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bob95eg
Past Member
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Posted: 28 Jul 2006 04:57 am |
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| All my life I have steadily gained weight. I'm 5' 7" and I reached 217 till about a month ago. I've wanted to try dieting many times and I would come up with a plan but it would never last more than a few hours before I would feel deprived and pig out on fast food or a pizza. I'm still not sure what has given me the will power but on the week before the 4th of July I took a vacation and I thought I would surprise everybody by starting a crash diet and exercising. I wanted to get a head start on coworkers to lose weight without them catching on to me and getting jealous and copying me. There was one guy who had called me fat last year but he has been gaining himself to the point that his gut was as big as mine. One motivator was that I want to get off the blood pressure medicine and I also don't want all the medical problems that go with being overweight. I had cut out drinking a 2 liter of coke a day around last year but replaced it with a pitcher of sweet tea instead. I think that was what helped go up from around 200 at the beginning of the year to 217 at my biggest. I started making my tea with Splenda and now I drink mostly water anyway. About 80 ounces a day. I went on an 800 to 1000 calorie diet since I started the week before the 4th and I'm at 195 now. I never feel hungry and I don't crave food either. I have found it very easy to turn down pizza when I was offerd it on 2 occassions. I have been exercising and recently started lifting weights. I know this site says I should be eating a lot more but I want to lose weight as fast as possible. Somehow I've changed my feelings about food where I no longer care about it or crave it like I used too. I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and buy only low calorie and low fat foods. I have gotten kinda stuck though because my scale has read around 195 for about a week now. It goes up and down a few pounds every day. It's also a cheap scale so it's not very accurate. I definitely look slimmer though. When I was 217 I looked like a pregnant woman with my big gut but now it's a lot smaller. I had to take my belt in 2 notches and my pants feel looser. About 10 yrs ago I went to boot camp weighing 185 and came out weighing 156 but I still felt chubby. I'm thinking now that I want to be 145. That's not counting muscles though because I do intend to keep working out and develop a muscular body. I would love to have a six pack and I know it takes a low body fat percentage. For several months after boot camp I would go jogging at night after it got cool outside but eventually it started giving me back pain so I stopped. Then the weight started coming back and kept on coming. I don't know if I'm really looking for advice or what but I thought some people might find it interesting how I was able to quit binge eating after doing it my whole life. I still don't know how I managed to muster the will power to do this but now it doesn't seem to require will power to keep going because it's like I've changed and now I'm a weight loss fanatic. I've always worked hard my whole life so I have been able to eat more than most people. People have told me plenty of times that the way I used to eat I should be a lot bigger. Sorry for the long post. I know it doesn't show but I actually got A's in my college English classes.
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 28 Jul 2006 12:36 pm |
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I applaud you for choosing to eat lots of fruits, vegetables and low-calorie foods. Healthy eating is certainly the way to go for fat loss. I'm impressed that your cravings are gone.
You are not the first person who wanted to lose fat in a hurry. Just read (almost) all the other posts on this forum. You need to be aware of the pitfalls of eating just 800..1000 calories a day. Please read up about this subject (for example the Tutorials on thie website). How quickly you become affected varies from person to person. Your current stall might just be muscle gain, or it could already be your metabolism adjusting downwards. You didn't put down your age, but I approximate you need a minimum of 1800 calories a day (and that is if you're not active).
For example: I am 5'5.5", 127lb and I lose fat on 1800 calories a day - with the advantage that I don't have to worry about slowed metabolism.
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bob95eg
Past Member
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Posted: 28 Jul 2006 11:21 pm |
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| Thanks for the reply. I've already read the whole site but it was after a few weeks of being on my diet. I'm 33 and I'm fairly active I guess. I only sleep about 6 hours a night then work 8 or 10 hours standing up all day. I'm a welder in a shop and I do a lot of heavy lifting. We have overhead cranes for the heavy stuff but if I can pick it up I will save time by doing so. I didn't use to eat like crazy everyday but I think I probably averaged over 3000 calories a day. (Maybe a lot more?) It wasn't unusual for me to eat like 4 doughnuts in the morning with a Starbucks Frappuccino. Then I'd go to the snack machine later and get a bag of chips and some M&M's and a Twix. Then for lunch I might go to the Chinese buffet and eat 2 big plates. All the while drinking heavily sweetened tea. Then when I got home I would eat a Hot Pocket or 2. My wife would go visit her mom every evening and bring home an oversized plate of home cooked food. Stuff like potato salad, macaroni and cheese, peach cobbler, and pot roast. Usually enough to feed a small family and I would eat it all. Having a physical job is the only thing that kept me from getting enormous. I had swore off McDonalds for over a year after watching the "Supersize Me" documentary but finally decided that I didn't care anymore and started going there again about 3 months ago. The reat of the fast food places are a lot better to me but they are way too slow for me to get there and back and have time to eat during my 30 minute lunch break. Now I just bring a Lean Cuisine and some fruit and watch the other guys eat pizza and burgers. It doesn't bother me at all.
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Peter
Founder of this forum
| Joined: | 24 May 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 4180 |
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Posted: 30 Jul 2006 04:15 am |
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Can't stand it anymore... what the heck is that a picture of?
Peter
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OWF
Distinguished Member
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Posted: 1 Aug 2006 04:42 pm |
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HYSTERICAL Peter!!! I was wondering the same thing!!!!!
WHAT IS THAT BOB? I assume it is some tool from your welding career??
Anyway, congrats on weight loss, but like Nir said earlier, be careful about the numbers. I am sure you are losing fat, but you may need to really eat enough to keep it up-I also got into a rut with numbers too low. My body adjusted and stopped losing...so I had to increase and initially my weight went up a few times and now I am doing well and losing. 800-1000 is way too low for weight loss. Try the calculators on the site and you will find your correct range. You are doing too well to stall your plan now. keep up the great work!
WHAT IS THAT AVATAR?
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bob95eg
Past Member
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Posted: 18 Aug 2006 12:24 am |
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| Sorry. I haven't been back in a while. It's a picture of my turbo looking towards the inlet side. It's a pretty common thing to see on automotive forums. I started eating a little more than I was in hopes of restoring my metabolism to normal. I reckon I started eating about 1500 calories a day. It took a while but I have been slowly loosing till I hit 190 today. That 5 lbs has taken me since I first posted this thread to lose. Now I'm back to eating about 1000 calories a day and I exercise pretty regularly and work long hours. I also only sleep about 5 hours a night so that probably helps me burn more calories each day. I try to eat an apple and a banana for my snacks while I'm working. I drink about 80 ounces of water a day at work then I get home and drink decaf tea sweetened with Splenda. Staying on the diet and eating healthy seems so easy for me.
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Peter
Founder of this forum
| Joined: | 24 May 2005 |
| Location: | |
| Posts: | 4180 |
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Posted: 18 Aug 2006 05:09 am |
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Of course! Your turbo. Now I can sleep at night!
Glad you're doing well,
Peter
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Nir
Senior Administrator
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Posted: 18 Aug 2006 01:44 pm |
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Why would anyone work on repairing their metabolism and then try to slow it again  
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