Hey guys

P

prodigy88

New member
The name is Chris, I'm new here. I came here in hopes for some insight and maybe motivation as I lose weight. I guess I'll give you guys some background on me.

I'm a 21 year old college student and I've always been overweight. Whether it be mildly overweight to obese, I was never fit in my life (at least as far back as I can remember). It never bothered me though, I didn't get that from eating fast food or sitting in front of a computer all my life. It happened because my family cooked REALLY good meals and my doctor says I'm in better condition than most people my weight. I got teased about my weight by some people in my early years, but hell I didn't really care what people said because I was still happy.

So anyways, I'm about 205 pounds (estimate, I don't own a scale, the weight I had last week when I was at the doctors) and 5'8 (ft). I was 220 in high school and I lost 20 pounds for some reason, but hey I can't complain haha. Last Friday I just decided I wanted to lose weight and experience, for once in my life, what it felt like to be fit. There was no reason for this sudden inspiration, I just felt like it for some reason.

The last few days I have been eating 1500-1800 calories a day and the only problem I got is fighting off the midnight munchies. I also started taking 1 a day multivitamins to help make up for the lowered amount of food I'm eating. They really give me energy, I have to say, it kind of feels like I drank a red bull.

Besides lowering calories, I decided to cut out sugary drinks. I drink maybe 40oz of green tea (no sweetener whatsoever) and maybe 60-100 oz of water a day (it helps me fight off hunger, I don't drink more than 20oz within an hour). I eat fiber one cereal with 2% for breakfast and just eat some right out the box as a snack here and there. Lunch is a wildcard for me, I don't plan it, but I'm not eating REALLY unhealthy foods. Maybe BBQ chicken and rice (I make it myself from scratch) or chicken soup (myself again) or maybe something canned if I don't want to cook. Still, I watch what I eat, no super unhealthy foods. I also have a couple apples, bananas or oranges throughout the day to get some sugar & more fiber in my system.

I exercise a LITTLE and I try to do extra walking and take the stairs when I don't have to. I have to put a lot of hours into school & work(desk job) so I try to get activity in whenever I can for brief moments. I'm not quite sedentary, though.

Anyways, I'm shooting at losing maybe 1 pound a week. I'll be ecstatic about losing like 2 though. I want to be at around 140...150 and maybe if I can find the time I'll shoot for getting muscular and being at like 170.

So that's about it. If you guys have any tips for me, insight, or just want to say hey go for it. I'll probably be around for quite a while.

Oh, and I'll post some before + afters as I get along. Maybe in a few weeks.
 
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Hey it seems like you have got this thing dialed by what you have written. It is obvious that you want to make progress.

Weight loss happens when you watch the details. Numbers, numbers, numbers everyday.

1. Keep a spreadsheet of what you eat and drink everyday
2. On that spreadsheet count, measure or weigh all of the calories in the servings you eat. DO NOT ESTIMATE ANYTHING
3. Manage the total calories below your daily calorie needs.

It is that simple
 
Thanks for the reply.

I keep my calories and how much water/tea I drink on my iphone notes. I usually round up my calories because some of what I eat has "about xxx calories" in it instead of saying exactly. I never round up more than 30 calories though.

So far I completely cut out night eating and I tried to increase my activity more. If I can work in sleep an hour earlier, I'll go jogging in the morning too. Getting within the range of calories I'm aiming at has been tricky because I keep going under or over. I don't want to get too specific about my intake because that probably wont be easy to do in the long term. I'm hoping to eventually make this permanent as I get used to the amount I eat and replacing my meals with better alternatives. One step at a time, I guess.
 
Hey Prodigy,

Thanks for the response. If you cannot get specific about how much is your intake of food, you may have a hard time losing weight unless you have got some well-established eating habits you may be OK. If you did though, you probably wouldn't even be on this forum I am guessing.

Give it some thought, and think about how you can get more specific and carry out a better eating plan that you can measure.
 
The only problem with tracking calories I have is with food that has these kind of labels



I'm not sure exactly how many calories are in foods with labels that say "about xxx servings". Do they usually overestimate or underestimate? I assume they underestimate since it would make more sense from a business standpoint.
 
There is nothing about this that is vague.

5 crackers = 80 calories.

There are just estimating about how many 5 cracker servings are in one box. That is what the "about" means.
 
Well that's an example. For instance, I will sometimes eat a can of chili (nothing really fattening) and the servings are always broken up. It usually says "about 2.5" and I would just multiply that by the serving calories and I should get the total calories for the can, right? The thing is the servings are for maybe 250g and the can has 673g or something.

What confuses me is this: Should I find the calories per gram then multiply by the net weight to get the exact calories or just multiply the serving estimate by the serving calories?
 
Yeah, that's right. I am assuming that you are eating the whole can of chili, correct? If it gives it in grams as you tell me here, you would multiply:

Calories Per Serving x Total Product Weight/Weight Per Serving

In the case of the can of chili, (say it is 100 calories per serving, although you know the right number):

100 calories x 673 grams/250 grams = 269.2 calories

That is how you do it. I hope that makes sense to you. If not let me know.

Frank
 
Great. I think there are a lot of people that probably would have liked to ask the same question you did.
 
Hi Prodigy.
I think that new experience is what everyone wants with weight loss, no matter where they are, but I really like how you phrased it. Best of luck with the journey ahead.
 
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