My journey to drop the weight

Minnesota_husker

Minnesota_husker

New member
I like to think of Huskerboard as a family. You have the quiet ones who only chime in occasionally, but make their presence felt.

You have the loud ones who always have the opinions

We have the old grandpa snoozing in the corner randomly yelling about the Nazis in his dreams(Knapp)

So with any family comes the support... So I am looking for that now(this could be a failure... expecting that.)

I have always been a bigger guy but the last 8 months my weight is getting to the highest point it has ever been, and starting on January 1, my intention is to shed it.

Obviously i have done the diet thing before and had some success. I was at 273, got down to 230 and have slowly worked my way back to 275.

It is my own fault. I have basically stopped watching what I eat. I actually use to be very good at cutting out the bad things.

So, what I am looking for here is a little advice on if my plan(detailed below) looks like a decent idea, and some other advice on how to lose the weight healthy and maybe even some recipes(Roxy) that are quick and easy and healthy.

I know plenty of guys are work out buffs. That isnt my intention. But i do want to be aggressive enough so that I can shed the weight.

My goal is to be in the 200-220 category, and i dont care how long it takes me to get there.

Now my plan:

One of my biggest issues is i am lethargic. I have a desk job, so according to my Jawbone Up, I average about 3,500 steps a day. My goal to fix that is to focus on getting more sleep. I tend to get about 5 hours of sleep and i think my body is just deprived of the sleep it needs.

I recently started doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a few months ago. I have class on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. I would say the class probably burns 300-500 calories, but the sparing after is basically an hour long workout. I did it once, and was exhausted. My plan is to do that at least 2-3 times a week. With my schedule it is hard to get to more classes.

So basically my off days are days I am trying to figure out my best plan of attack.

Monday- Jiu Jitsu class/ Sparring

Tuesday- Sparring only

Wednesday- Class/Sparring

Thursday-Open

Friday-Open

Saturday- Morning- Class/Sparring

Sunday-Open

I am thinking to shed the weight, Cardio might be my best bet. I can do some lifting but the Gym doesnt have a ton of weights. Plus the sparring takes incredible Cardio, so my plan is to maybe just jump on the treadmill on maybe off days.

Now the issue I run in to is what to eat on these days. My wife is going back home for two months for a clinical, so I am on my own and can basically eat whenever.

My class goes from 5:30-6:30 and Sparring is 6:30-7:30. I am thinking possibly protein bar after and eat light before hand.

When it comes to diet, i am fine eating light carbs and chicken/Tuna. That doesn't buy me. I like salads, but my problem is that I am a blue cheese dressing guy, which makes salad a little less healthy(a lot less)

So, I guess advice on what to eat.. maybe a few other exercises on off days?

I am not sure if this is going to turn in to something i update with my progress(doubt people care).

So. I am sure some people here have advice. My main plans are to cut out the fatty foods. cut out pop/sugar drinks. Get more sleep.

Very simple.

 
You may or may not be able to get in better shape if you follow Coach Dobson's program. The jury is currently out if you haven't noticed.

 
Bur seriously, your BJJ and sparring is going to be great exercise, I honestly don't think the treadmill is going to give you what you're looking for, but anything that will keep up your activity level is good for you as long as you can stick with it and build up from there. Eat a lot more veggies. I'm not an expert by the way, but anything you can stick with long-term will be good, it's about self-discipline more than anything.

 
You have to strength train. Sparring and the actual class stuff is good, but resistance training is the best way to not only get rid of fat, but will also replace it with muscle, which will, in turn, work to burn more fat. I would recommend at least 2 days of strength training per week at the least, even replacing a class/sparring session to do so. Even with limited weights you can do quick, effective workouts. Any time I'm away from the gum for awhile, I do the standard push-ups, squats, pull-ups, but I've been running through this routine a few times as well. Looks easy, but I'm in excellent shape and it's still a killer. Look up High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) for other suggestions.

Cutting out the crap/sugar food and drinks is great, but in addition, I would recommend one: intermittent fasting. I won't go into all of the details, but I have done it every time that I have wanted to cut with magnificent results. You begin to realize that most of the time, you're not even hungry, just bored. When you ARE able to eat, there aren't as many restrictions as many diets present. After a week, the hunger pains go away...and so does the weight and fat.

There are a few other diet-related things I could suggest, but these two change are enough for now. One thing to keep in mind is that you HAVE to set a couple of days aside a week where you either don't work out or you don't follow the diet. I generally set mine for Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon so I can go nuts on the weekend. It not only helps you to stay sane, but also gives you something to look forward to all week (as lame as it sounds, I'm excited about eating some high-carb pita bread this Saturday).

I hope this works out well for you. Chime in with any questions.

 
I tried a cardio campaign a couple of years ago, walking a minimum five miles a day, just about every day, for about 14 months. Didn't change my eating habits at all, and I didn't lose any weight at all.

I badly hurt my back at the end of that (which is why I stopped) and I really haven't done much by the way of exercise in the past two years. Haven't really changed my eating habits much, but I did start drinking quite a bit more wine.

I've lost about 15lbs since hurting my back.

Which pretty much goes to show you that nature is evil and much of your weight is genetic.

 
I'm with ya, MH. But instead of being a "big guy", I was always one of those guys in high school and college who could--and did--eat anything and everything. And not gain a pound. But now that my college days are but a fond memory, and I sit at a desk for 8+ hours per day, the pounds seem to accumulate more easily. For the past couple of years, each year I'll balloon up to around 220 to 225 in the winter, and then diet for a few months to get down under 200 for the summer. I don't claim to be an expert on dieting, but fwiw, here are some of the things I do to diet. Granted, some of these things are just common sense and others sound silly. But they seem to work for me.

  • track my weight daily and keep a log. (Serves as motivation for me.)
  • make a friendly weightloss wager with a friend, and exchange results periodically. (More motivation. And pride.)
  • Use smaller plates and bowls. (Sounds silly. But I eat less food when I do this.)
  • Drink lots of water. Eat lots of apples, oranges, pecans, oatmeal, and other "good" food.
  • Eat large helpings of microwaved frozen peas or corn. Sometimes I'll make a meal of this.
  • Don't touch potato chips, or any type of fast food.
  • Minimize eating of rice, potatoes or other carbo stuff anytime after lunch. (If I eat in the morning, I can't burn them off before bedtime.)
  • Chew gum. (Can't nibble when I got a hunk of gum in my yapper.)
  • Walk to work, when I can. (It's only one mile each way. But hey, every little bit helps.)
  • Fast for a day every few weeks. Only non-cal drinks, and maybe a bowl of oatmeal in the morning.
  • Track my calorie intake. (If I can keep up with this, it's very effective.)

Good luck man!

edit:

  • And pickles! I eat lots of pickles when trying to drop lbs. They kill your appetite.

 
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Do 25 push ups and sit ups first thing in the morning and right before you go to bed. You'd be surprised what that little kickstart to your muscles and heart can do for you and your calorie burn. As this becomes easier, you can increase, but that is a good number.

 
Minnesota_husker said:
When it comes to diet, i am fine eating light carbs and chicken/Tuna. That doesn't buy me. I like salads, but my problem is that I am a blue cheese dressing guy, which makes salad a little less healthy(a lot less)

So, I guess advice on what to eat.. maybe a few other exercises on off days?

I am not sure if this is going to turn in to something i update with my progress(doubt people care).

So. I am sure some people here have advice. My main plans are to cut out the fatty foods. cut out pop/sugar drinks. Get more sleep.

Very simple.
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I'm going to tell you what I did and what I'm doing. And I'm also someone who was overweight for a long time and tried several times and now I've kept a lot of weight off for a couple years so far. The advice is anecdotal but I'm assuming that's what you're looking for since you're asking on a forum (You can get the other kind of evidence by searching google). I've lost 22% of my original weight so far, and it's taken a little over two years. So my first advice is to plan to take it very slowly. Just make slow little steps and keep it up. I think the main thing that helped me keep at it was weight lifting. Weight lifting itself doesn't really make you lose much weight, but what lifting weights did for me is that even when I gained a little weight back or I had a plateau, I could always say to myself "Well, I'm lifting heavier weights this week than I was last week, so I'm doing at least one thing right." So I always had that positive to fall back on. And I always ended up getting back on track. And sometimes I was eating right the whole time but the body is just weird. Also, if you don't like lifting at a gym, it's not that expensive to buy dumbbells and a curl bar and do most of it at home.

The first thing I did as far as diet was I cut out fast food (except I allowed pizza once a month - I've cut that out now too). And it was hard at first but I don't crave it at all anymore. It might be more difficult when your wife gets back because I'm sure you go out to eat with her and the nice restaurants have food really high in calories too. But that's what I did. I had tried gradually getting rid of fast food before but that never worked for me because it's too addictive.

Another thing I did was I started going to the grocery store every single day. This made it so instead of going once a week and buying a week's worth of groceries and then eating all of it in 4 days, I bought 1 day's worth of groceries and ate it in 1 day. I still do this and it's still working well for me. And you don't have to eat salad at all if you don't want. The more often you eat fruit the better it will taste, especially when/if you drop the soda and refined sugars. I crave granny smith apples with peanut butter now. I hardly ever ate fruit before. Now I eat about 3-5 whole fruits per day. They're higher in calories than vegetables but you will still lose weight if you go from McDonald's to fruit (or from processed food to fruit. I'm making assumptions of what you normally eat). And (for me at least) they're preferable to salads. Another thing you can do just to try to get vegetables or greens in if you don't like them is to put them in fruit smoothies. Or with eggs. Eggs make most things taste good (imho). And don't fret over eating high fat foods as long as they're healthy high fat foods like nuts or eggs or good oils. I eat full fat cheese every day, just not very much
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. I guess I'm trying to hammer the point home that you don't need to eat salad. Greens are really healthy but you should eat something that you're going to want to eat and look forward to eating. There are lots of good tasting foods you can eat and still lose weight. You can have chili with lots of beans and lean meat in it. Oh, and you probably know this but if you're going to eat grains eat whole wheat. A lot of people hate the idea of eating whole wheat pasta but at least give it a try to see if you like it if pasta is something you eat a lot of. I happen to like how it tastes. Any time you can cut out the refined stuff you will be lowering your addiction to it.

As far as soda goes, I tried several times over ten years to stop drinking it. This time I moved to black tea when I dropped it. If you're already drinking coffee/tea then this probably isn't helpful advice, but since soda was my only caffeine, switching to another caffeine drink really helped me drop my addiction to soda because I was only craving the sugar, not the caffeine part. I hated tea before I started but it grew on me.

For exercise I started riding my bike to class three times per week. So that was around 9 miles a week, and that's all I did for about a year as far as cardio. Then I started riding to work so that doubled it. The important thing with exercise is to not do too much right away and get sick of it and then stop, which happened to me several times in previous attempts to lose weight. I only recently started jogging. Diet is the most important thing when you're trying to lose weight. Exercise is obviously a factor but it's more for your heart and cardiovascular health. Muscle does help increase metabolism but it's not a huge difference.

 
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One of the best things you can do for yourself is spend a day or two writing down every last thing you eat/drink/put in your body, and writing down the calories that come with them. And be completely honest with yourself. There are great apps available for what certain sodas or beer contain calorie wise (Guinness for the win with only 90 a can you guys!) and write down every last thing.

Once you know that number (and it may stun you) work on cutting 500 calories out each day. Whether it be the Snickers bar at 3, the bag of chips with your sandwich, or your evening IPA or four (NUpolo8's Achilles heel, not counting the actual injured one at the moment), try and knock 500 calories off your "normal" each day, along with whatever you're doing cardio/strength wise.

It's a slow slog, and will probably make you mad if you're doing a lot of lifting or strength because you'll actually maintain or gain weight for a little bit as you're building muscles back up, but you will absolutely feel better.

And I concur with others here. Running is just the goddamm worst.

 
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With my work I only have time to workout in the fall and winter. I normally just weight lift because running is and always has been a punishment. Every two weeks I vary the temp of my workouts so that I can work on cardio as well.

It is frustrating at first because it does take a long time for any weight loss to show up. I'm in my 3rd month of getting back at it and I haven't lost much weight but I've re-distributed a lot of wieght from fat to muscle.

My goal is to be able to maintain my workouts through the spring and summer months. Hopefully a promotion or more help at work will allow me to do this.

 
I've went from 256 to 221 the last several months, and I'm still working at it. I found that I had to make a commitment to getting some regular exercise and eat healthy. Eating healthy includes watching my calorie intake and watch what I eat, so I eat grilled chicken, fresh fruits and vegetables, and some whole wheat breads in moderation. I just started to include ground buffalo for some protein. I rarely eat French fries or potatoes anymore. I gotta have my beer, but I only drink Miller 64, which is low in calories and carbs. I'm trying to keep my calorie intake between 1000-1500 on a daily basis. When I started watching my calorie intake, I would get some mild hunger pangs, and would tell myself that it was a sign of fat leaving the body. Once or twice a week, I'll feast, but get back on my routine for the rest of the week.

As far as exercise goes, I started making a commitment to do something 3-4 times a week, for maybe ten to fifteen minutes a session. It started out with a half mile walk per session, and am now up to a 2-3 mile jog 4-5 times a week. There are lots of things you can do for activity or a routine. The LAPD posted a pre-academy fitness routine which I like (http://www.joinlapd.com/pdf/LAPD%20Fitness%20Brochure.pdf) and try and follow. I also like a boxing workout I found on Youtube (

). The first time I tried it, I got only a half round in and thought I was going to F'n collapse, but I have worked up to 3 full rounds, and will keep working at it.
Anyway, sounds like your on the right track.......even if you have a setback, don't give up, you can do it !!!!!!

 
NUpolo8 said:
One of the best things you can do for yourself is spend a day or two writing down every last thing you eat/drink/put in your body, and writing down the calories that come with them. And be completely honest with yourself. There are great apps available for what certain sodas or beer contain calorie wise (Guinness for the win with only 90 a can you guys!) and write down every last thing.

Once you know that number (and it may stun you) work on cutting 500 calories out each day. Whether it be the Snickers bar at 3, the bag of chips with your sandwich, or your evening IPA or four (NUpolo8's Achilles heel, not counting the actual injured one at the moment), try and knock 500 calories off your "normal" each day, along with whatever you're doing cardio/strength wise.

It's a slow slog, and will probably make you mad if you're doing a lot of lifting or strength because you'll actually maintain or gain weight for a little bit as your building muscles back up, but you will absolutely feel better.

And I concur with others here. Running is just the goddamm worst.
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Running is the best. I love running. Winter is the worst because it kills my will to run (I cannot run on a treadmill). That's my only contribution to this thread, other than to say, find what works for you and keep at it. No other person's plan is going to work perfectly for you. And go easy on the cardio as you get started. Take it slow if you haven't done a lot of it before.

 
NUpolo8 said:
One of the best things you can do for yourself is spend a day or two writing down every last thing you eat/drink/put in your body, and writing down the calories that come with them. And be completely honest with yourself. There are great apps available for what certain sodas or beer contain calorie wise (Guinness for the win with only 90 a can you guys!) and write down every last thing.

Once you know that number (and it may stun you) work on cutting 500 calories out each day. Whether it be the Snickers bar at 3, the bag of chips with your sandwich, or your evening IPA or four (NUpolo8's Achilles heel, not counting the actual injured one at the moment), try and knock 500 calories off your "normal" each day, along with whatever you're doing cardio/strength wise.

It's a slow slog, and will probably make you mad if you're doing a lot of lifting or strength because you'll actually maintain or gain weight for a little bit as your building muscles back up, but you will absolutely feel better.
Click to expand...
I know you've done the dieting before, but this is where you absolutely have to start. You can try that intermittent fasting stuff later, but to get started you simply must cut your calories down. Like Polo said start a log and don't lie, the only person you'll be cheating is yourself. This is exactly what I did using an app for my phone, and I still do it. I logged for about 2 weeks to get a feel for where I was at while I started lifting again and then I began to cut back calories. About a 1lb to 1.5lbs a week is what you should be aiming for (about 3500 calories are need for 1lb of fat, 3500/7= 500cal a day).

I would highly recommend that you hit the weights. You're definitely going to lose weight with your BJJ but you may be come the dreaded skinny fat if you don't build up some muscle. Plus like Creighton said any added muscle will require more calories to maintain. Don't worry if you're weak or think you look stupid, just watch some videos on how to do lifts properly and focus on form. The weight will come later.

If you pick up weight lifting again don't be alarmed if you gain some weight for about a month as you build muscle back up, you'll start losing fat and shrinking soon enough. I went from 260 in April '12 to 230'ish today and that was all fat, plus I've added some muscle. Mainly it was through cutting calories but still getting enough protein/carbs/fat, Lifting at least 3 times a week, and doing cardio twice a week; riding my bike when it's nice out or jumping rope for 10 or 15 minutes. I've tried HIIT (sprints, running up the dam at the lake, wind gates on my bike) but I can never stick with it for more than 2 weeks so I never really saw results. I haven't lost weight in about 2 or 3 months but I keep moving down notches on my belt and my damn jeans don't fit anymore. I'm not satisfied with where I am, but it's a hell of a lot better than it was.

Just remember it's a marathon not a sprint, and these changes will be for a lifetime not a short time. Good lucky buddy!

 
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