Weight Loss tablets/milkshakes?

specializedsteve

Hello one and all,

Was going to put it in Fat Club sticky but it doesnt look like any one checks it at mo.

Has anyone tried MaxiMuscle or similar branded milkshakes or tablets? Do they work?

Im looking for something to increase my metabolism and assist with losing weight whilst i try and get my fitness back. Im going to improve my diet and increase the miles i cycle but looking to get something to help me shed the pounds.

Any ideas?

Steve.

Chronicbint

The only thing that increases metabolism is exercise. Fad diets or dodgy pills don't.

Eat a balanced healthy diet, drink plenty of water(2-3 litres a day), exercise regularly, get decent sleep and that's all you need to do.

aaronmroach

http://www.maximuscle.com/promaxdiet

This worked for me while away with work, gym and swim every day with saturday pedal sunday rest day and follow the instructions on the packet!!!!!!

jonnyc2420

Have a look at Herbalife shakes, and Herbaife thermojetics tea for your metabolisim, you can get it cheapest by shopping on ebay - i lost 3 1/2 stone in just over a year using this stuff, but you need to exercise on a regular basis to really get results.

njee20

Did you ever think that regular exercise alone may have helped, and saved you a packet...

I see no point, eat healthily and exercise well. If calories in < calories out you'll lose weight.

Anonymous

njee20 wrote:

Did you ever think that regular exercise alone may have helped, and saved you a packet...

I see no point, eat healthily and exercise well. If calories in < calories out you'll lose weight.

Whilst I see some value in the whole "no carbs, all protein" diets for inactive people, after talking to a friend who studied sports nutrition, I have to agree with Njee.
Your body's going to need those carbs if you're riding, so just eat sensibly and stay active.

jonnyc2420

In a word, no - for me I needed a mental kick up the arse, and spending £30 a month on the stuff gave me the kickstart I needed, there is scientific stuff to back it up ( I'm on my phone in the gym so no links/ cut n paste I'm afraid) but even if it was all a con/placebo it worked for me! Each to thier own I guess, and no substitute for excersise, but deffo helped in my case :-)

jonnyc2420

Forgot to add that I saved a shed load of dosh that would have gone on lunchtime rolls, pasties etc also.... And never underestimate the boost it gives you when people start to notice your weight loss :-)

Stiff_Orange

njee20 wrote:

Did you ever think that regular exercise alone may have helped, and saved you a packet...

I see no point, eat healthily and exercise well. If calories in < calories out you'll lose weight.

Jasper Carrot got it right when describing why people are fat. It's because more goes in that hole (points to mouth) than comes out that hole (points to ass).

Seriously I lost 1.5 stone in about 6 weeks by just doing the following things:-

Cut out the crap (Biscuits, Crisps etc)
Reduce portion size (It's hard to start but after about a week you stomach will redue in size)
Drink lots of water to fill the space
Exercise more
Vary the exercise, (rowing is good) because if you cycle already your body/muscles will be used to the activity and won't burn fat as fast.

But remember not to punish yourself, most weight loss (diets) fail because people find it too demoralising.
If you go for a long ride and everybody stops at the cake shop, have a piece. As long as it's not every day it won't harm you.
Similary if you go out for a few beers enjoy it, but cut out any drinking at home.

You'll lose weight, get fitter and faster.

specializedsteve

Cheers for all the advice guys, really helpful.

Although, same as every topic, some agree and some disagree, but it helps non the less.

I am trying to be active, im on my feet most of the day as a Support Worker, and try to cycle regularly, mix of long and short rides depending on time, but the hardest thing i find is cutting out the "munchies".

As the majority recommend NOT trying these products, is there a "homebrew" milkshake or snack i could make? What is it that gives me cravings for food after excercise and what can i take as a healthy option?

Anonymous

Just make sure the food you eat has a healthy dose of protein to help keep hunger at bay, and slow release carbs. So, have some bacons, chicken, stuff like that for the protein, then brown rice, brown bread etc for slow release carbs
(I think - but this is based purely on a very swiss cheese memory of a conversation with someone who actually DID know waht they were talking about - so take it with a pinch of salt)

springtide9

Take a look at the GI Diet. It's basically about eating healthily and it helps you understand what are the slow release carbs etc, as above, it's about cals in vs cals used.

Did a low carb (GI diet) about 18 months ago to loose about 20kg.. and while it was very effective at dropping weight fast.. it was very limiting in terms of improving fitness and endurance on the bike. As soon as I re-introduced carbs... my fitness/endurance came on no end.

I wouldn't bother with those artificial food diets... a book that explains real food in more detail is much better.. because eating healthily and keeping weigh under control is about long term changes to your diet

MattJWL

I wouldn't bother with those artificial food diets... a book that explains real food in more detail is much better.. because eating healthily and keeping weigh under control is about long term changes to your diet

+1

Losing weight is purely about biasing calories out more than calories in.

Estimate the number of calories that you burn each day. There's loads of ways to do this, my preferred method is estimating my base metabolic requirement, then adding on the amount that my heart rate monitor reckons I've burnt (also an estimate). There's also websites that will estimate calorie burn based on a GPS track file.

To lose weight, I then ensure that I eat fewer calories than I burn. Up to around 500-700 cal fewer is sensible as I understand it (I'm neither a doctor nor a qualified nutritionist so don't stake your life on what I say). I lost 20kg this way, in around 8.5 months.

Yeeha is onto something with the brown rice, bread etc; what personally worked for me was upping my level of fibre intake. Healthy, filling, and totally indigestible. Also flush through with lots of water. In general we normally neither eat enough fibre nor drink enough water anyway...

hope this helps & good luck

Anonymous

That's interesting, MattJWL. What I found the brown rice etc seemingly did to me, was keep me feeling filled up, for longer.

It's nice to know there's some science behind this sometimes

MattJWL

Indeed

You can also eat beans (not baked beans, too sugary), fruit, seeds, and bran.

Tastes awful, but I mix bran into my cereal in t'morning, fills me up, & keeps bodily functions going.

cooldad

MattJWL wrote:

Indeed

You can also eat beans (not baked beans, too sugary), fruit, seeds, and bran.

Tastes awful, but I mix bran into my cereal in t'morning, fills me up, & keeps bodily functions going.

Just eat German bean sprouts - e coli will keep you regular (approx every 15 minutes) so no calories absorbed.

nozzac

Most of the supposed metabolic boosters are pure BS. You used be able to buy the ECA stack (I was into weight-training for a quite a whilst) which did work but they banned it in the UK due to heart attack concerns. Even that didn't make a worthwhile difference unless everything else in your diet and training was spot on (I should say "dialled" since we're on a bike site). Plus your body gets used to them quickly and they stop working almost entirely after a while.

Some foods have a higher metabolic cost and so eating say 1800 cals of carbs is not the same as eating 1800 cals of protein. Protein takes more cals to metabolise and so you don't get as many energy cals out of it. However the difference isn't so great.

GI has turned out to be a bit of red herring too The method of scoring food GI is often very inaccurate and varies quite widely. They get someone who has not eaten, feed them the food and measure they glucose. You'd need to do this on scores of people for it to be useful yet some of the scores you see ijn books are taken literally off 1 or 2 people that they happened to have in the lab at the time. Plus they (attempt to) measure pure foods - e.g. the GI of white bread. However in reality you almost never just eat bread. You might put spread on it and eat it with ham as a sandwhich. These drastically alter the GI. Fats increase GI a lot and mixing fats, protein and carbs even more so.

Your body is pretty hard to fool. Making your stomach feel full might work a bit but most people get cravings even if they are stuffed to the gills with veg and usually give up the diet entirely unless it meets a level of satisfaction. Your body signals satiety using hormones and they are released in response not just to stomach fullness but taste, sugar levels and other cues which we're only just starting to understand.

So you always come back to the same thing - do exercise and eat a balanced, non-faddy diet of healthy food including plenty of veg and whole grains, and stop eating when you've had enough. The last part is the problem most of us have.