The Weight Loss Thread

[Ulu]

This thread is for people who have lost weight or are trying to lose weight. How you did it, how you were doing it, which you are planning… I am definitely one of those people who had a weight problem.

This is me now, but in the 90s thru 2009 I was porky.

I wanted to be a field engineer but that never happened, and for 45 years, 95% of my time was spent behind the desk. AND, when you work in an office there is always food. There were 12 restaurants & minimarts within 1/2 mile. People came every day just to sell junk food.

When I could not button my size 36 baggy jeans, I changed course. That was 2008.

It took me over six months of dieting and serious exercise to start to recover. I went from 240 down to 165. I went from wanting to sit on my butt to training for the Adrenalina skateboard marathon.

My habits changed completely, from a situation where I usually overate and avoided exercise in the course of my life, to a situation where I sought it & I ate what I needed.

In the process of recovering, I discovered that the secret to maintaining my health was this: When I ate what I needed I felt pretty good all the time. When I ate stuff that my body didn’t need I felt worse.

Not usually that much worse, so you might not put two and two together, unless you were really paying attention. But when you are, then you understand, and that kind of understanding is what really changes the course of your life.

Fat pix to come…
I don’t have them on my phone..

 

[MattiThundrrr]

It's seasonal for me. I put on the winter fat.

 

[Ulu]

I’ll bet you don’t pick up and drop 65 pounds!

What are you guys on . . . kilograms?
(29.5kg) I can never keep up. They told me this was all gonna get straightened out back in 1961 and they still haven’t done it.

Typically I never get above 175 during the holiday season. Now that I have a bicycle urge it will probably be less than that.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

It's funny, we're metric for measuring everything except ourselves, still use feet, inches, and pounds. I haven't lost 65, I'm probably twenty-five pounds lighter now than February. This winter I'm trying to keep it off, see if I can bring it down similar amount next summer.

 

[Ulu]

Here's the fat pix I promised.

I was 210 here and the weight was starting to get to me, but I wasn't done trying to eat myself to death. I could still button the size 36 pants but it wasn't pretty.

This was in 2007.
I was definitely over 220lbs here. Look at the thick spectacles. This was before my eye surgery.


This is hard for me to look at. I weighed 238 the week before this all-you-can-eat rally for Vulcan owners. That's me and my wife.

Look at that gut. Amazingly, the only thing I could think about was lunch.
Later, when the lunch was canceled, I was seriously disappointed.

So after that trip, I decided that I needed a new plan.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

I am always 5-8 lbs over. I look and perform best (bike and running races) at 158, but my wife does not like me that skinny, so I compromise and 163 works. Sadly I am usually around 168-170. That extra five to seven is terrible, I can feel it. I'm addicted to sugar, have always been, and I eat the most of it late at night. If I could fix that, I'd be golden. I call it "eating my feelings".

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I'm addicted to sugar, have always been, and I eat the most of it late at night. If I could fix that, I'd be golden

That's my problem. Gummy Candy fiend.

 

[Ulu]

I had never tried dieting before. I was getting lots of exercise, pushing skateboards all over town, but now I needed to change my diet.

I have seen a lot of diets come and go over the years and I have watched lots of people I know go on diets and fail including my own mother, both of my aunts, and my sister.

Eventually I stumbled onto this book by Tim Ferriss called The Four Hour Body. This turned out to be a big deal.

This is an enormous book and I did not read the entire thing. At the beginning, Tim tells you just read the parts that you’re interested in, because he talks about all kinds of different aspects of fitness and dieting including marital relations.

In the end I went on his diet and exercise plan, and it worked. Of course it worked because I worked at it, but once I decided that I needed to do something it wasn’t that difficult.

I’m going to describe his whole plan in a nutshell. It’s based on small meals and small doses of exercise.

You diet only six days a week. You always get the same day off every week, to eat whatever you want and as much as you want. The rest of the week you’re on a strict diet. High protein, low carbohydrates, and he recommends that you take alphalipoic acid and a calcium supplement. Also you must eat a certain amount of fermented or pickled food. I ate various pickles and also kimchi.

He says that after one month, you can takeoff one week per month from the diet, but I never did that.

You can eat as many small meals as you want per day, but you have to do 90 seconds of cardio before you eat. You have to do it again within 30 minutes of eating.

If you want to eat three times a day or 10 times a day it doesn’t matter. That is up to you. But each time there is 180 seconds of cardio involved.

What makes the diet work is, if you get hungry, you get to eat. 10 times a day, or as much as you want, but you must do the exercise each time. I typically went 4 to 6 times and it varied day-to-day depending on how I felt.

He recommends that she take one day off a week and eat whatever you want and as much as you can. Eventually you will find that when that day comes around, you don’t actually wanna eat much more than you have been eating.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, including the supplements that he wants you to take, but this is the basic concept. Small doses of food associated with small doses of exercise. Wash rinse and repeat.

The strange thing is that while I thought that I would lose weight on this diet, I always thought that I would just get it back when I quit the diet.

After a couple years I did bounce back up to 180 at Christmas time, but I found myself having no trouble getting back to 165.

That was years ago, and nowadays my weight doesn’t fluctuate as much. I typically weigh between 168 and 175, so 7 pounds.

One other thing happened in my life that made a big difference was eye surgery.

I used to read about 50 books a year. I had no far vision, but I had excellent near vision for reading.

After the eye surgery it is just the opposite. I am a dead accurate shot at 200 yards with a hunting rifle, but I can’t read small print without glasses. I decided that I wasted enough time reading fiction, and I quit that completely. I think I gave away over 700 books to the Hinds hospice last year.

So instead of spending my time reading and drawing and doing calculations on the computer I am spending my time in the shop building things and riding my bicycle.

It’s a wonderful thing when you can turn your life around like this people. I think if people understood a little more clearly, they would be far more successful in their diet plans.

Edit:…..As it turns out I gave this book away and I cannot recall all the aspects of diet foods that are allowed. But I did type it up, and there is a list on my computer somewhere.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I started doing yoga last spring. Began with half an hour class on YouTube. It helped with back pain from poor posture, especially at the desk. Also had a double pronged effect on the gut, fat was burned, and a foundation of muscle underneath started to give my undefined torso a flatter shape. I also lost ten or fifteen this spring when I had COVID, only regained about five thanks to cycling. I'm trying to keep the downward trend going this year. I usually realize that it's accumulating again around xmas, will need to maintain focus this year

 

[Ulu]

Amazingly, I had my one of my worst sports injury doing yoga. I over stretched the Achilles tendon in my right ankle, and it almost hobbled me for two years. The podiatrist told me I wouldn’t recover 100% from this but I think I’ve recovered 98%.

I’m doing 20 miles on a bicycle, so I can’t complain.

But it was that tendon injury which kept me out of the skateboard marathon.

 

[Ulu]

will need to maintain focus this year

Have a plan bro, and write it down. Weigh yourself every day and keep a chart.

You can do it without this, but it won’t be as easy.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

keep a chart

Chart will track candy consumption, shame will be the outcome . Once I fell asleep on the couch with gummies in my mouth. Woke up at 4 am and continued chewing. That's not good

 

[Ulu]

Sometimes you have to watch your mother swell up to 300 pounds and die in a wheelchair she can’t get out of.

Your situation will not change until you change.

By the way, I still eat too much sugar. I have cut way down, but I don’t manage to eat enough to make me fat.

In fact, my new philosophy is that a man can eat anything he wants, as long as he’s willing to get out there and work it off.

 

[ifitsfreeitsforme]

I have hoped all my life that when I got older I would not crave sugar as much. But at 58 I don't have a sweet tooth, I have a sweet fang. Like a saber toothed tiger. cake cookies and ice cream. ugh.

now I'm hungry.

 

[DesmoDog]

I used to eat Famous Amos cookies while at work. I'd have at least one small bag a day, often two. Plus I'd drink at least one can of Sprite a day. And there was other stuff, (not so) occassional candy bars, etc. Plus a good desert after lunch sometimes. Often.

Outside of work I rarely had any of that. Well, other than dessert. That was a constant.

Anywhos, one day I decided to stop eating that crap. I was just over 190lbs (I weighed 165 in high school) and didn't want to get heavier. I'd have dessert once a week at work but no more cookies, etc.

Long story short over the next few months or however long it was I dropped about 15 pounds. From the heaviest I had been to the lightest it was 20, but I gained a few back and am now right around 175 no matter what I seem to do.

The funny thing was, my sister (who I see maybe once a year) gave me a huge box of the small bags of Famous Amos cookies. I broke it to her I didn't eat them anymore but opeend a bag just for old times sake.

They were disgusting. I can't believe I used to eat them on a regular basis... I gave the box away to a friend's college aged daughter and they got distributed amongst the younger crowd.

I still adore chocolate chip cookies and will usually buy one with lunch when we are out if they are available, but my wife and I split it. Dark chocolate is still a mainstay in our house but I rarely have Sprite or candy bars anymore. In fact I drink soda so rarely I have gone back to Coke instead of Sprite. Different story there, I love Coke but it got to be a bit much so I gave up caffiene for a lot of years. (I've had one cup of coffee in my entire life. Gross!) But dang I like Coke...

For a while I tried to lose even more but I never got much below 172. The effort wasn't worth it so now I eat what I want, don't stress the occassional indulgence, and seem to stick within a five pound variance no matter what I do.

And the weird part, as I was typing this my wife just read a headline (probably click bait) out loud - "drinking multiple cups of coffee is linked to better heart health" Don't care, that crap is disgusting.

PS - I just turned 60. I used to gain weight every winter and lose it every summer with no effort on my part. Then one year I didn't lose it over summer... things change in your 40s!

 

[Karate Chicken Industries]

The book that helped change my life about ten years ago: https://www.ebay.com/itm/2828193122...PWIErC04GRH78XNNubdhOg_A2W5rafqhoCmwIQAvD_BwE

Probably the best under-$6 book ever, right there. The only difference in my riding is needing to eat on the trail much more often without the body fat I used to feed off of while riding.

 

[threeforks]

I over stretched the Achilles tendon

Over two years now, Itripped on a curb and ripped my left one nearly in two.
Still have a floppy foot.
That's one thing that stopped me from riding a bike.
That's why the old trike was such a help to get me started with the pedals again.

In the end I went on his diet and exercise plan, and it worked. Of course it worked because I worked at it, but once I decided that I needed to do something it wasn’t that difficult.

Thanks for bringing up the subject of Weight Loss.
I'm in on that one. been starting and giving up for a long time.
Always was short, 5' 8" to start, then after multible disks collasped have shrunk to 5' 7".

The "overweight" issue has not helped at all.
Up to 240 or so.
With smaller portions and some cut back on suger am back to 225, that helps a bit.
190 would be OK but 185 might be better. Still seems impossible to do.

i keep on reminding myself of how hard it is to carry around a 40 lb bag of cement,
and how good it feels to put it down.

Thanks to your thread here, and encouraging story of weight loss, I will reconsider
once again getting serious about "doing something" about it.

 

[Ulu]

I used to eat Famous Amos cookies while at work. I'd have at least one small bag a day, often two. Plus I'd drink at least one can of Sprite a day. And there was other stuff, (not so) occassional candy bars, etc. Plus a good desert after lunch sometimes. Often.

Outside of work I rarely had any of that. Well, other than dessert. That was a constant.

Anywhos, one day I decided to stop eating that crap. I was just over 190lbs (I weighed 165 in high school) and didn't want to get heavier. I'd have dessert once a week at work but no more cookies, etc.

Long story short over the next few months or however long it was I dropped about 15 pounds. From the heaviest I had been to the lightest it was 20, but I gained a few back and am now right around 175 no matter what I seem to do.

The funny thing was, my sister (who I see maybe once a year) gave me a huge box of the small bags of Famous Amos cookies. I broke it to her I didn't eat them anymore but opeend a bag just for old times sake.

They were disgusting. I can't believe I used to eat them on a regular basis... I gave the box away to a friend's college aged daughter and they got distributed amongst the younger crowd.

I still adore chocolate chip cookies and will usually buy one with lunch when we are out if they are available, but my wife and I split it. Dark chocolate is still a mainstay in our house but I rarely have Sprite or candy bars anymore. In fact I drink soda so rarely I have gone back to Coke instead of Sprite. Different story there, I love Coke but it got to be a bit much so I gave up caffiene for a lot of years. (I've had one cup of coffee in my entire life. Gross!) But dang I like Coke...

For a while I tried to lose even more but I never got much below 172. The effort wasn't worth it so now I eat what I want, don't stress the occassional indulgence, and seem to stick within a five pound variance no matter what I do.

And the weird part, as I was typing this my wife just read a headline (probably click bait) out loud - "drinking multiple cups of coffee is linked to better heart health" Don't care, that crap is disgusting.

PS - I just turned 60. I used to gain weight every winter and lose it every summer with no effort on my part. Then one year I didn't lose it over summer... things change in your 40s!

I wish I had been able to stop at 190. I wouldn’t have the wrinkles that I have now.

I still eat some goodies, but I am circumspect about it. I make sure I don’t over eat, period, and that has become a habit rather than a struggle.

It’s much different, after you have struggled through this, looking back 14 years later.

When you’re looking at the other end of those years it looks much different!

 

[Ulu]

The book that helped change my life . . .The only difference in my riding is needing to eat on the trail much more often without the body fat I used to feed off of while riding.

That’s exactly what you have to do & you have to make that a habit.

That’s what the Ferriss diet was all about. Making that new habit where you get frequent exercise and eat small portions frequently.

 

[Ulu]

Over two years now . . . ripped my left one nearly in two. Still have a floppy foot. That's one thing that stopped me from riding a bike. . . Thanks to your thread here, and encouraging story of weight loss, I will reconsider
once again getting serious about "doing something" about it.

You have my sympathy bro. I can’t imagine what that feels like! Mine was just a serious strain, and it all grew back together without any nasty scar tissue, through gentle exercise over a prolonged period of time.

I thought I was gonna wind up with a short leg but that did not happen.