Let's get this thing started. I have been reading around, and there a LOT of opinions of what to do to lose weight, but the main thing that I have found is that ><=O (greater energy consumed+less energy burned=fat). So that is what I will be running with. I will try to consume less energy, and move more to burn what I have now.

I weigh (this morning) 295pounds. My goal is to get down to 220 pounds. I am a little more than 5'-7", native American (U.S. Indian mix).

I don't like sweet foods, like cake with all the sugar icing, or candies of any sort. I do enjoy semi sweet stuff like very dark chocolate, or pound cake. I hardly ever eat any of that stuff as it is. I will crave that type of food once in a blue moon. I do not like soda, I prefer a nice tea (no sugar) or cold water with some flavoring. I enjoy seafood a LOT, I can eat that stuff everyday, all day, with no problems.

I do believe my problem is lack of movement. I had gained 60+ pounds when I graduated college and started working; this office work does make you lazy...

I have been eating lean cuisines for a while now, not to loose weight but to have a good quick meal. Work kinda impedes on me cooking at home. There filling, good, and have variety. I do like that they don't have much fat, or preservative also.

Guess that should be enough for now...will add to later.

One to what I have eaten so far.

Monday Sept 22 08

Breakfast: 1 Flour tortilla, 1 egg (plain)
(put tortilla on plate, scramble egg on top and put in microwave 1 min.)

Lunch: had one of these CLICK
was good.

Dinner: 7:00pm went out to Banzai sushi bar with a couple of people. (pigged out)
Had two pieces of Eel with sesame sauce (did not like sauce at all scraped most of it off), two pieces of octopus, two piece of smoked tuna, three half pieces of California roll, four half pieces of the spicy tuna roll, and 3 half pieces of some fired roll (was not good, but had to eat, not to disrespect the cook). Also had 2 glasses of house tea. When I say pieces, I mean a piece the size of a hot wheel car

Had two cups of coffee and about 4 glasses of water also thru out day
ohh and a banana before bed (I do wake up if I get hungry)

Tuesday Sept 24 08

Breakfast: 1 Flour tortilla, 1 egg (plain), and one wienie
(put tortilla on plate, scramble egg on top with wienie and put in microwave 1 min.) I added the meat because I was getting hungry early in the day. That fixed that.

Lunch: Lunch: had one of these CLICK with a 1/4" mug of coffee (I drink my coffee slow). Nice dish, but I can do without the little bread things

Dinner: Had one of these CLICK

Also had 2.0L of water, with a total of 1.5 mugs of coffee. For snacking I had 4 tostiso's chips and 6 cheese nip through out the day, and a gum ball (did not swallow it )

Will keep it up to date

well, first off, welcome to the forum! hope this journal helps you stay motivated and on track.
Have you thought about what you'll be doing for exercise? Are you looking at going to a gym, or mostly doing it on your own at home?
And I have to say, I'm incredibly jealous of your dinner on Monday. I haven't had sushi in years and it's sad.
Hope you're having another good day!
Take care

I'm glad you decided to come to the forum, its a great place =)
Seems like you're getting on the right track!
Start out with some walking, and you can check out local gyms, bum the forums and look into different exercises. =)

welcome to the forum

if exercise is a problem, what sort of physical activities do you or did you enjoy ? do you have access to a gym, home gym, DVD's or no equipment ? are you doing any exercise at the moment ?

thanks for the support.

last couple of weeks has been hard to get any real physical exercise going, been putting close to 18hours a day at work. I do hope once things get settled, I can get a regular routine going. I try to get up and do a couple of laps round the office to keep the heart rate going. My music playlist helps through out the day to keep things elevated.

I did lift weight in High School and college. I believe my bench was about 220 pounds, squat 350, dead lift close to 450. I did not work out everyday, just when I could. My family is naturally strong you could say. I did a little cardio just in regular kid routing stuff, like in front of the house and all.

I really can not do much walking or running. My right heal and bottom foot seems to hurt after a while, and in the mornings I can barely walk on it. I have to walk a little in order for it to "loosen up". I do need to see a doctor about it. I think it may be from when I was a kid, and some of the lifting may have factored in as well. Seems the more I weight the worse it will get, naturally.

The apartment that I am in now has a full gym, which is nice. I like using the elliptical machine when I can (which has been a couple of months). The sauna is nice too, helps burn cal. and clean out the pours. I don't want to start lifting weight just yet, the way I eat now will not support the muscle building. I will be moving into another apt in the next couple of months when they finish it. They said they would have a nice gym also, so I am happy with that. I just need to walk more regardless of the pain.

Well tomorrow I will need to do some shopping, just ran out of the meals today. I will look into lean cuisines new seafood selections, looks pretty good on the website.

any suggestions would be ideal. time to hit the hay. Until tomorrow

just a quick check in before I head for sleep.

breakfast:
nothing, did not feel like eating anything

lunch: mac and cheese was a little grainy tasting- put still satisfying

Dinner: half a piece of chicken breast.

had three cups of coffee with 4litters of water (with Lipton mix). And a Diet rock star (i do recommend those)

also had 12 cheese nips and a quart bag of popcorn thru out the day (8am to 2am)

How do you guys counter all the sodium in some of the meals you eat...

wow, are you sure you're getting enough to eat? that just doesn't seem like a whole lot. as for the sodium, I just try and keep an eye out for low-sodium options. a lot of foods now have cut back on that if you just look around for the reduced sodium options.
Hope you're having a good day!
take care

You might want to take a look at the amount of food you are eating. Cutting calories that much might not be good for you. Have you read the sticky threads?

As for the sodium, just keep drinking plenty of water.


Best of luck on your journey.


Matt

i would sugest you get you foot looked at by the doctor before you do anymore damage to it. I had a similar problem a while back and was told by the doc that I had damaged my plantar tendon and to sta of it for 6 months.

now i can still lift ok (state champ) but am unable to run or use a treadmill, other forms of cardio to try are thing like the cross trainer(elyptical) bike, rower but try to avoid impact on the foot.

in the morning get a bottle (about the size of a stubbie or small soda bottle) or something else that will roll easily and roll your foot (without shoes) over the bottle for a few minutes without shoes to stretch the tendon before you start to walk on it.

i also found that strapping my foot helped.

good luck

I try to keep food going in the body so I don't get that hungry feeling, like the cheese nips (white cheddar) and popcorn, grazing thru out the day between meals. keeps my digestion systems working all the time (I hope). My activity level has been down the last month+, have been working 10-18 hour dayx7, so I do not feel like I am starving myself. I'm at 295 as of tonight. I will try to add more fishes to my diet to compensate for lack of cal. intake, have to keep the brain going. I will also be adding Iso-protein in my daily routine.

The pains I have come from a couple locations on my feet. The bottom heel and opposite side of the arch; the ankle itself. On the ankle, I feel there is bone on bone action, not good. And the bottom of the foot, I have no clue- I'll look into what you said above. I just hope I do not need surgery.

Well today was just another day. I have been trying to get up and move around a more, about every hour or so I'll do a couple of laps around the office, I'll count my steps tomorrow. I had some food for dinner that I really did not want to eat, but since the boss went out of his way to pick up some stuff for us, I did not want to seem ungrateful. It's not for the reason that food is bad for me, its just that I really do not like fried food, or "soul" food (see below). So I down it...about 15min later, I did not feel to good. I felt kinda dizzy, stomach was upset, and I kinda knew what was coming next. And now that I am typing this, my whole body feels like a greasy rag. No regrets, right?



Breakfast:
Corndog need to find the facts on these

lunch: pretty good

dinner: blahhhh
2 pieces of fried chicken
side of mashed potatoes and gravy (ate half)
side of steam veggies soaked in butter
side of "greens" more butter
side of pickled vegies

also about 2am (since the dinner did not stick around very long)
had one of these not to bad. Tasted like the LC's Salisbury steak.

also had thru out the day (before dinner)
6-8 cheese nips
2 cups of coffee with 1 french vanilla packet per 16 oz (so 2)
3 liters of water


Well tomorrow is another day

WOW, i cant imagine working 10-18 hour days. What do you do for work?

Matt

can't say I blame you. I can't eat fried chicken if you paid me. too much grease. though I would have gone crazy with the mashed potatoes and gravy. that's one of my favorite side dishes. mmm.

Glad to see you're grabbing what exercise you can at work since you're working such horrid hours. 14 hour days seem to be standard for my husband, so I kind of feel your pain.

hope you're having a good day! take care

Shandy

IT FRIDAY- and it's just another weekday for me

I was at work till about 3am this morning. I slept in (by accident) this morning, until about 11am . I felt good though. I work at an engineering firm. The reason i am putting so many hours is that for the past couple of months we have had a pretty good sized project going out the door (hopefully on Monday) for a hospital addition and renovation here in town. We have been working on it for about a year a year and a half maybe, just pumping away, then boom- the owner goes and changes a lot of stuff on us, and the Architects. So, as it has been since the dawn the time- There will always be a guy that goes... can we change this, and that and this, but that will also change this and that, lets change the whole thing, we still have 2 months. . So we have had a redesign pretty much all mechanical/ electrical/ plumbing etc. And in the middle of that, I am juggling a couple of other projects to boot. So...yea it is fun (literally and sarcastically).


Breakfast: nothing, was sleeping zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Lunch: Went out with my brothers. I had one of my favorite things. A lengua (cow tongue) burrito- 10oz worth it seems. It was broiled tongue with fresh slices of avocado, and some cilantro and onions. I picked out the onions, I am not a big fan of those. It does have a lot of fat, but i have been told that the it is a good fat, like the fat from the brain and eye (other parts I do like), but I really do not know. The last time I had this, was probably a year ago.

Offnote: (Another related dish I do like is call BBQ (Mexican style) where they broil the whole head of the cow, de-bone it, and mix it all together with very little spice. That is some good stuff. But again, have not had in about a year)


Dinner:
about a chicken breast worth of chicken. Also had potato wedges with em, about a medium potatoes worth


thru out the day I also had 2.5 liters of water. 1 16oz coffee with one french vanilla creamer. no snakes, the tongue held me through the day.

I left work about 10pm was hoping to see a movie tonight, but there were no late showings. So I will watch what ever Netflix has delivered, have a nice Vodka and water (or 100% dole juice) and will just relax till morning, and off to the work. WOOOSH. One good thing is that I can see the balloon fest in the park from my window, they were doing a little light show to night with the flames. Enjoyable, will see what they have in store for tomorrow.

Well, hope you all have a nice weekend.

i am glad you enjoyed your tongue, most people i know think i am weird or sick for enjoying that type of food.

Same here, but the worse it sounds, the better is tastes.

today was another looooong day at work. 10am-3am. Almost done. Will be another long one tomorrow.

Breakfast/ lunch: 11:30am

had a foot long chicken breast at Subway. Had everything but onions and jalapenos. Wow, just read the facts on that thing, dem be olot of big numbers . Had a half a cup of coffee with it, with about 6oz of rockstar.

dinner: 9:30pm

boss bought dinner again. Had a cheese burger from Steak Express. Was a very good burger. Had lettuce, tomato, pickles, slice of American cheese, and of coarse the meat patty. Was not greasy, and was actually meat meat, not the meat you get from McDonald's and similar places, was like it came from someone's back yard.

Thru out the day I had a Rockstar Energy drink, 5 cups of coffee, 1.5 liters of water, and a doughnut (coffee cake type- plain)

I have replace my regular International Delight single creamers with Silk Soy Milk. I have been partial to the Diet Vanilla. I usually put about 2-3 table spoons per 16oz of coffee. I also like the Silk with my protein drinks (stop drinking the protein drinks about 3 months ago. I was taking the whey stuff, but the lactose did not agree with me. I will be switching to a Isopure brand).

About 2am I was getting hungry again. I drank some water to see if it would pass, it did not. So I went ahead and had one of these out of the freezer. Guess you can call it a midnight snack.

Well it's almost 4:30am, I think I'm done unwinding. My bed is yelling for me. Hopefully after tomorrow I will be able to get more into this web site and you guyses diary's. Seems there are some pretty interesting people on here--