Shaneb's Weight Loss Diary

S

shaneb

New member
Hello my name's Shane. I've been struggling with my weight all my life, and now that I'm getting close to 20, I want to start a new healthy life style. I'm currently in college, and I have
very low self a steam because of my weight issue. I've been gaining weight dramatically over the past few years, and I didn't really notice it much until the last month or so. I just don't know where to begin.

I'm really just looking for a diet that I can use all my life, I've tried a few diets before and they didn't work. Some of them made me lose weight, but they were too extreme and unhealthy.
I came to this forum to keep me motivated. I've tried to lose weight in the past, but I was never really motivated. I'm hoping that keeping a daily diet diary will increase my success rate, and better my chances at maintaining a solid diet plan. If you have any tips it would be really appreciated (I haven't searched the forum at all, but I will after this is done)

My main goal is to lose around 70LB's within a year. I will be finishing up college next year, and I really need the confidence to be successful. I will be using the gym to help reach my goal, however I'm not too sure on a good work out routine yet. I'd like to start my goal on June 1st.

My weight is - 271LB's
Hy height is around 6 ' 2
I'm 19 Years old
Male

Little about me:
I was very active as a child, I played a lot of sports. My life style changed when I went to live with my dad. Basically I could eat and do anything I wanted, and that made me the lazy
person that I am today. I have asthma, and because of this it's been really hard running outside, and it's especially hard now that i'm overweight. I am very self conscious about my weight, and thats really made me shy. I always have the feeling that people are judging me.

I'm currently studying Networking at Georgian College. Some of my gen ed's require me to present in front of my class mates. I have a lot of issues doing this due to my weight , and I feel that If I lose some of the weight I can be more open and less shy.
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Stuff I'm giving up
- Chips
- Cookies
- Ice Cream
- Lemonade ( I love lemonade =( )
- Pizza

Every week for the past year, I've bought these items, and I believe personally that these are one of the main causes to my gaining weight over the past year or so.

I'm going to tally up the calories/fat that I've consumed with these items. Usually they only last a few days (except for ice cream which usually lasts the whole week).
Items -
2x Pringles (182g) - Approx - 1040Calories / 71g's of fat = 2080Calories + 142g's of fat
2x Delissio Pizzas - Approx - 2100Calories / 90g's of Fat = 4200Calories + 180g's of fat
1x 2L of Ice cream - Approx -2400Calories / 105g's of Fat = 2400Calories + 105g's of Fat
2x 2L's of Lemonade (Non-Diet) - Approx 1200Calories = 2400Calories
2x Doritos Chips (Large Bags) (220g) - Approx 1400Calories / 70gs of Fat = 2800Calories / 140g's of Fat
2x Presidents Choice Chips (235g) - Approx 1175Calories / 61g's of Fat = 2350Calories / 122g's of Fat
2x Chunks Ahoy! (350g) - Approx - 1700Calories / 80g's of Fat = 3400Calories / 160'gs of Fat

Heres what I came to.
22430Calories in total. 849g's of Fat in total.
= 7476 calories / 283g's of Fat a day

I'm doubling the amount I need to consume in one day. This is really shocking when you add it all up.

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When i do find a diet, I will be including a couple treat's weekly to keep me sane and keep me on the right path.
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Work Out Plan (So far)
My plan is to work out 5 times a week (Sun-Thurs).

So far in my work out plan I've included the following daily routines:

Sun & Tuesday
- Bike ride to gym and back (7 minutes x 2 = 14 minutes total)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 10 minutes ( I know this is low, and I do plan on increasing it, but I need to make these times realistic.)
- Strech before and after Cardio
Use the following Machines (Just a temp setup)

Hip Adduction - 70LB's - 2 sets of 12
Hip Abduction - 70LB's - 2 sets of 12
(I usually do 100LB's, but I've had some problems in my legs lately, and I don't want to risk injury)

Seated Leg Press - 135LB's - I did 2 sets of 12.

Leg Curl - 70LB's - 2 sets of 10

Teeter Totter - 50LB's - 2 sets of 10

2 Squating Exercises (Both with weight)

Monday & Wed
- Bike ride to gym and back (7 minutes x 2 = 14 minutes total)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 10 minutes ( I know this is low, and I do plan on increasing it, but I need to make these times realistic.)
- Strech before and after Cardio
- Work on upperbody ( Lateral pull down (110LB's) / Dumbells (2x20LB's to start me off / Few other workouts;not sure on names)

Thursday
- Bike ride to gym and back (7 minutes x 2 = 14 minutes total)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 30 minutes
- Stretch before and After

Friday & Saturday
- Relax Muscles


CALORIE's Per day
Thanks to amy1985, I now know how many calories I can consume daily to help lose weight.
A. To maintain current weight
Calories 4086.06 cal

B. To lose weight 2.2LB's per week
Calories 2985.06 cal

C. To gain weight by 1 pound per week
Calories 4585.06 cal

Diet Plan (So far):
Nothing yet, I love cooking and will try to implement solid healthy/tasty servings.
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I have a lot more to add, and I will when I find out more info.

P.S - I have my dad on board to, so this will help me keep motivated. Since im not in college this summer I will be making healthy dinners every night.
 
Last edited:
Hi, and welcome to the forum :)

What strategies do you plan to use to help you lose weight (apart from the diary, which is great for motivation)? Have you looked at other people's diaries and seen what's working for them?

I'm a calorie counter, and have gone from struggling with my weight since my teens to consistently losing healthy amounts of weight (I've lost 5kg- just over 11lb- in 6 weeks) without starving myself or depriving myself of things I enjoy.

I'd recommend reading around the forums, particularly the stickied posts, and read the words of wisdom there.

Good luck :)
 
amy1985 said:
Hi, and welcome to the forum :)

What strategies do you plan to use to help you lose weight (apart from the diary, which is great for motivation)? Have you looked at other people's diaries and seen what's working for them?

I'm a calorie counter, and have gone from struggling with my weight since my teens to consistently losing healthy amounts of weight (I've lost 5kg- just over 11lb- in 6 weeks) without starving myself or depriving myself of things I enjoy.

I'd recommend reading around the forums, particularly the stickied posts, and read the words of wisdom there.

Good luck :)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the warm welcome.

- For strategies, I will be including the gym, and maintaining a realistic diet. I don't have a set workout plan yet. I've recently just setup a gym membership. I went last night, and started
doing a bit of cardio.

- Good for you, I would also like to achieve something like that. How do you count your calories? Do you do it online?

- I haven't really read much on the forums yet. (I do plan to).
 
The first thing I did (and I recommend you do if you want to calorie count, or else calorie counting is meaningless) is work out your individual needs. Use this website: (I have no affiliation and am not recommending the company, it's just an all-in-one easy way of doing this). Don't aim to lose more than 2.2lb a week, or take that number below 1800 calories.

Then I'd recommend working out how many calories are in the foods you eat and like to eat. (Go on serving size unless you know how much you eat, most people underestimate) Think about your weight loss calorie goal as your "budget", and work out how you can satisfy yourself (not be hungry a lot, get your nutrition, have food you enjoy) within that budget. Depending how you eat, you can fit traditionally "bad" foods into your diet (chocolate, ice cream, chips), in small amounts.

There are three ways to find out calories- one is through a calorie counting program, which is a very useful tool to have at your disposal (particularly one where you can add your own foods). I use one called cron-o-meter (which can be downloaded as a program for free), others recommended are myfitnesspal and fitday. The other is simply by reading the nutritional values on the side of packs. Failing that, looking it up online will give you a reasonable guide (for example, googling 'calories bread' gets me this page: or 'calories Quavers' gets me this ). I also weigh my food so I'm as accurate as possible- I use a digital scale that weighs to the nearest gram (they're not expensive- mine cost me 10 pounds on sale, full price is 15). For recipes, I add up all the ingredients and divide by number of servings.

Feel free to check out my diary to see how it works in practice, and the information my calorie counter tells me (I had to tell it some information first- my goals and add the food I eat into it, which is a little labour intensive at first but it remembers everything, even things I had once right at the start of my diet). I don't go out of my way to calculate statistics and stuff, my program does all that for me, and it's very useful.

I'm not as confident on the exercise part, although I have something that works for me, but you need a good split of cardio and resistance training- weight loss involves loss of both fat and lean mass (muscle), and resistance training will minimise the amount of muscle lost so you have some definition (and a nicer shape) at the end. Gaining/ maintaining muscle mass also helps you burn calories. If you're worried about looking like a body builder, it's apparently pretty much impossible to build muscle in a calorie defict, so don't worry about that.
 
Welcome, and good luck on your path, one thing I would say is if there is something you rearly do fancy one day is to have it, as cutting things out all together will only lead too hard times down the line and head back to bad eating habits, imo of cause
 
An example of the benefits of calorie counting. May I present low calorie pizza? (depends on how you make it, but when I make it it ranges between 280 and 370 calories/ serve. I'm happy to break down how I made it for you, but it looks like you're in North America, so you may not have access to the same ingredients I do)
 
And what JLStretton said. You need to make this something you can keep to in the long run- find low calorie substitutes, or "save" some of your allowance for treats. Most people can't give up things they love and do terribly when they try (some people can and do give them up entirely, but I think they're in the minority).
 
JLStretton said:
Welcome, and good luck on your path, one thing I would say is if there is something you rearly do fancy one day is to have it, as cutting things out all together will only lead too hard times down the line and head back to bad eating habits, imo of cause
Click to expand...

amy1985 said:
And what JLStretton said. You need to make this something you can keep to in the long run- find low calorie substitutes, or "save" some of your allowance for treats. Most people can't give up things they love and do terribly when they try (some people can and do give them up entirely, but I think they're in the minority).
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. I did experience this issue a couple times when I was trying to diet in the past. I plan on treating my self once a month to maintain my sanity.
 
You honestly don't even have to be that hard on yourself :) I treat myself in one way or another every couple of days. I either make low calorie substitutes (like that pizza) or I have very small amounts of the thing I like (like 2 squares of chocolate, which is about 45 calories)
 
amy1985 said:
The first thing I did (and I recommend you do if you want to calorie count, or else calorie counting is meaningless) is work out your individual needs. Use this website: (I have no affiliation and am not recommending the company, it's just an all-in-one easy way of doing this). Don't aim to lose more than 2.2lb a week, or take that number below 1800 calories.

Then I'd recommend working out how many calories are in the foods you eat and like to eat. (Go on serving size unless you know how much you eat, most people underestimate) Think about your weight loss calorie goal as your "budget", and work out how you can satisfy yourself (not be hungry a lot, get your nutrition, have food you enjoy) within that budget. Depending how you eat, you can fit traditionally "bad" foods into your diet (chocolate, ice cream, chips), in small amounts.

There are three ways to find out calories- one is through a calorie counting program, which is a very useful tool to have at your disposal (particularly one where you can add your own foods). I use one called cron-o-meter (which can be downloaded as a program for free), others recommended are myfitnesspal and fitday. The other is simply by reading the nutritional values on the side of packs. Failing that, looking it up online will give you a reasonable guide (for example, googling 'calories bread' gets me this page: or 'calories Quavers' gets me this ). I also weigh my food so I'm as accurate as possible- I use a digital scale that weighs to the nearest gram (they're not expensive- mine cost me 10 pounds on sale, full price is 15). For recipes, I add up all the ingredients and divide by number of servings.

Feel free to check out my diary to see how it works in practice, and the information my calorie counter tells me (I had to tell it some information first- my goals and add the food I eat into it, which is a little labour intensive at first but it remembers everything, even things I had once right at the start of my diet). I don't go out of my way to calculate statistics and stuff, my program does all that for me, and it's very useful.

I'm not as confident on the exercise part, although I have something that works for me, but you need a good split of cardio and resistance training- weight loss involves loss of both fat and lean mass (muscle), and resistance training will minimise the amount of muscle lost so you have some definition (and a nicer shape) at the end. Gaining/ maintaining muscle mass also helps you burn calories. If you're worried about looking like a body builder, it's apparently pretty much impossible to build muscle in a calorie defict, so don't worry about that.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the very detailed response. I will defiantly check out those sites and get started. I am not to fond on the exercise part either, but I believe that it is half the battle to recovery.
 
amy1985 said:
You honestly don't even have to be that hard on yourself :) I treat myself in one way or another every couple of days. I either make low calorie substitutes (like that pizza) or I have very small amounts of the thing I like (like 2 squares of chocolate, which is about 45 calories)
Click to expand...

Temptation is the only thing that worries me, but I will see what I can do.

I have this habbit of opening something and eating it all lol. Something I have to really work on
 
You sound like you're doing really well. You really sound motivated, good on you.

Good luck with your weight loss. :)
 
I don't know how well you can manage it, but see if you can get the bad things out of your house for awhile. If it's not readily available, you have to make some effort to go and get it, and so you have to think about whether you want it or not.

Alternately (I started with nothing bad in my house, but I'm getting better at it- I also live alone so no one else has any say on what comes into my kitchen), the budget mentality really works for me. If that pack of chips is 900 calories (number based on this, wow, that's horrifying: ), and you have 2000 calories to eat in a day, is it really worth half of your budget? Sometimes (like with the 45 calories worth of chocolate I have) the answer will be yes- but most of the time, the answer should be "no thanks, I'm really not interested in going hungry for the rest of the day".

Low calorie alternatives are brilliant. That pizza recipe I gave you was in response to about a week of persistent pizza craving- I found that, made it, it hit the spot, and I didn't blow my budget.
 
amy1985 said:
An example of the benefits of calorie counting. May I present low calorie pizza? (depends on how you make it, but when I make it it ranges between 280 and 370 calories/ serve. I'm happy to break down how I made it for you, but it looks like you're in North America, so you may not have access to the same ingredients I do)
Click to expand...

The pizza looks really good, I can probably still make it just need to change a few items around.
 
amy1985 said:
I don't know how well you can manage it, but see if you can get the bad things out of your house for awhile. If it's not readily available, you have to make some effort to go and get it, and so you have to think about whether you want it or not.

Alternately (I started with nothing bad in my house, but I'm getting better at it- I also live alone so no one else has any say on what comes into my kitchen), the budget mentality really works for me. If that pack of chips is 900 calories (number based on this, wow, that's horrifying: ), and you have 2000 calories to eat in a day, is it really worth half of your budget? Sometimes (like with the 45 calories worth of chocolate I have) the answer will be yes- but most of the time, the answer should be "no thanks, I'm really not interested in going hungry for the rest of the day".

Low calorie alternatives are brilliant. That pizza recipe I gave you was in response to about a week of persistent pizza craving- I found that, made it, it hit the spot, and I didn't blow my budget.
Click to expand...

I'm currently living with my brother, and dad. They like to eat a lot of the bad things that I eat. It's going to be hard transitioning over.

I think I might try a different approach as it was mentioned previously. I'm going to continue eating some of the not so good food in rations. I believe this will help my craving.

Btw - What type of chocolate are you eating thats only 45 Calories?
 
Just wanted to point out that I will be starting this goal on June 1st. This will give me some time to get prepared.
 
shaneb said:
Work Out Plan (So far)
My plan is to work out 5 times a week (Sun-Thurs).

So far in my work out plan I've included the following daily routines:

Sun & Tuesday
- Bike ride to gym (5 minutes)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 10 minutes ( I know this is low, and I do plan on increasing it, but I need to make these times realistic.)
- Strech before and after Cardio
- Work on Legs (I'm not to sure on the names of the machines yet, but when I find out I will post)

Monday & Wed
- Bike ride to gym (5 minutes)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 10 minutes ( I know this is low, and I do plan on increasing it, but I need to make these times realistic.)
- Strech before and after Cardio
- Work on upperbody ( Lateral pull down (110LB's) / Dumbells (2x20LB's to start me off / Few other workouts;not sure on names)

Thursday
- Bike ride to gym (5 minutes)
- Cardio (Treadmill) for 10 minutes ( I know this is low, and I do plan on increasing it, but I need to make these times realistic.)
- Strech before and after Cardio
- Work on Legs (I'm not to sure on the names of the machines yet, but when I find out I will post)
- Work on upperbody ( Lateral pull down (110LB's) / Dumbells (2x20LB's to start me off / Few other workouts;not sure on names)
Click to expand...


Your working upper body 2 days in a row (Wed, Thurs) which is not allowing enough recovery time between re working identical muscles. If you really want to do a split with upper/lower then Sunday Upper, Monday Lower, Tuesday Rest, Wednesday Upper, Thursday Lower. With cardio work done after the lifting routine. Having the lifting rest day after lower body allows for extra recovery time for the much larger legs and gluteal muscles. assuming the bike ride is your warm-up.
 
Trusylver said:
Your working upper body 2 days in a row (Wed, Thurs) which is not allowing enough recovery time between re working identical muscles. If you really want to do a split with upper/lower then Sunday Upper, Monday Lower, Tuesday Rest, Wednesday Upper, Thursday Lower. With cardio work done after the lifting routine. Having the lifting rest day after lower body allows for extra recovery time for the much larger legs and gluteal muscles. assuming the bike ride is your warm-up.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, I will change it up a bit. Maybe it's best that I just do a bit of cardio on thursday to give the rest of my body a break.
 
Most chocolate, if you have a very small amount of it, will be that low calorie. The chocolate I had was just regular milk chocolate (well, it was very nice milk chocolate, but that's beside the point- it wasn't "diet" or anything). I just only allowed myself to have a tiny amount (chunks of say an inch by an inch and a half) and weighed it to make sure I wasn't eating too much. The whole block was over 500 calories, so again I'll stress this isn't some big diet secret product that I'm hiding from the world- it's just portion control.

If you make that sort of pizza and change the ingredients, you'll need to recalculate the calories. I've made that pizza and adapted as well- the most important things to watch are the base (bread can be high calorie), the cheese (recipe says "Tasty", not sure how widely available that is outside Australia, I used reduced fat mature cheddar), what meat you use, and anything else thrat might be loaded in fat or sugar (e.g. meat- I use lean or extra lean ham).

If you go for eating junk, try to live by the 80-20 rule- be good most of the time (it's important for your nutrition) and treat yourself a small amount of the time. If you can keep your treats calorie controlled then you can do it regularly (no more than 20% of the time, I'd say) and without guilt.
 
amy1985 said:
Most chocolate, if you have a very small amount of it, will be that low calorie. The chocolate I had was just regular milk chocolate (well, it was very nice milk chocolate, but that's beside the point- it wasn't "diet" or anything). I just only allowed myself to have a tiny amount (chunks of say an inch by an inch and a half) and weighed it to make sure I wasn't eating too much. The whole block was over 500 calories, so again I'll stress this isn't some big diet secret product that I'm hiding from the world- it's just portion control.

If you make that sort of pizza and change the ingredients, you'll need to recalculate the calories. I've made that pizza and adapted as well- the most important things to watch are the base (bread can be high calorie), the cheese (recipe says "Tasty", not sure how widely available that is outside Australia, I used reduced fat mature cheddar), what meat you use, and anything else thrat might be loaded in fat or sugar (e.g. meat- I use lean or extra lean ham).

If you go for eating junk, try to live by the 80-20 rule- be good most of the time (it's important for your nutrition) and treat yourself a small amount of the time. If you can keep your treats calorie controlled then you can do it regularly (no more than 20% of the time, I'd say) and without guilt.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the rule of thumb. As for the pizza, I don't think it will be that much more of increase. I'd probably only subsititue in a few mushrooms to add a bit more flavor. I will see what I can get from those ingredients, and I'll let you know
 
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