248 this morning. I'm lifting and walking a lot but I've also been eating terribly lately. Diet is 80% or more no matter what anyone says. Even on days where I burn 1000-1500 more than my base calorie requirements, I've got to make sure I don't pig out.

Last week we had a really nice catered party at work and I ate my weight in bacon wrapped buffalo chicken. LDT gotta check himself.

I'm really hoping Trooper97 stops by the thread. He is going around America to random card rooms and keeps complaining about his weight and how he's going to make some big changes. Tim, I met you in Cincy and would love to have you on the journey with us!

New to the thread.

Began weight loss a few weeks ago at 272.5. I am 6'2.
Former athlete, but have always struggled a bit with my weight. Low weight since becoming an adult was around 195 as a high school senior. I've oscillated between 220 and 275 since that point.

I made a healthy wager to lose 65 pounds in 6 months. Since beginning at 272.5, I am currently at 255. I have until November 3 to lose the rest to earn $2100.

I'm mostly restricting calorie intake by cutting out bad drinks and sweets. I am doing some intermittent fasting. Occasionally I eat poorly, but generally do not snack, so this makes things easier.

Recently added a running routine which has been challenging. Yesterday I ran 13 miles at a 13:30min/mile pace.

Good luck to all. Main impetus for weight loss is that I'm 31 now and want to get in shape for better health. I also am getting married next April, so this helps with motivation.

Finally hit the 25 pounds down mark, slightly under three months since I decided to get in better shape. Still long way to go. Haven't seen 199 since high school, making that my goal by May 2018. 43 to go.

Nice work by all in here lately! Glad to be in here, as I am currently enjoying my Euro vacation, I'm realizing that once I return to normal day to day routines, I need to keep the goals alive! Health and brain power are important to me and I need my actions to mirror this importance!

Starting Weight - May 1st, 2017 @ 273
Current Weight - May 22nd, 2017 @ 257 (-16)
Goal Weight - 220

This past weekend was my 32nd birthday. To celebrate, I decided to hobble through a half-marathon with my older brother. I really didn't take training as seriously as I should have, but I even surprised myself with consistently running the first 10 miles, albeit relatively slowly. I hit the wall after mile 10 and my overall pace took a complete nosedive (11:51 pace overall), but I was happy just to cross the finish line in one piece.

Didn't have the greatest eating weekend due to celebrating my birthday and other family events, but I was strict during the week while at work so I still saw some good weight loss.

The countdown to my WSOP trip continues. I'd be very happy if I am down to 230-235 by that visit. Want to look my best for when I capture my first bracelet of course!

@ Making the Move - This is essentially what I've done in the past with great results. I'm also following this routine for my current weight loss strategy and I've already seen some good progress.

Hey LDT, not sure if anyone else has mentioned this or if you are familiar with it, but the Coach-to-5k (C25K) app really helped me with my running goals.

Similar to you, I was never much of a runner and never felt the need to run for long distances at a time. Fast forward to when I met my then co-worker (now fiance) who likes to run, I had to figure out a way to keep up with her. The Coach-to-5k app starts off relatively slowly, but over a 9-12 week period you will find yourself running 3 miles straight with little problems.

After running through that routine for a while, I eventually upgraded to the 10k training plan, to current day where I have three half-marathons (13.1 miles) under my belt. Granted this all occurred over a 4-year period, but I'm very proud considering I was a guy who couldn't even run for 5 minutes straight.

I used the Couch to 5K by RunDouble on my Android. Not sure if the same app exists on iPhone, but I strongly recommend it if you are interested in starting your running from scratch.

Given your starting weight, your goal weight, your running, and your approach, it looks like we're in a similar spot. I set my goal weight at 207.5, but I look great at 220, so I won't complain if I get there.

I'm also going on a WSOP trip and have that as a milestone where I want to be down a certain weight.

So, I guess, good luck!

ETA: I also was a non-runner before meeting my now-fiance who runs half-marathons (whole family runs in events regularly). This forced me to take it up, and it's been easier than I thought. It's like we're living parallel lives!

Maybe to a certain degree, but at some point it's getting really hard to eat enough food. Friend of mine is a serious cyclist. On days when they ride 8 hours through mountains, they burn through 5-8k calories (pros up to 10k) and spend the evening with eating countless bowls of pasta.

On a day when I run 16-20 miles, there's no way for me to eat 4K+ calories. I just can't do it. Last week I played poker at Tunica and went to the breakfast buffet at Goldstrike in the morning. Prolly ate somewhere between 2-3k calories and didn't get hungry again until lunch on the next day, even though I did some pretty rough hill repeats in the evening and knew I should eat after that.

Good job! Getting to run a half marathon is a very impressive achievement for an adult starting back from scratch.

I have no idea if it's true or not, but I always feel like it's a way bigger challenge for somebody to run a half marathon in 3 hours than it is for a little more experienced runners like me to do one in 1:30.

I've been traveling through the South for the last two weeks and unfortunately ate like sh*t most of the time. Prolly had more fried food than I had in the last year combined. Still was able to take advantage of a flat course and decent conditions to do a 5k in 18:35 on Saturday. Got some pretty cool stuff for that, including a $50 gift certificate for Dick's Sporting Goods. Went there today and was kinda disappointed that a store of that size has so little that I'm interested in. Decided to wait until they hopefully get the Vapor Fly 4% and Zoom Fly after Nike releases them on 06/08 and take a closer look at those.

Thank you for the info and advice and welcome to the thread. I will definitely look into it after I get back from vacation next week.

I'm leaving on a cruise on Sunday. I know I always pig out so the plan is to walk as much as possible to offset eating 4-5 lobster tails in one sitting. Going to avoid the bread (even though it's awesome) and try to only eat pizza a couple times per week. Plan to do some open ocean swimming (I think that's the right term) while we're in ports and hit the gym for heavy lifting on sea days. Obviously it's vacation, so the goal is always to burn some calories giving hot beef injections.

Good luck on the bet Making the Move!

Down to 253, which is 19.5 pounds of loss since May 2. I'm pleased with that.

One of the things I always forget is the elasticity of the stomach. When I go on severe calorie restriction and/or skip meals, my stomach begins to shrink. I've been helped by this. My last two meals have been far from clean--boneless wings and Detroit-style pizza--but I've been helped by my smaller stomach. I've eaten about half the meal both times.

In the past, I was a -1000 favorite to finish everything on my plate, no matter what I ordered. My boneless meal the other night was 6 very large chicken fingers. I ate 3 and almost got sick looking at the 4th.

I've noticed that because of my work--I'm a consultant working from home--skipping lunch is extremely easy. I sold my car recently and Uber around the city. So it's logistically difficult to get to food. And I don't keep much to eat around the house. I am also quite busy during the middle of the day. I've found intermittent fasting to be easier because I can miss lunch.

The challenge when I'm trying to go through 48-hour periods of intermittent fasting is skipping that first dinner. I can easily skip lunch two days in a row because it's a habit now. That leaves only one skipped dinner, then I can break the fast the next day at dinner.

The only question is how this impacts my energy levels. Restricting calorie intake necessarily makes me very tired.

I'm settling in for a long grind, but I'm looking forward to that point when people begin to really notice. It's always a nice motivator to keep going when the comments flow in. (I know I should be intrinsically motivated, but life's not perfect).

I couldn't find hot beef injections on MyFitnessPal, must be some mistake.

48-hour IF is pretty intense. Are you doing a 48-hour fast consistently or only once a week while doing a less restrictive fast (16:8 / 20:4) the rest of the week?

For this current stint, I'm doing a 20:4 IF cycle and my body/mind has finally gotten used to the cadence. I rarely find myself hungry or low on energy, which makes the fasting pretty normal for me.

Have you seen added benefits (weight loss) with the 48-hour fasting?

Great work on the weight loss so far by the way. I'm hoping to have similar progress on my weigh-in next week.

Trying to do 48 hours once per week. I did it Sunday lunch through Tuesday lunch. I'd do it more often, but don't feel confident I can add in any type of exercise doing it that regularly.

Otherwise, I'm doing a series of 24 hour fasts.

The 48-hour fasting has been beneficial mentally for me. It's helped to accelerate my weight loss for sure, but it's also helped to clear the scale occasionally, to keep me more mentally in it.

You know when you've been in a calorie deficit for a few days, but you've also been running and/or eating high sodium. Your body retains water because of both of those things, so the scale won't budge despite your calorie deficit. This can frustrate me and knock me off track. I find the 48-hour fast clears a lot of that retained water (because I drink a lot of water while fasting). Then the 3 or 4 pounds that have been refusing to come off of the number will fall off.

Ideally those pounds were going to come off anyway, but being able to see it is a big help to me. I have a difficult time trusting the process in the early going if the scale isn't responding.

My energy levels have been fine on 24-hour fasts. Like you, I've gotten into a good rhythm with it. My fiance also eats pretty clean around dinner time, so I'm able to eat healthy along with the fast. That's always been the biggest challenge for me. It's easy to justify eating poorly after a long fast, but I end up benefiting when I can break the fast with some 500-calorie deal my fiance has concocted. Best of both worlds.

Came here to grind during WSOP. Low 160s last time I checked. Supposed to be cutting to 160 but given all the free dinners here...not gonna happen. New goal is to not surpass 165.

Starting Weight - May 1st, 2017 @ 273
Current Weight - May 29th, 2017 @ 253 (-20)
Goal Weight - 220

I continue to see good weight loss, mainly by monitoring my daily calories and being mindful of the kind of foods I am putting in my body. Apart from a random beer with dinner once a week, I've pretty much cut alcohol out of my diet...unfortunately.

Now that I'm done with my half-marathon training, I've scaled back to running a 5k a couple of times a week. I'm on a new running program with a focus on improving 5k times (current time just under 29 minutes), so that's my main physical activity at this point.

I'm pretty happy with -20 pounds over 4 weeks, as I know the weight loss will definitely slow down after this initial month. Only 33 pounds to go before I hit my target. The countdown to my WSOP trip and my wedding continues...exciting times for sure.

Keep up the good work everyone!

I am not a running coach and have never trained specifically for a 5k, but I am pretty sure that doing a couple 5k a week isn't a very efficient way to improving your time. Not saying that won't help you get in better overall shape and eventually beat 25 minutes (= 8 minute/mile) but there are certainly more efficient ways.

Most 5k plans I know have one day of speed work (200m, 400m or 800m repeats), one day with an easy run that includes some kind of hill repeats or strides and one long run ranging from 5 to 12 miles per week. The other days are either relaxed running, cross training or rest. Basically, the major difference between a 5k and (half) marathon plan is the lower overall mileage but other than that the training isn't too different. In a perfect world, you can find a track that's open to the public to do your sprints.

Valid points. The 5k Improver Program (13 weeks) I'm using has 4 running days per week: 2 Interval days and 2 5k days. Didn't get into the specifics in my original post, but yes I'm hoping to see some improvements using this program.

Was still 224 when I weighed myself on Saturday. I'm still lifting 4x a week, but beyond hitting protein targets, I'm not really watching what I eat.

Bank holiday here this weekend, so have been overindulging the last few days, and have a family meal this evening.

Guess I'm suffering from pre-trip apathy, and hopefully being able to rail the WSOP over the next couple weeks will perk me up for a final run

Starting Weight - May 1st, 2017 @ 273
Current Weight - June 5th, 2017 @ 250 (-23)
Goal Weight - 220

A little disappointed that I couldn't crack below 250 with my weigh-in this week, but from an overall standpoint I'm happy with where I am currently at.

Went to a music festival this past weekend and didn't count calories at all. Plenty of drinks and delicious food were had, and it's these kinds of cheat days that keep me sane throughout the week.

I've been watching as much WSOP coverage as I can (without a PokerGo account) and I'm getting really excited for my trip in three weeks. It looks like an amazing time, and this is going to be my first trip in a while that will be solely focused on poker and grinding.

A little radio silence on this thread...how is everyone's progress coming along?

Just got back from my vacation, I'm pretty saddened to report that I gained a whopping 19 pounds over the week and am at 261. I was basically fasting the last 4-5 days before I left. I'm not sure the scales really tell the whole story. I was only eating a couple protein shakes per day and not really paying attention to water intake so probably had some dehydration and stuff in play that sent me from 242 to 261. My clothes all still fit the same way as far as I can tell so I'm not really sure what is going on with my body.

I ate a total of 16 lobster tails on the cruise, had dessert every night, pizza and bread for the first time in months, and drank sugary drinks which I never do at home. I had free booze in the casino so I probably over indulged a little bit.

I did lift most days and did some cardio. Unfortunately I did not swim or take the stairs as much as I had hoped. My room was located near the top so I usually was only taking a couple flights to get to the pool and bars and going downhill to get to the casino and club. Usually was too messed up to care about walking back up the stairs at night so took elevator a lot more than usual.

I must have been looking good from not eating because I found me a pretty white girl with a southern accent the first day at the pool who needed some vitamin D. Also met a swinger couple at Margaritaville in Grand Turk who just loved LDT.

The casino was not as nice to me as the ladies were. No poker action was going so I lost big at BJ and covered a bit at roulette. -7800 for the trip though did get some extra lobster dinners and massages comped for my efforts.

I'm not sure how to proceed with the weight loss from here. I've felt like low energy Jeb Bush since I got back and had nothing in the tank to go work out. I have also been craving food non-stop, I think I stopped three times for food on the drive home.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting back on track? I am trying not to eat today and tomorrow to just reset everything but my main girl is making me spend time with her tonight and I'm sure that is going to involve a restaurant. Hopefully I have the will power to stick to salad and not continue this slide.

Hey LDT, gotta keep your head up!

Apart from this minor setback, it sounds like you had a great time on your vacation. What's the point of living and working if you can't kick back and enjoy the finer things in life every once in a while?

With regards to getting back on track, I recommend that you view today (or tomorrow) as Day 1 again. Try not to focus on where you were before leaving for vacation and how far away you are from that number. Instead, remember that on your first Day 1, you were in the mid-270s...now for your next Day 1, you are in the low 260s. That's undeniable proof of the progress you've made so far, so no need to give up now.

For me, finding the silver lining is the best way to keep momentum going. The minute I start feeling guilty or defeated, I'm already reaching for the take-out menus and losing the fight.

Enjoy your dinner this evening...try to eat quasi-healthy if you can, but don't beat yourself up over it if you can't.

Tomorrow is a new day and you begin Day 1 all over again. Good luck man!

There is zero chance you gained 19 pounds of fat over your vacation. Given how you described your eating, you gained some, but not that much. There's a good portion of water retention in there that should work its way off in the next week.

Pr00f - thanks for the words of encouragement. I ate a chicken salad last night, no bread and just a light dusting of dressing. Starving today but going to tough it out until I get the bad stuff out of my system. I was feeling really guilty and defeated yesterday and almost stopped for fast food. As fate would have it someone called and I missed the exit and was too lazy to turn around and go get it.

Making the Move- I think you are right. I've already dropped 5 of those pounds but I think my pants are fitting tight again. Going to pull it together and have the weight off (and hopefully some more) by Fourth of July.

Starting weight: 272.5
Current weight: 248.5
Time elapsed: 38 days.

I've done well here recently, adding in some longer fasting periods of 48-72 hours. I've also benefited significantly from golf (of all things). Golf burns a shocking number of calories because it's one of the longest duration exercises you can do. At my size, I'm burning between 1200-1500 calories per 18 holes. It also doesn't *feel* like exercise because I like it.

I've added in some running, as well.

I had a minor setback last Saturday. I went to a friend's wedding out of town. On Sat morning, I had a Chick-fil-a biscuit combo (800 calories or so). At the wedding, I had probably 8 beers (1000 calories total), and a full plate of BBQ (no idea, but I'll ballpark it at 1250 calories). Later that night, drunk and after partying, I binged hard. Had 3 more beers (350 calories), 12 wings from Papa John's (750 calories), and an entire pizza (2500 calories).

Add it all up and we have somewhere between 6000 and 7000 calories. I normally burn close to 3000 calories in a day, but I spent around 5 hours on my feet dancing at the wedding. Managed to burn somewhere in the 4,250 calorie range, so I cut into my bad eating some.

Still, it was a setback. I've added some very clean eating this week to compensate.

Quite a ways to go down to 199, but I'm off to a strong start.

Good job! If you don't allow yourself a cheat day once in a while, at least in the early days of eating healthy, you increase the risk of mentally associating "good food = no food" which is a very bad point in every diet.

Some people start to eat cleaner and after a while never want to eat anything else, others keep cheating once in a while.

I recently bought a 2.3 horse power / 1700 Watt Nutribullet to replace my old 600 Watt blender and now have the ability to make hot soup from fresh ingredients in 7 minutes. That's pretty neat since one of the reasons why I didn't have soup way more often was the fact that it always takes ages to make it on the stove.

Spring running season is over (except for a couple 5ks) so I'll prolly gain a couple of pounds over the next 6 weeks before getting into marathon training. I signed up for one in mid October and one on MLK weekend, so I'll be in constant training from end of July to mid January. No set weight goal for the marathons but I know that 135lb should be the absolute max.

Starting Weight - May 1st, 2017 @ 273
Current Weight - June 11th, 2017 @ 247 (-26)
Goal Weight - 220

And the grind continues...nothing of note to discuss this week. Being six weeks into this healthier lifestyle, I'm pretty much on auto-drive when it comes to food choices and physical activity level.

I've been pretty good when it comes to allowing one cheat meal per week that I don't beat myself up over. I try to save those for special events/group activities where alcohol is typically involved and I don't want to spend too much time counting calories.

One of my mini-goals was to be around 235 pounds when I head to the WSOP this year. It looks like I won't hit that goal, but I won't be far off either, so I'm still going to consider it an accomplishment if I'm within 5 pounds by the time I take off.