Hello everyone.
I am 33 years old and about 5'11 and on april 29th, 2009 I weighed in at 234.8 pounds. This really pissed me off despite the fact that it wasnt the heaviest I have weighed in my life (I weighed roughly 278 pounds when I was 18). I have always been a big person but something this spring changed when I weighed myself.
I began looking at why I was fat. I realized that my lifestyle was to blame. I would start each day drinking 2-3 BIG cups of coffee, complete with two tbsp of sugar and sugary (hazelnut flavoured) coffee creamer. That would be chased down by whatever I felt like for lunch (all you can eat chinese was a regular stop for my family) and for me to cook up a 9" pan of baked spaghetti with all the trimmings at 11pm and polish the entire thing off myself was a regular occurance. Top all this off with regular snacking throughout the day. I also didnt know when to stop. I would FILL a plate to heaping and even if I didnt need it all, I would eat the whole thing. Often I would go back for seconds.
I looked further into why I was eating the way I was. Lots of fast food. Lots of quick "snack" like stuff. I looked at why I was eating so much and tried to identify the triggers that pushed me towards eating / munching.
Then I got started. The first thing I did was stop spending 14 hours a day parked in front of my computer or playstation 3. I stopped making coffee every morning and replaced it with 1 cup of green tea. I have been steadily decreasing my portion sizes and changing my diet to include more grains, fruit, dairy, etc.
Average daily food intake for me right now:
1 cup of green tea (nothing added)
1 Smoothie (1/2 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup light yogurt, 1 banana, 1 tray of ice cubes, 1/2 cup of any other fruit)
1 bowl of rice (white) with 1/2 cup of skim milk, 2 tsp of brown sugar, 2tbsp raisins.
1 piece of thick whole wheat bread, often accompanied with a slice of cheese.
1 burger with all the fixing (cheddar, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard) on thick whole wheat bread.
(If I am still hungry late in the day I may have a light snack of leftovers ( a burger patty minus all the fixings and bread as example).
*Throughout the day I will consume as much water as I am comfortable with... between 6 and 10 bottles (591ml).
*I eat snacks of celery stalks, carrot sticks or a banana as I see fit.
While changing my diet and drinking more water as I said I ahve been paying particular attention to the triggers that make me want to eat and finding activities to occupy me with instead of snacking.
On May 14th I started excersising. I begain with a 8km walk every morning. By a week I was doing the walk twice every other day.
On May 28th, 2009 I weighed in at 213.6 pounds. I lost 21.2 pounds in my first month.
In the last week I have stepped up my excersizing by doing 1 hour of weight training in my shop every other day, and on the days I dont weight train I will get on my treadmill for 30 minutes.
Ideally my goal is to retrain my eating habits so by the time I am a more comfortable weight (im thinking somewhere between 175 and 185 lbs) I can reduce the amount of excersize I am doing without putting the weight back on.
As I am new here I am very open to suggestions and advice from the community. As the internet has so much information to offer its hard sometimes to take what your reading at face value and alot of times the information is misleading or just plain wrong.
Thanks for having me!
I am 33 years old and about 5'11 and on april 29th, 2009 I weighed in at 234.8 pounds. This really pissed me off despite the fact that it wasnt the heaviest I have weighed in my life (I weighed roughly 278 pounds when I was 18). I have always been a big person but something this spring changed when I weighed myself.
I began looking at why I was fat. I realized that my lifestyle was to blame. I would start each day drinking 2-3 BIG cups of coffee, complete with two tbsp of sugar and sugary (hazelnut flavoured) coffee creamer. That would be chased down by whatever I felt like for lunch (all you can eat chinese was a regular stop for my family) and for me to cook up a 9" pan of baked spaghetti with all the trimmings at 11pm and polish the entire thing off myself was a regular occurance. Top all this off with regular snacking throughout the day. I also didnt know when to stop. I would FILL a plate to heaping and even if I didnt need it all, I would eat the whole thing. Often I would go back for seconds.
I looked further into why I was eating the way I was. Lots of fast food. Lots of quick "snack" like stuff. I looked at why I was eating so much and tried to identify the triggers that pushed me towards eating / munching.
Then I got started. The first thing I did was stop spending 14 hours a day parked in front of my computer or playstation 3. I stopped making coffee every morning and replaced it with 1 cup of green tea. I have been steadily decreasing my portion sizes and changing my diet to include more grains, fruit, dairy, etc.
Average daily food intake for me right now:
1 cup of green tea (nothing added)
1 Smoothie (1/2 cup skim milk, 1/2 cup light yogurt, 1 banana, 1 tray of ice cubes, 1/2 cup of any other fruit)
1 bowl of rice (white) with 1/2 cup of skim milk, 2 tsp of brown sugar, 2tbsp raisins.
1 piece of thick whole wheat bread, often accompanied with a slice of cheese.
1 burger with all the fixing (cheddar, ketchup, lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard) on thick whole wheat bread.
(If I am still hungry late in the day I may have a light snack of leftovers ( a burger patty minus all the fixings and bread as example).
*Throughout the day I will consume as much water as I am comfortable with... between 6 and 10 bottles (591ml).
*I eat snacks of celery stalks, carrot sticks or a banana as I see fit.
While changing my diet and drinking more water as I said I ahve been paying particular attention to the triggers that make me want to eat and finding activities to occupy me with instead of snacking.
On May 14th I started excersising. I begain with a 8km walk every morning. By a week I was doing the walk twice every other day.
On May 28th, 2009 I weighed in at 213.6 pounds. I lost 21.2 pounds in my first month.
In the last week I have stepped up my excersizing by doing 1 hour of weight training in my shop every other day, and on the days I dont weight train I will get on my treadmill for 30 minutes.
Ideally my goal is to retrain my eating habits so by the time I am a more comfortable weight (im thinking somewhere between 175 and 185 lbs) I can reduce the amount of excersize I am doing without putting the weight back on.
As I am new here I am very open to suggestions and advice from the community. As the internet has so much information to offer its hard sometimes to take what your reading at face value and alot of times the information is misleading or just plain wrong.
Thanks for having me!