Skurgeon’s Diary

Skurgeon

Well-known member
My first Entry

I weighed 402 pounds 17 months ago. Since then I’ve lost 167 pounds and now weigh 235.

I’ve lost the weight by counting calories and working out/exercising.

I don’t have a firm goal weight but my guess is somewhere between 195 and 210. I think I’ll know the closer I get. At the moment I think I look pretty good.

The beginning:

I got so overweight by obviously eating too much. If I had to guess I was probably eating about 4500 calories a day on average but I never tracked it so who knows? I was making the worst choices. Fast food… A lot of fast food… I mean a real lot. If it wasn’t fast food it was late night grocery store shopping for that nights binge which usually took place in the grocery stores parking lot. I would eat until I just couldn’t eat anymore…and then an hour later I would eat more… especially if it was pizza or chicken wings or ice cream that I hadn’t been able to finish earlier.

I had decided I had had enough in November of 2019. I was wearing a 6 XL shirt and 62 inch waisted pants. I was only 392 pounds at the time. I got a gym membership and started going but not really and I ate a little bit better but not much and by January 22nd 2020 I was 402. Seeing the “4” in front of my weight was my wake up call. At this point I couldn’t walk for 3 minutes without back pain (caused by huge belly I think) The gym and diet became my laser focus.

I lost 18 pounds in 10 days by Feb 1st( insane I know… I thought we’ll it’s all water weight)
I lost another 18 pounds during the month of February.
I lost 15 pounds in March
I lost 18 pounds April.

that’s 69 pounds lost in the 3 months and 10 days. I was in a zone. After that Covid came along and took the gym away from me. I continued to focus on my diet and do what I could at home. Weight loss slowed to about 2 pounds per week which I thought was great. Like clockwork I lost about 8 pounds a month.

The gym came back and went away a few times because of Covid. It was driving me crazy. I love lifting weights. I have my own adjustable bench and power block dumbbells that go up to 85 pounds. I’ve had these for over 20 years. I started using them whenever the gym wasn’t available but I never feel like I can really do what I want.

My Diet:

I follow a CICO approach and I focus on protein for my bodybuilding. I decided to go with a balanced approach and not make anything taboo on my diet (even thou that still happened) I came out with a basic outline/goal of 35% Carb, 35% Protein and 30% Fat. That rarely ever happened. Most days looked something like 40% Carbs, 40% protein and 20% fat.

I eventually came to a Calorie goal of 2250 per day that had at least 200 grams of protein. This resulted in the 2 pounds a week weight loss and I stayed in that groove a long long time. I came up with the 200 grams of protein because I heard you should eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. I knew 400 grams of protein was probably too much so I chose 200 because that was my initial goal. To cut myself in half and go from 400 pounds to 200 pounds. So I tailored my diet and protein to what I thought a 200 pound version of me should eat. I had the thought eat like a 200 pound person and become that.

My calories probably could have been higher but I didn’t feel deprived or hungry and I thought my 2 pounds a week weight loss wasn’t too extreme so I settled in that zone for about a whole year.

At the beginning of this month(June 2021) I decided to change my calories. my average weight loss had gone from 2 pounds to about 1.7 over the course of the year. I decided that I wanted to lose weight slower. My thinking was I don’t want to free fall into my end weight (whatever it is) I want to glide slowly so that it just slowly bleeds into a maintenance phase.

So I decided that I wanted to lose just 1 pound a week. I did the math and came out with an answer of adding 350 calories per day to make my daily calorie intake 2600. I should say that even thou my calories were set at 2250 over the course of a month they would average out to about 2150.

By the way I have tracked things very analytically. I have way too much data! I weigh all my food. I log everything in an app. I do monthly assessments on pen and paper. (I’ll post pictures at some point). I would easily suspect that my level of tracking qualifies as an eating disorder. But I love it! I love math and graphs and charts and all those kinds of analytics.

So, upping my calories to 2600 has been slightly difficult. I was finding it hard to eat that much without introducing more calorie dense foods that I had been avoiding. 3 weeks into June and I’m getting closer and 2600 is starting to feel more normal. At 1 pound a week I should lose 4 pounds in June but 20 days in and I’ve already lost 5 this month. It will be interesting to crunch the numbers when the month ends.

I guess that’s enough for a first entry. I welcome any questions or comments.
 
Sounds like you've really got a handle on things! I love how systematic you are about your weightloss. Losing two pounds a week when you're very overweight is fine but I agree that right now a pound a week is probably enough. I often struggle with getting my calories up high enough without resorting to unhealthy foods that might trigger a binge for me. But then again undereating makes me more likely to binge too, so... it's hard sometimes.
 
I agree LaMaria. This morning I had French toast and kiwis. I added Reese peanut butter chips to my French toast to boost the calories a bit and because they taste good! But it is dangerous to have this stuff around. I’ve been good with it so far. A year ago I don’t think I could have something like this in the cupboard.

I tried to upload a picture of my breakfast but it says it’s too large.

It was 483 calories
72 carbs,
8 fat,
32 protein.
 
I tried to upload a picture of my breakfast but it says it’s too large.
At 483 calories I disagree :rotflmao:
I admire anyone who succeeds at moderation. I'm convinced it would be the healthiest solution but man is it hard.
 
Congrats on the weight loss so far! It sounds like you and I have taken a similar analytical approach with good results. Here's mine:

Screenshot_20210621-100550~2.png
 
Wow, Skurgeon. I love your first diary entry & I love your approach. I think it's great that you are trying to slow down your weight loss to glide into moderation. Moderation is incredibly difficult, but I have a feeling you will be able to work it out. You & Err might just have me starting a graph. I think I would prefer to have something on paper.
 
A little more information about me.

I spent many years working in lots of different restaurants cooking food. As a result I’m a great cook which is both an asset and a hindrance to weight loss (Although I would say it leans more towards being an asset)

I can cook anything! Healthy, unhealthy and everything in between. I’m the guy that throws a fancy dinner party and has you sit at the table as I serve the appetizers, entrees and desserts all plated just so! When the fellas and I would go camping (real, no running water, poop in the woods type camping). I would be the cook. They would give me money and I would plan, buy, prep and cook all the food and they would do the dishes. I would go all out, trying to make the most ridiculous thing you can think of out in the wild. I would fatten everybody up and the wives would remark that we ate better camping then at home. It was true! I once made a shrimp and scallop bisque with garlic bread while camping.

So I’m pretty good with a knife. I can dice, slice, chop a mountain of food very quickly. Very handy skill when preparing healthy food like vegetables for a few days. I’ll spend about an hour on Wednesday and an hour on Saturday and that will be the majority of the food I eat throughout the week. I just go into prep cook mode like I used to when working in restaurants.

One of my staples during this weight loss journey.

Vegetable Soup. You can not go wrong with a homemade vegetable soup. It is so low calorie and filling. I make the most basic and easy soup ever. It’s sort of crossing the line into a stew. At first I tried all kinds of vegetables, so many vegetables in my soup but I eventually scaled the number of ingredients down and just used more of each. Onion, carrot, celery, red bell pepper, peas. That’s all with a store bought low sodium chicken broth and some secret spices!

I always have a large pot of vegetable soup in the fridge. When it’s finished I make another one to replace it. At first I was making chicken soups and fish soups and then I realized if I just made the vegetable soup I could add whatever protein I wanted to each individual bowl. I would add chicken breast, Turkey breast, haddock, cod, salmon, shrimp, scallops etc…

I am writing this out after just having finished a bowl of Turkey soup which was my vegetable soup with pieces of deli Turkey breast. (It’s actual carved Turkey breast) It was my post workout meal.

303 calories,
32 carb
4 fat
33 protein.

Delicious and filling and it took me 1 minute to put together.

All that’s left for today (it’s 2am) is my pre bed protein shake which is a casein protein powder with 250 ml of a low fat milk. This is the only milk I drink all day but I used to drink so much milk… crazy amounts..especially the chocolate variety.

My pre bed shake comes in at 250 calories with 35 grams of protein. But I’ll only be at 2179 calories and my goal is 2600 so I might have to add a little something to close that gap a bit. I’m honestly satisfied enough after the soup to just go to bed without the shake but then I’d be almost 700 calories short on the day. That’s the power of high volume, low calorie eating.

After my shake I will be at:

250 grams of carbs
228 grams of Protein
42 grams of Fat

Too low on the Fat… I’d like that to be between 60 and 75. I will have to add something to my bedtime shake like peanut butter or maybe 15 grams of almonds. It won’t get me all the way there but it will bridge the gap a bit. This is where things get weird. Eating more when I’m not hungry. But I know I need the calories and will still lose weight. Especially since I’m lifting weights everyday and am trying to add muscle while losing fat.

My best guess is that I need to eat about 3100 calories a day to maintain my current weight of 235. I’ve been eating around 2200 for so long that I can’t imagine how I could do that without eating some more traditionally non diet type foods.
 
So I added 238 calories of peanut butter to my bed time shake.

So my total numbers for the day came out to:

2417 calories. (183 under my goal)
259 grams of carbs
241 grams protein
60 grams of fat

Percentage wise it came out to
41% carbs
38% protein
21% fat

I got my weight lifting workout in
I got my 10k steps in
I spent 9.5 hours at work including commute (sit down job)

It was a good day.
 
Being able to cook food that is both healthy and enjoyable is SUCH an advantage. Sounds like a good day indeed!
 
Had a pretty hard core crash on my mountain bike today but I’m not seriously hurt. Just some minor cuts and scrapes. Could have been worse.

Had to realign my handle bars when I got home.
 
That´s good to hear. I slipped and fell while hiking on Sunday so I guess I´m a bit oversensitive right now :)
 
You really have this getting fit & healthy well in hand. I must make a great big vegetable soup. I love having soup for breakfast. Your cooking skills sound like our son's. My husband is also a great cook. When I say "I must make a great big vegetable soup" all I have to do is mention it & it gets made. I take it you no longer work as a cook. It's a very high-pressure job. I know I couldn't do it. One night cooking in a pub was one night too many for me.
 
You really have this getting fit & healthy well in hand. I must make a great big vegetable soup. I love having soup for breakfast. Your cooking skills sound like our son's. My husband is also a great cook. When I say "I must make a great big vegetable soup" all I have to do is mention it & it gets made. I take it you no longer work as a cook. It's a very high-pressure job. I know I couldn't do it. One night cooking in a pub was one night too many for me.

No I switched jobs quite awhile ago. I only like cooking for myself and friends and family now. It’s crazy hard work in hot conditions and for long hours. I get paid twice as much now and do half the work I used to.

I’d like to post pictures of some of my dishes but I need to obviously scale down the photos. I get a message saying the attachments are too big.
 
18 months and 167 pounds lost. I only recorded weights in the app (happy scale) when I reached a new personal low. So this graph doesn’t spike up and down.
It's a wonderful achievement & I love your graph!
 
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