Dave's weight loss diary. Please help me.

L

Lattes

New member
ADay 1; admit I have a fucking problem!

245lbs, 5'8", 34 years old.

I want to get back down to the 180 range, I have broad shoulders and a barrel chest, once upon a time I worked out and was at 180lbs and loved my body. I could leap fences, dance all night and had a great sex life on 6-7 hrs of sleep a night.

Now, I am tired all the time, feel crappy about myself and feel like I 'roll' around everywhere.

I have two young boys so my best bet for excersise is early morning, I have some weights but that is it, any suggestions on simple excersises I can do at home to burn fat as well as some diet tips?

I really need to change my life, not just go on a diet.
 
Realizing that something needs to change is the most important part of this whole process, so congratulations! And welcome to the forums :3 I'm fairly new as well, but there are some people who have been around for a while who have really good advice to give, and everyone's terrifically nice and supportive.


I know not everyone likes jogging, but I'd really recommend that you jog or walk. You don't have to kill yourself -- you don't even have to break a sweat, if you don't want to! -- but it's one of the best ways to get yourself into the habit of being active again. I know what you mean about feeling tired and crappy; I'm the same way sometimes. In my experience, it's incredible how much better and more energetic I feel if I can just get outside and move for a while. Our bodies are meant to be in motion; if we take that away, all kinds of things get out of balance. I understand that it might be hard to get away from your house if you've got small children, though. Jumping rope is a surprisingly effective cardio workout, too, and jump-ropes are cheap.


Honestly, knowing how to improve your diet is pretty easy: less processed food, less fatty food, more fruits and vegetables, etc. It's sticking to the healthy food that's the hard part xD One of my friends just pointed out to me that the drive to eat is one of our most powerful instincts; if we're consistently hungry and there's food available, we will eat. So I think the trick is to restrict unhealthy food, not food in general. Vegetables are great that way, because they fill us up but are usually not calorie-dense.


Huh, what else? I like having a weight goal and a fitness goal, so if one stalls out for a while I can still feel like I'm making progress on the other one. I'm sure other people will have a lot of good advice, as well. Good luck! I hope everything goes well for you.
 
AI tore my ACL and MCL and did a bunch of cartilage damage playing soccer last year, I was about 200lbs at the time and was planning on losing 20-25 so I could start running as my goal was a triathlon.

Now I have 70lbs to go before I feel comfortable jogging.

Have to motivate to get back on the bike, used to do a lot of biking... Lots of sweat!

Day 1 was tough as it was date night with the wife, abstained from some things so felt good about that.

Now; day 2, I have printed off my diet cards, I know I eat at night so I need to save some space for that...

Going to go play some soccer with the kids. Crap I am out of shape!
 
AFUCK!!!

Day three was a write off! Followed my chart all day, had a beer while watching the Manchester derby and even that didn't throw me off.

After putting the kids to bed I went downstairs and ate 1/4 ice cream cake while watching TV!

I AM NOT QUITTING!!!!

I am incredibly pissed off at myself though, feel like a bag of shit failure! Should have posted after my evening snack last night (8 rice crackers 1oz cheese, 200 cals total and within my card for consumption.) maybe writing it would have stopped me.

Last 1/4 ice cream cake is going in the garbage today. I need to take this shit out of the house.

Starting fresh again today, already feel physically worse this AM than past two days, amazing what garbage food does to you!

I hate being a fattie fat fuck!
 
Haha, whoa there cowboy. You've done more than most do when they slip up - you're gonna continue! That's the most important thing, and the difference between those who succeed and those who do not! You can do this, and the sheer determination in your words proves it! We all slip up - there's no real excuse for it, but it happens!


You know how good you felt at a lower weight, and you KNOW you can get there again. Something that I've found helps is to physically draw up a 'weekly' chart of food and stick it to the front of the fridge. Anything you take out and eat, you have to write down on the chart. It can be enough to stop you!


Chin up. You'll make it through! Keep reporting back - we're all gunning for you!
 
ALike Sarah said... it happens. Everybody makes mistakes. You pig out, you feel like utter shit, and you move on. That last part is the most important. It's a brand new day... make it a good one! :)
 
Hey Lattes

Another Sarah chiming in here..take a deep breath and start your day over ...right now...there is nothing majic about midnight to start a day. So do it now, get your focus and remember why you started this journey in the first place. It might be good to answer those 30+ questions about now..to remember some of the "why"s.

Also might be good to take a good long brisk walk to get the good endorphins flowing. The most important thing is "dont you quit, don't you quit, don't you quit! You don't want any more Sarah's ganging up on you!

Sarah
 
Thanks all, this forum seems to be a huge help. It is a reminder and a place to admit screw-ups...


That said, just saw this and laughed, great menu guide!
 
Hey Dave,


Have been there and can totally relate. Clothes stopped fitting, had little energy to chase my daughter around and was feeling crappy in general

Few quick points that helped me at the start:

- Take the time to figure out how many calories you'll be burning in a regular day and use that to help figure out how many to shoot for to create a loss. Don't cut calories too far as it will leave you feeling hungry and prone to falling off. There's a great calculator on Fat2fit radio that will help (also recommend listening to their podcasts)

- remove temptation if possible. Go through the food at home and try not to have too many tempting foods around.

- Start out slow with the exercise, not running at first is a great idea. I started out with a lot of walking

- If possible, build the exercise into your daily routine (walk or bike to work, go for a stroll at lunch etc)

- Set long term, medium term and weekly goals (make sure they are not all focused on losing weight so when the scale slows down you're not left questioning yourself)

- track as much as you can, weekly photos, weight, body fat %, measurements, how you felt on a given week etc. It all gives you something to look back on and see the progress

- Plan your days in advance, spending a couple hours a couple times a week cooking up a huge batches of food that you can quickly throw together for meals helps stay on track with the eating.

- Listen to podcasts, read up on tips and tricks and generally fill your head with information that can help stay motivated

- use this forum, great place to interact with others going through the same journey and hitting the same stumbling blocks along the way

- smile and enjoy the journey
 
ADay is going well so far and it is 7:30, once upon a time I was quite athletic, I used to tell people 'I am in better shape than I look' and it was true. Weighed about 200-205lbs but did a 100k and a 40k ride every week on my bike as well as riding EVERYWHERE. Did 100 push-ups and 100 sit ups every day, would swim at least once a week for an hour.

How I had time for that then and not now is just stupidity on my part. Need to get active and live to 100 with QUALITY!
 
I can only speak from my own experience, that is basically exercise for weight loss isn't very effective, weight loss is a simple balance of calories, if you eat more calories than you use then you gain weight, if you eat less than you use then you lose weight. You can either consume less calories or exercise more, or do some of both.


If you look at the calories burned when doing exercise (research this!) you simply cannot realistically expect to lose a lot of weight through exercise alone and almost none through tension training (weights). It's very easy to consume a massive amount of calories in a short space of time (beers, snacks, soda etc) but it takes hours and hours of intense cardio based exercise to burn that of, it's just not a realistic way of losing weight because you need to be extremely motivated to be able to achieve that level of exercise every day for months/years.


Do yourself a favour, work out your maintenance calories for each day with the help of a calorie calculator online (use google), aim to eat less calories per day than your maintenance, the less calories you consume below that daily limit the more weight you'll lose, you need a deficit of about 500 cals per day to lose 1lb a week, I maintained a deficit of 1000 calories and lost 2lbs a week steadily.


2 things to understand about doing weights is that first of all it burns next to no calories so don't lift with expectations to help lose weight, only tone muscle. And lifting while dieting wont add much muscle at all, bulking up while on a calorie deficit is next to impossible.


Make sure you use the right tool for the right job, primarily diet for losing weight, weights for toning and bulking, and exercise for stamina and general fitness, there really isn't a lot of crossover there, so understand your goals and use the right tools for the job.
 
ANo slips yesterday!

Re excersise, I agree 100%, good friend who is a trainer says it is 75% diet, 25% excersise when losing weight, I find when I am on a routine I am stricter on my diet because I WANT better food and I don't want the excersise to go to waste. After a 100k ride I like a big ol 12oz steak, but put Doritos in front of me and I go 'ewwww' your body knows best, we just don't listen at times.

Amazing that only a few days into not putting garbage in me I feel so much better.
 
AStill going strong, seems like 238 was a 'hump' to get past but broke it and am at 237 as of yesterday.
 
Nice work on the weight loss.


Looks like the diet and exercise is working out fantastic and you can see the improvement in your posts as you've gone along.


It's quite a boost in the early days but as you get further along, pay less attention to the scale and more to how easy it is to accomplish lifts, runs etc.
 
AStill at it, good friend is a nutritional nurse and helped me make cards I fill out, knee that I blew out playing soccer is feeling better too.

Might get some other guys together to start a fat guy FutSal league!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top