295 lbs around end of highschool.


310 end of first year at University


230 - 3 years later




Took me about 2.5 years to lose the total of 80 lbs. I went to the gym 3 times a week for an hour. Over time I slowly did less weights and more cardio. Had to stop weights because I hurt my arms doing something else, so 3 times a week of full cardio got me to lose the last 10-15 pounds.

I have not lost any weight since February, but keep the exercise up.

Haven't really did any dieting up to this point. Over the three years I have learned to eat a bit healthier, but not much.

I am now considering getting more serious into paying attention to what I eat and how much. Also I think I will up my exercise amount to try and lose the last 30-40 pounds.

Any ideas!?

Congratz on your weightloss so far!!

I'd recommend using thedailyplate.com to track your food, it will also give you a target amount of calories for your body weight.

Get more serious into weight lifting will help it burns fat faster.


Hopefully changing your diet will help! Good luck with everything!

How will weight lifting help burn fat faster?

Thanks for that website link, I have been thinking a site like that would be good. Looks great!

Congrats on the loss. Keep up with your diet and cardio.
As antyoch said above throw in more weight training now
The more muscle you have the more calories you burn while working out

Go back to the weights. If you can, find a trainer to work with - even just for a couple of weeks, who will teach you to lift properly and not hurt yourself.

How will weights help? Here's how:

When you lose weight in a calorie deficit, you don't just lose fat, you lose lean muscle mass as well. Cardio does not build or maintain muscle; it simply burns calories (it also helps with your cardio vascular capacity, which is good - but it doesn't build muscle).

When you work your muscles by lifting weights and / or doing body weight exercises, you build/maintain muscle mass. That means you lose MORE fat than muscle. Additionally, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn when you're not doing anything at all ... because muscle is more metabolically active than fat.

So making sure you maintain lean muscle is crucial if you want to lose FAT (as opposed to just losing weight). And the only way to maintain lean muscle is to work the muscles - through weight lifting. And I'm not talking about really light weights for a gazillion reps, but lifting real, heavy weights and working your muscles in compound exercises - things like squats, lunges, dips, presses, deadlifts, and so forth.

Also making sure you build/maintain muscle will keep you from getting that "skinny fat" look - the one where you've lost a lot of fat, but still look flabby because you have no shape or "tone" (to use a popular phrase) to your muscles.

Now that I have moved out of the folks place and out on my own, I am taking further steps to eat healthier more often. As well I am really trying to cut back on over eating, and figure out how much food a healthy meal should contain. I have started
counting calories as a way for me to help figure out how much I should be eating.

I find that I am hitting 1500-2000 a day. A a lot of sites are telling me I should be eating more then this (2500-3000 calories). But I think I would be over eating if I did, I generally feel full and satisfied during the working weekdays(weekends are a different story, seem to be more hungry when I am not at work).

I've lost about 8 pounds in 16 days. Just wondering what peoples opinions are? Is this truly unhealthy? I am eating much better then I ever have in my life. Perhaps it is too fast through.

Down to 220lbs

Why do people think calories are one-size-fits-all?

Look at it this way: a small compact car requires more gas than a large SUV right? If someone told you that an SUV should get the *same* gas mileage as a compact car, you'd say they were wrong.

Yet people seem to think that a 220 pound person should eat the same amount of calories as a 150 pound person ... and that eating more calories is "too much".

A bigger person needs more calories to survive and be healthy. It's simple math.

Yes, you should be eating more calories. At 220 pounds your maintenance calories would be around 3200. To lose weight at a healthy rate, you should eat around 2250.

Losing a pound every 2 days is dangerously fast. First of all it means you're losing a lot of muscle as well as fat. It also means that you're probably not getting enough nutrition.

Thanks for the reply. 2250 is probably doable. But it seems like I will have to push myself to get there.

Today I had:

Breakfast:

1 orange
fiber 1 bar
(forgot my glass of milk)

at work snack:
granola bar

lunch
400 cal sandwich
200 ml orange juice
peach

at work snack 2:
1/2 orange

so, that is about 1050ish calories

Supper will probably be 500-900 calories.

Perhaps I need another snack before supper, and eat supper later.

I would definitely start adding protein to that diet... immediately! Egg whites, turkey bacon, whey, turkey breast... something!

Yow.

I have to say that, on the face of what you've described that doesn't seem to be a terribly healthy diet to me. I will grant that it's better than junk food, but only by a little.

I'm seeing 1000 calories of nothing but sugar, carbs, and sugar. There's very little protein (maybe some in the sandwich?), no healthy fats, nothing other that fruit and carbs and sugar.

Ideally your nutrition should consist of something in this range: 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% healthy fats. That's not a set of numbers written in stone. People tend to work within a range of those numbers, but never too far from that general division. You need at least 20% healthy fats. You need at least 20% protein, you need to keep your carbs to a maximum of 60%, and so forth. Within those ranges, you have flexibility.

I suspect that you're not going to see much more progress in weight loss - or more specifically in the SHAPE of your body - until you manage to figure out a healthier diet. Probably the reason that you had problems lifting weights is because of the lack of proper nutrition - your muscles, tendons, and ligaments need protein to grow and strengthen. If you're not providing proper nutrition to your body, you can risk injury from exercise.

Read the sticky posts in the nutrition part of the board. There's a TON of good information there that will help you out.

Yes I got one for you.

Congrats for lasting...that's the goal #1.

On way to do so, is yes, to reduce your calories intake (who would have guessed)... BUT also to allow yourself one day off every 2 weeks. Example; to reduce from average 2500kCal to 1800 (acceptable up to 2100 considering a margin) 13 days out of 14. On the 14, it is very convenient to have it for social happening of all sort. And despite cheating voluntary, you'll still be losing weight, like 2/3-3/4 lbs instead of 1+! Isn't that formidable? Try it!

Congrats! Keep up the good work

Thanks for the idea people!

NolaRob and KaraCooks: Yes there is not a lot of protein in that day up to after lunch, there was some in the sandwich. I had some for sure at supper too. I started eating almonds and cashews for snacks some days at work. The crappy granola bar for my mid morning snack is just some food I am trying to get rid of(just moved and family gave me food...)

This week I am finally moved in and set up, and ready to start cooking some good and healthy meals!

So I'm down to about 214. Here is some of my weight loss. So I lost about 12 pounds in 32 days:

28-Aug-09 226
2-Sep-09 222
9-Sep-09 218 AM
11-Sep-09 220 PM
16-Sep-09 219 AM
16-Sep-09 220 PM
19-Sep-09 216 AM
21-Sep-09 215.5 AM
22-Sep-09 215.5 AM
24-Sep-09 215 AM
28-Sep-09 213.6 AM


That is .375 lbs on avg a day. I am still trying to figure out if I should eat more. I'm hitting around 1800-2000 a day now. Cardio 3 times a week for 50 min. 20 min of yoga and exercises every morning.

I want to be losing weight healthy and am still concerned that perhaps I should be eating more. Just thought I would throw out what my daily diet has been like to see what people think.

Sept 29

Breakfast 6:30 AM

Banana 100
Multi Cheerios + 1% Milk 160
Small piece of chocolate 35

Snack 10:00 AM
Banana oatmeal square thing 220

Lunch 12:00 PM
Sandwich 280
[whole grain bread, roast beef, tomato, green pepper, light mayo]
Cashews 280
Juice 100

Snack 2:30 PM
Apple 100

Snack2 5:00 PM
Small orange 35

Supper 6:00 PM
Stirfry with chicken+almonds 600
Juice 100

That is about 2000. That is probably the highest for this month. Most of last week was 1800-1900. I think that is a good days worth of food to me!

It is also 100% better than I have EVER ate in my entire life. I rarely ate breakfast during school years. I ate zero vegetables, fruit not often, tons of pizza(everyday for lunch almost for grades 7-12).

For the last year I have been eating breakfast before work but just one banana and some milk, or just cereal and milk. Replace the cashews with maybe 300-700 calories of cookies for something like that for lunch. Little fruit. And supper for anywhere from 700 - 2000(maybe even more?) calories of stuff like pizza,burgers...ect. And stuff like ice cream before bed, or more pizza.

Let me know what you think!

I would say that you only need to eat until you feel satisfied and have your basic fruit/veg/lean protien covered. My biggest issue has always been eating late dinners (sometimes an hour before bed!) that were too high in calories. I have been keeping my calorie intake centered around the morning/lunch meals with smaller portions and veggies later in the day.
I think your inclusion of nuts/fruits looks pretty good!