I need some advice, I want to lose weight.

[thatoneguy90]

I'm assuming I'm posting this in the right spot...but as my topic says, I need some advice on some good ways to lose some weight. I don't feel comfortable with the weight I'm at to be honest. When I was younger I was well fat actually and I got picked on with it a lot and I always find myself saying in the back of my head "I dont wanna go back to that" when I was 11 I weighed 220 pounds and it wasn't till sophmore year of high school i hit 140 lbs, the unhealthy way though I threw up everything I ate. So I've never really went on a diet or anything like that because after all that my weight just...stayed off. I know its kind of silly to be so concerned even at my age I guess, (22 going to 23) I've been at a solid 170 for about a year.

 

I just don't feel comfortable everyone tells me that I look thin, but its kind of like looking in the mirror type of thing and you sit their looking at the gut. I think I over think about it and to a degree I really think I have a problem, I consistently weigh myself. once in the morning, then when I get home and then before I go to bed. its sad to say I'm quite obsessed with it and I don't think I'm normal, I tried telling friends about it but they think I'm over reacting about on it (Not that they listen much to what I have to say). I was told about this site actually and I figured, maybe someone on here will listen.

 

But I guess putting my mind at ease, would be to at least lose 10 or 15 pounds. I think its reasonable and I think i'd feel more comfortable that way. I dont really want to waste money on a gym membership either which I think is also reasonable.

What are some good ways to lose weight?

All that explanation just for such a simple question seems silly so I'm sorry that whoever reads this had to read all that

[thatoneguy90]

Oh! I might be a little late at replying, I have to go to work soon but when I get back I'll read through it!

[mhowe]

How tall are you?

 

If others think you are thin, and you are weighing yourself 3x a day, I would say you have body image distortion.

 

A bulemic 140 lb male is not a pretty picture. If you are taller than 5ft 9, then I would say you are fine.

 

And, simple as it sounds --- eat less, exercise more. Cut out soda and beer, excess carbs.

[tallydoo]

You might want to go see a counselor or a therapist about your body image; it will help you become less obsessive about your weight, and there's no shame in it.

 

That being said, you'd probably be happier toning rather than just dropping pounds--it can make you look gaunt if you just lose fat without replacing it with muscle.

 

Why do you say waste money on a gym membership? I only ask because I hate working out in a gym, and that sounds like something I'd say If that's true, take up a sport. There are probably some sports leagues around you to start playing team sports, or you can start biking or running. I started rock-climbing to get more toned, and that's been AWESOME, so that might be an idea, too. Just make sure that you eat lean proteins after you work out, and stay away from simple sugars (soda, beer, candy, etc.); eat fruits and vegetable and complex carbs instead.

[thatoneguy90]

I'm currently 170 now and I'm not very tall I'm 5'6.

 

Pops a hard thing for me to cut but I've done well on that over the years I only have maybe a can a day thats about it...

I don't eat breakfast to much though and I think that might be one problem, I guess. I tend to work in the morning so I have little time to actually make something nor do I never really know what qualifies as a good breakfast I've never really watched what I eat I suppose.

[tallydoo]

I'm currently 170 now and I'm not very tall I'm 5'6.

 

Pops a hard thing for me to cut but I've done well on that over the years I only have maybe a can a day thats about it...

I don't eat breakfast to much though and I think that might be one problem, I guess. I tend to work in the morning so I have little time to actually make something nor do I never really know what qualifies as a good breakfast I've never really watched what I eat I suppose.

 

Eat protein in the morning--hardboiled eggs, or toast with peanut butter, or something like that. It'll kickstart your metabolism early in the morning, and protein takes a long time to digest so it'll give you a lot of energy and keep you full for longer during the day.

[thatoneguy90]

I have to save money for school which is why I try to keep money spending minimal as silly as that sounds, every dollar counts.

I've never gone rock climbing because I'm dreadfully scared of heights and I mean terrified I tense up and stop moving

But I do live in a forest preserve so I was thinking about just jogging every morning like a lot of people around here seem to do, I do eat a lot of fruit though I'm not sure if its the best but I eat a lot of oranges,banana's and I eat salads a lot too.

[eggsandcheese]

What about a martial art? Get something out of it, not just exercise, if you don't want to join a gym. I like the idea of jogging out in the forest. Weight watcher's meetings are also a good place for people wanting to lose a little bit of weight. They teach you how to eat, and you are with people who care just as much as you do about your weight.

[thatoneguy90]

What about a martial art? Get something out of it, not just exercise, if you don't want to join a gym. I like the idea of jogging out in the forest. Weight watcher's meetings are also a good place for people wanting to lose a little bit of weight. They teach you how to eat, and you are with people who care just as much as you do about your weight.

 

i'll have to look into it, that sounds pretty fun actually. The martial arts I'll have to check out places that do it or something. But yeah, I have a pretty large Prairie path one of them connect to another town which is pretty cool... it goes straight to my old school actually and it tends to be pretty quiet so I might start doing that since I wake up at 6 am anyways.I'll also have to check out the weight watcher thing too

 

Oh yeah, I forgot thanks everyone for the advice!

[mhowe]

Oranges and bananas high in sugar. Change to apple, ,pears, etc.

 

Also, tho this might sound simplistic --- start watching what you eat! You need to focus. Also, NO SODA. None. Water -- or carbonated water w/ no sugar!! Cut that out and you can lose 10 lbs in a year w/out any other change.

[thatoneguy90]

Looks like just water for me then, I hate carbonated water...with a passion. It just has a foul taste to me I do like some of the flavored waters like propel though... I never really paid much attention to if its exactly...bad for you. I did go the long mile though before I cut fast food out of my diet completely, I eat subway once a week still though I dont pick the healthiest either lol but I've been working on steering away from the buffalo chicken ever since I read how bad it is for you.

[mhowe]

Check the label on flavored waters. Many have sugar.

 

Cut out fried foods, and pick the healthier choices always when out....you can't lose weight if you eat everything you "want'.

[Steve55]

I've been on Weight Watchers for about five months now and I've lost 45 pounds. It's been very easy. You can eat what you want, but in moderation. They also teach you how to make healthier food choices, which is very important.

 

I like the meetings too...It might be a good way to meet women Seriously, the meetings are a good source of peer support.

 

Best of luck with this and congratulations for making the choice.

[MasterPo]

I would take the time to read all the diet/exercise/calorie crunching threads here and school yourself on the topic. Interesting reading and probably all you will need.

 

It's very hard to lose weight sitting behind a computer sceen. Somewhat easier if you throw yourself out the door twice a day and do something physical. Push a car back and forth, run/jog, walk more than 30 minutes, etc.

 

Just do it, drink lots of water, eat and rest well. Do it again.

[Rexcat84]

There is no easy way to lose weight. Throw on your running shoes and get outside every day, even in the dead of winter. Walk to work, even if it takes half an hour each way, walk to get groceries etc etc. Grab a friend and go to a yoga class. Do something active and sweat every single day for 45 minutes and have a salad for either lunch or dinner. Never eat pizza, chicken wings, icecream... anything that looks unhealthy and you know is bad for you.

 

Basically, change your lifestyle if you want to lose weight. Good luck!

[nbr]

I'm 6'1", 220, 24% body fat right now. (near enough).

I was pushing 255 and 33% body fat 5 months ago. There is no indication that I'm done losing body fat or weight, getting really toned up too. Here is what I did:

Cut soda to maybe one or two a week, none with high fructose corn syrup in them, real sugar only (pepsi throwback, mexican coke, etc.).

Slowly changed my diet away from fried foods.

Started martial arts training, 1 hour per session, 2 to 3 sessions a week.

Banana and peanut butter for mid afternoon snack at least 2 hours before training.

Apple juice cut 1:3 with water, so only 1/4 of the bottle is apple juice, the rest is water for a sport drink during training.

Subway is either one of three subs: Veggie, BLT (with all the veggies), or roasted chicken. No other subs on the menu allowed

Protein shake for breakfast when time is tight, glass of skim milk and toast w/peanut butter if I have time.

sane portion sizes.

weigh myself only 1x/day at most, at the same time of day, with the same clothing on.

 

couple of the moms at the kids' school have told my wife they hardly recognized me, one even called me *hot* (heh)

Physical exercises:

Pushups (wide arms, standard, hands held in a diamond)

Shoulder touches (prone position like a pushup, alternate touching your opposite shoulder [e.g. right hand to left shoulder])

Squats/Lunges

Situps, there are gobs of types here, classic, crunches, "rope climb".

Crucifixes (use milk or water jugs with water in them as weights). Hold with arms relaxed, bring arms up to full "T" position, hold 3 sec, lower slowly.

I can list more if you want.

 

You really sound like you have body image issues, so no more looking in the mirror, and honestly I'd suggest getting a scale that shows body fat % and putting tape over the weight portion of the display too. Ignore what your mind is telling you about your body (I know that's impossible) and just keep with the workouts. Running won't tone you. No gym needed, just do the exercises, the only expense should be a *good* workout mat, at least 1" thick, big enough for you to lay out on.

 

-nbr

[thatoneguy90]

Well gosh thats a lot of changes....but like everyone else that added suggestions I also thank you as well, I think I could manage some of these things actually, my only issue is I'm a huge dr. pepper fan and as silly as it sounds thats a difficult thing for me to give up. But, I gotta do what I gotta do. My diet I would like to say is a lot better then what it use to be it really is, I use to eat mcdonalds and fast foods a lot but I believe I mentioned that after a year or so I cut it out of my life completely, and rarely do I ever go out for fast food (besides subway, but that doesn't count does it?)

I dont like fried foods to begin with to be honest, so thats not something hard for me to do I like grilled

 

I believe I can do it, least thats what I like to tell myself, its just the will I pull myself up and do it.

I've also come to believe that maybe I do have some sort of image issue, but as my original post said, I use to be really fat and sadly the only way i lost all my weight through throwing all my food up and I look back on it and realize how bad that was, I burned 70 pounds in a few months. I defiantly think I over think it though and I still believe I'm to young to obsess over it but I just can't help it and this wasn't until recently too when I was in high school and my first couple years of college I really didn't care but now its like I'm obsessed. One person suggested a therapist and well I have to agree on that one.

[nbr]

I was more worried about your cost objectives

If $$ were no object I'd say join a dojo... since they are you go all Rocky style and do it on the cheap.

Toning out will put on pounds, but they will be very healthy pounds, so that's why I said tape over the weight portion of the scale and only look at the body fat % (and know that it does go up and down, so plot it on a piece of paper and you'll see it trend down, that's all you should care about).

 

You really shouldn't care about your weight at all, just that %. If you're at 10-15% body fat then it really won't matter one bit how much you weigh, you'll look *awesome* (or like the hulk in extreme cases). On the bright side, if you look like the hulk, no one in their right mind will say you look fat

-nbr

[nbr]

my only issue is I'm a huge dr. pepper fan and as silly as it sounds thats a difficult thing for me to give up.

I hear you on this. I know there is one supplier of DrPepper with sugar instead of HFC (in Texas I think?). It'll cost more, but see if you can source that. I'm serious... HFC in sodas does more than add carbs and sugar... it suppresses the feeling of "fullness".

I used to pound 4 or 5 cans of coke in a half hour sitting. With the sugar based cokes I get through one bottle in that same time.

Costco carries them sometimes, Safeway carries the throwback pepsi products.

You can also try diet, but there is a *lot* of salt in diet drinks, so watch out.

 

You sooooo can do this. Can't wait to hear how you do

-nbr

[nbr]

There is no easy way to lose weight. Throw on your running shoes and get outside every day, even in the dead of winter. Walk to work, even if it takes half an hour each way, walk to get groceries etc etc. Grab a friend and go to a yoga class. Do something active and sweat every single day for 45 minutes and have a salad for either lunch or dinner. Never eat pizza, chicken wings, icecream... anything that looks unhealthy and you know is bad for you.

 

Basically, change your lifestyle if you want to lose weight. Good luck!

Ding ding ding *and* bzzzt

no easy way? correct.

but as to the never eat bad stuff? nope, that leads to cravings. Portion and frequency control are the ticket. "I can never have ice cream again" will panic my soul almost as much as my wife asking for the separation did. "I can have two scoops or a single scoop sundae on Sunday as long as I made the dojo at least twice this week" is much better. If you have comfort foods (we all do) then don't forbid them. Treat them with reverence, that they are special because they make you happy, so you should enjoy them sparingly (but oh so completely... [homer simpson]mmmmmmmmmm dooooooughnuts[/homer simpson voice]).

 

(my 0.02)

-nbr

[superfan]

I think the first thing you need to do is confront your issues with your body and with food. You said you lost weight before the unhealthy way, and you still have serious issues with your body image now. Weighing yourself that many times in one day is not a normal way to approach your body image.

 

I know this because I had issues with my weight and I also lost a great deal of weight in an unhealthy manner. The picture I have up there is a picture of me. It's a picture of me after losing almost 70lbs. I am 5'3" and I weighed (at my heaviest) 185lbs. How did I lose it? It was a very unhealthy combination of diet pills I bought at the drug store, and extreme calorie restriction. It got to the point where I was restricting myself to 300 calories a day. I would eat half a hot dog for breakfast and have a handful of cereal for dinner or something equally ridiculous. I was afraid to drink or eat ANYTHING for fear of extra calories. I even refused to take cold medication when I was sick or chew gum because I was afraid of the extra calories.

 

Eventually, the diet pills started playing serious havoc with my stomach and I realized (when I hit 120lbs) that I was NOT healthy. I was depressed, I was sick, I had stomach troubles, etc. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was anorexic, because I could recognize what I was doing as unhealthy and I was able to stop myself and change. I also didn't see myself as being fat anymore. I looked in the mirror and liked the weight I was at, so I stopped taking the pills and I worked on eating more foods and allowing myself a gradual increase in calories.

 

I know what I did was unhealthy and for a long time I had to re-evaluate the way I looked at food...I had to learn to stop being afraid of it. I have put a bit of the weight back on (this was 6 years ago). I am now closer to being 140lbs than I am to 120. Would I like to lose that 20lbs again? Yes, of course. But I am not going to go back to the unhealthy tactics I was using in order to do so.

 

I have a gym membership, so I make an effort to go there after work. I have a better understanding of the science of food (the importance of protein, metabolism, breakfast, etc.). I cut pop and other carbonated drinks out of my diet as well as "empty" calories. I ensure that I don't use anything with false sweeteners like splenda, etc.

 

Before you do any of this though you need to acknowledge that there is an eating disorder at play here. You should maybe seek counseling so that you understand why you feel the need to do certain things like weighing yourself constantly or seeing a different body in the mirror than what others see. Good luck.

[Generation]

I'm currently 170 now and I'm not very tall I'm 5'6.

 

That's not so bad. You can probably diet your way to a lower weight. I'm actually the same height as you and you're not that much heavier than me either.

 

i'll have to look into it, that sounds pretty fun actually. The martial arts I'll have to check out places that do it or something. But yeah, I have a pretty large Prairie path one of them connect to another town which is pretty cool... it goes straight to my old school actually and it tends to be pretty quiet so I might start doing that since I wake up at 6 am anyways.I'll also have to check out the weight watcher thing too

 

I'm very critical on martial arts. Take a class before you join. Make sure you like it. Also be aware that some places might not emphasize much on a particular activity such as conditioning your body, and you might not really get much of a work out. If you have to save money for school, I would just say forget about thinking of taking martial arts classes, cause it can be expensive.

 

Jogging in the forest, sounds like a good idea. Make sure you have good shoes and take it easy at first as not to wreck your feet cause forests and cross country running utilizes lots of mobility in your ankles there. But that's something you should definitely do.

 

You're gonna want to lift weights too. Tighten and tone muscles, boost your metabolism, you'll feel great afterwards. I won't really get into the topic.

 

I'm a huge dr. pepper fan and as silly as it sounds thats a difficult thing for me to give up

 

You know what you gotta do, good stuff. As for eating subway, watch the sauce.

 

Here's the reality of losing weight, and even bodybuilding. Working out, running, all that stuff is pretty easy. Getting proper nutrition and food, this is where most people fail, including myself sometimes. It mainly comes down to what you eat. I'm not a nutritionist, but make sure you're eating whole foods, and cutting out processed and junk foods and stop overeating. If you're hungry, maybe snack on a handful of nuts. And then just keep doing your exercises, and you'll see results in time.

[nbr]

My dojo has the following routine for a 1 hour class:

quick "bouncing" warmup followed by 3 min of pushups/situps/squats in rotation various rep numbers from 1 to 14. Next is light conditioning building up a real sweat, get the muscles warm. This takes us about 10 to 15 min into class. Then it's a half hour of training, which is fairly high intensity. Finally we do a core conditioning routine for 15 min (newbies collapse here, one puked.) final 5 min is stretching.

 

Yeah, sit and observe some classes at a dojo before you join, make sure it's what you want.

DO NOT sign up for anything beyond month to month, I've heard of people paying a year in advance only to have the dojo close up in a couple months...

 

It's worked out really well for me.

Renshi always says "nice to be seeing 'less' of you"

 

It can be incredibly motivating.

-nbr

[Angler]

As everyone has said, the key to weight management is diet. Healthy weight = 80% diet / 20% exercise.

 

One thing I would suggest is to avoid the pitfalls of the conventionally advertised ideas of fat loss. Today we have low fat milk, fat-free yogurt, fat-free salad dressings, margarine instead of butter...and western society has never been fatter!

 

Also, in my opinion, government endorsed food guides serve to keep the economy healthy, not citizens. Can you imagine the state of North American farmers if people stopped eating grains, corn, and dairy? Compared to the typical government endorsed food guides, I eat a ridiculous, incredibly "unhealthy" amount of fat. I eat about 5-7x the recommended amount of fat on any given day (40-50% of my total calories) and most of it is saturated fat. I meat at every meal, and zero grain products. I should be obese with high cholesterol, and a ticking time bomb in my chest. I have 16% body fat, my resting heart rate is 55-60 bpm, and my blood pressure averages 110/70.

 

Insulin is the enemy, not dietary fat.

 

Eat meat, healthy fats, vegetables, berries, nuts.

 

Avoid grains, oats, cereals, corn, rice, potatoes.

 

Drink water.

 

Avoid soft drinks, low fat dairy.

 

You can eat 3 meals a day until you are full, and the pounds will fall off.

[Snowtown]

the only thing that worked for me was weight watchers pro points, you can trial it for free on the internet, you can enter your weight and height on there and it will calculate how many "points" you are allowed each day...things like bananas are in fact no points so on this diet you can eat those with no worries. it will let you loose some weight in a healthy way ,

i wish you well