Irritable Bowel Syndrome Message Boards | Re: what do I do on this board?

Hi there!
Welcome to the board!
Most of the people who post on this board (I haven't been much lately, but there are others who still do) either report in what they have been eating, or what activities they have been doing or both.

Walking sounds like a really good start towards weight loss, especially if you are doing it regularly. What you really want to be doing is adding in as much cardio as you can (so maybe try adding in some other activities like running, going on a bike (stationary or otherwise), an elliptical, aeorbics classes..) so that you are doing something that really gets your heart rate up and burns more calories.
In addition, strengthening exercises are also really important. If you can in exercises with free weights say twice a week for your upper and lower body, you will see a difference faster as well.
Other things like pilates or yoga are great to add in as well, and you may be able to find classes near you or even DVDs you can learn from.

The other obvious important thing with weight loss is your diet. You want to make sure that you are eating an acceptable amount of calories. You want to make sure that you aren't eating too many empty calories (sugary stuff with no nutritional value), while at the same time making sure you are eating enough so that your body is never starving.
Ideally, you should be eating healthy foods every 2-3 hours so that you are eating smaller amounts more frequently.

Another thing that my nutritionist says is that you really want to make sure that as often as possible you are avoiding prepackaged food with a lot of preservatives in them. I realised that I do this and I retain so much fluid that once when I got sick I lost about 9 lbs in only a couple of days!

It's obviously less convenient, but making your own meals with fresh healthy ingredients is the best way to go.

There are a lot of downloadable programs that you can get that will track your food intake and calculate how much you should be eating for your weight loss goals. I know that a lot of people here use fitday.com to track their food.

Other things like making sure you are drinking enough water and getting enough sleep are also important in having a healthy body, and beneficial to weight loss as well.

I would also advise that you set yourself some goals, but that to make sure they are reasonable. 40 lbs by the end of May seems like a lot of weight to lose in such a short period of time. If I put that into my program here at an average height at a default age of 35(sorry, I don't know how old you are.. I could be way off! Let me know and I can redo it for you for your actual age.. this is just to get an idea), it would need to you eat 1372 FEWER calories PER DAY than your body is burning (so naturally, and with exercise). That is not really a reasonable number without having to exercise like a crazy person and then starve yourself... which in the long term, would also work against you.
I think that if you were really working your butt off (that means every day exercising, monitoring all your food portions and calories) that you still can only really lose about 2 lbs per week in healthy way, which would be approx. 25 lbs... but again, that's really working HARD.

Good luck, and feel free to start "Reporting In" whenever you fancy it!

Cheers!

Steph

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~~I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell-I know right now you can't tell~~Matchbox 20
IBS-D,pain.

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