A few questions guys (and gals)

SparkErosion

SparkErosion

0
Hello, my name is Kevin and I'm 21. Right now I'm obese (239 lbs 5'7'')

I wasn't always overweight, until I was 12-13 I was actually underweight. My parents gave me protein powder to 'beef me up', but I still didn't gain weight. I guess I just had a high metabolism. That all changed when I got addicted to an online game MMORPG at age 12. I played this game for 9 years, about 20 hours a day, and it took a huge toll on my health. I lived right across from a carls jr and would walk across the street and buy a hamburger, go back and eat it at the computer. As I gained weight my self esteem and self image plummeted. It was a vicious cycle of feeling like crap and eating to 'help' it, which just made me more overweight.

I used to work out at a gym while on jenny craig and gained about 10 lbs of muscle, I had a personal trainer. It's been over a year since then, I probably lost the muscle I think.

In 2004 I Got banned from the game, but I decided to play anyway. A couple weeks ago I decided to get 'myself' banned from the game, after another 2 years of playing (If you make another character and you're permanently banned they will ban you again)...well, I got myself banned because I was honestly so addicted I couldn't quit myself. I want to go to college eventually, and get out in life and I couldn't do that with the game.

So I decided to make a change. I used to be on jenny craig, I lost 10 lbs or so with it but I gained it back. I realized the key to weight loss if a healthy lifestyle, not a 'diet', because after you're done with the diet you will just gain it back as you go back to your normal rountines. I realized I *can* eat chocolate, cookies, crackers, etc as long as its not often and in moderation.

Well, last week after I got banned from the game I decided to change my life. Sick of being fat, I began to jog (well as much as I could, its hard! But I jogged/walked) 30 minutes a day, and do strength training with my Wii Fit 30 minute's a day, I did both of those everyday.

I used to drink regular soda, 6 cans+ a day, maybe more. Now I cut out all the soda, even diet, (although I had one diet soda yesterday..) and drinking only water, and lots of it. The Wii Fit game I bought, well...it's good but it has its problems. For one, it says to use strength training everyday, but this doesn't give your muscles time to heal and repair them selfs..is this correct? Should I be doing the strength training (No weights ,just using your body as weights, such as push ups, rowing squats, etc) every day?

Another problem with the wii fit. It measures your BMI and weight, however it does *not* take into account muscle. Muscle is heavier than fat, and I honestly don't think I gained any muscle in a week of working out, I think it takes months. Anyway, the first day I supposedly loss 3.5 lbs, after about 3-4 days of working out, I lost another half a lb. Well, I go and weigh myself today and low and behold I've *gained* 3.5 lbs. My question to you is, how could I have packed on 3.5 lbs in ONE day, I'm restricing my calorie intake *significantly*

Here's what I ate yesterday:
Breakfast:
Some rolled oats with apple bits (150 cal.)
Some digestive yogurt (110 cal)
A serving of fresh fruit (strawberries)

Lunch:
A slice of mozzeralla cheese on a sun dried tomato wrap, with lean deli turkey.
Some fresh fruit (1 serv)

Dinner:
Grilled chicken strips from jack in the box (180 cal)
w/some teriyaki sauce (50 cal)
A side salad, with low-fat balsamic dressing

I have to be honest, yesterday my mom made these tiny brownies with a little cream cheese on top and a a piece of fruit on each one. They are small, I ate one to try it out, and only one. This was probably I'm guessing 150 cal.

I do not understand how I could *gain* 3.5 lbs in ONE day, especially with what I am eating and excerising. Is this weight water weight? It is very discouraging.
 
Last edited:
I think you've got the concepts down, but you're freaking out about the details. :)

Also I think you're not eating nearly enough. What happens when you eat too little is that you slow your metabolism way down and you stall out your weight loss.

Now is that responsible for your 3.5 lb gain in one day? Nope, probably not. But it will contribute eventually. I would guess that the salt from the junk food you ate for dinner (and yes, chicken strips and sauce from JIB count as junk food in my book) are causing you to retain fluid.

At your current weight, you should be eating around 2500 calories a day to lose weight healthily. You could drop that to around 2000 if you really felt like you needed to, but it's not necessary.

And you're right that you shouldn't be strength training every day. You need to take a day off between weight lifting/strength training sessions in order to allow your muscles to recover.

HOpe that helps some. :)
 
KaraCooks said:
I think you've got the concepts down, but you're freaking out about the details. :)

Also I think you're not eating nearly enough. What happens when you eat too little is that you slow your metabolism way down and you stall out your weight loss.

Also, how long does it usually take to build muscle?

Now is that responsible for your 3.5 lb gain in one day? Nope, probably not. But it will contribute eventually. I would guess that the salt from the junk food you ate for dinner (and yes, chicken strips and sauce from JIB count as junk food in my book) are causing you to retain fluid.

At your current weight, you should be eating around 2500 calories a day to lose weight healthily. You could drop that to around 2000 if you really felt like you needed to, but it's not necessary.

And you're right that you shouldn't be strength training every day. You need to take a day off between weight lifting/strength training sessions in order to allow your muscles to recover.

HOpe that helps some. :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I didn't realize I was eating so little, I thought I was so hungry was because of the huge calorie difference.

My question to you is, if I keep this jogging up (It is my goal to jog a mile without stopping eventually, how long does it take with jogging before it gets easier?) and keep up the nutrition, should I lose weight in the long run? I am so tired of being fat.

Also, how do I figure out exactly how much fruit is in a serving, and how many calorie's that has? I may need to write down what I eat and the calorie intake to make sure I'm not under eating. For example, here's what I had today:

Breakfast:
Some rolled oats with skim milk (150 cal for the oats)
A slice of whole wheat multi-grain bread
Some digestive yogurt (110 cal)
Some fresh strawberries (60 cal?)

Lots and lots of water
 
My question to you is, if I keep this jogging up (It is my goal to jog a mile without stopping eventually, how long does it take with jogging before it gets easier?) and keep up the nutrition, should I lose weight in the long run?
Click to expand...
Yes, if you keep up eating healthily and exercising, you will lose weight.

If you're really interested in running, I can highly recommend the Couch to 5k program. It's a program that starts off with the assumption that you've never run before and the goal is to have you able to run a 5k (which is 3.1 miles) at the end of it. I'm in the middle of it now and it's made a huge difference in my ability to run. I've been working out for a while, but never been a runner before. If you have an iPod, you can download podcasts set to music that help you through the various stages of the program. I use the one by Robert Ullrey ().

Also, how do I figure out exactly how much fruit is in a serving, and how many calorie's that has? I may need to write down what I eat and the calorie intake to make sure I'm not under eating.
Click to expand...
Sign up with a site like thedailyplate.com or fitday.com and start entering your food in there. I use the daily plate and have been using it for about 2 years now. I use it to plan my food as well as track what I eat. Eventually, the more you do this, the better you'll get about just knowing various calorie counts. For example, now I can tell you off the top of my head that an egg has about 70 calories and a serving of carrots is about 35 calories and a medium apple is about 80 calories, and so forth. You just learn the things that you eat most often.

So it looks like your breakfast was around 470 calories altogether. That's not bad and it's a good blend of healthy foods. Round that out with a healthy lunch and a healthy dinner - and maybe a couple of snacks in there as well ... and you'll be doing great for the day.
 
A good guideline to use is to estimate 1% of your bodyweight per week.

So for you, on average about 2.3 lbs a week.

And again, keep in mind I said ON AVERAGE. That means maybe one week you only show 1.5 loss on the scale. And the next week you lose 3. Or maybe you're one of the lucky ones who consistently loses 2lbs per week for the next 6 weeks. :)

Focus on the long term trend, and not the daily details. :)
 
KaraCooks said:
A good guideline to use is to estimate 1% of your bodyweight per week.

So for you, on average about 2.3 lbs a week.

And again, keep in mind I said ON AVERAGE. That means maybe one week you only show 1.5 loss on the scale. And the next week you lose 3. Or maybe you're one of the lucky ones who consistently loses 2lbs per week for the next 6 weeks. :)

Focus on the long term trend, and not the daily details. :)
Click to expand...

Good advice, especially on the long term. When I saw I gained 3.5 lbs in one day I was shocked..I'm hoping this is water weight.

I'm currently reading dr.phil's son book on weight loss....to help me cope with it emotionally.

For lunch today I had about 10 baby carrots, and a healthy choice steamers sesame asian chicken. It had lots of vegetables in it, chicken, carrots, mushrooms, and snow peas, with a sauce and some rice. 340 calories in it. Amazingly I'm stuffed, and I consumed probably about 400 calories for lunch. 3 grams of fiber, 17 grams of protein 6 grams of fat. Are these meals OK to eat? or should I stay away from them?
 
Well, I have mixed opinions on frozen meals and packaged meals. Mostly one of the goals i set for myself was to eliminate processed foods from my diet as much as possible. I avoid anything that has chemicals I can't pronounce in it. :) Also most of the frozen meals out there have a whole lot of sodium in them.

If you're comfortable with the ingredients list and if you keep an eye on the sodium, then I don't see a problem with them as a concept.

Although I will say if you're eating a lot of frozen meals, it might account for some of the weight gain. Sodium will cause you to retain fluid. I know that on days I eat a lot of sodium, I can count on the scale going up the next morning.
 
Oh, and for what it's worth - here's what my weight has looked like this week. (I think I've posted this 3 times now - it must be the day for it.) You can see how it fluctuates. I just work on the overall trend and don't worry too much about the day to day changes.

Sat 7/25/09 176.8
Sun 7/26/09 176.4
Mon 7/27/09 178.4
Tue 7/28/09 175.2
Wed 7/29/09 174.4
Thu 7/30/09 175.2
 
KaraCooks said:
Oh, and for what it's worth - here's what my weight has looked like this week. (I think I've posted this 3 times now - it must be the day for it.) You can see how it fluctuates. I just work on the overall trend and don't worry too much about the day to day changes.

Sat 7/25/09 176.8
Sun 7/26/09 176.4
Mon 7/27/09 178.4
Tue 7/28/09 175.2
Wed 7/29/09 174.4
Thu 7/30/09 175.2
Click to expand...

Thanks Kara.

What exactly does retaining fluids mean? Is that actual weight you gain or just 'water weight'?

This 3.5 lbs I supposedly gained in 1 day, this isn't real weight I've gained?

I don't eat many frozen meals often anymore, I had that in the freezer so i decided to pop it in.
 
Well, a couple of things. :)

Getting technical about it, water weight is "real" weight. Any weight you gain that shows on the scale is "real" weight, whether it's retained fluid, muscle mass, or actual fat.

However, the difference is that water weight is something that can fluctuate day to day to day. What you ate or didn't eat, if you drank enough water, if you had too much sodium, if you worked out really hard, whatever ... all can affect the amount of water your body retains. You can lose water weight pretty quickly. Of course you can gain it really quickly too. :)

Fat, on the other hand, moves a bit more slowly. You gain or lose fat over a longer period and once it's off, it tends to stay off if you keep up healthy eating habits.

This is one of the reasons you should never get hung up on the numbers on the scale. As you saw from my weights just this past week, I had a wild 3lb swing between Monday and Tuesday. I can tell you exactly why, too.

Sunday is my "free" day ... it's the day where I indulge myself and eat things that I wouldn't normally eat during the week. So last Sunday I treated myself to some delicious local goat cheese with roasted garlic and pepper flakes - served on crusty baguette bread. I also had a 5 Guys burger for lunch. Now, I only ate 2000 calories all day which is still below my maintenance, so I shouldn't have *gained* weight. But on Monday morning, my weight was up 3lbs. Why? All the sodium in the burger, the cheese, the bread.

Notice that after eating healthier all day on Monday and drinking lots of water to flush out the sodium, my weight dropped by over 3lbs on Tuesday morning.

That 3lbs is REAL ... it's just not fat. :) Get what I'm saying?
 
Last edited:
KaraCooks said:
Well, a couple of things. :)

Getting technical about it, water weight is "real" weight. Any weight you gain that shows on the scale is "real" weight, whether it's retained fluid, muscle mass, or actual fat.

However, the difference is that water weight is something that can fluctuate day to day to day. What you ate or didn't eat, if you drank enough water, if you had too much sodium, if you worked out really hard, whatever ... all can affect the amount of water your body retains. You can lose water weight pretty quickly. Of course you can gain it really quickly too. :)

Fat, on the other hand, moves a bit more slowly. You gain or lose fat over a longer period and once it's off, it tends to stay off if you keep up healthy eating habits.

This is one of the reasons you should never get hung up on the numbers on the scale. As you saw from my weights just this past week, I had a wild 3lb swing between Monday and Tuesday. I can tell you exactly why, too.

Sunday is my "free" day ... it's the day where I indulge myself and eat things that I wouldn't normally eat during the week. So last Sunday I treated myself to some delicious local goat cheese with roasted garlic and pepper flakes - served on crusty baguette bread. I also had a 5 Guys burger for lunch. Now, I only ate 2000 calories all day which is still below my maintenance, so I shouldn't have *gained* weight. But on Monday morning, my weight was up 3lbs. Why? All the sodium in the burger, the cheese, the bread.

Notice that after eating healthier all day on Monday and drinking lots of water to flush out the sodium, my weight dropped by over 3lbs on Tuesday morning.

That 3lbs is REAL ... it's just not fat. :) Get what I'm saying?
Click to expand...

I gotcha, I understand, that makes sense! How long does it usually take to pack on some muscle if I keep this strength training up? A couple weeks, months? Where can I find more about that program on running you were talking about? I do jog with an ipod nano, I got a velcro band I can attach it to my arm when I jog. I can't jog far *at all*, I mostly walk but I try to get my heart rate up, I try not to push myself too hard though. I can literally jog like 100 feet..I'm going to continue with it and hope to be able to run a mile non stop eventually.


Glad to hear its not fat...those jack in the box grilled chicken strips must have had *alot* of sodium, along with the sauce. Before I ordered I got the nutritional menu ..I'll look it up and get back to you.

Found it: The 4 strips contain 702 mg of sodium. Is this high?

I'm also on high blood pressure medication because of my obesity...

Food Journal

Target cal: 2000


7-30-09
Breakfast:
Simple harvest quaker oat cereal 150 cal
Fresh fruit 60 cal
Skim milk in cereal 80 cal
Yogurt 110
Bread 120 cal

Lunch:
Cafe steamers sesema chicken 340 cal
Serving of carrets (10) 35 cal
Slice of cheese 70 cal

Total cal: 965
 
Last edited:
Here's a website with some very helpful information about salt and sodium.
If you look on the left hand sidebar you'll find a few pages about high blood pressure and water retention in relation to sodium intake.
According to this website about 6g of salt is normal. Salt = sodium * 2.5.
So those 4 strips contain 702g of sodium which is 1755mg of salt i.e. 1.755g. That's already just over 1/4 of a normal sodium intake for the day.

I really admire how you are genuinely concerned with becoming more healthy. The questions you ask in your posts reflect your need to understand more about weight-loss and your drive to drop the pounds! It's fantastic!

It's sad that you've spent so much time and effort on that game. It's a big, beautiful world out there and I hope that you get to explore more of that as your confidence builds again. You can make as many characters on a gaming platform as you like but you only get one chance at real life, and that's what counts the most!

Have you thought about getting a personal weight trainer? Just an idea :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top