We’re doing the Weight Watchers Core program, as well.
Not to mention, big guys lose fast. Bastards 
OK, an acquantance from out of town came in and I met him for beers. That was bad.
But the good thing is, I thought about getting cookies on the way home - beer always gives me the munchies.
But I was good and resisted.
Beer bad. No cookies good.
Wow, you’re SO not Canadian.
I mean, Good For You.
Edited because I am the queen of typos.
The question is: was “eating pizza” eating one, or even half a slice of pizza, or did you “cut loose” and have two, even three slices of pizza? Was it plain, or with a vegetable topping like broccoli, or was it with something extra heavy/fatty like sausage or pepperoni or extra cheese?
I never turn down free pizza at work either… Hey, it’s a form of comp, right? 
But I limit myself to one slice, or two spaced at least an hour apart (preferably 2-3), and stick to either plain pizza, one with a vegetable topping or with chicken. (OK, I know the “chicken” topping is generally diced chicken cutlet that has been breaded and fried… But I can’t be all good all the time :P)
True, true… it’s all a matter of percent of body fat, you see. If you start out big ‘n’ blubbery, the rate can be much faster than the 1-2 lbs. per week maximum usually given out. I lost 3-3.5 lbs. a week for my first 6 weeks or so, then tapered off, and now I’m targeting 3-4 lbs. a month.
Day 8. Down one pound. Bah. What is with all you bastards losing 3-4 pounds a week??
Eh, I had a rant all typed out, but I gave up on it. I’m just pissy this week about having to work for every ounce lost, even though I eat fairly well (very little junk, love veggies, fruits, and whole grains, drink water instead of soda, etc.) and (try to) spend an hour at the gym 5-6 days a week. Give up on any of that and the pounds creep back on. Can’t I just live life and have a damn slice of pizza now and then without having to think about how I’m going to compensate for it?? Grrrrr.
(Yes, I know how to deal with all this. I just hate that I have to.)
The first few pounds are always easy, especially when you have a lot extra to spare. Since I didn’t post an update yesterday, I suppose I should get on the stick: this morning’s weight (exponentially smoothed average, as always) is 319.7, from 330 on Jan 1. (Scale measurement this morning was 314.0. I’d actually hit an apparent long plateau in the measurements from 1/9 through 1/20, each day’s weigh-in was between 317 and 322.5, hopping about mostly randomly. I actually just now noticed that–I’m glad I’m focusing on the moving average, or that could have been discouraging. )
I’m sure I’m going to flatten out soon–any of you long-timers have any advice for a newbie? Right now I’m exercising on my elliptical almost every day, walking to Subway for lunch at work almost every day, and tracking my intake of calories, fat, carbs, protein, and fiber against fairly strict targets …
Shake your routine up. Your body is good at adapting. If your body can go on autopilot to do your workout, it’s not really “kicking it up a notch” the way you want to in order to burn fat and lose weight. Depending on what you find easier to work into your life, you can play around with the duration of exercise, type of exercise, and pattern of exercise.
If you’ve being working on an elliptical machine at the same setting for a good long while, try increasing the time you do, or (more practically from a time perspective) try ratcheting up the difficulty level or even switching to another form of cardio altogether (treadmill, stationary bike).
Another good way to “shake things up” is to introduce interval training into your routine. Maybe not every one, maybe once a week or every other workout, instead of doing (say) 30 minutes of steady state cardio, do spurts of intense effort (anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes in duration) where you are on the verge of gasping for breath at the end of the spurt, followed by periods of medium-to-low effort to catch your breath.
This has been shown by several studies to be much more effective in raising your metabolism and burning fat than “steady state” cardio. My own experience would bear this out; I attribute at least part of my resuming measurable fat loss in the past few weeks to my switching from running at 7mph for two 10-15 minute stretches with a 4-5 minute period of walking at 4mph in between, to to running at 8mph for 5, 4, 3 or 2 minute stretches intervaled with walking at 4.2mph for 1.5 to 2 minute stretches.
Nor does this have to be done with running. This holds true for any level of cardio workout. When I first moved from just taking daily walks to hitting the treadmill for my workout, I walked at 3.7 to 4.0 mph on the treadmill just as I would have on the street, but punctuated it with as little as 2-3 minutes of running at 5.5 to 6.0 mph every so often. This would count as “interval training” for someone who’s just starting out.
I would expect an exercise routine consisting of walking alone (doing the pedometer thing) to peter out after a while. It’s a great way to start exercising from zero, I did it this way myself and is certainly better than nothing at all, but I think you’ll find the equilibrium point your metabolism will reach with such a low effort workout rather soon. You’ll have to walk longer/farther or faster to maintain the rate of fat loss, or switch to something else, to shake your body out of its rut.
I agree with this, except for the calculation for the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight.
I have never seen this formula and any way I play with it, it comes out with something that seems extremely low to me. I think I have read about a fast rule of thumb of 11-13 calories x current weight in pounds for men as a way to set a target calorie level for LOSING weight… Not for MAINTAINING weight.
A better one (IMNVHO) is one that factors in your age and activity level. I have used this TDEE calculator myself (TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure) and it has proven extremely accurate in predicting my caloric baseline when I started out completely inactive (activity multiplier of 1.2 on top of the BMR, or Base Metabolic Rate), moved up to “lightly active” (1.375) and now to “moderately active” (1.55).
LOL. Very true. We have much more to lose also. I am sure that when we get closer to our target weights, things will slow up considerably.
Thank you. :).
Like Jayjay stated, we are doing the WW Core plan, and walking at least 2 miles per day. The walking is a prelude to the next step in our exercise plan, joining a gym. We will be checking one out this weekend.
Thanks Robardin, for the reminder about interval training. I knew that but had gotten away from it. Now that I’ve increased my walk to almost 4 miles I think it might be time to add some intervals.
Ginger I’m gonna chime in here and say that maybe with the new Yoga routine you’re building muscle and losing fat. Net result in fat loss but not necessarily weight loss. That’s a good thing IMO. The scale will catch up.
I was bad last night and ate and drank too much. 
wine is not my friend.
If I could limit myself to one slice at any time I would not be here. I have a real problem with limits, and I see most containers, no matter how large as “one serving.” Luckily, if I load my plate right, that’s one serving too.
The problem is that your unconscious “stopping point” for eating is out of whack with your actual dietary needs. With some people (like me, formerly) it’s a desire to “eat until stuffed”, a very full, bloated and sleepy feeling that is likely linked with a warm, fulfilling one as it is also associated with celebratory feasts. With you, it seems to be “eat until the container is empty”, a prizewinning type of mentality to make sure YOUR food is forever yours and nobody else can have it.
I suggest you try what worked for me: mentally allow yourself to as large a helping as you “normally” would (such as 2 or 3 slices of pizza, or a footlong Subway sandwich), with the vow that you will eat half of it first, and the other half “later”, where “later” can be as soon as 30 minutes later. Keep it in plain sight, too; doing something special to it, like “hiding” it in the back of the fridge, will probably raise its rating in your unconscious mind. (To quote JRR Tolkien, as Gandalf said to Denethor of the One Ring, Even if it were buried beneath the roots of Mindolluin [a big-ass mountain], still it would burn your mind away.)
Then, find something to busy yourself with while you wait. Don’t sit there glancing at the pizza every 5 minutes thinking “is it time yet?”, or do something passive like watching a half hour TV show. If you’re at work, well, get back to work If you’re at home, do some reading, a crossword puzzle or video game, or start composing a couple of grandes oeuvres for the SDMB. Something engaging that will take you a while to finish.
If it works out for you as it did for me, you will soon begin to forget to eat that “second half”, because once your body has time to adjust to the “normal sized” portion you ate, you will not feel hungry. Maybe 2 hours will pass before you actually feel like eating it. And from there, it’s relatively easy to wait an extra 30, 45 minutes before actually eating it, and presto, you’re on your way to eating 4-6 times a day instead of gorging 2-3 times a day.
Some claim this has metabolic benefits beyond reducing total calorie consumption (i.e., that you’ll gain more weight eating two 1000 calorie meals than five 400 calorie meals). True or not, you’ll definitely feel more energetic, will learn to distinguish between “hunger” (needing to eat) and simply wanting to eat for its own sake, and unlearn stuffing yourself (it will actually feel quite unpleasant once you wean yourself from the habit).
In my (admittedly short) experience with this, it really does make a big difference. I ate ~1700 calories worth of food yesterday, in stark contrast to the well over 3000 that I must have been taking in daily to get to this size. I ate seven tiny meals of 200-300 calories each, and don’t remember ever really feeling extremely hungry.
I fully agree (and congratulate you on succeeding at doing this), but what I was referring to was the idea that even eating the same number of calories spread out over more meals as compared to fewer raises the metabolic rate due to your body using energy to digest food (or, the related idea that there is some kind of maximum to the number of calories your body will use at a time from any one meal, with the surplus going right to fat).
In other words, one camp would claim that the main reason to eat smaller, more frequent meals is as a strategy to eat less overall; in your case, 1700 calories versus 3000. Another camp would go a step farther and say that eating 7x250 spread out over the day will burn you more calories (i.e., leave you with less surplus) than eating 2x875. This is not universally accepted, but I will say that whether or not it actually has a direct impact on the “bottom line”, it definitely feels better to have an even rather than a spiky energy level throughout the day.
I am 177 today, was 178.5 yesterday, and 177 a week ago. Whatever. It’s a loss, I’ll take it.
On another health related note, I had one of those complete physicals (along with the bloodwork, and the anal probing), and my results were pretty stellar. I only had one high mark of 131 on the one of the categories (which one, I forgot…coulda been LDL or cholesterol where the optimal range is 0-99.) The doctor said that it was not too big of a deal either, and she said it was probably inheirited…probably it was my cholesterol level. She was happy to see my Trans Fat level was 74, where 0-75 is acceptable, and 100 is borderline. Even my blood pressure was down to 120 over 60 last week, although it was 140 over 80 today. She concluded that I was one of the most healthy 43 year old men she has seen in a few years even though I’m 255 lbs…but I’m far better off now than when I was 310 pounds last year. Chalk it up to exercise and some dietary discretion.
310/255/210?
OK, I just walked a brisk mile and a half. Doesn’t sound like much, but I can’t remember the last time I moved this body that far without motorized assistance. Certainly long before my knee surgery …
Good for you! A lot of people put off exercising because they don’t think they can do ‘enough’. Well, how are you going to develop the capacity if you don’t start somewhere? Start doing what you can do, and before you know it, you’ll be able to do more!