Vidar's unofficially official weight loss log.
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Soldato
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The first week or so your body will just be shedding water. What you should do is photograph yourself in the mornings after waking/going to the loo once every couple of weeks or once a month. It's much easier to see changes this way over a long period rather than subjectively relying on how you feel you look in the mirror on any given day.
Also I assume even with the dietary changes you are still tracking your intake? Weight loss ultimately comes down to energy balance and while healthier food choices will provide more vitamins, minerals, fibre etc. fat won't be going anywhere without a caloric deficit and the size of this deficit will affect the average rate at which weight is lost. Aiming for a loss of 0.5-1% of your total bodyweight is a generalised safe range for most people, although this assumes you care about preserving lean body mass (muscle, bone density etc).
Cheat meals can also wipe out any deficit you've created during the week if you go too crazy - it's much better in the long run to allow a little flexibility in your diet to fit some of those kinds of foods into your calories/macros (say 10% of your daily/weekly intake) so that you avoid any potential kooky dietary behaviours like purging foods for your diet totally then binging on them because it's 'cheat' time or feeling that because you had one cookie, the diet is broken so you might as well eat the whole box.
Actually no, I'm not currently tracking my intake although its becoming something I'm more and more I'm considering, not because I think for one second I'm eating too much but just because I'm starting to want to be more accurate about things. What I know for sure is I'm consuming far less than I was before. I definitely didn't go crazy with the two cheat meals, I don't even feel tempted to over do it.
Just to give an indication of what I am eating, yesterday it was:
Breakfast: approx 50g of Go Lean crunch cereal, a dash of semi skimmed milk and a large cup of green tea.
Lunch: 4oz grilled lean minute steak, one medium sized sweet potato as home made wedges, a decent handful of mixed salad. 1Ltr of water and 2 kiwi fruit.
Dinner: 400g of lean diced pork, 1 large portabello mushroom, 125g whole grain rice and half a jar of Balti curry sauce. 1 Large mug of green tea with a squeeze of lemon and a £2 box of scottish strawberries
Okay and while I'm not starving myself, surely there's a deficit here
I allow myself one takeaway a week, as its a bit of a tradition with my door staff on the Saturday night when the pub closes to have some food... usually salt and pepper chicken peices and rice and a drink, usually a coke for me and that's that. I'm not even tempted to go out and buy things like crisps and cookies etc now
Just to give an indication of what I am eating, yesterday it was:
Breakfast: approx 50g of Go Lean crunch cereal, a dash of semi skimmed milk and a large cup of green tea.
Lunch: 4oz grilled lean minute steak, one medium sized sweet potato as home made wedges, a decent handful of mixed salad. 1Ltr of water and 2 kiwi fruit.
Dinner: 400g of lean diced pork, 1 large portabello mushroom, 125g whole grain rice and half a jar of Balti curry sauce. 1 Large mug of green tea with a squeeze of lemon and a £2 box of scottish strawberries
Okay and while I'm not starving myself, surely there's a deficit here
I allow myself one takeaway a week, as its a bit of a tradition with my door staff on the Saturday night when the pub closes to have some food... usually salt and pepper chicken peices and rice and a drink, usually a coke for me and that's that. I'm not even tempted to go out and buy things like crisps and cookies etc now
What you had yesterday would place you in a pretty large deficit at your current weight - It may be worth having a food diary for a few weeks, and reference that to your weight loss.
That should give you an indication of if you need to increase your kcals or not. I would recommend trying to keep constant for around 3 weeks or so, then review before changing anything again.
Ive actually done a rough MFP recording of what you ate yesterday - it comes to around 1500kcals - that isn't counting any oils etc used during cooking. That is very low - I'd say much too low for a guy of your size. Your BMR is around 2900 Kcals - that without any activity / walking around.
Again - I recommend you record what you are eating for a few weeks and match it to your weight loss, going in too low at this stage is likely to result in large amounts of initial weight loss then your body clinging on to what it has - or, much like myself in the past, throwing in the towel after 3 weeks or so of dieting.
That should give you an indication of if you need to increase your kcals or not. I would recommend trying to keep constant for around 3 weeks or so, then review before changing anything again.
Ive actually done a rough MFP recording of what you ate yesterday - it comes to around 1500kcals - that isn't counting any oils etc used during cooking. That is very low - I'd say much too low for a guy of your size. Your BMR is around 2900 Kcals - that without any activity / walking around.
Again - I recommend you record what you are eating for a few weeks and match it to your weight loss, going in too low at this stage is likely to result in large amounts of initial weight loss then your body clinging on to what it has - or, much like myself in the past, throwing in the towel after 3 weeks or so of dieting.
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Soldato
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Massive deficits will create massive weight loss - some of it will be masked by increased water retention etc but you can't cheat physics - but outside of very specific short-term inteventionalist protein-sparing modified fast diets it's not recommended since
a) you will be losing lean body mass as well, although without resistance training you will lose some lean body mass regardless
b) higher chance of loose skin once you get to goal weight
c) chance of developing gallbladder problems/gallstones
d) poverty calories = miserable
a) you will be losing lean body mass as well, although without resistance training you will lose some lean body mass regardless
b) higher chance of loose skin once you get to goal weight
c) chance of developing gallbladder problems/gallstones
d) poverty calories = miserable
I really appreciate the advice guys, I've now registered on my fitness pal as 'vidarsbane' if anyone wants to add me or anything...
I'm not deliberately trying to have a massive defecit, in fact I'm eating when I'm hungry and can't say I've felt miserable at all. There are certain factors that are limiting how much I can consume in a day which is mainly cost as lean meats, fresh fruit and vegetables are costing me more each week than what I was having previously. But I certainly don't feel like I'm going without.
I can say sometimes, shortly after finishing a meal I feel hungry again but 9 times out of 10 that goes once I've drank some water, or chewed on sugar free mint gum or something.
I'm not deliberately trying to have a massive defecit, in fact I'm eating when I'm hungry and can't say I've felt miserable at all. There are certain factors that are limiting how much I can consume in a day which is mainly cost as lean meats, fresh fruit and vegetables are costing me more each week than what I was having previously. But I certainly don't feel like I'm going without.
I can say sometimes, shortly after finishing a meal I feel hungry again but 9 times out of 10 that goes once I've drank some water, or chewed on sugar free mint gum or something.
Thank you mate, have accepted your request...
Am actually looking forward to Friday now when I have my first weigh in since seriously starting on my diet, I'm obviously not expecting anything drastic but I'm hoping to see some small change at least.
Am actually looking forward to Friday now when I have my first weigh in since seriously starting on my diet, I'm obviously not expecting anything drastic but I'm hoping to see some small change at least.
Thank you mate!
Right, I weighed myself today at Boots pharmacy as my scales haven't turned up and am waiting on a refund... I won't be anywhere near a set of scales on Friday so.. yeah.
STATS - 29/04/15
Height: 6ft8
Age: 31
Weight: 23st 13lbs (7lb drop)
Waist: Need a tape measure!
I know I should be really pleased, my diet is (at least I think so) going very well. I'm in no way miserable at all but for someone who has lost half a stone, while I am pleased it feels a bit lack luster. Probably because I can't see anything visual, yeah I know it will come and I'm not looking at myself every few minutes in the mirror but yeah...
Anyway just gotta keep moving in the right direction
Right, I weighed myself today at Boots pharmacy as my scales haven't turned up and am waiting on a refund... I won't be anywhere near a set of scales on Friday so.. yeah.
STATS - 29/04/15
Height: 6ft8
Age: 31
Weight: 23st 13lbs (7lb drop)
Waist: Need a tape measure!
I know I should be really pleased, my diet is (at least I think so) going very well. I'm in no way miserable at all but for someone who has lost half a stone, while I am pleased it feels a bit lack luster. Probably because I can't see anything visual, yeah I know it will come and I'm not looking at myself every few minutes in the mirror but yeah...
Anyway just gotta keep moving in the right direction
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One thing I would recommend is getting a fitbit band, they might sound trivial and a novelty that will wear off but they sure put things into perspective of how much you move a day. In an IT job I was often doing about 2500 steps a day which is pretty woeful, now I'm making sure I hit 10k a day, it's definitely made me more active. You can add friends etc too so it makes it a bit more competitive.
7lb is good work for a first weigh in, don't expect too much too soon. Just keep at it, stay focused, don't go over the top with things and it'll keep coming off. Before you know it you'll be 5/6 weigh ins down and the difference will really start to show.
Yeah I just spent about £50 buying more meat from Musclefood which should last me another 10 to 14 after it's delivered. That coupled with fresh fruit and vegetables etc every 3 days on average and I'm doing well I think.
I'm determined to keep going, I want to be around 12-13 stone without adding muscle, but I know once I start hitting the gym that will change as I start to put on lean muscle.
Not that I'm worried about it at the moment but can anyone recommend a skin tightening cream, I'd like to limit the amount of excess skin I'm left with and I know I'll have a bit as I've had my gut for over 10 years...
I'm determined to keep going, I want to be around 12-13 stone without adding muscle, but I know once I start hitting the gym that will change as I start to put on lean muscle.
Not that I'm worried about it at the moment but can anyone recommend a skin tightening cream, I'd like to limit the amount of excess skin I'm left with and I know I'll have a bit as I've had my gut for over 10 years...
I'm really unsure if those things work - its something I need to look into as I've already got a pocket of loose skin with 2 stone still to go. If you do get a recommendation for a decent one I'd be interested to hear also.
Soldato
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- 17 Jun 2010
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AFAIK you're pretty much stuck with hoping it tightens up over time, which can take many months/a year or more (it helps if your weight is stabilised for a while once you've lost it), but even then depending on how big you were when you started you might not have much luck and surgery ends up being the only realistic way to sort it out. All you can do is lose weight at a sensible pace.
From what I've seen very noticeable loose skin tends to be more of a problem if you're starting out extremely overweight. If you're just sporting a bit of a gut it shouldn't be as bad, although obviously age is a factor too because as you get older your skin loses some of it's tightness.
From what I've seen very noticeable loose skin tends to be more of a problem if you're starting out extremely overweight. If you're just sporting a bit of a gut it shouldn't be as bad, although obviously age is a factor too because as you get older your skin loses some of it's tightness.
I think I know why I'm not as chuffed with my 7lb weight loss as I should be... because I've only really undone what I did to myself since Christmas and I certainly wasn't happy with my figure before that.
Still though it's going in the right direction (as I keep saying) and that's the best thing, I know I'll be over the moon when I creep in under 20st! What I'm finding more and more tempting is to weigh myself weekly so I can see it coming off more readily but I really didn't want to get hung up on what the scales say.
This loose skin thing is a worry as I highly doubt I'd get it on the NHS and getting roughly 6k to have it removed privately is about as likely as me sprouting wings but then as my Mum said having a bit of loose skin is better than getting heart disease or worse lol
Still though it's going in the right direction (as I keep saying) and that's the best thing, I know I'll be over the moon when I creep in under 20st! What I'm finding more and more tempting is to weigh myself weekly so I can see it coming off more readily but I really didn't want to get hung up on what the scales say.
This loose skin thing is a worry as I highly doubt I'd get it on the NHS and getting roughly 6k to have it removed privately is about as likely as me sprouting wings but then as my Mum said having a bit of loose skin is better than getting heart disease or worse lol