Men Who Want To Lose Weight?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

That’s an excellent point, and sort of what I was getting at.

As I understand it, “body positivity” is the maxim that you should love your body regardless of how it looks.

Guys don’t get that. Instead, they get media messaging that they have to be huge, or buff, or ripped, to be the star.

And so I think it has a negative impact on male body image.

You make an excellent point that this include dissuading some men from even trying to learn to eat better, or be more active.

There’s another media trope: the jovial fat guy. I’m sure that some men gravitate to being funny, or friendly, because they feel intimidated about addressing their weight.

I think it all stems from the same problematic messaging that men receive about an unrealistic ideal.

22

I was thin in grad school but over the last 25 years i’ve put on about 50 pounds. In January I decided to do something about it. I’ve lost 17 pounds so far in the last 2 and a half months.

How did I do it? I stopped overeating. That’s it.

My meals haven’t really changed at all. I just stopped snacking throughout the day and reduced my drinking.

Simple thermodynamics - calories out > calories in.

23

I’d like to hear from younger guys about body image pressure for them. I went through pudgy teenager, then became a muscle bound hulk, finally settling into an unending battle to reduce the size of my gut. except for a few years when I ballooned up to absurd weight I could dress to look good and none of that time did I have to compete in this new world of online dating apps and people tweeting naked pictures. So I have no idea what it’s like now but I doubt things have improved for men. Prolly no where near as bad as it is for women.

24

I will occ. run little “experiments” with my weight. My current one has been to cut out all binging of any sort, make sure all meals are relatively small, and continue with my 2 hours on the elliptical per week. I am now @ 169/down 5, which I haven’t weighed since high school. [As said in previous threads I was once @ 243 16 years ago]

25

This sounds just like me. I’m very determined in everything I do. Once I had decided to clean up my act and lose weight there was nothing that was going to stop me. It was simply a matter of learning about, and figuring out, what works for me since every body is different. Once I had done that, it was simply sticking to a plan, developing good eating habits, and not cheating… ever. I used to bake a loaf of fresh sourdough bread every week. I love the smell and taste of good homemade bread. Once I got on keto, that all went out the window, and I haven’t gone back to that “habit” since. I had to sacrifice a few things I really liked in order to reach my ultimate goal. Maybe in the future I can add a few of those back into my diet. Time will tell.

26

One trick I learned is that snacking is a real problem for some people. I was a snacker and figured out that my snacking added the equivalent of one extra meal every day. Once I figured out why I was snacking, I eliminated it completely. I am now eating three meals a day, roughly 600 calories each, plus 500 cals of exercise a day, and that keeps me energy negative and my weight very stable. It takes a lot of experimenting and there is no easy fix, but the new expensive drugs out on the market seem to be helping a lot of people by severely curbing their appetite. The only problem is when you stop taking them the old cravings, along with the weight, comes back.

27

Persistence is key. There are lots of obstacles that keep us from doing the right things for our weight and health. Stick with a plan and get back on the horse after you’ve fallen off. It’s never too late improve you health. Don’t wait till you’re too old or too sick to do something about it.

28

My story is nothing different from what millions have going on, nonetheless as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that managing my weight has gotten harder and harder each year. In my 30s, if I picked up a few pounds during the holidays, I could drop that back with ease by early spring. Not any more.

Last few years in particular have been an unpleasant ride strapped on to a yoyo. Hernia surgery slowed me down, added a few pounds that I never fully lost. The lockdown came and with it a bunch of takeout food to support our favorite restaurants, same story. Last year was my wife’s cancer and all the disruptions that brings.

The net of all of this is that with concentration and diligence, I can track my calories, cut carbs, plan exercise and lose a little, but the killer is the unexpected disruption to routine that wipes all that progress out. And the entire time I am being “good”, I am hungry literally all the time. I recently learned of the concept of food noise, the constant thoughts about the next snack or meal that are super difficult to put aside. Food noise is my life when I’m on a diet.

So in the parlance of AA, I recently surrendered to a higher power. No, not god, but Eli Lilly. I got a prescription for Zepbound. And I gotta tell you, even just a few weeks into it, I can’t believe it. The food noise is gone. Eating a big portion because I waited to eat until I was too hungry, gone. Snacking through the day, gone. I actually have to plan the other way around to make sure I get enough protein and calories so I don’t run too much of a deficit.

It’s the strangest feeling. I love my salty, crunchy carbs more than just about anyone on the planet and have done low carb diets with extreme difficulty. But now it’s like a switch has been flipped. I might eat a cracker or chip or two, but that’s it. No interest in anything more. And I haven’t had a drink in like three weeks. Not because I consciously cut back, it just doesn’t hold any interest for me now.

My wife thinks I’ve been kidnapped and replaced by an alien.

29

WRT weight/fitness, I’ve come to a realization of what body habitus I’m willing to maintain. For most of my life through age 50 or so, I was quite active. So I could afford to eat whatever I wanted, drink heavily, etc. Now, in a perfect world I’d prefer to weigh 5-10# less and see better definition in the mirror, but I have come to grips with the idea that I’ve become a creaky lazy old fart who likes some measure of carbs and sweets. So the “not-as-thin-and-defined-as-before-old-man’s-bod” I have is something i’ve been able to maintain with the effort I’m willing to commit.

When I find how much effort it is just to pay with my grandkids or do relatively easy home/yard chores, I simply do not understand how all the fat guys can do it!

30

Age is the enemy of fitness and weight management. What was easy to accomplish in your 20s seems almost impossible in your 50s. That doesn’t mean you should give up trying. It just means you have to find new and better ways to stay fit and manage your weight as you age. Nobody said it was going to be easy.

31

This is important. Since I started going to the gym I have lost about 15 pounds of fat. I feel much better now than before I started.

The main reason I was motivated to get in shape is that I simply did not want to be a hunched over old man who has to shuffle to get around.

At 56, I am sorry that I didn’t start this 20-30 years ago, however I do see the benefits for now and the future.

32

Ha, yeah. I used to work at a place where someone left their old issues of Men’s Health in the break room, and you’re absolutely right about the sameness of every issue. Don’t forget the obligatory monthly ‘Tips & Tricks for Better Sex!’ articles.

As for me, yeah, I’m another older guy struggling with my weight, and finding it harder and harder to lose it the older I get. I’m fairly active-- been hitting the elliptical this Winter 4-5 days a week, and going on long walks or hikes when the weather’s tolerable. In Summer I hike and ride my bike a lot. Been trying to watch my calories and only eat 2 meals a day, no snacking. Try to limit my drinking to the weekend, and mostly liquor and sparkling water mixed drinks when I do.

I’m kind of angry at myself too, because at the beginning of 2019 I got serious about losing weight, did keto, watched calories very cloesely, and by this time in 2019 I had lost 30 lbs. and was looking good. But then the pandemic lockdown came around, and I eventually gained it back and probably a little more.

Well, the pandemic is often my excuse, but to paraphrase the song…“some people claim that the lockdown’s to blame / but I know…it’s my own damn fault”.

33

I started at 68 so don’t feel bad about waiting 20-30 years to get started. At 68 I was in good enough shape that I could do the work to lose the weight I needed to lose and have adjusted my lifestyle to maintain my weight and fitness. As I get older it will get harder and harder to stay in shape, but at least I’m going into old age with good health, feeling good, and without having to lose any weight.

34

I think there’s been a certain sea change in the past decade or so about women’s body positivity. Women who are “thick/thicc” are now considered attractive and sexy, when 20-30 years ago they’d have been derided as being fat and gross.

You can see it in say… the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue covers. Someone like Kate Upton would never have been on the cover before about 10 years ago. She’s too curvy, and would have been picked apart for being ‘fat’.

Meanwhile, there’s been no such renaissance for male beauty. Name one pudgy male heartthrob. Or fat action hero. Especially one who’s not also extremely funny.

That’s I think what the men who feel like the body positivity movement passed them by are getting at. That said, I think they missed the whole “dad bod” thing a few years back, or disbelieved it as just women saying they don’t want grotesquely ripped bodybuilder types, not that they actually want guys with actual dad bods.

Yeah, Wegovy for me, but my experience is similar. I forget to eat sometimes, because I’m not hungry and I’m not thinking about food. That’s a totally new experience for me. And when I do eat, I don’t feel compelled to wipe out the entire plate either. Snacks are a thing of the past, unless I just have a bite of something that my kids are snacking on just to see what it tastes like. I’m about 8-9 lbs down in the first 4.5 weeks, which is just flat out wild.

35

Middle aged guys like us were raised by Depression Babies. That may have had something to do with our eating habits.

Also, if The Graduate was set in 1968 Minneapolis instead of LA, Mr. Brooke would be saying to Benjamin: “High Fructose Corn Syrup.”

36

I used to weigh highest 230 lbs but I exercised like walked in woods and lifted weights to get down to 176 lbs. Lowest I weighed as an adult was 155 lbs.

37

My daughter went on Wegovy and lost 40 pounds in a few months. She felt better and looked great, and then the introductory pricing ended and it became too expensive for her to keep up. Once the shots stopped, so did her appetite suppression, and her normal appetite returned… along with the weight. Every pound came back plus a few, and she claims there was nothing she could do about it.

While these drugs help you lose weight, they don’t change your eating habits. You just aren’t as hungry as you were so you eat less and maintain a large negative energy balance. What are the long term effects of these weight-loss drugs over 5, 10, or 20 years? Nobody knows because they’re too new, and there are no long-term studies.

I wouldn’t want to become dependent on an expensive drug I may have to take for the rest of my life to maintain a healthy weight. It’s not just about losing the weight, it’s also about what happens after you lose the weight to keep it off in a healthy way, hopefully without drugs.

38

My efforts are similar, though so far I’ve lost only 10 pounds. Still, lighter than I have been in years. If not necessarily a big physical change, it’s provided a psychological boost and tells me I’m on the right track.

I’ve been motivated by my doctor telling me I’m prediabetic. A cousin not much older than me died last year from diabetes. He was much heavier than me (over 300 lbs.) but still a warning that I can’t eat anything I want any time I want.

Since Christmas, I’ve passed on 95% of the pies, cakes, candies, and other sweets that have passed my way. Also all the junk foods and most breads/grains.

When I want something sweet, I’ll have a piece of fruit or occasional small piece of dark chocolate. I eat a lot of nuts for snacks.

I’m excited, because I’m making slow, steady, progress and I think this is an eating lifestyle I can live with…no pun intended.

39

You found the secret to losing weight and keeping it off. You lost your weight slowly, which gave your body time to adjust to your new set point, and you changed your eating habits. You stopped eating certain complex refined carbs, like bread, and you reduced sugary foods, like desserts. I also eat a piece of fruit for dessert and that works well for me.

You have adopted a new lifestyle that is conducive to gradually losing weight. Once you reach your goal weight, you can try to relax some of your no-nos and see how your body reacts. Some people can handle carbs better than others, so add individual foods back in slowly and see what happens to your weight.

Kudos to you for getting this far and apparently not suffering that much to get there. Losing weight is an amazingly positive encouragement in and of itself.

40

This is key for me. I found that after a couple of weeks, I didn’t have the urge to snack anymore. I don’t actually get hungry throughout the day except when it is mealtime, when I get ravenous very quickly. But my body has adjusted to the portion control as well - I get full quickly and don’t have the urge to gorge.

Avoiding sweets (and beer) was the key. Bread is fine, but I find that it doesn’t fill me up for the amount of calories it has so I’ve been avoiding it.