Foz's Weight Loss Dynasty

[SirFozzie]

Some of you guys know I'm a rather big guy. I've tried and failed at diets/etcetera in the past,. a lot of it because I didn't stick to my plan.

I weighed myself today after my workout at work. My weight was 321 pounds. Really really high, and at age 32 (just turned 32 last friday), I have to start losing weight NOW.

My goal by Next August is to weigh 200 pounds (that's when I go to GenCon 07)

Steps I am taking:

1) Continuing to walk around the building once or twice a day every day.

2) Work out after work in the company's gym after 3 times a week, Monday, Wed, and Friday. Maybe a workout on the weekends (at home or at work) as well. This means treadmill (walking) and weight machines.

3) I am down to one 20oz bottle of coke a day, I am looking to cut it out completely eventually, as well as high carbohydrate drinks like Gatorade, and transition to water and one calorie drinks, such as Coke Zero, and Crystal Light (I am going to the local drugstore tommorrow and buying their supply of the single serve packets of Crystal Light powder that you can just mix into a bottle of water and drink)

4) I am going to put $25 or $50 into my savings account each time I get a check from work (I get paid twice a month), and when I reach my target weight, I will be able to use that money for a splurge, such as a new TV or something similar.

5) I will carry low calories snack bars such as Special K bars, and other things such as sliced peppers to prevent bad eating habits (It's hard to eat 3 regular meals when you work a strange shift like 12-8, like I do), and to prevent splurge eating when I go without eating the whole day, and then splurge on food because I'm starving.)

6) As an intermediate goal, I will slowly stretch out the amount of time/distance I spend walking on the treadmill, (currently do 1.25-1.4 miles in 30 minutes), in hopes of entering a 5K Walk. Gives me something to shoot for.

6) I weigh myself after every Friday workout. That way, I can see any progress, and try to hit targets on the way down to 200 pounds. I'm at 321, so good intermediate goals are 300, 275, 250, 225 and 210.

I will try to keep you guys updated on my progress here.

Original Weight: (Monday 8/21/06): 321 Pounds
Next Weigh-in (Friday 9/1/06)

[MacroGuru]

You can do it Foz!!

PM me if you need support or anything....

I myself just dropped 20 pounds in 2 1/2 weeks by modifying my diet and workout....

Good Luck!

[SirFozzie]

Thanks, Macro.. I'll know more in a couple weeks at my first weigh in

[SirFozzie]

Well, in a way it's already started. I wanted something to drink before lying down (my legs are cramping a bit), and I realized there was nothing really low-cal in the house.. (we have 2% milk, but that's pretty high in calories/fat for a drink when you're just thirsty)

so at 1:15 in the morning, I ended up driving to the drugstore, bought 5 35 oz bottles of water, and 10 Crystal Light On the Go Lemonade.

[Glengoyne]

About two months ago I started a diet. Pretty straight forward calorie diet using "exchanges" to regulate the diet. By exchanges I mean I get 7-8 meat, 12-13 bread, 4-5 fruit, 4-5 vegetable, 2-3 milk, and 6-7 fat exchanges. It is really a lot to eat. I've lost pretty steadilly, and just today weighed in down 21 pounds.

I encourage you to look around for a similar diet. I've never really had much luck at dieting, but I've been sticking with this for two whole months now.

The most eye surprising and helpful thing is discovering how much fat is in various foods. A fat exchange is 5 grams of fat. Looking at a pint of macaroni salad to see how much I could eat was really an eye opening experience. I couldn't have any. I've also learned how to do without things like fries(three McDonald's french fries is one bread and one fat). I can now actually go to McDonald's and skip the fries.

In any case, for me this type of diet is making the difference, because I'm not hungry, and I'm really not having too much trouble changing the whole way I eat.

Best of luck in your endeavor.

[Glengoyne]

Oh about the water. I'm drinking 12 eight ounce glasses of water a day. They recommend 8 plus one for every twenty-five pounds you are over wieght. I'm almost down to 11 glasses/day.

[SirFozzie]

Interesting, each of the 33.8 Oz bottles of water is about 4 eight ounce glasses of water then (and they were a better value, the 20 oz one was only 10 cents less, each of these cost me $1.29).

Assuming my ideal weight is 150, that's.. wow.. I should be drinking 15 glasses of water a day?


Well, at least I drank some lemon flavored water (Dasani) when I was working out today.

[Lorena]

Good luck Fozzie! I'll be reading along...

[SirFozzie]

Thanks, DC.

It bothered me a bit when my folks said "We're getting a sub tonight for dinner.. do you want us to pick up a couple slices of pizza at Papa Ginos?" I love their pizza, but I had to be good and had my turkey sandwich on white bread with very little mayo :/

[mooreadamc]

Good luck!

I gained about 10-15 pounds when I first began working full time. Mainly this was because I was used to working out 18-20 hours a week of exercise and was now down to about 1/2 of that. Unfortunately for the longest time my diet and appetite remained the same. Take things in small steps and I think you will be ok. Here are some tips I have found helped:

1) Exercise - interval training. I have found that increasing the intensity of your workouts for a minute followed by an easy pace for a minute makes a big difference. So if I am on a bike, I will warmup for about 10 minutes, increase speed for a minute, back down for a minute, increase again, backdown, etc. Alot of people just keep a constant pace the whole way through. I have read that intervals wake up your body more or something like that

2) Diet - Low on calories. I am more concerned with calorie intake that fat intake. A former coach once told me that during a day of no exercise if you do not want to gain weight that your calorie intake should be (body weight * 11). That's not alot! So consider exercise a good way to reward yourself with a few more calories per day.

You are on the right track with things like light mayo and taking out pop. Also, if you buy the Gatorade powder, 1 scoop is equal to 190 calories! So try to only use 1/2 a scoop or so. Most food I use now are of the "Light" variety. I too used to eat Mayo but have replaced that with Mustard on sandwiches.

3) Treat yourself once a week. Your diet will never work if you never treat yourself to the occasional sweets. We need treats, but only in limits .

Good luck again!

[SirFozzie]

God I hate this part of this. Again, even with the slow cutdown of soda, that's different from no soda.. my body wants to know what the fuck is with this no caffine thing.

[Greyroofoo]

moved to a different weight loss thread

[digamma]

Good luck, SF. You can do it.

You too, Greyroofoo.

[Greyroofoo]

dola, I just hurt my back this morning so very little exercise for a while

[SirFozzie]

Ouch... get better soon, grey!

And I'm gonna weigh myself tonight, and see how much of a start I'm off to.. I do feel a lot better, already though.

[SirFozzie]

Finished week one:

Was (8/21): 321 Pounds
Now: (8/25): 316 Pounds

Lost: 5 Pounds
Weight To Go: 116 Pounds.

Not bad for a short week

[GoldenEagle]

i have lost 20 pounds in the last 4 weeks. This is how i have done it.

-Excercise: 30 mins of cardio a day for 5 days a week. I am also working out hard. I have bulked up some as well.
-Diet: I eat a nutrigrain bar in the morning, a lean pocket or salad for lunch, and something real light for dinner.

That's it. Good luck.

[Greyroofoo]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Finished week one:

Was (8/21): 321 Pounds
Now: (8/25): 316 Pounds

Lost: 5 Pounds
Weight To Go: 116 Pounds.

Not bad for a short week

5 lbs in a week isn't too shabby at all!

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

4. Do "Pushup Cards" at work 3 times a day. The premise is simple, I draw 3 cards from a deck and I do the number thats on the card (Aces are 15, Jokers 25). Diamond cards mean diamond pushups. Spades mean clapping pushups. If I don't get at least 20 pushups, I draw another card until I have at least 20.

Oh God, that gives me nightmares... Antmeister and I do something similar to that but instead, we do the same deck twice. The first time is pushups (well, I do chick push-ups; my arms aren't strong enough yet) and the second time we do situps.

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Finished week one:

Was (8/21): 321 Pounds
Now: (8/25): 316 Pounds

Lost: 5 Pounds
Weight To Go: 116 Pounds.

Not bad for a short week

A 5 lb weightloss ain't bad at all! Keep it up Fozz

I posted this in duckman's weight loss thread, Roofoo, what software do you use to track your weight?

Originally Posted by Dodgerchick

If anyone is interested in some freeware to track your weightloss, go here -----> Soundtell's Weight Tracker. It plots your weight in a graph so you can see your progress.

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Finished week one:

Was (8/21): 321 Pounds
Now: (8/25): 316 Pounds

Lost: 5 Pounds
Weight To Go: 116 Pounds.

Not bad for a short week

Awesome work!

[SirFozzie]

Thanks.

I tried to get in a workout on saturday night (I was in work for OT), but my body gave me all kind of twinges, and I had to shut it down after like 20 minutes (and only five on the treadmill)

Hopefully tommorrow, when I go in for my first weekly workout, I'll be all set.

On the weekends, I back slid a bit on food (had a country fried steak at work), but not on drink, I have now gone a full week without soda.


BTW, if you soda drinkers are looking for something else, I can strongly recommend the Crystal Light On the Go 10 pack, they're about $3 bucks, and just need a bottle of water to go with it.

[Lorena]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

BTW, if you soda drinkers are looking for something else, I can strongly recommend the Crystal Light On the Go 10 pack, they're about $3 bucks, and just need a bottle of water to go with it.

Oh yeah, those are the bomb!! They really, really help. Well, I tried the Crystal Light version and I actually prefer the generic kind (Great Value, I think).

I wonder how that would taste with sparkling water (?).

[SirFozzie]

Dunno, I think the carbonation would ruin it, but hell, what do I know?

[duckman]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

Finished week one:

Was (8/21): 321 Pounds
Now: (8/25): 316 Pounds

Lost: 5 Pounds
Weight To Go: 116 Pounds.

Not bad for a short week

Good job on the weight loss. I lost nearly 4 pounds myself so I can see why you are happy with the results you got.

[stevew]

Gatorade has about half the calories of an equivalent serving of soda. It's by no means good for you, but if you are sick of diet drinks and want to cheat a bit, it's not as bad.

[Greyroofoo]

my opinion on drinks is that you only need water. Since I've started drinking a lot I seem to get hungry less often.

[SirFozzie]

My back was killing me today, but I still worked out.. just hoping I don't wake up and all my joints freeze. Doing a Tue/Thur Saturday workout schedule the next couple weeks with the holidays and all that

[finketr]

Originally Posted by Greyroofoo

my opinion on drinks is that you only need water. Since I've started drinking a lot I seem to get hungry less often.

i read somewhere that americans misinterpret thirst for hunger and so we eat.

[rjolley]

Good luck, SirFozzie.

I'm doing the same. Here's what my doctor recommended:

Low-carb diet. Ok, no bread, pasta, or potatoes is a lot harder than I thought with 3 kids to take care of in the evening and weekend. I'll have to make time to cook every night. Not impossible, just have to do it. Just meat, veggies (no potatoes, corn, or peas), fruits, and water. Some 1% milk and low fat cheese and drinks are ok, just occassionally.

30-60 minutes of cardio. I've started using my treadmill at night. I've also started doing some light dumbbell lifting. I agree with mooreadamc that interval training is the best. Last workout, I did a 5 minute warmup, then did 3 minutes at a faster speed, 2 minutes slow, 3-2, 2.5-2.5, 2-3, and 1.5-3.5 to finish. It was 30 minutes and gave me a good workout. To switch it up, I plan on going out walking with the kids, jumping rope, and maybe a workout bench with free weights.