1. Two weeks isn't long enough to tell anything.
2. Exercise doesn't necessarily give you weight loss. All that happens at first is that fat is transformed into muscle. Those standard BMI ratings have to be sensitively interpreted in the light of your body mass distribution (whether you're pear-shaped or apple-shaped), the amount of exercise you've always taken and are now taking, the type of exercise (Ken Kifer said that cyclists are men with well-defined leg muscles and soft bellies...), etc.
3. Sudden, dramatic weight loss is worthless. You just put it back on again when you stop your diet, as you will. That's why all these flash diets are worthless. What you want is a lifestyle change.
4. What actually works, permanently, is a very modest plan to lose one pound, half a kilo, every month, a stone every 14 months. That's relatively easy to achieve
and maintain by cutting out sugar and salt and fat from your diet.
5. I carry a handy tool in my wallet. It is a table of permissible sugar, fats, saturates and salt per 100g, all of which are usefully printed on food packages. I don't eat anything which, per 100g, has more sugar than 5g, more fat than 3g, more saturates than 1.5g, more salt than 0.3g, sodium multiply by 2.5 to get actual salt content.
6. My wife has a scheme whereby meat/fish/whatever protein and potatoes together (I don't eat rice) together occupy a third of the plate, and the rest is five or six vegetables.
7. Any diet which cuts out bread is worthless. Bread is a substantial part of your fibre intake. One of the very few diets that actually works, long term, is Audrey Eyton's F-Plan diet.
http://www.amazon.com/Audrey-Eyton/e/B001HD3ZRE/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_18. That caused me to lose 2 pounds a month since February but recently, just eating a handful of raisins a day (concentrated sugar), the rate has slowed and one month I put something back on. See 4 above about modest aims being more generally maintainable.
9. Reinforce your self-image by not buying new, tighter clothes when you succeed in losing weight. My trousers are falling off but, instead of making me look ridiculous, it makes me an object of envy to men and lust to women for my willpower.
Andre Jute
