Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

[allBthere]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

If I can find pics I'll post them.

In the past 2 years I went from 204 to about 172 right now. When I was 204 I was very strong though, but had too much fat and I looked too big for "me". Eventually I kind of naturally dropped to around 190.

With me for years I've been going to the gym fairly regularly but I made a few small changes that I'll kind of highlight here:

-instead of 6min elliptical workout before and after lifting weights I now do 8-10 = believe it or not I think this has made a big difference. I also walk to the gym 3/4 of the time which is about 15min per direction.

-I now take a mens multi-vitamin pill daily as well as an acacia berry pill lol. I beleive the multi-vitamine has made some difference.

-PORTION CONSCIOUSNESS - I've slightly changed my diet, but more importantly I eat a better amount, and don't over-eat. I eat until I'm satisfied and almost never until I'm uncomfortable anymore.

- udo's oil omega 3 with glh oil I have about 1tbsp a day. It keeps your 3,6,9 omega fatty acid ratio good. I think it's done at least something good to my health.

-2 or 3 times a week I snack on celery, maybe with some almond butter on it - I honestly think this has been bigger than I would have originally given it credit for. Its fibre, and lush and watery and it's good to have at least a couple of times a week. ...a bit about snacking, if I need something between meals I'll have carrots, celery, almonds, a bell pepper...something like that - not crap usually.

-Every weight or martial arts session i do at the gym (always alone) I incorporate an abs exercise and half the time lower back. abs can be leg raises, ball-crunches, or decline bench situps.

-A good weights trick I've been doing for over a month is to focus on your upper chest and do almost exclusively upper-chest exercises. This keeps you from looking like you have boobs and gives you more of a square-shaped pecs. I'm already feeling great about the results it's a much better look and nicer to have even muscle development. (i can go into more detail if anyone wants)

- don't forget about your legs! they are so much of your body!
-I also stretch when I'm doing bag or martial arts and think that's good too.

***so all that crap I just mentioned has contributed and it's steady and I'm constantly noticing improvements and best of all noticing fat being gone! In a few more weeks my fat won't stick-out anywhere. exercise, portions, oil, celery, vitamins!
Everything together is working and that's where the major motivation comes in, I can see and feel less fat so I just want to keep doing what I'm doing.

one more quick thing about my cardio - doing the warm-up and cool-down I'm on the machine w/ a heart-rate of about 155 ...so it's not super low effort...but this is key...something i learned from a tony robins seminar a couple of years ago...when you're done working out you should be drinking water before and during the whole time. But when you're done you should feel like you need to pee. This is actually where you fat comes out! I love pissing when I'm done because I know Im pissing out the fat. I have a quick sauna then piss in the shower LOL ... don't judge, there's rotten bandaids cling-on's and pubes everywhere that I don't contribute to! also it can prevent you from gettin warts if you piss on your feet.

there is too much to talk about, and I think I've said too much

[The GIGGAS]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Just walked about 3 miles after work. Took me an hour. Currently want to die inside. Pain on the outside.

[Streets]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

#1) ODogg... you need an official thread where you can post pics, ask questions, muse about your love life, weight loss, family members, and just your life in general. I don't know why but I find your long diatribes to be interesting.

#2) Kevin, you look great. Your wife also seems to have lost a significant amount of weight too (I don't know if that's been mentioned in here). Props to the both of you.

#3) Sting, Low-cal definitely worked for me and I started at a higher weight (250) and ended at a lower weight (170) than your goal, so it's definitely do-able. Just remember that motivation is constantly wavering and if you want to go hardcore, you have to be willing to maintain that for quite a while or your body could balloon up more if you go off. You sound crazy motivated right now though. If I ever get the nerve to post my pics, you would see why for me the motivation to not return to my former ways is there constantly. I look and feel much better.

#4) allBthere, I know you said "don't judge" but that whole last paragraph was ****ing disgusting

[Jonesy]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Kevin that's amazing bro. Congratulations. You've stripped away layers and layers. Maybe I should give the low cal a shot instead of my usual low carb routine since I usually break down from the carb diet and stuff myself with carbs. My carb craving is unreal and uncontrollable. I'm actually addicted to drive-thrus (Taco Bell and McDonalds only) and don't have the will power to stop. Sounds dumb I know, but I can't stop eating them.

I gave up on low carb and have just reduced my cals and it's working great. I just eat 3 meals a day, medium breakfast, small lunch, decent dinner and just make healthy choices. ( i tracked cals for a week and generally found i was around 1500-2000 every day). Now i don't track any thing and just eat lots of protein, healthy carbs (wholegrain bread, bran cereals etc) and not too much fat but i'm not crazy strict or anything.

I find low carb too restricting and this way i have 3 healthy meals each day and i feel good. I still get hungry sometimes but i usually just have a big glass of water and it subsides or i do something that takes my mind off it (like work or videogames) and it's not too bad. I still occasionally mess up and eat or drink some beers etc but 90% of the time i am healthy and 10% is not going to undone all my work.

I just need to be more consistent with my workouts but the diet is going well, is something i feel i can sustain for the long term and the scale is moving in the right direction as well. It really has to be a lifestyle change and not just a temporary "diet" for it to work in the long run imo.

[CreatineKasey]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

AllBThere = nice post. Looks like you have a nice system put together. I've dabbled into a few of the things you mentioned in the past (celery consistently).

Right now I'm in a similar situation where I walk 15 mins to the gym... but I do NOT do cardio before/after the workout. I like this idea and should implement it. It's really smart. You accentuate initial fat loss because you spent all your calories weight training and because you weight trained you continue positive muscle growth and fat loss for days after the session through the metabolism spike you earned.

I've been kind of combining cardio and lifting together for some time now. I do a lot of "antagonist" lifts. For example, I do dips and pullups together... so I do let's say 15 dips then I wait 20 seconds and do 10 pullups and count that as 1 set. Or, I like to do a set of abs between squats. I also train full body and 100% agree about focusing on core every session. I've hurt myself more than I'd like to admit because of past failure to do that.

Good post.

[stewaat]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Keep up the good work people!

Being in shape positively influences every aspect of life.

BTW Sting I hear you on the low-carb thing. It's very, very, very tough after about a week of low carb. I'm doing it now but me and the girlfriend are preparing for a vacation so we're running & working out together. It makes it easier when you have somebody who is also into health.

[ODogg]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

I'm down from 200 (highest point ever was 206) to 158 lbs now. I've posted some pics and my diet details in the Supporter's Forum before. These are a couple pics of me wearing the exact same shirt, so you can get an idea.

Sept '09 (200 lbs)


March '10 (160 lbs)


Pretty much all the weight I lost was due to calorie counting and drinking only water. When I was actively trying to lose the weight I had a strict 1600 calories a day diet and I stopped drinking all sodas, just water. I also adjusted my eating schedule, I started eating a 150-250 calorie breakfast at around 6 AM, then a 100 calorie snack bar around 10 AM to get me to lunch. Then I would eat some kind of microwavable lunch that ranged from 275-400 calories around noon. That would usually get me to dinner around 6 PM where I could have a good sized meal, roughly 900 calories. There's a lot you can do with 900 calories. Usually dinner was in the 600-800 calorie range which would leave about 100-200 left for a dessert around 830 PM. I wouldn't eat anything else that night, I usually go to bed around midnight. If I did just start starving I would have some popcorn because there is only 40 calories in a cup of popped popcorn because your body processes fat or something I don't really understand differently when you put your body in a starvation mode. So I'd have a couple cups if my calories allowed.

I hit a plateau around 175 lbs and that's when I hit the gym and started running a couple miles a day. That kicked started my metabolism I think and I dropped another 10 lbs. Since then my work schedule has changed and I can't go to the gym at work during lunch anymore, so my daily regular exercise has stopped. But I have kept my good eating habits I learned over the past 6 months and 5 or so more pounds have fallen off even though I am no longer actively trying to lose weight. I believe I am at a good weight now, so I just keep eating good and no stuffing myself anymore, and my body is staying in good shape. But during the 4-5 months I was agressively trying to lose weight I stuck strictly to the 1600 calorie diet, meaning I got as close to 1600 as I could everyday without going over using a balanced diet and eating at proper times.

wow, aukevin you look like you're 10 years younger, no kidding man! That's very impressive. And what you posted above is exactly what i'm doing now myself. It does work if you stick to it. Here is my pic again, hosted from another site:

[Sting]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Well it's past midnight so today's the first day of the new diet. 1500 cals/day.

My initial weight 5 minutes ago was worse than I thought: I'm currently 225.2. I'm 50lbs away from my target 175. I'd like to get there by August/September - not sure if I can do it in that time but as long as I'm still making progress towards the goal come August then I won't be discouraged.

For you low cal diet guys, is there a "cheat" day and how much of a cheat is it?

I'll be doing 30-45 minutes of cardio 5-6 days/wk. (that's the plan so KEEP ME MOTIVATED when you see me posting in this thread! Ask me if I've done my cardio today)

175 here I come..hopefully

[randombrother]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

These posts and pictures are very motivating. I've been saying I was going to do the right thing but haven't. After reading this thread I'm going to start. First thing I'm knocking off the soda and late night eating. Maybe some fruit or popcorn as one of you suggested and water but thats it. Just had an urge a few hours ago and looked at some doughnuts but stopped myself and reached past the box and went to the bananas sitting there and grabbed a cup of water. Two things we don't have in the house but probably need are a full length mirror and a scale. I'll be picking up both tomorrow.

[Jonesy]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

For you low cal diet guys, is there a "cheat" day and how much of a cheat is it?

i personally have the odd cheat meal rather than day. Sometimes i like to chill with the wife and have a nice meal and some wine/beer on a friday night to unwind so i do that sometimes and don't sweat it. I also "save" my cheat meals for things like birthday's etc so can still have a normal life and join in on those sort of things. I find that your stomach shrinks from going low cal for extended periods anyway so you actually eat less then you used to so the cheat meals aren't the rediculous gorge they used to be anyway.

I just have the meal then get right back to normal.

This thread rocks by the way.

[stewaat]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

It's funny because you both have the before/after pics in the same shirt haha

Yea do a cheat meal, not a cheat day

[Streets]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Well it's past midnight so today's the first day of the new diet. 1500 cals/day.

My initial weight 5 minutes ago was worse than I thought: I'm currently 225.2. I'm 50lbs away from my target 175. I'd like to get there by August/September - not sure if I can do it in that time but as long as I'm still making progress towards the goal come August then I won't be discouraged.

For you low cal diet guys, is there a "cheat" day and how much of a cheat is it?

I'll be doing 30-45 minutes of cardio 5-6 days/wk. (that's the plan so KEEP ME MOTIVATED when you see me posting in this thread! Ask me if I've done my cardio today)

175 here I come..hopefully

I wasn't huge on cheat days. My whole thing was that if I'm going to do this thing and not be able to eat what I want, I'd might as well accept that I'm going to be miserable and go hardcore. I really don't think a meal or snack here or there will necessarily hurt, but I knew it wouldn't help either, and I wanted to reach my goal as fast as possible with no pit stops. My gf says I have "the willpower of god", but it's not that. I really just couldn't enjoy even the littlest cheats anyway because I knew they were steps backwards against my ultimate goal. If you do do it though, know that it won't kill you and anything gained can be lost... but everything is a choice and the more conscious you are of your decisions, the less likely you are to make "bad" ones and feel guilty later.

[ODogg]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

stewaat - i actually planned it that way, I dug up that old shirt from my sports closet for comparison purposes!

as for cheat days, there are those like Streets who say it's better to not do them at all but it really depends upon the person. personally I use Saturday as my cheat day. It works well because it coincides with a day that i'm off and it's college football saturday so i usually drink beer, eat wings on that day anyways.

here's my feelings on cheat days/meals though. In my opinion they are critical to having success. Why? because for me I can't go on indefinitely avoiding my favorites like pizza. But if I'm craving pizza on a wednesday I can "hold out" until Saturday. and just as one meal of a salad and a pear isn't going to make you skinny, neither is a meal of pizza or wings going to make you fat.

but here's the danger i've found...don't let your cheat meal become longer than intended. my issue was that my saturday meal became a whole day saturday, then some of the food i'd buy would also bleed into sunday. so my cheat meal became a cheat weekend. for example, i was ordering a medium pizza, 6 wings and a 6" sub on most saturdays. i'd eat that all day saturday and still have some left over for sunday. heck, sometimes i'd even have some left on monday.

so in the last two weeks my cheat meal has become this: an individual pizza and either wings or a 6" sub. i eat that in about 2 meals on saturday and i'm done. and as someone mentioned, it takes less to fill me up now so there is no reason to be ordering any medium pizzas.

bottom line - i'd recommend a cheat meal or even two cheat meals per week, but be disciplined about not letting it become more than that. also, try to eat a salad or something before your cheat meal and try not to eat until you feel "thanksgiving" type full...you really just want to enjoy a favorite you'd not normally eat, not pig out and make a gluttonous fool of yourself.

[ODogg]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Oh and although i've not had time to write a recent blog about my weight loss adventures, I did find this one from 2 years ago that I thought i'd post for you guys. Hopefully this helps.

10 Things that the Shaunster learned in 2007

1. There are two types of motivation, there is the immediate motivation, which is what spurs a lot of people to make a resolution today to lose weight and then there is longterm motivation. Longterm motivation is not as urgent or powerful as immediate but much more desired in regards to ultimately getting in shape. Everyone has immediate motivation in regards to weight loss, the key is to develop the longterm motivation, which stays with you when that ultra-powerful and pressing immediate type goes away (as it does for most people by Valentine's Day).

2. I learned that losing weight and getting healthy is much more easy, more simple and overtly more obvious than the media or anyone ever makes it out to be. Losing weight and getting in shape is simple math. Eat less, eat better and workout and your body will change. Monitor calories in and out. That's it. It's no great mystery. There is no secret formula nor any secret diet or miracle drug. The most difficult part of it....eh..continue reading..

3. The most difficult part of it is not knowing but doing. I learned that losing weight is one of the most difficult things one can ever do and requires far more dedication, self discipline and diligence than most people who have not done it could ever imagine. Honestly it requires research, work and for most people a nearly borderline, nearly obsessive and almost unhealthy attention to detail. Why? Because most of us are fat for a reason, we lived our whole lives unaware and unknowing. Normal society, our society today, is heavily slanted toward making people obese. To go in the other direction you must be like a fish swimming against the tide. You must be the pesky one who demands to know what things are made of, demands alternatives and in general the fly in the ointment at times. It's easy to know what to do, it's difficult often to practice it, not only because of the energy it requires but also because you are often trying to maintain something that society in general discourages just by it's very nature.

3. I learned that exercise gets easier. No wonder people hate exercise, when you haven't ever done it or do it rarely it's really terrible to begin with. And no wonder people don't stick with it. It goes against human nature to indulge in something actively which is uncomfortable, difficult and sometimes painful. But the good news is, what I wish I had known when I began and not enough people told me, it does get easier and at a certain point even becomes enjoyable. You know the old cliche about how you go to a gym and everyone there is in shape and you wonder why they are there? Well probably quite a few of those people were not in shape at some point. Sure it's easy for them now to run on that treadmill and they are enjoying it greatly, or at least appear to be. And I know you probably hate them and just want to walk over and punch them in their face, well I did anyways, LOL But here's the secret. if you continue then that will be YOU someday. It's very subtle and took me months to understand this but I can honestly say that most days I really look forward to and enjoy exercise. I just hope no one ever walks up and punches me in the face for doing so!

4. After countless hundreds of hours (I do not exaggerate here either) of research and thought about physical fitness in America I have come to the conclusion that we as a country are pretty much screwed. Not only does America continue to get fatter and more out of shape it seems attitudes are changing that promote acceptability of that fact. We are all often told that we should accept people for who they are. This is both true and false. Yes we should not judge people that are overweight but on the flip side people should not be given a pass that we as a society view gluttony and sloth as an acceptable trait desired in human beings. Without the ability for people to communicate that there is a different way, a healthier way, constructively then we are doomed to a society accepting of obesity, it's related health problems and in many cases an unneeded early death. We should not denigrate or insult anyone, don't get me wrong, but we should also never quit trying to help those who want to change, because it can be done. To pretend that nothing is wrong is going to kill our friends, family and loved ones and I for one will not stand by without trying. If it doesn't help then at least I can be satisfied that I did what I could and didn't stand by falsely pretending everything is great while someone I cared about died a slow, painful and agonizing death (or nearly just as bad, a fast unexpected one).

5. I learned that nearly everything Sparkpeople says in regards to articles is true. I say nearly because there are some articles I find fault with. For one I do find some of the articles about how you can eat this or that on occasion and some of the recipes they promote as being a bit too lenient for some of our own good. I know for myself I abused that entire aspect of SP for awhile, before I realized that it was holding me back. Perhaps it's progression, going from 100% bad to 80% bad to 60% bad, etc etc is something one must simply go through until they get to a really healthy lifestyle. But I think at some point you really have to realize that a lot of articles and advice on SP is geared toward newcomers. Once you have been on the SP program for a good while you need to learn to have more discipline than they seem to promote.

6. I learned that many fail but only a few recognize it and in that sense they are not true failures at all. Throughout my 10 months here at SP I have seen a lot of people come and go. Guess what? Most of them go and stay gone. Only some of them come back. The real losers aren't those who fail. The real losers are those who fail and then never re-commit. To admit you failed and to come back makes you a winner. This all goes back to longterm motivation. If you're still in the game and still trying, you're on the right track. If you've given up and are too ashamed to admit it then you are a failure. But you can change that, that failure is just a temporary one that is negated by the renewed attempts to re-dedicate yourself once again. Only you can make that choice.

7. One of the greatest lessons I learned from all of this is to be 100% aware of everything that I put into my body. The days of shoveling something in my mouth without thinking are over. That's not to say I don't sometimes eat bad, I do, but when I do I'm very, very aware of what I am doing. I don't try to downplay it, ignore it or beat myself up for it. I simply accomodate that and try to somehow make up for it, whether it's doing better the next day or in most cases, working out harder THAT day. Which leads to..

8. Guilt will destroy you and be the ultimate end of any hopes you have to get in shape. Guilt is for known criminals not dieters. Awareness is what dieters need. If you eat badly, if you don't do your exercises do NOT feel guilty, simply recognize your behavior and alter it. Compensate for it. Don't beat yourself up for it. Mentally losing weight's biggest challenge is guilt. If you can eliminate guilt from your fitness program you are halfway there. But only halfway because you cannot simply eat whatever you like and bypass your exercise. As I said, the other half is recognition and awareness of your behavior. One almost needs to learn to rethink your attitude and be less human about it. If you can be almost logical, Vulcan like for you Star Trek fans out there, then you will have a much greater success.

9. I learned that everyone has an excuse and until you man up and quit making excuses you are wasting your time. I associate with a lot of people who are trying to get in shape. I hear a lot of talk from all of them about how focused they want to be, how determined they are, how sick of being overweight they are, the works. Then I ask them what they just had for lunch, or if they have exercised that day and the excuses begin. Excuses pad your waist line just like Twinkies. The bottom line is no matter how busy you are, or what your situation is, if you can't find a way to eliminate the excuses and get to work then you should just welcome your new friends in: diabetes, high cholesterol, sleep apnea, etc etc. We all have issues in our lives, don't make an excuse, create a solution.

10. And finally I learned that if you do the work then you will reap the rewards. The rewards often do not come as fast as you wold like but you will see them. With patience I can do it. Be patient. Be unflappable when the scales hate you. Be accomodating and realize life is going to be unpredictable I've accomodated gym time at midnight when I had to. I owe it to myself to put in a half hour even when I'm tired, I don't feel like it and I think "well I can skip just this once". I've had a lifetime of bad just this once's and I'm done with them. Maybe it's time for a good one..like for just this once I'm going to succeed.

"It takes a little courage, and a little self-control. And some grim determination, If you want to reach the goal. It takes a great deal of striving, and a firm and stern-set chin. No matter what the battle, if you really want to win, there's no easy path to glory. There is no road to fame. Life, however we may view it, Is no simple parlor game; But its prizes call for fighting, For endurance and for grit; For a rugged disposition that will not quit."
-Navy SEAL Masterchief

[Fiddy]

re: Weight Loss - Tips & Daily Check-in

Well it's past midnight so today's the first day of the new diet. 1500 cals/day.

My initial weight 5 minutes ago was worse than I thought: I'm currently 225.2. I'm 50lbs away from my target 175. I'd like to get there by August/September - not sure if I can do it in that time but as long as I'm still making progress towards the goal come August then I won't be discouraged.

For you low cal diet guys, is there a "cheat" day and how much of a cheat is it?

I'll be doing 30-45 minutes of cardio 5-6 days/wk. (that's the plan so KEEP ME MOTIVATED when you see me posting in this thread! Ask me if I've done my cardio today)

175 here I come..hopefully

i just stepped on the scales, and thats what i weigh. when in shape so to speak i was 180-190.. felt good etc.. im now at 225 and need to do something with myself. i lost my job a few months back, the old lady working so all is good. i play mr mom at home like a lot of dads today. i have a blast with my lil guy, he will be 2 in june. awesome helping him learn and do new things every day. but with that said, i need to make dad time and exercise a bit and watching what i eat. al my weight is in my stomach, bah.. worst place!!

i think im gonna start this on april 1st.. 1500-1600 calories a day!! this will give me time to get a game plan together. my old lady and i can sit and make a list of what we eat, how much calories we take in and see what we need to change. although, must be nice, but she eats whatever and doesnt gain a pound.. grrrr..

awesome thread guys!!