Best way to lose weight and stay fit, the Army says I need to, have suggestions?

Exercise is the best way to lose your weight, eating less is not a good solution. But, yes healthy food is always good to everyone who wanted to lose their weight or who are maintaining their health.

To lose weight, you need to avoid high calorie food like meat, rice, ghee, potatoes, etc. Eat lot’s of fruits and green vegetables. You should totally quit smoking, alcohol and junk food. They cause great harm to your body. Start doing work out. I am sure soon you will get the desired weight.

How tall are you that the Army is advising to lose weight? And, are you a woman or man?

To lose weight just eat some more veggies and less junk food if you eat junk food, and the weight will come off. If you are way overweight I assume you don’t eat well or that you eat a lot of food and with just a minor change you will lose 5–10 pounds. The military usually will provide a nutritionist. I know I saw one when I was 16 for my cholesterol, I assume they are available for all sorts of diet issues.

You really need to check your body mass, which may mean getting measured somewhere. If you’re fit, your weight will be higher for your height, since muscle is more dense than fat.

What is your height?

And, to attack the weight issue, cut out all simple carbs – no sugar, no rice, no potatoes, no flour. You need some complex carbs for energy, and you need protein, and you need healthy fats for energy. But get rid of the simple carbs because that provides energy that doesn’t deplete your fat stores.

I haven’t changed my diet appreciably, but my new job is more active than my old one. More moving around, turning wrenches, hammering, and just generally hustling more. Just that alone has me down 10–15 pounds in 3 weeks. I’ve eaten pretty much the same way most of my life, and was ~155 pounds for decades before taking a slower-paced job that had me up to 190–195, but simply increasing my activity level has half that weight gain gone that quickly.

What specific measurements are they using? If it’s BMI, they’re on the wrong track because that has nothing to do with health or physical ability/fitness. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can fight the military on this.

I think that in terms of diet, @zenvelo has the right idea.

You may be getting more muscle with all your training and muscle weighs more than fat, I also know the Army puts alot of salt in the food they serve so to make you retain water. In my sisters case she gained over 20lbs while in basic training from this water retention and lost it plus some extra quickly when she came home since we eat a low sodium diet normally. She also had her BMI done and qualified easily otherwise she would have been considered over weight if just looking at the weigh in numbers.

@creative1 The thing is, the military also measures your waist if I remember correctly, so very muscular men are not thrown in with very fat people when they look at height and weight charts and other parameters they use.

Maybe you could ask the “jumbo dumbo” guys what their routines are, and then just do the opposite every day….

P90X

Before I joined the military I weighed maybe 155lb give or take. Since then I put on weight, ,but my PT score has only gone up. The weight can’t possibly be a bad thing if this the case. By their logic though it is. And I am able to last longer before muscle failure and feel stronger, and overall feel good. I was much more of a skinny nerd before I had joined.

@JamesHarrison Yes, I already exercise normal week M-F 0630–0745. Had 24 hour CQ so I missed 1 day this week. I feel like I eat a pretty normal diet. Could probably use more healthy foods to be fair.

@kavita000 I hear a lot of mixed things on rice,meats, and potatoes. I don’t drink, expect rarely for social events and do not smoke. Do go out on the weekends though I’ll try and cut back during weekends eating out and such. I already work out.

@JLeslie I’m about 5’8, male. I have 36’ inch waist when they measured me. They don’t separate people by fat or muscle, purely by measurements.

@tedibear Sounds like BMI, they check height and weight first. If it doesn’t fit their charts of what you “should” be then they tape your neck and waist. I just used a BMI Calculator online it said I am obese with my current height and weight.

@zenvelo 5’8. I don’t eat rice hardly. I’ll need to cut back on sugar although currently not that bad or that I do take in much. I don’t know much about food in that sense what and where do I get complex carbs? I feel like I should be fine on protein, heard taking big doses of protein is waste and turns into wasted calories or so I hear. I could probably do with some more better fats. I do have a good amount of poly/mono saturated fats when I eat (I believe those are the good ones?) Least I have noticed when I look at the nutrition labels.

@LDRSHIP The point is, if you had a high weight for your height and thin waist it would indicate you weigh a lot because of muscle, not fat. 36” is starting to get up there for your height.

@JLeslie By that logic shouldn’t I be getting out of shape too? How can I be running faster and still be maxing events?

@LDRSHIP Your lung capacity and muscle strength is good. My dad is very fat. When he was in the military he was always being told about his weight when he was evaluated. He is heavier now, he is retired. He is extremely strong, and when he was younger he could run longer and faster than me as a teen and I was supposedly in great health. He did need bypass surgery at 46 though. Heart disease runs in our family, bad genes.

@LDRSHIP – This has a good list of complex carbs.

Keep in mind that BMI stands for Bogus Measurement Index. It was never intended to act as a measure of health. Sadly, like I said before, you probably can’t fight the military on this one.

@tedibear BMI alone may not be a good measure, I completely agree with that, but a man who is 5’8” and a 36” waist is likely putting some risk to their health. It is for sure overweight by any measure.

The proper combination of diet, exercise rest.

Do not drink any soda or sugar drink such as most juices. Eat your fill of raw vegetables, cut down on carbs.

I agree with @JLeslie. I am 5 foot 8. I am wearing 33 waist pants after getting down below 170.

My calorie intake is right around 1600 – 1700 Cal per day, I am able to build muscle and lose weight and I am getting in some vigorous workouts 5 days a week.

Oh, and when I said “protein” I was talking lean meat and fish, not protein powder. Only eat real Food, not something that’s been processed.

When I tell you how to do it, you might not like it. But I will tell you anyway. Become a vegan. I swear it works once you cut out all of the crap. I know say it “but we need protein”, that’s just what we are programmed to think and I swear we are eating to much protein to begin with. There are proteins in other plant based foods besides meat. You will probably shed 5–10 pounds in the first week.

I have been a vegan for a long time. I used to weigh almost 400lbs. I still have a ways to go but I am shedding pounds every day. But I have 50 pounds to loose until I am at my goal weight.

Also when you exercise its not about the calories the machine tells you that you are burning, but its about the intensity you are doing. The faster your heart is pumping the better and the longer time you do that for the more calories you burn. For me I’m almost 40. I keep my heart rate almost at 125 on the treadmill for 30 minutes with the pace of the treadmill at 3.2.

Try to eat all organic stuff when possible and make it from scratch. Once you start eating like this you won’t crave any crap. I eat sweet potato chips :P They are so good! I don’t have diabetes anymore or even IBS. I will never eat another hamburger again. Do you know how much fat is in all of that meat. I think the main reason vegans shed pounds is because they basically cut out almost all fat. I actually never made this choice for health reasons, I had a plethora of other reasons and health was an added bonus. I promote this to my friends and family and elsewhere now for the health reasons and not actually for my original reasons, which includes me allowing animals to walk all over me like this lol

What is fast food? What does real cheese taste like? I have no clue I eat tofu mozzarella and I’m addicted to it :/

What about ice cream? I don’t know but I make this “chocolate ice cream” that is so good and it won’t give you a heart attack it’s basically 2 frozen organic bananas, 2 scoops of hemp seeds, 1 scoop of cacao powder and a bit of flax milk.

I went to the dentist and they checked my blood pressure she thought I was dying lol she redid it just to make sure the machine was not flaking her out. My blood pressure is as good as my 19 year old daughters blood pressure.

Whatever you do, good luck. :)

@JLeslie – So that I don’t take @LDRSHIP‘s thread off track, I’m going to send you a link about BMI that you might find interesting.

@LDRSHIP – Please let us know how this all works out for you!

A combination of strength training, endurance training, and you guessed it, diet modifications will help a lot. Since you already seem to be doing the first two, the straw must be the last one. Try doing the following: eat a protein rich breakfast (I favor eggs, or protein shakes) to fill you up (should be ~400 calories). Have a salad for lunch, including some protein in there (turkey, chicken, fish, etc.) with perhaps a piece of fruit and a yogurt (500–600 calories). Have a healthy afternoon snack (not a snickers bar) such as another protein shake, or bar, or carrots, raisins, etc. Then, have a nice dinner with little to no carbs (meats, vegetables, salads and fruits). You WILL shed weight.

Also, one thing that I found helped in the beginning was actually tracking everything I ate. You can use an app like MyFitnessPal (free) and you will quickly see all the calories you ingest daily. As long as you are honest, it will really show you how you are doing.

And for comparison, I’m 5’8” tall, 40 years old, weigh 160 lbs and have a 31 inch waist. I work out 6 days a week for ~40 minutes and eat as above. That’s it.