So last week I watched the documentary "Fat, sick and nearly dead" (trailer here: http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com) and was inspired.

The inspiration came along at the right time. A couple of months ago, when I went in to have my gallbladder out the nurse weighed me and said I was obese. Wait, what?

I weighed in at 210 and I'm 5'9''. BMI of 31. Obese.

Then my father, who had been overweight most of his adult life, had a heart attack and passed. The support I received from the Pokercast community here and on twitter made me want to start this thread. Hopefully, some others are inspired and make some positive steps forward.

It's going to be hard, but the thread is going to have to be kept alive by those posting. Use it as a bit of a blog with how you're feeling, trouble you are having with weight loss, fitness etc.

I propose this format:

Weeks since start: 2
Starting BMI: 31
Starting weight: 210
Current weight:205
Goal weight: 170 (aiming for the 2+2 party on July 6th)

People who takes the challenge can have an introductory type post on goals, why they are doing it etc. Then each update post starts with the above 4 entries with progress reports. If you have any ideas for the format, feel free to suggest.

If you're not comfortable sharing this info, no problem post away. It's so much easier to get to goals when you have a community to support you!

I have a "before" pic, but not if I want to post yet. Maybe if I make my goal.

How I'm going to do it:



Had this puppy for about ten years and it's amazing. For those that aren't familiar with the Vitamix, it will turn anything into liquid and if you leave it on for a while, into hot soup.

So many things you can do with it. For the last 10 days, this is the smoothie I've been making:

small handful of kale
handful of spinach
1/2 apple
1/2 orange
1/2 banana
cup of blueberries
3 frozen strawberries
1/2 tsp honey
tablespoon of flax seed

It's delicious and you can't taste the spinach or kale.

Been having 2 servings of this a day with another sensible meal. Coming in at around 2000 cals a day. Worked out a couple times and going to step that up now that I have skinny Bunner as my personal trainer

Ok Pokercast forum, let us GOGOGOGOGOGO!

Argh....

I married a vegan. I come to 2+2 for the bacon chat. Now what?

Seriously though, good luck on the diet.

As Adam is well aware, I am joining him on this challenge. (Hi Adam! )

For those who are unfamiliar with my background, I'm in my mid 30s and a disabled veteran. Injuries to my back while I was in the US Army have left me in constant pain. Medication to control that pain, as well as migraines I've since developed, has often left me sluggish, bloated, and apathetic. Not to mention that obviously, constant back pain makes exercising more difficult. Of course that's a very convenient excuse not to even bother.

This, combined with the usual LOLlazyAmerican lifestyle and diet (I'm a graduate student who sits on a computer the entire day) have left me significantly overweight. Not "OMG look at that chick how is she even mobile" obese, but obviously heavy and it's not healthy. I come from a family that has struggled with weight, including my mother, who was obese until about 10 years ago, when she finally committed to making significant lifestyle changes. She's now trim and healthy and off a bunch of meds she used to take for blood pressure and stuff like that.

That's how I'm approaching this challenge. While Adam and I have a weight goal for the 2p2 party in July, I'm trying to approach this less like a diet and more like a commitment to lifestyle change, including eating a ton more fruits and veggies, cutting all but occasional junk food, and getting off my fat butt as much as realistic for someone with my particular medical issues.

I've recently purchased a Vitamix as well, and having been drinking fruit/veggie combinations that usually substitute for one meal a day.

Started: 3/24
Weight lost: ~2 lbs
Weight goal: 30-40 lbs by the 2p2 party

These types of things are always easier when there are others who both encourage you AND hold you accountable. Join us, fellow 'Casters.

Adam,

My inspiration isn't quite as profound as yours, but inspiration did indeed strike me today...

To make a long story short, the past few months have been pretty psychologically brutal for me, and, in a mistaken attempt to comfort myself I've been spending waaaayyy to much time with my old friends Ben, Jerry, and Ronald McDonald. I've been successfully dodging scales and full length mirrors for a while, but I was finally forced to confront my growing girth head on today when I bent down to pick up something from the floor and was greated by the sickening sound of cloth ripping as the inseam of my favorite pants finally declared no mas...

Anyway, I don't want to reveal my vital stats, but I will say that my goal is to lose 25 pounds by July 4th through a combination of healthier eating and more exercise (more meals cooked at home, walking to work every day, and investing some of my tax refund in shiny new exercise equipment)


Gogogo!!!

I am 6'4, 300 pounds, BMI 36.5. I have a really pear shape so it's not like I'm one of these guys who's just big - I've got skinny arms and legs and a huge belly; that said, I'm still pretty tall and can carry a fair bit of weight. I don't drink or smoke, but I do eat a lot more than I should, and way too unhealthy. I don't really like weight based goals as I haven't found them to motivate me very well.

My goal is to do a sprint triathlon (swim 750m, bike 20km, run 5km) on June 28 of this year and complete it in under 2 hours.

As of today, in an isolated setting (ie, not doing them one after the other):

I can do the swim (in a 25m pool) in about 22 minutes
I can run about 2km in 12 minutes
I can bike about 5K in about 15 minutes.

These are about the maximums I can do right now without needing to stop.

I am trying to practice at least one of the disciplines every day; I started with swimming as it's the one I've done the least. I've gotten up to being able to do the full 750m after about 3 weeks, starting from maybe being able to do 200m. I've started the running and biking parts this week.

I am also trying to eat simply less; a big help would be sticking to three decent meals a day instead of 3 meals a day with assorted snacking continually during the day. Right now, my weight is just a failed math equation (x calories in is more than y calories used during the day). As well, I want to commit to drinking more water; I was doing this early in the year (hooray failed new year's resolution) and it made a big difference in my energy level.

Punker - Only you know what you need, but if you are doing that type of training, it might actually help your training and your weight/health to eat smaller, more frequent meals as opposed to 3 meals a day. It might help to stave off hunger and give you energy throughout the day if you are training at different times.

You'd just need to make sure your mini-meals didn't become full sized, so planning in advance would be optimal.

Just a thought. Best of luck on the sprint triathlon, that's a great goal.

Just posting to offer my support as a longtime podcast listener and 2+2 lurker It's great to see everyone taking charge of their health and RJ has the right attitude - no one gained the weight in a week (or month, or even year) and it takes long term changes and goals to get healthy as well. I'm rooting for you all!

Also, Adam, the smoothie sounds great - will have to try that with my protein powder sometime this week!

Good timing. I've been talking about doing a prop bet with one of coworkers for weight loss. About a month ago I signed up Weight Watchers online and its trifecta of apps has been doing me well, but I feel I'm at a plateau and need to redouble my efforts.

I'm 6' 1", 268.5 pounds. I started at 281.5 which was a crazy shock. My first goal is 265.

Reasonable weight picture:



Fat boy on a bike:

Also, for anyone who's just starting to work out, I highly recommend getting a heart rate monitor if you can afford one and would be inclined to use it (I love my stats and numbers!). It can help keep you motivated and make sure you're using your workout time well - I wore mine to tennis practice tonight and it let me know I was totally mailing it in when I only burned around 500 calories instead of my usual 750-1000 for the same amount of time

I have to lose 5.5 lbs by this time tomorrow, can I play?

Completely unsolicited advice follows:

You (Adam) don't need the honey in your smoothie. And also, take it easy on the fruit. Not everything has to taste sweet. Our culture is quite literally addicted to sweetness.

Eat lots of omega-3 polyunsaturated fats and saturated fats, especially in the morning, so you will feel satiated throughout the day. Avoid omega-6 fats like the plague.

Good luck to everyone!

This is the standard advice, and what I believed to be true for a long time; however, I no longer believe it to be true.

The "more small meals" idea makes a lot of sense intuitively. You're inclined to think it controls glycemic spikes, and you feel hungry less of the time. However I think most of the research suggests that eating multiple times a day is not good for the digestive system. It's just too much work for the system. We are actually adapted (like most mammals) to thrive in feast/famine variance with respect to our food. Our natural existence was not to be able to reach into the fridge for some berries and yogurt or go to the supermarket whenever we felt like it. Instead, when our ancestors got hungry, they had to leave their caves to go forage or go kill something. More scientifically, look at the massive body of research that suggests that intermittent fasting is a very good thing for people.

I am a snacker/grazer, so it's been hard for me to transition to more fasting and less frequent meals. But I'm confident that the 5-6 meals a day/multiple snacks paradigm is wrong. Instead, consume a large post-workout meal to best take advantage of insulin response and cut out non-PWO carbs. Don't snack.

This thread is a nice piece of synchronicity; I've been losing weight for some weeks now and am trying to keep this up. Hopefully, this thread helps me to keep going.

I started losing weight more a less by accident :-). I'm 175cm (ca. 5" 9'), at the end of last year I weighed 104 kg (229 lbs); I had been at this level plus/minus a few pounds for some years. I never actively tried to lose weight because I didn't feel bad, apart from being overweight I've always been healthy and felt good.

But some time in early february I noticed that i had lost 5 kg (11 lbs) since the holiday season, probably through a combination of eating a bit less and healthier and doing more "working out" (I don't really work out but in the last months I have actually gotten very much into Ballroom dancing, which has undoubtedly helped with my fitness and coordination. I've been going to a Ballroom school two days a week, and each of these days for 3-5 hours. Also, it's something fun to do with my spouse :-))

When I saw that I had lost weight without even noticing, I thought I might lose a bit more when actually trying to.

So I went on a "diet": Just consciously eating less. I cut all sweets, potato chips, snacking outsides meal times (see Terrence' post above) etc completely. I kept my usual breakfast (two slices of whole meal toast with selfmade jam). For lunch I eat a two pieces of fruit. In the early evening I have a "normal sized" dinner, but in the last few weeks I've started cooking low carb with lots of (mostly fresh) vegetables plus mostly low-fat, protein-high ingredients but with no / as little as possible carbs.

What's kept the "diet" and low carb fun is that I've started to extensively cook and experiment with ingredients that I normally would have used once in a blue moon if ever: Parsnip, Sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke), Tofu, Seitan (I've also tried to have 2 or 3 vegetarian days a week as well, but more for ecological than for dietary reasons) etc.

I am now at 89 kg (196 lbs); that's -15 kg (-33 lbs) in 2.5 months. My goal is to get to around 75 kg (165 lbs) in another 3 months or so - and stay there :-)

All the best to everybody with their efforts!

Great stuff Adam - I lost 3 st (42lbs) last year and have kept it off. It will definately invigorate you!

If I can offer you 2 pieces of advice it would be the following:

1. Please ignore BMI. There are many good benchmarks, this is not one of them. Every single profeesional rugby player would be considered obese on their scale!

2. Measure yourself! - Take 6 key meansurements around your body. There will be times when your weight loss plateaus, but you will be changing shape and size. They eye doesnt really pick up on this, the tape measure does! I cant tell you strongly enough how much motivation the tape will give you during periods of a plateau. (i measured neck, chest, belly, waist, around bum and thigh.

GLGL

You have a lot of good points.

I'm more of a 2-3 meal a day person myself, so I wasn't considering going to 6 meals a day, but I know people who have done the grazing thing and said it worked for them so I never really looked into the science of it.

Thanks for a different perspective.

TChan says eat bacon lose weight! Best coach ever!

I'm willing to try public humiliation in an attempt to lose weight, sure.

I'm 6' 7", 275lbs and after looking at the BMI info I too will be abstaining from that unit of measure. I think its a generalization that doesn't work for everyone. I'm a big dude, and while I have certainly started to border on fattybobatty, I also have a lot of muscle from working out in my misspent youth and if I got to my goal weight of 235lbs I would be pretty lean, but still considered overweight by BMI standards.

Sidenote - aside from the heating thing, is the Vitamix not just a blender?

Great timing for this thread of me.
Recently my wife just had our first child (Desmond Jack on March 8th) anyway before he got here I decided to my butt back in shape. I met my wife a few years ago and i was a gym rat and weighed in at 210-215 lbs. well fast forward to this winter i wasn't feeling so great and had my first child on the way i hopped on my scale and was close to 300 pounds!
Im 5'10" and was 300 lbs? scared the crap out of me!
So i have started working on my cardio on a bike and watching what i eat again and now touch the scale at 275 lbs.

Start 300 lbs
Current 275 lbs
Goal under 250 lbs (parents pool springboard weight limit) by summer
ultimate goal 225 lbs

Good luck to everyone on there goals!

It's a really powerful blender, but yeah that's basically it.

It's kind of expensive, but well worth it if you are going to mix a lot. It doesn't leave little bits intact - even tiny stuff like fruit seeds get broken down.

OOT thread on it: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/34...tamix-1174240/

F-OOT!

That said, my wife uses ours for making almond flour .....things turns them to powder in seconds and shows no signs of slowing. It is an awesome blender....not sure I'd have spent the money on it if not for my wife, but oh well...

I'm onboard!!

Started the day off (after posting the latest episode of the PokerCast of course) with a nice egg and baby spinach sandwich with a flaxseed / olive oil combo instead of butter with a little cat-sup and a coffee. Now its off to my local fitness museum for Back & Core Madness! will post my stats and goals later today...



Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum, Mandelbaum...

Welcome aboard nit! Ya, me and Ron are tight as well. He's going to wonder where I've been lately.

Post pics of shiny new equipment when you get it.

Old school 2+2'er on board!

Ya, glad people are posting their personal goals. Sprint triathlon sounds fun and a great goal. Are these things held everywhere?

Thanks!

GOGOGOGO JD. Awesome to have you on board. It's all about Huck!

Thanks for the advice, T. I know how in-tune with nutrition and how the body reacts to it you are.

Honey is only temporary (and for Rudy when he shares). The fruit part is mostly to make it tasty, what other smoothie ingredients do you suggest to replace it?

Define "eat lots" because as you know I can do that. What specific foods do you eat to get in lots of omega 3's and which foods do you avoid like plague?

Ya, I think the part about making it fun is important. It's too easy to slide back to fast foods if you're not enjoying making the food and how your body reacts to it. So far, I'm having fun with it.

Great job so far and keep us updated on progress.

Ya, I really only used BMI because that's what categorized me as obese. Paying most of my attention to weight, how I feel and hopefully building muscle when I start with a weight program.

Love the idea of measuring. Will do that for sure.

Congrats on keeping the weight off!

Welcome aboard!

As RJ said, Vitamix is a blender but because of it's power it's capable of many things. Soups, bread making, hummus etc.

Congrats on the little guy, gives you a whole new reason to be healthy.

Great job so far, keep us updated on how it's going.

Wow that looks delicious. Who made it?

When I posted this yesterday, this was exactly the response I was hoping for. The key is for people to stay engaged and updating, even if things aren't going as well as you would have hoped.

Off to the basement to jump on our coatrack (err treadmill) for a half hour!

Funnily enough I just ate my first McDonalds in months before reading this thread.

BTW Adam, not saying you're not a fat lump (:P) but BMI isn't the most accurate thing in the world because it doesn't distinguish between muscle and fat. You could be a pro bodybuilder with a BMI of 30.

Last time I (seriously) tried to lose weight I was very successful in the short term... I was in a weight loss challenge with some friends, and I lost 30lbs in 3 months....


....and then put on 45 lbs in 5 weeks.

Goal this time around is sustainability.

One way I have been trying this year is avoiding fast food drive throughs. So far so good... but Dec 31 is a loooong way away.

This is exactly the reason I"m focusing more on just making actual long term changes as opposed to telling myself I'm on a diet. If it's a diet, it ends, and then badness ensues again.

Of course, if people didn't approach it as a temporary fix, the diet industry would crumple, and we can't have that.

Not sure; when I was a kid, I always watched the Hawaii Iron Man with my dad and thought it was the coolest thing ever; guys who did that held a special place in my mind as incredible athletes, and saying I finished a triathlon (even a short one) would really make me proud.

When I set myself the goal, I just googled for triathlons in my area and found one pretty easily (mine is actually Jun 24, not Jun 28). The same group (Multisports Canada) seems to be doing on in Vancouver on Sept 3.

As for diet, I appreciate the advice so far from all, but I'm working less on "should I have omega 6 or omega 3" and more on "don't eat that bag of cookies in the middle of the afternoon". Walk, then run.

I might not be ever able to do anything like a triathlon (or even close), but there is a running program I've tried that in order to at least run somewhat. It's called Coach to 5K: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

There's an app for it that tells you when to run as you work your way up from walking.

Even if I never really can run a 5K (my back goes into spasm when I run, and I don't know if it will subside when I build up - it didn't when I tried about a year and a half ago), but even if I always run/walk to some degree, it's better than nothing.

Right?