weight loss, diet, and fitness thread

[Bump2daWiza]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=128859&highlight=weight+loss



Where I am: 5'7". 178 lbs. Need to lose about 20 lbs. Want to get some fights this summer, so will have to get back into shape.

Exercise: 3-4 Days a week, 5 mile jog in morning, followed by sit-ups. 2-3 Days a week, 1 hour weight routine (alternate between reps and timed depending on my cycle). 3-5 Nights a week, Muay Thai Gym for 1 hour fifteen minutes.

Diet: Since I took a break from fighting, and gained some wieght. But since I started my activity level back up, I am not too worried about how much I eat. I have 1 protein shake in the morning (followed by running or weights), 1 Big Breakfast (eggs, toast, sausage or oatmeal), Carb-filled lunch with just enough meat, Late Afternoon Protein Shake, good nutritious dinner, 5 servings of fruit every day.

Goals: 1) Get down to 160 lbs or so. That way I should be able to cut enough pounds to make it into welter weight before a fight. 2) Increase my stamina. Wind is less than it used to be. 3) Get stronger.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Where I Am: 5'7" 260lbs. I'm the most sodium sensitive hypertensive my primary care physician has ever seen in his practice (of at least 4 decades)- at one point, both systolic and diastolic numbers were over 200, and the person who caught this thought I was getting ready to have a stroke right there. I was only diagnosed a few years ago, and it is a significant factor in my weight. The more salt I eat, the more liquids I consume to maintain my body's proper salt concentration...and since my main drinks besides unsweetened tea are milk and fruit juice, I can rack up a few thousand extra calories with ease.

Where I've been: At my fittest (as an adult), I was 5'7" 193lbs. However, I literally am one of those "big boned" people. At the time, my doctor calculated my 0% body fat weight was around 170lbs...still off the chart for a healthy person my height. I had an exercise routine that was wicked effective, alternating days of upper body weights and lower body endurance with days of lower body weights and upper body endurance. In the gym and certain other athletic venues, I was scary to some of my school's real athletes, but really no threat- I was all power and little endurance (except for swimming).

At my worst, I was nearly 280lbs.

Exercise: Before law school, I used to exercise quite regularly. Even then, I managed to do some stuff that kept me from ballooning completely, but I still gained weight- law school students have a pretty sendentary lifestyle.

I continued exercising a little bit, but an ACL/MCL tear in 2002, its repair, and my rehab took me out of schedule for over a year. I lost the habit, and quite frankly, quit certain activities due to fear of re-injury. I had an unreported side effect to the painkillers I was prescribed: any text smaller than about 14 point- IOW, most books, etc- looked like the letters were dancing on the page. That meant I was functionally illiterate for the entirety of my rehab...meaning I couldn't practice law at all during that time. (I could barely do what I needed to keep my law license from expiring.)

I can't risk that again.

In the meantime, I've been trying to get back into walking the dogs (one isn't too fond of the practice), bowling, and volleyball. Hopefully, I'll be able to find a good time & place to swim & pump iron again.

I'll never be built like Charles Atlas, but hopefully, I won't look like the subject matter of one.

Diet: Using my formidable cooking skills to rewrite a host of traditional creole and cajun recipes into low/no salt versions, I've managed to slash my sodium intake to very near the levels my Doc prescribed. Typical American: 10K mg/day, Regular Low-Sodium Diet: 4K mg/day, Me: 2K mg/day. (For perspective, look at the sodium content of a typical commercial sandwich, pizza slice, or piece of fried chicken.)

I'm pretty omnivorous. Beef, chicken, pork, lamb, and just about anything that swims (fish, reptile, mollusk or aquatic arthropod) is fair game. My home diet includes lots of veggies, fruit & nuts- all of which I love, so that's no chore- and the odd rare sweet or two.

Unfortunately, my lifestyle forces me to eat out a lot.

Also unfortunately, my scale (an integral part of my Doc's plan) broke last year, and gave me erroneous feedback. My scale said one thing, my clothes another. By the time I replaced it, I found I'd gained 15lbs in 2007. GRRR!

 

[Chauzu]

Howdy all.

Where I Am: Just started getting back into bodybuilding a month ago. Currently on a cutting diet for the next few months to lose the extra weight I gained over the winter and spring. Got about 15 lbs to go, then I'll start bulking up... clean this time.

Where I've Been: Started hitting the weights in high school when I played football. When I tore my ACL senior year though I about gave up, but my bro introduced me into bodybuilding. Once I had my surgery I hit the weights harder than ever and recovered pretty well. I ended up weighing 190 at 10% body fat (5' 8'') before I joined the Marine Corps. While I was in the Marines though, I put bodybuilding on hold, lifted infrequently and mostly did long distance running. Since I've been out of the Corps, I've gotten pretty small and a little chubby compared to what I used to be before I joined the military. I started to feel like crap and eating like crap. I was becoming tired rather quickly whenever I snowboarded. It took me six months to start running and lifting again (June).

Exercise:
SUN - Run 6 - 12 miles
MON - Chest, Back & Abs
TUE - Shoulders & Arms
WED - 45 min run
THU - 30 min run (in the morning) & Legs (in the evening)
FRI - Full Body

Diet: Currently on a cycled ketogenic diet, keeping my calories around 1800-2200.

Goals: Currently weigh 180 lbs, want to get down to 160 lbs by October, then start bulking up.

 

[paradox42]

Cool thread.

Where I Am: 5'11" (though actually I want to get measured again to be sure because my parents and other older adults who've known me for years keep telling me that I look taller to them), 170 lbs. as measured on a medical-grade scale at my gym last night.

Where I've Been: I've always been a stick, before the last year or two; couldn't gain weight to save my life during my 20s no matter how hard I tried. I've since come to believe that a large part of that was that I wasn't getting enough protein, but suffice it to say that doing 6 months of hard weight-training exercise 5 times a week just to go from 125 lbs. to 140, was not a work/reward ratio I liked. Last year, after I got promoted to supervisor at UPS (and therefore am no longer allowed by union contract to so much as touch a package unless asked to do so by a union employee), I started to see my fitness level go down and joined a gym. After I got back in shape, weight stabilized around 140, I decided to try bulking up again, since my metabolism had clearly slowed in my 30s. And this time it's working- I reached my last-year's weight goal of 160 lbs. after only 2 months.

Exercise: Every night, Monday-Friday, after work, I hit my gym on the way home (the gym is open 24 hours and is almost directly on the route I take between work and home- those are the primary reasons I picked it). I typically do 20 minutes of jogging/elliptical, followed by ~40 minutes of weight training hitting different areas of my body each night. That's followed by a soak in the gym's hot tub, and 10 minutes of relaxation in the sauna, before I head home to eat dinner.

Diet: I wasn't paying much attention to this in my 20s, because I always had a high metabolism- one of those people who could eat anything and never gain an ounce (even if I wanted to- and yes, I'm well aware that pretty much everybody else wishes they had that problem). These days, though, particularly after my successful bid to reach 160 pounds last year, I watch my diet during bulk-up periods closely. In recent weeks I'm usually eating between 3000-3700 calories per day, and I drink a shake of whey protein at the gym every night after my workout before I hit the showers and hot tub. Trying to follow the rule of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight, though it isn't always easy and I usually go over or under by a few grams. Since my childhood I've been eating a bowl of instant oatmeal for breakfast nearly every day (generally the only times I don't are when I'm on vacation and it's unavailable), and lunch and dinner are freeform- whatever I feel the desire to eat (though I'm careful to count calories and protein of course). It's probably higher in sodium than is particularly healthy for me, but I haven't seen health troubles yet so I haven't had a need to cut back on that. When I eat fast food, which is admittedly more frequently than it should be, I almost invariably do Subway or Chipotle. I often hit Chipotle twice a week- I can't help myself, the burritos are so good!

Goal: I plan to hit 180 lbs. by the end of this summer if possible (and I think it will be). I often weigh myself twice each night at the gym, once before and once after I do the hot tub/sauna "cooldown." Usually I lose a pound or so in the cooldown, but the last two nights I haven't lost anything as far as I could tell- so my body fat's almost certainly in the single digits now. I'm stronger than I've ever been in my life, and feeling great! If I can hit 172 by the end of this week I'll be a happy camper. I was between 169 and 170 on Monday night, so so far so good.

 

[EricNoah]

To avoid the calories that come from evening cravings, I have a new rule I'm trying out: no food after 8pm. My desire to eat in the evening is almost never a result of hunger, it's a craving for something sweet. I have successfully staved off the 8pm cravings for the past nine days -- and it has helped me bring my daily calories down by 600-ish per day.

The weird (in a good way) thing is I don't find myself trying to cram an evening snack in at 7pm to beat the deadline -- I almost never have my cravings then.