I wasn’t going to say anything, but since you brought it up it certainly reads as somewhat condescending stealth bragging.
I sort of low carb by default, more than trying to - carbs are more calorie dense.
Low-Carb Larb
500g mince (pork, beef, chicken, pork/veal, turkey)
1 stalk lemongrass
1 lemon
2 tbs fish sauce
1 red capsicum (bell pepper)
Fresh basil leaves (some - a few? 7-8 or 10 or however many)
Fresh cilantro (coriander) (7-10 sprigs)
2tbs peanut oil
Lettuce
Red chili - fresh or flakes to taste
Ground peanuts if you can spare the calories
In order:
Thin slice your onion, put it in a bowl
Juice and zest the lemon, in the bowl on top
Fish sauce, into the bowl
Basil and coriander, into the bowl
Thin slice red capsicum, into the bowl
Stir
Thin slice the white part of the lemongrass, set aside
Into the wok
Peanut oil - let this heat til it’s bubbly
Throw in the lemograss
Throw in the mince
Stirfry until cooked and mince is crumbly
Either-
Serve over lettue
Or serve as wraps
Top with peanuts if you want.
So this is my first post in this thread. My weight has been an issue for most of my life. It’s been pretty rare that I’ve even been close to a good weight for my height & build.
A few weeks ago I started low-carb/paleo eating and was pushing about 330lbs. So far it’s actually been pretty easy to follow and I’ve dropped about 6lbs. My wife has noticed that I’ve been a lot happier and I feel a lot less ‘fuzzy’ mentally. With two small kids exercise time can be hard to find but I’ve been able to start walking between 3 and 1.5 miles to work each day.
The fittest I’ve ever been was when I was doing a lot of cycling. I’d regularly do about 9 miles every day during the week after work and push out to about 20 per day on weekends. So I’m getting out my mountain bike and slowly going to work on that on weekends.
My goal is to start saving for a new hybrid bike (probably a Specialzed Sirrus Elite 
) which I’ll buy when I hit 260lbs (120kg for me). I’m hoping for all that to come together in mid-to-late Spring which will be perfect.
Another first poster here. I’m male, 50, 6 feet tall and weigh 268 pounds. I’m on my second week of Ease into 5k. I’m not running. I don’t have the stamina and my knees would never forgive me. I just walk fast when I’m supposed to run.
About 10 years ago, I got serious about weight loss, joined WW and got down to 180 pounds. I kept it off for about 2 years. The last few years have not been good (obviously). I’m on all the middle age drugs plus CPAP. My dad is 80 (still living) but is diabetic. My future is pretty easy to see if I don’t turn things around.
I’ve cut back on how much I’m eating. So far so good. It also helps that I have a coworker that has had amazing results from walking. I hope to follow in his footsteps so to speak.
Good luck to everyone!
It’s hard for me to keep up the whole getting in shape thing unless I see fast results. I’m totally willing to put in the work to get those results, but getting a little better every week, losing a pound or two… just can’t hold my interest. I need great strides. 5 pounds a week, regular noticeable increase in strength, etc. But the older I get, the less I can push myself to do. I’m really afraid an injury is going to derail the whole thing, but I just want to keep push push pushing. I’m down a net of like 3 pounds this month, and normally under the same circumstances I’d expect to lose around 20. I’m hoping there was a one time increase in weight due to muscles retaining water because of my increased workload - but when I’ve had the same in the past I’ve still lost 15-20. I guess perhaps I’m holding myself back too much, not pushing hard enough. Recovery time is frustrating. Hopefully since the speculated water muscle weight gain is a one time thing I’ll start seeing the pounds roll off soon.
Down 1.4 pounds from last week. You know, I lose weight if I don’t eat junk food! D’OH!!! I know that, it’s just a matter of doing it. And doing it (or not doing it) is really hard. My goal this week is to let myself get hungry between meals. I don’t need to eat to stay ahead of hunger. I can live with being hungry for 2 hours.
The Simply Filling program took away avocados and smoked salmon and replaced them with light bread. I’m skeptical, but I’m following it and so far doing well. Two pounds in the first two days (all bloat of course) and another half pound in the two days since then.
Knowing that I can eat what I need makes the whole process nearly painless. I’m afraid of hunger.
This week is shaping up (hah!) to be a huge challenge for me. Today is the boss’ birthday and all manner of treats are around the office, and there is a lunch planned at a restaurant that may have heard of healthy options but laughed it off as a fantasy. I can avoid the treats but lunch will be a problem.
Friday is Geek Night, and I hear that gourmet pizza, cake, and lost of munchies are planned. I’ll have to do what I can to eat a bunch of fruit & veg that I bring and avoid the rest as much as possible. Pizza will always be my downfall.
Saturday is my husbands birthday and there is much social eating and drinking planned, starting with a wine/cheese/chocolate tasting, moving to dinner at a brew pub, and finishing with desserts and drinks at the house. Yikes.
One of two things will happen - I will blow off the diet entirely this week and be hugely embarrassed by the amount I put on at nest Monday’s weigh-in, or I will be good and feel resentful that everyone else ate all the good shit. Trying to decide what will be the path of least regret.
On the good side, this week aside I seem to be losing a pound to a pound and a half per week, which is the rate I wanted. It’s been nice to get outside to walk, and the fruit and veg at the stores has been looking more and more appetizing to me.
WW is likely to annoy me this month. They have theme months, and this one seems to be “up-sell”. I wouldn’t mind buying the activity meter, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay an additional $5/month syncing fee. I can monitor my activity perfectly well without a little device.
This is wonderful news! Think of all the years of life you must be buying yourself.
What matters is you picked yourself up.
I’m glad to hear a lot of success stories today.
Day 24 of clean eating. I have been eating as much as I want of healthy foods - yesterday I was so hungry, I just kept eating. I burned through a pint of grape tomatoes and a half bag of carrots and a red pepper… well, you know it could be worse! Still limiting added sugar, and it hasn’t been much of a problem because I have become super sensitive to sweetness. Twice this week I was thrown for a loop when I ate too much fruit. Even 1 tbsp of honey in my Greek yogurt has become too much. Junk food is just right out. So far I’m dealing with temptation by avoiding social situations - I need a better long-term strategy, but for now that’s what I have.
I had a timed workout on Saturday that took every last bit of effort I had - my Coach wants to use it as a benchmark workout to track my progress. It was 18 minutes of very high intensity strength and conditioning. I don’t think I’ve ever worked harder in my life and I felt amazing afterward. I’m getting stronger. I can now knock out 10 GR push-ups pretty much on queue with no rest, (followed by 9 more sets of 10) and I set a PR for consecutive sit-ups without resting - 29. So it has been a great, great week in the fitness department.
I’m still fat, but, I think, a little less fat. I’m not interested in the scale right now, just making this lifestyle work for me, but I’ll of course be very happy to lose weight.
Wow. Four months going and I didn’t know this thread existed. Well, let’s see where this leads me.
I’m curious if anyone here considers shit food an addiction. Literally, an addiction.
I’m a 31 yo man. I’m obese enough that I could lose half my body weight and still be considered overweight.
Sometimes I feel like I’m cursed. Most healthy foods I love to eat: fruit, vegetables, lean meat, whole grain. I can - and do - eat all-bran for breakfast, green salads for lunch, lean meat and raw veggies for dinner. Interestingly, I don’t eat sweets. I don’t drink soda or juice, only water, black tea or coffee (with splenda and a splash of skim milk), and occasionally small glasses of milk (skim). I love morningstar or other veggie burgers, wraps with greens and raw veggies, seeds and nuts.
My problem is I get these insane, and uncontrollable, cravings for junk food. Despite being a poor college student, I always feel the desire to eat some disgusting fried thing from the cafeteria.
Two examples: The other morning I ate a small (1/2 to 3/4 cup) bowl of all-bran with a handfull of blueberries and just enough skim milk to get everything wet. Followed by a cup of coffee and I was good to go. However, by 10 am I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING HAD TO HAVE RIGHT THAT MINUTE one the breakfast burritos from the cafeteria: scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, ham, and bacon wrapped in this humongous flour tortilla then grilled. I just… had to have it. So I bought it, ate it, then felt like shit because I wasn’t all that hungry to begin with.
Again, a few days ago: I packed a ham sandwich, an apple, and a can of V8 juice for lunch. the sandwich was thick, but didn’t have cheese or mayo on it and did have lettuce, sliced peppers and sprouts. Fairly healthy. An hour after lunch I needed to have one of the lunch bowls from the cafeteria. Think one of those KFC bowls with the potatoes, corn, gravy and fried chicken only twice the size. So, again, I gave in and again felt like shit afterward because it wasn’t hunger that was driving my need for junk food.
It’s bizzare. I don’t balk at standard-issue health food (except raw tomatoes. I can’t stand raw tomatoes). I’ll happily eat veggies, fruits, and grains. Grilled or smoked meat. However, afterward I need something full of fat and salt. Healthy fat -and-salt containing foods, such as hummus and salted nuts, just don’t do it for me.
It’s reached the point where I’ve threatened to quit carrying any cash or debit cards. However, the idea of not having those in my pocket sends my into a panic attack, so that’s right out.
So I’m curious if anyone else suffers from this, and if so what their approach to dealing with it is.
I also don’t feel like I’m finished with a meal until I’ve had something sweet and fatty at the end. It’s a habit and like all habits can be broken… but yeah, it’s tough. I’ve been eating a little square of dark chocolate (about 10 grams) or half a dozen of the chocolate or vanilla roasted almonds. Sometimes if the meal has already had enough fat, I can get away with a piece of sugar free gum.
Some rat bastard put a dish of Cadbury Mini-Eggs on the table in our common area. Fuck your Cadbury Mini-Eggs, you rat bastard. 
olivesmarch4th, I’ve been really interested in your posts about your work with the trainer. It sounds somewhat like Crossfit, and like you’re getting a great program. How long will you work with him?
Is there a middle way? Can you look to the events ahead and decide which things you could splurge on and which you could go without? When we had a family get-together for my husband’s birthday, for example, I skipped the pizza because it was from the pizza place I’m least crazy about and I can have pizza anytime. (If it had been gourmet pizza, I might have made a different choice). But someone had brought champagne and I definitely wanted some of that, so that’s where my splurge came in. Maybe evaluate what’s most important to you.
That being said, I do sometimes slip into the ‘virtuous but resentful’ camp. It’s no fun, but it’s more fun for me than being mad at myself for making poor choices.
I think you’d do well with low carb or Paleo (or low carb paleo!) Seems like the sugar and carbs that you eat (bran flakes) only trigger your craving for more, and the super low calories leave you hungry.
If you were low carbing you could have bacon and eggs and even steak for breakfast. As much as you want. You wouldn’t be hungry from lack of calories and you wouldn’t be craving more carbs from just having eaten carbs.
You can have a fried hamburger (or two) with cheese for lunch and a rotisserie chicken for dinner and be happy happy happy.
If you’re a big man you gotta feed yourself. Cutting your calories too low is just dooming yourself to failure. Even if you stick with it for a bit you won’t stick with it too long. You can’t even stick with it past noon - because it’s nonsense!
Check out the book Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution (the 1994 edition, I believe is the best one). If that’s too much, Google around for Paleo or Primal. Do a ton of reading, don’t just get a little bit of info.
Once you’ve read the science behind some of this stuff it’ll be much easier to follow.
Eat your meat, cut out the sweets (sweets = cereals, breads, even pre-sweetened yogurt. Nasty stuff!) and start moving around more.
(I just want to say that I don’t think that low calorie is bad for everyone. I don’t think that eating grains or sugar is bad for everyone. But I think this guy looks like he’d be someone who’d benefit from a high-fat, higher-calorie diet which doesn’t work too well if you’re getting calories from carbs. It’ll also keep his cravings down through cutting carbs.)
Lancia, no doubt that for some people, particular foods are an addiction. I know there are trigger foods for me that even if I’m not hungry, I must have them. I do well on a diet that consists of protein, veggies and fruit. Basically a low-carb diet, which is what ZipperJJ is suggesting. Look into it and try it for a week.
I third the low-carb (or Paleo, or South Beach – all of which reduce carbs) diet suggestions.
Okay, don’t laugh. The Something Awful forums (not the hellhole they used to be) have a subforum where people can post their fitness/weight loss logs with pictures and updates. Some of them are ridiculously motivational. This guy has gone from over 500 pounds to under 250 in less than two years. This thread is for anyone to post pictures of their dramatic transformations, either from weight loss or muscle gain or both. And this post is an excellent guide to the basics of losing weight. Check this out for a lot of good info and motivation.
One thing it recommends is that if you’re a guy who weighs more than 250 pounds, you should eat 2500 calories a day. Not less! I’m looking at the food you report eating, Lancia, and shit, no wonder you get hungry a couple of hours right after a meal! A small bowl of All-bran, blueberries, and a little bit of milk probably comes in under 200 calories. That’s too small of a breakfast for me, and I’m 145 lbs and on a medically-monitored 1350-calorie diet! Plus most of those calories come from the carbs in the cereal. Eat a ton of protein for breakfast – eggs, meat, cottage cheese, regular cheese, plus at least a cup of green vegetables – and see how you feel. Say, two eggs, 4 slices of Canadian bacon, and a cup of low fat cottage cheese, plus the veggies = around 450 calories.
One thing I’ve noticed and mentioned to my wife last night. Every time in the last few years that I’ve tried losing weight within 7 - 10 days of starting I’ve gotten sick with a cold or flu which knocks my hopes of excercise and eating well right out of the window.
That hasn’t happened with the paleo/low carb thing 
My average daily intake is like this:
Breakfast:
Mushrooms, dry-fried with a little garlic (the mushrooms produce enough liquid when cooking not to need any oil or butter) over 1/2 a sliced avocado.
small coffee with a dash of milk & cream (this is the one thing I won’t give up).
Morning snack: small bit of fruit or closed handful of almonds or pecan nuts.
Lunch: 1 (or 2) tomatoes
1/2 (or whole avocado) this changes 1/2 avocado = 2 tomatoes. Whole avocado = 1 tomato.
about 1/3 of a continental cucumber
some meat - salami/cabanosi or leftover from dinner.
I just take it all in whole and chop it up at my desk
afternoon snack (if needed) handfull of cherry tomatoes or small bit of fruit or small salami stick (called “twiggy sticks” here)
Dinner: last night was bacon-wrapped chicken breast stuffed with pecan nuts
tonight will be beef osso buco done in the slow cooker with “notatoes”.
1/2 a dozen dried dates - gives me a bit of sweetness and fibre
Plus drinking plenty of water.
I love the *Fast Paleo *app for my iPhone & Nexus 7 as well.
So I tracked a typical day in MFP and I’m disappointed in the results. I don’t know how to share my info, so I took a screenshot.
Any recommendations? I know the dressing is pretty bad, I’ll work on alternatives for that, but I’ve never been much of an olive oil and vinegar dressing person. It just feels like I’m not eating that much food! Oh, and the chili measurement isn’t exact, I just grabbed someone’s MFP entry.
That’s funny - it’s known that for a lot of people, when they start a keto diet, they start feeling flu-like symptoms for a short time. It’s so common it’s even called the ‘keto flu’. Maybe you went too low carb before?
First thing is to put in your own recipes, don’t rely on other people’s entries. People suck at entries. If you are taking charge over what goes into your mouth, don’t you want accurate reporting of it? Especially something like “chili” that doesn’t have a standard recipe.
Second, do exercise and track it. Eat back your exercise calories. If you had gone on a long walk today you may have been under your goals. Heck, if you went for a short walk and added your own chili recipe you may have been under.
Third…what are you disappointed in? Were you hungry? Did you gain weight? Do you think you had too much of one macro and not enough of another? Or do you just not like seeing the red marks?
Is using myfitnesspal or whatever useful? I guess I’ll give it a go. I’ve never counted calories on low carb so I actually have no idea whatsoever how many calories I eat. I guess I’d be curious to see how many I’m actually eating. I guess weight loss charts and exercise tracking might be useful.