weight loss, diet, and fitness thread

[krissbeth]

Great thread!

Where I am: Not the heaviest I've been, but still overweight for my height. Battling with genetics, medication and stress.

Exercise: I walk about two miles a day, but I'm trying to add in a longer run. I also want to start yoga again (I did it all through college and it was fantastic).

Diet: I use FitDay to track what I eat. Generally, I don't eat red meat and I get my recipes from Cooking Light more often than not. I avoid crap but have a serious weak spot for breads. God, I love bread.

Goals: I want to lose 40 lbs and keep it off. I'm so bad at the yo-yo thing. I lost 30 in 2004 and most of it came back in 2005/6. Yuck.

 

[GlassJaw]

For work, bring fruit and veggies to snack on during the day. Bananas and carrots are fairly inexpensive and have lots of vitamins. Apples and oranges can be less expensive when you buy the bag on sale.

Be careful with the fruit though. They do have vitamins but are very high in carbs and sugar, the two things you want to avoid at all costs if you want to lose weight.

 

[bento]

Current Condition: 145 lbs and 5'10". Not fat, but not in great condition as I sit all day long! I went to a body fat workshop (which is now done with this hand-held device you hold for ten seconds) and I had 17.7% body fat and a BMI of 20.4, which is at the top range of recommended.

Exercise: I signed up for a walking program at work where I'm pledged to do at least 4500 steps a day. The company sent everyone a pedometer to keep track. So far I've been walking daily since mid-July, and I average about 7,000 steps each day. I have a walking buddy, so I don't have many opportunities to procrastinate.

In addition to all the walking, I try to do sit-ups and push-ups every other day. I'm up to about 50 each time. I walk with 5 lb. dumbells once a week to change things up for me.

Health Goals: besides reducing the size of my little tire around the middle, it's getting my CV back in shape. I eat too many salty things so I'm trying to reduce sodium. I don't drink sodas but I tend to eat whatever I want. Luckily it doesn't take much to fill me up. I'd like to get my BMI below 15.

 

[GlassJaw]

Where I Am: Decent weight for my height (~190, 6' 1") but need to tone-up, especially in the mid-section. Need to increase endurance/cardio overall as well.

Exercise: Currently running 2-3 miles 4-5 days a week. Recently started free weight program on my own - curls, shoulder/military press, etc - and a 10-15 ab workout about 5 days a week each.

I knew long ago I don't have the stomach for gyms. The act of having to get in my car and drive somewhere makes it very easy to talk myself out of going. I do everything at home and run outside around my neighborhood.

Diet: I recently made some big changes in my diet. I'm not counting calories or anything like that - that's too much work for me. My goal is to eliminate some of the big offenders, especially carbs and sugars, and add a lot of proteins.

Things to avoid: aside from the obvious junk (fast food, candy, soda, chips, packaged snacks like cake, cookies, etc), I've eliminated white bread (which I never really ate anyway), corn, potatoes, boxed cereal

Things I've added: tuna, nuts, plain yogurt, plain oatmeal, veggies

Make sure you read labels! Avoid high-carb/high-sugar foods like the plague.

Health Goals: I don't care what I weigh (muscle weighs more than fat anyway). My goal is the mirror. For once in my life I want a flat stomach. For once in my life, I have an abundance of willpower and motivation to make it happen.

I'll pass on a couple of really good links I found:

101 Ways to Lose Your Gut
Great article on things like diet, lifestyle, exercise, and even mental health. I've been reading it very couple of days as a reminder.

15-Minute Ab Workout
Awesome YouTube video. This girl will kick your butt! A great resource for some differnet ab exercises.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Where I am. About 108 Kg. I should probably be about 85kg - 90kg. (Metric for the Win!) I am also told my blood pressure is borderline high.

Exercise. My best asset for weight loss is that I am trying to get exercise. My place of employment has an on site gym with trainers. I try to use it 3 times a week, usually average out to 2.5 times a week (due to long weekends or random crap happening). Exercise consists of about an hour, 20 min cardio, and a bunch of weight training.

Nutrition Plan. I do not have a specific plan beyond trying to stay away from the more obvious pit falls. I actually eat pretty good at home, with the problem being eating a bit too much of it. My weak area is lunch. As much as I want to lose weight, it turns out that I even more like to eat things I mostly like. If I get less lazy about this, I would probably see some pretty good gains.

Goal. Lose weight mostly for health reasons, but losing the gut will help. The likely problem area will be crunch periods at work when I am working late. This will result in me not going to the gym, and in eating more crap food. As much as I know I need the exercise, I like to be able to go home and sleep during crunch time.

Plan B. In the event diet and exercise fail me, I hope for technological innovation. Vat grown replacement organ technology in the event the blood pressure thing evolves to a huge problem. Genetically modification or other intervention to modify my metabolism to only take as much calories as it actually needs.

Getting exercise is not the big problem for me. I actually do have the will power to more or less stick to a gym routine, albeit with perodic lapses due to either Christmas vacation or crunch time. Or as the most recent case, allergies. I already get very out of breath at the gym due to my minor asthma. Since my allergies spiked the last two weeks, I decided that getting very winded when my nose is perpetually runny was not a great plan. The big problem I expect to be the food thing. I do not have a set timeline to reach a specific goal. The real goal is to alter my habits enough to improve my general health.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[awayfarer]

Where I am. I lost 25 pounds over the summer and several paris of jeans that I'd given up hope of wearing again fit me now. I'm 5'9 and roughly 230

Exercise. Over the summer I was walking 5 miles a day and had a job that was pretty much all heavy lifting. Now that the fall semester has started I'm walking 3 miles on M/W/F. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I work out at home with some handweights and do a few squats and crunches.

Nutrition Plan. I have no major plan other than trying to avoid eating when I'm not hungry. I'm not technically strict about my soda/beer intake but I usually have only one of each per week. I've been eating lunch at school but have tended to go for salad. I need to cut back on the amount of cream and sugar I put in my coffee.

Goal. To maintain my current weight. This probably sounds unambitious but I'm just not "built" to drop any more. I was 300+ lbs in high school, managed to drop down to 220 afterwards and plateau'd there. I don't expect to drop any further than that considering that I bottomed out there when I was younger and keeping an even stricter eye on my food intake and excercise routine. It could be worse, I have a decent amount of muscle on me and no gut.

 

[Harmon]

Kind of embarrassed to admit this, but beings that this is a gaming board and 90% of the gamers I know and have met are in worse shape then I hopefully will ever be this won't hurt my pride to much.

Where I am Way over weight. Embarrassed to say- Six foot and two hundred fifty pounds.

Exercise Over five hundred crunches a week, Yoga two days a week, several hundred push ups a week, a couple 2 mile walks a week, baby lifts and carries, hundreds of jumping jacks (waiting for food to warm- this is my most common exercise).

Diet Oat meal in the morning, grazing all day, and usually salmon and rice three times a week. Soda are diet and caffeine free. Lots and lots of water- distilled only, can't stand regular drinking water and out tap water is toxic. No sweets (candy bars, ice cream, or anything like that.

Goals to get back down to 210. Course the last time I was there I had wash board abs, and was pretty well muscled but then I was working as a carpenter and running a couple miles a day a couple days a week.

What I need to change my late night eating, my grazing all day to get a single meal, and I need to get out more- take more walks, find my gym card and go back to pressing weights, or just get a job that will place me back into the physical demands of being in good shape.

 

[jaerdaph]

Hey there!

There was some interest expressed in my "gaming and food" thread in the possibility of starting a new weight loss/diet/fitness discussion.

Excellent! As I mentioned in that thread, we did something similar here on EN World for trying to quit smoking and a few EN Worlders were able to kick the habit for good. I hope this thread has the same positive result for everyone participating!

I actually have a good thing to report: I ran into a woman I hadn't seen in about a year last night. The first thing she said to me was "oh my God you've lost so much weight!"

It was a nice feeling.

While I'm eating very well, not snacking, and exercising more, I feel I should be doing more. I'd like to join a gym, but I'm a little aprehensive. Fortunately I don't live in Manhattan where everyone at the gym comes "pre-perfect", so I'm a little more comfortable doing so here in Astoria. Anyone here have any tips or suggestions about what to look for in a gym membership?

Where I Am: 160 lbs, 5'8. (Where I was this time last year: 180 lbs.)

Exercise: I hoof it everywhere, and avoid the subway if I know I can walk. I also do the basic morning routine of situps and pushups, sometimes squat thrusts.

Diet: A lot of fruits, vegetables and salads, turkey, tuna and salmon, some chicken. No more in between meal snacking. On the weekend I may have one big meal, usually with red meat, and one cheeseburger. Downfall: I do like my beer, but I never drink to excess.

Goals: To get to and maintain 150 lbs and to join a gym or health club.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Buying an iPod helped bring music to my walks and bike rides, but then I discovered podcasts (not in the same way Columbus is said to have "discovered" America! ) and suddenly there was the mental stimulation I needed during bike rides and walks. I listen to podcasts from Scientific American, National Geographic, NPR, the BBC;

I had never considered getting an iPod before moving to Ohio, but I don't get Prairie Home Companion, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Car Talk, Selected Shorts, and a million other public radio shows that I really enjoy in my little town.

So I'm thinking of getting one over Christmas and use it in exercise and sewing.

-suzi

 

[Pbartender]

Question: I kind of wish there was something mindlessly repetitive I could do with my upper body the way I do with biking -- something that would allow me to listen to an iPod or watch a video or read while I was doing it. I get bored before I get tired, generally, when I exercise.

If you have the room for one, try a rowing machine. Check Ebay... they come in lots of shapes and sizes.