Psymonkee is getting thinner....

So yeah.....long overdue thread and long overdue lifestyle change in order.

As far as I know only 2 regular posters in here have actually met me and both of them know how bad a state I've got myself into and the inevitable work I have to do to turn this around.

I've also foolishly challenged DailyGeek to something of race/competition in terms of weight loss - his thread is here!

I've tried to do things about this before in many differing guises and had great success with low carb diets....then it all goes right back on as soon as I resumed my awful lifestyle

Actually looking at my typical daily diet the really obvious thing that stands out is I eat far too much in the way of snacks. Like really, really bad. As in I can quite happily eat a 4 pack of chocolate bars in a 15 minute break. POW 1,000 calories right there. Quite easily do that twice a day too. Then I'd bring more food home, have dinner (meat and veg type thing) and then consume the rubbish I'd brought home too!

Easy to see where the excess of calorie input is coming from and should be easy to put a stop to. In theory.

Starting tomorrow (convenient eh?) I shall be properly tracking calories using My Fitness Pal, exercising regularly and hopefully keeping my motivation up and making it stick this time. I have to really - I'm struggling horrendously.

Basic info about me looks a bit like this:

Height: 6'1"
Weight: Currently unknown, scale tops out at 32st and I'm past that
Age: 31

As you can see a lot needs to change and FAST! I work in a supermarket a mere half mile away yet I drive to work. I simply cannot even walk that far. I can deal with being out of breathe quite easily but currently even the simple act of walking and standing generates massive back pain - my legs don't exactly last much longer either.

Exercise plans until this drastically improves are fairly simple:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday will be weights, most likely Stronglifts 5x5 as I'm familiar with it

Tuesday/Thursday I'll attempt to throw in some cardio in the form of a rowing machine for as long as I can (until the squats become too much...)

First goal: Get successfully weighed in MY scales.

Today's food diary (yeah I started a day early )

Breakfast: 3 Bacon, 1 Fried egg, 2 black pudding (small, Nick Nairn - so tasty ), 1 wholemeal toast - ~522 calories

Lunch: Tomato Soup 400ml, 2 slices of wholemeal bread, 1 pack (10 slices) of pastrami - ~598 calories

Dinner: Homemade beef and veg stew at ~409 calories

Total for the day: 1529 calories

Also don't feel bloated and stuffed - wonder why....onwards!

Good man! You have my full support. Although your food diary made me hungry!

Good on you bro get on it! My first recommendation is to up your calories. You are going to be cutting weight for a long time and you want as much of a 'buffer' as you can get.
By that I mean you want to be losing weight on as much food as possible, which for someone your height/weight will be a lot more than ~1500kcal.
The higher you start the more room you've got to go, I would expect 1500kcal to be your cutting kcals a long long time from now.

I hope that makes sense, any questions fire away.

Makes plenty of sense and I do intend to up them, especially on workout days.

Sadly my job is as sedentary as it gets (checkouts) and awful food is cheap and plentiful in the shop.

Chris1712 said:

Good on you bro get on it! My first recommendation is to up your calories. You are going to be cutting weight for a long time and you want as much of a 'buffer' as you can get.
By that I mean you want to be losing weight on as much food as possible, which for someone your height/weight will be a lot more than ~1500kcal.
The higher you start the more room you've got to go, I would expect 1500kcal to be your cutting kcals a long long time from now.

I hope that makes sense, any questions fire away.

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Definitely this, at the moment you could probably eat at that level for a while but it will quickly become a major chore you'll feel extra crap and loose motivation quickly.
Even with a very sedentary job now you're going to be working out and taking into account your size you'd probably still be able to drop weight quite quickly on nearly 3,000kcals (good food, not chocolate ).
That leaves a lot of headroom for you to lower it as you shrink and means you won't just hit a brick wall with no where to go and loose motivation.
Good luck, it'll be hard work but there's always plenty of motivation on here and it's definitely worth it in the end

Yeah done a little checking on several different websites and the general answer is I can get away with 3200kcals a day and still lose weight. Only thing is I'm not really all that hungry after eating properly these last 2 days.

I'll have a play with the calories as I go along - can always just have a little more later in the day if I do feel hungry though

Anyhoo onto today's stuff:

Hitting much closer to 2000 calories today and lots of meat (silly work Deli so not amazing stuff)

Exercise wise I can't even get in the garage today (abandoned bikes, christmas decs and fireworks) so did rowing instead. Not too much since I've barely any stamina/cardio fitness at all but managed some warmup/intervals/cool down and survived:

https://www.fitocracy.com/entry/29469768/

Feels good. Obviously!

Strange day: up early to get the car in for it's MOT, slightly bigger than normal breakfast at about 9.30 but then by the time lunch rolled around I found myself not really that hungry. Since then I had a fairly normal main meal for dinner and this leaves me at a scant 1300 calories on the day.

Done my 1st day of stronglifts, cleaned up in the garage, too stuff to the dump and had a go at fixing the car so a fairly active day (unlike work days) so quite surprised by the appetite problems.

Oh well - onwards

//edit: In light of the lack of calories for the day I've had a few bits from the fridge to eat and nearly another litre of water

Subscribing to follow this. If you ever need any advice mate I'm always around.

Will power is key. When I did my three month diet last year (1200 cal a day) I found I couldn't exercise as I would have only been living on 200-300 calories a day.

tom_e said:

Definitely this, at the moment you could probably eat at that level for a while but it will quickly become a major chore you'll feel extra crap and loose motivation quickly.
Even with a very sedentary job now you're going to be working out and taking into account your size you'd probably still be able to drop weight quite quickly on nearly 3,000kcals (good food, not chocolate ).
That leaves a lot of headroom for you to lower it as you shrink and means you won't just hit a brick wall with no where to go and loose motivation.
Good luck, it'll be hard work but there's always plenty of motivation on here and it's definitely worth it in the end

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Also losing the weight more slowly; will this help him from loose skin or can the body not "lose" the extra skin no matter how long the weight loss takes?

Good luck to you fella - slow and steady and you'll get there.

AndrewNR said:

Also losing the weight more slowly; will this help him from loose skin or can the body not "lose" the extra skin no matter how long the weight loss takes?

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My limited research (google ) suggest the skin may adapt if you lose weight slow enough/break it into stages but it's not a quick process!


On to today:

A less active day with lots of sleeping in and a bad breakfast (toast w/ choc spread!) but this was redeemed by chicken salad for lunch, pork chop (lean) + veg for dinner and some late night MEAT (ham ) (just over 2000 calories for the day!)

Exercise was a little bit of rowing - 2km in 12mins 1.5 sec and me faffing around with some DDP Yoga whilst waiting for the Rockets game to start!

Oh and a 2.5 hour game of Zombicide! (Brain melting zombie murder )

You know where I am for moral support & advice

<3

*knock knock*

(I know where you live )

What's your myfitnesspal username? Can I add you and share food diaries?

Same as on here

Good luck Simon - hope this year offers you better achievement of your goals.

AndrewNR said:

Also losing the weight more slowly; will this help him from loose skin or can the body not "lose" the extra skin no matter how long the weight loss takes?

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If the weight loss is slow and steady then the skin will tighten up to a certain extent but depending on how much it has been stretched there is a chance it will never return to a completely taught state.

Good luck, sir. You've got a lot to lose, don't drop the ball!

Freefaller said:

Good luck Simon - hope this year offers you better achievement of your goals.

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Thanks! Hopefully I don't do my calf muscle in like I did this time last year - that certainly didn't help!

dirtychinchilla said:

Good luck, sir. You've got a lot to lose, don't drop the ball!

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Cheers! As for the ball? It's mine now and I'm not gonna give it up

Added you now, but you've not shared your food diary!