The big oak (Quercus) needs to drop some dead limbs!

Quercus

Quercus

New member
Help me help myself.

I'm 6' 3" amd 349.2 lbs (12/7/2012)

I've been over 300 pounds with two brief exceptions since 1990. I'm 37 and I have a physically demanding job that would be much less demanding if I weighed 70-80 pounds less.

I like to power lift, but I haven't in a long while. My goal is to lose weight and get in better physical condition in general. I am not interested in gimmicks, pills, or surgery. I know what to do I just have to do it.

Today (12/7/12) I have begun daily weigh-ins and logging everything I eat and drink in a little notebook.

I'm here for accountability, so feel free to scold and praise as needed.

The problems:

My clothes don't fit and I refuse to buy bigger.

My back/hip/knee on my left side constantly hurt (sciatica).

My asthma is worsened by my fatness.

I feel tired and depressed.

The plan:

Eat 2,500 calories max to start and use as long as I'm losing 1-2 pounds a week.

Exercise beginning with walking, body weight exercises, and light lifting. I'll iron out a routine, but do SOMETHING will get me started.

Post my weight and activity daily.
 
Welcome aboard.

2,500 calories sound good, it might be a little low given your current situation but that will soon even itself out. However if you do find yourself starving from it, you could probably spare a couple hundred more and still lose plenty, provided your job gives you the kind of exercise it sounds like it does. Even at perfect weight (whatever the hell that means) you're just a big dude so you'll eventually just have to eat more than everyone else.

I've found it helps a lot to make most of your meals at home, at least to start so that you can have a general idea how many calories are in what. A cheap little digital food scale might help too, and they're cheap.

What's worked so far for me is to try and adjust slowly. Start off just trying to reach your calorie goals by eating whatever you're used to, but less of it. Then if you feel like that's not giving you enough of the right nutrients, you can slowly over time work in more and more of the stuff everybody always gets on people to eat (fresh veggies and high fiber and lean proteins and so on). Make a few easy changes, and once you've had some success, make a few more easy ones, etc.

As for the scolding, normally I would but I make it a general rule not to scold people over 6'1". :)
 
Awesome, another powerlifter:hurray:

Welcome to the forum, I will stop by and keep an eye on your progress, and scold or praise as needed :)
 
Trusylver said:
Awesome, another powerlifter:hurray:

Welcome to the forum, I will stop by and keep an eye on your progress, and scold or praise as needed :)
Click to expand...

Thanks! I've never competed and my numbers are embarrassing especially for my size but I enjoy it (especially DL). That Wilk's dude is a jerk! :)
 
tell me about it lol, I have had him as a judge, but he does know his stuff. It doesn't really matter what your numbers are, it is yourself your really competing against. I have short arms so DL is my worst lift, but on the other hand it helps a lot with Bench :)
 
Yep, long arms here so I super suck at bench. Probably why I like to box too. I didn't realize Wilks was around and judging. It's just his coefficient that I don't care for. I don't know anything about him, but I would guess he isn't very big ;)
 
I've hit my goal of 2,500 calories for today and that included 3 healthy meals (steamed and raw veggies, fruits, nuts, lean meat) and more wine than I need. No exercise as my sciatica is really bothering me after a 9 hour truck ride from south Texas yesterday. I'll weigh in the morning.
 
Thank you Trusylver!

weighed in at 342.2 for -6.8 for day one!

Both weights are first thing in the AM.

Obviously a lot of retained water, but I'm happy to be away from that 350 mark. I drank lots of water yesterday and kept my sodium reasonable. On track with food and water today, but I'm going to a party which means temptations. I'll make my calories for the day though.

My sciatica is still bad. Everything but lying down hurts. I'm going to hit the Alleve and ice pack before I head out today.
 
Yeah, unfortunately everything I've read about sciatica is that the only way to treat it is to manage the pain and soreness, and then otherwise address the source of the compression (which I'm guessing is probably the extra weight, or at least it sure isn't helping). Happy to not be a sufferer. Good luck to you.
 
Yeah, it just sucks. Mine started following an injury to my lower back, but the extra weight makes it flare up. Being lighter may not heal it, but it will at least help.

I may have gone a slight bit over 2500, but I was close to it. I've lost two inches around my belly since last week.

I won't weigh tomorrow because I'll be up early to hunt and I doubt I'll remember. Off to bed!
 
Just a quick post to mention that despite a lack of sleep I feel better than I have in a long time. :)
 
339.2 -10 pounds

My belly measurement is -3" from my starting point.

Obviously a lot of water weight loss, but it's so nice to be getting away from that 350 mark so quickly. Just three days in and I am feeling better already. My goal for this week is to get the ball rolling on an exercise routine. Christmas will be a big hurdle for my diet, but it's a planned cheat and my goal is to hit my 2,500 calories every day until then and get right back on track the day after Christmas.

I hit my 2,500 calories yesterday. Obviously it's an effective starting point. Hopefully it will get me 1-2 pounds a week once my water weight loss subsides.

I typically gain or stop losing when I first start exercising. That's why I am including a belly measurement so I can stay reassured during that time.
 
2,600 calories for the day

I drank a lot of water today, but I didn't pee much. I imagine that will mean a rebound in weight. We'll see in the morning. I went a tiny bit over goal, but I ate pretty healthy. I failed to get the ball rolling on an exercise routine again, but at least I will have field work later this week.
 
Just as I suspected my weight crept up a bit to 340.2. I'm not discouraged as 10 pounds in 3 days was ridiculous anyway. I likely was dehydrated as I didn't drink enough water over the weekend.

I'll drink a ton of water today and eat well. I'm going to come in under 2,500 to make up for being a bit over yesterday.

I WILL exercise tonight or keep my calories at 2,000 until I do. That should motivate me.
 
View attachment 19289

Here is a WAY before pic of me from years ago. This was my all time heaviest at around 400 pounds. What floors me about this picture is that I look short. You know you are way to fat when you are 6' 3" and your width makes you look stubby. I'll post a current "before" pic soon.
 
Quercus said:
Just as I suspected my weight crept up a bit to 340.2. I'm not discouraged as 10 pounds in 3 days was ridiculous anyway.
Click to expand...
Yeah particularly with our frames, and yours in particular, we've got a much bigger container to fit the water in so the effects of water fluctuation can be several pounds. You've just started and so there probably be a little bit of an unusual jump start, but after a while you could start seeing a pattern of 'big drop' and then 'hold' for almost a week and then some consistent 'small drops' and so on. At least that's what happened with me. I weighed the same on Nov. 13 as I did on Nov. 24 and then lost 6 pounds in two days and 9 pounds in 6 days. And then hovered around there until the last four days or so.

You have to a little faith in what you're doing in terms of diet and exercise day to day and let the scale give you a more 'long term' idea of how you're progressing.
 
Solid advice MrVee! The belly measurements are nice as I went down in circumference as I went up in weight today. I like your formula approach. I'll record all the data for a while and then decide what to do with it when I have enough to see patterns. I like a good trend line in excel. As long as the line is sloping down you're good.

How are you modeling your weight? I was thinking a simple -1.5 pounds per week overlayed on a trend line would be a nice way to keep day to day fluctuations in perspective.

Weird things will happen with my weight as I get the exercise program going. The belly measurements should help there too.
 
Quercus said:
How are you modeling your weight? I was thinking a simple -1.5 pounds per week overlayed on a trend line would be a nice way to keep day to day fluctuations in perspective.
Click to expand...
Using a best fit approach. Days elapsed is raised to an exponent below 1 (which I just use the 'solver' to come up with), and then just do the linear regression approximation from there (in Excel that would be slope() and intercept() ). So instead of guessing at what will happen, I can just feed it the recorded numbers so far. As I said, the best use for this is to have a better idea of my current weight. But it can also predict future weights with some accuracy.

You don't have to weigh every day for it but you do have to have enough data for it to work reliably. The exponent is so that the weight loss slowly decreases over time (as it should). IE, you can get the weight loss to slope from 2.5 pounds a week early on to 1 pound a week as you get closer to your goal.

There's also this:



Which has helped me quite a bit in setting a calorie level and having a realistic idea of how long it will take to reach certain levels. The ETA in my sig is based on that rather than my own model. I spent a little time trying to reverse engineer it (it would be easier if it would let me copy data) but gave up after a bit.

You also may notice that I have a bit of a math geekiness to me. For years I tried to hide it, now I just embrace it.
 
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