My attempts at weight loss began a bit less than a year and a half ago. When I showed up to a physical at 5-9 and weighing 234 lbs., my physician told me I needed to start shedding some weight or I would have serious health problems later in life. I'm currently 21, and I'm not far removed from being in pretty good shape just a few years ago when I did organized sports, so I am pretty well aware of the types of things I need to do to stay in shape and maintain a healthy weight; I just wasn't doing them. I immediately started doing a lot of research and talking to my nutritionist, and I set about eating well and exercising. Over the course of four or five months I dropped beneath 200 lbs. However, it was not to last. My exercise routine slipped into nothing, I resumed my lazy lifestyle, and I gained back a lot of weight until I was in the 225 lbs. range again. More recently, I realized I was gaining the weight back and decided to tackle the problem again. Within a couple months I've dropped back down to 215 lbs. or so and gradually built back my capacity to exercise, though less aggressively than last time. I would like to drop 35 lbs. or so to get down to 180 lbs. While this is probably not my ideal weight (I was around 165 lbs. in high school), it seems more attainable and I want to avoid getting discouraged too early.
Overall I'm a pretty healthy eater these days, though I probably eat more calories than a typical person. I eat a lot of vegetables, not very much red meat or dark meat, and prefer whole grains over refined grains. I don't actually count calories, and never had to even while losing weight. In order to lose weight, I found it far easier to up the amount of vegetables I ate than to actually decrease the volume of food I ate, which would just leave me hungry. It has been fairly successful for me so far and I will probably stick to it and not bother counting calories until my weight loss grinds to a halt in spite of getting sufficient exercise. I will occasionally mention details about what I'm eating, but it isn't going to be the main point of my diary because I haven't had many recent struggles with making healthy food choices and only lapse occasionally.
The real problem for me is sticking to an exercise program. While I was exercising nearly daily last year, I've been having trouble sticking to that this year due to lack of dedication. I'm hoping that making a diary here will force me to stick to it, because I will feel pressure to make sure I stick to exercising.
I plan to have somewhere around three vigorous one-hour exercise sessions a week, two lighter 30-minute to 45-minute exercise sessions a week, and up to two rest days a week. I know this is possible because I was even more aggressive the last time I took a stab at losing weight, though I had to build up to it that time by starting with just walking and eventually working my way up to jogging or running for an hour at a time. The real problem is just making sure I make exercise a high enough priority to keep working out long enough every week.
I started yesterday with an hour of jogging about 4.5 miles, and followed it up today with a light 30-minute jog on the treadmill a bit over 2 miles. I will vary up with other forms of exercise once the gym re-opens and I have access to a pool and stationary bikes. I will also probably start doing weight training once or twice a week once the gym opens up. I intend to increase my exercise capacity over time so that I can do much better than that, so this diary is as much about improving my ability to run as it is about losing weight. I'm hoping that as I lose weight I will be able to play sports in a way that I haven't been able to do since high school.
Thanks for reading!
Overall I'm a pretty healthy eater these days, though I probably eat more calories than a typical person. I eat a lot of vegetables, not very much red meat or dark meat, and prefer whole grains over refined grains. I don't actually count calories, and never had to even while losing weight. In order to lose weight, I found it far easier to up the amount of vegetables I ate than to actually decrease the volume of food I ate, which would just leave me hungry. It has been fairly successful for me so far and I will probably stick to it and not bother counting calories until my weight loss grinds to a halt in spite of getting sufficient exercise. I will occasionally mention details about what I'm eating, but it isn't going to be the main point of my diary because I haven't had many recent struggles with making healthy food choices and only lapse occasionally.
The real problem for me is sticking to an exercise program. While I was exercising nearly daily last year, I've been having trouble sticking to that this year due to lack of dedication. I'm hoping that making a diary here will force me to stick to it, because I will feel pressure to make sure I stick to exercising.
I plan to have somewhere around three vigorous one-hour exercise sessions a week, two lighter 30-minute to 45-minute exercise sessions a week, and up to two rest days a week. I know this is possible because I was even more aggressive the last time I took a stab at losing weight, though I had to build up to it that time by starting with just walking and eventually working my way up to jogging or running for an hour at a time. The real problem is just making sure I make exercise a high enough priority to keep working out long enough every week.
I started yesterday with an hour of jogging about 4.5 miles, and followed it up today with a light 30-minute jog on the treadmill a bit over 2 miles. I will vary up with other forms of exercise once the gym re-opens and I have access to a pool and stationary bikes. I will also probably start doing weight training once or twice a week once the gym opens up. I intend to increase my exercise capacity over time so that I can do much better than that, so this diary is as much about improving my ability to run as it is about losing weight. I'm hoping that as I lose weight I will be able to play sports in a way that I haven't been able to do since high school.
Thanks for reading!
