Anyone using their e-reader for WEIGHT LOSS?

[james.matthew]

I think I am doing the complete opposite. I just sit in my living room with my Kindle and I occasionally get up to get some wine.

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by SolRaven

If you get a chance, check out Spark by John J. Ratey. If BN has samples, the beginning is enough to "spark" your interest and gives you a sample of how phys ed before a child's hardest class has changed how kids learn in Naperville, IL. With that in mind, I have found that I comprehend better and more thoroughly if I read during or after I've gotten my body moving. When I read on the StairMaster, I don't go at high pace, slower, steadier and longer.

That's interesting. I haven't noticed a difference myself in how well I comprehend before and after exercise. But then again, I've not paid that much attention to it and now I'll try and notice if there's a difference.

Because of my ankle and foot issues, I usually can't do machines for slow, steady and long. I can only do short sessions, so I tend to do a bit more intensity, which is partly why reading on the machines doesn't work as well for me as music does.

I do my slow, steady and long in the pool... but I use my arms there. No way to hold a reader in front of your face while doing crawl or breast stroke or even water jogging where you are pumping your arms or otherwise stroking with them!

Gracyn, I'm sure you already know this but being hungry can work against weight loss. I did the Atkins' diet years ago, and it completely changed my life. The first thing I noticed is that I was never hungry and had to cut back on coffee because I had so much energy that I no longer needed the coffee and it just made me jittery. Of course, I love the taste of it, so I eased it back into my diet. I was against low carb/high protein & fat for so long, but after hour long sessions on the StairMonster and still feeling like if I miss a single workout, I'll gain 10 lbs., I finally got desperate and looked into. It was one of the absolute best gifts I've ever given myself. Plus, now when I eat a 20 oz rib eye with cheese and butter, I no longer feel guilty. I realised that I actually feel really good and never sluggish after a high protein and fat meal.

I think it's an each to his own. I've tried lower carb for a while now, not super low carb, though I've done that too. Just didn't work. Weight loss was slow. I was hungry all the time, but also extremely low energy. Low carb would just get me craving fats like crazy... but eating more fat just made weight loss even slower. I do know that low carb works well for some, it just didn't do it for me. I'm not doing low fat either though! Just basic balance.

When I went to moderate carbs from mostly fruit and veggies, I found I was still too hungry and too low energy. I need *some* starchy & sugary carbs and have actually increased the carbs a little the last couple weeks and noticed that I feel better overall with the same deficit. And the weight loss is staying good! 1.6 pounds last week, 1.6 pounds this week! 7.2 pounds for the month!

Hunger wasn't quite as bad this week... I kind of aim for light hunger, and if it gets too bad, then I eat something. Same for headaches... light headache OK, bad headache signals I need to eat more.

[jeffcobb]

Hunger is a funny thing. Before the surgery it was the enemy, the nemesis. Now? Well they speculate the surgery changes you in ways they don't understand. In my case it absolutely did away with hunger. For life. In all honesty I have not been hungry since 2005. Not once. No matter how long its been since I ate last, what I had, whatever. Sometimes I remember being hungry, what that was like; sometimes I might smell a piece of meat cooking on the grill and I remember that it should taste good. If I go too long w/o eating I eventually feel kind of "run down" but no actual hunger. In truth, I don't miss it. Its kind of like sleep; if you didn't need it, I mean really and truly did not need it, imagine what you could do with your life? Never going to happen, I know but while I miss the social aspects of eating and as a chef I miss that part but I don't miss much of the rest.

[MsAstoria]

I use my iPad for accessing my FatSecret app and have some of my favorite recipes (PDF) on my unit. Of course I have cookbooks and You on a Diet book for reference. I can also use it on my elliptical. I find if I am engrossed in a good book, I am not as likely to snack and that helps cut calories!

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by foreverjuly

I use my kindle for exercise all the time, but no matter how many curls I do my biceps still aren't bulging. What am I doing wrong?

Use your nook ... it's heavier

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Use your nook ... it's heavier

This is the one time I can recommend an iPad; it's even heavier!

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by graycyn

Oddly, that's another way I'm using my Nook these days!

I need to lose about 90 pounds, I'd previously lost 20 and kept that off the past four years, but simply couldn't motivate myself to endure the hunger pangs and rigors of losing any more. Yet, for the health of my feet, ankles and bad right knee, I need to do it.

One night, I started thinking about how much I loved having my Nook and worrying because as reading is a sedentary sort of pastime, I was afraid I might read even more and uh, possibly gain weight.

And then it occurred to me that motivation to lose weight and exercise was sitting right under my nose, so to speak!



I'm using the Nook and buying ebooks as a REWARD INCENTIVE for my weight loss efforts. Normally, I don't buy books that often, but read borrowed library books instead. But this is working so far. With the idea of being able to buy an ebook or two if I stick to my calorie deficit and exercise, suddenly I can withstand the hunger, do the exercise and make real progress. Hubby is trying it too and he's making progress, where before, he never really even tried to diet. It makes me wonder if I've hit on something that could be useful for others?

At any rate, I put a page on my blog for how I'm working it, but I can clearly see that a reward motivation could work for just exercising or eating healthier or many other things, like uncluttering your house. (I'm kind of killing two birds with one stone on that... my first two weeks of ebook purchases have been to replace hardcovers on my bookshelves.)

Someone told me I was being creative, but I think it was sheer desperation. Still, dieting is fun again. I bought three ebooks this morning with my reward credits earned! Barnes & Noble ought to pay me for this idea! I think someone on the BN.com forums actually asked for a calorie counting app for Nook, so my plan would fit right in.

Nook Diet

Anyway, since my nook inspired it, that's what I call it. But anyone with a reader can try it, maybe it can become the MobileRead diet for the owners of other readers. Or just the Reader Diet. For me, having ebooks besides freebies and classics was a BIG motivation. Two weeks, four pounds lost. (Naturally, the first week was mostly water, but this week was a very respectable 1.2 pounds. Better than normal for me!)

The thing is, weight loss isn't always linear, so you don't always get to see a result. But as you can get exercise credit with my idea, you can always get *some* kind of reward just for plain old persistence and not giving up.

good luck and hope it works...of course you could try my method. come down with some weird virus that went after my pancreas basically shutting down the beta cells so there is near to no insulin produced within a week of being affected...I lost nearly 80lbs in 2.5months. I am no forced to take medication which costs over $900/mo and still need to restrict carbs to under 100g/day around 50g/day seems to help the most. Unfortunately your body needs more than that to really work properly. Add to that the docs tell me the odds of my pancreas turning necrotic or developing pancreatitis, or better yet, thyroid cancer, due to the medication which is keeping me alive right now (my blood glucose levels reached 1000 mg/dL when I finally made myself see the doc after losing about 35lbs in two weeks while I was sick with what I thought was the flu, at which point I should have been dead already) is very high and maybe I have 5yrs left odds are it's more like 3-years at best. Fun stuff...but hey I am down nearly 95lbs as of yesterday...

Best fun is now they suspect on top of my JRA we see signs of MG as well...and the medical system has essentially ruined me so even if something happens and I last longer, I will be living in a refrigerator box die to the fact I was not able to get ANY sort of health insurance for the past 15-yrs.

[brecklundin]

btw, because of my RA which also involves associated lactose intolerance as well as celic this site has long been a wonferful source of info about foods which induce a more inflamatory reponse from your body. I do find if I stick more anti-inflamitory foods i feel better, well before the virus that was...but hunt through here to find excellent insights, some are plain dumb but glean through it for the good stuff...

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

http://nutritiondata.self.com/help/e...-glycemic-load

[graycyn]

Originally Posted by jeffcobb

Hunger is a funny thing. Before the surgery it was the enemy, the nemesis. Now? Well they speculate the surgery changes you in ways they don't understand. In my case it absolutely did away with hunger. For life. In all honesty I have not been hungry since 2005. Not once. No matter how long its been since I ate last, what I had, whatever. Sometimes I remember being hungry, what that was like; sometimes I might smell a piece of meat cooking on the grill and I remember that it should taste good. If I go too long w/o eating I eventually feel kind of "run down" but no actual hunger. In truth, I don't miss it. Its kind of like sleep; if you didn't need it, I mean really and truly did not need it, imagine what you could do with your life? Never going to happen, I know but while I miss the social aspects of eating and as a chef I miss that part but I don't miss much of the rest.

I've heard that the surgery does, sometimes, just do away with hunger altogether. Which would be nice! But it doesn't apparently always have that effect. I know at least two people who had the surgery, lost weight and then regained. One of them gained it all back, plus more, the other realized that she STILL had to watch what she ate and reined it back and started losing again.

I also have a friend for whom the surgery worked... only now that she has a serious cancer, she's having trouble getting her body enough of the nutrients she needs to fight it. I'm also dubious as to whether the surgery would help those who have emotional eating problems, because that's a mental kind of hunger.

At any rate, it surely works for some folks, but not all. I'll take the long road and leave my digestion system as nature intended it, rather than take the chance it would not work for me, aside from the issue of possible complications.

Last night it was tempting to go out after the movie hubby and I went to and get a treat, something we have often done in the past, but we both agreed that we had plenty of good stuff to eat at home and that's what we did. Hubby picked up a brand new, just out ebook this week as his reward!

[Under the Covers]

Originally Posted by foreverjuly

I use my kindle for exercise all the time, but no matter how many curls I do my biceps still aren't bulging. What am I doing wrong?

[jeffcobb]

Originally Posted by graycyn

I've heard that the surgery does, sometimes, just do away with hunger altogether. Which would be nice! But it doesn't apparently always have that effect. I know at least two people who had the surgery, lost weight and then regained. One of them gained it all back, plus more, the other realized that she STILL had to watch what she ate and reined it back and started losing again.

I also have a friend for whom the surgery worked... only now that she has a serious cancer, she's having trouble getting her body enough of the nutrients she needs to fight it. I'm also dubious as to whether the surgery would help those who have emotional eating problems, because that's a mental kind of hunger.

At any rate, it surely works for some folks, but not all. I'll take the long road and leave my digestion system as nature intended it, rather than take the chance it would not work for me, aside from the issue of possible complications.

Last night it was tempting to go out after the movie hubby and I went to and get a treat, something we have often done in the past, but we both agreed that we had plenty of good stuff to eat at home and that's what we did. Hubby picked up a brand new, just out ebook this week as his reward!

<smile> I never said it was for everyone; it simply has worked exceedingly well for me. Granted I am only about 5 1/2 years into it so I cannot promise nothing will happen to me as a result but I can be pretty damned certain of what would have happened without it. The hunger part was more a curiosity than anything else; I just think its weird but thats not why I did it (and paid full-ticket for it; insurance was no help). I worked at a medical research firm and had access to some interesting but very real reports that showed that in over 95% of the cases, diabetics walked out of the hospital diabetes free. This was not a fashion thing; I was dying of Type II diabetes and when I saw my neighbor with the same thing go blind *and* have a leg amputated, I said screw it, I gotta do something because my wife depends on me to be whole and functional. I went into it taking a boat-load of meds for diabetes and walked out 48 hours later with zero (none) diabetic symptoms and no need for meds. Haven't had any since and for the most part I eat pretty normal food and the weight dropped like a stone to a specific weight within a few months and has remained there +/- 5 lbs ever since. I have never felt better. Admittedly I had a really good surgeon plus had it done when they knew more about it plus I was seriously motivated to make it work.

No, not for everyone but for me its been a life-saver and this year my health insurance went doing by a great deal because of it. Win-win situation for us.

[graycyn]

My cousin once looked into the surgery and then decided not to do it. She died in her sleep in her early 40s. Would it have saved her? Maybe. Hard to say... she was also a smoker and had emphysema (sp?) in addition to being extremely overweight.

I'm realy glad surgery worked for you... and it did get my sister-in-law off insulin. Though, getting off diabetes meds and reversing that can also be accomplished with normal weigh loss.

However, for me, the risk of the surgery is too much. In my case, I don't have diabetes, I don't have high blood pressure (last week's reading 107/67), I don't have high cholesterol or any indications of heart disease. What I do have is a lot of discomfort, because I had many ankle sprains as a child and I also ripped up the cartilage in my knee in a bicycle accident as a teen. I've also suffered a work-related repetitive stress injury.

I guess I was born with the weak ankles, but I need to get the weight off them. Likewise for my knee. I know I can do it... I once lost 62 pounds in a year, but it's just harder with my foot/ankle/knee troubles. However, with the ebooks, I feel like I've found the right motivation to keep me on it. Or maybe the switch has finally flipped.

I am a bit worried about winter, because I hate cold and I hate lack of sunlight and we get fogged in usually for a couple months straight with no sun. But I have managed to lose weight during winter before, and I believe I can do it again.

[graycyn]

All still going well... I lost 1.2 pounds this week, hubby 1.5 pounds. I'm off to go ebook shopping.

[jeffcobb]

Originally Posted by graycyn

My cousin once looked into the surgery and then decided not to do it. She died in her sleep in her early 40s. Would it have saved her? Maybe. Hard to say... she was also a smoker and had emphysema (sp?) in addition to being extremely overweight.

I'm realy glad surgery worked for you... and it did get my sister-in-law off insulin. Though, getting off diabetes meds and reversing that can also be accomplished with normal weigh loss.

However, for me, the risk of the surgery is too much. In my case, I don't have diabetes, I don't have high blood pressure (last week's reading 107/67), I don't have high cholesterol or any indications of heart disease. What I do have is a lot of discomfort, because I had many ankle sprains as a child and I also ripped up the cartilage in my knee in a bicycle accident as a teen. I've also suffered a work-related repetitive stress injury.

I guess I was born with the weak ankles, but I need to get the weight off them. Likewise for my knee. I know I can do it... I once lost 62 pounds in a year, but it's just harder with my foot/ankle/knee troubles. However, with the ebooks, I feel like I've found the right motivation to keep me on it. Or maybe the switch has finally flipped.

I am a bit worried about winter, because I hate cold and I hate lack of sunlight and we get fogged in usually for a couple months straight with no sun. But I have managed to lose weight during winter before, and I believe I can do it again.

I used to live in a place like that and we decided to move someplace sunny and have never regretted it. It can change your whole outlook on a day and waking up to see blue skies, sunshine and palm trees swaying in the breeze 300+ days per year, it has left us in a better place.....also while yes weight-loss can result in many of the same effects as I had (within 24 hours of the surgery) it is a statistical fact that something like 80 percent of the people who actually do lose weight "the old fashioned way" tend to relapse...don't listen to me, ask your doctor for the stats.

[rePete]

Usually if I'm reading I don't eat: that's the way it was for pb/hb because I didn't want grease stains from cookies etc. in the spine or coffee splashed over the page.

I'm keeping the same habit with my reader so it's been good so far. Sedentary activity, yes but if it's ALL you do while you are reading then it's possible to lose some weight - I'm in the market to loose 40#s and books have been the answer.