So as some of you may know from my blog I have set as one of my goals to lose some weight. I have often said the best way to make your goals become reality is to share them, you make them concrete and you become accountable to your success and your failure. As such I wanted to start this thread about my personal journey to losing weight and becoming fit.
About me:
When I graduated high school I weighed an unsightly 280 lbs. exactly, I don't know when my weight became so out of control but I know that it wasn't until my senior prom when I put on my vest and I had to cut the back to make it fit that something was very wrong. Starting in middle school I had started to gain weight, it was largely a behavioral problem and that same problem has persisted with me until today. First, I love food, I just love it. My mom is an excellent cook, I know many recipes for many different types of food and have always been a good chef, so eating is something I have always been fulfilled through doing. Second, eating is a way for me to relax and unwind sometimes, I'll eat when I have a bad day, or I'll eat when I watch a movie. Third, I haven't even played sports competitively on a team, my sports are largely undemanding physically, golf, bowling, rafting, hunting etc. So I don't naturally burn many calories- further I always preferred mental games to physical ones, I don't know if that was due to my inability to compete with more physically fit opponents or a true preference, honestly it doesn't matter anymore. And lastly, to me, hunger is a condition which needs to be solved- I prefer the sensation of being "stuffed" to being "satisfied". These tendencies make a change in my lifestyle more difficult, and if any of you have studied biology, you will know that once you gain fat cells, losing them is much much harder, and that accounts for much of the weight gain post-loss that so many suffer from. In high school I had a personal trainer for a short time, but I had a number of problems, fainting spells, asthma, shin pains. So I gave up, I didn't care, I felt like this was who I was and anyone who thinks I am ugly can be damned. Well when I stepped onto the scale after prom I knew that this was more than just a weight problem, this was dangerous. So I came to college and knew that it would be the perfect time to get on track and lose weight, my whole life would be different, so now I could fit a new part of my routine in. I started off running the cross country track everyday for 2 weeks, an hour run (I guess it was a jog) and just pushed through the pain of it. Unfortunately that pain became worse, and I discovered that my will to become physically fit was pushing my body beyond what it could handle, I went to the ER and they told me I had stress fractures in both legs and would be unable to run for 6-8 weeks at least. I remember how stupid I felt by just starting off doing something so challenging, I mean everything was wrong, I had old shoes, I was running on an un-even surface, I ran too often etc. So I went and spoke with WF's Football athletic trainer and he told me to bike/swim and then to move to elliptical and then to running if I wanted to. Well I followed his advice, I biked 30 min. intervals, and did some strength training and on cardio days did one hour on the bike. I maintained this for 5 months and lost 80 lbs. I remember that my goal was to break 200, I actually only made it to 202.3, but I went on my "shopping spree" for hitting my target weight and wanted to update my wardrobe with less XXL's that I bought to hide who I was. I will never forget what happened, I walked into Abercrombie and Fitch, a store I, like many, hated, but I felt it was the type of clothing I never could wear and I wanted to change who I was. The kid working there looks up and says "Whatcha need big guy?" It's so simple, and yet it just rubbed me the complete wrong way. I tried on some shirts and felt I looked terrible, ended up going home without anything. In hindsight I know he didn't mean anything by it, I know that I had accomplished something amazing and should have felt really proud about it, but the fact was, I was still overweight. Over time my work-outs have become less and less enthusiastic, and as I sit here now I weigh 238 pounds again. The weight has crept back over my stressful summer session here, strange periods of time at home where work-outs were difficult, and vacations. So now I am going to start-up again full speed.
Well, that's my backstory. My goals are to achieve 185 pounds by my birthday in March. Then I want to spend the rest of my life under 195 pounds, forever. The difference between this time and before is that I want to change my life, not hit a goal-line. The concrete number is there so I have something to define my success by, but I want to become healthy forever. I want to live to an old age and still be active, so that's what I am going to do.
Here's a breakdown of my old routine which I think I am going to pick-up right as it was.
Food: 1850 calories a day, although extremely low I had success with this by allocating my calories very carefully, using grilled foods, wheat bread, steamed vegetables etc. On my rest day I will eat slightly more, focusing on protein to maintain my muscle mass and prevent breakdown in my low calorie diet.
Work-out routine: 6 days a week, three cardio of an hour on the bike beginning at 650 calories per hour, raised to 1100 calories per hour by dec. (which is what I was doing when i quit) The other three days will be half my cardio work-out plus a cross-training routine of bicep,tricep, deltoid, trap, chest, back, and abdominal exercises with no break between sets (I alternate between two exercises without stopping, e.g. biceps to deltoids.) Mostly high repetition, 3 set, lower weight per exercise. My rest day will be wednesday.
Extra: I take 6500 steps a day on campus, so I will start taking the long way to buildings in order to raise this number. My girlfriend and are going to start hiking when we are in a little better shape at a local mountain, and we are going to play speedminton.
As one last form of motivation I am including an unflattering current picture of myself plain and in a t-shirt so I can compare my future self to where I am now. I will update this journal once every 2 weeks or so unless someone posts or I have something come up.
Edit:I agree with Klink's comments and have changed my rest day as well as intake- I forgot how challenging it was to maintain a VLCD for an extended period.
My weight-loss journal.
Linear Mode
