One of the biggest derails in OOT history came about when a thread about scams drifted into a discussion about airplane seating, which led inevitably to someone whining about sitting next to a fattie, which led to some remarks toward fatties that were so insensitive that they wouldn't be tolerated in polite society if aimed at an ethnic group, gender, or practitioners of a religion or alternative lifestyle--but it's still Open Season on Fatties, it's Anything Goes, you can say whatever you want about them, call them any slur you can think of...

I objected, convinced that some of us have tried EVERYTHING to lose weight, and concluded that it's just not in the cards for some of us. Either our bodies don't react to food the same way, thyroid, metabolism, heredity, there must be SOME reason why I can't lose this weight!

The derail was on. I was pilloried for my delusional thinking. The derail became so out of control the mods finally had to extract it and turn it into a thread of its own, and that new thread has been Front Page Above The Fold in OOT for over a week now.

I learned a lot in that thread, but above all, I learned that while I thought I knew everything there was to know about diet and exercise, it turns out that I didn't know anything!

At the urging of several helpful OOT'ers, I hereby launch this thread, where you can read all about my favorite subject: ME! ME, ME, ME!

TALE OF THE TAPE: 45 years old, 5'8", 380 lbs, my all time high.

A NOTE ON THESE LOGS: These logs will be all food and no drink. Unless otherwise indicated, presume I had 2-3 24oz Diet Cokes in the morning (one to wake up, one with breakfast, and occasionally one for the drive into work), then nothing but water the rest of the day. If you're worried that sounds like a harsh, unsustainable restriction, rest assured that I've been doing it for years, through (heh!) thick and thin.

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2012

BREAKFAST: Two Nathan's hotdogs on taco-sized flour tortillas (nutrition info aside, tortillas are GREAT for hotdogs! I'll never buy hot dog buns again!) with ketchup, mustard, and onions. Not my usual breakfast, but that OOT thread was very psychologically upsetting (you know, the thread where I found out everything I thought I knew about the world was wrong?), and my sleep pattern and appetite were out of whack for a few days. 616 Cals

Lunch: Taco Bell! Nachos Bell Grande and two chicken soft tacos. About half of my "old" Taco Bell order. 1130 Cals.

Snack: Slice of sausage/roni pizza. I don't usually have between meal snacks, but this was an extra long day. 300 Cals?

Dinner: Chipotle steak wrap, small bag of chips. I don't even know what was in the wrap. The chips were worth 160 Cals, + ??? Cals.

Total: 2206+??? (steak wrap). I'm pretty confident I stayed under (or at least near) my goal of 2710 cals.

SUNDAY, JUNE 24, 2012

BREAKFAST: My usual: three egg omelet with onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, cooked in olive oil; three sausage links; and a bagel with butter-like spread. This was the meal that changed my life, because when I logged it, and saw that the bagel+spread were 50% of the calories of the total breakfast, I almost shat myself. I HAD NO IDEA! This breakfast weighed in at 897 cals, but don't worry, that's the last time you'll read "bagel" in these pages!

LUNCH: Had to buy lunch at work. I have no idea how to figure the calories on this one. Imagine one of those paper plates that's divided into sub-trays to keep your food from mingling, I guess. Well, lunch today was a slice of glazed ham that pretty much filled the large (50%) portion of the plate, even though it wasn't a particularly THICK slice of ham; green beans in one smaller (25%) portion of plate, and scalloped potatoes in the final (25%, ldo) plate region. ??? Cals.

DINNER: Spaghetti with Prego sauce covered half my dinner plate (I'm guessing it's about 2 oz like the label suggests, we'll see, I cooked a pound, and have had similar-sized servings on running nights, we'll see if two more servings leaves me half of what I started with). One Johnsonville mild Italian sausage link and two home-made meatballs (I used a pound of 73/27 ground beef, 3/4ths cup of Progresso Italian bread crumbs, and two eggs, combined, then formed into 8 meatballs, so each meatball has 2 oz meat, 1/4 egg, and 3/32nd cup of bread crumbs--don't worry, that's the last time you read "73/27 ground beef" here, too), plus grated parmesan cheese sprinkled over. A small salad with Ranch (2 TBSP of ranch, which I measured out just to see what 2 TBSP looks like--it's too much! I'll use 1 TBSP from now on) to start. 1200 cals

TOTAL: 2097 cals, + lunch. Again, I'm guessing, but I like my chances of being under, or at least near, the target of 2710.

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 2012

BREAKFAST: Whoops, overslept today, no time to cook omelet/meat. Gotta stop at Burger King, website says a grilled chicken sandwich is >500 cals. Great, gimme two of 'em! Hold the fries...but I can't pull the trigger on "hold the mayo", which would trim the calorie count by about 25%. Not at breakfast, I need this meal to fill me up. 940 Cals.

LUNCH: I big Caesar salad with a whole chicken breast (I don't know how they cooked it, but it was ghost-white and dry, not grilled nor fried), one package of Hidden Valley Creamy Caesars dressing, a tiny (less than 1/4 cup) portion of croutons, and they gave me a couple of lemon wedges, so I gave them a squeeze over the whole thing. Yummy and filling. I had to guess on the size of the chicken breast, we came up with 384 cals for the whole thing.

DINNER: Same as last night: spaghetti, one big sausage link, two meatballs, small pre-dinner salad with ranch (only 1 TBSP this time). 1190 Cals.

TOTAL: 2514, well under our target of 2710, so we're good even if I misjudged the size of the chicken breast.

Diet is 100% crap.

Yeah,they told me in OOT that you guys here would be supportive.

Thanks for the support?

(BTW, I wasn't going to post this, but now that you've pissed me off I will: that last post of mine was interrupted by my needing to take a huge, leafy dump. I never crap at bedtime! Nor is it ever leafy!)

He's joking. 'Any mayo = 100% crap diet' is a recent meme over here.

Good luck with the weightloss. Keep logging, it'll force you to keep close track of what you're actually taking in. After a while you'll also be able to make good guesstimates for the ??? meals.

Yeah, if this is going to be the most famous thread in H&F history, I didn't want all those OOTtards coming in here and thinking we're not jerks like the rest of the internet.

But srsly, gg gl op. Don't forget to lift some weights. And read the FAQ. It's pretty good.

Also, I know you're an enormous fatty and eating less than you were will probably be an improvement, but 2700cal/day seems high. Like... Eating a 1200 cal meal for dinner or lunch when you're trying to lose weight is pretty whack...

GL OP.

Also,

Random comment: 100% agree tortillas/wraps are the nuts for all sandwich related purposes when dieting imo, especially if you go with something like these: http://www.flatoutbread.com/products...flatout-light/

Also, if you're not tied to sausages/hot dogs/etc, chicken sausages have real friendly macros. Such as: http://www.alfrescoallnatural.com/Fl...s.aspx?ID=9780. Can throw those in anything (eggs, etc).

2700 kcals is only like 400 kcals below maintenance for a sedentary 45y, 5'8" 380lb'er according to this calc -> http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

400 kcal avg daily deficit should only net less than 1lb of lard lost / week.

OP, if I were u, I'd aim at something like 2k-2.4k kcals / day.
Everything changes a bit if you're not completely sedentary tho.

Anyways, GL w ur fatloss.

And lift weights LDO.

Hey! IF loves 1200 cal dinners. Also I have a really hard time believing someone who is 380 burns fewer than 3500-4000 cal per day.

OP, you are a smart dude and I like your posts but

Your 'diet' ****ing sucks. This log sucks. You are eating too many cals of the same ****ty food that you ate before.

Where are the EFAs, green veggies, fruits (apples), lean protein, etc? All you are doing is eating a little bit less of **** you shouldn't be eating. A guy like you could probably lose ~50lbs in the first 90 days with the right kind of diet and exercise.

tbf, any log that is going to include 'Burger King' and/or Taco Bell in every post is not going to be a good one. This is an insult to everyone else in this forum that is actually trying to get healthy and/or ripped.

Hi ytf,

I just relogged for the 1st time after the forum had been down and wanted to wish you good luck!

I have lurked your OOT-thread and know that you have problems with your knees, so if you want to do some exercise and don't want to start lifting weights/ walking yet, think about swimming.

Again good luck from someone one a similar yet shorter journey.

This forum is hardcore for sure. OP is 380 pounds and the SS + deficit comments are ready to be suggested.

The first plan of attack should be dieting and lots of walking. This man is very unhealthy. Like Coach would say, "a walking ticking timebomb." Let's diet and walk our way to no longer ticking then maybe we can add some weightlifting, for now OP does not even fit on most equpment.

Good luck OP. I've lost over 40% of my bodyfat this year. I did it by mainly eating meat, veggies, and fruit. If you want to lose weight, you are going to have to learn to appreciate the power of vegetables. Vegetables are all water and vitamins/minerals. Pig out on that, if you dare. A pound of zucchini has a whopping 73 calories!!! There is your ticket to health, straight from the big guy upstairs.

Using McDonald's estimate conservatively, maintenance should be somewhere between 4200 and 4500. He should lose somewhere between 2 to 3 pounds per week.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...ic-intake.html

YTF just keep it up and weigh yourself once-a-week. Adjust your calorie allotment accordingly.

The most sensible thing written by loco in a while. I guess some special broken clocks are right once every few weeks.

OP,

Use all the resources in the forum- the FAQ, Q&A thread, and perhaps later the form check thread. Be open to criticism here- if you want your thread troll-free let me know, but you're likely to learn from even trolling regs.

You have to figure out a way to achieve a sustainable, non-destructive, and "rampable" way to achieve a deficit (on both sides of the equation.) Given your starting stats, what loco said makes the most sense initially. Walking is both effective as a form of calorie expenditure, easy on the joints, and will prepare you to dial up the activity later. Move, then move more.

On the diet side, it's not that you cannot eat a taco bell burrito, but move toward a plan that allows you to hit your macros (see FAQ, Q&A, and resources for what that might be), while staying within your total intake limit, AND reasonably covering your micronutritional bases. Read: Eat meat/fish/dairy, vegetables, and fruit, and then other things (and no, you don't need to eat unseasoned grilled chicken breasts and blanched broccoli.)

You will soon find that deficits are not static, and you will need to make changes (either with activity, or intake, or both.) Expect to hit short plateaus, and move on from there. As for ramping the activity, you can increase walking distance, add basic bodyweight movements, and then over time move to lifting weights.

Gl OP. Seems a bit grandiose given the title and some of the "famous" things you are saying about this log already. But, if that helps motivate you, then I hope this really is the most famous log in history.

As it seems you've already discovered or learned, calories is king. Having said that, compliance is kinglier so taking initial steps like cutting back calories but still eating <insert food that is "unhealthy" here> may help with that so it's good. But don't be afraid to keep in mind that for a truly epic log, you can continue to make changes as you progress, buoyed by your sense of accomplishment and newly found famousness.

How do you lose 2-3lbs a week maintaining? Sincere question btw, I feel you like you left something out or I'm missing something.

Is it because someone so fat could simply maintain and still burn off enough cals to end up in a deficit?

Still, 4k+ cals just seems so high. That can't be right.

Either way, 4k cals of TacoBell, BK, and whatever else he is eating is not the way to go. OP should try keto. Would still be able to eat a lot of the foods he enjoys.

Empty, Jbrochu is responding to someone saying 2.7k is too high and that ytf should aim for fewer calories. Jbrochu is saying that according to Lyle 4200-4500 should be ytf's maintenance, and so if ytf eats 2.7k, he has a ~1500 (3 pounds/week) deficit.

Sorry, I should have quoted the post I was responding to. Fabian has it correct.

4200 - 2700 = 1500 calorie deficit per day
7 days * 1500 = 10,500 calorie deficit per week, which is 3 pounds

(I have no idea if McDonald's estimate is correct, but I used the numbers conservatively. I assume maintaining 380 pounds of bodyweight takes some serious chow.)

I agree YTF could do better with his choices. But please go back and read the thread in OOT from the start. Baby steps and progress at this point are way more important than trying to force a more optimal diet.

Empty, I really don't think you're helping YTF. Like at all. He's almost 400 lbs with a life time of terrible eating. He can't flip a switch, he's not a machine.

Also, about the food scale questions in the oot thread:
http://www.amazon.com/EatSmart-Preci...rds=food+scale

This is the one I have. It works fine and is pretty compact where I actually could carry it with me if I so chose.

OP, are you currently physically active at all?

Walking for someone weighing 380 lbs must burn insane amount of calories.
Isn't that like someone normal-sized taking a hike w a ~200lb weighted vest or am I missing something?
Add in jello-effect of flab vs solid vest and it must be even more challenging.
(note, not trying to make fun of obese ppl or anything, just a random thought)

If OP's diet isn't high in WIM then all of this will be for nothing.

Lifting weights doesn't seem advisable. He just needs to walk for 20 minutes or so a day and eat less than 2500 calories or so to start, and add 5 minutes to the walking each week until he's up to an hour, and take away 100 calories or so each week until he's below 2000. He will probably lose several pounds per week for many months just by doing this. For him to start out doing a ketogenic diet + a barbell program seems extremely ambitious and probably dangerous to his health and psyche.

YTF -

sorry if you already covered it, but what is the nature of your knee issues?

When he was 16 someone accidentally spilled some mayo on it and it's never been the same since