New guy here

C

chrisj

New member
Hi all, I'm joining the group partway through my weight loss journey. I'm 44 yrs old and had the standard "weight creep" since around my mid 30's. Just the few lbs a year that you tend not to notice much. By the time I was 42 I was close to 200lbs (I'm just over 5' 8" for perspective).

This past September I decided enough was enough for various reasons, and started on the path to a better, healthier life. So far I've lost close to 30 lbs and I guess-timate I have another 10-15 to go, we'll see. But what I'm more happy about than the weight loss is that I've taken it very slowly, done no special "dieting" and done my best to educate myself about nutrition, general health and exercise. I feel that the changes I have made, I can easily stick with because they have become my new "normal".

I've learned tons by reading this forum, and I hope I can help others in return. I'm in no position to give out nutritional advice or anything of that nature, but I hope I can encourage others and help make it easier by sharing tips that have worked for me so far.

Chris
 
Great job. I am old than you but about the same height and so forth. I appreciate what are doing, since I am also doing the same thing.

I am interested in knowing what part of your plan do think contributed the most to your weight loss - exercise or eating carefully?

When you started your plan, which of the two things (exercise or food) did you think would be most effective?
 
Definitely diet.

When I started out to lose, I thought that I could keep doing everything as usual and just could throw exercise into the mix, and that the calories I was burning through exercise would start the weight literally falling off. I really had it all figured out, how to lose weight and still eat whatever I wanted.

I started on the treadmill 30 min steady cardio, 5x per week without fail or slacking. After a month of that, I had lost exactly squat, zip, nada. Unless you count hope and motivation. So at that point I started tweaking my diet. Nothing drastic, but I logged everything that went into my mouth for a few weeks, used a food scale religiously, and always estimated high when I had no choice but to take a best guess on calories. That's when the weight started coming off slowly but surely.

Then I removed most processed/junk foods and stopped drinking my calories (soda junkie) and ended up eating almost entirely whole foods, I found that I now have to really pay attention to make sure I eat close to my calories for the day without going under too much. I feel like I eat all the time, but the healthier foods in general just don't pack the calories that junk does. I never feel hungry, or crave anything really. If I'm hungry, I eat. If I want a snack, I have one. I'm just particular about what it is.

I think that I could cut way back on exercise and still lose now that my diet is under control. And I do exercise more now than initially, I do cardio 45min 4x week (dr. orders) and I do general resistance 3x week. I think it certainly helps in all areas, more than just weight loss, but for sure diet is what made the difference in my case.
 
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Hi I just started...

Congrats on your weight loss so far! Last year I had lost about 20 lbs of the 35 I need to lose, but now I have gained almost all of it back. So I joined this forum a couple weeks ago. Since then I have gained about 5 lbs. To make a long story short, I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm relatively educated on eating right and exercise but I'm just not doing it- its a psychological thing. I read your tips and they are helpful, I just have a couple questions. Are you bringing food with you to work, and making time to eat during the day, like meal planning? Also, how do you count calories? I'm trying to make changes without making it feel like a chore. Thanks for ur time and keep it up- I'm hoping some of ur momentum will rub off on me!
 
emitch17, thanks! To answer your questions...

For me it's 99% planning, organization and preparedness. Yes I do prepare and package things in advance. I tend to cook on the weekends in bulk and break it into portions. For example I cook a package of chicken breasts and put 4oz per freezer bag, that sort of thing. I cook lean beef the same way, cook and cut up chicken into individual bags for salads. I make sure I have veggie sides I can grab pretty quickly. I don't literally plan my meals ahead of time, but if it became the least bit of a problem I would start in a second. But I just try to make sure I have plenty of various meal components available, I can mix and match however I like on the fly.

It sucks to have to do it, but I've found that the less time standing with the fridge door hanging open wondering what I'm going to eat, the better. Because THAT is when I'll eat something I shouldn't. Not because I want it, but because I'm maybe short on time and I've been lazy about making sure I have something healthy readily available.

I track calories through livestrong.com, that's sort of the one I started with and though I tried fitday briefly I was already used to LS to I stuck with it. I can't emphasize enough how important a tracking method like LS and a food scale has been for me, it's been key in any success I've had. I weigh everything I can. I'll literally pick a peanut up off the scale and put it back in the can if needed. Losing weight is not fun to me, and just "eyeballing" stuff because I'm lazy or impatient contributes to slowing down loss and extending the process even longer. See the Leigh Peele youtube vid on weighing/measuring food if you haven't, proof that guess-timating is not your friend when counting calories.

I wish I could say none of this is a chore. But it does take extra effort at times. All I can say is do as much as possible ahead of time when you HAVE time, and set yourself up so that you don't have to put a lot of thought or willpower into it at every meal. Concentrate on whole foods for now simply because they are easy to track accurately. You can measure a portion of corn, but you can be WAY off with a casserole, or anything with lots of ingredients. I've tried to break down a few recipes by ingredients early on, it didn't take me long to say the heck with that and just eat the corn, lol.

Good luck, I hope you can get back on track and stick with it. If I can anyone can!
 
That's a lot of good information. A lot of guys think that exercise is the way to lose weight and not dieting. I think it may just be men's natural reaction to a situation is to get into "action". The word "diet" has a bad sound to us.
 
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