jeffj
New member
Hey guys and girls and thanks for reading this. As the title says, I've made some changes in my life this year and since I've used this site for motivation, I thought I'd share my progress with you so far.
At the start of '09 I was probably in the 280s or so and the heaviest I've recorded myself was at 303. Today I weighed in at 225 and I'll try to explain briefly how I've managed to lose some of the weight.
First off, I know you've all heard this before that it all comes down to diet and exercise and I'm not going to tell you anything different. It's obvious, but I believe it is all a matter of consistency. Despite being overweight I've always had a love for sports so the exercise part was easy to fall into. I'll tell you the four main things I've done.
Diet:
1) Cut out fast food entirely
2) Cut down snacking, cut out junk food almost entirely
Now this was all pretty difficult to do at first, but it is all just a matter of sticking to it. You've just got to keep working for your goals and when I got an urge to eat I just told myself that I didn't need it and it was true. I've always ate a lot of fruit and veggies and most meals at home are healthy so making those two changes has been huge. I have meant to add number three in there (no more soda, but I can't
).
Exercise:
1) Running
2) Weight lifting before bed
Well I've always been athletic so running wasn't too bad. I just started small and moved my way up. I'm aiming toward running a marathon next year. So far I've made it 10 miles at a time so I'll see. I've found though that exercise for me is not important really to the length that I do it, but keeping it consistent. I try to run everyday, but with finals as of late it hasn't been easy to do. There are always other alternatives though such as walking or cycling, etc so there is never really an excuse to get lazy. I mean 20-30 minutes a day is really all it takes for me.
I've frequented gyms for years, but I've never loved the atmosphere. I prefer to be alone when I work out. What I do takes about thirty minutes and again, I do it every night if I can. I have a thirty pound dumbbell which I use for a variety of upper body exercises and I also do around 500 crunches. I usually do reps of thirty (four different lift exercises) with the dumbbells and then reps of 100 with the crunches. All of what I do can be done in bed as long as you have space that is.
At the end of the day, I put about 50-60 minutes in. If you're serious about losing weight you need to find time everyday because I've found that if you don't stay committed it is very easy to fall off. On the other hand, it's also not hard to have a day in which you do less, but still do something (kind of a moral victory if anything).
Last, this site helped me a lot in staying motivated so if anyone has any questions or comments feel free to post them up or contact me and I'll do my best to help. I'm not done yet, but it's something. Along with the aforementioned goal of running a marathon, I hope to be 220 by New Years and under 200 by my birthday (March 8) so I'll keep everyone posted on the progress.
Well, here's some pics. I apologize for not having any decent pictures at or near 300, but these will do:
At the start of '09 I was probably in the 280s or so and the heaviest I've recorded myself was at 303. Today I weighed in at 225 and I'll try to explain briefly how I've managed to lose some of the weight.
First off, I know you've all heard this before that it all comes down to diet and exercise and I'm not going to tell you anything different. It's obvious, but I believe it is all a matter of consistency. Despite being overweight I've always had a love for sports so the exercise part was easy to fall into. I'll tell you the four main things I've done.
Diet:
1) Cut out fast food entirely
2) Cut down snacking, cut out junk food almost entirely
Now this was all pretty difficult to do at first, but it is all just a matter of sticking to it. You've just got to keep working for your goals and when I got an urge to eat I just told myself that I didn't need it and it was true. I've always ate a lot of fruit and veggies and most meals at home are healthy so making those two changes has been huge. I have meant to add number three in there (no more soda, but I can't
).Exercise:
1) Running
2) Weight lifting before bed
Well I've always been athletic so running wasn't too bad. I just started small and moved my way up. I'm aiming toward running a marathon next year. So far I've made it 10 miles at a time so I'll see. I've found though that exercise for me is not important really to the length that I do it, but keeping it consistent. I try to run everyday, but with finals as of late it hasn't been easy to do. There are always other alternatives though such as walking or cycling, etc so there is never really an excuse to get lazy. I mean 20-30 minutes a day is really all it takes for me.
I've frequented gyms for years, but I've never loved the atmosphere. I prefer to be alone when I work out. What I do takes about thirty minutes and again, I do it every night if I can. I have a thirty pound dumbbell which I use for a variety of upper body exercises and I also do around 500 crunches. I usually do reps of thirty (four different lift exercises) with the dumbbells and then reps of 100 with the crunches. All of what I do can be done in bed as long as you have space that is.
At the end of the day, I put about 50-60 minutes in. If you're serious about losing weight you need to find time everyday because I've found that if you don't stay committed it is very easy to fall off. On the other hand, it's also not hard to have a day in which you do less, but still do something (kind of a moral victory if anything).
Last, this site helped me a lot in staying motivated so if anyone has any questions or comments feel free to post them up or contact me and I'll do my best to help. I'm not done yet, but it's something. Along with the aforementioned goal of running a marathon, I hope to be 220 by New Years and under 200 by my birthday (March 8) so I'll keep everyone posted on the progress.
Well, here's some pics. I apologize for not having any decent pictures at or near 300, but these will do:
