Losing Weight, down 81 pounds so far

Thank you for this thread @Nick1994

Looking back - I felt best around 200lbs mark, so that's gonna be my goal weight: 190-200lbs. If less - great, but at very least I wish to get to those numbers. I'm 6'1", or 185cm to be exact. Turned 30 last month.

When I got married six years ago, I was at ~250lbs mark. (I guess I wasn't too ugly, since I got a girlfriend in April and got married in October same year.) Two weeks ago I hit my "highscore" of 355lbs... It hit different... Many thoughts crossed my mind that day...

So I started intermittent fasting the same day. Went the carnivore route, with a splash of keto (mostly to keep wife happy, as she doesn't think 100% carnivore is a good idea. I disagree, but happy wife = happy life). Today, without any workouts, I'm down to 338lbs. Basically 1lb off daily, by eating steaks/ground beef/chicken/turkey/eggs once per day. Best tasting diet ever for me, since I love meat so much. Sometimes there is a second meal, but it did become super easy to keep it at OMAD, One Meal A Day. I eat until comfortably stuffed, so that there is less temptation for a second meal that day.
Water intake is as close to a gallon-per-day as I can get it, but never less than half-a-gallon. That's just water, not counting herbal tea or coffee. No snacks between meals.

Hopefully I can keep this momentum going, and maybe even increase the daily LB loss. But I'd like to thank many of you, as many of your public posts helped me strengthen the discipline around my eating habits. Hopefully one day I can get to my goal. But for now I still got a long way to go....
 
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Graham Piccinini said:
Thank you for this thread @Nick1994

Looking back - I felt best around 200lbs mark, so that's gonna be my goal weight: 190-200lbs. If less - great, but at very least I wish to get to those numbers. I'm 6'1", or 185cm to be exact. Turned 30 last month.

When I got married six years ago, I was at ~250lbs mark. (I guess I wasn't too ugly, since I got a girlfriend in April and got married in October same year.) Two weeks ago I hit my "highscore" of 355lbs... It hit different... Many thoughts crossed my mind that day...

So I started intermittent fasting the same day. Went the carnivore route, with a splash of keto (mostly to keep wife happy, as she doesn't think 100% carnivore is a good idea. I disagree, but happy wife = happy life). Today, without any workouts, I'm down to 338lbs. Basically 1lb off daily, by eating steaks/ground beef/chicken/turkey/eggs once per day. Best tasting diet ever for me, since I love meat so much. Sometimes there is a second meal, but it did become super easy to keep it at OMAD, One Meal A Day. I eat until comfortably stuffed, so that there is less temptation for a second meal that day.
Water intake is as close to a gallon-per-day as I can get it, but never less than half-a-gallon. That's just water, not counting herbal tea or coffee. No snacks between meals.

Hopefully I can keep this momentum going, and maybe even increase the daily LB loss. But I'd like to thank many of you, as many of your public posts helped me strengthen the discipline around my eating habits. Hopefully one day I can get to my goal. But for now I still got a long way to go....
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Keep up the good work, we're rooting for you! Feel free to use this thread from time to time to keep yourself accountable if that helps, and others too.

To update for me as it's been 5.5 months, I'm at 198 pounds, so down 113 pounds. No changes in anything since the last update. Maybe been to the gym 3-4 times since then. Still no breakfast as I have no hunger in the morning until noon so why not? Some days I do good, others I go to a restaurant and snack quite a bit those days but my average calorie count has kept me level. I'd like to get to 190 pounds I think.

Looking back at pictures of myself at my heaviest weight which really wasn't all that long ago is wild.
 
I was around 300 lbs in 2018. Decided I had to do something so I quit drinking beer, 4 or 5 a day and lost 45 lbs. Then went KETO aiming at not eating anything with more than 3% carbs per serving. High fat and fiber, low carbs did it. I only eat one meal a day in the late afternoon. Got down under 200 lbs but am around 210 and have been there for the last three years.

Got off all meds and the BP is good.
 
Steel cut oats as your first meal is a good way to feel full all day. Also, the buildup of intestinal flora from the fiber has a lasting effect of making you less hungry going forward.

I have steel cut oats with blueberries, walnuts, and collagen powder mixed in. Usually don't eat until noon.

Having coffee with MCT oil or butter does something to prolong a morning fast, I'm not sure how it works though.
 
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SHOZ said:
I was around 300 lbs in 2018. Decided I had to do something so I quit drinking beer, 4 or 5 a day and lost 45 lbs. Then went KETO aiming at not eating anything with more than 3% carbs per serving. High fat and fiber, low carbs did it. I only eat one meal a day in the late afternoon. Got down under 200 lbs but am around 210 and have been there for the last three years.

Got off all meds and the BP is good.
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It's amazing how high fat and low carb diet improves BP, cholesterol and other metrics. Advice by Conventional medicine is questionable at best.
 
SHOZ said:
My triglycerides had always been super high but after a year on the low carb they were borderline low.
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For years I was on a vegan diet because of the triglycerides. Always stayed slightly below pre-diabetic range. It didn't matter what else I did. 8 months of low carb diet and they just plummeted to low. Everything else improved, too. Cholesterol was high and that plummeted, too. Before the test I was expecting extremely high cholesterol but it just had gone down dramatically.

I just don't know how the medicine gets away with their advice and all these prescription medicines they prescribe. It's insane.
 
Vil_Riker said:
For years I was on a vegan diet because of the triglycerides. Always stayed slightly below pre-diabetic range. It didn't matter what else I did. 8 months of low carb diet and they just plummeted to low. Everything else improved, too. Cholesterol was high and that plummeted, too. Before the test I was expecting extremely high cholesterol but it just had gone down dramatically.

I just don't know how the medicine gets away with their advice and all these prescription medicines they prescribe. It's insane.
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Big Gov supports Big Farm to grow grains, then Big Industry makes cheap high carb food. Then Big Gov says you should eat high carb low fat. Then the Big Pharms makes bank treating patients instead of curing them with a sensible diet.

Take the food pyramid the USDA recommends and turn it upside down. Then you have the high fat, low carb, high fiber cave man diet.

The human body evolved on such foods and can metabolize and handle fat much better than sugar. Or the fake subsidized sugar, Fructose.
 
Nick1994 said:
Lengthy post! Not posting this as giving health/nutrition advice. Everyone should eat foods that fit into their own nutrition needs according to their health problems. I'm only sharing what I've done and what has worked for me, in the hopes that maybe it'll help someone else on here to do the same if they are struggling to find something that works, or even to just get started.

Around this past New Year's I reached a new high-score on the scale, 311 pounds. I'm 27, 6'2", and carry my weight pretty well I think, no big belly, it's spread all throughout my body. But I wanted to make a change. I've never done a diet before, years back I started eating better and lost maybe 20 pounds but gained it back, I didn't know what I was doing. I'm now 230 pounds, down 81 pounds since January 1. I still have more to go as I'm aiming at around 200 pounds. Have to get around there to see how I feel and what I look like. I feel alot better. I don't waddle like a duck when walking anymore! I now weigh what I did in high-school and found a pair of jeans in my closet from high-school that are now too big. I tried putting them on a year ago just to see and it was ridiculous, I couldn't get the buttons but 3-4 inches of each other and they were skin tight. Now they're baggy and will fall down without a belt. My blood pressure was consistently around 154/90 and it's now 114/72.

So what's the secret? Calorie deficit. That's literally it. I never put much thought into it before, I always hear of different diets and programs and exercise styles and stuff but what I learned, for me at least, is it's about being in a calorie deficit. This can vary for people with other medical problems like thyroid disease & diabetes. I aim at around 1,600 calories. I was using My Fitness Pal to track my calories but not much anymore, I have a good rough mental estimate as to what I eat now that I can mentally add it up as the day goes. One method I've seen someone talk about on a video I watched was using a calorie calculator to find out what your maintenance calorie number is, and reduce it by 25%-30%. This will continue to go down as you lose weight though, otherwise your weight will eventually plateau.

I don't believe in diets/fads. In my opinion it just isn't sustainable. I feel you're setting yourself up for failure if you're forcing yourself to eat nasty (to you) but "healthy" food, because you need to be in it for the long run. This is a lifestyle change. If you go on the Jenny Craig diet and lose the weight, then what? Eat Jenny Craig food forever until you die? If you go back to your old habits you'll gain all the weight back.

My tips:
  • Intermittent fasting. This is a fancy way of saying "don't eat breakfast". I actually started doing this by accident. By reducing my portions and drinking more water, my appetite got lower. I've eaten breakfast everyday my entire life but one day in around Late February I realized I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was 11am, usually my whole life I would have been starving. I decided to push it to noon and have kept it up since. I learned this was a fancy thing people refer to as intermittent fasting, so you only eat in a 16 hour window (12pm-8pm for me). This has freed up my calories because now I'm not eating 400-500 calories in the morning. This gives me room to eat tastier foods for lunch and dinner!
  • No sugar sodas. I've always been someone to drink 1 sugar soda a day. I stopped January 1 and switched to the "Zero Sugar" sodas. I don't like the aspartame in "Diet" sodas but "Zero Sugar" ones usually have sucralose which tastes more real to me. Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Cherry, Dr. Pepper Zero Sugar Cream Soda, and A&W Zero Sugar are my favorites. Lately I've been drinking 2 a day, would like to cut back to 1 a day again. This is debatable on whether they're better or worse for you than regular soda, but that's an argument for another time. If these help me to lose 100+ pounds by satisfying my sweet-tooth then so be it. 0 calorie is 0 calorie. I can always give it up afterwards. I do drink more water now too.
  • Portion control. I think this is why we Americans are so fat. Not necessarily just what we eat, but how much of it. This is hard. Sometimes you want to go back for seconds after dinner, but I had to learn to change those desires to my next bullet-point.
  • Having low calorie options for when you want something to indulge in. For me it's a Sugar-Free Jello. 10 calories! Helps fill me up too and is nice and sweet. After I eat one I don't have the craving anymore.
  • Not telling myself "No" to something but "Later" unless I can fit it into my calories. If I want a cookie, then I'll make room for it in my calories. Want 2? I can probably figure it out. If I can't do it then I tell myself Later and I can have it tomorrow. I feel restricting myself to something I like for an occasional temptation would set myself up for failure. Kind of a mind-game.
  • Not eating diet foods. I hate salad. If I had to force myself to eat salad everyday because it's a stereotypical "healthy" food then I'd give up. This can be different for everyone. I'm finding more and more healthier foods to incorporate that I like. And they're not perfect. And that's ok, because the alternative would be eating all the terrible crap I was eating beforehand anyways. It's an improvement.
  • Gold Standard Chocolate (or their Vanilla Ice-Cream) flavored protein powder. I tried some other brands and thought they were gross. A scoop of this mixed with 8 ounces of skim-milk and some ice blended is 200 calories. Tastes almost like a chocolate shake and is superrrrr filling. I was using this as breakfast with some fruit in the morning before I stopped breakfast. Now I have it from time to time with fruit on the side as lunch.
  • Exercise. I started out walking my dog for 20-30 minutes a couple times a week. Now it's too hot so I go to Planet Fitness 1x-2x a week and hop on the treadmill for 30 min. I've slowly built up my speed, incline, and don't need to slow it down for a break anymore. Sometimes I do use the other machines. You don't have to kill yourself in the gym running and wiping yourself out. For me, I feel I just needed to start moving. Any exercise is better than sitting on the couch. But I still do plenty of that.
I'm not an expert and I'm not educated in nutrition. Just sharing what has worked so far for me. Hope this helps someone else!
Click to expand...
Have you had blood work done since loosing the weight?
 
Donald said:
Have you had blood work done since loosing the weight?
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I haven't had official blood work but I did have a health screening at work for our health insurance discount program in September and they do a small blood sample. Before is what it was in 2021 vs. this year. My weight on the sheet was with all clothes on. Currently 196lbs.
E59A3E19-AC8E-4E62-A2E0-1E9F2B790C15.jpeg
12E1AFDC-BBAD-4A40-BD89-35503D4E83F5.jpeg
 
Nick1994 said:
I haven't had official blood work but I did have a health screening at work for our health insurance discount program in September and they do a small blood sample. Before is what it was in 2021 vs. this year. My weight on the sheet was with all clothes on. Currently 196lbs.
View attachment 194226View attachment 194227
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Good job. Those who are struggling to improve their cholesterol numbers may want to focus on foods high in plant/pyhto sterols and/or add sterol supplements. Shooting for a daily dose of 2,000 mg split up and taken with meals seems to be the consensus.
 
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Nick1994 said:
I haven't had official blood work but I did have a health screening at work for our health insurance discount program in September and they do a small blood sample. Before is what it was in 2021 vs. this year. My weight on the sheet was with all clothes on. Currently 196lbs.
View attachment 194226View attachment 194227
Click to expand...
You want to get the LDL below 100 preferably below 75.

It's a lot easier to eat better and not have plaque build up in arteries than find out at 65 your arteries are filled with plaque and there is not a whole lot you can do.

Some doctors would put you on a statin with LDL that high.

But good job in loosing the weight.
 
Donald said:
You want to get the LDL below 100 preferably below 75.

It's a lot easier to eat better and not have plaque build up in arteries than find out at 65 your arteries are filled with plaque and there is not a whole lot you can do.

Some doctors would put you on a statin with LDL that high.

But good job in loosing the weight.
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Did you see the after sheet?
 
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