Kadano - is there any way you can bring your lunch and either go somewhere in the office where you won;t be disturbed? If not, are there any places near the office that you could hang out at like Barnes & Nobles, Starbucks, etc.? Bring a book or a laptop and just take your lunch there instead of going to a fast food joint.
Kadano, do what I do, pop in headphones, listen to an audiobook or podcast and go for a half hour wak at lunch, Double Whammy! Exercise, entertainment, avoiding annoying coworker.
This work well having a protein shake for lunch, not so well with sit down and eat foods.
CptGlanton wrote:@elewis: You don't need 15 months to lose 30 pounds. C'mon.
I don't have a scale here, but I'll try to confirm my weight soon. My goals are going to be to gain back the 20 pounds of muscle I've lost this fall, get leaner and lose the flab I've put on, and to get back into the conditioning I was gaining this summer.
Starting: 210 lbs
Goal: 215 (very different) lbs
Height: 5'9
Goal Date: 8/10
Progress so far: SuckingI'd recommend that people include their height in their profiles. It makes a huge difference.
So you're trying to lose x pounds of fat and put that weight plus another 5 pounds of muscle back on? What weight are you actually trying to get down to?
Right now I'm a rather smooth and flabby 210 (or thereabouts; I will weigh myself soon). The condition that I want to get into (which would involve gaining back the lost muscle, gaining a lot of cardio/endurance conditioning, and getting leaner), I'm guessing, would put me at 215. But I'll look very different and be capable of doing very different things than I am now, even though on the scale it's only 5 pounds. Numbers don't really mean much, and I'm not interested in getting down to the scale number that X chart says that I should be at. I want to get fit, which to me means being able to spend so much time on the heavy bag, do weighted pullups with X weight and reps, etc. I'll probably be posting workout results and maybe progress pics more than just scale numbers. As I tried to say, I have different goals and I'm starting from a different place than a lot of the people in the thread. But I still feel very out of shape.
And who is CptGlaton?
Count me in. I was thinking of starting a thread like this a few months ago. I've gotten really soft and squishy in the last year or so. I went from a physical job that allowed me to eat anything to sitting behind a desk pushing a pencil all day. I've gained so much weight that my wardrobe choices have been slimmed to about 20% of what is actually hanging in there, and I just can't bring myself to buy a larger size. I already changed my eating habits considerably. I just need to work on my portions and change from this round shape I'm in now to that V shape I used to be. There is a little gym here at my apt, so I'll be using that.
EDIT: Oops, Yes I do not need that much time
ELewis17
Starting (12/20/09): 230 lbs.
Current (12/20/09): 230 lbs.
Height: 6'-0"
Goal: 200 lbs.
Goal Date: 5/1/10
Progess so far: "MMM Eggnog"
Well I tried the Goodjer challenge last year and I've actually gained 8 pounds since my last measurement. Better reason than any to try again. Put me down.
Height: 5'11
Starting Weight: (12/15/09): 289 lbs.
Current Weight (12/15/09): 289 lbs.
Target Weight: 191 lbs. (Ridiculous I know. The doctor actually asked for 173.)
Target Goal Date: 12/15/2010 (~2lbs per week)
Weight Loss Progress: none
I actually started working on this a few weeks back. I stepped on the scale and it glared up at me with a 268 on the display. I've been tracking my food on livestrong and trying to exercise when I can. Started off with a couple really good weeks, then when my wife was out of town last week I fell back into some pretty bad eating habits. Although, takout chinese, pizza and a night full of gin and tonics has only seen just under a pound of weight gain last week. I suppose I should consider myself lucky. Back on track for this week, though. Planning on fixing a pretty decadent Christmas dinner, but as long as I am prepared for it and bookend it with some meals of salads, etc. it shouldn't be a big deal.
Fleabagmatt
Height: 6'6"
Starting Weight: (12/21/09): 261 lbs.
Current Weight (12/21/09): 261 lbs.
Target Weight: 240 lbs.
Target Goal Date: Memorial Day 2010. (5/31/09)
Weight Loss Progress: 0 lbs.
The weight goal is a temporary one. Ultimately I'd like to get down to 210 or 215, but that number is too far off for me to see right now and I tend to get discouraged when things slow down. I'd rather have something that I can keep my sights on, thus the memorial day goal.
The weight goal is a temporary one. Ultimately I'd like to get down to 210 or 215, but that number is too far off for me to see right now and I tend to get discouraged when things slow down. I'd rather have something that I can keep my sights on, thus the memorial day goal.
You are a man of genius. Praises will be acclaimed for your name and wisdom 
On a serious note, this is really the way to go. Overall goal, lots of little milestones. 
One thing I really need to cut out of my diet is energy drinks. I drink a ton of them. As of yesterday I'm drinking diet soda, and that should help out a lot too. With the significant amount of all-nighters I pull this time of year dropping the energy drinks is pretty much suicide. But cutting out the calories from soda alone I think will have a rather significant impact.
93_Confirmed- could you update the OP with my edited current stats when you get a chance please? I accidentally added an extra year to my diet plan. I've edited my post to reflect the proper changes. Thanks.
After losing 50 lbs a few years ago after my father nearly died of a heart attack, I've noticed the weight slowly creeping back on, and recently, I decided to take some steps to fix it. I started tracking my food in a diary again, and the added awareness alone has already made a big impact in the way I feel (and how my pants fit).
Still, in some ways I think it's a little harder for me than for others, in that I don't have any "easy" fixes I can pull off, like quitting soda or chocolate, or going for a walk at lunch. I don't drink soda, I rarely have non-fruit snacks in the house, I exercise 6 days a week, and I'm mostly vegetarian. My only big vice -- Starbucks lattes -- I've cut out in the past month. It really comes down to me just needing to eat less -- which is where the diary comes in.
Height: 5'7
Starting Weight: (12/12/09): 192 lbs.
Current Weight (12/21/09): 187 lbs.
Target Weight: 150 lbs. (I probably could go lower, but I've never been nor desired to be a skinny girl; I have curves, and I'd rather maximize them than erase entirely. Besides, girls with slender thighs and small butts don't run marathons.)
Target Goal Date: 5/4/2010 (~2lbs per week)
Weight Loss Progress: 5 lbs
I do have two additional fitness goals, neither of which I've ever been able to do: 1) Do 25 "real" push-ups in a row, and 2) do a pull-up.
I believe I'm the only woman who's posted on this thread so far, so maybe my coming forward will encourage others to post, too.
One thing I really need to cut out of my diet is energy drinks. I drink a ton of them. As of yesterday I'm drinking diet soda, and that should help out a lot too. With the significant amount of all-nighters I pull this time of year dropping the energy drinks is pretty much suicide. But cutting out the calories from soda alone I think will have a rather significant impact.
Drinking diet sodas doesn't actually help in losing weight. Your tongue tastes sweet and your body gets ready for calories but gets none. After a while your body gets wise and anything sweet you eat or drink goes directly to fat.
Jut be wary of diets, there is a big difference between losing weight and losing fat.
This sounds a lot like the atkins diet, which is high protein and very low carbs.
elewis17 wrote:One thing I really need to cut out of my diet is energy drinks. I drink a ton of them. As of yesterday I'm drinking diet soda, and that should help out a lot too. With the significant amount of all-nighters I pull this time of year dropping the energy drinks is pretty much suicide. But cutting out the calories from soda alone I think will have a rather significant impact.
Drinking diet sodas doesn't actually help in losing weight. Your tongue tastes sweet and your body gets ready for calories but gets none. After a while your body gets wise and anything sweet you eat or drink goes directly to fat.
Good thing I don't eat many sweets then. Cutting out regular soda will easily cut 550+ calories per day from my diet. I really doubt that cutting 550 calories from my diet is not going to help in losing weight. I didn't post here for advice. I wrestled and cut weight for years. I know how to lose weight, and I know what I am willing to give up on and what I'm willing to meet in the middle on. Kodiak and Coke are two vices that I don't plan on kicking at the same time as losing weight.
Consistency is a Female Doggo, for me anyway. Starting in late August I did the couch to 5k thing and kept running afterward for a bit. Currently I've taken 2+ weeks off and need to get restarted. I'm happy to join in w/ other folks here to track each other and keep with it.
I need to get back into tracking all my Calories and exercise, but at some point I always run into good behavior fatigue. I'll have some small success running or monitoring my calorie intake and then I'll try and extend the good behavior to other parts of my life and track my spending and budgeting and time management at work and after a month or a few weeks I'll get overwhelmed or screw something up and then the whole house of cards comes tumbling down.
It seems I can always find balance with the things I am good at. Currently, with my teaching and my writing, I seem to be able to keep up with the day to day groundwork and also put in significant bursts of productivity that turns the groundwork into something special. The things that I'm not so good at: monitoring my exercise, diet, budgeting, and work that isn't teaching or writing, I can do ok at managing productivity while I can focus my entire attention on it. As soon as something else comes up, I seem to be back to step one. I know this is all whining, that one thing that makes us adults is the ability to do stuff we don't want to do, I'm just a bit frustrated from continually failing at these simple tasks.
Anyway, I'm ready to give tracking my calorie intake and exercise output another try. I'll take my current weight tonight, but I'm a bit frightened. I've been edging up from 285 for months and now that I haven't run for 2 weeks and have been eating holiday treats, this may be the time in weigh in at over 300 pounds for the first time. My eventual goal is to get down under 240 pounds, but I'm adjusting that to a highly optimistic 276 in three months. That's two pounds a week for 12 weeks.
Height: 6'1
Starting Weight: (12/21/09): 300 lbs. (approx)
Current Weight (12/21/09): 300 lbs. (approx)
Target Weight: 276 lbs.
Target Goal Date: 3/21/2010 (~2 lbs per week)
Weight Loss Progress: 0 lbs
I plan to achieve my weight loss by running 3-4 days a week for 30+ minutes a pop. I also plan on tracking my food intake using daily burn.
Prozac wrote:Jut be wary of diets, there is a big difference between losing weight and losing fat.
This sounds a lot like the atkins diet, which is high protein and very low carbs.
It's also remarkably similar to the diabetics diet my nan had to go on. more protein, less carbs is really just a fundamental rule, but make sure it's quality protein, so stick to unprocessed lean meats or soy.
Glad to see more faces in here. We've got a nice list already and hopefully there will be more to come. I updated the original post with everyone's stats and fixed a few typos. If anything is off, let me know and be sure to give me at least a weekly updated so I can change the original post accordingly.
A quick update on my progress. I've been doing well with my diet lately. I've cut out almost all the sweet snacks from work and home, increased my daily water intake by about 2 bottles, and have limited any bad snacks (mainly chips) to no more than one serving size per day. Measuring out snacks is definitely the way to go.
What's really interesting is that my food cravings are already on the decline just with the new state of mind I'm in. Anytime I see foods that I used to crave I just give a shoulder shrug and move on. I'm just not interested anymore. Today, I had two oranges for breakfast and a bag of fresh carrots and radishes for an afternoon snack. Felt pretty good. I've lost 3 pounds in the last few days.
I've dropped ~15 lbs since December 1st, but still a long way to go. Working on my diet is the key for me. I am used to eating out 2 times/day as my only food intake and it was still more calories than I need. Getting more frequent, smaller meals has given me a lot more energy and helped me feel more full throughout the day (rather than splurging at lunch and dinner). Last week was a bit of a setback because we had meetings all week, I got 8 meals bought for me by the company, and I wasn't great about what I was eating then.
Height: 6'2
Starting Weight: (12/21/09): 289 lbs.
Current Weight (12/21/09): 289 lbs. (approx)
Target Weight: 200 lbs.
Target Goal Date: 10/31/2010 (~2 lbs per week)
Weight Loss Progress: 0 lbs
how do you feel hungerwise 93? I Since I started mine, I have been getting hungry a lot sooner. I bought some peanuts to try to hold me over until the next meal but that so far has been the hardest part. I usually don't get cravings so I guess I am lucky there. If I can get rid of the pain I feel in my stomach when I am hungry I think this diet will be a breeze.
Protein makes you feel full longer, try a small tin of tuna, or a boiled egg or something. This is actually why I was using the protein bars, for the convenience.
how do you feel hungerwise 93? I Since I started mine, I have been getting hungry a lot sooner. I bought some peanuts to try to hold me over until the next meal but that so far has been the hardest part. I usually don't get cravings so I guess I am lucky there. If I can get rid of the pain I feel in my stomach when I am hungry I think this diet will be a breeze.
I'm almost always hungry to some degree now because I'm used to eating often and for most of the day. Before I started the changes, I would have bad snacks hourly from 10am through 10pm on top of a heavy lunch and dinner. Overeating became normal eating for me. Now, I almost always have at least minor hunger pains but it actually keeps me motivated in a weird way. It's like "hey, now's the time when I would be eating x or drinking y" and I stop to think about it and them move on. I'm getting hungry just talking about this.
With the diet I'm going to ease into it's 4 small meals and 2 snacks in a given day. So, I'm going to try to space it out at 10am (meal 1), 1(meal 2), 3 (snack 1), 6 (meal 3), 9 (meal 4), 12am (snack 2 if needed). Any other time I feel hungry, I'm chugging a bottle of water. Also, I'm going to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night (1am to 8am) as opposed to the 5 hours a night I've been getting thanks to my early morning gaming habits. Feeling run down from lack of sleep has made everything so much worse for me. So, the steady diet schedule and sleep schedule should help get my body back in sync and the exercise will bring it all together.
how do you feel hungerwise 93? I Since I started mine, I have been getting hungry a lot sooner. I bought some peanuts to try to hold me over until the next meal but that so far has been the hardest part. I usually don't get cravings so I guess I am lucky there. If I can get rid of the pain I feel in my stomach when I am hungry I think this diet will be a breeze.
That sounds to me like you're not eating often enough.
I need to go to the store to replenish supplies, but I would usually have breakfast around 8am (banana w/ peanut butter and a 1/2 cup of milk), a snack (a serving of almonds and an apple or a reduced fat cheese stick and a couple clementines) around 11am, lunch around 2 (a sandwich (wheat bread, mustard, turkey) and a piece of fruit), another snack around 5, dinner around 8 (maybe a salad with nice, light dressing and some lean meat like chicken, turkey, fish, lean steak) and a late night snack around 11 (A protein shake with 1/2 cup of milk, 1/2 cup frozen strawberries, and a cup of plain, lowfat yogurt).
All told, it should be fewer calories, but you shouldn't ever really get hungry.
I think something like this could help me a lot. I need something to hold me accountable for my weight loss progress. I think I'm about 220lbs now, I'll post my weight tomorrow after I dust off my Wii Fit board.
If you are feeling hungry then that means your body has switched over to starvation mode and will horde calories, like a few others have said eat early and often in small amounts, if you're eating the right things you'll never feel hungry and you'll burn more stored fat.
Before I started this diet, I would be hungry all the time too, though my answer to that was to eat. Now I am not doing that the hunger remains. Note that I am a big guy and my stomach has streched so it takes a lot of food for me to feel full. I am hoping that over time my stomach will shrink and the issue will go away.
Yeah, it does. when I started I actually had DT's as my body expunged all the toxins and crap from all hte processed foods I had eaten in the past, I had migraines for a few days and crap kept coming out of my pores. I did take a real nuke it from orbit approach though, so I had a tough two weeks or so, and now I just have better eating habits. I expect some creep with Christmas and New Years, so I may join you guys in January
how do you feel hungerwise 93? I Since I started mine, I have been getting hungry a lot sooner. I bought some peanuts to try to hold me over until the next meal but that so far has been the hardest part. I usually don't get cravings so I guess I am lucky there. If I can get rid of the pain I feel in my stomach when I am hungry I think this diet will be a breeze.
It's important to distinguish "real" hunger from "phantom" hunger; I have this problem all the time! My body is accustomed to intaking more food, so part of the "hunger" I get is psychological, in that my body thinks I should be eating larger servings than I really am and complains when I don't, etc. I know I'm getting the calories I need; your body just gets a little ... "surprised" at the change, at least in the beginning.
An excellent way to get around this is switch to higher volume foods, especially snacks. Peanuts are a great source of protein, but you can only eat a small handful before you're up to 200 calories. Instead, try higher volume foods like a cup of broth-based soup, a slice of bread with some peanut butter, or an apple with some cheese. I totally understand now why thinner people tend to eat lots of salads and soups -- lots of food, itty-bitty calorie count.
I do have two additional fitness goals, neither of which I've ever been able to do: 1) Do 25 "real" push-ups in a row, and 2) do a pull-up.
I believe I'm the only woman who's posted on this thread so far, so maybe my coming forward will encourage others to post, too.
You're not the only woman who's posted. I did earlier in the day. I also like your fitness goals and would love to do a pull-up some day in my life.
My wife's work Christmas get-together is tonight at a Chinese restaurant. I know not to order anything fried, etc. but any specific suggestions on what I might order? I'm thinking I'll ask for a to-go box straight away to pack up half of my order. I have a real hard time resisting picking at my food while it's sitting there in front of me. Even if I'm stuffed.
I plan on eating pretty light throughout the day as well to compensate some for the big meal to come.
And something I've been having for snacks lately is air popped pop corn. According to livestrong it's only 30 calories for a cup. Just don't smother it in butter. A couple of cups will fill a ziploc sandwich bag pretty full and just feels like you're eating a lot.
I'm thinking I'll ask for a to-go box straight away to pack up half of my order. I have a real hard time resisting picking at my food while it's sitting there in front of me. Even if I'm stuffed.
That is a really good idea. I never though of doing that. I have the same problem with picking, and generally just eating until everything is gone.
You're not the only woman who's posted. I did earlier in the day. I also like your fitness goals and would love to do a pull-up some day in my life.
Awesome. Let's show these menfolk how it's done.
My wife's work Christmas get-together is tonight at a Chinese restaurant. I know not to order anything fried, etc. but any specific suggestions on what I might order?
Steamed chicken and veggies; chinese greens or green beans. And add in an order of steamed dumplings and broth-based soup ahead of time, so you won't eat as much of your (more caloric) entree.
I'm in:
Height: 6'2"
Starting Weight: (12/21/09): 236 lbs
Current Weight (12/21/09): 236 lbs
Target Weight: 200 lbs
Target Goal Date: 1 June 2010
Weight Loss Progress: 0 lbs
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