*** Big Fat Weight Loss Thread ***

Crizzy said:
I've got myself into a bit of a state since lockdown, and looking to change my lifestyle so that I can loose weight and keep it sustainable.

What's a good recommended app I can use to help track my weight? Also, I'm a lazy sod so how do I introduce a bit more mobility into my lifestyle? Can I use an app to help me out a bit with this as well?
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For apps, I've been using http://cronometer.com and more mobility? If you're not used to walking, you could try NHS Active 10 which will get you walking 10 minutes three times a day or following on from that is NHS Couch 2 5K. I would never entertained running before that but I totally love it now and feel terrible if I am not out the door and done 5K by 9am.
 
To track what you eat (the calories) you can't go wrong with MyFitnessPal. For exercise, for me and many others, everything flows through Strava, but it really depends on what motivates you. Stats, numbers and competing motivate me, so Strava is great for that.
 
Following the death of my mum at start of the year, the furlough my work kindly granted for last 3 months on back of that, my spiraling depression/anxiety after death of my mum, the fact I didn't leave the house more than 4 times in that 3 months and finally my rampant alcoholism during said time, i've gone from low 80's to about 88/89KG as of last weekend.

Last week I started calorie counting again (MFP) and am sticking with around 1900 cal/day for the time being. This week i'll begin with some mild exercise like walking and next week I intend to do some basic calisthenics like body weight squats, push ups as well as the walking. All in all a gentle start but don't want to go in too hard and crash and burn.

My biggest victory so far is only having a single can of beer at the weekend, since the start of the year I hadn't managed 3 days without a heavy drinking session. I have however discovered some delicious Spiced Rums along the way. They never lasted more than 24 hours after being delivered though.

Aim for end of the year is to try and get to at least under 80KG and be in the mindset to maintain regular exercise and good eating habits. I probably used Uber Eats more this last 3 months than the entirety of last year.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the lingering chest pains that persist, however unsure whether that's emotional or physical.
 
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Joining in the fun with this thread!

After being almost bed bound for the second half of last year with a severe ruptured disc in my back, finally had surgery in January!

Was around 105kg and a 34" waist at the start of 2020, but lockdown + the above led me to around 125kg just before my surgery in Jan, which is definitely the biggest i've ever been! :eek:

Just taken delivery of my second musclefood meal plan, which has me eating 1700kcal a day, and is a great help as being so busy now i'm back at work having the chore of working out what to eat and meal prepping is a god send!

Limited to what I can do physically at the moment due to the surgery, but got to ok to ride my mountain bike and trying to get out walking as much as possible!

Will take some measurements and jump on the scales as within 3-4 months i'd like to be back down below 110kg and then finally make that push i've never done before to get to what I think will be my ideal weight, around 99-100kg.

Obviously the mirror and measurements are much more important than what the scales say, but think the double digits will be a great thing to aim for! :p


SixTwoSix said:
Following the death of my mum at start of the year, the furlough my work kindly granted for last 3 months on back of that, my spiraling depression/anxiety after death of my mum, the fact I didn't leave the house more than 4 times in that 3 months and finally my rampant alcoholism during said time, i've gone from low 80's to about 88/89KG as of last weekend.

Last week I started calorie counting again (MFP) and am sticking with around 1900 cal/day for the time being. This week i'll begin with some mild exercise like walking and next week I intend to do some basic calisthenics like body weight squats, push ups as well as the walking. All in all a gentle start but don't want to go in too hard and crash and burn.

My biggest victory so far is only having a single can of beer at the weekend, since the start of the year I hadn't managed 3 days without a heavy drinking session. I have however discovered some delicious Spiced Rums along the way. They never lasted more than 24 hours after being delivered though.

Aim for end of the year is to try and get to at least under 80KG and be in the mindset to maintain regular exercise and good eating habits. I probably used Uber Eats more this last 3 months than the entirety of last year.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the lingering chest pains that persist, however unsure whether that's emotional or physical.
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Great work taking the leap to getting better mate, sounds like you've had a rough few months!
 
Megahurtz400 said:
Great work taking the leap to getting better mate, sounds like you've had a rough few months!
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Thanks...and good luck with your journey too :)

While the initial trigger was out of my control, everything that followed is firmly my own responsibility and it's time to get myself together. My biggest struggle is the last couple of hours before bed watching TV, the rest of the day I find easier to restrict my eating.

I'm also using Musclefood for a lot of prepped meals, I haven't gone with their dedicated plan, just their 'buy 7 meals, get 7 free'. For the most part they're surprisingly well put together and very tasty and equates to about £2'ish a meal.
 
And Friday i finally topped the 100kg mark at 100.2kg. That's the first time in over 12 months that i've been that heavy and i think the drinking/eating over the Easter Weekend finally gave me the motivation to sort myself out (i know i've said this before!). Today had me down to 97.5 so i know any drops should come quicker as it's more about getting back to a normal weight from a spike up, as opposed to the higher weight being the "norm".

Haven't had alcohol since last Monday which is my main vice. I don't tend to drink midweek anyway, but can easily have beer, wine and whisky each night over the weekend, which by Monday has cumulatively ruined my body and has an impact on exercise. Hoping to see some improvements there and have strived to not drink till my birthday on the 9th May (Well the 8th as we're going out on the Saturday)

I'm also aiming to reduce butter and salt consumption. Most things i eat i'll add what my wife refers to as "Death Salt" and any bread etc will be covered in butter. I'm hoping those two elements help my circulation which i've noticed has got steadily worse with colder feet/hands over the last 12 months. Mainly from being at home and having toast/bread for breakfast/dinner.

Hopefully the above combined with returning to running will give me a good boost. My general diet is still good in the whole. My issue being the lack of running and still eating the same as when i was running ~40 miles a week.
 
@SixTwoSix I can't speak highly enough of the musclefoods plan so far, obviously I haven't seen any results yet but all the meals are great and not having to work out what i'm going to eat and cook everyday is a god send when i'm so busy with work and trying to exercise!

I'm on the 6 day at the moment, which is 1700 calories a day and I rarely feel ravenous throughout the day. Will try and stick to 2500 kcal on the Sunday, which should average out around 1800kcal a day across the week
 
SixTwoSix said:
My biggest struggle is the last couple of hours before bed watching TV, the rest of the day I find easier to restrict my eating.
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Something else we share then. I was sure I posted about this in this thread, but having a quick look, I don't see it. Maybe like you, my routine has me watching TV for the last hour or hour and a half before bed and this is when I tend to succumb to hunger and can often eat 1,000-1,200 cals while watching. Knowing this, I will sometimes try and keep lower cals during the day, so it's okay for me to do this at the end of the day.

SixTwoSix said:
I'm also using Musclefood for a lot of prepped meals, I haven't gone with their dedicated plan, just their 'buy 7 meals, get 7 free'.
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I keep a back stock of their 'prepped pots' in my freezer, basically frozen microwave meals between 310 and 350 cals each and generally very tasty when you find the ones you like.
 
AndyCr15 said:
Something else we share then. I was sure I posted about this in this thread, but having a quick look, I don't see it. Maybe like you, my routine has me watching TV for the last hour or hour and a half before bed and this is when I tend to succumb to hunger and can often eat 1,000-1,200 cals while watching. Knowing this, I will sometimes try and keep lower cals during the day, so it's okay for me to do this at the end of the day.
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Same, I can sit and get through big bags of crisps, munch on sausage rolls, pork pie, cheese on toast for that last few hours and if beer is also combined, it's calorie overload. This last week i've managed to get to 7PM with having only eaten around 1200 calories so it's giving me the opportunity to snack a little.

AndyCr15 said:
I keep a back stock of their 'prepped pots' in my freezer, basically frozen microwave meals between 310 and 350 cals each and generally very tasty when you find the ones you like.
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Thing i've noticed is there are decent portions of veg and they are very satiating. My equivalent sandwiches would be close to 600 calories and i'd still be hungry afterwards at lunch time.
 
Slipped a little last night and had KFC, however, it's not all bad.

Typically, with KFC, i'd order a 12 piece boneless and share it with my brother in law. Equates to 6 fillets, 2 portions of fries, some popcorn chicken and 2/3 dips (I don't like KFC sides).

Instead, last night, I ordered a 4 piece boneless with fries and dip and due to my restricted eating during the day, it slotted nicely into my circa ~1900 cals a day. Even left over enough 'discretionary' calories for a snack while watching TV later on.

Nice to know if i'm sensible I can still enjoy some dirty food :D
 
SixTwoSix said:
Slipped a little last night and had KFC, however, it's not all bad.

Typically, with KFC, i'd order a 12 piece boneless and share it with my brother in law. Equates to 6 fillets, 2 portions of fries, some popcorn chicken and 2/3 dips (I don't like KFC sides).

Instead, last night, I ordered a 4 piece boneless with fries and dip and due to my restricted eating during the day, it slotted nicely into my circa ~1900 cals a day. Even left over enough 'discretionary' calories for a snack while watching TV later on.

Nice to know if i'm sensible I can still enjoy some dirty food :D
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Heathen! Their gravy is god like!

The others i'll agree are poor.
 
Martynt74 said:
Heathen! Their gravy is god like!
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On that my friend, we'll have to disagree, I just can't subscribe to gravy on fried chicken :(

For me, gravy is made properly, from the meat juices at the bottom of the pan after a roast, with the vegetable water and if needed, the smallest amount of an Oxo cube. It's then enjoyed on straight cuts of meat in a huge roast dinner.

Damn, am hungry now!
 
Oh well yeah, that's proper gravy and also delicious. Especially with the water from boiling the roasties to help thicken it up. I'm also now hungry :(


As for me, i weighed in at 96.8, so last weeks topping 100kg was definitely a blip, aided by not drinking over the weekend and getting back to running a few times this week. Am going to really make an effort to push down to 90kg now, although it's my birthday in 3 weeks and that absolutely ruined my progress last year. People buy me too much beer and sweets!
 
Martynt74 said:
As for me, i weighed in at 96.8, so last weeks topping 100kg was definitely a blip, aided by not drinking over the weekend and getting back to running a few times this week. Am going to really make an effort to push down to 90kg now, although it's my birthday in 3 weeks and that absolutely ruined my progress last year. People buy me too much beer and sweets!
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Progress is progress, you're down some so that's what matters.

You probably already know and it may have already been mentioned in the thread but weight can fluctuate up and down by around 2.5kg day to day, i've witnessed it myself. For this reason I try to do a single weigh in a week but it's really tempting to check daily.
 
So, may as well chip in here as it's a path I'm also on. Got myself into mountain biking as a way to get healthy around the end of Jan/early Feb, and quickly learnt just how unfit I was to go with being overweight. Current progress is 105kg down to 99kg, with an aim of sub-90 by the end of the year at least. Now I expect I'll be both shedding fat and gaining muscle at the same time so the numbers might change slower than expected, but progress is progress!

Honestly not changed my lifestyle much, just paying more attention to how much I eat and logging everything using MFP, managed to have a calorie deficit every week since starting. That plus the increased exercise seems to be doing a job!
 
SixTwoSix said:
weight can fluctuate up and down by around 2.5kg day to day, i've witnessed it myself. For this reason I try to do a single weigh in a week
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For me this is the reason to do regular weigh ins. If I do just one weigh in a week, as you say it can fluctuate so much, I wont really know what my weight is! If I weigh regularly I can see where the trend is... if that makes sense?
 
Yeah, I stopped doing daily weigh-ins and went to weekly but I found the lack of data was causing me to eat bad things more often than not. So now I'm back daily and can do an instant course correction if the weight goes up several days in a row.

Started keto again on Monday. I know I've lost a lot of water in the past five days (hopefully not muscle as my protein intake was quite high) but down 5kg already! Now at 75.7kg which is a weight I've not recorded since I started doing this 18 months ago. Only about 7 more to go!
 
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