Newbie incoming!

B

Bearhug

New member
Hi there!
My name is Ben and I finally decided to lose weight, seriously this time.
I've always been discouraged by complex diets and exercise "routines", but I'm highly motivated now.

I'm currently at about 140kg (~309lbs) / 180cm (5"11'). I've always been overweight, but over the last few years it's just gone worse and worse.

The progress some people here made really inspired me!

Maybe some of you can give me tips or pointers on what I'm doing wrong/right...

What I currently do is calorie counting, I opt for a daily calorie count of about 1500. What I don't really know is what exactly I should eat. I bought a lot of Cottage Cheese, some low-fat cheese (12%), low-fat ham and low-fat milk/buttermilk. Apart from that, I'm not sure how my daily diet should look like. I've read the Stickies here, but I'm not sure how I should eat 309g of protein every day. Googling for these kind of things make me believe that I have to do the grocery shopping in the pharmacy from now on.

I lift weights every other day (Rippetoe's Beginner Program) and I try to take walks and swim whenever I can (weather, etc.). I plan to join a Boxing/MMA gym soon, but right now it's not possible due to several things.

I'm really glad I found this site! A lot of information, motivating posts and friendly people who have achieved a lot!

Regards, Ben :)
 
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Welcome to the forum Ben.

1500 calories a day sounds a bit low for someone of your weight to me.

A lot of people will lose weight on 12 * weight in pounds = calories

I dont see how you will get a calorie total that you will be able to stick to and will hit your nutrient targets on 1500 calories.

I weigh a lot less than you now and lost my last bit of weight down to goal on a happy range of 1400 to 1700 calories...

Good luck. It is great to see you motivated. You can do this....
 
Omega said:
Welcome to the forum Ben.

1500 calories a day sounds a bit low for someone of your weight to me.

A lot of people will lose weight on 12 * weight in pounds = calories

I dont see how you will get a calorie total that you will be able to stick to and will hit your nutrient targets on 1500 calories.

I weigh a lot less than you now and lost my last bit of weight down to goal on a happy range of 1400 to 1700 calories...

Good luck. It is great to see you motivated. You can do this....
Click to expand...

That would be about 3700 Calories a day ... I doubt I even eat then when I'm not trying to lose weight. It's not that big of a life style difference to what I'm used to ...

Nutrition really is my big problem, because I don't know what exactly I should eat and what not, and what foods have enough protein, etc. Things like that confuse me.

I'm really doubting my weight-loss plan right now ...
Even with my weight-lifting 3 times a week and swimming whenever I can, I don't think I do enough exercise to lose weight :/

I don't really have a problem with staying around 1500 calories, I just don't eat the right food. I ate toast with some ham and cheese today (~800 calories) and drank some low-fat milk, but I'm obviously missing protein, am I?
 
If you key the food that you eat into it will give you the breakdown of things like how much protein, fat, fibre etc in what you eat.

If you dont do that at least for a while until you get used to a way of eating you are trusting to guesswork which can bring in an awful lot of potential error.

If you are toying with eating something and want to know how it will affect your targets - key it in and see how the numbers go up. If you decide that you do not want it after all you can delete out the entry.

The fattening stuff is so high in calories that you may be surprised at how many calories you have been putting away too.

I eat a lot of food - but it is all so healthy that I can actually eat a greater volume of food than my husband (who still eats the fattening stuff). He weighs 362 pounds and his weight is not reducing at all. I can assure you - it isnt like I have a tiny appetite. I probably eat more than I did when I was big.

Eating at too low a level can lead to problems like plateaus and things down the line when your body has got used to you eating at a pretty low level. Then you can be stuck.

Also - if you only eat 1500 calories you will have great difficulty hitting your targets for fibre, calcium, protein etc. If you dont hit those targets - you are effectively giving your body lower grade fuel.

Exercise is a very good move to aid weight loss. I found that walking made the biggest of differences to me - and I think that almost everyone that would hope to lose weight outside of a specialist facility would be able to walk (albeit reasonably slowly at first) as a form of exercise.

Do not doubt the benefits of walking. I can assure you that when I was big I didnt do anything briskly - yet people still today tell me that walking has to be done briskly to be of any benefit to lose weight. If you are big it can be of the greatest of benefit. I pushed the distances further as soon as I could and found that I naturally speeded up. I did make sure to go out walking every single day. I still walk a minimum of 6.5 miles every day.

There are plenty of people on this forum happily losing weight at around 3000 calories a day. I was just chatting to ReluctantCabbie recently and he was telling me that his happy range was around there. Naturally we have to recalculate as the pounds drop away - but we do not burn the calories for dragging the size of body we had last month or year around - we burn the calories for moving the size of body that we have today.

If nutrition is a problem - then read those sticky threads.

As far as protein goes - then I hit my targets from fat free yoghurt (which causes me to hit my calcium targets single-handedly), beans plus lean fish and meat. I eat a lot of fruit and vegetables by anyones standards and that causes me to hit my fibre targets.

Nutrition and exercise are key aspects in a challenge that I am currently running called Summer Shake Up. You would be more than welcome to join in.
 
Hello there Ben, I'm Scott and we're very happy to see you here.

Omega is right Ben, you need more calories. Last time I did this, I was losing from 200 to 175 and I did it on something like 2500 cals a day. Everyone is different, but if I can lose on that much a bigger guy doesn't need to be eating nearly half that.

Allow me to quote the illustrious Steve, from his "A rant about basic concepts" thread:

http://weight-loss.fitness.com/newcomers/11548-rant-about-basic-concepts-i.html

"So how many calories should you consume?

A general rule of thumb for determining your break-even (maintenance) caloric intake is 14-16 calories per pound of bodyweight. These numbers are skewed, however, for very lean people or very big people. These numbers also factor in a moderate level of exercise. If you aren't exercising, your maintenance will be a good bit lower than this.

Also, to invoke weight loss, a good general rule of thumb shoot for 12 cals/lb or thereabouts, get at least 1g/lbm of protein, good healthy fats (75g or so is a good number to start with) and fill in the rest with carbs."

I would like to emphasize where he says 1g per LBM. That's lean mass, not total weight. Take your weight, multiply by your body fat percentage (assuming you can obtain this), and subtract the result back from your weight to obtain LBM.

E.G. I am 201 pounds. I am 25.5% bodyfat.
201 x .255 = 51.25500
201 - 51.25500 = 149.74500, or close enough to say 150 grams daily

Also, I would emphasize getting both protein and carbs at every feeding. I had always heard the protein took longer to digest and so you did not get hungry again as quick, but all I find to back it up is that protein is best at suppressing the hunger hormone.

Stave Off Hunger With Protein
Study says protein-rich diet staves off hunger pangs

Either way, more frequent protein helps with hunger. I think I read something else about how much your body could effectively synthesize in a given time frame but I digress.

Finally, to further address the protein needs.

All dairy: cottage cheese and yogurt are both extra great - try greek yogurt with fruit or honey, it offers even more protein,
Meat: of course. Fish and fowl are best, lean cuts if you go red
Protein powders: cassein for general purpose, whey for post-workout, avoid soy please (these are great btw, try a serving a day with milk as a snack to supplement)
Vegetable sources: beans, nuts, and whole grains. Take a peek at:
Sources of Vegetarian Protein and Guide

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, I'm excitable like that. But I hope it helps some.
 
I would simply add to the above that when you enter things in fitday - you may be surprised to see how many carbs you eat when you eat fruit and veg. A lot of people see the term carb and think of things like bread.
 
Thanks for all the detailed answers, they are really, really helpful.
I'm so glad I found this website :)
Registered at FitDay and I will use it from now on, great site too.

Thanks again! If I make any progress, I'll make sure to let you know.
 
The other great thing about fitday is that you can log your exercise and since you enter your profile info with things like age, weight etc it can calculate the calorie balance so you see your deficit on the day. It is this deficit that produces the weight loss.
 
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