Personal Weight Loss Thread

[MarcusKspn]

Allright,

here it goes. My wife joined Weight Watchers yesterday and to support her I am going to join with her. Not to mention that I really need to loose a ton of weight myself. I will use this thread as another accountability system to help me loose weight and stay on track. I want to get fit enought to be healthy, and get on with a career department for a living. And I don't want for anybody to have to drag my fat ***** out of a burning building during a mayday. Not trying any fancy diets here, just generalized eating better, healthier and less with moderate exercise. Wish me luck people.

Yesterday was official weigh-in for the first meeting. Here are my starting stats:

Weight 271.4
BMI 38.9

Target weight is in the neighborhood of 170 pounds, thats a little more over an even 100 pounds to loose. If I keep my loss to a modest 2 pounds a week, which I think is a very realistic goal it would mean that one year from today, I should be a skinny shadow of my former self.

[RspctFrmCalgary]

I haven't belonged to Weight Watcher's in a long time, but still believe that Weight Watcher's is the best program out there, because you still eat "real" food. Not like Nutri-System or Jenni Craig

Have you seen the threads Puffy and StayBack started?

http://forums.firehouse.com/showthre...hlight=fitness

http://forums.firehouse.com/showthre...hlight=fitness

Good luck to both you and your wife!

[MarcusKspn]

I have seen those threads, noticed there are a few going on here about people trying to loose weight. I was thinking that having a personal thread about my own personal weight loss would be a better accountability system for me instead of 2, 3, or more people posting together. Or maybe I am just a thread-hogger.

[RspctFrmCalgary]

I didn't post the links to those threads as criticism. I posted them as an additional "tool" of support and information ... what works for some people might not work for another, and who knows, you may pick up an idea or two.

Nothing wrong with having your own personal thread.

[MarcusKspn]

Don't worry, I didn't take it as any sort of critizism. I did think for a good while if I should post with other people, or start my own. At the rate this country is going it would almost be worth to have a "Loosing Weight" sub-forum on "Health and Fitness"

[MarcusKspn]

Okay, I had to work yesterday so we didn't go to our meeting this week until today. I think I did pretty good last week. Actually had some problems eating all my points. Even eating as I went along during the day I just was not that hungry and would find myself having 3-5 points left over in the evening. Didn't do anything yet for excercise this week. I didn't want to do the whole "change everything in my life type diet". Just little things at a time. Change the way I eat first, then add activity. I hope to add cardio by next week, and then work on weight training. Cardio I will do with my wife, find something we both like. Then I am thinking about doing my weights at the station. But that is all in the future. Here is what happened this week:

Weight today: 264.2
Weight loss: 7.2 pounds (2.7%)
BMI: 37.9

While this is very good I am almost worried about loosing too much weight. I hope this is mostly water and not this much fat. I don't want to loose to fast and loose a lot of muscle or gain it back too quick later. We will see how next week goes.

[firefitihp]

Ok, Great Job! so far but............
Here is the issue. There are two things a person wants in the world.
1. LOOK BETTER NAKED
2. FEEL GOOD

You first must understand what your wants and needs are. By this I mean "everybody WANTS to get in shape". A person NEEDS to understand the commitment they must provide to themselves in order to get their wants. You mention loosing too much weight. There is a big difference between loosing bodyfat percent versus loosing weight. The body is basically an illusion. ANYONE CAN LOSE WEIGHT. Very few understands how to lose bodyfat. Example a pound of fat and a pound of muscle. A pound is a pound but how the pound looks make the true difference. You can lose 20 pounds, most of the time you are also loosing muscle along with water and some fat. If you lost 20 lbs, look like you loss 30-35lbs due to lean muscle then you have reached a starting point to your goal. Commit to one day of exercise one day recreational fun. This will help in the mental aspect of working out. It takes 21 days to commit a habit. Try to commit to yourself for 21 days and see what happens. We must find a way for you and your wife to make fitness and wellness habitual. Not only for yourself but for each other in longevity.
Cardio is great for the heart and to burn calories.
Strength training is great for reducing bodyfat percentage.

Good Luck!

[FlameTamer325]

to every one at weight watcher- throw your bmi scores out the window. old and in accurate. For now go by inches lost. have someone measure you in the following areas. widest part of the chest, widest part of upper thigh, widest part of upper arm, hips and across your bellybutton. some weeks you may not lose any "weight" but may lose inches- this process will be greatly increased if you do some form of resitance training. good luck! any questions I'm here(personal trainer for over five years)

[MarcusKspn]

Hey everyone, thanks for the word of encouragement. I will get a tape measure and work on the inches this evening with the wife. As far as this week goes I think it went pretty well. Starting to work out some tonight. Doing cardio with light weight training starting today. Too boost metabolism, gain some strength, and really really work on stamina (rookie class is 6 weeks away, I want to be able to stay with the pack). I feel better, when we have our evening of cheating (saving all our flex points for a delicious dinner once a week) our stomachs got upset, maybe my body is getting used to healthy food and goes into strike when the greasy burger hits it. My biggest surprise is that all our food we have been having has been really good. You don't have to eat really nasty super-health tofu-soybean deluxe with added curds. We have been eating a lot of the same foods, with low-fat, whole grain, healthy oil substitutes to save on a lot of points, and it has been really tasty. It has been more expensive to buy the healthier foods. But we were spending a ton of money eating out almost every night, so by buying more expensive good food and actually cooking ourselves we are saving money. I feel really great about this so far. At the risk of sounding corny, it really feels more like a "Lifestyle Modification" than a diet. Something we can really stick with. Thats another one of our goals, learn to eat healthy and like it, so that when we have kids they can grow up with healthy foods and don't have to try to loose 100+ pounds when they get older.

So here are the results of this week:

Weight: 260 even
Weight loss this week: 4.2
Weight loss to date: 11.4
BMI: Tossed out the window.

Will post the inches later this evening. But my clothes are feeling looser, my belt is almost out of holes, and people at work who don't know I am dieting ask me if I am losing weight.

[firefitihp]

Keep up the good work. Keep me posted.

[FlameTamer325]

nice job-- here are a couple tricks that have worked very well for some of my clients. 1. taper carbs from morning to night. your biggest carb meals should be breakfast(oatmael 1 cup or 1/2 cup oatmeal and 1-2 wholegrain waffles.) and lunch.. brown rice, sweet pot. whole wheat pasta, and when dinner comes have a lean meat(90% or higher lean beef, chicken breast, tuna, broiled fish, salmon etc........) with a clean carb: broc,green beans, salad. if you find yourself hungry before bed do 2-3 egg whites w/ one whole egg and some salsa. this will really kick up your metabolism.( you wont be ingestesting alot of carbs before bed ---which would usually be stored as bodyfat. any questions let me know

[MarcusKspn]

Thanks for the support everyone. I have not been able to measure, don't have a cloth tape and have been called in to work today so I couldn't buy one. I will get one tommorow. We usually eat lots of meat/vegetable meals at dinner since thats when we actually cook, so that works out pretty well.

[cashton]

Also keep in mind that if you start lifting weights, you may come to a point in your body transformation when you will stop loosing weight and actually start gaining. The thing is, you will be replacing fat with muscle. The true test of how well you are doing on your diet will the mirror.

[MarcusKspn]

Week 4: I got called in to work all weekend long so I didn't get to go to my meeting until today. Still doing good this week, enjoying the good food and feeling better from eating healthy. It is pretty surprising how quickly you can feel the difference if you just eat a little healthier. After doing some quick math for a somewhat typical day it seemed like it is not very unrealistic to eat a ton of calories a day. (600 calories for eggs, biscuit, bacon or 800 calories for a McDonalds Breakfast; 1500 calories for a McDonalds Big Mac Meal, Chili's Steak Quesadilla 2000 calories, and don't get the Choclate Chip Desert for 1600 calories, add the 250 calories per bottle of pop and all the little snacks most of us have during the day it is no suprise to me how I got so fat. I also wanted to give some more info about myself. I am 24, the biggest I have ever been was in January of 2005 after working at a desk for the last year. I stepped on the scale at 298 pounds, wore XXXL clothes that felt pretty tight and I wore 48" pants. Not because they fit, but they were the biggest pants I could find at Wal-Mart, and I was not going in a Big&Tall Store. The 48 barely closed and were cutting pretty bad into my gut, I don't know how the bottom half of my internal organs got any bloodsupply when I was wearing them. I will try to find a picture to give you guys an example of how I looked. But here are my news for today:

Weight: 256
Loss this week: 3.2
Total Loss: 14.6

Still wear the 48 pants but they are actually getting to be too big. Unless my belt is tight they will fall off after taking a couple of steps. I wear 2XL shirts and uniforms and they feel like they are getting somewhat loose. I actually tried on a XL Coat today and there was only about 2-3 inches missing for me to be able to button it. Seeing those changes that have already happened just push me further, knowing that I can achieve so much more. Thanks to everyone who is posting here and following my progress.

[MarcusKspn]

PS: My wife told me this weekend "Hey, I can see your Adams Apple". I was so fat for such a long time that she had never seen my Adams Apple. I can also see the very tip of my toes when I am standing up.

[MarcusKspn]

Time for my next weigh-in. Stepped on the scale on Feb 25. Had a very good week, everything is going great, and my clothes are getting looser and looser.

Weight: 250.4 pounds
Weight loss today:5.6 pounds
Total weight loss: 20.2 pounds

Have been going for a 6 weeks, so my average weekly weight loss has been 3.4 pounds, which is not a bad rate.

[madmaxx]

In regards to what FlamerTamer325 said about eating, I have to agree with this type of eating, because it's worked for many of my clients as well, makes sense biochemically, and is sensible. The only thing I'll add to it is that each one of us will have a different set point as to how many carbs will be optimal for us. It's a trial and error-if you eat too or too few carbs, you feel like crap...but if you eat the right amount, you'll feel great.

Also, when you're trying to change your eating habits, don't forget that you should cleanse yourself internally first. After a period of eating unhealthy food, a lot of garbage gets trapped in your digestive system. If your digestive system is no healthy, you won't be able to absorb the maximum amount of nutrients from the healthy food.

Someone mentioned taking circumference measurements as a way of keep track of fat loss...one thing to remember is that circumference is almost as conclusive as weighing yourself in the sense that they both encompass everything they measure. More precisely, measurements will measure the girth of your abdomen which includes water, muscles, fat, organs, and etc. Taking measurements is okay, but if you're losing muscle (from overtraining, undereating, or under-recovery), you'll still be losing inches which makes girth measurements inaccurate. I still think the best measure of success is going to be how your clothes fit, how you feel (you should feel 'lighter', stronger, and more energetic), and how you look with your clothes off.

MarcusKsppn- GREAT job! To you and all other firefighters who are achieving weight loss, keep up the great work!

[herman87]

Great Job MarkusKsppn!! It's been a few weeks since your last post. How are you doing?

[toddrat]

The Abs Diet on Menshealth.com

[MarcusKspn]

Good afternoon everyone,

I have been buzy applying for school and getting all that paperwork straightened out. But I have been neglecting this thread for a while. Not too much new to report. Still going to Weightwatchers with my wife. My weight has been stuck right at 249 and has not moved very much. I'm a little upset that it has not gone down very much, but I take comfort in the fact that it is also not going back up. I am going to try to incorporate a different workout. Our career department just issued the pre-employment orientation manual with their recomended workout to prepare for the CPAT. I think I will try that workout for a month and see where it leads me. I will try to get back on here on a weekly basis and keep the updates coming.