!!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by jak2002003

[Mansell]

The simplest way to lose weight is to eat only half your lunch and eat the other half for dinner, combined with a consistent exercise program. And do not eat after 7pm. Cut out the sugary drinks etc. and give it some time.

I was recently told I had GERD and changed my diet accordingly, within six weeks I have lost two kilos, and not through choice. Just read online what you can and cannot eat with this issue.

[OneMoreFarang]

11 minutes ago, jak2002003 said:

And, those people thinking carbs are bad, or coconut oil is super, go and look at the latest research findings!!!!

I think all those latest research findings are problematic.

I didn't follow it much but over the last decades these latest research findings seem to change all the time.

Eggs are bad or good, wine is bad or good, butter or margarine, meat or not, the list goes on and on.

And I am sure if someone follows the latest findings today he/she will read that some of that was bad advice in a couple of years.

 

Personally I have an easy solution to all of this: I eat and drink what I like and what makes me feel good. Do I care if some people think I should lose a couple of kilos: No. Case closed.

[Scouse123]

They say losing weight, and I have studied and dieted for years, is 75% what you eat, as in calorie intake, and not more than 25% exercise, unless you are an exercise fanatic!

 

At 50Kgs and Thai, I don't really mind how tall or short she is, I doubt very much she is overweight and this is probably just a vanity trip.

 

The less you need to lose, the harder it is to get off as well. They say one of the very best exercises is speed walking for losing weight along with a balanced diet. Yes, it is true that cutting carbs speeds up weight loss and this has been proved that the human body absorbs protein much more slowly. So, if you go on a high protein diet, low carbs, the body takes the path of least resistance and uses up the carbs first, hence quicker weight loss.

 

However, it is also said when people come of these diets, such as Atkins which is very low carbs, then they overeat and compensate and often end up heavier than when they actually started weight watching.

 

In all diets guys, it is a simple fact of calories burned against calorie intake. If you burn more than what you consume, you will lose weight provided there are no medical reasons.

[hobz]

1 hour ago, jak2002003 said:

Suggesting that someone stop eating all food for up to 6 weeks to loose weight is just stupid and dangerous!  Your body needs nutrients, vitamins, minerals, amino acids etc to stay healthy.  Depriving it of these for weeks will result in damage to your health.

 

I read through all these posts and I see the same old weight loss myths popping up.

 

To loose weigh the healthy and less stressful way is simply this:

 

Consume fewer calories each day than your body needs.

 

Slow weight loss over several weeks / months is the way to go.  This way the weight will stay off.  Quick fix diets may loose some weight, but once over people tend to get even heavier than they were before the diet.

 

Exercise is healthy for your heart and body... but not useful for any real weight loss as it really only burns a small percentage of the calories up.  Your bodies own metabolism uses up most of the calories.. even just resting.  

 

Choose to eat healthier foods (ones with lots of fiber, lower in calories).  Give up all the processed junk food... fast food, sweets, cakes, pies etc.. and ALCOHOL (which has a lot of calories in it).  Choose foods that will make you feel full and are slow to digest.

 

No need to torture yourself with fasting, eating disgusting tasting slimming foods, getting chemical injections or tablets and the rest on the nonsense.

 

And, those people thinking carbs are bad, or coconut oil is super, go and look at the latest research findings!!!!

 

 

 

 

You miss the most important part. It's the addiction to carbs. Everybody that I know that is overweight is addicted to sugar. 

Telling them to count calories and eat less doesn't work unless they have insane discipline or motivation (if they had this they wouldn't be overweight anyway). It simply doesn't work.

Keto, cutting out sugar almost completely or completely means you are actually tackling the sugar addiction issue. When you eat mostly fat you can try to eat as much as you want and you will still lose weight. Because nobody that I know can eat so much fat without feeling absolutely horrible. It's very easy to control the amount of calories then.

 

You don't have to go keto. But it's the best way IMHO to tackle sugar addiction. 

 

And the problem is almost Always sugar addiction.

 

Now you will quote some research saying that sugar addiction is not real. Go ahead. Won't change my mind.

 

 

[hobz]

13 minutes ago, Scouse123 said:

They say losing weight, and I have studied and dieted for years, is 75% what you eat, as in calorie intake, and not more than 25% exercise, unless you are an exercise fanatic!

 

At 50Kgs and Thai, I don't really mind how tall or short she is, I doubt very much she is overweight and this is probably just a vanity trip.

 

The less you need to lose, the harder it is to get off as well. They say one of the very best exercises is speed walking for losing weight along with a balanced diet. Yes, it is true that cutting carbs speeds up weight loss and this has been proved that the human body absorbs protein much more slowly. So, if you go on a high protein diet, low carbs, the body takes the path of least resistance and uses up the carbs first, hence quicker weight loss.

 

However, it is also said when people come of these diets, such as Atkins which is very low carbs, then they overeat and compensate and often end up heavier than when they actually started weight watching.

 

In all diets guys, it is a simple fact of calories burned against calorie intake. If you burn more than what you consume, you will lose weight provided there are no medical reasons.

I think you miss a key element. The mental aspect. The addiction to sugar. Tackle this and everything else is automatically better / good.

[PerkinsCuthbert]

1 hour ago, stephenterry said:

Vigorously exercising may make you fit, but not healthy, because it's anaerobic - which means (without oxygen) that your body is shunting blood sugar from your internal organs to feed the muscles, and thus kidneys and liver will lose oxygen and that's dangerous to health. And you won't burn off the 'stored fat'. 

 

Aerobic exercise (with oxygen) like walking is far more beneficial to HEALTH, and after an initial warm-up period of around 15 minutes to allow the the fatty acids to be distributed evenly so your body uses up fats - AND when exercising, your heart rate - 180 minus your age as a rough guide -- is at a level where you can still talk without gasping, that's ideal as your body WILL use up fats, not sugar and your oxygen supply won't be diminished.  Once the body is trained into this regime - the warm up is critical - fats will be burned off.

 

And as a footnote, when I walk around the park early morning at a pace that ups my heart rate, but doesn't hinder me talking to my friend, I see many lady Thais doing exactly the same. So it's a fallacy to believe no Thai ladies would walk anywhere.

 

 

Or stop talking for five minutes.

[OneMoreFarang]

2 minutes ago, hobz said:

You don't have to go keto. But it's the best way IMHO to tackle sugar addiction. 

 

And the problem is almost Always sugar addiction.

 

Now you will quote some research saying that sugar addiction is not real. Go ahead. Won't change my mind.

I don't know if it counts officially as addiction or not.

I used to drink Coke (the real one with lots of sugar) all the time and I thought I would never want to stop it.

But then I was diagnose with diabetes and I stopped drinking sugar drinks immediately.

After a few days I didn't even miss them anymore. I would have thought it must be difficult to stop it but it was actually easy.

But I don't want to stop Cake and Ice-Cream - I like them too much.

 

 

[connda]

On 9/3/2018 at 6:46 PM, RichardThailand said:

She's tried fasting for up to 50 hours but the end result is her weight at the end of the fast is the same as at the start.

The human body doesn't enter ketosis, or fat burning mode, for 48 to 72 hours after fasting starts.  So your looking at 3 to 5 days.  To get there more efficiently, eat a strict keto diet a few days before the start of the fast. 

[Scouse123]

37 minutes ago, hobz said:

I think you miss a key element. The mental aspect. The addiction to sugar. Tackle this and everything else is automatically better / good.

 

 

But sugar comes under ' carbs ' and we all know that chocolate bars, cakes, ice creams, buns, fizzy drinks, all loaded with sugar are bad for us or at least we should. There is enough out there.