Just need to be more consistent with my eating habits. I've been consistently 251-255 for like the last year. Can't seem to stick with anything long enough to drop beneath that 250 mark.![]()
That's one of the things I'm struggling with making my own campaign setting. It originally started as Pathfinder, so I felt the need to find ways to include all the Pathfinder races (my group especially - myself mostly included - hates limiting options, unless it's for a really good reason), but since I decided to create my own system, I can build my setting using my system, so I need to figure out which races to include. I don't need all 1,000 races that exist for pathfinder, though many of them DO make sense at certain locations. Though in general I dislike anthropomorphic races, I totally understand their inclusion for a kids game!Ah, the setting also has way fewer sentient humanoid species/races than d&d normal. There’s pretty much only humans, giants, elves, gnomes/goblins (they are the same species), and anthropomorphic animals (it’s a kids’ story afterall even if the background is rather heavy).
I’ve battled my weight my entire adult life. An exercise routine can be VERY important. Actually got in decent shape in college and stayed that way for several years until I fell back into a sedentary lifestyle in law school. Over the years, I ballooned to almost 280lbs. But I’m trending in the right direction again, and have been as low as 219lbs in the last year. Right now, I bounce between 223-235, and a lot of that is because of water weight. I’m an extremely sodium sensitive hypertensive, and can put on 5lbs+ in a day if I eat too much salty stuff.
That said, I have some hints that might help you on the dietary side.
1) my first major weight loss came in my first year of college. I dropped 50lbs in one semester. Part of that was increasing exercise, but the BIGGEST part was cutting out “unconscious eating.” That is, consuming calories without realizing you’re doing it or in greater amounts than you recognize. I enlisted the help of my circle of family and friends: I was only allowed 3 meals a day and one snack, and ANYTHING & EVERYTHING with calories counted. So if someone saw me eating, I wanted them to ask me if it was a meal or a snack.
2) I cut soft drinks out of my life cold turkey, including diet ones. I did a little math, and figured out I was consuming 1000s of calories daily in sodas alone. I still drank OJ, milk, water and unsweetened tea. I have since allowed myself the occasional soda, but probably fewer than 2 cans per month on average.
3) I didn't give up the foods I love, I just eat them with better portion control. Some dishes I used to eat by myself I now share, and I seldom get into “he-man eating contests” at steakhouses anymore. I also do a hard pass on “almost as good as my favorite food” foods. If I’m going to have dessert, I don’t settle for something close to what I want- if I don’t see a favorite, then I don’t have dessert. If I’m going to have pizza, I have GOOD pizza from one of my favorite places, not some frozen pizza from the grocery store.
4) I cap my alcoholic beverage intake to 1-2 per service. By that, I don’t mean I drink 1-2 per meal, but rather, if & when I drink, I cap things out at a low number.
5) I keep “cheat foods” in the house to a minimum, and don’t restock until what I have is gone.
6) I do a LOT more cooking at home
For example, I'll buy a frozen pizza and eat the entire thing in one sitting. I'm starting to buy the cheaper, thinner pizzas so even if I eat the entire thing, it isn't as bad for me.
When I heard you could get two foot long Subway sandwiches for the same calories as a single Big Mac I stopped buying Big Macs.
@Dog Moon
That’s the kind of thing that can definitely get you in trouble, which is why I did what I did about not accepting substitutes. (The end of point #1.) In fact, that kind of logic is part of why America has an obesity/malnutrition problem, especially in poorer neighborhoods.
There’s a thing they call “food deserts”. If you live in one, there are few grocery stores and most of the dining opportunities are of the fast food variety. It’s harder to get fresh veggies and fruits, but they can get all kinds of junk foods high in salt, fats and calories. Which are also typically low in key vitamins, etc.
In your case, step one might be checking the actual caloric content of those cheaper pizzas, with special attention to serving sizes & number of servings per container. You might be surprised by what you find. When my family started having to get serious about our diet- over 100lbs ago- one of the things we found reading labels was that serving sizes on some things we loved were NOT what we thought. For instance, there was a frozen Mac & cheese my Dad bought regularly- he’d often have one as a side with his steaks. Then he found out that the box he’d been eating as a single side was actually SIX SERVINGS. By eating the whole box, he was consuming several times the RDA in salt and calories for an adult male just with the side dish.
We stopped buying them after that.