Totally agree Renton, I was merely saying it's tough during these 12 hr shifts. Not making excuses, I just tend to take days off depending on how I'm feeling when I get up. So far, so good. But definitely words to live by with anything you do for sure.

256.0 for weigh in today. Down 3.9lbs this week with two maintenance/surplus days so I'm a little disappointed but I did lose weight. I think I overlooked certain aspects to the diet, and I'm going to adjust accordingly. I originally wanted to hit the 250lb mark by October 8th so I'm optimistic about that. I'm avoiding quinoa and honey or at the very least smaller portions. Maybe try and eat more fish even though a month of it got ****ing old and the smell makes me nauseous.

Anyway, onwards!!! Hopefully breaching the 240s very soon!! Looking forward to buying new pants at 38 waist ������

Breakfast-coffee and almond milk, 6oz turkey burger wfeta,fried cabbage
Lunch-protein shake, 2 apples
Dinner-big salad with 3oz chicken,cucumber,tomatoes,pepercinis,feta cheese
Snack- 5 carrot sticks

Dead lift 205,225,255,275
Power clean- 135,135,135
Elliptical-62 min 750cals,6.3mi

First time doing power cleans in 12 years..I was dying, didn't have time for presses so tomorrow I'll get those in with my pull-ups

Post calorie numbers with your meals. Theyre more important than just the food

I don't really know the calories for each meal I eat, and I don't have the time to sit and weigh apple slices or spoonfuls of tomatoes.

Weighing your food takes like 5 seconds.

While it's ok to eyeball stuff like tomatoes and not be off by that many calories, calorie dense foods like feta add up to a lot and an extra 10-20g here and there adds up quickly.

Why would you have to sit to weigh something? Calories are really all this is about, so maybe figure it out? I can say I ate chocolate, how does that tell anyone anything about how I did for the day?

A useful thing about weighing is that it helps you develop a feel for quantities, allowing you to more easily eyeball calories in the future when no scales are available. As for the inconvenience, you often need only weigh food the first time it is prepared. Then if you eat that entree again, you can just copy paste the previous data and be close enough. I only repeatedly weigh the very calorie dense stuff like oils and cheeses. I can pretty well eyeball within +/- 10g meats, veggies, rice etc.

If you're enjoying the eliptical, I wouldn't be in a hurry to start running. Everyone gets hurt running, no one gets hurt on the eliptical. This is magnified when you are starting in a very untrained state.

I would say weight loss, squats and deadlifts and after that it's 90% genetic.

Seriously though, at 250lbs+ and untrained, #1 is weight loss, #2 is strength. Lose 70lbs and get your squat up to 315.

I also don't want to believe it's 90% genetic, but who knows. If it's *not* 90% genetic, I would think the next best things you can do is power cleans and box jumps, but like I inferred, I wouldn't even bother with this until you're much leaner and can do squats.

I usually do measure my oils and cheeses etc. with meats etc I just eyeball a weight and go from there. I don't know the difference in calories between a 4pz and 6oz chicken breast, but I'm sure it's not much? Do you for instance fry up cabbage and then take it from frying pan to scale to plate? I guess I just figured it was easier to say about 1 cups cooked cabbage. But, for the sake of transparency and pleasing you guys, I'll get the food scale the next chance I get.

I guess I've always heard from people I might be wrong to listen to is that changing up cardio 'shocks' the body. Don't get me wrong, I understand it's all about calorie counting and deficits, it's just something I've heard. Also, it seems way cooler to say I can do a 23 minute 5k as opposed to I can do 15 resistance for 60 minutes lol Just like it sounds cooler saying you can squat 350 as opposed to I did a badass butterfly machine workout yesterday.

Yeah, the squats are hard I'm just trying to get my form right

"changing up cardio 'shocks' the body" sounds pretty ridiculous. That said... I could believe there may be a shred of truth to this due to specificity (i.e. doing lots of eliptical will make you better at doing eliptical. Doing lots of running will make you better at doing running), but again, I don't think you need to worry about that just yet. What would be more detrimental to your training would be starting running, getting hurt and stopping training. It's just not a risk you need to take at this stage...

I suppose you're right. I was gonna try a 5k on October 8th. I figured I wouldn't run the whole thing but switch off running/walking. It's just something I always wanted to do but **** it, there's always gonna be more 5ks and I don't wanna **** up a leg or something. Maybe the cardio comments were more for getting bored with the exercise? I don't know they also said the same about food i.e. Even if your calories stay the same, go all vegetarian for a week or only eat fish as your source for protein to 'shock' your system? I don't know maybe it's all bull****, I just can't imagine people being wrong when it comes to nutrition and fitness lol

If only there was a way to test this? Like, imagine if there was a standardised way of measuring how much food of one type you are eating and then switch to eating the same amount of food of a different type and see if it has any impact on weight loss? Alas, all we can do is guess and speculate on the internet.

I'm sure I can switch foods and do it, I just figured why fix something if it ain't broke and my progress hasn't recalled stalled. Do you recommend I do this regularly? Sorry, my sarcasm meter gets broke sometimes so I'm not sure if you're saying I should or not.

Also, to everyone who has posted about scales, recommendations, etc. I just want to say I appreciate all the feedback!! I'm by no means experienced with any of this, and there's a reason I'm here doing this, so thank you all.

Breakfast-5ounces chicken breast,1 cup boiled corn 2 cups of coffee
Lunch-protein shake, 2apples, 2 carrots
Dinner- 9ounces chicken breast, 1.5 cups boiled corn, 2 carrots
Elliptical- 60 min,740cals,6.4mi
Assisted pull-ups 8*140,5*130,5*120
Barbell curls- 75,75,80,85*5
Got to the gym late, so didn't have time for much else. I'd like to do shrugs on my days off and and everyday from here on out.

Yes. I was being sarcastic. And yes, I agree, don't change something that is working.

My point was that if you count your calories you can more accurately judge for yourself if different foods have different effects on weight loss (hint: they (mostly) don't ).

shocking the body with different cardio is bull****. yes, as snitch said, there's specificity of training. and there's diminishing rates of return. and there's the general principle that if your goal is to be a generally well-rounded athlete, it makes sense to do different sports. but that's different from "shocking the body".

anyway, if you want to start running: be VERY aware of doing too much too soon. it's very easy to get injured (and i say this as a runner myself). if you want to do it anyway, DON'T start with a race. start with http://www.c25k.com/ and follow the program (if it's feels way too easy, you can skip the first few weeks). your body needs a long time to adapt to the demands of running. your muscles adapt quite fast (at least the major ones), your bones and ligaments extremely slowly (we're talking years here). so again: take it VERY easy.

but i think there are better alternatives available to you ATM. you can switch the ellipticals for rowing, stairmaster, stepper, cycling etc... or you can stay on the elliptical but do a more interesting workout then "60 minutes at 15 resistance": warm up, then do "1 min hard", "2min easy" & repeat then do a cool down. or do a form of pyramid intervals. etc

Breakfast- 3 fried eggs and 1 cup raspberries w/2 cups of coffee
Dinner- 12 ounce New York strip, sautéed onions and mushrooms, 4oz prime rib, cup of chili with tablespoon of cheese, side salad with ranch dressing, 1 cup boiled carrots. Dinner was at a restaurant I could have avoided it but whatever, mom wanted to take me to dinner. I'm hoping everything was under 3000 cals.

After dinner I got sick as a ****ing dog and felt ****ty. It was suppose to be my day off but the dinner made me upset soooo:
Squats 135,185,205,215 (8,5,5,5)
Power clean (135,135,145) *5
Press (115,105,105) this is harder than I thought to add weight,maybe I'm just a pussy? Maybe it is going to take longer than I thought, who knows.
Elliptical 58 minutes, 709cals,6.1 miles

@trontron, you're right and so is snitch. I will just stay off running for time being or maybe light jogging every few days. There's no reason to run a 5k yet other than personal vanity I guess. Besides, I like the elliptical and it burns a lot of calories much more than walking and perhaps light jogging. I've decided to introduce swimming I think that's a nice cardio workout and works everything as well.

@snitch, it's just weird how everything people are told about fat and carbs and blablabla is kindve bull**** and only calories matter. Well I mean I'm sure nothing but candy bars long term wouldn't be good if it's under your calorie maintenance but you know what I mean. I mostly went all fish/poultry for the first 1.5 months to clean my body out and lower my cholesterol/blood pressure. As always, thank you for the advice

Most "far out" diet advice has some grounding in truth, but generally it's so extreme or impractical that in reality it's worthless and the more beginner your are, the more worthless it is.

There are probably heaps of advanced dieting tricks which are absolutely necessary for a professional bodybuilder or even swimsuit model to get into contest shape and sometimes they would probably even work for a 250lb, untrained person... But the tiny edge they would give you is not woth the effort.

By far the best and simplest thing you can do is eat a calorie controlled, micronutrient dense diet with reasonable partitioning of macro nutrients (and it's probably impossible for this kind of diet to have wildly crazy macro nutrient partitioning).

Yes. Basically this means eat animals and plants and forget about all the other bullsh*t.

When you get down to 175lbs and want a shredded six pack, then you can figure the rest out.

And just to finish my rant...

Like I said, all the "bullsh*t" people are told about diet probably has some truth to it, but it's almost always packaged in a way to sell you something because writing a book or a blog that just says: "Are you over 200lbs? Just eat 1800cal of plants and animals per day" isn't going to sell anything.

Breakfast-2hardboiled eggs,handful of raspberries, 2cups of coffee w/almond milk creamer
Lunch- chicken Caesar wrap w/cup of chili and 10baked chips
Dinner- chicken breast with shake and bake seasoning,large salad w/ranch dressing (2 tbl spoons)
Snack-Apple and handful of almonds
Elliptical-51 minutes, 5.2mi/620cals...I was tired today and the ****ing gym was lodes with idiots it must have been Zumba /martial arts night, sigh

I guess I always worried about fats and which ones were okay and just never realized how many cals were in oils or nuts etc..it's just odd how much easier it is focusing on calorie intake and just exercising and not going nuts. I'm sure the fats/carbs/protein ratios will be important eventually. But, as you mentioned, in 50 lbs we can discuss that further when it's relevant lol