Looking To Lose Weight, Need Advice, Thanks For Reading

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shoemocker

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Hello everyone, I am brand new to the forums. I decided to sign up the other day after spending weeks or so browsing the forums looking for ideas to help me achieve my goal.

I am currently 22 years old. I am around 5'11 and weigh 360 pounds. My first goal is to get below 300 pounds. Once I achieve this goal I will set another, but for now, small steps. I have recently begun to really watch what I am eating. My normal food intake these days looks something like this.

Breakfast - Special K with Skim Milk, 1 Glass of OJ, and My One-A-Day Men’s Formula Multi-Vitamins
Lunch - I really eat whatever they are serving at my cafeteria at work. Food there is ranging from pasta, to tacos, to pizza burgers. I am thinking about bringing my own lunch to work.
After Work, at the Gym after Workout- 60g Protein Shake
Dinner - Oatmeal

I got a pass to the local gym called X-Sport Fitness. The place is huge and they have everything! I am extremely excited to get this started, and the place is literally on the way home from work, so I have no reason not to go everyday.

Now some questions I have are:

Should I be more concentrated on cardio since I am really only looking to lose weight? Or is weight training something I should look into doing each day as well? I don’t want to be a big buff guy with gigantic shoulders and chest pecks. I just want to lose the weight and get my life on track. I am worried that working out too much will make me put on weight.

Is my current meal setup too little? Sometimes between meals I start to feel really bad, like after a few hours, I start to get the jitters, and my hands start shaking. I am not sure what is causing this, but it doesn’t happen when I eat a lot.

Thanks for taking the time to read my little post here. I hope I can learn some valuable information from you guys to help me achieve what I want in life, as far as healthiness and fitness goes.

Any suggestions or comments will be taken into great consideration because I have little to no idea what I am doing.
 
Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on your decision to get into better shape!

I am just going to cover some basics, but first let me say one thing. In each forum room, such as the "Weight Loss", "Nutrition", and "Weight Training", there are threads at the top called Stickies, and they have LOTS of good info. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

First things first, weight training is your friend, it will do wonderful things to help shift your body composition. You won't become bulky or gain weight, it just doesn't work that way. Gaining weight is simply a result of eating more than your body needs to maintain. Do your research into deadlifts, squats, rows, dips, pullups, presses...do I expect you to be able to do bodyweight dips? No, but most gyms have assistance machines. Just get into something, start small...bodyweight squats are excellent, and I guarantee you will feel it in your legs the next morning!

Cardio (running, jogging, walking, biking, rowing, whatever) is great as well, just start small and work your way up.

Nutrition wise, your choices could use some improving. Do you know what your daily maintainence needs are? Once you get that number, you simply subtract a safe number of calories away to get the number you should be eating daily. Fill it with good proteins, carbs, and fats. Chicken, fish, beef, eggs, whey for protein. Oats, brown rice, fruits, veggies, veggies, veggies for carbs. Nuts, olive oil, flaxseed oil, fish oil for fats. There's more, just some examples. Do some research and we'll all help you on your way! Good luck friend.
 
At your weight, dropping lbs shouldn't be difficult to achieve. This is a great step you are taking, for your heart and mind. It will take time, but you will succeed if you stick with it.

As far as diet, moderate what you eat, count your calories and ensure you are in a caloric deficit. (meaning you exert more energy than you consume)

As far as exercise, any type is good. Both cardio and weight training are important. Push yourself to your personal limit, then shatter it with determination.
 
You're asking LOTS of really, really good questions. I will be as thorough and concise as possible.

the first thing you need to do is determine your maintenance level calorie intake. What this means is, you find out how many calories you have to eat in order to stay at the same weight as you are currently, based on your activity level and physical stats. Then, consume 500-1000 less calories than that number, and you will see the lbs start to melt away.

At first, from adding exercise and making diet changes, results will happen quickly. I would recommend that you set yoru first goal at 10% of your body weight, or 36 lbs. Then, once you get there, set another goal--60 lbs is a long journey--you deserve to feel accomplishment before you hit 299!

Please be careful about the activities you take on at first, your frame is carrying lots of extra weight, and you can injure yourself if you go too far too fast. try 30 minutes on the treadmill at 3 mph, and see how you do as far as your heart rate. There are differing target heart rates for people as we age. You want to push as hard as you can safely go, SAFELY being the operative word there!:D Low impact exercise like stationary biking and swimming are good starters, too.

Weight training is super-important. It really helps the body re-comp itself. When you eat at a "calorie deficit" as described above, you will generally not add MASS, but your muscles will strengthen and you'll have small gains. These gains will not be noticeable or make you bulky--you'll just start to feel good and strong!! Weight training is inmportant to make sure you do not lose muscle mass while eating at a deficit...make sense?

You probably need to eat more than your posted diet, and definitely need more protein. Make sure you get protein at breakfast-time, and always eat breakfast. Look into Kashi Go-Lean cereal instead of Special K--it's just better. Definitely bring your own lunch to work--choose foods that are less processed and have good protein content--protein and good fats help you to feel full. Carbs can give you blood sugar peaks and valleys that can make you feel hungry prematurely--try not to eat more than 40% of your daily calories from carbs, and seek out complex carbs which are better.

the jittery feeling you're getting is from the dramatically reduced caloric intake, and the blood sugar spikes I referred to. Use the formula, find out how much you should be eating and do it, and work out, and stay active in this forum and you'll definitely achieve your goals!!
 
I went to the gym the other day for the first time in my life. I decided to work all of my muscles out using all the various machines they have there. After working out I decided to hop on the almighty sweat making tread mill. I took Greenhorn Gal’s advice and set the speed to 3mph and tried to last as long as I could. I made it about one hour before I was completely soar and could go no longer. Well let’s just say it was the worst hour of my life. I was literally a raid cloud when I was done. Sweat dripping from every pore of my body. But... I will have to say, after doing all that, I feel better today then I did yesterday. I am still looking into this “Daily Calorie Count” thing and trying to figure out how many calories I should be taking each day, because obviously what I am eating right now is definitely not enough. Thanks all for the great information posted so far, and I will definitely keep you guys informed of my progress so far.
 
Good job! Awesome--one hour with your stats and not being in the gym ever before is something to be very proud of! Does your blood feel cleaner? Mine always does after a good, sweaty cardio session!

Did you pay attention to your heart rate? If so, what was it?

Doing the round on the machines is a good starter way for your body to "find" and target muscles in a way they're not used to. Just keep doing what you're doing, and you'll see results--I promise!

What kind of job do you have, and what is your activity level? If you'd like, I can help you nail down the calorie thing...let me know!
 
I am not exactly sure how I can tell that my blood feels cleaner =P but as far as my heart rate, it was at around 160 the whole time. I had to clean off the machine when I was done. =/

My job is pretty much an entry level PC Tech. I get computers and restore them,fix them, modify hardware. As far as activity level, I would have to say picking up the PC and moving it is the hardest thing I have to do.

I could really use your help with the calorie thing. I have tried several different websites and they all give me different numbers ranging from 2000 calories a day to 4000 calories a day. That is a pretty big difference, and I do not know which calorie count I fall under.

Thanks again in advanced! =-)
 
OK, Here's what I found, and here's my source:



Using the Harris-Benedict formula, your BMR (basal Metabolic Rate) is 3050. This means that if you lay in bed all day and do not move a muscle, it will take 3050 calories to keep you alive--heart beating, breathing, etc.

Next you adjust that baseline to reflect your activity. Say you're planning to work out 3-4 times per week and since you have an office job, it takes 5033 calories to do the same thing--not gain or lose anything.

Since you want to lose weight, you eat 20% less than it takes to keep you going--5033 x 20%=1007--bottom line, 4000 calorie intake per day will give you a 1000 calorie per day deficit. This number will change as your weight drops--update your numbers from time to time.

Try that for a week or so--see how your body adjusts to all the changes. Make sure you eat enough protein. My trainer has me eating 40% of my calories from both protein and carbs, and 20% from fat, and my plan is working well for me! (That's a bit hard to do and takes some planning!) You can use fitday.com to help you with this. My protein staples are chicken breast and tuna--tuna is almost a perfect food because it is very high in protein and almost entirely fat free. I purchase a 10 lb box of chicken breasts for $14 and eat them almost daily.

Let me know if you have any other questions or if I can help any other way! Be sure to take pictures and record your body measurements--these numbers will help you see your progress...and you may want to consider starting a journal here--it's a great place to ask questions and get support from people here, and will give you a record of your ass-kickin' journey!
 
Keep a mix of strength training and cardio - if you only do cardio you'll only end up skinnyfat. Adding muscle is not really an issue because you need to be in a calorie surplus to put a significant amount of muscle on. And strength training provides other benefits to your bones and other body apparati that make it valuable in its own right. At 360lbs though, just about anything you do will help you out, so keeping active apart from actually working out is helpful too. (I started my journey at 354).

All this pales though in comparison to your diet - since you can't out-train a bad diet. Clean, healthy, whole foods, with an emphasis on proteins for your 5 or 6 small meals will get you a lot further to weight loss than anything else. Second is ensuring getting enough sleep, as that is when your body repairs itself. Bringing up the rear is your general activity, and lastly your workouts - in terms of effectiveness for promoting fat loss.

Congrats on making the decision to change and following through.
 
This is what I have been trying to do lately. It seems to work okay for me so far, and fixes my jitters that I get after eating a while later.

Breakfest - Boston Market Turkey and Mashed Potatoes, Glass of OJ, 60g Protein Shake, One a day mens multivitamins
Between Breakfest and Lunch - Protein Bar
Lunch - Grilled Chicken Sandwhich, 2 cartons of skim free milk
After Gym - 60g Protein Shake
Dinner - Sliced Turkey Breast Sandwhich with Cheese and Mustard, Water, Some sort of fruit ranging from bannanas, watermelon, cantelope, or some yogurt.

How is this for a daily diet? I am not really much of a morning food person. I dont like sausage, eggs, or none of that stuff in the least.
Let me know what I can do to better improve on this diet. So far I have been eating like this easily and its been no problems once so ever.
 
I'd suggest adding more veggies in throughout the day. Also, I'd suggest moving to more natural, whole food versions of the stuff you're eating. This will probably entail cooking for yourself, but you'll be sure what's in it. I'd also ditch the mashed potatoes in favor of a baked potato, and limit the condiments (e.g., mustard) and/or extras (e.g., cheese) on any sandwich you have. That said, keep up the good work - you're getting protein in at every meal and are teaming 'em up with carbs.
 
Hi there shoemocker, and congrats for making your first steps towards a better, more enjoyable lifestyle! I'm a newbie here too, but I thought I'd chime in because I tried to lose weight 3 years ago and gained it all back - and now I'm following the advice on this forum, and lost 10kg permanently in around 1.5 months. Also I have the same job as you, so it must run in the industry, huh? :)

So I'll chime in: a) don't starve yourself. DO NOT EVER starve yourself. That's what I did 3 years back and I lost so much weight, but gained it all back. Now when I say that don't think it was 'magically' gained back - of course I ate it all back is what I should actually say. Here's how it works: You starve yourself, so you lose huge amount of weight. You suffer but you think it's worth it, and it creates a vicious cycle. The more you suffer, the more you think 'it's good to suffer because the results are here'. No pain no gain, that sort of stuff. Then one day, your brains says 'stop'. And that's it. You start eating again because you'll think '**** this diet, it's ruining my life and my friendships and whatever else'. So you'll eat it all back.

Instead, try this: calculate your BMR, shoot under by 300cals, and eat that in 'clean food'. I'll tell you what, eating 2000 cals in good food is HARD. That's a LOT OF FOOD! You won't starve yourself, but you'll be shedding off the weight like crazy. I'll be honest with you, I can't even force myself to eat my BMR-300, so I end up more often that one at -500 - but I"m trying not too. I eat 5 big meals a day (all clean food remember, tuna, chicken & turkey breast, egg whites, veggies), I never do 'cheat' meals and I stopped smoking and drinking. Just trust me, the results are AMAZING! - but you have to want it. Why do I know my 10kg are gone for good? Because I'm never hungry. I never crave for food, yet I'm losing weight.

Exercise is great, weight training in particular. It gives you confidence. I know the first time in the gym with all the 'beautiful' people can be daunting but again, do you want this or not? I now see my gym as a place to have fun and I look forward to go there, rather than dread it like before. IT CAN BE a great experience but you HAVE TO MAKE IT SO.

One last thing: don't overdo it. I busted my left knee doing 30 mins of light cardio. Keep in mind how much you did before this: NADA. So even 5 mins of very light cardio is a huge change for your body, ok? Don't let vanity and ego get the best of you, start small.

Now if you add all the above: good clean food, exercise, no ego trip - then you add the MAGIC ingredient: CONSISTENCY, then Bob's your uncle, the cat's in the bag, whatever. Basically you'll get there in due course, and in a month or two you (and your friends & family) will be seeing results.

GOOD LUCK my friend and STAY CONSISTENT!

Cheers,

-
Cigaro
 
I agree with Stingo, and your diet will improve over time. What you are doing is a great starting point. Thereafter, work to make changes toward whole food items. Make sure you're eating whole grain breads rather than white bread for your sandwiches. See if you can sneak a can of tuna in there somewhere so you don't have to lean too heavily on the shakes. Either way you look at it, you are off to a great start--keep it up!
 
Hey everyone. Just wanted to fill you in on how I am doing so far. It has been approximately 2 weeks since I have started this and I have already lost 15 pounds. I currently weigh in at 345. Does this seem a little quick to anyone? I swear I am eating properly and not starving myself. I have been to the gym every single day since day one. Spending roughly an hour lifting and an hour on the tread. As well as changing my eating habbits to good food.

I gotta tell you guys though, I feel so much better. Even two weeks later I feel like a whole new person. I cant explain it.
 
Could be water weight since you're just starting out, however it's certainly going in the right direction and that is what counts. Keep up the good work.
 
another idea

I didn't see anyone else mention this, but if you find yourself getting tired of the gym environment, you might look at kettlebells. They are an awesome full body workout and you can use them for both resistance and cardio training. I hated weight lifting, but I love kettlebells....just a thought. :)
 
It's pretty normal to see big losses in the beginning of a weight loss regimen when you have a lot to lose. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it will slow down! Losses come when we "shock" the body into letting go of its reserve--your body is adjusting to that "shock" and responding with the desired result.

As long as you have fixed the lightheadednbess and jitteriness you were feeling before, and are settling into your diet and exercise changes, I wouldn't change a thing. After a few weeks, it will slow down, perhaps even plateau, and then you can change things up and do it all over again! Lather, rinse, repeat till finished...
 
hestes said:
I didn't see anyone else mention this, but if you find yourself getting tired of the gym environment, you might look at kettlebells. They are an awesome full body workout and you can use them for both resistance and cardio training. I hated weight lifting, but I love kettlebells....just a thought. :)
Click to expand...

Not sure what your definition of weight lifting is, but using kettlebells would seem to fit under that designation, wouldn't it?
 
shoemocker said:
It has been approximately 2 weeks since I have started this and I have already lost 15 pounds. I currently weigh in at 345. Does this seem a little quick to anyone? I swear I am eating properly and not starving myself. I have been to the gym every single day since day one. Spending roughly an hour lifting and an hour on the tread. As well as changing my eating habbits to good food.

I gotta tell you guys though, I feel so much better. Even two weeks later I feel like a whole new person. I cant explain it.
Click to expand...

When you take one step towards fitness & weight-loss.....fitness & weight-loss takes 2 steps towards you! :D

You're body is just reaching to where and what it wants to become. It's very typical for someone in your condition to have rapid & excellent results. For the love of all creatures great & small, don't make this a fad or temporary thing...promise yourself you'll go all the way and find the new person within; the only regret you'll have is that you didn't do this sooner!!!!

Check-out this Stingo guy....look at his journal & pics, he's lost a TON of weight and transformed himself into an entirely different person. Lots of people have done it and you can (and will) too.

Right now you're in the new-kick phase and this is novelty momentum...but with each passing day there are changes happening in your body. Your addiction to food, a high blood-sugar level and inability to tolerate hunger will subside; with each passing day it will get easier & easier and the void that used to be filled with food with otherwise be filled with determination and the sight of a goal on the horizon. You will not go quietly & morbidly obese into an early death or other weight-related illnesses....you will transform yourself into a newer, better, leaner, healthier you; it is your destiny and your right. You are more powerful then food. Yay though yee slobber through the valley of excess calories you will fear no gluttony, for your faith is strong and your Fitness forum will guide you!! I cast thy fat from your body so you may be free of such caloric tryranny & excessive consumption. Raise thy head, lift those weights and let the cardio rush consume your soul. Go unto the gym and cast forth your former self and be reborn unto the world a fit soul so that all may cast their eyes upon you and rejoice in your results. This is an awakening, a reckoning and coming of days....will you accept a healthy diet, will you allow fitness & exercise to be your guide and means of healthy salvation? Are you ready to come into the light??

Can I get an amen?
 
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