Advice for 20 yr old male

Z

ZigZag

New member
Hi guys, looking for some advice....
I am ready to commit myself to losing weight again, thing is, I have tried losing it so many times in the past 12 months, found it extremely hard, with losing family members to cancer. Dislocated my ankle in a football match, I was a at nice 156 pounds back then! With being injured a near half a year I gained 20 pounds, then not soon after losing my father and grandad to cancer. With many other personal problems in the household becoming a huge distraction! Just gave up with life, comfort eating as they say, needed a kick up the backside! On medication for depression at the moment.
I am male 20 years old, weighing 252. My height is 6'ft, looking for help and advice.... Been to the doctor they weren't too helpful!
I have hugely considered, in going to the gym, I am partially disabled, on the left hand side of my body.

A Year on, last month, I decided to do something about it! More determined than ever Last 4 weeks, I gave up on all fatty foods, if I am hungry I have a mint/chewing gum, breakfast some cornflakes, a dinner, usually whatever mum cooks me, can vary from roast dinners, been to the shop myself and now eating weight watchers meals. If I feel peckish, I have grapes or apples. Went on the scales, gained nothing, lost nothing, was real disappointed.

So with this being said, I am looking for a helping hand and maybe some advice to help me get back down to a respectable weight.

Thanks for Reading
Andrew
 
When most people first start "dieting" they confuse eating healthy with eating lower calorie.

You say you gave up all "fatty" food. Does this mean fast/snack food, or all fat completely? Because you need to eat some fats.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself.

Read stickies on the site, read webmd articles on nutrition, go to the library! and just educate yourself on proper nutrition and how your body works. Its one thing for someone to tell you how to lose weight, but to understand why is a completely different story.

The next best thing you can do is to get a notebook and a scale, or use a website like fitday, to monitor not only what, but how much your eating.

Measuring your food is much better then guessing, but buying a food scale to actually weigh what you eat is a very helpful tool in both weight loss and maintenance.

You say you eat "some" cornflakes. Do you know how many calories worth of cornflakes you had? Not just what is in a serving, but how much you actually consumed?

Stay motivate and constantly strive for your goal. Knowledge and perseverance can get you far.
 
Weight loss

Kayshiz said:
When most people first start "dieting" they confuse eating healthy with eating lower calorie.

You say you gave up all "fatty" food. Does this mean fast/snack food, or all fat completely? Because you need to eat some fats.

The best thing you can do is educate yourself.

Read stickies on the site, read webmd articles on nutrition, go to the library! and just educate yourself on proper nutrition and how your body works. Its one thing for someone to tell you how to lose weight, but to understand why is a completely different story.

The next best thing you can do is to get a notebook and a scale, or use a website like fitday, to monitor not only what, but how much your eating.

Measuring your food is much better then guessing, but buying a food scale to actually weigh what you eat is a very helpful tool in both weight loss and maintenance.

You say you eat "some" cornflakes. Do you know how many calories worth of cornflakes you had? Not just what is in a serving, but how much you actually consumed?

Stay motivate and constantly strive for your goal. Knowledge and perseverance can get you far.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the speedy reply, I have been looking online doing some research and what have you, fatty foods, im meaning things like snacks, etc.

I just have a bowl of cornflakes, I would say about 160-170 calories, using semi skimmed milk
 
Hi Andrew, it sounds like you have had a tough time of it mate, I hope things get better for you.

As for your weight, firstly well done for deciding to do something about it. At the weight you are at now you should be able to shift it without a huge amount of trouble. The response from Kayshiz is something you need to pay very close attention to. You see if you were at the weight you would like to be at it might be okay to just eat in what you consider to be a healthy way and it might keep your weight at a good level. The problem is that you want to lose weight so you are going to have to be more precise than eating healthy.

There is a huge amount of info on this site which you will find very helpful but to begin with you need to get this message in to your brain - In order to lose weight you must create a calorie deficit in your body. Simply put your body needs to burn more calories than you feed it.

With the above in mind you can see how important it is to be relatively precise with your calorie intake. Some people are hyper-precise and weigh everything they eat etc and some people take a general approach. You will have to find out what works for you.

Next you need to decide how you are going to create the calorie deficit. There are roughly 3500 calories in 1lb of fat. So you need to burn off this many calories to get rid of a lb of fat. Simply put if you ate in a manner that maintained your current weight but walked around 35 miles in a week you would burn 3500 calories and drop 1lb. If you reduce what you eat and walked 35 miles you should lose more.

Ultimately you will have to work out what is going to be manageable for you. Many people aim for 1% body weight loss per week. A good way of losing weight is a combination of exercise and a reduction in what you are consuming.
 
ZigZag said:
I just have a bowl of cornflakes, I would say about 160-170 calories, using semi skimmed milk
Click to expand...

You "would say" that becasue ...you measured? ...or your guessing?

I'm not trrying to give you a hard time, but it's probably the number one thing people fail at when they first attempt to lose weight.
 
Thanks for the reply guys, incase I miss measure slightly I would say 160-170
Thats without sugar.
I am getting around day by day no problem, same with sports, playing 3 hours straight, and 10 mins on the tredmill. still able to get around no problem. I have worked out my recommended calories per day and I am sticking to it. All I can do is wait and see if there is any results.

Trying this before has caused me to gain nothing or lose nothing, my metabolism seems to be so poor. Mind you drinking alcohol 3 pints a week wasnt probably helping the matter.
 
Last edited:
ZigZag said:
Trying this before has caused me to gain nothing or lose nothing, my metabolism seems to be so poor. Mind you drinking alcohol 3 pints a week wasnt probably helping the matter.
Click to expand...

Your metabolism is most likely fine, and even if you want to believe that it is abnormally slow, it is what it is. If your not losing weight, your consuming to many calories.
 
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