I want to lose weight

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Hi,

I weigh 90 kilograms so i am fat and i want to lose weight. But since i have mild autism and social anxiety its hard for me to go to gym. Because it's a social environment and i get anxious in these places. I was thin when i was a little kid but i started to gain weight then. I dont know if it's related to the pills i take (i am using prozac concerta and abizol pills).

What should i do to lose weight? Should i go to gym? Should i stop using pills? Or should i just dont eat?

Carbs are the enemy my friend. Restrict your carb intake to 50 or under per day, and weight will magically disappear. Your body will use your fat reserves for energy instead of carbs, since you aren't supplying them. You're going to have a heckuva headache for a few days, but you can eat as much meat, cheese, eggs and veggies as you want, so you won't be hungry. And, oh yeah, no sugar added fudge ice cream bars help. Also, exercise because it's healthy, but I typically opt for walking/jogging so I can listen to my headphones and live in my own world.

Losing weight is simple arithmetic. Eat less calories than you expend, and you'll lose weight.

I highly recommend starting to log EVERYTHING you eat in a fitness app, like MyFitnessPal. Just observe how many calories you take in on a daily basis. Take note of your food choices and how many calories they actually contain. You'll be surprised how many calories a Big Mac or a slice of pizza contain.

Weight management is a lot like financial management. You have to keep to the budget, or things go awry. You only have so many calories to spend per day. With knowledge comes power, and you'll start making better food choices over time; you'll choose foods that provide satiety and a sense of pleasure without consuming a ton of calories per unit.

For reference, I'm 5'8" and need approx. 2200 calories a day at my activity level to maintain my weight.

There's exercises you can do from the comfort of home. You could even purchase dumbells to do some strength training. You don't need to go to the gym to lose weight

Also, aim to get a good nights sleep, drink plenty of fluids (about 2 litres of water per day), eat balanced, healthy meals, and if you want to snack then have fruit or vegetable sticks.

I lost six stone. I did it by first of all simply reducing the number of calories I consumed. When that eventually plateaued, I calorie counted. Unfortunately I didn't realise that not all calories are created equal and continued to eat crap, thinking that as long as I could fit it into my daily calorie count I was fine. That didn't work.

I then removed refined sugar from my diet but made sure that I ate plenty 'good' fat - nut butter, olive oil, oily fish and so on. With that, the last bit of weight I wanted to lose fell away.

I also go for two hour long walks five days a week. If the weather is dreadful or I can't cope with going out then I do a body-weight based workout in my room at home. I've had an exercise bike and hand weights but gave them away because they got in my way around my flat. Body-weight exercises have proved sufficient.

No gym required! Hope that helps.

Seek professional assistance as you don't want to throw off the meds.

Ketosis works for me.

This is especially true if you eat out a lot. When someone else makes your food, you're not guaranteed to get a portion size or recipe consistent with the posted calorie count. And forget it if the restaurant doesn't post nutritional info at all.

Preparing your own food at home, as often as possible, is the way to go.

Can I ask, how much weight would you like to lose?

I want to drop down to 70 kilograms

I am trying to loose weight at the moment too, and I can't leave the house at the moment due to anxiety so definitely don't want to go to gym, am also taking tablets to help with anxiety (same type as Prozac). I put on a lot of weight from taking a previous medication Mirtazapine, it makes you want to eat everything in sight, I personally had to come off of that, partly because of the weight gain, but also because it wasn't helping me. I'm trying to loose the 22lbs/10Kgs that I put on whilst on the meds too. I think it would have been possible for me to loose weight while on Mirtazapine in particular, but it would have been more difficult becaused the tablets make you hungry even when you should be full. With being strict with the food diary on MyFitnessPal though I think I would have been possible. Not sure about other tablets though. Do you have the same side effect with your pills, or do you find they make you gain weight by other means?
I don't know about those medications other than a bit about Prozac, but I'd strongly reccomend talking to your doctor about the medication if you are considering coming off of it, or if you have concerns about weight gain related to the medications as we wouldn't be able to make a safe assessment about that.

I'm definitely in agreement with the above quote from antnego, I'm loosing weight currently and view it a lot like keeping a budget, it is just guess work if you're not counting whats going in (eating) and what's going out (daily expenditure / exercise). Basically to loose weight you need to move more and/or eat less than what you were. We all have a stored amount of calories in our body, the daily income and outgoings will add or remove what is there. You basically need to eat less calories than you burn in the day. I can't recommend MyFitnessPal enough also as it works alot of this out for you.

It's possible to work out about how many calories you should eat to loose weight without the apps but it's so much easier to use them. This website is quite good for that sort of stuff. (I can't post URLs so have typed the link out differently).
bmi-calculator{DOT}net/weight-loss-calculator/
You can use the link to roughly calculate what you should eat if you want to reach a certain weight within a certain time.

Try to pace yourself though, it is much more of a long term process than short term. As a rough guide anyone has to burn 3500 Calories to loose 1lb of fat, about 7700 Calories to loose 1Kg of fat. So if you had a deficit of 500 calories a day, that's potentially 1lb of fat loss a week. So try and come up with a long term plan that will help you loose the weight. Then when you reach your desired weight, keep the calorie budget even by eating the same amount as what you burn on that day.
If, you're like me and you eat a lot at once, and then go for a while without eating, I'd recommend trying to eat smaller portions but more frequently. While eating less my blood sugar drops quite low at times and I get hypoglycemic symptoms, if you get that, don't ignore it, eat something. For this reason I would be careful with suggestions to drastically reduce the amount of carbs you eat, especially if your vulnerable to hypoglycemia, or have diabetes.
healthline{DOT COM}/health/hypoglycemia?m=0#Overview1

You certainly don't need one but if you have the opportunity I'd recommend Fitbit monitors. I have a Fitbit Charge 2, it constantly monitors heart rate (so helps me quantify the stress or panic I am experiencing to some degree), and it shows you how many calories you burned that day. It'll really surprise you just how effective a walk is. I burn more calories doing a slow-medium paced long distance walk for an hour or two, than a short but vigorous workout. I use the fitbit along side MyFitnessPal to get the calorie balance right. Fitbit calculates outgoings, and MyFitnessPal calculates the in coming. It also has guided breathing based upon your heart rate that can help you relax.

For body weight workouts (no equiptment required), some good free apps are made by Runtastic, they have 'Push-up' 'Squats' and 'Sit ups' apps which take you from doing one push up, and gradually build you up until you can do 100 straight after a few months, I'd highly recommend it as it's improved my strength and stamina a lot. I've gone from 15 straight push ups to 60, so it does work, and builds muscle. It helps to do regular weight training as it should help you avoid loosing muscle along with the fat.
Running/Jogging is also something that is quite effective for cardio, and boosting your outgoing (burning) calories, and it really helped me with anxiety issues, so it may do the same for you. If this is too much to start with, try doing brisk walks and build it up into intermittant jogging, theres loads of running apps out there too to track and plan exercises on your phone.
I'd also recommend keeping logs of your weight, along with pictures to help you see the difference in yourself, which only helps to fuel more progress.
Forgive me if this is a bit disorganised, but I hope it helps.
Let us know how you get on, or if you have more questions. If you do decide to use MyFitnessPal and would like a buddy to do it with, perhaps we could add each other on it and keep each other going. All the best!

Thanks for the helpful post. I downloaded MyFitnessPal. Everything is ok but I'm confused about something. In "Calories Remaining" section I set my goal to 1500. Then I added my meal (74 calories). Now the calories remaining is 1426. I want to burn calories, so it should be 1574, right? And when I add exercise it should decrease, so I can reach zero and finish my daily goal. But this is doing the opposite, why? Sorry for my bad English.

Try the Atkins Diet. Keto allows me to lose weight and not starve myself. I always felt awkward at the gym so I jogged in my neighborhood. Lost weight and anxiety because of the endorphins.

Hi fellow survivors,

As far as weight loss, I started power-walking recently and it's exhilarating. Like the original poster, I also have marked social anxiety and I loathe gyms (and the sight of most gym/body obsessed people). However, I finally realized at the age of 45 that the world will never be everything I want or remotely close to what I like so I am just trying to make alterations, and I will try my best to work around people.

Therefore, I walk 2 miles daily (average 11-11.5 min miles) at a local park, but I try to go during off-peak hours. During the week, I go around noon when most people are at work and kids are in school. I walk first, relax in my car and listen to relaxing music, and then I pick my daughter up from school. I went today and I realized that Saturdays at 9 am are not conducive to people like me so I will try to go earlier before the crowds get there.

Moreover, I was a junk food-loving vegetarian for the past 10 years, but I finally took the plunge to become a full vegan (also gluten free) and I feel a little better already. I have lost 10 lbs in less than 2 weeks and my debilitating depression has also improved. I still have severe social anxiety and social phobias. Oh well.

Similarly, change your diet and get out and move a little. Find a nice city park or even a more remote state park to do your walking in, and try to tailor your walking schedule around the peak crowd times. More importantly, when you walk, swing your arms side-to-side, keep your knees locked, strike the ground with heel first then roll towards your toes, and put some good effort into it. Walking is better than running and jogging since it puts less strain on your heart and there is less impact on your joints. You are less likely to fall or trip VS running/jogging since you have less forward momentum and when you walk properly, you will always have one foot on the ground at all times.

For peak cardio and weight loss effects, you need to shoot for a 3 mph-4.5 mph walking pace. There are many 'pace calculator' (min/mile) charts online to refer to for. Likewise, most smart phones have built-in apps that will track your steps and overall distance while walking/jogging, and some phones can even measure your heart rate.

Moreover, check your heart rate before walking while holding still, and also check immediately when you finish. Use your phone (if equipped) or use a pulse oximeter (Walgreens and CVS have pulse oximeters for under $45 these days vs $3000 back in 1992) to check your pulse if you are not familiar with the manual method (manual pulse check = check your wrist pulse for 15 seconds and then multiply x 4). If using a pulse oximeter, and your pulse oximetry reading is less than 92% (oxygen level), go see your doctor as soon as you can -- especially if you don't have any significant cardiac or pulmonary history.

Important: when using a pulse oximeter, you must remain still and not put any pressure on the finger being tested, and you also need to wait for a steady pulse amplitude bar. You should have an accurate reading after 1 minute if you have reasonably normal circulation and your hands and fingers are not cold or wet. * Nail polish can give inaccurate readings so don't freak out if you see odd numbers at first with thick nail enamel*

Lastly, your max heart rate is 220 - your age (for me 220-45-year-old =175 max heart rate), but you don't want to hit your max (max heart rate can be dangerous for people in high-risk categories). You want to maintain your heart rate between 60%-85% of your max heart rate for optimal health/weight loss benefits, and overall safety.

BTW: while exercising, if you encounter any dizziness, sudden and "severe" headache, jaw or chest pains, blurry vision, nausea, or palpitations -- STOP and rest immediately.

Notify your doctor if you experience any or all of those 6 symptoms.

Good luck, God Bless, and best wishes to all of you in your healthy endeavors.

To start off, many autists are allergic to gluten (wheat and stuff made from flour) and casein, which is found in cow milk. The allergic reactions may be subtle, but still there. Also, refined sugar is extremely bad, and high fructose corn syrup is so bad that it's actually considered a poison in its pure form and has to have lots of additives put in to make it somewhat consumable by humans. Cut those four things out of your diet as much as possible. You may start to lose fat if you do so even if you aren't exercising. BTW, gyms are a waste of money. As you noted, they're primarily places for hypersocial NT's to show off and get brownie points for being "health conscious".

2 things that worked very good for me:

1. Martial arts. (i went down to 87 kilos doing Bujinkan back in 2001. I could also run for miles without getting tired, it was awesome.)

2. Hiking (i recently gone down from 111 to 90-something and doing a long hiking trail this summer. Had an embolism a while ago which was a real eyeopener).

(Note: that i'm much taller than most others and my optimal weight is around 90.)

My advice is not to count calories. Or BMI. You'll only end up depressed and there is no way you can exactly know the impact of what N calories of food X have. Some calorie rich have fibre in them (like nuts) and some others don't, but eating the same amount of calories of the other type makes a whole world of difference.

This means: eat healthy stuff (fruits, veggies, meat) and reduce intake of things with too much sugar and carbon hydrates - you'll be surprised what happens after a month just changing your diet.

Good luck!

Hey,
No problem, your english was perfectly clear. I think you may have gotten confused as to the calorie remaining goal on MyFitnessPal though. The calorie remaining for the day is how many calories you can still eat for the day rather than how many calories you still have to burn off. So if your calories remaining says 1500, and you eat your meal (74 calories) you now have 1426 calories left which you can still eat. When you hit 0 you shouldn't eat any more if you want to stick to your goal. If you do a workout and burn 100 calories then you now have another 100 calories that you can eat that day to stick to your goal, so your calories remaining would then be 1600 rather than 1500.

On my app it shows the calculation for the calories remaining related to your goal. My goal per day is 1710 calories so for me it is

Calories Remaining:
1,710 - 982 + 62 = 790
(Goal) (Food) (Exercise) (Remaining)

So for you, if we were to consider your meal of 74 calories, and for example a workout of 100 calories it would look like this:

Calories Remaining:

1500 - 74 + 100 = 1526
(Goal) (Food) (Exercise) (Remaining)

That's just the way it works on their website and app, I don't think you can change it to work the other way but I'm not entirely sure. It may be worth checking the settings or talking to their support or forum to see if it's possible if you'd like to change it.