Another year, another pledge to lose weight

redrumloa

redrumloa

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I've been hovering near my heaviest weight for about ~2 years now. Stress, diabetes and being overweight is a nasty Trifecta. Each one makes the others worse and feeds on each other. Ignoring this will probably put me in a grave in the next 5 years as hypertension gets worse. I'm not a big fan of pharmaceuticals and stopped the prescriptions about 18 months ago. This would all be well and good, if I just lost the damn weight once and for all.

So, here we go. The heaviest I have weighed myself was 275. When I started Monday, I was ~270. All of this excess weight is in my abdomen, which is the worst when if comes to health. I look 8 months pregnant. At my height 200lb should be in the ideal range, so this is my goal for the year. When I reach 200 I will determine if I want to go below or not.

Start stats:
Weight - 270
Blood pressure - 155/109
Blood sugar (morning) - 110
Blood sugar (after a meal) - 280

I'll update this about monthly, as long as I don't fall off the wagon, which I don't plan to.

Anyone want to join me with a health goal?
 
Congrats on your commitment. I've posted my efforts here before. So go find those. It think Wayne's done a great job too. Though I don't recall him posting about it.

There's three things I'd encourage people to do.
1) Get an APP! Record what you eat each day. This brings a conscious decision making into the process. Also, apps are smart so they can provide you a calorie goal and you can quickly see if you succeeded or exceeded that.

2) Make small changes and tweaks all the time. It's hard to do it all at once. If you're eating 3 candy bars a day, cut down to 2 and switch 1 out for fruit. A few weeks later cut to 1 and add veggies instead.

3) Exercise. One doesn't have do much. Start by a 1/2 mile - 1 mile walk. It'll take about 20-30 minutes. It's more than you've been doing now so that 6-7 miles a week will help you achieve your goals. Plus, one feeds the calories burned into your APP and you get a bit extra food.
 
I'm stuck at 180 - I blame the car - and the fact that my job is a desk job.
I feel better at 160 - fit my pants better too. Keep wandering how I can get there again but calorie restriction alone is useless and taking the time to exercise means not using the time for the gazillion other things that are breathing down my neck.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
I'm stuck at 180 - I blame the car - and the fact that my job is a desk job.
I feel better at 160 - fit my pants better too. Keep wandering how I can get there again but calorie restriction alone is useless and taking the time to exercise means not using the time for the gazillion other things that are breathing down my neck.
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Atkins, it works when you actually live the lifestyle. Keep in mind the Atkins company itself is questionable at best since Dr. Atkins himself died. Find a copy of his book 2nd hand dated before ~2004 and you are good to go. You don't go hungry on Atkins.

Back in 03 I was eating the Atkins way and pretty easily lost ~60 pounds to get back to an ideal weight. That's the year I went to Amiwest and the first time I met the Amiga.org crew in person. Wayne probably remembers how fit I was. Shame since then I have slipped back into old eating habits and gained all that weight back, plus some. We'll see how easy it is now.
 
I'm down to 165lbs and I don't even know why. If anything I eat more, but perhaps playing on two ball hockey teams has something to do with it. That, plus I park my car a good 6 minutes walk away from where I work, and I tend to go for walks at coffee break and lunch (working at the campus, there's plenty of "scenery" making the walk to anywhere rather pleasant). And of course, being a new parent might be part of it as well, although I'm not sure I can tie lack of sleep to weight loss.

At any rate, if you're serious about weight loss, sign up for a year long membership at an expensive gym and hope that you'll be motivated to work out every time you see your bank account get smaller with each monthly payment. Put your money to work to get you to work out!
 
redrumloa said:
Oh wow, what's the catch?
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I haven't tried them so I can't vouch if it's legit or not.

In general the rate of weight loss successes are much less than the failures. Most fitness clubs stay afloat from those Dec purchased year long memberships for members who never show up past the first month. Most people don't achieve their weight loss goals. . So if the losers outbalance the winners this shouldn't be a problem. If there are more winners than losers this would have to be some sort of Ponzi scheme.
 
You lot and your funny units - I'm about ten and half stone, I think. :p

That said, I haven't weighed myself since I don't know when, since I've been more or less the same size for about 25 years.
 
I'm 16 stone 5 (Uk) which is 229.

Had a health assessment last week and I've actually gone up which surprised me. But after thinking about it it's not that surprising.

I going to try and get down to 210 which shouldn't be too difficult. Already eating smaller breakfast, drinking less coffee and reducing puddings.

I plan on doing Tough mudder which should help me get fit!
 
Robert said:
You lot and your funny units - I'm about ten and half stone, I think. :p

That said, I haven't weighed myself since I don't know when, since I've been more or less the same size for about 25 years.
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LOL
you are the supermodel among us
 
redrumloa said:
Thanks largely to HFCS, GMO and "food product" which is not food.

It is also due to generations of teaching "healthy eating" which is nothing of the sort. The original food pyramid was adisaster. High carb, low fat and low calorie diets are an ugly joke.
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Sorry, but that's self contradicting. High carb and low calorie don't go together. Carbohydrates are calorie rich.

At any rate, high carb and low fat isn't bad so long as you're physically active. The carbs are good because they give you energy. That's why people tend to eat pasta before they run a marathon. And from my own experience, nothing bogs me down more then eating a high protein meal before a hockey game. I save the protein for after the game. If you're gonna focus only on diet and try to blame GMOs, your battle against the gut is already lost.
 
Glaucus said:
Sorry, but that's self contradicting. High carb and low calorie don't go together. Carbohydrates are calorie rich.

At any rate, high carb and low fat isn't bad so long as you're physically active. The carbs are good because they give you energy. That's why people tend to eat pasta before they run a marathon. And from my own experience, nothing bogs me down more then eating a high protein meal before a hockey game. I save the protein for after the game. If you're gonna focus only on diet and try to blame GMOs, your battle against the gut is already lost.
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You misunderstood the statement. As an Atkins follower, a "low calorie" diet would still be high in carbs. Go pick up a weight watcher's TV dinner and look at how many carbs are in it. If someone is very active, they indeed need more carbs than someone who is not. There is subject is much deeper than that.

I've seen the traditional dietary training given to new diabetics, it is a travesty and is killing people. The way we were all taught to eat is wrong.
 
If one follows Atkins as laid out in the book it's a low calorie diet. The result of lower calories and less carbs increase the % fat. The body shifts to keotosis with high fat. Which helps one feel fuller and stay on the calorie restriction. Atkins denied this and even one of his books claimed that you could lose more weight watching TV than exercising on the cover. Fact is it is a low calorie diet. Like all in nature people use energy (calorie in - calorie out) and fat is the storage of excess energy.

It's not really you are what you eat. It's really you are what you don't shit.
 
faethor said:
If one follows Atkins as laid out in the book it's a low calorie diet. The result of lower calories and less carbs increase the % fat. The body shifts to keotosis with high fat. Which helps one feel fuller and stay on the calorie restriction. Atkins denied this and even one of his books claimed that you could lose more weight watching TV than exercising on the cover. Fact is it is a low calorie diet. Like all in nature people use energy (calorie in - calorie out) and fat is the storage of excess energy.
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You are pretty much right with your statement, except the part where Dr. Atkins denied it was a low calorie way of eating. It is NOT calorie counting, you eat until you are full. Protein, especially from red meat, keeps curbs the hunger signals. The body does shift into ketosis and the fat from meat helps metabolize body fat burning. As a result blood sugar normalizes, stomach size shrinks and people are content eating less.

They only way it is "not low calorie" is in the fact you don't count calories or strictly watch portion sizes.

I'm one of the few people who actually read Dr. Atkins book (the real one before he died). I can't begin to explain how frustrating it is to hear people claim they are "doing low carb" when in actuality they have no idea what they are talking about. People think if they eat more bacon with every meal, that is low carb. Or if they eat chicken wings for lunch every day, that is good enough. No joke, I've heard that.

It's not really you are what you eat. It's really you are what you don't shit.
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Interesting comment. The first time I went on Atkins, I did the induction phase for about 3 months. I got to a point where I was worried because I wouldn't have a bowel movement for days or even weeks at a time. I wasn't constipated, there was nothing there.
 
Mini update. I officially started Monday Jan 14, which is only 3 days ago. Already the scale tells me I lost 10 pounds and I am down one belt size. Certainly this is largely water weight and if I fell of the wagon today it would come back quickly. That said, it is working. I know I am in ketosis (faint bad breath) and I certainly have more energy. I'm waking up before my alarm clock goes off and not cursing the world for having to peel myself out of bed. I'm walking a couple miles a day and actually look forward to it.

I hope this good vibe keeps up!
 
The Atkins diet may better than no diet at all if you intend on being a lazy sloth sitting on the couch all day doing nothing. However, if you wish to be active, the Atkins diet may not be ideal as you do want more carbs and less protein in that case.

Btw, fat consumption has been linked to things like colon cancer and blocked bile ducts. Make sure you're not exchanging one set of problems for another.
 
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