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Gooseman. Thank you for your story. It makes perfect sense the way you wrote it. Im 27 and have always been a big guy. A couple years ago my pants didnt fit so i bought a bigger size. Did that a couple times before it dawned on me 'holy crap im 6 sizes bigger than ive normally been'. Its a wakeup call. I never have thought that i eat a lot but now i see its what i eat. I downloaded that app and am going to start counting. Thank you for your story and the inspiration.
Here's my tips:
1: find something you LIKE to do for exercise.... mine is hiking in woods...
2: if you have a favorite 'sinful' food, then eat it until you get sick of it. I used to crave carrot cake and/or chocolate cake - and I ate them almost every day, until I got sick of them. Now, I don't even want them at all. It's totally amazing that you can actually get tired of foods that you once craved!
3: modify your diet towards healthier foods. Just take it slowly. Get rid of soda pop. No more HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). No more partially hydrogenated oils.
Good luck
I can identify. I used to have a 30" waist. Went to 32" pants for IWB carry. Now at 38" w/o carry. LOL
It's past time to do something. Of course it didn't happen all at once, (years), so here we go.
Congrats. Hope others follow your lead. I know I sure need to.
+1 on High fructose corn syrup. It's nasty stuff.
Goose great news. I was part of a group of DC members that started a weight loss challenge here. We bet 1 box of ammo for the winner. The challenge kinda fell apart so no winner per say.
But Cupcake (I think TN Mike lost weight before we started) and a few other put up some great numbers.
I wanted to do tough mudder so I signed up for Crossfit 1 month prior to start to get into shape. I have 3 months under my belt and the belt is getting smaller. I had to punch 3 new holes into it. Lost a lot of fat and built muscle.
Tough every day but worth it. here is what I learned about weight loss.
There are only 3 ways to lose weight.
Eating correctly- Eat smaller portions more often before you get hungry and Drink plenty of water
Exercising
Disease
Try sticking to the first two. Skip the third.
I wake up every morning at 4:40 am snooze until 5:00 BM, shower and out the door, If I can do it anybody can. Normally will skip 1 day a week to give the body a rest.
If you cannot pronounce the ingredients do not eat it. Also watch out for natural sugars in fruit.
A good app to track what you consume is MyFitnessPal. You punch in what you are eating and it does the usual totals et al. But the cool thing is the more you use it the easier it to use. You can use your camera on your phone to scan in foods. The DB on it is HUGE. It even had local grocery store items in it. Meeals that you eat all the time you just set up as a recipe and enter that. I eat the same thing everry morning so I just hit "normal breakfast".
To be honest I use it to make sure I am eating enough. I run a lot and work out alot so I sometimes do not eat enough.
As far as the White Death or whatever..LOL Yeah, cutting back on it is a good idea. But if you are active white sugar is not bad. I looked at the diet of the marathon runners from Africa and they consume huge amount of White Death. But, yeah, not a healthy choice if trying to lose weight and moderatly exercising.
Thanks for all the replies and thoughts. Hope this has helped some of yall.
Goose
I applaud you Goose for working on this early in your life. The older you get the harder weight loss seems to be. I do exercise very regularly and try to burn between 2800 and 3200 calories per week doing cardio. As a "filler" food I take some low sodium chicken stock, toss in a couple of veggies, such as celery and onions, add some seasoning like thyme and black pepper. Cook until the veggies soften and it makes a quick part of a meal. Low cost chicken soup sort of.
Our company offers wellness credits off our health insurance premiums for meeting cholesterol, blood pressure, weight, and blood sugar criteria. I am happy to say I maxed them and get $55 off a month from my premium. Not bad for a 53 year old! Soon to be 54....
Keep it up and good luck to all.