2012 Weight Loss Thread

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Grobi
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Grobi »

Hi Andy,

welcome to the forum and to this thread! It looks like you're doing it completely right re your weight loss. You started exercising, you stopped alcohol, you started eating fruit and vegetables =D> I also think that a daily weigh in is useful.
andyhad wrote:doesn't seem fair having to work for longer than fit people :?
Isn't that the best motivation for getting fit? Best of luck for your further weight loss/fitness increase :fswink:
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by zootMutant »

andyhad wrote:I did a hash on Saturday, and smashed my PB (ok, PB for this century) on Sunday.
Well done on the PB! Just don't try to be the hare in the "Land of the Free"... you might face felony charges. :shock: :shock: :shock:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20441775/#.UDJLAdzDdF4
andyhad wrote:which here means through rice paddies - bloody hard going at times
Err... how the heck do you follow a trail of flour through rice paddies?
andyhad wrote:Am going to try a half marathon next weekend
Good luck with the HM next weekend!
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Shang-Chi »

Really crazy weight this afternoon

Date__________mass [kg]______change_______________total change
16/05/10______98.5___________+0.0__________________+0.0

____________________________________________________________________________

Apr.
01/04/12______92.5___________+3.2__________________-6.0

____________________________________________________________________________
Aug.
11/08/12______85.4___________-2.7__________________-13.1
18/08/12______84.9___________-0.5__________________-13.6

____________________________________________________________________________

20/08/12______84.5___________-0.4__________________-14.0 This is mostly due to the way I eat, namely less, and only meat and vegetables + fruit and protein.
Last edited by Shang-Chi on Sat Aug 25, 2012 1:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by andyhad »

zootMutant wrote: Well done on the PB! Just don't try to be the hare in the "Land of the Free"... you might face felony charges. :shock: :shock: :shock:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20441775/#.UDJLAdzDdF4
The worse we have to cope with is the odd Khmer Rouge buffalo...
zootMutant wrote:Err... how the heck do you follow a trail of flour through rice paddies?
Often by getting lost. Cunning plan this time - spray paint. Mark trees, concrete posts, buffaloes... :?
zootMutant wrote:Good luck with the HM next weekend!
Power cut at work today, so went to the gym early and knocked it out today. 1:37 - not as bad as I thought, just very very boring. And I think I earned an unusual mid-week beer :D

OK, back to the grind, and veggie food tomorrow... I really fancy a pizza... But then I read:
Shang-Chi wrote:Really crazy weight this afternoon
20/08/12______84.5___________-0.4__________________-14.0 This is mostly due to the way I eat, namely less, and only meat and vegetables + fruit and protein.
Lots to do for me, still!
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Shang-Chi »

Another really crazy weight this afternoon

Date__________mass [kg]______change_______________total change
16/05/10______98.5___________+0.0__________________+0.0

____________________________________________________________________________

Apr.
01/04/12______92.5___________+3.2__________________-6.0

____________________________________________________________________________
Aug.
11/08/12______85.4___________-2.7__________________-13.1
18/08/12______84.9___________-0.5__________________-13.6
____________________________________________________________________________

20/08/12______84.5___________-0.4__________________-14.0
25/08/12______84.0___________-0.5__________________-14.5 kg. lost
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by andyhad »

Very up and down week.

Did my first half marathon distance - and needed a hard sports massage afterwards, with my first back issue (I think caused by my shoulder imbalance where I broke my left humerus 11 years ago).

Did my first weights session (need to sort out the shoulder issue, and I can feel the lack of power as base fitness comes up) - and hurt like hell right now. Had forgotten what burning abs felt like!

Went through the 1/3 million metres mark, and most importantly - have now lost over 10kg! :D 123.5 this morning, down from 133.9 start point about 6 weeks ago.

Need to lose as much as possible before my upcoming long weekend in Hong Kong, and the ensuing dim sum frenzy...
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by JonathanA »

That's impressive progress Andy. I see you spinning past me on the metreboard too with some big distances!

Take care of the back and enjoy Hong Kong, I hear it's a great place to be.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by zootMutant »

Well done, Andy and Mikkel! You are both showing solid improvement.

I'm off to a good start, having lost 2.0 lbs in the last week! 8) (mostly water, I suppose, but we'll see). I expect to be able to sustain about 0.5 lbs per week.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Grobi »

Very nice improvement Andy, keep it up! Like Jonathan says, enjoy Hongkong, must be a spectacular place!

Zoot, if those 2 lbs were mainly water don't be disappointed if some (not all) of the weight comes back. It will only be temporarily, just stick to your program.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by andyhad »

JonathanA wrote:That's impressive progress Andy. I see you spinning past me on the metreboard too with some big distances!

Take care of the back and enjoy Hong Kong, I hear it's a great place to be.
Lots of metres - but LOADS of time! Splits coming down, but slowly. All the hours in the gym, I suddenly don't have any spare time - a hell of a time commitment, but required to turn myself back into a sensible shape. Reckon I earned a few dim sum this evening though! :)

And zoot - it's never all water. Got to love the machine, turning flab into carbon dioxide one stroke at a time...
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by zootMutant »

Grobi wrote:Zoot, if those 2 lbs were mainly water don't be disappointed if some (not all) of the weight comes back. It will only be temporarily, just stick to your program.
andyhad wrote:And zoot - it's never all water. Got to love the machine, turning flab into carbon dioxide one stroke at a time...
No worries! 8)
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Wendy »

This weekend has been a huge celebration for me. Back in 2005 I started thinking about dieting. I weighed 274 lbs (124.2 Kg). I am 5'8" tall. I lost a few kilos and then got poorly so things like that went on the backburner. Just under 3 years ago, with the encouragement of some good friends and my family, I decided to try and get down to the right weight for my height. And over this weekend when I weighed myself I had lost exactly 101 lbs because I weigh 173 lbs (78.47 Kgs) :shock:. I had no idea that so much had gone over the years.

Just shows that it jolly well can be done. And whilst it wasn't exactly a speedy loss, and it cost a lot in determination, I am so nearly there now - I have just under 7 kgs left to lose :)

I'd show you my "fat" photo but this is the net and it's embarrassing enough to look at in the privacy of my own home :lol:
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Wendy »

It all started because I stopped exercising! I'd done karate and the gym for years and when i stopped, the weight just piled on. Mainly because I kept eating as if I was still training ...

The little furry creatures are a couple of our guinea pigs.


here ya go:

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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by zootMutant »

Massive reduction, Wendy! =D> ^O^ =D> ^O^ =D>

Anyone can lose 10 lbs in a few months... but to keep at it for years requires dedication. Well done! :fsbgrin:
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by andyhad »

zootMutant wrote:Massive reduction, Wendy! =D> ^O^ =D> ^O^ =D>

Anyone can lose 10 lbs in a few months... but to keep at it for years requires dedication. Well done! :fsbgrin:
Agreed - an inspiration! =D>
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by strider77 »

I have been away from the thread since July mainly due to cowardice and the fact that I have been eating too many sweet things-mainly chocolate, not too bad on the alcohol front but I have put on a few kilos so with the inspiring Wendy, Abbi and Andy-welcome Andy I will now come clean :oops:

Date________mass [kg]__weekly change__total change

04/1/12____94.2______+0.0___________+0.0
11/1/12____93.5______-0.7___________-0.7
18/1/12____92.0______-1.5___________-2.2
25/1/12____92.0______ 0.0___________-2.2
01/2/12____92.0______ 0.0___________-2.2
08/2/12____91.0______-1.0___________-3.2
15/2/12____91.0______ 0.0___________-3.2
22/2/12____91.5______+0.5__________ -2.7
01/3/12____92.0______+0.5__________ -2.2
15/3/12____92.0______ 0.0__________ -2.2
27/3/12____91.5______-0.5__________ -2.7
15/4/12____93.0______+1.5__________ -1.2
02/5/12____92.0______-1.0__________ -2.2
16/5/12____92.0______ 0.0__________ -2.2
10/6/12____93.0______+1.0__________ -1.2
17/6/12____93.0______+1.0__________ -1.2
28/6/12____92.0______-1.0__________ -2.2
11/7/12____91.5______-0.5__________ -2.7
28/8/12____94.2______+2.7__________ 0.0 :oops: :twisted:
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Wendy »

Good for you! Hey if I could hit 124Kg you're just a Skinny Minnie and you'll get there :). Takes guts to come back though - well done =D>
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by webberg »

Wendy, that is massively impressive and displays the right sort of attitude and determination that is quite humbling.

I can only hope to come even close to that position.

For various helath reasons (minor in comparison to many) I'm about to embark upon a change of lifestyle. This starts after I come back from holiday the weekend after next.

Basically I need to change the time I eat to lunchtimes during the week rather than 9:30pm and have little or no food late at night. The alcohol has to be moderated and the exercise needs to be more varied. Consequently it will be less rowing but the same time in the gym.

The objective, apart from hoping that this regime settles my health problems, is to lose around 36 pounds of weight.

On Monday morning I was the heaviest I've ever been at 196 pounds (exactly 14 stone or 89 kgs).

I've set a target of being 160 pounds (11 stone 6 or 72.7kgs) by the end of February 2013.

Modest in comparison to the stories here but vital.

I also have a target of being no more than 5% from that target on the 28th February every year from now on.

All starts on Sunday 9th September.

I intend to use this forum for purely selfish reasons to shame myself into keeping on track and will report weekly (weakly?)

The stories here are inspiring so keep them coming.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Wendy »

Good luck! Health is a terrific reason (it's mine, almost wholly) and you can do it! I took it at 5lbs at a time. No more because it was scary and daunting and I couldn't face it without saying I'd never, ever do it and what was the point even trying. But 5lbs? Yeah - I could do that in a month...

The online food diaries are a HUGE help. They really are. Either that or a notebook that you carry round. And in the beginning I logged every single mouthful. I counted the spread on the bread, the ketchup - absolutely everything. It was shocking! The other remarkably helpful thing I do is use a smaller plate. It's a silly psychological trick but it works. I use a breakfast plate for dinner and a tea plate for lunch. My husband uses a smaller dinner plate than he used to and has found it really does help. Our brains are such simple little things :)
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Mike Channin »

Fantastic achievement Wendy - takes true dedication - you are an inspiration.

Good luck with your aims, Graham - I look forward to hearing how you get on. I've managed a rather more modest reduction from 92kg down to 82kg in the last year. Unfortunately I'm finding the clash of interests between weight loss and performance gains means it is progressively harder to make progress on either one.

One good tip as motivation for the weight-conscious is to look at your weight adjusted performance values (see Alan's thread for details on the calculators to use) - will make you realise how well you're doing in absolute terms...
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Shang-Chi »

Wendy wrote:The online food diaries are a HUGE help. They really are..... The other remarkably helpful thing I do is use a smaller plate. It's a silly psychological trick but it works. I use a breakfast plate for dinner and a tea plate for lunch. My husband uses a smaller dinner plate than he used to and has found it really does help. Our brains are such simple little things :)
We really don't need food diaries! Many people use them and lose some, but gains more in the end.

The simple rules for losing weight are:

Rule 1) Eat less than you normally do. (This we know so we have to be honest about it.)
Rule 2) Eat meat and vegetables with sauce (thin), (A good sauce can be like candy.)
Rule 3) Eat extra protein (powder). (This is good to lose weight and rebuild muscles.)
Rule 4) Avoid fast food, rice, pasta, potatoes white bread, butter, soft drinks, beer and anything with fat or sugar in it.
Rule 5) Exercise. (Do a regular training program)

If you'll need bigger muscles, eat protein and food right after training.(difficult to do if you're tired)

I lost 7.5 kg in 2 weeks using these 5 rules. A smaller plate only helps, if we don't fill it up again. :wink: We are the one who rules over our body, but we lie under for the unconsciously need for food, which is a primal thing, from when food was difficult to get. :roll:

We really need to change our eating-pattern. Much of the food we eat we really don't need!?

Good luck!
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by andyhad »

It's true that we're programmed to eat well for the bad times - which don't come to the developed world. But we're not slaves to that. I'm not watching what I eat - I'm just trying to take it sensibly. Lots more fruit and veg, much less meat (which we all know we don't really need), and no booze in the week... maybe a beer after my first half marathon. And a lot of time on the erg. The amount of time it's taking I find the biggest problem now.

I know it's different for each person - no food diaries for me, but logging metres is nice. I like to weigh myself every day so that I can see gains and losses every day - and I've got them on an excel file so I can plot a graph. There is noise on a day to day basis, but the trend looks really nice :) Seeing the noise makes me realistic about gains and losses, and doing it every day stops me bingeing for too long - I can see the damage straight away.

Like Wendy I put weight on when I stopped training - 15 years ago. I have tried to lose it in the past, and failed dismally. And this time I'm finding it easy - turning 40, well over 130kg, and out of breath walking up stairs. Not a good place to be, and that lightbulb moment has made it easy. Basically I do want to enjoy the rest of my life rather than have health problems. I think, and hope, that if you come to that conclusion - from yourself, your doctor, your family - really come to believe that, then it is easy. I also don't think there's a problem in a little upward blip. Don't let it get too big (and I'm nervous about my upcoming holiday!), but never giving yourself a treat will utterly prove destructive - better a small occasional treat rather than an eventual gorge! Don't think I'll catch Wendy, either in weight loss or metres, but I'm starting to think about being under 100kg again. And maybe even being fit again.
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by Wendy »

All I can say is that food diaries have helped me lose my weight - all 100 lbs/45.5 Kg of it so far, but we are all different :). I knew my journey was going to take years, not months or weeks, and so I have used every trick in the book to keep me on my path.

I suspect food diaries work for me because I have to count the carbohydrate grams in my food so I can calculate the insulin I need to inject. Since I'm doing that anyway it's easy to include it as a weight loss weapon.

Also, if I'd had the willpower to simply eat less I suspect I never would have turned into a beached whale in the first place. As it is, having got there and found myself in that truly appalling situation where you really don't think you can ever get back to normality, I needed all the help I could get through the years :)
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by webberg »

All good points and we clearly all have to find our own way.

For me, this is a journey that has to last as long as I want to live.

Being honest I think that when I started the job I have now (5+ years ago), I went from a comfortable and relatively stress free environment into one where my hours picked up considerably along with stress levels. Less time to exercise and more late nights going through the station where the temptation to buy a snack was always there.

Then came some of the rewards from the stress and long hours and more entertaining. I am very aware that I have an obsessive personality and find habits very hard to break. Once I got into the habit of having a drink at the weekend, then Thursdays, then if I had a bad day, then because the sun was shining, then because it was just there. Breaking that drinking habit is going to be a massive breakthrough for me.

However my recent health issues have spooked me a bit and I'm hoping that a change in habits and lifestyle can repair the undoubted damage I've imposed on my body. An incidental effect of this is weight loss but it's also a convenient way to measure progress.

Luckily my wife wants to keep me around for a while yet as she thinks my earnings potential is more than the life assurance. She is happy to join in with this change as she has her own health problems and is a gym monkey. She rows very infrequently these days but is a very good and inventive cook and into the healthy diet regimes so we can do this together.

Let the Games begin (on the 9th September)
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Re: 2012 Weight Loss Thread

Post by zootMutant »

I watched my mom struggle with weight loss her entire life. She easily lost over 2,000 lbs during her life :shock: - usually in 5-10 lb increments, only to gain it right back. [I refer to this as the 'rhythm method of girth control' :lol: ] Weight loss is easy. Anyone can do it. Even fast weight loss. But keeping it off is something totally different - it requires life-style changes. To me, the word 'diet' means 'temporary removal of weight'. If you don't want the weight loss to be temporary, forget about 'dieting' and make life-style changes instead.

It is easy to think that we are all the same - that are all human, so we all have the same biochemistry and physiology. I am growing to believe that this is absolutely not true. The problems of someone who hasn't exercised in years and is 100 lbs overweight are quite different from an athlete who has gained 10 lbs during the off-season.

The athlete has much more lean muscle mass (which determines basal metabolic rate) but has also trained her body to use fat as an energy source (meaning she has more fat-burning enzymes). When my mom dieted she lost weight fast, often 2-4 lbs per week. It is extremely difficult to lose more than 2 lbs of fat in a week. So every time she dieted, she lost muscle mass which in turn depressed her basal metabolic rate and made it more difficult to lose weight the next time. In her later years she would gain weight on 900 calories a day! The 'feast or famine' approach also encouraged her body to immediately store any excess food as fat. So as soon as she stopped 'dieting' weight gain was quite rapid.

The answer to this, metabolically, is to keep weight loss at an even, steady pace, while exercising for long, steady periods at a moderate pace. (Remember, we're not talking about athletes here, just about normal people who have been sedentary for a long time and are quite overweight). The purpose is to nudge the body into creating more fat-burning enzymes by exercising aerobically for long periods of time. Workouts should build up to at least an hour a day, five days a week. Weight loss should not exceed 2 lbs per week.

On the flip side is the food we eat. Lee has pointed out many times that modern food choices make it extremely easy to consume massive amounts of calories with little effort. The answer is not to eat less but to eat smarter. Make each calorie count! The main purpose behind a food log is education... learning where all those hidden calories are coming from, and which changes have the greatest impact. A potato can be a low calorie snack, rich in complex carbohydrates. But if you put a couple of pats of butter or sour cream on it, it can become a high calorie, high fat food! A good on-line food log can help you make better choices. "Hey, what if I put salsa on the potato instead?"

I have often heard it said that overweight people have no self-control, that they are lazy and that they eat too much. I think this is not true. Overweight people who are struggling with their weight often eat far fewer calories than their slim athletic counterparts. The problem is that their physiology has changed so much it is difficult to make any improvement. Education is the key... learning which changes will have the greatest impact and learning to manage expectations so they don't quit after a few months.

But, as I said, everyone is different. Try different things to learn what is right for your body... what works and doesn't.

But most of all...

Never Give Up
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