I don't understand the struggle...

Dec. 24th, I weighed 180. Went to emergency room with severe abdominal pain. Doc said "gall bladder has to go...watch what you eat until then".

One month later (and to this day), I weigh-in @ 149. Zero excercise.

Here's my diet: Oatmeal. Soup. Non-fat milk. Coffee. Fish. Vegetables/salad. Non-fat yogurt. Only water to drink. That's it.

I call it the "gall-bladder diet". Look for ads on late-night TV soon.

Been on the nutrisystem diet for a couple of months now and slowly knocking the pounds down.

Do it while you are young as once you get over 50 things sure slow down.

Joe A

I'm only about 1/2" shorter than you. I'd love to weigh 180 again.
I don't know, I just can't see 50#'s of extra weight on me? :confused:


KT

I love to see those of you with goals post your progress.


KT

F-off! I'm 5'10 and over 200! I dream of being at 180! :p

Ha ha, I am 5' 11" and 220 lbs.

18 years ago, I was in the best shape of my adult life. Fiancee had dumped me, I responded by working out hard, my buddy and I were also doing lots of mountain biking up in the San Gabriel foothills - I was pretty lean and weighed 165 lbs. I wore a 42L to 44R then, so am not an ectomorph.

Hard to believe I have put on 55 lbs since then. Well, I was hanging at 205-210 lbs for the last few years, then my ankle flared up and I have been fairly immobile for months, that plus the Portland winter have added at least 10 lbs.

I'm not going to set a pie in the sky goal. I'm going to try to get to 199.999 lbs. Then see how I feel.

Edit: my wife just told me that I was 162 lbs back then, and she thinks I should get to 181 lbs. Jeez, demanding much?

I've lost 27 pounds since January 6.

Mostly by not eating anything after 7pm and doing some simple excercises each night. My new job has me doing more physical work so that helps as well.(think UPS guy.)I probably walk close to 10 miles a day if not more.

The stress of being laid off and starting said new job helped curb my appetite and while that isn;t really healthy, it was a benefit.


I don't really have a set goal although I would like to stay close to where I am now, 170, or even a little bit less. I'm only 5'7" so that would be a good weight for me. People tell me i have a "stocky" build and you can only do so much with what you have.:)

I feel better and my clothes fit perfectly if even a bit big.

Ya, I guess it's just my body type, it really shows on me, I am not use to the extra weight. Also, I am in my mid 20s and employed by the military, they are super big on fitness. The wake up call was when I recently had to trade in my flight suits for a bigger set.

We each have out goals and I, for one, certainly could certainly use the encouragement of others to help me achieve mine.

-matt

I love the old adage, bodily training is beneficial for little.

My old man would pound that into my head over and over as I spent 2 hours 3 nights a week in the gym with my friends. It was our form of socializing. The benefit is I built a solid foundation that has served me well when I need to whip back into shape.

As I have grown older I now spend my first hour to hour and a half of every day exercising, its a necessity now, no longer a hobby.

My old man, as long as I can remember, has had a giant beer belly, his nickname was "the watermelon" because he looked like he swallowed one.

Now his doc is screaming at him to loose weight and get his cholesterol under control. He cannot seem to shake off the weight.

In the last year I slipped into a rut after loosing 15 lbs, first I needed to loose 5 then 10 then 20 lbs.... again.... I was pissed at myself. Way too much beer drinking and bad food and no exercise. At 5'8" tall I cannot hide the weight very good and I seem to genetically put it on in one place only, my belly.

So on December 20th I decided to stop all the crap and get back into a healthy groove. I religiously go to the gym every morning and eat VERY healthy Mon-Fri.

On the weekends I do whatever, be it eat bad food (not including fast food I avoid that at all costs) or drink some beers.

But M-F very strict diet and lots of exercise. I went from a lifetime high of 180 lbs to right now 160, I could stop now but I want to get ripped again. We are going to the Atlantis the week after the kids get out of school and I set that as my goal, to be fully ripped down the week prior. I am guessing I need to loose 5 more lbs of fat and hopefully replace it with muscle.

Muscle is your friend, the more you have the more calories your body requires to function correctly. I can show you 2 guys that weigh 200 lbs and the one that is all muscle needs much more calories than the one with little muscle and all fat.

This comes in handy in the long run, the more muscle you build the more fat you will burn, I noticed as I got to my last 5 lbs to loose it took a long to to get it off, just like I am expecting with this next 5 lbs. That is because I am building muscle at the same time. I think I lost the first 15 lbs in the first 2 months then the last 5 has taken over a month to loose.

I outlines pages ago a typical diet, my co-worker laughs at me and makes fun of me because I carry my little red lunchbox everywhere with me. Its packed with all my healthy food for the day, 3 of my 5 meals. The side benefit from this is that I am not spending money all week buying lunch out or snacks out. It more than offsets the increased grocery bill.

My advise to you is to add in a decent amount of weight training, this will cause to you burn fat all day not just as you exercise, your bodies metabolism increases at it works to repair the muscles after a workout. Conversely a cardio workout only burns fat while your doing it and a short while after.

Cut out all alcohol and fast food for starters, then get int he gym and build some muscle, the stigma attached to bodybuilding is stupid, in these modern times of little exertion its needed. Back in the times when that verse was written at the beginning of my post, your typical day included walking miles and working laboriously to perform simple tasks like getting water and food for your home.

*edit* BTW - you and I were both taught that defiling the flesh is a sin against god. Smoking is a no no, being as it is defiling ones body. So is overeating and gluttony. For whatever reason this little gem is never enforced, go to a convention and there are 300+ pounders limping along into the handicap section because their handicap is being immense. Science has proven over and over again that being overweight is not healthy and shortens your life, just like smoking is not healthy and shortens your life. Food for thought, no pun intended.

Good post Jim.
Thanks.

Great information and experiences.


KT

Not to be argumentative, but unless the science community has changed its mind in the last 6 years, that is not correct. I studied a lot of exercise physiology in college and they beat it into our heads that aerobic workouts increase metabolism for long periods of time (hours) after the workout. Oddly I don't remember them talking much at all about the effects of weight training and metabolism (by no means am I saying that it doesn't have an effect). I do know that muscle mass requires something like 6 calories a day per pound to sustain itself, while fat only needs 2 calories per pound. So weight training has lasting positive effects.

A combination of both is ideal, but for weight loss I have to think the vast majority of scientists would recommend aerobic training over resistance training.

Regardless of all that the vast majority of weight loss is done through your diet not exercise. It's a lot easier to cut 1000 calories out of your diet a week than it is to run 10 miles a week.

Ok , I'm tired of listening to a bunch of old fat guys complain about how fat they are.. So I"M going to sign up to lose some weight too!! I'll weigh in in the morning... Damn I'm fat ( and old LOL)
T

I'll be signing up shortly....

I guess maybe there have been changes in science, its not like science never changes.

You have to do cardio for more than 20 minutes to get to the point where your burning fat, the fat burning ends approximately 45 to 2 hours after the aerobic session ends.

Weight training causes fat burning from the onset, then the work the body must do to repair the muscles lasts for hours up to 6 hours IIRC. This is of course assuming you doing intense weight training, if your just going through some motions and not really exerting yourself then there will be no benefit. The only advise I can give it that you have to start somewhere.

My wife used to be of the tons of cardio school of weight loss, she could never get the pesky weight off that she wanted gone. Keep in mind that she has entered and won a body building competition. Years later she had some weight on her she did not like and wanted gone. She started a new program that she bought to try.

http://www.fitstep.com/metabolic-surge/metabolic-surge-rapid-fat-loss.htm

This is a person who would do over 1.5 hours a day of cardio and she is now only doing 10-20 minutes a day of cardio and 40 minutes of intense weight training. 26 days into this her body fat went from 22% to 17% her weight is irrelevant due to the muscle gain she has achieved.

When she did her BB competition she did over 3 hours of cardio a day and she feels this metabolic surge method has netted her better results in less time with less effort.

We have no affiliation with this Metabolic Surge program but to be honest, its working and there is very little cardio involved.

Trekkor, and anyone else trying to loose weight (myself included) needs to build muscle along with loosing fat. In order to do this effectively, he needs to consume his body weight in Protein Grams. I weigh 160 lbs so I consume 160 grams of protein a day. If you do not keep track of and maintain your protein intake you WILL loose muscle with fat and that is a really bad thing.

The more muscle mass you have the easier it is to loose weight. Period. The more muscle mass you have the easier it is to maintain your weight.

Once I hit my target weight I no longer do daily cardio, my new thing to do is warm up for 7 minutes with a light treadmill jog, then after weight training I do an intense 7 minutes and that is the extent of my cardio, I might do this 3 days a week and its more for the sake of my heart than anything else, its not for weight loss.

*edit*

Pics from BB competition body fat was 8% IIRC. The result of many hours of cardio and weight training. Before she knew better.


http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y21...her/renee2.jpg
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y21.../other/IMG.jpg

Bah, you guys are tiny. I need to drop about 10-15 and I'm tipping the scale at 277 and 6'0" (5'11 if I've been doing a lot of squats)

**UPDATE**

We are on a one week aggressive fat burning diet.

I have got from...ahem...135 to 128 in 5 days!


KT

I would love to get that kind of result but it is not healthy to lose that much in so short of a time... it comes right back when you start eating again. .5 to 1 pound a week is better... 2 lbs per week if your have a heavier starting weight.

Crazy how time flies by.

My goal was for Aug 2008.
I just passed my 41st and am only 4 pounds lighter than when I started.

I will admit, I have not really done much.
Kinda sad, really.

Getting motivated to exercise and avoiding snacking out of boredom has been my down fall.


I'm going to try again!


KT

I need to... I put on 5 lbs since I last weighed in... I still go to Weight Watchers as a Life Time Member but I think I can lose 10 lbs and be comfortable... 14 to get to my ideal weight... I will try again by getting up hour earlier and working out and not eating out so much...

I totally agree, but Trekkor needed a jump start, so I suggested this week long thing. The diet was supposedly designed for quick weight loss before surgery.

The first 3 days are vegan. Then it transitions to high protein, low carbohydrate. They say beef :p , but fish or chicken are acceptable. And absolutely NO alcohol.

We're almost done with it and both of us are feeling much more energetic. We may visit this one more time before our Anniversary in September. But starting Thursday we're switching to something reasonable. :)