So after getting down to 199 pounds before I went to France, I went back up to 210 by the time I got back. Damn French pastries. I expected it though so I wasn’t too bummed. What I am bummed about is that I can’t get back on track. I’m eating crap left and right. I finished a jar of chocolate covered caramels from Sams Club in 3-4 days. Then I bought another one because I didn’t want my wife to realize I ate the damn thing. Now I’m 2/3rds into that jar. I’m thinking of throwing them in the garbage. Now I’m up to 213.
The bad thing is I think there is a good correlation between my eating and high blood pressure. On bad eating days my blood pressure tends to rise by bedtime to 130/80 to 150/92. I don’t get above 140/85 that frequently, but I’m sure over the years I’ve hit it a ton.
I want to live a long time, but with my eating and long history of eating way to much sugar I’m worried about what I’ve already done to my body. I don’t know why I have such troubles laying off the crap. I just took my blood pressure tonight and it was 148/88. I need to change, but change is freakin’ difficult. I have to remember how good about myself I felt when I got under 200 pounds last year for the first time in probably 8-10 years.
Some things are worth it. This would be one of them.
Not to laugh at your struggles…but yep, I am laughing, thanks.
Before I had a kid I just didn’t buy that shit. With the little guy though it’s like everywhere, even in socal where sugar is considered pure evil and you can’t even put it in his school lunches. So that was a learning experience, I had to develop real will power.
The one thing that turned me around finally was counting calories with an app on the phone. That was a major pain in the arse but it did work. So many times I would want to eat something but then remember all the work I would have to do to weigh it, find a realistic entry for it, and then enter the data.
It took a few months but I went from 1 lb away from obese to normal weight, over 25lbs for me. Now I think I am 3lbs overweight, and I just made cinnamon roles for tomorrow morning so… maybe time to start counting again.
I’ve done that and did it at the beginning of my ;ast weight loss that got me down to 199. I started doing it again today. I also put my caramels in my wife’s stash and threw out the chocolate chip cookies I bought. I once again feel my blood pressure is enough to spur me into action.
One thing that will make it more difficult is that last time I was super active, but last May (right before we went to France) I over stretched by calf muscle and injured the front of my foot where it bends and it didn’t fully heal. Now it starts to hurt when I run - which is my favored way to do cardio.
I think you mean human. It’s funny because we all do things like this, or at least I do.
Counting calories is a pain, but it’s pain with results. I hear you on the injuries making things more difficult. I have a bad hip which stopped me from running anymore, and in fact I can’t walk faster than 2.7 on a treadmill without it hurting when I try to go sleep. So instead I walk for 3 hours a day at 2.7.
FWIW, my wife is starting a new effort to change the way she eats and she found your post very funny.
Guys, don’t know if you are in a position to buy a new piece of equipment, but I love the hell out of my Teeter Freestep. It’s basically a recumbent step machine. Very low impact on the joints. It also makes no noise (aside from some part squeak) so it is awesome to use while watching tv or listening to music.
When I was using a treadmill, I could only get on every other day, sometimes every third because of my knees. With this thing, I have gone 5 days in a row before, while exercising more vigorously than I ever did on a treadmill.
Down 14 pounds since 1/1/21, just by upping exercise, cutting way back on carbs, eating reasonable portions, and dropping soft drinks and beer. I want a beer really badly right now, not for the booze, but for the delicious taste of a Mac n’ Jack’s African Amber. When I hit 20, I shall celebrate with one or two.
Bought an exercise bike (see other topics), got an exercise ball today, and dumbbells and a mat come tomorrow. Also aided by an Apple Watch.
Now I just have to figure out if I want to do my training regimen (crunches, curls, etc.) via YouTube or by signing up for one of the health apps. Horribly out of shape so starting from a base of essentially zero.
Oh, also, I have money riding on the loss as incentive. My ex did HealtyWage and we remain both friends and very competitive with each other, so I joined in. I have a nice profit if I lose my goal by 7/1, and I’m out $300 if I don’t. :)
I want to tell you congrats. Dieting is hard, and sticking to things even harder. Think of weight loss as phase 1 and exercise as phase 2 but both to be done concurrently. Also note that it is not uncommon to pick up a bit of weight when getting back into exercise. Don’t think of it as a setback, it’s your body adjusting (and healing) from the different activity level. Stick with it.
I need to do the same, Denny. I’ve used every excuse in the book for the last 4 years to step away when I make attempts and here I am back to the weight I was 5 years ago for no good reason. Be vigilant.
Nice work man, we can’t see your progress but it’s hard to do and being successful should be praised, bud.
Thanks, @Skipper. The HealthyWage bet is a good incentivizer for me when I’ve considered making excuses and cheating. :) Both because of the $ and the potential of my ex seeing me fail. (She’s super-supportive, mind you, and wouldn’t want me to.)
I do allow myself a cheat about once a week. Discovered that last time I successfully lost a lot — keeps you from craving things so much you go completely off the wagon. The trick is building habits now I can maintain once I’ve reached my final goal.
I used something similar last year called NuStep. I liked it because blood didn’t rush to/collect in my noggin. (Is that good criteria?) This normally gives me a headache over time. With the NuStep I could comfortably watch TV without distraction.
I jumped back on Weight Watchers a few weeks ago. Down ~15-17lbs and finding it sustainable, at least for now :). It helps that what I normally eat is pretty much in line with what they say I’m supposed to eat. The only thing I miss is my uber-carbs, like crusty bread, but I’ve found a new love for Wasa and Finncrisp type crackers for my lox, instead of bagels!
Believe me, I understand! I lost 60 lbs a number of years ago on a gym-based diet/exercise program and was doing well in exercising enough to keep it off. Then I injured my rotator cuff which got me out of my exercise routine, and this was right before the busy period of the year at work so the combo of injury, distraction, and snacking killed most of the loss.
I’ve found my best short-term incentive is support or competition. We had a weight loss bet at work with about 25 people. I was in the lead the last two weeks, then the husband of the woman who was running it got a stomach flu and lost a huge amount of weight in the last week. Only came in second on the bet, but did have good weight loss so that part was a win.
But my usual big fail after successful launch is eating/drinking excessively during stressful times. I decide to just throw caution to the wind for a few days because things are so crazy, and then I just keep going.
So exercise here has two purposes. Primarily, to get into decent shape. But secondarily, if I’ve spent an hour working out on a day, I’m really good at not “undoing that” with unhealthy eating. So if I can keep in the exercise habit, hopefully I can keep the more reasonable eating habits going as well.
I’m really on a kick right now – got on CPAP, trying to eat a healthier diet, exercising, and taking care of long-term projects around the house, plus addressing some other nagging life issues. So hopefully I can get off the see-sawing, get things on a good track, and not jump the tracks once again this time!
I lost 40lbs several years ago just by being more active at my job. What surprised me was how fast it took. Like 3-4 months which is not long.
It helped that I was a cook and handling food grosses me out if I do it all day. Believe it or not there are skinny cooks! (Though you can’t trust them.)
I lost over 60, closer to 65. This was following mostly modifications to lower blood sugar spiking foods and bring carbs and calories down. I cut back on beer as well and I can tell you it sucked, I like craft beer unfortunately. :( Options for lower calorie beer are horrible in taste.
About 1/2 through I combined that with slowly ramping up a cardio program, walking or elliptical, and about 1/2 through THAT I started working out again, following a slightly modified Stronglifts 5x5 program. The latter slowed my weight loss just a bit but had a profound effect on my muscle size and strength and toning all over. In fact it helped so much I seriously recommend pairing at least some portion of exercise as strength training, aka weightlifting. Machines, dumbbells, barbells, whatever you can work in. Weight loss is so centered around pairing with cardio workouts and rarely ever seems to work in strength training in some way. It helps reshape things once you get the weight off and is very rewarding.
You mentioned you like competition, and programs like that keep you focused on the next carrot or goal in a big way. It did take some time to work on the habit, but I settled on 3 days a week with cardio right after my workout, limiting the time I needed to be at the gym/exercising and allowing my body to rest a bit between days.
I need to get back on all of that. I felt so good at that point in time I could physically feel the difference in being more healthy.
Last time I weighed myself I’m sadly about +55 and rapidly approaching negating all that work, which is sad but it is what it is. It’s not the first time I’ve lost weight and my struggle is with maintenance long term.
Boy, I hear you on the beer. When I hit 20 down I’m going to go out for some crappy food and a couple of Mac n Jacks African Ambers. (I find I can do one cheat a week without really negatively affecting progress, and it’s good for the cravings.)
I have some adjustable (5-25) barbells coming today, in fact. I’ll work with those for now, and maybe someday the gym will be a safe option again.
I’m sure you can get back to it! I’ve certainly been up and down. But I’m determined not to go back up. I’m 55 now, and I remember my maternal grandfather in his late 80s not being able to do much of anything due to the combination of weight (he put on a lot after my grandmother died) and age. I don’t want to be in that situation. My paternal grandfather made it almost to 101 and barely slowed down, but he had a skinny gene that apparently didn’t get passed down to my dad’s generation, even recessively. :)
I had budgeted 5 beers a week for a good portion of my diet time but as you mentioned when you get in the swing of things the incentive keeps you going and I found I didn’t drink that every week. That being said, I limited the alcohol percentage of the beers which nearly always correlates to calories. Guinness Draft was a good option for me. At least some flavor and not too hard on my waistline. But man I missed the IPAs.
My fiancé and I have discussed doing things together and I think that may get the initial motivation going again. I don’t mind building out a workout area at home, I’ve wanted to do that for some time anyway and I already have an elliptical and a rower so adding in a small cage for barbell/dumbbell would be easy enough. I think I’ll save that as a reward item if I can get on track and have some initial diet success.
It sounds like you have some good genes even if you didn’t get the “skinny” gene. Better to be healthy for a long(er) life than not. I’m staring at that right now, myself.
A quick side mention: You mentioned occasional cheat day/meals. Last time I dieted was the first time I planned on things like that and it helps so much. I had read somewhere to list out the things you must have, then work around those. Mine seemed so silly in retrospect but it was 5 beers a week, half-and-half with my coffee and popcorn as an occasional snack (because I’m a popcorn fiend.) None of those were a problem once I knew they were things I could count on as my controlled rewards.
I’ve been doing progressively more lifting over the last 16 months, with a dramatic increase in volume since October. I don’t even care about what the scale says anymore.
Yeah I plateaued and then only very slowly lost weight, but man I put on some muscle, and quickly too. The flip side of being perpetually able to gain weight is also being able to add muscle quickly if I used strength training. Or at least I told myself that. I went from ~ 75lb squat to consistent sets of 285lb before I regressed out of the gym a bit. Along with other changes it was amazing feeling the difference in my strength.
I should mention that was not a short period of time, months at the gym and some setbacks along the way.
I budget the couple of beers I have a week into my WW points, though they are always high ABV imperial stout type things so it takes a good chunk out of a day. But I still finish the week with points unspent, which might itself not be good, but there’s just not that much around the house I want to eat any more!
