Help with ALOT of weight loss. - Exercise & Fitness Message Board

Phatshady912 · 04-24-2006, 06:36 PM

I have alot of questions so I guess I'll just start with my height/weight/age and stuff.

I am Male, 17, 6'0", and 275 pounds.

I have been really fat my whole life. I have tried hard to loose weight 2 times before in my life. I had moderate success but It would always come back within a few months, mostly due to my failure to stick with it I think.

Exactly a month ago I started on my current goal of loosing weight, I wasn't sure of how much I wanted to loose in what amount of time but I decided to count calories and go on a strict diet.

Before a month ago I would never count calories If I had to guess now I would say ate 3-3.5k per day), and I would drink more diet soda then I inhaled air.

So I started my diet with a strict rule that I wouldn't drink any soda, diet or not. Also I would eat 1500 calories per day. I would break 1500 calories on most days and it would **** me off but I couldn't help it my stomache would hurt so much, I still stayed under 2000 almost everyday though.

Ok so skip to the present I have gone from 294 to 275 in the past month. I have gone from drinking a 2 liter of diet soda a day to drinking even more then that worth of water, and only water. The pain from dieting is pretty much gone, the first week my stomache would constantly growl and ache but I beared with it.

Yea ok... so finally the questions.

Am I loosing weight too fast?

Is it possible to hit my goal of 200 lbs by september (18th birthday)

I think I may have hit a point where what I am currently doing wont help me loose weight anymore, because I havent lost any weight in the past week.

I haven't been doing cardio, or lifting weights though I plan to. I just dont have enough money to join a gym right now though.

I have asthma and that combined with my massive weight makes jogging pretty hard for me, I run out of breath after 1/2 a mile then I end up jogging on pure will power. The most I have ever jogged at once is 1 3/4 miles ... I really suck at it.

If possible I would like to loose weight without loosing muscle, since under all of my fat I am pretty strong. Even though I stopped lifting over a year ago I bench ~225 and I can curl 6-8 reps of 40 in 1 hand. Not sure of the rest of my body, its been so long since I checked.

I am really determined to loose weight and keep it off this time no matter how much it hurts or how little I have to eat. Any help or advice would really be appreciated.

Naxis · 04-24-2006, 07:52 PM

Fisrt, congratulations on making some big changes. You are losing weight pretty fast and eating less than you ought to be. Some of the weight lost is probably muscle, so you need to be careful. Eating too little is almost worse than eating too much because it will slow metabolism and cause plateaus very quickly. I'd aim for closer to 2000/2500 calories a day. Make sure you're getting enough protein to maintain your lean muscle and keep foods as clean as you can. Lean meats, whole grains, low fat dairy, fresh greens, fruits and veggies and such. The healthier your food is the less likely it will be that your body will be storing it as fat. Your *weight* loss might slow down, but *fat* loss should keep steady.

You also need to do some kind of exercise, both strength training and cardio. Even without a gym membership, you can do pushups, dips, lunges, squats and such. Even though you're strong enough to do more, doing *something* is better than nothing to maintain your muscle. When you have access to a gym, you can come up with a more intensive strength training program. As for cardio, do whatever you are able to do for 30-45 minutes at a shot. If that means jogging with intervals of walking, do what you can to keep heart rate up for at least 30 minutes. I have asthma too and I know how you feel there. Keep an emergency inhaler with you, and maybe look into Advair and/or Singulair to prevent attacks if it's especially bad.

Hope that's helpful. Good luck.

Phatshady912 · 05-02-2006, 08:32 PM

Ok, I'm down to 269 now. The weight loss has slowed down but I'm happy with the pace anyway. I don't think that I have lost any muscle since I started doing push ups and sit ups today. I actually went from 13 pushups 2 months ago to 18 today.... yea I know its bad

I did 3 sets of each to ease back into working out.... actually thats my excuse I'm just lazy lol. Is 3 sets enough for now or should I do more? I always do any workout to positive failure btw.

Thanks for the help and encouragement.

Naxis · 05-02-2006, 09:01 PM

3 sets is really not enough unless you are doing more than one exercise. You really ought to be hitting every muscle group at least once a week and doing about 30 -60 minutes of strength training per session. You need to have sufficient stress on the muscles or the will not adapt or maintain under a calorie deficit.

eDeal · 05-09-2006, 10:07 AM

I was at a similar weight 6'3" 272 pounds, and due to a tragic life event, I became somewhat depressed to the point where I could not eat more than a sandwich a day for a about a week, and started walking to "think about things".

Anyway, after the grief subsided in a couple of weeks, I notice that I really didn't eat when I was hungry before, and also became addicted to walking. I started to eat breakfast, about 400 calories (which I didn't do before) and started walking 2 miles at lunch and eating about 400 calories, since I was not as hungry as before since I ate breakfast.

Then, after work I would walk 4-8 miles depending on how I felt, and would actually walk to where I would eat (generally subway or this greek place for hummus), and would eat about 600 calories. During the day, I also might eat around 200 calories in snacks for about 1600 calories a day.

I also replaced sugared drinks (including jucies) with this 0 calorie tea mix, and increased my percentage of plain water. After 3.5 months, I am down 20 235 pounds (37 pounds lost).

When I looked back at what made me "fat", I realized that the biggest killers were sugared drinks, "side items" from fast food restaurants, cheese, mayonaise and lack of excercise.

An example is a foot long tuna sub with chips and drink from subway. With cheese and mayonaise, the sandwich alone is about 1200 calories. Add the chips, thats another 250 and a drink with refils could easily be 300-400. Thats about 1800 calories for ONE MEAL!!! French fries can easily add 300-400 calories to lunch, etc.

Now, if I go to subway, I get a 6 inch veggie (250 calories), a 6 inch turkey (290 calories), don't get cheese or mayonaise (dont miss it and it saves about 200 calories), get vinegar instead of vinegar and oil (saves 50) and mustard. I can't force myself to keep weight on, and the larger number of smaller meals prevents me from becoming famished and overdoing a large meal.

From my experience this is the best and easiest way to lose weight. At your weight, you probably burn 150 calories a mile you walk (there is no need to run, since energy is work times distance, not speed), and 2 miles goes in now time. If you do a couple of sessions a day, say lunch and after work, thats 4 miles or about 600 calories a day ( a little over a pound a week). If you combine that with reduced caloric intake, you can easy do a 2 pound a week weight lose program, and not even feel like you are missing anything.

Good luck on your continued weight loss. The only answer is changing your habits, so the excercise and eating become your normal behavior, not something you force yourself to do.