Weight loss

Matt_C

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Well, I didn't ever see myself posting in this forum!

I'm 30, 6ft 2, and last month found out I was over 18.5 stone! Yes, I knew I was overweight, but two things I never do; 1) check my bank balance in the cash machine, and 2) stand on scales

However, I was bought a gift voucher for my 30th from some friends in order to do either a tandem parachute jump, or a bungee jump. Reading the fine print, turns out you need to be less than 15st to do the parachute jump, and under 18st to do a bungee. Straight away I knew I couldn't do the parachute jump, but thought I'd be fine for the bungee - and a month or so ago was at one of the friends who bought the voucher, telling them this, who went upstairs and got scales; so I stood on them and was kinda shocked to see it was leaning towards 19st! Granted I was wearing jeans, shoes, and we'd just been out to dinner, but still!

So, first thing I did was cut back my eating. I've never had a great diet - I spend my days driving round in a van (I fit windscreens, and do a LOT of driving) and generally eat crap, service station pies, maccy d's, burger king, kfc, subway, etc. I'm also partial to the (far too frequent) kebab and chips! So first port of call was cut that stuff out. Next was to make lunch to take to work (ham or chicken salad sandwich, etc) and half what I would normally take to one sandwich or one roll instead of two, and no crisps, sausage roll, etc. Also not to grab the (again far too frequent) snacks from petrol stations and the like.

So a month later, I've managed to get down from, say, 18st 10lbs, to 17st 5lbs - which is great, but I want to get it down to at least 16st 7lbs, maybe even 16st dead. I don't think I'm ever going to be 15, or even under 16; I just don't have the frame for it (6'2" as said, big broad shoulders, large chest, I can genuinely use the "I'm big boned" phrase!) but I think I should be less than I am. My arms, legs (thighs and calfs) aren't fat, it's mainly my gut and moobs (and my face a bit, which has gone down a bit recently)

I tried exercise (something I haven't done since high school!) and that was an epic failure - I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I thought I'd at least be able to jog for 15-20 mins : I managed 3.5 mins day one, 4.5 day two, and day three my right knee was killing me (highlights the fact I must have next to no muscle strength in my knees!!!)

So, other than halving my food intake, and being more careful what I eat (ie, looking for foods with low carb, low fat, especially saturated fat - which is hard as taking sandwiches or rolls for lunch means bread), eating more veg and less potato, and trying to condition myself to do actual exercise (try to build up muscle and stamina for jogging, and I'm looking to try and go swimming on a regular basis - I am a smoker, and a fairly heavy one, which hampers my lung capacity severely), what else can I be looking to to try and drop the weight?

I did look at the "fad" diets like lighter life, dukan, etc, and although I see people dropping weight fast that way (our own Stuart here did 3st in 10 weeks) I just don't see that working fantastically for me, as I expect to put it all back on soon as I come off it - plus I can't afford the £90 p/w for the lighter life diet!

Tips, hints - magic secrets?!?!
 
I was 4 stone more than I thought I was so that was a shock for me. I am also looking at losing just about a stone more after 14 months. I have really wide shoulders and thinking 13 -13.5 stone will be good enough for me.

It is important to stay positive and with only a stone to lose, it should be possible to be done on diet alone. Exercise may get easier later on. Take it one day a time and try to plan meals in advance.

Swimming is an excellent exercise if you decide you like it especially as it can take the pressure of our joints while strengthening the body at the same time.

The fad diets can only be short term success as it doesn't change the person how to think about food. So, when back onto normal food, weight it can creep back on unless exercise compensates for it.

You are already doing very well so hang in there. It is not a race.
 
Sounds like you're doing the right things regarding diet, as evident by your initial loss. If that keeps working then you can keep at it. In addition, a lot of people benefit from tracking their food intake via myfitnesspal, which you can install on your phone or use the website.

In terms of exercise, swimming, cycling, rowing and cross trainer are all low impact. Kettle bells workouts are good, and I am a big fan of weight training.

As an aside, I will 100% guarantee you that you could get under 14 stone, and not even look thin at that weight. There is a tendency to vastly over estimate how much we should weigh. Having gone from over 17 stone at 6ft 1in down to 12.5 stone, it's amazing how light you can get. Even at 12.5 stone I'm not that lean.
 
As mentioned, you've already made a great start and generally starting like this is always the hardest. Now that you have made some progress, there is only more to be made.

I started at around 20 stone, 6ft3 and I have a big frame too. I am now below 15 stone with considerably more muscle mass. Most of my loss has been done through weight training only. I hope to hit the 14 stone mark soon, and I guess at that weight, I would like pretty lean... but most definitely not skinny ;)

It really is a marathon and the closer you get to your ultimate goal, the harder you will run, metaphorically speaking.
 
In my experience the key to weight loss for me is exercise and diet. I cant diet too well as I enjoy food too much but as long as I don't go mad with food and regularly exercise the weight comes off. Just dieting sucks as you have to really watch every little thing that passes your lips. If I were you I would try lots of gym activities (or outdoor sports) and find what you enjoy...and you will be more likely to stick with it. The other thing is to look at habit and routine...look at how you can build exercise into a routine which works for you...if its a real hassle you will have no chance of sticking with it. I really enjoy the epilipical cross trainer as its low impact (I ahv bad knee) and is brill at burning calories fast...plus I can watch videos on my iPhone....being able to watch DVD on my phone is another trick that works for me....before you know it 30mins have passed.......and you have done 30 mins more than nothing !
 
first of all well done on the weight loss so far

with regards to the excercise just stick with it go for a short walk every day if you can, little things like as your driving a lot, when you park up in a car park somewhere park in a space further away, sounds silly but all adds up, i now try to park as far away as possible from the supermarket

when i first started my weight loss mission at the beginning of the year i couldn't even run to the car park up the road from me which was about 200 metres away and now I have already run two half marathons with more planned, just stick with it.
 
Went swimming today, for the first time in a LONG time (I don't count the floundering in pools while on holiday! Did and hour, and probably 35-40 lengths of a full size pool - was amazed at it being harder than I remember, but came out with a pretty satisfying feeling in my arm, leg and back muscles; the kind that you'd rather not have, but feel quite good about all the same because you know you stretched them all out and got a fairly decent workover. Definitely felt like I'd done a lot more, full body, than my poor attempt at jogging! so I'll try to get to the pool more often
 
A nicely worded OP :laugh: and few add/minus, I can see my reflection there. But whenever I read someone managed to get down a stone, my frustration grows. I used to do 7-10km jog (albeit a slow one), 3x week on avg and in 2 yrs time only lost 5kg the most. For last 2 years off the road and last time on GP just after new year, I was standing at 85kg!! (from 77kg)
So no more excuse of "I'm always been heavier", straight to gym and doing a regular work out :-

Day1:- 5-7km treadmill (speed: steady 9km/hr)
Light weights: chest, barbell, dumb bells etc
Day2: 5km (speed variable: 400m slow jog and 400m sprint)
Light weight: as above
Day3: cycle (machine)
(constant r/s@70, speed: starting@4 and every min plus1(4,5,6,7,8) and back to 4 after 5 mins) X4
swimming 25X20m freestyle (stopping only to adjust)
Day4/5/6: Depends on mood, energy/motivation level, time and normally mix from above or off.

I've been following the above programme for almost 4 months now and also looked after the food. And 2kg down!!! :( :mad:. Given how those weights fluctuates, I would say 500g lost in actual!!

Sorry to hijack but in the end have same questions to ask:
tips,hints - magic secrets?!?!

:lease:
 
Sorry to hijack but in the end have same questions to ask:
tips,hints - magic secrets?!?!

:lease:

first question is what is your diet like? whats a normal days eating for you?
 
That's a tricky part. Being from south-east asian, Almost like indian food but a much lighter version (less oil and masala). A main meal will consists of rice , vegetable/meat (chicken/pork/lamb/fish) curry. Breakfast is of 3xtoast, egg/sausage/luncheon meat, butter/honey spread.

Morning: Breakfast
Day: main meal
afternoon: various
evening: main meal

Throw in fruits & yogurts.
 
Starfarer - to be fair, I'd wager the majority of my initial loss was water weight more than anything. Add to that I totally shocked my body with the diet change; my body was used to macdonalds for breakfast (fairly often), macdonalds, burgerking, kfc, chip shop, kebab or subway for lunch, and dinner in the evening, usually quite late around 9pm, would be a full plateful of food (varying, but often pizza, pies, chips, sausage and mash, lasagne and garlic bread, meatballs and pasta, or a trip to the kebab shop again). So breaking from that diet to eating a banana for breakfast (more recently weetabix), either a Tesco sandwich or a home made roll (small) for lunch - and nothing else with it - and a small dinner (ie, half a plateful, varies between just meat on it's own - chicken, pork or beef steaks/breasts/loin cuts, or soup (with a roll) or a small amount of boiled potatoes and veg) was a MASSIVE shock for my body, and must have (at least I hope, otherwise it's not been worth it!) had an affect on my weight.

The bunch of times I've been into a MacDonalds in the last month have only been to make a deposit! It's so hard to walk out of there without a BigMac or a couple of double cheeseburgers (the latter were a STAPLE part of my lunch fixes for years), and I haven't had any chips, fried chicken or pizza in the past 5 weeks either :(

Stomach is growling at me just from typing this! Time to go bake a very small potato, which I can't even put butter on :(
 
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That's a tricky part. Being from south-east asian, Almost like indian food but a much lighter version (less oil and masala). A main meal will consists of rice , vegetable/meat (chicken/pork/lamb/fish) curry. Breakfast is of 3xtoast, egg/sausage/luncheon meat, butter/honey spread.

Morning: Breakfast
Day: main meal
afternoon: various
evening: main meal

Throw in fruits & yogurts.

that's a lot of carbs. whote toast or whole wheat? cut out white bread for a start, go to whole wheat, if you're eating that much rice during the day i'd consider cutting out the toast in the morning, do you like porridge/oatmeal? be a lot better for you. vegggies and meat are good, can you cut down on the rice portion and increase the veggies/meat to avoid being hungry?

i'd recommend signing up for myfitness pal. for a couple of weeks measure your portions very accurately and enter them honestly, that'll give you a great idea where you are going right/wrong, and where you need to cut
 
Thanks for advice and what i've been thinking of doing for long time. I've already stopped on white bread and taking much smaller portion on evening meal. I'll try with whole-grain, not sure about porridge/oats/cereals as completely hated that since hostel days. But if saves time off from painful exercise...why not.

Downloaded myfiness pal. For today I've still 1500 calorie left to consume and that'll get couple beer for euro :clap:. On serious note, that looks like a killer app .

@matt: that is some impressive food :D
 
Downloaded myfiness pal. For today I've still 1500 calorie left to consume and that'll get couple beer for euro :clap:. On serious note, that looks like a killer app .

@matt: that is some impressive food :D

you have 1500 calories left?? what have you set your weekly loss to be? i'm 86Kg right now, not far off my target weight, and i have around 1500 a day total to eat. what did it calculate your daily intake should be?

or did you just download it and haven't entered any food yet? :)
 
Current: 80kg ( don't have any calibrated machine, GP's shows 84kg, gym:79, home: 80)
goal wt: 70kg
Wt loss goal: revised->2.0lbs/week ( yesterday it was set at 1)
Exercise: 3/wk
28 June 2012

Breakfast:
2xBread + 2x fried egg : 377cal
Lunch:
Rubicon Mango juice + Veg curry: 354cal
Dinner:
Boiled rice + chicken curry : 481

Total: 1212

Exercise:
Exercise bike (moderate, 30 minutes) : 320
Swimming freestyle : 280
total loss : 600
(still looking to adjust for light weights done)

Revised goal :1380
total food :1212
Exercise loss : 600
remaining : (1380-1212)+600= 768
2x cans of stella: 460
Net remaining: 308
 
aye, that looks more reasonable than having 1500 calories left.
 
Matt_C said:
Starfarer - to be fair, I'd wager the majority of my initial loss was water weight more than anything. Add to that I totally shocked my body with the diet change; my body was used to macdonalds for breakfast (fairly often), macdonalds, burgerking, kfc, chip shop, kebab or subway for lunch, and dinner in the evening, usually quite late around 9pm, would be a full plateful of food (varying, but often pizza, pies, chips, sausage and mash, lasagne and garlic bread, meatballs and pasta, or a trip to the kebab shop again). So breaking from that diet to eating a banana for breakfast (more recently weetabix), either a Tesco sandwich or a home made roll (small) for lunch - and nothing else with it - and a small dinner (ie, half a plateful, varies between just meat on it's own - chicken, pork or beef steaks/breasts/loin cuts, or soup (with a roll) or a small amount of boiled potatoes and veg) was a MASSIVE shock for my body, and must have (at least I hope, otherwise it's not been worth it!) had an affect on my weight.

The bunch of times I've been into a MacDonalds in the last month have only been to make a deposit! It's so hard to walk out of there without a BigMac or a couple of double cheeseburgers (the latter were a STAPLE part of my lunch fixes for years), and I haven't had any chips, fried chicken or pizza in the past 5 weeks either :(

Stomach is growling at me just from typing this! Time to go bake a very small potato, which I can't even put butter on :(

You're doing very well, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of butter! Plenty of good health benefits, just don't be over generous. (Certainly don't touch those hydrogenated fatty margarines).

I love butter on my potatoes and toast. There is no substitute. Moderation is the key to a healthy life, not starvation :D
 
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You're doing very well, but there's nothing wrong with a bit of butter! Plenty of good health benefits, just don't be over generous.

I love butter on my potatoes and toast. There is no substitute. Moderation is the key to a healthy life, not starvation :D

Me too. Saturated fat in moderation is fine, I just make sure its within my daily macro target. I'd much rather put something natural and unprocessed in my body than margarine. Processed fats are awful

You don't build much muscle without a decent supply of fat either
 
sniffer66 said:
Me too. Saturated fat in moderation is fine, I just make sure its within my daily macro target. I'd much rather put something natural and unprocessed in my body than margarine. Processed fats are awful

You don't build much muscle without a decent supply of fat either

Totally agree and it's something that is overlooked. Butter is very natural and don't forget humans have been consuming it for thousands of years. The media love their hyperbole, just find the middle ground and ignore their fickle advice.
 
aye, that looks more reasonable than having 1500 calories left.

that was before revised goal (1800) and decided couple of stellas can fit in there :D
 
Well I seem to have levelled out at 17st 3lbs - which is what I've been for the past 4 mornings (today was actually 17st 3.5lbs). Interestingly, both yesterday eve and this eve, I've been 17st 2.5lbs, but then both yesterday and today I only had a single sandwich the entire day (got up too late for breakfast and just had a Tesco sandwich for lunch.

I had my "cheat night" last night in the pub - a Weatherspoons Brunch Burger;

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Which also comes with chips and onion rings - and a pint! Yes, bad stuffs indeed, but actually pretty damn tasty

Weighed 17st 2.5lbs at 7pm yesterday, at 2am (after the above + 2 pints of coke and a pint of water) I weighed 17st 10.5lbs! But then at 8:30am this morning, I was back to 17st 3.5lbs...
 
You're weighing yourself waay too often. Once per week, on the same morning, before you've eaten anything and after you've been to the toilet is best.

yeah a big poo can make you lose a pound at least xD
 
Yeah I know - but the only place for the scales is right in the bathroom doorway (bathroom is the only tiled/solid floor upstairs; everything else is carpet) so I just end up doing it randomly at various times :D

I do do it every morning after getting up and using the bathroom (three S's - without the shave!), so only really pay attention to the morning weights. Still, it can be interesting to see the differences food and liquid, along with working all day, etc, can make. Bearing in mind May was the first time I stepped on scales in probably well over ten years - maybe closer to 15! - it's a new obsession :D
 
I tried exercise (something I haven't done since high school!) and that was an epic failure - I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I thought I'd at least be able to jog for 15-20 mins : I managed 3.5 mins day one, 4.5 day two, and day three my right knee was killing me (highlights the fact I must have next to no muscle strength in my knees!!!)

My tip for your exercise is to go to a specialist running shop and get your gait analysed, getting the right running shoes (cushioned, stability, neutral, motion control etc) is essential. Then try a couch to 5k program which you can get as apps for iOS or android or just print off the program (give me a shout if you need a copy).

I used to push 16st at 5'11" and to be honest could'nt run a bath never mind a 5k. Running for a minute would kill me and afterward the pain in my shins/calfs/knees would be excruciating. I went to a local running/fitness shop and spoke to a guy who checked my gait and recommended some shoes (asics cumulus) and gave me tips on training, stretching, resting, warmups, cool downs etc and within 3-4 months i had managed my first non-stop 5k and managed to shift 16lb.

Now im down to 13.5st run 5k's 3 times a week combined in my gym sessions with a 10k at a weekend every now and again and i still have a saturday evening takeaway and beer session pretty regularly.

Honestly, when i first started out i thought i would never ever be to do it and that i was destined to always be a 'big boned man', but stick with it, perceiver and it will come with a bit of sweat and hard graft.:thumbsup:
 

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