I am currently more than 100lbs over weight:





Goal:
-loose 67 lbs in 6months~about 11lbs/month

Food Plan: Eat 1400 Cals/Day
Breakfast-Oatmeal
Lunch-Grilled Chicken Salad, Tuna Fish
Snack-Orange, Banana, Veggie Chips
Dinner-Baked Chicken+Veggies, Salmon+Veggies, Baked Pork Chops+Veggies

Workout Plan:
-3 X Week; 600m swimming laps
-3 X Week; bench press 3x20 reps
-3 X Week; leg extensions 3x20 reps
-3 X Week; Squats 3x10 reps
-5 X Week; abs
-1 X Week: Kickboxing

I could really use some help with workout plans+food!

I really like swimming and want to burn a lot of calories while toning my midsection, and I will eat just about any healthy food.

Hey mate. I'm on the weight loss journey too... Here's my tuppence (2cents).

Weigh everything and log every calorie.
Eat filling foods
Veggies are your friend
Basically keep logging in here.....daily..

The guys and gals in here are great for giving feedback.

Good luck in your goals. Im subbed.

M,

Great to see you here!

I think your number one focus when it comes to food and exercise for now should be to develop something that is sustainable in the long run. Your current plan is very ambitious and possibly too optimistic. If you keep to it and you find that it works well, great, but if it doesn't, the important thing is to note what doesn't work and adjust and keep at it etc. It's pretty standard for someone to make a plan that's not sustainable long-term and then give up when they find it's too hard to adhere to, and that's the pitfall I think you should try to avoid.

Log your food and log your exercise here every day. Keep posting about how things are going and how you're feeling, and you'll probably get some good feedback. Good luck!

Edit: Also keep in mind that, while exercise is great and you should definitely do it if you want to, what will make you lose weight is primarily the food part of the equation, so if your short/mid term goal is to lose a bunch of weight fairly quickly, getting sustainable low-cal eating habits in place is more important than sticking to a strict 5 times a week workout routine, or whatever.

Out of curiosity, how tall are you and what is your ultimate goal weight when you say you are 100 pounds too heavy? I ask because it doesn't look to me like you are 100 pounds over. If you don't wish to share that, I understand.
The 67 pounds sounds a lot more reasonable, but of course you can always reassess when you get there.

I wish you luck. I would encourage you to think and eat in terms of a life style change rather than a temporary deprivation diet. After all, once you lose the weight you don't want to fall back into old habits and put it back on.
The fact that you like different kinds of healthy foods is a big +.

I didn't want to share my weight because I'm so embarrassed, but I'm really determined to lose it so oh well:
I'm 5'7.5", 287lbs

My goal by December is 220lbs

Ultimate goal is 165-170lbs; anything below this and my ribs and hip bones really start protruding

I'm actually about 120lbs overweight

Good luck!

I'm going to the casino all weekend, so food might be pizza and burgers for 2 days.
What do you guys do when you play poker? Bring lil baggies of vegetables?

Food log today:

Banana + oatmeal

80cal tuna fish pack + salad

1.25 cups suddenly salad

Orange

24 oz sweet tea
8 oz Dr Pepper
24 oz water

I'll prolly grab something on the road in a bit. I'll try to get a grilled chicken salad

I haven't played live poker in a while but granted that's a tough one. I guess I'd probably bring something like beef jerky for snacking. It's admittedly high in sodium but it's also high in protein, low in calories, pretty filling and kind of hard to really eat a lot of.

It's good that you posted pictures, as hard as it probably is. I never did and I am jealous of people who have before and afters. I avoided the camera like a lot of fat guys.

I will probably post more later (time for dinner!). Check out Wildebeest's log, there's some good advice in there, and he took a lot of it to heart. Definitely someone to model yourself after.

Thanks! Jerky is a great idea! I'll check his log out as well.

The casino will usually have a reasonably healthy option, such as grilled chicken breast, steak, Caesar salad with chicken, etc.

If you have to eat out a lot due to lifestyle, you can hit calorie targets a lot more easily by subbing steamed vegetables for the french fries that seem to accompany every entree.

You've really gotta stop drinking these. High calorie beverages are one of the easiest things to cut out since there are calorie free alternatives (diet dr pepper, tea sweetened with splenda). You will not be able to eat less than 1400 calories very easily if a few hundred of them are in the form of sugar water.

This is a reasonably realistic goal to set. In all likelihood you'll lose 20+ your first month and the weight loss will slow down from there.

Best of luck!

OK, so I think I'm just gonna dump some random stuff. As a little background, I'm a dude who was moderately fat and lost 70-80lb over a few years by doing nothing drastic at all. Since then I have wavered within +/- 10lb or so.

Something that was a surprise to me is: how much you eat does not determine (long term) how much you lose. Instead, it determines how much you'll weigh (in the long term). I know I stated that confusingly. What I mean is, if you eat, say, 1600 cal/day today, maybe that'll lose you 1lb/week. Eventually it'll lose you .5lb/week then .25lb/week then nothing/week. The upshot is, you are not going to "diet" for a while then go back to eating like before. If you do, you'll gain the weight back. So, you need to find a way to eat that satifies your desire for food but that isn't too much.

There are lots of ways to do this. Personally, I have several sort of "ascetic" meals/week and some "normal" meals and every few weeks, a true cheat meal.

I don't, personally, like fake stuff. I don't like low-calorie versions of high calorie things. So, I like to eat stuff that is naturally low in calories. So, I eat a lot of meat/eggs/dairy and not much bread/rice/carbs. I am not anti-carb by any means, but, if I eat a lot of protein, I feel full. A lot of my meals are very heavy on meat and vegetables. It's easy to eat as much of that as I want, feel full, and not eat too much. And then occaisonally I have some calorie bombs like a bunch of beers or cake or something.

For a lot of people, high protein diets seem to work pretty good. They do for me. Although, as they say, everything works, but nothing works forever.

What else. You gotta log all the time - I have found that if I stop logging my weight creeps up slowly. Gotta weigh yourself too. Some people do once a week. I have a wifi scale and weight myself 2x/day but look at it infrequently. The important thing is the long term record, so you can see what's working.

Don't lie to yourself and don't cheat yourself. If you have a lapse and eat some pie or something it is very tempting to write the whole day off, eat whatever, and log none of it. Don't do it! A temporary lapse is nothing to be happy about but own it, don't let it snowball and don't beat yourself up about it.

Take it pretty easy to start. Lower your calories, sure, but don't go straight to "dieting" calories or whatever. Take a week or two and see where you're at.

What you're starting now is forever. Ease into it. Spend some time figuring it out. You don't have to lose all the weight this month or this year. Who cares if it takes 2 years to lose it? You have the rest of your life to be the weight you want, and if you do it right you can maintain it forever. If you go too hard and burn out you won't achieve your goals or you won't keep them.

Anyway. As they say, losing weight is simple, but it isn't easy. There aren't really "tricks" or shortcuts, but it's not impossible either.

Hey there! Regarding this. You would be going from one extreme to another. Don't get me wrong veggies are great...but is there any reason why you can't make a healthy meal and put it in a container and take it with you?

Do you cook a lot yourself?

As the other guys said sustainability is the key? What are your favourite meals?

I didn't prepare any food to bring with me, so I'll be grabbing chicken salads.

I do cook a lot myself and like doing it.

My favorite foods are salmon , steak, pasta, and cheese+crackers.

My biggest problem is drinking soda, eating fast food for lunch everyday, and being insanely depressed/not wanting to do anything.

I was just laid off of work, so I'll be able to prepare all of my meals at home for a while. I really want to take advantage of the time I'm off work to develop better eating exercise habits.

The funny thing I have noticed, since I have been on a cut, Ive been eating the stuff I love to eat more! I eat steak at least once a week, and we have salmon on saturdays most of the time......

I might get a lot of crap for this but in regards to the fizzy pop just go for the 0cal option. The guys and gals have drilled in to me this is about deficit creation. Eat what you want as long as you stay under calories.

Veggies are great because you can eat as much as you want and practically have little dent on your calorie consumption

Proteins are great because they make you feel fuller... I have almost cut out pasta/rice/potatoes out of my diet..Not because I can't have it , its just id rather spend my calories on a bigger steak!

Honestly I havent had fast food since I started this thing. If your at home, you can cook up something way tastier for way less calories!

The last thing I'll unload is portion control.. This is/still is the hardest thing... Most of my dinner plates look like a whack of protein over a mountain of veg. This is because I'm not v good at portion control so I load my plate up with stuff that I can eat.

Anyway good luck! I look forward to seeing your first log soon!

Food log:

6oz grilled salmon
1/2 grilled squash
1/4 cup mashed potatoes

8 oz parmesan chicken
4 tbls blue cheese dressing + salad

12oz unsweetened tea
16oz black coffee
12oz water

Wow I'm not drinking enough water!

Good work. Did you total the calories?

+1 to finding a sustainable routine that will lead to a long-term weight and lifestyle you can enjoy.

You have quite a bit of weight you are trying to lose so it may not be something you have to settle into right away, but if your diet requires as much willpower on month 6 as it does on month 1, I do not like the long-term chances of sticking with it.

If, instead, after a few months you have a harder time not sticking to it, then I think you are on the right path. Note I still am mentioning months, not just days as I do think it takes at least a few weeks for a new routine to really start to stick.

I'm really depressed today. I wanted to go workout and swim, but I can't get out of bed. I was laid off of work, and I'm moving out from living with my boyfriend tonight. I'm gonna stay with my sis, but my gym isn't near by and they don't have a pool
I don't know how to make myself have the energy to workout. Feeling kinda hopeless right now.

This is around 300 calories FWIW. Eat what you want, but this would be an area where it would be easy to cut back if you're having a hard time hitting the 1400 target.

Ain't nothing to it but to do it. I mean, it may not be ready but it really is as simple as that. Make yourself so those things no matter what until our gross more word to not do them than to do them.

Ok, I'm going to make myself work out tmrw!
Last week I worked out 4x; it's crazy how your mood affects your motivation.

Food log:

Sausage burrito-500cal

Banana-105cal
38 veggie chips-130cals

7.5oz grilled chicken-275vals
3/4 cup suddenly salad-250cals

Healthy choice pasta-250cals

12oz DR. pepper-150cals

1-chocolate chip cookie-53cals

Total: 1713cals

Hi MLYLT.

I 100% agree with Rusty. I find it helpful to eat for the weight you want to live at.

Renton also brings up a good point. It's the first thing I thought of when you mentioned you were going to get a grilled chicken salad. Salads are thought of as a "healthier" option, but they turn into calorie bombs once you start adding dressing. This will make it very hard for you to meet your calorie goals, and you'll find that the dressing prevents you from indulging in other tasty snacks you otherwise could have fit into your meal plan.

I just remembered the Walden Farms zero calorie dressing that I've heard several other posters here talk about. Hopefully they'll chime in with what flavors are good/terrible. This could be an excellent fix for you if you decide you would prefer a salad with dressing.