Weight Loss Group - 2011 Edition (New Goodjers Welcome)

SixteenBlue wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

It's weird right now, because I'm 5'11" and 170 Lbs. So I'm fat.

Did you mean 270? Otherwise that is not fat.

Yeah, that should have been 270.

If you enjoy it, swimming is a great low-impact way to burn a ton of calories. I've been in the pool the last few days because it's been way too damn hot for cycling, my preferred activity. Won't tear you up like running can unless you're doing something very, very wrong.

Also, as Jonman said, you've lost a lot of weight already, hence you feeling so light. Your muscular system has been acclimated to move that much weight around, so if you suddenly drop a bunch of it without losing too much muscle you'll find you have almost super-human strength. I knew a guy in high school/college who dropped almost 200 pounds (about half his body weight) and could suddenly dunk a basketball from a flat-footed jump. His lower body had gotten so strong from hauling that mass around, and he kept up the muscle as he shed the pounds.

I'll have to give the basketball dunk a go when I shed more weight!

I think using the elliptical and continuing to increase the resistance should help maintain my muscle, at least in my legs. But swimming would be a great way to build up arm strength, too. it might make a good companion to the elliptical.

Most likely. I enjoy it because I can concentrate on upper body and still be in an endurance exercise, to give my legs a break from cycling but still give my lungs the beating they deserve. Stupid lungs, think they're so smart. I'll learn 'em.

Minarchist wrote:

If you enjoy it, swimming is a great low-impact way to burn a ton of calories. I've been in the pool the last few days because it's been way too damn hot for cycling, my preferred activity. Won't tear you up like running can unless you're doing something very, very wrong.

Having just been saying to take running easy, I'm currently struggling with a mild overuse injury in my rotator cuff from an uneven stroke while swimming. Mind you, I've swum upwards of 50 miles this year, so it's well earned

On the plus side, it means that I've got an obvious training goal for the off-season - get comfortable with bilateral breathing to even out my stroke.

Minarchist wrote:

If you enjoy it, swimming is a great low-impact way to burn a ton of calories. I've been in the pool the last few days because it's been way too damn hot for cycling, my preferred activity. Won't tear you up like running can unless you're doing something very, very wrong.

As someone that switched to barefoot running two years ago, I'm convinced that it doesn't tear you up as much as you insinuate. What's most important is that you listen to your body. Do your feet hurt? Do your knees hurt? If so, try switching to a toe strike. If you still hurt, then find something else. Most of the people that I know, myself included, no longer had running pains after switching over. YMMV, but it's worth trying.

Age:25

Height:5'7"

Starting Weight:(5/15/12) 183

Current Weight:(6/29/12) 166

Target Weight:140

Before I explain my target weight I should give a bit of a back story.

Growing up I was a toothpick, small, and had practically no body fat. Going into high school I weighed 100 pounds. In grade nine I started to play rugby where we had a pretty intense fitness program leading up to the start of the season. On top of the 2 hour practices Monday to Friday I did 50-100 pushups and crunches each night. By the end of the first season I had packed on 15 pounds of pure muscle. At the end of high school (2004) I had an unhealthy body fat content of 5-6% and weighed in at 125.

Up until I got married in July 2009 I had a very consistent weight of 130. In comes my wife with her baked goods every night and specialty dishes of tetrazzini with extra bacon… I ballooned up to 145 (pure fat increase). I still felt like I had energy and I was going on many hikes with buddies. I was happy with the weight, but annoyed that my super awesome metabolism from high school was not keeping up to my new eating habits. On a good note my wife never gained a pound while eating these foods. So I got bigger and she still fit her 00 clothes. I finally managed to convince her to treat me with baked goods only 2 times a week and not every night which helped keep my weight in check.

In October 2010 I started a job that made my life so miserable I would go home and stress eat, and then eat some more, and then stay up to 2am. I would wake up, work my one job, then go to the second job and repeat. I gained 40 pounds. I quit that hell hole and have finally managed to wake up and realize that I should start to lose this weight. Some of you might roll your eyes and my annoyance of being 185, but my body did not do very well at 145, with 185 I was having a hard time.

My daughter was born March 18th, 2012 and I decided that I want to have the energy to chase her around the yard and hangout when I get home from work. Last month I was coming home from work and falling asleep beside her on the play mat. I was very mad at myself for falling asleep because I had such a limited time frame in which she was happy in the evening. Even more annoying was the fact that two weeks after giving birth my wife was back to her 100 pound frame. I talked to a co-worker about my desire to lose weight and was told about an app called myfitnesspal. I checked it out and started to log my eating habits. The next thing I knew I saw where I needed to cut out unnecessary foods and while I use the my fitness pal have been monitoring and self regulating my diet. I have lost 10 pounds and feel real energetic. The best part is that this summer I have hikes planned and feel confident that I can keep up with my friends. (Last year I stopped going on hikes near the end because I felt embarrassed about my fitness level and struggled).

If you are looking for a free program to help track your food intake I recommend myfitnesspal. Mostly I use it to look up nutritional value of meals at restaurants. (Timbits are close to 30 calories per one… and my favorite dish from Boston pizza is 1652 calories… ) At restaurants I have been dividing the dish before I start eating or I will tell my wife that I am only going to eat half of the meal and get her help to remind me to stop.

I am hoping to reach my 20 pound half way point by the end of next week.

Bonnonon

Double post. oops!

Bah! a combination of bad eating habits since the birth of Prozac 2.0, all the time staying in hospitals with him eating fast food and lack of exercise over the winter months has seen me creep back up to 253lbs.

Time to jump back onto the band wagon!

Age:30
Height:6'0"

Starting Weight:(6/30/12) 253
Current Weight:(6/30/12) 253
Target Weight:238 (to account for fat to muscle conversion)
Target Date: 12/30/12

In a couple of months once it's warmed up enough to get back out swimming laps in the pool I should drop the fat again and start to bulk up across the chest and shoulders but until then I'm committing to 3 hours+ a week on the exercise bike. Quietly judge me and make me stick to it

We finished up the 12 weeks of body revolution (think insanity light) on 6/22 and I hit 30# lost on the second to last day. I've been sitting there for the past week. Starting the couch to 5k program this week, last night I made two 30 minute tracks with prompts of when to start running/walking at the right intervals.

My stationary bike with an enclosed gear-house is busted. Can these things be fixed by a bike repair guy? Or be fixed at all?

Strangeblades wrote:

My stationary bike with an enclosed gear-house is busted. Can these things be fixed by a bike repair guy? Or be fixed at all?

"Busted" covers a lot of ground. Most busted is fixable, but less busted is fixable-in-a-financially-prudent fashion.

How much would it cost you to replace the thing entirely?
Busted how?

OK, I don't understand weight loss. I have been eating lightly and healthy for five months. I have been stuck at roughly 218 the whole time. I go on vacation for a week, eat anything and everything without any thought for how good or bad it is for me, and come back six pounds lighter than when I left.

NSMike wrote:

OK, I don't understand weight loss. I have been eating lightly and healthy for five months. I have been stuck at roughly 218 the whole time. I go on vacation for a week, eat anything and everything without any thought for how good or bad it is for me, and come back six pounds lighter than when I left.

Saturday sweated the 6 pounds out of you.

NSMike wrote:

OK, I don't understand weight loss. I have been eating lightly and healthy for five months. I have been stuck at roughly 218 the whole time. I go on vacation for a week, eat anything and everything without any thought for how good or bad it is for me, and come back six pounds lighter than when I left.

Montezuma's Revenge?

Jonman wrote:
NSMike wrote:

OK, I don't understand weight loss. I have been eating lightly and healthy for five months. I have been stuck at roughly 218 the whole time. I go on vacation for a week, eat anything and everything without any thought for how good or bad it is for me, and come back six pounds lighter than when I left.

Montezuma's Revenge?

I went to New York... Monty's expanding if he's working up there.

My weekly progress so far. Looks like I'm going to miss losing 60 lbs by the 17th. Of course, I plowed through 50 lbs lost in under 8 weeks.

Goal Weight: 170 lbs
05/17: 312 lbs.
05/22: 303 lbs. (We started mid week)
05/29: 296 lbs.
06/05: 290 lbs.
06/12: 283 lbs.
06/19: 279 lbs.
06/26: 271 lbs.
07/03: 265 lbs.
07/10: 260 lbs.

But the reason I am here today is to update my exercise progress. For the first time I finished my elliptical training and then went for a swim. I did not do a ton of laps, as we didn't have much time. I was pretty much getting the lay of the land to sort out what I need to do to start adding swims at the ned of my workouts.

That said, it kicked my butt! I'm sure I burned at least a couple hundred calories extra. And this was after knocking out the most calories I've burned in one 33 minute session to date, as I bumped up my resistance again. My plan is to start rotating some weight machine work and swimming laps after my workouts.

Mainly, the elliptical tracks calories burned by the weight and age you input. I'm losing so much each week, that it is getting harder and harder to keep up the pace of calories burned. So I'm trying to add to what I am doing in smart and efficient ways. I've not been including walking Crowley, but that's going to start helping, too.

I just want to put off the plateau for as long as I can. My I've got a long ways to go, but I am feeling a lot better than one could expect for losing so much weight so fast. The exercising is a huge part of it, I think. I've gone to 5 workouts a week, where my main goal is 500 calories burned, with occasional 600 calories burned. I want to start adding the weights and swimming to that total.

My base calories that I'm taking in each week is just 4200. I will occasionally add an entree of around 250 calories. I did that on my birthday, Father's Day, and The Fourth. For the first time last week, I had an entree because I was freaking hungry and could not concentrate on the chemistry I am studying, which meant I had two in one week. But it looks like I may go this week without an entree, as I feel really good.

I also got my bike out last week, planning on adding some cycling to my load. I had to walk it down to the gas station t o get air in the tires, and rode it back home. I had planned to head down to a pretty awesome bike trail that is less than a mile from out house. But apparently ellipticals are missing some core muscles involved in cycling, because holy hell it was a lod just hauling my fat butt home. so I might also try to hit a few of my wife's spinning classes to help in that regard.

I'm still a long ways off from eating real food and having to make smart decisions based on healthy habits, but it is a weekly topic of conversation. We discuss it at our weekly meetings and it is something my wife and I discuss as we buy food each week for our daughter, who has the benefit of a much healthier diet.

The fact is, she loves to eat healthy, and it was our bad habits that had her eating more restaurant food than we needed. So now she is making dinner for one of rice and broccoli with fish or chicken, and other good meals.

I will say that I feel less and less like this diet as cheating, though. I'm putting in a hell of a lot of work each week, and continue to resist eating so much as an apple. It's a grind, but the significant results I get each week does help keep me on the path.

That's so awesome. It's great to hear about a real medical program working so well to drop that kind of weight, instead of more bs fad diets or shortcuts. Well done.

So my new doctor pointed out that because I don't smoke, drink or use drugs, I'd be in outstanding health if it wasn't for the fact that I weigh 270 lbs. So I'm on the diet/exercise train. Calorie counting and 5 days a week at the shockingly crowded YMCA. I live in the South, home of fried butter and cheese injectors. You wouldn't think there would be this many people interested in using the treadmill.

I'm looking at taking a kettlebell course starting next week. Anyone have any experience with these?

Height: 5'7"
Starting Weight: (07/17/12): 311.5 lbs.
Current Weight (07/17/12): 311.5 lbs.
Target Weight: 220 lbs.
Target Goal Date: January 1st, 2013
Weight Loss Progress: 0 lbs.

I'm going to start tracking again. This is roughly week 3 that I've gotten back into regular exercise, and in particular changing my diet. I had almost regained all my weight right back to 320lbs. again (a little short by a pound or three), and have since been doing exercise almost daily. Punching bag every other day with tredmill on the days in between.

I'm going to try my best to weigh myself every day so I get a sense of the fluctuations, but on the whole every Tuesday morning is when I plan on measuring.

The biggest change thus far is nearly eliminating potato and corn from my diet. I haven't eaten a fry since last Wednesday I believe as part of my work lunch. When I can avoid it, I do. There are some items with corn starch that I still eat, as it seems almost unavoidable.

I explained the whole Blood Type diet thing before, and basically understand that it is flawed and based on a kind of crazy side of science. However, I feel like there's potential good mixed in with the crazy, and thus far I've noticed a couple changes in things like having clearer sinuses and better digestion when avoiding certain foods in accordance with the blood type diet. So while there may be flawed and crazy ideas in there, it's at least encouraging me to work to eat better instead of eating the same things only less (which just didn't work out).

So I'm cooking a lot more fresh food, such as meats from the amish market, and finding non-wheat breads since I got the insulin resistance (which is in addition to our good Dr. D'adamo, potential quack, stating O blood types should avoid wheat). So it's all about Ezekiel bread, long grain brown rice and trying to find Rye bread without wheat for me. The latter may honestly be impossible in a store, which is good because I happen to like Ezekiel bread.

I'm also working to try and increase my vegetable diet, though in my current house that's a pain in the ass. I've learned that I can eat broccoli in some situations, but not all. For example, before this diet I tried some on pizza. Tasted terrible. But I can do it with sesame chicken or sesame beef. The problem with THAT is the Chinese place by me uses a LOT of sesame sauce, which I imagine is just loaded with sugar and sodium.

In any case, exercising more, eating less, working on eating better, and I like the food I'm eating so it's not going to be a struggle like it usually is.

clover wrote:

That's so awesome. It's great to hear about a real medical program working so well to drop that kind of weight, instead of more bs fad diets or shortcuts. Well done.

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with the program so far. But i think I will have to see how post-diet life is before calling it a total success. There are plenty of valid concerns that this diet is the right way to lose weight.

We finished the 13-week intro set of meetings, and have moved on to the on-going meetings that we wil stay in until we are ready for phase 2, which is the introduction of real food. Some of the positive vibe we got from our meetings has been lost, as many of the people in the on-going class have far less postive atitudes. It will be interesting to see if I can keep my postive outlook as we progress.

It struck me that many of the people in our group have absolutely no idea how to eat. I know I was not eating well, but lack of knowledge was not a reason. We were just being too lazy with our food choices. We have a lot of recipes for fish and chicken based meals. We have a good variet of veggies and fruit we like. The transition will be more about making smart choices as a habit.

But there was a woman who first spent a ton of time criticising her friends for how poorly they feed their children. But then, when explaing she was going to have the kids for a week, was completely clueless as to what she might be able to feed them. It was really depressing.

For us, my daughter told my wife that she has lost 14 pounds since we started this diet. While she occasionally exercises, she has had a ridiculously busy summer that has kept us from dragging her to the gym with us. The weight-loss is primarily because we stopped bringing home fast food, and instead shop for her to make her own dinners of chicken wraps, salads, fish, rice, and a ton of fruits and vegatabales that she likes. She likes good food, but we were making it too easy for her to make bad choices with us.

But this is why I still think the diet will work for us. We love food, but my wife loves to cook, and her and my daughter watch a lot of really good cooking shows, like America's Test Kitchen, Giada, Good Eats, and others on the Food Network (one great benfit for getting DirecTV back!). The issue will not be figuring out what to eat, but deciding to do it. Seeing the ffect on our daughter is just another motivation to make this change a new lifestyle.

But for that woman that is now apparently going to buy a week's worth of Lunchables and yogurt, I really don't know how she will transition.

Oh, and I'm sub 250, with a weigh-in on Thursday coming. I hit 252 last Thursday, meaning I hit 60 lbs. lost.

Height: 5'7"
Starting Weight: (07/17/12): 311.5 lbs.
Current Weight (07/24/12): 309.5 lbs.
Target Weight: 220 lbs.
Target Goal Date: January 1st, 2013
Weight Loss Progress: 2 lbs.

I'm posting what I recorded yesterday. Most of last week was a gradual downward loss, going from 311.5 to 311 to 310.5 and finally to 309.5.

But if I go by this morning, I'd be 312, which just seems like a rather hefty jump. So I'm going to hope it's a weird fluctuation and I didn't somehow manage to gain 2.5 pounds in a single day (especially after a week of consistent loss and measurement).

My mini-goal for the week is to lose weight while my wife is on a business trip this week. When she's gone and I'm in the house alone, it's easy to get into the "constant snacking in front of the TV" mode. I weighed in at 206.8 last Friday and I am currently 206.4.

After a year away from the gym, I'm kickboxing and grappling again. Went from 5'6", 135lbs to 148lbs over the course of that year; hoping to get back down to fighting trim over the next 6 months or so. I've also slipped a bit on my formerly strict paleo diet; I plan to start getting serious there again, as well.

NSMike wrote:

OK, I don't understand weight loss. I have been eating lightly and healthy for five months. I have been stuck at roughly 218 the whole time. I go on vacation for a week, eat anything and everything without any thought for how good or bad it is for me, and come back six pounds lighter than when I left.

Easy answer is that you plateaued. What happens when you hit walls like that is that your body rebels against not getting enough fats or things that you'll get on a cheat day. My suggestion would be to reintroduce things like cheeseburgers and pizza, but once a week or every other week, especially if you're exercising very regularly(3-5 days a week) and are being good with counting calories and watching your plate, which I get the impression that you're doing exceptionally well at.

July Report

Height: 5'7"
Current Weight: 117

I added bound yoga positions to my regular routine. It works out the kinks from lugging Baby all day.

Jay, I'm glad you found a program that seems to work for you and your family. One of my family members lost 285 pounds (not a typo) and has kept it off for over five years due to a similar program and a heck of a lot of self-discipline.

Alright, I've decided to get serious about this again after a whirlwind 6 months with lots of hospital stays and fast food the only option. To kickstart my weightloss I'm starting a week long purge. Whole foods only, nothing processed, no preservatives to pass my lips for a week. Lean meats, eggs, nuts and fresh fruit and veg only. I'm cutting out rice, bread and pasta but will get natural carbs from fruit and veg.

Starting: 113.1kgs / 248.82 lbs
Goal: Let's see what a week can do.
Height: 6'
Goal Date: 8/4/12
Progress so far: 0 lbs

I'll pop on here with daily weigh ins, there will be fluctuations but Ideally I'd like to see it trend down. After a week I'll see if my new diet is enjoyable enough to stick with, since I'm not dieting as such, just cutting out processed foods.

I'd recommend going it a month if you can and weighing in a couple times a week; trend line will look a lot better I'd wager, could be a much better positive reinforcement.

Black beans and lentils are a great bread substitute too.

SuperDave wrote:

Black beans and lentils are a great bread substitute too.

although very hard to get those tiny slices of cheese and ham that fit between the lentil halves.