Subscribing, gl ytf.

Of note is how many people have started logging and found some motivation and/or inspiration from your oot thread. There must be at least a dozen who posted in that thread, and probably several more. It has had a weird feelgood effect on the oot readership. For oot, that is a pretty remarkable acomplishment.

Just wanted to drop in and say hi and good luck. Like loco and anklebreaker have already mentioned, a deficit and some walking will be more than enough for the first 100 lbs.

+1.

I just started my log, the OOT thread really helped refocus my motivation. I've been slowly losing weight since late March, but it can be really hard to stay on track, so your OOT thread and all the responses renewed my commitment.

Best of luck, OP. If you stick with this, you can do it.

ahahahahahahahahahaha


But yeah, prepare for a looooootttt of walking.

gl bro

I wasn't even talking about dieting! I had made the decision to swear off hot dog buns long before I considered undertaking this diet.

I love how this is LDO now, but unheard when I was in my 20s and 30s trying to learn how lose this weight.

Hey, I started logging before I started dieting. I was advised to start logging immediately, even if I didn't start dieting immediately, so I did. Keep in mind, unlike most of these logs, the motivation for this one caught me completely by surprise--a random OOT thread exploded all over me.

You'll see less Burger King as time goes by. And less spaghetti/meatballs/sausage, too (I had already bought all that stuff so I cooked it, but I'll be eating a lot less of it, substituting leaner beef and turkey sausage, etc). I hear Taco Bell has some healthy stuff, I'll have to look into it.

I wish I could sum it up with a pithy medical term, but I've yet to find two competent doctors who can agree on a diagnosis. I've heard "arthritis" bandied about, but I don't know. Here's what I do know:

When I was in the army, and faced with discharge if I didn't lose weight, it wasn't "Lift weights LDO", it was "run, LDO". Unfortunately, I was stationed in Monterey, CA, a town built on hills like this one:



Thanks to google, I just learned the barracks I lived in is 500 ft above sea level. I could see the bay from my window, and our six-mile jogs routinely took us down to Fisherman's Wharf (ie, 0 ft above sea level) and back. Hopefully, that should give you an idea of the types of hills I was running up--and worse, down! And I'm a big guy, I was 200 lbs then, those knees took an absolute pounding as I charged down those hills, day after day for over a year.

I'm a little bow-legged now. The first time I tried cortisone shots was 2007, that seemed like a Godsend. But the second round of shots was this past April, and the knees are already starting to hurt again, especially in wet weather, which we've had plenty of lately.

I hope that answers your question.

This.

Yes, he can flip a switch. And has to.

See above - that's a lot of pressure on the joints. As the weight goes away his knees should improve.

It's not likely to be easy as you will have to work to find a maintainable diet. From your examples theres a lot of carry out/restaurant/fast food. That's going to have to change. Learning how to cook/prepare food/plan may not be easy but is crucial to understanding what it is that you're eating and, probably as important, allow you to plan/control what you're eating regardless of what others are doing around you. Or what has been easy in the past.

There is no reason with some discipline that you can't lose a huge amount of excess weight. Good luck and I agree that you posting food logs is a great way to start.

All,

First off, advice in general in H&F is awesome, and that's why tons of us sent him this direction. However, I encourage you guys to read YTF's posts in the OOT thread to get an idea of his attitudes and experience with food. This is a guy who finds things like fruit and oatmeal disgusting, and hasn't even tasted a whole array of delicious, healthy food. He also has had no concept of caloric impact of various stuff, much less overall nutritional value.

100% he needs to get to what you guys are saying here to lead a healthy lifestyle. But I strongly believe he first simply needs to get an understanding of the calories he's putting in his body and manage his consumption to some easy to achieve goals, and then along the way start introducing healthier alternatives and trying new additions/replacements to his diet.

The more stuff this guy has to think about, the more obstacles he has to JUST START (and stick with it). At 5'8 380, I believe the most vital thing overall for him is to just do SOMETHING. And logging and lowering caloric intake without big diet changes is a simple first step.

Don't care to argue w/ any of you guys about this, because pretty much everything you'll say about the importance of a better diet is correct in the overall view of things. Just wanted to give you a little perspective on why a number of people have suggested this approach as a first step for YTF.

"You'll see less Burger King as time goes by. And less spaghetti/meatballs/sausage, too (I had already bought all that stuff so I cooked it, but I'll be eating a lot less of it, substituting leaner beef and turkey sausage, etc)."

That's the attitude I think has a good chance of leading to great results for him, and H&F is a great place for him to learn about great substitutions that will make his diet easier and life healthier.

agree w/ ED and AB

OP, I don't like fruit either, but I understand how important it is. So as a substitute I try to have a couple fruit flavored Otter Pops a day. I know it is only the fruit juice, so you do not get the full impact. But like you tortilla instead of hot dog bun idea, it is a start and a step in the right direction.

Next step: Jolly Ranchers.

Just subscribed, good luck YTF.

YTF - We met in Vegas a few years ago. I'm not sure if you remember or not but I was playing poker at Excalibur next to Dominic, then we met again later that trip at the Sahara poker room.

I haven't read the stuff in OOT, but I read the stuff in your log here. Starting this log can be a great step in the right direction. I hope you stick with this log and your plan to get healthy - good luck!

3/10, could do better

I'm sorry, but you drink 72 ounces of Diet Coke before lunch most days? That is wild. Have you considered switching to coffee?

Ok I'm going to try to make it more than 2 posts in before replying again, but this gave me pause.

You should be eating real butter. It tastes better and it is better for you.

I can't believe, in a thread where the OP is 400 POUNDS, his choice of butter or margarine for his breakfast spread is note-worthy

Ok, a more measured response now that I have read the thread.

Congrats for finding the motivation to do this. At your size the pounds should fall away pretty quickly at first (given that you are are eating at the right deficit and incorporating some walking or extremely light activity), which should be pretty gratifying.

Looking through some of the stuff you're eating... a lot of it is terrible. I'm far from a "salad and fruit only" kind of guy -- I eat giant portions of greasy food all the time, but I do try to only eat stuff that is actually REAL FOOD.

This means don't eat that "fat free" **** that they pass of as snack food in the grocery store. Don't eat butter substitutes. Don't eat fake eggs. Eat less Taco Bell -- find a taco cart or a hole-in-the-wall Mexican place to get your fix.

Someone posted this earlier, and it is correct:

You should eat regular foods -- rich foods even -- and use real butter and real salt and real sugar to season them. Use the first two generously, the last one sparingly. Just count your calories, limit your portions and begin some activity.

I know it's easier said than done... I'll go through the whole day without stuffing myself, then down half a bag of Goldfish crackers (not really real food, by the way... I'm totally cheating when I eat those) in 10 minutes. Whoops. Try to keep healthier stuff around to snack on when you just need to eat something... like almonds.

Good luck.

The reason it's noteworthy is that it's symbolic of his whole diet. Fake ****ing processed ****.

I haven't read through everything yet just sort of skimmed it. I went from a horrid diet of eating fast food everyday and drinking a lot of soda with no excise to just some cardio work and cutting out the fast food and dropped 50 lbs fairly easy. A year ago today I was about 290 and now I am in the high 190s and over that time everything evolves from eating to workout routine. I think just moving around and cutting out some of the fast food from the diet will be a very solid starting point and get the ball moving in right direction. You certainly don't need to go full on working out and being perfect in your diet to start in order to see results. Just start with small movements in the right direction and keep motivated and eventually seeing the results become that motivation and take over.

No, I drink 48oz of Diet Coke before lunch most days. Once or twice a month I'll need a third on the drive in, bringing me up to 72.

(EDIT TO ADD: Now that you mention it, I could probably keep a six-pack of the small 8oz bottles for those drives in, foregoing the 24's. I wouldn't mind hearing more on the costs/benefits of Diet Coke, it's been a staple of mine since the mid-1980s, and my mother is convinced that THAT is why I'm huge.)

I can't imagine sweetening coffee enough to make it drinkable to a newb would be comparable to the zero calories the Diet Coke offers.

Don't worry, after logging that first bagel, the remainder of the bagels AND THE SPREAD went right in the dumpster. You can put the spread debate to rest, it's moot ITT.

if you get coffee that's good enough, you don't need any sweetener!

I fully understand the need for sweet coffee EDIT: and caffeine to wake up. I drink a 16 ounce coffee with sugar (2 packets of Sugar in the Raw) and half-and-half every morning. However, I used to put 4 packets in there. It took me a while, but I cut down and am now satisfied with 2.

And Gizmo is right that the higher the quality of coffee, the less sugar it requires.

Yeah, two packets of real sugar is gonna be more calories than the 0 you get with diet soda... but coffee has more caffeine per ounce than diet soda, which means you won't need to drink as much of it to wake up. And, some people say that it has other health benefits in and of itself.

48 oz is just a ****ing giant load of liquid to put in your stomach every morning no matter how many calories it has in it. I've got to think that it gets you used to being incredibly full all the time, which probably contributes to your overeating.

OP - listen to cleinen.

A lot of the advice I'm reading ITT so far is somewhat FPS but may be valuable in like 6 months or a year or whenever it is that you first conquer setting up a better routine in general that has you losing weight consistently.

Also, I'm kind of curious, does this whole thing piss you off, make you angry, and fire you up? Or are you just depressed about it and willing to "try anything" at this point? Or did a lightbulb go off in OOT and you thought "wtf, let's give this a go, seems like I can turn things around"?

I guess I find what you make of this whole thing more interesting than any other part of this thread.

As far as the caffeine goes, there's also nothing wrong with getting some cheap no-name caffeine pills and popping one in the morning, that's what I do. Saves $$ and you won't have to piss 47 times a day (although you'll still go a lot since it acts as a diuretic).