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Well, I started a sparkpeople journal - here it is so far - will keep updated here June 11 update

340 pounds
want to get to 180 pounds
Want to make it by 7/30/09
Need to loose 2.7 pounds per week. . .


Right now my calorie stats are
Total: 4580
Basal: 2934 64%
Lifestyle: 1279 28%

I'm going to try to stay below my basal needs and do some moderate extra activity.
 
if you exercise and eat properly, you will lose weight extremely fast in the first few months, and then gradually slow down. I think to start you will easily lose 2.7/week. I think when I started doing my thing at 272lbs, I lost like 14lbs my first month with no sweat. BUT, each month after I lost less and less, you should really only lose a max of 1% of your body weight per week. I think 2.7lbs a week after a while may be hard to do, so I think at some point you need to change your goal.

If you are using fitday, I highly suggest making short term goals; dont make 1 long term goal to lose 180 lbs by next year. It is doable, but thats a tall order for anyone. Make monthly goals, and when you reach them each month, you will really motivate yourself. Reaching goals will really empower you, so keep your long term goal, but add a bunch of small ones to make sure you are ontrack. It will make achieving the overall goal much easier to tackle.

 
This is going to be tough - If you check my link, I've exceeded my desired amount of calories by 200 and I am starving right now 😛

I guess it is gonna get worse before it gets better 🙂
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Have a problem I need thoughts on above.
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You also need way more protein.
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More protein - carbs + more calories = less hunger. Try to get a lot of lean protein sources and vegetables as well.

Aim for 1g of protein per pound of LBM, 20-25% fat, and the rest carbs. As for calories, 1500 calories is too little for somebody your size. At 340 you should lose weight even eating 3,000 calories a day. So I'd start there first and adjust as needed. Don't try to lower calories in pursuit of faster fat loss. You're going to do more harm than good, trust me.

More activity will allow you to eat a bit more as well. At your weight I'd start with just low-moderate intensity cardio 3-4x a week. Even some brisk walking is better than nothing, and probably a better idea than doing a significant amount of jogging and running. You may also want to do some form of weight training. If you're used to not doing much of any activity, make sure to start off slow though. Stick to one movement per bodypart, light weight, 10-15 reps, 2-3x a week and gradually increase. At your weight and assuming you have no prior experience in weight training you will be able to gain muscle mass while still in a calorie deficit.

Anyways, good luck with your goals. The best advice I can give you is just be patient. Too many people want to lose weight at a faster rate and end up doing more harm than good. They either increase activity to a point where it's way too much for them or they cut calories way too low. Make sure to give your body the nutrients it needs and gradually increase activity.
 
I had to go to my mother's house to drop off the grandkid. Of course she had a big country style meal fixed. I tried to approximate what I ate in fitday. The only problem with fitday is if you cook from scratch how on earth do you know what is in it? I had to just guess if the stuff was right or not. . . lots of problems there for people that cook. Any thoughts on this? For instance I make a killer beef stew from scratch. How on earth do I figure out the calorie count on it?
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If there's no way to know for sure the calories, just forget about it. When on a cut I try to allow myself one cheat meal a week. This is simply a meal outside of my normal diet where I don't really pay attention to too much detail. Treat times out with friends or family as your cheat meal for the week. Just don't go overboard on them. Don't think just because it's a free meal you're allowed to have a gallon of ice cream and claim it's part of your cheat meal. Still try to make healthy choices.

As for recipes you make yourself... look up the nutrition facts on each ingredient you put in there and just add them up and put it in as a custom food on fitday.
 
June 1st update.

Well it is day 3. I've managed to stay under or around 2000 calories. I know that I can go up to 3000 supposedly, but I am trying hard not to. Today, I was going to treat myself with 1/2 of a pizza. However, I found out that the 2 fried mackerel patty sandwiches I made for lunch had an extra 450 calories or so tacked onto them for using too much cornoil. So rather than being at 1000 calories like I hoped, I am at almost 1500 calories already. Sigh - only 500 more to go for the day. I'm already hungry. I sure wish I had a taste for vegetables like some of you guys have. Honestly, doing things like sitting down and eating a bell pepper pr raw babu carrots makes me want to gag. I come from a diet of superseasoned fried fatty foods. I know that I have to do this as I have severe sleep apnea and I am wayyyyy up on the scale. I can't even make weight updates yet cause our scale peters out at 280 lbs. I don't really have the spare change to spend on a balance beam scale and there are no gyms, etc. where I live.

I'm off to the store in a bit to get me a jar of pickles. They have like no calories and I like them ok to snack on. Probably wayyy to much sodium - but I'll tackle that one later.
 
Well, think of other alternatives. You can snack on carrots, eat broccoli, asparagus, corn with your meals. You can put some chopped tomatoes into things like tuna salad, a sandwich, etc. Little things like that will help you feel a little bit fuller due to the fiber. Also, pickles are probably not the best idea, since (yep you guessed it) the sodium is so extremely high. You don't want to switch an addiction for an addiction. Get into the good habits now. Also, if you take in more sodium, you're going to be disappointed since your body will retain water weight and the scale will tell you a higher than usual number.

Also, set aside once a week that you get a cheat meal. You don't get a prize of 1/2 a pizza this soon into the game (no offense, I know you've put a good deal of effort into this). You will be setting yourself up to think that have a pizza is going to be ok every couple of days or something, and that's not true. We want you not only to lose weight, but set up the building blocks for living a healthy LIFE. Stick to the cheat meal once a week. Your 2000 calorie goal may be a bit low, but I would think that you would go slightly over (since it's hard to estimate calories sometimes) and therefore you'll be fine.

Really though, one step at a time. Control your diet. Find veggies that you like. Balance your protein, carbs, and fats. Read my fat loss sticky at the top of the forums if you haven't (it'll help you a great deal in knowing what does what - carbs make you hungry, fats slow your digestion and make you feel less hungry, protein will keep you fairly full).
 
Doesnt he want to be at least AT basal but below lifestyle? Am I understanding wrong that if you dip below basal its detrimental to an extent?
 
Originally posted by: blackangst1
Doesnt he want to be at least AT basal but below lifestyle? Am I understanding wrong that if you dip below basal its detrimental to an extent?
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It's true, but it is a little bit different for those that have a large amount of fat. His basal is estimated to be around 3k, but I think that he can go lower due to the fact that he has a significantly lower LBM than someone at a lighter weight and therefore burns fewer calories. Those BMR calculators don't always ask you what your LBM is and therefore can't give you a very accurate estimation since it would give you the same answer if you were 300 pounds of muscle at 15% body fat or 300 pounds of not muscle and 30% body fat.
 
June 2nd

Well I'm annoyed that some things in fitday are wrong. Like it said 1 cup of honey nut cheerios had 115 calories - when on the box the cereal says that 3/4 of a cup has 110 calories. Are there any awesome programs that have like every food in it accurately out there?

Thanks to my gaff yesterday with oil - I bought a thing of PAM and PAM OLIVE OIL flavor. I'm going to try to work with that.

I'm buying some kitchen scales for portion control today. I got me some sugarlass cinnamon candy for something for my mouth to do. It helps some. I also discovered that cherry vanilla dr. pepper in the diet form doesn't taste very bad. I'm using splenda in my coffee - I haven't gave up non-dairy creamer yet though. I love 'hot ans spicy food like chili' - you'd laugh at me - yesterday I was dipping baby carrots in tabasco sauce to give me something hot. It is a shame chips are so unhealthy - I love dipping chips in homemade white queso. Why does everything that tastes like heaven have to be bad for you? It will be a long while till I update my weight. I'm moving in 2 weeks, and the town I'm moving to has a low cost gym subsidized by a local health complex. I'm going to get a membership there.
 
you can add your own food items to fitday. just select new custom food and you can enter in the cheerios yourself and it'll be there for future days when you eat them.
 
Once you quit eating crap foods you lose your taste for them (and vice versa with healthy foods: the more you eat and learn to prepare them, the more you will enjoy them). Cut out as much fried crap as you can, and also gradually reduce your intake of "diet" foods and replace them with real, unprocessed food. It takes a while, and I suggest just making one change at a time, but eventually you won't even miss the garbage if you take it slow and smart.
 
Originally posted by: episodic
Yea, I added it myself. I was just wondering is there a 'better' tool out there somewhere?
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All tools have subjective info put in by users. I use sparkpeople.com, but also it has the same problem that you had sometimes. I just typed in all the foods I eat on a regular basis and inserted my own nutritional facts from the boxes. It takes a lil bit of time, but I mean, everything is perfect 🙂
 
Originally posted by: episodic
...the town I'm moving to has a low cost gym subsidized by a local health complex. I'm going to get a membership there.
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Make sure they have barbells and squat rack. Also bench and pullup bar and bumper (rubber) plates for barbell.
 
Well, I did pretty good today. Stayed under 2000. I didn't really eat that healthy today. I had a 2 cups of fried chicken livers, I had to see my mom today to pick my kid back up from a visit and she knows that is my favorite. I passed on the fixings though and only drank a diet drink. According to what I can find online it as roughly 800 calories. They are loaded with nutrition though, shockingly. I basically ate almonds for lunch. I've had nothing but what is on the fitday. I just came back from a 1 hour and 20 minute 3.48 mile walk at 2.61 miles per hour. Not to bad for a 340 pound guy. I won't see mom for another 6 months - that should help alot.



Fitday says I only burned like 300 calories doing that - but EVERY other source pegs it at almost 700 calories. I entered enough time into fitday to reflect about 650 calories being burned. I'm not hungry at all now thankfully.

Tommorow, I'm trying a vegetarian recipe for 'apple burgers'. Hopefully, it isn't too gross.

http://www.theveggietable.com/recipes/appleburgers.html



 
June 4th - doing pretty good. I made a 'semi vegitarian' chili today. I love making chili. I still used 'beef broth' though (canned). . . . other than that no meat. I sauteed my onion and garlic in broth as well instead of oil. It worked good. I ate two bowls. This is suprisingly still tasty to me and good and filling. Probably high on the sodium (sigh) - but one thing at a time.
 
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