Weight Loss Progress - My story, share yours.

[Mustang_Cougar]

In Fall of 2009 I was up to ~195 (5'9"), pretty much not exercising, eating whatever I wanted & drinking too much beer.

Well, I had a physical and found out my triglycerides were too high and my good cholesterol too low. My doctor put my on a modified South Beach diet, which did wonders (lost 20lbs in three months, w/no exercise); triglycerides dropped substantially, HDL went up moderately (to a decent number). Then I decided to start exercising, so I started running (20-30 miles/week) and slowly began reintroducing some foods that were limited/off-limits on the SoBe diet. Things like bread (double-fiber), pasta (whole wheat), fruit (moderate), diet soda (moderate), coffee, etc. Well, over the next six months I lost another 20lbs...and I've kept it off for over a year (I'm now ~155lbs). Eventually, I weened myself completely off of the SoBe diet, though I still try to maintain a low-carb, low-fat, high-fiber diet; and trust me, I'm not suffering in the least (I drink beer again, albeit the low-carb "Ultra" garbage).

BTW: JOD's three tips are spot-on. Limiting the carbs after dinner is key, because most people are very sedentary in the evenings. Another trick/tip that worked for me was to always eat the main entree that everyone else at the table was eating, but to eat it in a moderate portion on top of a big helping of green beans (or other high-fiber vegetable). It might sound strange (especially if you hate veggies), but the beans are low calorie and the fiber fills you up; however, you still get the flavor of the item you really want to eat (ie, spaghetti & sauce, salmon & linguine, chilli, whatever). It works for just about anything except potatoes; if you're big or struggling to lose weight, potatoes will always be a no-no.

Good luck.

M_C

 

[Pop_Rivit]

Congratulations on your weight loss. I hope that you continue, and also that you are able to maintain a healthy weight once you reach your goal.

I discovered a long time ago, after watching family members balloon into obese parodies of themselves, that I would never be fat.

Most of my life I've stayed on a diet that is well balanced and I work on eating nutrient dense but calorie light foods. After 47 years of healthy eating (I'm now 67) I can't imagine eating something like fast food (the very thought turns my stomach), and a balanced diet is something that just comes naturally. I've seen people on fad diets like Adkins, and while it might be a way to lose weight it's not a healthy way to eat or live. People on fad diets are simply looking for a quick fix and are ignoring the poor lifestyle choices that made them obese to begin with.

Diet is only one piece of the health puzzle, and too many people try to diet and don't follow through with exercise. This morning I went walking for an hour at 5:00 AM. Around noon I'll spend 20 minutes on the Bowflex, and when my wife gets home we'll probably go walking once it cools off a little. At 67 I still walk 15+ miles a week, I still jog on a regular basis, and we bicycle an average of 50 miles a week. In the winter months we still walk, or if there is snow on the trail we snowshoe. A small investment in home equipment keeps us toned for those times we simply can't get enough time outside.

There are also a lot of ways to work exercise into your daily routine. I like to park at the far end of the grocery store (or Lowes) parking lot and walk across the lot.

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Any tips? I used to be a relatively elite athlete. Because of the significant activity level, I ate a lot no big deal. Now that I'm far more sedentary, my body still wants to eat like that, while my physical output doesn't require it.

Makes for an issue...


Simple willpower. When you get your cravings, get off your backside, get out from in front of the computer, put down your gadgets and go exercise. If you would have spent as much time exercising as you have making nearly 18,000 posts here you wouldn't be concerned about your weight ballooning. You need to have the willpower to change the eating and lifestyle habits that are causing your weight to skyrocket.

 

[97f150]

First off, congrats to everyone who is losing. 2 and a half months ago after a checkup Dr. visit where losing weight was discussed as it always was, I decided that I had to do something if I wanted to live long enough to watch my 5 year old grow up. This was a check up Dr visit as in the past 6 months or so I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, pre diabetes, and he was recommending that I get a sleep study done for sleep apnea. I am 29 years old, 5'9" and weighed in at 344 pounds. Since my teen years I have always done what I felt like (which was mostly nothing), and ate what i wanted to with minimal weight fluctuation. I did not think I weighed that much, neither did anyone else when I told them as I carry it very well.

I never did follow a diet plan or anything, but knew the cardinal rule of losing weight= burn more then you consume, and less bacon, more shaking. I didn't really change what I ate straight off, just ate a lot less and in the next few weeks began incorporating healthy alternatives into my daily meal plan. I joined a gym as well. I can only go 2 weeks out of the month but on my schedule but I make the most out of them. I will walk on the treadmill at a 12% incline at 3mph for an hour one day, then walk on it for 30 minutes the next and lift weights etc. I refused to weigh myself until my next Dr appt but could see my waist line shrinking. Just before my follow up Dr appt last Monday I was down 2 pant sizes, 1 shirt size and watched my belt move 3 notches. I move around easier, my wife says my snoring all but disappeared, I am also not tired to the point of going right to bed when I get home from work. At my Dr. appt last Monday I weighted in at 301, so 43 pounds in 2 months, and counting. I have an appt in 6 weeks in which my Dr said the blood pressure meds would likely be disappearing.

Since the decision making Dr appt I have made lifestyle changes that should keep me at a healthy weight once that weight is obtained. The first thing I did was cut out unnecessary calories. I used to drink coffee all day long with liquid flavored creamer. Now I drink water all day and green tea for meals, no soft drinks period and I don't miss them, I used to snack at will on junk food, now a small handful of almonds between meals or an apple or some other kind of fruit. I avoid processed trash as much as I can. My diet consists of half of my meal being some sort of veggie or fruit, a quarter starch, and a quarter protein. I have reduced portion sizes in all areas. I get my rear end out from behind my desk at work now and walk my rear end wherever I need to go that is within walking distance, this is my activity at work and something I do at home as well as the gym regimen.

I feel great and I know it will just keep getting better. I changed the oil in my truck yesterday and am amazed at how easily I could slide around underneath it without having to "suck in" to grease my u joints. I look in a mirror and still look the same (to me) but other factors tell me that all of this is worth it. Sorry for the long post, thanks for listening.

 

[javacontour]

It's too dangerous near my house to ride a bike. The narrow country road and all the added traffic due to other roads undergoing construction all but leaves out biking for me.

We'll throw them on the back of the Altima and take a ride on occasion. I'd love to be able to bike to the Y, workout and then bike home, but I think that would be hazardous to my health, so we'll just drive there.

Originally Posted By: JOD
Java, you know what really works well for losing weight: riding a bike

OK, bike rants aside, despite my skinny frame, performance and weight are inextricably-linked for bike racers, so I've become pretty much a professional at losing weight. There's no way to maintain race weight in the winter, and frankly it's not a healthy weight. It's basically like being a wrestler, with wheels.

Here are the very simple rules that help me get down to weight:

- I don't give up sweets (or my favorite foods) entirely. This just results in the binge/denial cycle. I eat dessert every night, I just keep it to 300 Cal

-I eat a big breakfast. This is probably the biggest help. not only does it kickstart your metabolism, but more importantly it gives me a sense of satiety through the day. "I'm too busy" isn't an excuse. I Make time. Otherwise, I find I'll get hungry mid-day and make bad choices.


I've always been a breakfast fanatic. I get up almost every day and make bacon for the family and eggs for me and oilBabe. I'll have toast, a bagel, or an English muffin, the thinner 100cal varieties with some low calorie spreads.

I read somewhere that starting your day with a high protein breakfast signals your body to ramp up the metabolism because "the hunt was successful."

If you start with a sugar dense breakfast, your body thinks you are foraging for fruit and slows the metabolism. Not to mention you process the carbs faster than protein leading to feeling hungry sooner if your breakfast is high carb.

I don't go as far as Atkins and say do away with most carbs. But certainly I would rather have 4oz of steak than 4oz of hamburger with a bun or pasta.
Originally Posted By: JOD


-I stop eating after a certain time. For me, it's 6:00, with my dessert allowed at any time after that. Yeah, occasionally I'll go to bed hungry, but then I just wake up starving for my breakfast.

These 3 simple rules have worked great for me. That said, your plan seems to be working well for you, so good job and keep it up!

In an unrelated weightloss story, I have to give mad props to one of my cats. He's 12, and he's just dropped 2 pounds over the last 2 months!!(that's 18% of his body weight). This has been harder than you'd think, since his sisters are borderline skinny. The keys; diet and exercise. Go figure... I'm pretty thrilled, 'cause he's pretty much the best cat in the history of cats, and I want him to live a long time.


I've been measuring out the cats food for the past three years. We have two cats, a half-cup at 6AM and a half-cup at 6PM is what they get. Seems to control their weight. The boy would just eat all day, while the girl would rather pick at it.

I'm sure, when we leave on a trip, such as a 3 or 4 day weekend, they are starving before we return as he's probably consumed it all before the end of our journey.

Unlike my previous cat who was huge, these guys are kept on a controlled diet.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: Pop_Rivit


Simple willpower. When you get your cravings, get off your backside, get out from in front of the computer, put down your gadgets and go exercise. If you would have spent as much time exercising as you have making nearly 18,000 posts here you wouldn't be concerned about your weight ballooning. You need to have the willpower to change the eating and lifestyle habits that are causing your weight to skyrocket.


My weight isnt balooning. My metabolism and activity is high enough to prevent that.

Its more the fact that I dont NEED to eat as much as my stomach and brain are taught. Willpower, sure, that's an easy reply. Right now I dont need it much.

Its the overwhelming paradigm change that is my issue. I know how to diet down to race weight and how to keep at a low weight.

Its a practicality problem, as I doubt that eating as much as I can/do is really necessary. Long term it may catch up, I want to prevent that.

So any specific tips on how people have done it? Retrained their body/mind? What works/doesnt? It's really the "recalibration" that Jim5 mentioned that is most interesting to me. Of course it will be painful, but there have to be lessons learned from along the way.

 

[javacontour]

I guess it depends on how you frame the issue. If you look at it as, "I have the opportunity to try different foods." That may work better than saying, "I have to give up bacon."

So instead of saying I have to give up biscuits and gravy, I'm thinking of it as I get to have more fresh fruit for breakfast or lunch.

 

[Patman]

I'm 5'8" and a few years ago I was up as high as 190 pounds, and was having a hard time fitting into size 34 pants, so I knew I had to turn things around, as I had wore size 30 pants from the time I was a teenager right up until 2000 or 2001.

So one summer (possibly 2007 or 2008?) I just decided to start exercising a lot more (mainly roller blading, but also going for long walks too), and started drinking a lot more water (and stopped drinking anything with sugar in it). Those were the two main things that I did, I really don't like vegetables or salad, so I didn't stop eating the foods I really like (such as steak, pizza, french fries, burgers, most junk food and so on) That summer I got down to around 160-165 and have kept it at that weight ever since, although this year, ever since I split with my wife, I've lost even more weight and as of this morning I was down to 148. That's pretty much my ideal weight for my height and build, and now I'm back into size 30 pants again. I pretty much eat whatever I want, I just don't go overboard (I don't count calories that often, but I figure I eat about 2500 calories per day on most days, more on the weekends) Every single day I go roller blading for about a half hour and I also go for a 45 minute walk every day too. And I don't sit on the couch in the summer time, I'm always out doing something so that helps too.

 

[javacontour]

Originally Posted By: Patman
...although this year, ever since I split with my wife, I've lost even more weight and as of this morning I was down to 148. ...


Yes, I was on that "diet" in 2003. I don't think I ate very much for two months when my ex-wife left. Good for weight loss, but I wouldn't recommend that diet to my worst enemy.

I've also been on the Chemotherapy weight loss plan. I thin I was below 200# in 1994. Same as above, wouldn't recommend it to an enemy, let alone someone I liked.

I'm 5'11", but am still built pretty big, so 200# is a realistic weight for my body type. All the tables have that as being overweight. But if I get back to where I was when I left the Army, I'd have a 32-34" waist and a 48" chest, and about an 18" neck. Certainly not fat by any measure. At 200#, I may have some love handles, but no abdominal or torso fat to speak of.

I think I graduated from high school weighing 165#. But I had a 42" chest. I filled out more in college, with some help from ROTC PT and some time in the gym. At 5'11" and 200#, I could max the Army PT test until they changed the standards. Then I could still max the pushups and on a good day the situps. But I could never get below 13 minutes in the two mile run.

I don't know if I could do that today. It would take a lot of training to overcome the age and what the chemo did to me nearly 20 years ago.

 

[Patman]

Originally Posted By: javacontour
Originally Posted By: Patman
...although this year, ever since I split with my wife, I've lost even more weight and as of this morning I was down to 148. ...


Yes, I was on that "diet" in 2003. I don't think I ate very much for two months when my ex-wife left. Good for weight loss, but I wouldn't recommend that diet to my worst enemy.




I guess I should have been more clear. It's not that the split caused me not to eat, it's just that I had new motivation to get in even better shape so that I'd look good for the new lady I've been dating!

 

[Jim 5]

With reference to the "recalibration", it happens by itself if you are eating calorically dense food.

When you are eating that kind of food, satiety happens fairly quickly. Much quicker than when you are stuffing yourself full of pasta or bread.

My tips include sticking strictly to calorically dense protien, good fat foods. That and tons of vegetables that are not high on the glycemic index.

When you do this for an extended period of time you end up realizing that essentially you've turned eating into fueling your body. At first it seems like all the "fun" of eating is gone. Then you realize that's really true, and you can be amazed by how much "fun" is wrapped up in the idea of eating, which explains how easy it is to gain weight in our society. That is the biggest learning I've had. It never ceases to amaze me just how much emotion is wrapped up in overeating for social occasions/vacations etc. Not just overeating, but how much it can seem like an event is not "fun" if you are not eating sugary/carb-laden food.

After close to 5 years of doing this, I still am amazed at the emotional pull to eat certain self destructive foods in various social settings. It truly is a strong cultural conditioning you really notice once you start to try to live a little differently.

Doing Atkins can be very decadent though. You can go to a restaurant and order as much steak/lobster as you can eat. Just order the salad or cooked vegetables to go with it rather than potatoes or rice.

My tips are:

1. Get ahold of the "old" atkins book. Read it. It's quite compelling. Written by an MD based on research by the medical community.

2. Start out for 2 weeks straight on the induction phase (strictly no carbs of any kind) as directed in the book.

3. Thereafter, give yourself a Carb day, where you can pig out on allthose things you crave from your carb-y life. For me, it's saturday. I crave cinnamon buns and ice-cream. Eat as much as you want of that on that day. In my experience, the guilt from the excess of saturday sees me through until wednesday. From Wednesday to Friday the "light at the end of the tunnel" sees me through until my cheat day.

4. Weigh yourself at least once a week so you can't lie to yourself or allow your weight to get too far out of control if you've been less than diligent.

5. Learn how to find low-carb choices everywhere. I can find one on every menu. Realize it's not going to be "fun" to eat. Should it be? The healthy answer is No...it should be healthy fuel for your body. "Active Low Carbers" is a great online forum. Some great recipes/ideas there that don't taste low-carb at all.

6. Don't tell people what you're doing unless you want to hear them tell you how "unhealthy" etc. it is. I had my blood pressure, cholesterol etc. baselined before I started this, and all have improved during this process. Just like the MD that wrote the book said. They also get uncomfortable with you eating carefully, because it takes the "fun" out of their not eating carefully. Instead, say "I just really feel like a (light) beer and hot-wings/steak/omellette/chef's salad etc. for dinner".

It really does become a lifestyle thing.

I'm happy to share tips by PM if everyone's interested. Careful though, it's as interesting/addicting as BITOG (believe it or not).

 

[Tom NJ]

Excellent post Jim. After over eight years on Atkins it has become a lifestyle, and avoiding sugars and starches is remarkably easy.

Here is an excellent article on low carb diets - it's a bit long so it may be easier to print it and read at your leasure.

What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?

Tom NJ

 

[javacontour]

Today I weighed 242, so not bad. Good sustainable progress. A drop of 2.5 pounds from last week. So progress, but slower, as I expected. That did include a trip to a local winery for some beer and wine tasting and some pizza on Sunday.

I think the exercise portion will begin next week, after my on-call rotation is finished Tuesday AM.

 

[Ray Garlington]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
...
So any specific tips on how people have done it? Retrained their body/mind? What works/doesnt? It's really the "recalibration" that Jim5 mentioned that is most interesting to me. Of course it will be painful, but there have to be lessons learned from along the way.


You sound like you might have the right stuff to try intermittent fasting. There is a free ebook that is good here (you have to register to get the download link): http://www.fast-5.com/

Also, for the athlete in you, this site combines the above idea with exercise: http://www.leangains.com/

Frankly, there is not a more powerful recalibration protocol. Once you get the hang of it, you will feel a sublime mastery over your eating. This style of eating, combined with low carb will resolve most (non genetic) metabolic issues.

 

[tonycarguy]

Besides weight loss, are any of you concerned with fitness levels? I've always been pretty lean and I thought I was reasonably fit, but when I tested myself by running 1 mile, the result was just average. Well, the average guy my age is overweight and in poor shape so I wasn't happy to be considered average.

So I've made it a priority to increase my fitness levels. In one month I shaved 1.5 minutes off my 1-mile time, and my resting heartbeat is several bpm lower than before.

 

[javacontour]

I can tell I have more stamina. I can cut the yard in 90+ degree afternoon sun with a push mower without taking a break. I was hurting in the spring after doing only 1/2 the yard at a much lower temperature. So I'm getting some benefit from simply not carrying around those 25 or so pounds I've lost.

As I've said, conditioning will have to be part of my routine, to build more lean muscle mass and keep my metabolism up. I figure that phase of my plan starts in the next week or two.

 

[javacontour]

Almost a month after the original post and I'm now down to 233.5. So 11 pounds in 30 days. Doing the same things. I've ridden my bike a few times and played some games at church youth group with 12-18 year olds.

Progress continues to be made.

Thanks for those who are supportive.