Weight Loss Thread

one thing i'd say is to eat slowly and chew the fuck out of your food. i know one of my biggest problems is eating too quickly and not chewing enough.

another thing i'd recommend is to start off by just walking for at lest 20-30 minutes every day. try to figure out your target heart rate and set a walking pace that will help you maintain the rate.

Paranoia_sl said:

well I fucking hate life sometimes, i've been dealing with the yo-yo of weight lost all my life. I finally decide to do something about it. I bought a blowflex xtreme se 2 and I hit that shit hard for months 5months into it i started to give up i didn't have anyone to work out with I didn't have anyone to push me no motivation then my blowflex turned into a $1500 clothes hanger. for the better part of 2yrs I didn't do shit and i gained all the weight i lost and then some so now my fatass finally got back on the horse I've been at it for the past two months 3 days a week 30min's (month 4 am going to try 5days a week 30min or more) so far am motivated and am on a protein intake diet.
Before I forget am not running atm, I know I need to but I feel like i need to loose some weight first drop about 40lbs first I use to run but right now I feel sluggish and slow I tried to run the other week I couldn't even go around the block twice just once and i was huffing and puffing so fucking pathetic. it really embarrassing

This is the daily meal intake.

eggs 4max for the week slice of wheat bread. On days I cant eat eggs I have a large class of whey protein. I know its not ment to be a meal replacement but...
4oz of chicken for lunch and some vegs(spinach broccoli asparagus)
8oz of chicken or meat for dinner and lots of vegs(spinach broccoli asparagus)

and water only, whey protein shake between lunch and dinner small(half a scoop) on non work out days and a large(scoop and half) on workout days.

So am trying to keep it simple riight now I need to / want to loose about 100-120lbs any tips or suggestions will be helpful, or tell me what keeps you motivated on days were you just dont feel like working out. Thanks in advance.

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Sounds to me like you feel that exercise is the most important aspect of weight loss. When you lost motivation to work out I'm guessing you thought "well now I can't lose weight so I'm just gonna eat like shit" and then gained your weight back.

It's been said in this thread many times but how you eat is 90-95% of the weight loss battle. Exercising certainly helps but what you eat is way more important. I say this because even if you aren't actively exercising you will still lose weight (and quickly I might add) if you eat right. You said you want to lose 100-120lbs, that's a significant amount and just changing your diet habits will help you lose the first 70-80 of that even without ever exercising. Stay focused on your intake. If you aren't lifting forget about the protein shakes. Even if you are doing beginning lifting it sounds like you are eating more than enough protein and really don't need the extra from those shakes. Eat real food instead. It will sate your hunger better and increase your chance for success.

You still should get into an exercise routine you enjoy because it will help you lose the weight faster, energize you and improve your overall physique but even if you struggle to find an exercise program you can motivate yourself to stick with just eating better will get you the weight loss you desire.

I think your diet is definitely lacking, especially if you're over 300lbs. That protein diet with 1 slice of bread a day? - That's not enough carbs (and the whole diet doesn't seem like enough calories). It's no wonder you have no energy.

Use something likeCalorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needsto figure out your maintenance calories and subtract. According to that tool, a 300lber exercising 3 times a week wanting an "extreme" weight loss plan should still be eating 2400 calories. Your diet doesn't seem to get close. Don't try going on a 1600 calorie diet as if you weigh 185 and are trying to cut. You're going to have no energy and probably see muscle loss before fat loss.

Do this for a couple weeks and check your weight and energy levels. Increase exercise (try doing 30 minutes every day,or maybe 20min in the morning and 20 at night - this can really help with motivation too. 20 min walking/stairs/bike or even walking in place for 20 minutes while watching the morning news can be easier to accomplish), and increase by 5 minutes every few weeks or month). As your weight goes down, adjust calories. I would definitely try getting some more grains/carbs in that diet. brown rice and yams are pretty standard go-tos nowadays.

Be honest with yourself and do what you need to do to stay motivated. That large an amount of weight can take a long time to lose. Be happy with small goals. A lot of people on this thread set active goals rather than weight goals. I.E. bike an extra 5 minutes, or go 10 miles instead of 8, etc. Basically don't focus on the weight loss as the end-goal. Set your desktop wallpaper with a motivational poster, or chart your progress on an active goal. And don't be afraid to tell people of your goals. It's like quitting smoking. The more people you tell that you quit, the higher the peer pressure to stick with it. To that affect, come here and tell us about your progress.

I can personally vouch for diet being a majority of the battle. I went from 283 to approximately 240 before I even tried to work out. After that point, I started working out and dropped another 25 pounds. Even if you have no desire to work out, find a diet that works for you and get used to it.

For me, a ketogenic diet worked out very well for my lifestyle and how I wanted to worry about food. It is high fat / low carb. I would definitely recommend it if you aren't in to counting calories. It isn't for everyone.

Take pictures every week. Even when you feel discouraged it'll be huge motivation to look back at your starting picture and see just how far you've come.

It's not even up for debate, diet is the only realistic way to lose a significant amount of weight

Ambiturner_sl said:

It's not even up for debate, diet is the only realistic way to lose a significant amount of weight

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What?! Lipo does WONDERS.

I did OHP today. Felt good

mkopec_sl said:

Diet is the way. But its hard. It takes determination and shit ton of willpower. Its pretty simple really.

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So is it hard or simple?

Or is it simply hard? Or hardly simple?

After a few months hiatus due to baby/winter/lazy, started lifting again about a month ago. Yesterday is back day and I managed to strain the lower back doing dead's. Knew it as soon as it happened. Pushed too hard too fast. 155x10 is no problem? Sure lets load up 205 and crank out as many as possible. Now I can barely stand up straight. I hate myself.

It's simple, you just lower calories below maintenance. If you stop losing, you either lower calories more or increase cardio.

It's hard though, because you get fucking hungry.

Chicken breasts make it so much easier for me though. I grill up about 4 pounds and it'll last me half the week (since the wife ends up eating a bunch too). But it makes a good lunch/dinner, and generally about 300 calories with rice or sweet potato. I'm one of those people that absolutely love chicken breasts and brown rice though. If it wasn't a pain in the ass to make, I could eat it every day for one of my meals. It's very filling, and that 300 calories make the rest of my day so easy to hit my target.

I've lost about 13-14 pounds since the last week of December (12 weeks or so).

Looking for advice.

Goal: To get as ripped as possible by summer / July.
Current: 6'4'', 210 lbs. 34 years. Tall and lanky, except a bit excess around the middle.
I lifted a fair bit last year, and in good lightning it's still possible to see the results if you look really hard.

Plan:
I've been doing Starting Strength for the last 5-6 weeks (without Power Cleans, because I am not confident my back will hold out - doing pull ups instead). In addition, I've been eating a lot. Not crazy amounts, but enough that I've gained about 1 lb per week.
I'll keep doing SS for another 6 weeks or so. That should put my squat at about 250lbs, deadlift at 300, bench at 175 (for 3x5 sets/reps). That should take me to end of April.
Starting May, less food. Some cardio on off-days. Stop starting strength, and do hypertrophy work with upper body focus. I'm guessing I need to get to just below 200 lbs in body weight.

Suggestions/improvements?

I decided to go to the 'normal' BJJ class at the gym last night after the beginner class. While it was fun, it doesn't really scale very linearly in terms of difficulty compared to beginner. This session completely destroyed me. I had a hard time not wanting to vomit and I feel like if I was pulled over on my way home they could have given me a DUI as I was pretty out of it. As I am writing about this today, I am not terribly sore and I feel pretty good all things considered. I have never been brought to that level of exhaustion before where, at the end, I couldn't command my body to do things.

I am primarily thinking that the Keto diet I am running through now is responsible for the energy level. If I remember correctly, it is good for sustained energy, things like running, but not burst energy like fighting. Overall, it was 2 hours of working out, the beginner followed by normal class.

The question is, has anyone been in this position before and what did you do to get the energy needed to complete the workout?

Clearly, changing the diet for more carbs is on that list. However, I would prefer to try and stick to what I have been doing for another 15 lbs. That is when I was going to evaluate things again anyway. The information I am seeing online seems to go for a Targeted Ketogenic Diet so that is my jumping off point.

Ubiquitrips_sl said:

I decided to go to the 'normal' BJJ class at the gym last night after the beginner class. While it was fun, it doesn't really scale very linearly in terms of difficulty compared to beginner. This session completely destroyed me. I had a hard time not wanting to vomit and I feel like if I was pulled over on my way home they could have given me a DUI as I was pretty out of it. As I am writing about this today, I am not terribly sore and I feel pretty good all things considered. I have never been brought to that level of exhaustion before where, at the end, I couldn't command my body to do things.

I am primarily thinking that the Keto diet I am running through now is responsible for the energy level. If I remember correctly, it is good for sustained energy, things like running, but not burst energy like fighting. Overall, it was 2 hours of working out, the beginner followed by normal class.

The question is, has anyone been in this position before and what did you do to get the energy needed to complete the workout?

Clearly, changing the diet for more carbs is on that list. However, I would prefer to try and stick to what I have been doing for another 15 lbs. That is when I was going to evaluate things again anyway. The information I am seeing online seems to go for a Targeted Ketogenic Diet so that is my jumping off point.

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Are you sure it's not just a matter of conditioning as opposed to not getting enough energy from your diet? If you like your diet and can function fine in all other areas besides this, I'd give it some time and see if you can build up your conditioning and adapt to it. If that fails, then start changing your diet.

Ubiquitrips_sl said:

I decided to go to the 'normal' BJJ class at the gym last night after the beginner class. While it was fun, it doesn't really scale very linearly in terms of difficulty compared to beginner. This session completely destroyed me. I had a hard time not wanting to vomit and I feel like if I was pulled over on my way home they could have given me a DUI as I was pretty out of it. As I am writing about this today, I am not terribly sore and I feel pretty good all things considered. I have never been brought to that level of exhaustion before where, at the end, I couldn't command my body to do things.

I am primarily thinking that the Keto diet I am running through now is responsible for the energy level. If I remember correctly, it is good for sustained energy, things like running, but not burst energy like fighting. Overall, it was 2 hours of working out, the beginner followed by normal class.

The question is, has anyone been in this position before and what did you do to get the energy needed to complete the workout?

Clearly, changing the diet for more carbs is on that list. However, I would prefer to try and stick to what I have been doing for another 15 lbs. That is when I was going to evaluate things again anyway. The information I am seeing online seems to go for a Targeted Ketogenic Diet so that is my jumping off point.

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BJJ is my sport as well, and I've been doing it on and off for almost 4 years now. It is fantastic, fun, and might even come in handy some day.

If you are as brand new as your post indicates, what you experienced was a combination of your conditioning not being where it needs to be but also that when you are new to the sport you waste energy like CRAZY. It is hard to explain just how wasteful you are with it before you have a decent amount of mat time. That efficiency will develop as you improve your skill and technique, for this you just need to go to class and spar consistently.

I actually wouldn't recommend you do a keto diet and also start an intense sport like BJJ at the same time. A good, solid diet low in heavily processed foods and high in meat/veggies should be more than adequate if you pair it with consistent training. After some time, maybe 6 months or a year, if you still feel like trying keto then that would be better.

If you engage in heavy cardio, add more carbs, it won't bring you out of ketosis. This is where the little blood test kits come in handy, you can track your ketone levels and see how many carbs you can eat to feel energetic during your cardio, without eating so many it drops you out of ketosis.

Someone brought these Almond nut chips into work today and they were pretty solid. I am sure they are still pretty bad for you, but are they at least "better" then other snack items?

Blue Diamond Nut-Thins Almond Nut & Rice Cracker Snacks | drugstore.com

Someone brought these Almond nut chips into work today and they were pretty solid. I am sure they are still pretty bad for you, but are they at least "better" then other snack items?

Blue Diamond Nut-Thins Almond Nut & Rice Cracker Snacks | drugstore.com

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What do you mean by "better"?

From a purely weight loss perspective (i.e. calories in vs. calories out) they don't seem all that much better than other chips. In fact, they're only slightly better than Doritos, which are 140 calories for 11 chips vs. 130 for 16 for these Almond chips. Both look like empty carbs that probably won't fill you up much.

My obese coworker eats shit like that, and a ton of it too, because it's advertised as "healthy." She guzzles Lipton Iced Teas and munches all day on fancy wheat crackers and whatnot. That's why she's fat.