Hello all,

I come to the wisdom of H&F for assistance in helping me win the biggest loser comp at my work. My official weigh in was yesterday at 251 pounds. Last years winner finished with a total percentage lost of 19% so i am looking to lose 50-60 pounds to stay ahead of that.

The contest lasts for 11 weeks. 50 buy in with 75% of the pot going to the winner. With 30+ runners, winning would bring a big chunk of change i could use. I also hate to lose so i am willing to do whatever it ttakes to win.

The only restriction i have is that any diet related suggestions contain no fruit at all. I dont eat it and I wont consider it viable. Almost everything else can be on the table. I am comfortable with anywhere between 800-1200 calories a day.

Its a lot to lose in such a short period, but i have no intentions of losing this contest. Any help is really appreciated.

I can spell i swear, im typing on my ****ty phone. If any mods can change the typo on my topic title i would appreciate it

What is your height and age?

Why no fruit?

cut off one arm and one leg

6'1" 30 years old.

Cant eat fruit. Makes me vomit. No i dont know why, just hate the taste/texture/ smell of all fruits

I would go to ab 1200 calories a day and swim 6 days a week. Google some good swimming workouts I lost 20lbs in 3 weeks swimming. Im 5'11 I went from 205 to 185. Obv changed my eating habits as well. I like fruit. I also eat alot of healthy choice lean cusines for lunch.

Good luck

Swimming would be awesome, alas i do not have access to a pool

Buy lots of chicken breasts and cook a week's worth at a time. Buy lots of bags of carrots and broccoli to snack on. And buy protein powder (Chocolate Mint by ON is my rec) - mix protein powder with water and drink. Those all should be somewhat filling and are low calorie/high protein, except for the veggies. Also iced tea with Splenda to give you some pep/something sweet and make you feel full. Beef jerky is also a great low calorie/high protein snack, though it can be pricey and requires lots of flossing afterwards.

Oh and figure out your BMR, then download MyFitnessPal to track cals. And of course use the calculator at http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/

Awesome. Thank you Dero. I certainly plan to go high protein/low carb during this. I appreciate the tracker advice too and will check them out

So with a BMR of 2346, and having to lose 4.5 pounds a week, im looking at needing a calorie defecit of 15750 calories per week. At base i burn 16422 per week, and if i eat 1000 calories per day, i would need to burn an additional 900 calories per day in exercise. Does that sound about right?

Aside from the obvious stuff like mainly eating lean meats and vegetables and consuming no liquid calories, you should also dehydrate yourself before the final weigh in. You should be able to sweat out up to 10 pounds of water weight. From what I know about it you drink a boat load of water the days leading up to the weigh-in, then the 24 hours before you have no water and no salt, and sit in a sauna for a few hours or do a bunch of cardio exercise with a sweatsuit on. Obviously this isn't pleasant, but if you really want to win you should consider it. Google something like "mma weight cutting" for more info.

Hi mat. I am certainly considering weight cutting. I remember doing it for wrestling in high school but have forgotten most techniques. Im grappling with the ethics of it most of all

Speaking of water. Ive ipped my intake from 32 to 120 oz a day. Ive also cut out all other liquids. Ivr heard this helps but not sure in what ways

Increased water consumption won't hurt, but it won't help either. The idea that you need to constantly be flushing your body with water to remove spent fat and/or toxins is baloney.

Although I guess if you're replacing other liquid calories with water then obviously this is a big win.

It may be worth it to look into water manipulation as you get into the final week though. Drinking a higher than usual amount of water for 4-5 days, then cutting water consumption to a low level and removing any sodium consumption can be very effective at cutting 5+ lbs of water weight.

Ultimately ignoring all the misinformation in the media about health and weightloss and just focusing on calorie consumption would be a good plan. Avocados are healthy, they're loaded with vitamins and good fats and fiber! Who gives a ****, calorically they're just about as dense as ice cream. Salmon is an amazing source of Omega 3s! It's also twice as calorically dense as tilapia, so for someone looking to lose weight to win a contest it is a poor choice.

Thanks for the info regarding tilapia v. Salmon. I was planning to use a lot of fish for dinners, and replacing salmon with tilapia is a great suggsstion. Thanks

If you're interested, reading Rapid Fat Loss by Lyle McDonald would be pretty applicable here.

There's a ton of fantastic info, but the practical aspects revolve around getting sufficient protein and minimizing everything else (calories). All of the best advice you're getting regarding fat loss is along these lines (chicken/tilapia + veggies). Other good sources of protein are egg whites, haddock, cod, lean cuts of pork, and fat free cheeses and greek yogurt. Supplementing with fish oil and vitamin D is a good idea (it's a good idea in general). If you want to go all out, you may want to look into EC stack as well.

Listen to DF2 and saw. That's all I really have to say. I just ate pizza for lunch so wtf am I gonna be able to recommend?

But, yeah, get good at calculating and tracking your caloric intake - that is the key to this. You for sure don't want to just starve yourself but a big caloric deficit will get the job done.

This all sounds pretty painful to me and kind of dumb but I know a lot of ppl get into biggest loser contests. What I'd actually recommend if changing your life habits to something geared towards several months of weight loss and then decades of maintenance. Note that the decades of maintenance is the actually difficult and most important part.

If your goal was just to win the contest no matter what, then you've already missed your best opportunity. Best strategy is to drink as much water as possible immediately prior to the initial weigh in. That's at at least an extra 5-10lbs (or possibly more) right there that you would lose.

But if you follow the other advice here, you should still do very well.

Hopefully crash doesn't see this. Tilapia rustles his jimmies to a ridiculous extent.

I actually did take in 64 ounces before weigh in, so i figure that got me a 4 or 5 pound head start

While i have wanted to lose weight for a while, my main goal here is to win money, and i know most people dont have what it takes to keep this stuff up for 3 months straight. With the cash on the line i sure i do have that ability. After that I do WANT to maintain, and understand it will take an entire outlook overhaul to do so. But for some people its the starting that is the hard part, and taking off 50 pounds in three months is a good startimg place for me

Awesome. Thanks for all the recs. I will check it out.

My wife is also bringing home 16 quarts of egg whites today so that should get me through a good amount of my mornings.

Also when suggesting foods/meals, do not fear being repetitive. I am one of those guys who can happily eat the same things over and over for weeks.

Thoughts on turkey sausage?

Turkey sausage ranges from horrible to excellent diet food. You need to post specifics; namely serving size, calories per serving, and grams of protein per serving to generate any useful commentary.

If you can consistently eat 800-1200 cals a day why are you such a fatty right now?

OP all 'bout dat chedda.