HalFitness
- Thread starter BananaHands
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Mobility is important, I can move decent weight on the big four compounds, but not nearly as well if my joints and muscles are too constricted. Warming up improves performance, reduces risk of injury, and helps with recovery.
Yee-ikes, that's small; are you doing any weight training? Doing so and being on a diet high in calories, protein, and fats will boost your weight significantly a.k.a #bulkmode
I tend to float around 100 kilos when I'm burning off fat and 105 kilos when I'm bulking up, though that's mostly adipose tissue.
So, my wife and I started dragging out the old ren-fair costumes and stuff to get ready for Halloween. If you've been keeping track, I've been posting little updates when I lose a few pounds.
So, my kilt that I wore in 2003 when I worked at TRF: Too big.
My utilikilt: way too big.
My leather doublet: a smidge too big.
My bonafide kung fu outfit that I haven't been able to wear since my late 20's:
And the sash wraps around twice, like it should! Last time I wore that sash was 5 years ago, and it only went around once.
I have a leather belt that i made myself by cutting and dyeing latigo leather back in 1992. It has a hole in it for every size I've ever been, from my skinniest to my fattest. I'm 3 holes away from my skinniest
So, my kilt that I wore in 2003 when I worked at TRF: Too big.
My utilikilt: way too big.
My leather doublet: a smidge too big.
My bonafide kung fu outfit that I haven't been able to wear since my late 20's:
And the sash wraps around twice, like it should! Last time I wore that sash was 5 years ago, and it only went around once.
I have a leather belt that i made myself by cutting and dyeing latigo leather back in 1992. It has a hole in it for every size I've ever been, from my skinniest to my fattest. I'm 3 holes away from my skinniest
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As a comparison pic, here's me in 2010, playing at the North Texas Irish Festival my last year living in Texas:
That's the utilikilt that's like 6" too big now.
That's the utilikilt that's like 6" too big now.
It certainly didn't happen overnight. But it didn't take 13 years either 
I used the NTIF pic to show that utilikilt that is way too big now.
I've lost close to 50ish lbs in the last 24 months . This was me Xmas 2014
1-2 lbs a month or so is a reasonable goal for weight loss. That does mean that when you're very big, like I was, it's going to take a while to take it off. Doing that extreme dieting where you shed 30 lbs in a month or two means it'll spring right back when you stop dieting. I've done that--back in 2002, I was about 315 lbs, and I shed 70 lbs in like 4 months. The very next year, I was back in the 260's, and climbing.
I feel a lot better about the weight loss this time around. I'm not destroying myself with hours of daily exercise, and I'm not making myself feel starved by extreme calorie restriction. I just upped my exercise a little bit, and dropped my food intake a little bit. I don't feel like I'm working at it that much, and every month, I'm a little bit smaller. Because I don't feel like I'm punishing myself by withholding food, it makes it a little bit easier to walk away when I find myself wandering toward the pantry out of boredom.
I'm not where I want to be yet, and the loss has been so gradual that sometimes I feel like I'm not making any progress at all--so I like to look at these older pics to remind me of where I was. I'm hoping that by this time next year, I'll only be a hair over 200lbs. If so, I'll be pretty happy with myself.
I used the NTIF pic to show that utilikilt that is way too big now.I've lost close to 50ish lbs in the last 24 months . This was me Xmas 2014
1-2 lbs a month or so is a reasonable goal for weight loss. That does mean that when you're very big, like I was, it's going to take a while to take it off. Doing that extreme dieting where you shed 30 lbs in a month or two means it'll spring right back when you stop dieting. I've done that--back in 2002, I was about 315 lbs, and I shed 70 lbs in like 4 months. The very next year, I was back in the 260's, and climbing.
I feel a lot better about the weight loss this time around. I'm not destroying myself with hours of daily exercise, and I'm not making myself feel starved by extreme calorie restriction. I just upped my exercise a little bit, and dropped my food intake a little bit. I don't feel like I'm working at it that much, and every month, I'm a little bit smaller. Because I don't feel like I'm punishing myself by withholding food, it makes it a little bit easier to walk away when I find myself wandering toward the pantry out of boredom.
I'm not where I want to be yet, and the loss has been so gradual that sometimes I feel like I'm not making any progress at all--so I like to look at these older pics to remind me of where I was. I'm hoping that by this time next year, I'll only be a hair over 200lbs. If so, I'll be pretty happy with myself.
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Right, I only meant how far you've come since that picture was taken.
Remember, everyone...to lose 1 pound means cutting 3500 calories from your diet. You don't have to do it all in one day, two days, or even a week, but if you consistently cut even 200-ish calories from your daily diet (FYI: 20oz of pop/soda is ~230), 2lb/mo is easily achievable.
--Patrick
Remember, everyone...to lose 1 pound means cutting 3500 calories from your diet. You don't have to do it all in one day, two days, or even a week, but if you consistently cut even 200-ish calories from your daily diet (FYI: 20oz of pop/soda is ~230), 2lb/mo is easily achievable.
--Patrick
So, I thought I should post my entire weight loss saga with my thoughts on how it's all gone.
When I was in my teens and early 20's, I was really skinny. Like 26 inch waist skinny. I taught a kung fu class and walked everywhere. Then I injured my stomach muscles in my late 20's, and pretty much had to stop all physical activity for a while. I got really big pretty quickly.
I was at my biggest at 315 some time in 2002:
I vowed to shed all that weight, and I got an elliptical machine. I used it for 90 minutes every day. I aggressively counted my calories, and if I went over my daily "budget", I got on that elliptical until it told me I had burned the excess. It worked--as I said, I shed 70 lbs, quickly. But it sucked. I was spending way too much of my day obsessed about all of the food I had eaten, and all of the food I wasn't allowed to eat because I had reached my daily budget.
In 2003, I got a gig working at the Texas Renaissance Festival (in Houston) in a band. i was pretty happy with how I looked.
I lived in Dallas, so I drove to Houston on Friday nights and came back on Monday, losing 4 days of exercise. By the end of the festival (7 weeks), the costume I wore was starting to get tight, and after "falling off the wagon" on the calorie counting and exercising, I was loathe to get back on it. And, once I decided to say "fuck it" to the regime, I went back to my old eating habits. By the end of the festival, I was looking decidedly puffier.
For many people, I don't think maintaining that level of exercise is a realistic long term goal. And if you suddenly stop (as many do), your metabolism does a nose dive. So, between 2003 and 2014, my weight steadily climbed. This is how I looked when my current wife and I got together in 2008.
I hovered between 280 and 295 between that time and 2013ish. I've read somewhere that people tend to eat similarly to their family and those they hang out with, and i think that's true. I was used to eating an appetizer, meal, and dessert every time I went out to eat, for instance. Plus the free bread, if the restaurant offered it. Cindy wasn't tiny when we got together, but she wasn't big either..size 6 or 8, I think. But she started eating like I did, and she blew up too.
During that time, we tried a number of fad diets: Lemon juice purging, ketogenic diets, etc. We lost weight, but then we always gained it back as soon as we stopped whatever the fad was.
When she had her gastric bypass 3 years ago, she was forced to cut her portions way down. As a consequence, I started reducing my intake as well. I just felt like a big ol' pig if she ate 1 slice of pizza, my son ate 2, and I ate an entire medium pizza to myself. So I started cutting back a little, and since it wasn't much, it wasn't a chore. My stomach started shrinking to accommodate, and I'd start feeling full sooner. So, I'd cut back a little more until I was finally eating more reasonable portions. She had to walk after her surgery to help with the healing, so we'd leash up the dogs and I'd go with her. It wasn't much of a change, but I noticed that every couple of months I'd be 3-5 lbs lighter, which was exciting. And since it wasn't a hard change, I just kept it up--lowering my portions when I felt like I could, slowing my eating so that the "you're full" triggers would fire before I'd totally gorged myself, and exercising a little more.
So in 2013, walking around the block would leave me very winded. Now, I can walk all over town (as I did a few days ago for our town's Oktoberfest). My wife and I feel strong enough that she's decided she wants me to teach her kung fu, so we'll be starting that in a couple of weeks when she returns from an out of town trip she's going on. Since this is the first time I've lost a significant amount of weight without feeling like I have to struggle to make it work, I have high hopes that in the next couple of years I'll be exactly where I want to be. It sucks that it takes so long to accomplish this kind of thing, but I really do think it's the only way to do it realistically.
When I was in my teens and early 20's, I was really skinny. Like 26 inch waist skinny. I taught a kung fu class and walked everywhere. Then I injured my stomach muscles in my late 20's, and pretty much had to stop all physical activity for a while. I got really big pretty quickly.
I was at my biggest at 315 some time in 2002:
I vowed to shed all that weight, and I got an elliptical machine. I used it for 90 minutes every day. I aggressively counted my calories, and if I went over my daily "budget", I got on that elliptical until it told me I had burned the excess. It worked--as I said, I shed 70 lbs, quickly. But it sucked. I was spending way too much of my day obsessed about all of the food I had eaten, and all of the food I wasn't allowed to eat because I had reached my daily budget.
In 2003, I got a gig working at the Texas Renaissance Festival (in Houston) in a band. i was pretty happy with how I looked.
I lived in Dallas, so I drove to Houston on Friday nights and came back on Monday, losing 4 days of exercise. By the end of the festival (7 weeks), the costume I wore was starting to get tight, and after "falling off the wagon" on the calorie counting and exercising, I was loathe to get back on it. And, once I decided to say "fuck it" to the regime, I went back to my old eating habits. By the end of the festival, I was looking decidedly puffier.
For many people, I don't think maintaining that level of exercise is a realistic long term goal. And if you suddenly stop (as many do), your metabolism does a nose dive. So, between 2003 and 2014, my weight steadily climbed. This is how I looked when my current wife and I got together in 2008.
I hovered between 280 and 295 between that time and 2013ish. I've read somewhere that people tend to eat similarly to their family and those they hang out with, and i think that's true. I was used to eating an appetizer, meal, and dessert every time I went out to eat, for instance. Plus the free bread, if the restaurant offered it. Cindy wasn't tiny when we got together, but she wasn't big either..size 6 or 8, I think. But she started eating like I did, and she blew up too.
During that time, we tried a number of fad diets: Lemon juice purging, ketogenic diets, etc. We lost weight, but then we always gained it back as soon as we stopped whatever the fad was.
When she had her gastric bypass 3 years ago, she was forced to cut her portions way down. As a consequence, I started reducing my intake as well. I just felt like a big ol' pig if she ate 1 slice of pizza, my son ate 2, and I ate an entire medium pizza to myself. So I started cutting back a little, and since it wasn't much, it wasn't a chore. My stomach started shrinking to accommodate, and I'd start feeling full sooner. So, I'd cut back a little more until I was finally eating more reasonable portions. She had to walk after her surgery to help with the healing, so we'd leash up the dogs and I'd go with her. It wasn't much of a change, but I noticed that every couple of months I'd be 3-5 lbs lighter, which was exciting. And since it wasn't a hard change, I just kept it up--lowering my portions when I felt like I could, slowing my eating so that the "you're full" triggers would fire before I'd totally gorged myself, and exercising a little more.
So in 2013, walking around the block would leave me very winded. Now, I can walk all over town (as I did a few days ago for our town's Oktoberfest). My wife and I feel strong enough that she's decided she wants me to teach her kung fu, so we'll be starting that in a couple of weeks when she returns from an out of town trip she's going on. Since this is the first time I've lost a significant amount of weight without feeling like I have to struggle to make it work, I have high hopes that in the next couple of years I'll be exactly where I want to be. It sucks that it takes so long to accomplish this kind of thing, but I really do think it's the only way to do it realistically.
I'm deliberately trying to cut back. It's not easy. Peer pressure means that if I have two pieces of fish and everyone else has 3, there's almost an unspoken thing going on that if there's one left, I'm supposed to eat it. It's even more difficult if the fish was delicious and I WANT to eat it (we had cornmeal breaded catfish tonight MMMMmmm). It doesn't pay off right away, but later (MUCH later) you'll realize that two pieces of fish is actually enough for you to feel satisfied, and then you start to feel like you're accomplishing something.
--Patrick
--Patrick
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I'm still the garbage disposal in my house. It helps that I do the cooking, so I cook less now. And I portion my and my wife's plates with the understanding that she won't finish, so I give her a little more than she'll want, and me a little less than I'll want. That way, the family habit is not disturbed, but overall, I'm still eating less.
But don't get me wrong. I still binge occasionally. Especially on something like fried catfish. But those binges are a real rarity now, rather than a nearly every day occurrence.
Portions and eating fall into the same sort of category where I group good sleep habits. I mean, if you have to be up at 6:45am every day, then it makes good logical sense to be in bed by 10:30pm, and it truly should be the easiest thing in the world to do, you just...go over to the bed by 10:30pm, and get in it, and then stay there. Likewise, "stop eating sooner" or "eat smaller portions" are obvious no-brainers. But the temptation to stay up/eat more? Ohhhh, how seductive it can be, and until you manage to force yourself to do The Right Thing enough times to start seeing and feeling the benefits, it's all too easy to listen to that voice promising immediate gratification.
--Patrick
--Patrick
Not entirely true. Cutting out 300 calories a day will make you gain less, not suddenly lose. To lose a pound a month, you have to cut back 2020 calories below what you're using. Gaining slower is a good thing, too, obviously, but, you know.
That said, I've gained far too much in far too short a time. Starting to fitness once a week then quitting but keeping the increased food intake is a Bad Idea. -_-
FTFY. As a general rule, when people talk about calorie deficits, the presumption is they're talking about from what your maintenance level is (i.e. what your diet would be to neither gain nor lose weight). Also, what in the world are you eating that you are at +2020 daily?
2020 is a typo for the 200 Patrick used.
And it's nice that you decide to say "people generally mean", but the way Patrick worded it was explicitly "just cut a soda day from your diet to slowly start losing weight" - which, for by far most people who want to/need to diet, would still leave them above their maintenance level, and thus, wouldn't start them losing weight.
That makes no sense to me, since 200 is less than the 300 you said is insufficient to lose weight, unless you mean something else by "below what you're using" than "below what you're eating daily."
PatrThom could have added "assuming maintenance level," but like I said it's usually understood. But maybe I've spent too much time browsing fitness boards.
I had assumed that I could leave out the "average diet is 2000-2500 calories/day depending on activity level" part, but I see I was not initializing my variables properly.
So to reiterate: One pound of fat contains ~3500 calories. To lose one pound of stored fat means creating a calorie deficit of 3500 calories, thereby forcing a person's system to supplement that deficit by pulling 3500 calories from fat reserves. At best, this means losing a pound. At worst, it means gaining one pound less. When you consider that an average maintenance diet is 2-2.5k calories/day, it quickly becomes obvious why it is so difficult to lose weight quickly, since losing even one pound through attrition (not exercise) means completely abstaining from all caloric intake for almost two whole days, which is decidedly unhealthy. That's why the salami attack method is preferred. The trouble is that this can apply in reverse as well. It's one thing to "trick" your body into losing weight by coming in under the daily intake by enough to make a difference but not enough to set off any alarms. It's entirely another thing to come in above the daily limit by so little that it doesn't raise any alarms, but by just enough that the scale begins a slow creep upwards.
--Patrick
So to reiterate: One pound of fat contains ~3500 calories. To lose one pound of stored fat means creating a calorie deficit of 3500 calories, thereby forcing a person's system to supplement that deficit by pulling 3500 calories from fat reserves. At best, this means losing a pound. At worst, it means gaining one pound less. When you consider that an average maintenance diet is 2-2.5k calories/day, it quickly becomes obvious why it is so difficult to lose weight quickly, since losing even one pound through attrition (not exercise) means completely abstaining from all caloric intake for almost two whole days, which is decidedly unhealthy. That's why the salami attack method is preferred. The trouble is that this can apply in reverse as well. It's one thing to "trick" your body into losing weight by coming in under the daily intake by enough to make a difference but not enough to set off any alarms. It's entirely another thing to come in above the daily limit by so little that it doesn't raise any alarms, but by just enough that the scale begins a slow creep upwards.
--Patrick
Incidentally, even when I was fater, I could rock the heavybag
(ok, I was winded as fuck after that short video, but I wasn't gonna let the kids watching know that)
(ok, I was winded as fuck after that short video, but I wasn't gonna let the kids watching know that)
FYI it's not necessarily that they're zero carb, as if the carbs per serving are low enough the FDA allows manufacturers to round it down to zero. Might not be enough to make a difference, but take a look at the ingredient list to make sure it's zero carb.
My understanding is that the net carbs label isn't regulated by the FDA, and isn't exacty true (i.e. most sugar alcohols get metabolized to a degree). It might be true enough, but it's not nothing.
IIRC, Dave's doing a keto diet now. The manufacturer labeling ought to be sufficient to keep him below his desired daily carb intake (to keep him in ketosis).
My wife and I lost like 30 lbs on the keto diet when we did it. I just couldn't stay away from carbs. I love breads and stuff too much, and going to the grocery store and smelling it baking was torture.
Our diet suggested 6g of net carbs per day. Since Web MD says "ketosis usually kicks in after 3 or 4 days of eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day," even going over a few g due to labeling issues shouldn't kick him out of the process.
Beware the "keto flu", and be sure you up your water intake. You'll probably shed 10 lbs of water weight pretty quickly at the beginning. Also, Reddit's https://www.reddit.com/r/keto was a pretty good support group and recipe inspiration site for us.
My wife and I lost like 30 lbs on the keto diet when we did it. I just couldn't stay away from carbs. I love breads and stuff too much, and going to the grocery store and smelling it baking was torture.
Our diet suggested 6g of net carbs per day. Since Web MD says "ketosis usually kicks in after 3 or 4 days of eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day," even going over a few g due to labeling issues shouldn't kick him out of the process.
Beware the "keto flu", and be sure you up your water intake. You'll probably shed 10 lbs of water weight pretty quickly at the beginning. Also, Reddit's https://www.reddit.com/r/keto was a pretty good support group and recipe inspiration site for us.
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Down another pound.
My goal: be in the 220's by the new year.
So, I have this see-saw thing that happens that I lose a pound or two for a day, and then immediately gain 5 lbs for a week or two, slowly dropping back to the new low. I don't count it as a new low weight until I've been stable at it for a few days.
My goal: be in the 220's by the new year.
So, I have this see-saw thing that happens that I lose a pound or two for a day, and then immediately gain 5 lbs for a week or two, slowly dropping back to the new low. I don't count it as a new low weight until I've been stable at it for a few days.
1 lb away from this goal. I may have to start cutting out sweet tea or something, just to make sure I reach it in time
You could sweat that much off in a day, if the numbers on the dial are your only goal.1 lb away from this goal. I may have to start cutting out sweet tea or something, just to make sure I reach it in time
If you are talking about a moving average, well...
--Patrick
Well, absolutely. I could lose 10-15 lbs water weight by doing keto for a week too. And it'd come right back, as soon as I started eating carbs again.
I'd rather the number 'stick' and not bounce back as soon as I stop doing whatever I do to reach the goal. A temporary drop in calories will likely do the trick, though all indications are that I'll probably hit the goal anyway, since I got 6 weeks to basically lose a pound. I'm just feelin anxious about it.