New member... needing advice to keep going.

K

kwest

0
Well I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I am really in need of some advice to further my weight loss "journey". I am 22 years old and have more or less been "big" my entire life.

Let me start by explaining my body build. I am currently about 295 pounds, Im 6'4. When I 'started' 8 months ago, I weighed 390 pounds. I have a very big body build, but I still think I could lose about 30-40 more pounds. 260 or 250 would be my ultimate goal.... but, I have been running into problems.

I have been stuck at around 300 for about a month now, after dropping at least 10+ pounds per month before. Its very frusterating because for the most part I havent gotten off track except for a few food slip ups.

On the average day I drink only water, will eat cereal or oatmeal or something for breakfast. Then I usually eat a sandwhich (turkey, peanut butter and jelly, or roast beef) for lunch with some kind of fruit. Dinner is usually something simple again like a sandwhich or some tuna and beans. I dont eat very many vegetables at all because Im on a very low income being a college student.

I teach Taekwondo for about 2-3 hours a day. That is what started me off on the path towards fitness. For the first couple months I didnt change anything else, but still lost weight by just doing Taekwondo. When it started to slow down, I changed my diet a little bit. Then when it still slowed down I changed to walking/jogging. Now I do at least an hour on an elyptical machine at high resistance everyday... sometimes more. I try and work in some crunches and things but I dont really have a good workout plan.

I feel like my muscles have gotten used to the elyptical machine and even though it says I burn like 1400 calories on the machine Im not sure if its accurate.

My main questions are this:

Do I need to change the type of workout? Has my body gotten to used to doing Taekwondo and using the elyptical machine? I have heard a lot about muscle confusion, but dont know what to do.

I take centrum multivitamins. I cant really afford anything else. Are these doing good for me, or are they a waste of time?

What can I do to counter the fact that I have a high sodium intake? Since I eat out of cans and packages, I take in like 150-200% of the sodium that is recommended for a 2000 calorie a day diet. What should I do about this, or is it insignificant?

Is it dangerous for a guy my size to only eat 1000-1500 calories a day and work out like I do? A lot of the times thats about all I get.

What are some specific excersies other than crunches/push-ups that a guy my size can do to lose fat around my stomach/pec areas. I am really pleased with my progress but I still have a really big belly and "man boobs."

Thanks in advance for any advice. I look forward to seeing where I am 6 months from now. I will try my best to continue, hopefully it will work out!
 
I'll tell you right off the bat that you're not eating enough and what you're eating is pretty darned unhealthy.

At 295 lbs and working out or 2-3 hours a day ... you're starving your body. I'm sure you've stopped losing weight because of that. At your weight and activity level, you would need 4600 calories (possibly more, given your level of activity) to maintain your current weight. To drop that down to 1000 - that's verging on dangerous, IMO.

And the more you try to "rev up" your exercise while continuing to deprive your body of needed nutrients and energy, the worse you're going to make it.

Additionally, by not getting enough nutrition, you're shedding lean muscle at a tremendous rate. Cardio + insufficient nutrition is a sure recipe for maximum muscle loss and minimum fat loss. The more muscle you lose, the more you harm your weight loss; muscle burns fat and the more muscle you lose, the less fat burning power you have. It becomes a vicious cycle.

And yes, sodium is going to be another problem that will keep the pounds on. Cut back on the packaged foods. And especially if you're on a budget, then packaged foods are a huge waste of money. You can eat cheaper and healthier by avoiding processed foods with lots of sodium and artificial ingredients.

I understand being on a budget, but you HAVE to start eating more, and eating more nutritious foods. You can buy frozen veg on sale for $1 a bag. You can buy cans of beans on sale - or better yet, dry beans where you can get a bag for $1 and eat 4 or 5 meals of of it. You can buy chicken thighs or drumsticks in bulk on sale for less than $1 a pound.

You should be eating around 2500 - 3000 calories per day in order to LOSE weight - especially at your current activity level. You need to get in at least 150g of protein (preferably more) per day.

Also read the sticky post in the exercise area by Steve ... it's called "The Conceptual Side of Weight Lifting". It'll explain to you why you need to be lifting weights or doing body resistance exercises to maintain muscle mass and it'll give you a guideline to a basic program that you can use to get started.

Finally, you cannot spot lose fat from areas of your body. You have to lose all over and let your body "realign" and recompose itself as you go along. Eating healthily and making sure you don't sabotage yourself by destroying lean muscle will help with the recomposition of your body so that you look good when you're done losing weight, and not just looking "skinny fat".
 
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What are cheap, good calories that I dont have to cook? I dont even own an oven. Im on a 50$ a week budget for food, sometimes less. Im living the stereotypical broke college kid life.

I just dont know what to do to get calories. I would love to add 1000 good calories but I just dont know how. Should I start eating egg whites maybe?
 
Kara recently started posting a series of "cheap eats" in the nutrition section with healthy costed out recipes which would be worth you looking at. She has also said that she is going to come up with a low budget menu which would be ideal for someone like yourself to follow.

I have always thought that things like beans were good food value for money - at least they are over here in the UK...

I have often considered a book (which I suspect is now out of print) to contain a lot of good advice on the subject of eating healthily on a tight budget. I will throw in a link for it - and if you spot it anywhere it would be worth getting.
 
Yeah, I'm working on a weekly meal plan that runs about $25 a week. I'll have it posted this week.

IN the meanwhile, my biggest suggestion for cheap eats is to go get yourself a crockpot. You can get one at WalMart or Target for around $25 or less - you don't need a fancy programmable one unless you just want to spend the money.

Beans, soups, that kind of thing are filling and nutritious and cheap. And it's getting to be the time of year for those things anyway! :)
 
I actually recalculated what I eat on an average day and I think its almost always a little over 2000 calories. But thats like only if I make sure to eat peanut butter every day.

I will try to up my calorie intake and I know I need to figure out someway to have at least a little vegetables everyday.

I am now officially more worried about the food Im eating than I am about my workout plan. Kinda sad. I think I will be okay, though. God, I hope so.

Also one of the questions I want to know about most: are these Centrum one-a-day vitamins actually doing me any good?
 
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I take Centrum performance and am pretty pleased with those. I have no intention of altering my vitamins.

If you go through your log on fitday - you will see how your food goes for meeting your daily vitamin requirements. The vitamins that you are low on are shown in red (under the nutrition tab). You can then add on the information from the side of the Centrum pack to see whether it brings it up over the RDA. The Centrum actually includes the full RDA for some vitamins....

If on examining a few sample days you are low on any vitamins you may want to either alter your food to cover or alternatively buy some extra capsules which cover off a specific vitamin.
 
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