Health/weight loss advice?

2

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  • dr1978
    dr1978 Posts: 424
    daddyjt wrote: »
    Upstatemax wrote: »
    Start with better portion control and increase activity.

    Portion control will get easier as you go along. At first you’ll be hungry, then soon enough what used to be an appitizer will fill you up...

    Don’t cut too much food right away. You’ll send your body into starvation mode and you’ll naturally hold onto weight and start a bad cycle of dieting and binge.

    Fad diets don’t work for the long term. You need to take it one step at a time.

    Cutting back and eventually eliminating sugary drinks is always a good move. Increase water to help flush the system and support healthy body functions.

    Move to healthy home made foods.

    I’ve found apps like “MyFitness Pal” to be a good way to help keep you on track and teach you about food choices and being active.

    Just remember to set reasonable goals.

    I only drink diet cola, when I drink pop (about once every other day). However, I DO drink a sugar free energy drink every morning... What's the consensus on caffeine?

    I used to do energy drinks but now I just pop a 200 mg caffeine pill in the morning. Straight caffeine can make you a little jittery, but no worse than an energy drink. I get a bottle of 90 of them for $4 at walmart. Do the math on how much that'll save you..
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  • afterburnt
    afterburnt Posts: 7,892
    edited May 2018
    I drove from N. Carolina to Vermont on Vivarin pills. I did need like 24 beers to tone down the shaking. Oh yeah, I was old enough to buy Vivarin but not beer.
  • dr1978
    dr1978 Posts: 424
    I must have edited my other post one too many times so it's now under review, but in it I mentioned weight training. If you do go that route be sure to start with very low weights and give yourself at least a day off inbetween workouts to allow your muscles to recover. And even as you progress, I'd suggest keeping the weights low enough to where you can do 20 reps per set. Lean muscle is your friend.
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  • afterburnt
    afterburnt Posts: 7,892
    dr1978 wrote: »
    I must have edited my other post one too many times so it's now under review, but in it I mentioned weight training. If you do go that route be sure to start with very low weights and give yourself at least a day off inbetween workouts to allow your muscles to recover. And even as you progress, I'd suggest keeping the weights low enough to where you can do 20 reps per set. Lean muscle is your friend.

    This is why I suggested body weight and isometrics. You can really hurt yourself throwing iron around if you don't know what you are doing.
  • msg
    msg Posts: 9,306
    Lots of great advice here.
    I'll stress one thing - EAT.
    Don't starve yourself.

    One mistake I think people make in fitness lifestyle changes is cutting too much out too fast, and not properly feeding themselves. You can lose the wrong kind of weight, and that's muscle mass. Worse, you shock your body, and it begins to actually hold onto fat, because it thinks it's in starvation.

    Diet is huge, and by diet I mean "what you eat", not "don't eat". Great info above on what to drop out, and what to add. Personally, I try to keep it mostly small portions of protein meals/snacks, healthy low glycemic carbs, and vegetables and fruit. Definitely cut way back on sugar, especially soda.

    Next is the secret of lean muscle mass. Add in some light to moderate resistance training, best you can with your back, with a balanced diet to build/tone muscle, and watch yourself burn more calories at rest.

    Go by fit/feel, not weight.
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  • Viking64
    Viking64 Posts: 6,646
    afterburnt wrote: »
    I drove from N. Carolina to Vermont on Vivarin pills.
    I've driven from Florida to North Carolina several times, and back and forth from Florida and Vermont a few times, but never between North Carolina and Vermont. That sounds wise, cutting out all of the flat states and only passing through the scenic ones. :p
  • Viking64
    Viking64 Posts: 6,646
    As far as the original post: There is lots of great advice here. The only thing I can think to add that hasn't already been covered (or that I have noticed) is to be careful not to lose too much weight too quickly. That too can cause issues. :)
  • scubalab
    scubalab Posts: 3,101
    One more thing to add, and it's really just in your outlook. The word DIET often is associated with dieting and therefore is viewed as only necessary when trying to lose weight. The friend of mine who teaches fitness/nutrition puts it best... It's a lifestyle. If you diet, and then stop "dieting" when you lose the weight you wanted to lose, often it's very easy to slide (even slowly) back into bad habits.

    I speak from experience. When we lost our weight on WW, we started what they called "maintenance". That quickly fizzled. Slowly (over the course of a few years), we found ourselves 'cheating', and drifting back to old habits. Granted, the weight didn't all come back fast (took 6 years), but it pretty much did.

    What worked best for us was the portion control. We basically cut what we normally would eat in half. Eat slow, and then if we were still hungry, would get a little more. Too often did we fill our plate, and then feel obligated to clean it. It takes your brain some time to register that you're 'full', hence, we'd often over eat, and several minutes later, regret it feeling stuffed.

    This thread is perfect timing, as I'm getting strict with a new "lifestyle" as well to 1) get in better shape, 2) drop the weight that was put back on, and 3) hopefully eliminate the back pain.

    Day 2 of Insanity was nearly impossible..., but I did it. There's no better feeling than watching the clock hit zero and knowing you did the best you could. According to my HR monitor, my average HR was 173 (a little too high...) and I burned over 1000 calories... (I also realize that when I changed the battery, I put the display back in upside down... D'Oh!)

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    Best of luck daddyjt!
  • afterburnt
    afterburnt Posts: 7,892
    @daddyjt Scott is right, you do want to do some kind of resistance not solely aerobic work. Maintaining muscle mass it essential. You will burn muscle with aerobic exercise (unless you make it anaerobic, sprints) it will damn near negate any gains you make with diet alone. Rubber bands are great, pretty hard to hurt yourself with them. You can even look up isometric moves that you can do with a towel or something.
  • tonyb
    tonyb Posts: 32,902
    Do not get that fusion.

    Having back problems myself, one tends to baby it thus making your core weaker and fat to accumulate. There is no magic pill here, what your looking at is a complete lifestyle change. You don't have to do it all at once, slowly.....and as you see results it will motivate you to do more.

    First and foremost is diet. Stop eating fast food or junk food. Limit sugar to under 30 grams a day. Focus on the good fats that help burn the bad fats. Don't eat after say 6 pm when you think your going to turn into a couch potato. That food will just sit and rot in your gut. Watch what your drinking too, no diet soda either. Drink water, tea-hot or cold, few cups of coffee a day is ok too. Try not to eat like it's your last supper, portion control is just as key as what your eating. Bring more fish and greens into the daily diet.

    Move...you don't have to run a marathon, hit the gym like the Rock, but you have to move. Walk...around the block, at the mall, whatever, you'd be surprised how easy it is to do 3-5 miles a day. If your older, and with the extra weight you have now, running isn't going to do you much favor on the joints. If you have access to a pool, hit it....one of the best ways to get exercise and not tear up your joints in the process.

    Once you do those simple things, you'll drop 60 pounds no problem. Then....start looking at more active exercises like a gym or Orange theory. If you try to do too much too fast, you'll only injure yourself in other ways.

    Supplements....eh, lots of snake oil out there but a few I've eventually landed on are Curcumin and plain old CQ10. The Curcumin is the active ingredient in Turmeric. It has reduced my inflammation from arthritis to almost non-existent. It comes with some ginger too to help digestion, which we all need. CQ10 is basically support for the heart, being over weight, I'd imagine your heart is already stressed. Always a good idea to keep the blood vessels flexible, especially since your going to start exercising a bit more. Fish oil also helps in that regard.

    My homegrown concoction, which I have the wife hooked on too, is once in the morning and once at night.....8 oz glass of water or tea, mix in a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar, teaspoon of honey, pinch of black pepper....helps the body absorb the ACV easier and faster. My wife likes to add a pinch of turmeric and a few small slices of ginger to that also but I don't since I take the Curcumin with ginger in it. Just drinking that alone, changing nothing else I dropped 15 pounds in about a month and the same for the wife. Add in walking, and a few diet changes, losing 60 lbs should be a no brainer for you. Plus you'll have more energy, and that motivates to do more.

    After the wife had a heart attack last June, she made the simple changes first. Drank my concoction, walked around the block, got herself a fitbit to keep track and was doing 3-5 miles a day. She dropped 30 lbs that way. Then she needed and wanted more, so she joined a gym, but while she liked it she still needed something more structured without having to go the personal trainer route. Orange theory was her answer. They kick your arse for an hour, monitor your heart rate to keep it in certain zones for x amount of time. May not be for everyone, just an option I thought I'd throw out.

    There is no one size fits all to all this, start slowly and see what works for you. The principles are the same though, eat well and move. Building muscle is another animal but given your weight as of now, might be best to lose a few lbs. before tackling that aspect.
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  • machone
    machone Posts: 1,471
    The anti-inflamatory diet by Andrews.
    Balanced and you can eat as much as you want
    The catch is were you get the proteins, carbs and fat. All the things we love are not on the approved list but if you can stick to it you will feel completely different and probably loose the weight.

    It worked for me.
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  • afterburnt
    afterburnt Posts: 7,892
    If all else fails go on the pork diet you will die happy, I know I did.
  • aprazer402
    aprazer402 Posts: 3,087
    My youngest brother 53, has used the app "My Fitness Pal" to log all of his food intake daily.

    This app sets a daily calorie limit for you based on what you input for your gender, age, height, weight and activity level. It calculates your BMI.

    My brother is fairly active and on his feet most of the day, he is allowed around 2500 calories a day. You can use the scanner on your phone from the app. to scan bar codes on food or it has a vast library of almost any food product to select from.

    He records everything, it calculates proteins, fats, carbs, sugars from what's eaten. Graphs your progress... You can log in from a computer to make it easier than using a phone. It's really slick! I did it for a few weeks in January (need to get back on it) I need to lose maybe 30 lbs. :/

    He has been doing this since November and has lost 65+ lbs. He did stop drinking soda, now mostly unsweetened tea and water.

    Best wishes to all trying to improve their health!
  • Dabutcher
    Dabutcher Posts: 2,588
    Give up alcohol completely. Stop all soft drinks. Try to go light on sugar and salt. Avoid white bleached flour if possible. Eat five whole pieces of fruit a day. Drink lots of water. Walk as much as you can or ride a bicycle. All these have helped me. Good luck Don’t give up. Keep us all updated. Peace. D
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  • shawn474
    shawn474 Posts: 3,047
    edited May 2018
    Here goes....I have been working in sports medicine for over 20 years. My brother is a doctor (pediatrician) and mother is a nurse. EVERYONE in my family is heavy. Most people I work with are very fit and at the prime of their athletic careers. They often come back later in life with much the same problems you describe......


    All that said, looking for a quick fix or a diet is an exercise in futility (pun intended). Weight watchers is seen by many as a diet. The reason it is one of the most successful is that it provides accountability and because it’s a simple exchange system. Portion control as mentioned by others is paramount. Any way you cut it this is going to HAVE to be a lifestyle change....for good. Moderation is the key. Don’t cut things out completely that you enjoy. Don’t give up caffeine, soda or drinking entirely. Just try some willpower to limit your intake of such things.

    As for your back (my specialty is in rehabilitation of orthopedic injuries as reference), I understand completely that you don’t want surgery and wish to avoid it all costs. However, if you plan to exercise (which I HIGHLY recommend) tonaid in your weight loss and lifestyle change, it’s almost a certainty that the herniated disc will become a limiting factor. You are right that losing weight will help, but if you do not address the disc extrusion that is pressing on your nerve root, it will not get better. Anti inflammatories, stretching, exercise, epidural injections can help. However, surgery may be inevitable.

    I received a microdisecromy at level l5-s1 and have a bulging disc at l4-l5. I had to go back in eight months after the microdisecromy and fuse l5-s1. This was at 31 years of age.....I am 44 and it was the single best decision I have made regarding my health. It allowed me to continue to play basketball, do yard work, perform home renovations, play with my kids.....without fear of being in spasm and laid up for days.

    This isn’t at all to say that surgery is the best option for everyone...just that further treatment of the condition may be necessary to gain the desired result. I work with post surgical cases a lot in my daily job and for many it was the ONLY way for them to get any relief. Many times the “failure of surgery” is the failure to follow through with doctors orders and the failure to rehab properly with qualified and comp tent people. Cross fit isn’t therapy....just as an example. But this WILL be a lifestyle change in order for you to get what you want. I wish you luck in the journey and pain free, healthy progression through the process.
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  • MrBuhl
    MrBuhl Posts: 2,419
    I have to say, I use the MyFitnessPal app currently, and have used WW as well with great success - but what everyone else is saying I have found to be universally true.
    * Increase activity slowly according to your fitness/comfort level
    * Eat smaller meals more often - don't let yourself get hungry per se (even a very
    small snack between meals keeps your blood sugar from crashing)
    * Portion control, portion control, portion control
    * Massively increase your water intake
    * Limit the alcohol - its fun, but it's empty calories.
    I've lost as much as 57 lbs (about 8 years ago) - I'm not very good about it anymore, but I've still maintained a level between 26 and 36 of those pounds off depending on the season, activity levels (and my drinking LOL).
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  • jeremymarcinko
    jeremymarcinko Posts: 3,785
    If you’re disciplined intermittent fasting will change your life.
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  • daddyjt
    daddyjt Posts: 2,305
    Wow - that’s what I love about this site, - in 12 hours I have a ton of GREAT info, and a lot of common themes. I really appreciate everyone taking time to share their thoughts.

    I have given up fast food for 10 days now - it’s a pain in the **** making a lunch, but much healthier (and cheaper), AND I don’t eat as much.

    I’m going to go after soda next - in all honesty the morning energy drink is going to stay for a bit.

    Went to the school at the end of our block and played some basketball with my son tonight - mostly just a shoot-around, but I kept moving. And we had a lot of fun.

    I’m going to look into a protein shake for breakfast - any suggestions there?

    Thanks again guys - I really appreciate it.
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  • Jaybeez
    Jaybeez Posts: 737
    Lots of great advise above. My best results have been from diet and counting calories (My Fitness Pal, etc.).
    I retired last year, and eat mostly "whole" foods. Lots of lean meat, chicken and fish, along with veggies.
    Minimize / eliminate fast food and processed food.
    I've found I'm rarely hungry and have pretty much lost my appetite for things that I used to love but are bad for my waistline.
    Basically just an issue of re-training yourself.
  • audioluvr
    audioluvr Posts: 5,420
    For chronic pain, I use Kratom. I buy in bulk and make my own capsules. Better than opioids with no side effects. It's in the coffee family so it gives you a boost of energy as well.

    As for diet, avoid processed anything. Lots of veggies, seeds, nuts etc. Drink lots of water during the day and low calorie beer in the evening (helps reduce stress). Buddy of mine has done this and lost almost 100# in the last 2 month.
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  • thsmith
    thsmith Posts: 6,082
    If you’re disciplined intermittent fasting will change your life.

    I eat for 4 hours and fast for 20 hours. Love it ! No sodas, lots of water and no fast foods. I am not starving or overly hungry. It really is amazing how little food you really need.
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  • MrBuhl
    MrBuhl Posts: 2,419
    edited May 2018
    daddyjt wrote: »

    I’m going to look into a protein shake for breakfast - any suggestions there?

    That's a great start - congrats! Make it fun, make it not painful, you're more likely to continue. This is hands down the best low calorie shake I've found, when I'm climbing/hiking or doing heavy workouts, I usually follow up with one of these. Low calorie, high in protein - and fairly tasty too when added to your favorite milk-type beverage, almost like a milkshake. I like the gourmet chocolate - I can get it here in LA at the Vitamin Factory for $29 a can.

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  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    I usually stay out of threads like these because I usually get shouted down over my personal experience. But I have to say that the thing that has worked best for me is activity and lots of it.

    There have been times where I was way out of shape and gaining bad weight quickly. Those times were either because I was stuck in a bad job and someone was making it difficult for me to stay so being chained to a desk and treated like a pleb adds to the stress and inactivity. Other times I was injured either with a torn deltoid (not something I recommend doing!) or an injury to my abdominal wall that was risking a major hernia or something else equally limiting like a broken bone.

    After being able to get active again, I was able to not drop weight but change the kind of weight I had going on.

    Three years ago, I was 187 pounds. My pants didn't fit and I was dealing with injuries that severely restricted my activity. I asked my doc what to do and he said diet and exercise of course. And by diet meaning watching what I eat as in amounts and types of foods not any crazy fad diet.

    Today, I'm still only 5 foot 7, couldn't manage to grow any, but I'm about 180 pounds and I fit into a size 32 waist pants again. Biggest change? I got back to work. I changed jobs which knocked down a bunch of stress and I got a new house which meant my activity had to increase because I have work to do. Not saying that is the right idea, just saying it's an example.

    But, not being a doctor or a nutritionist, here's what I've learned from trying to stay fit as well (BTW, will be 41 in July):

    nutrition

    - How much you eat matters. No need to be a health food nut or buy anything that says "organic" on it because that's a load of baloney...organic baloney at that! The biggest thing is quantity. For instance, if you like to get a hoagie for lunch on Fridays, get the hoagie but instead of chowing down on all of it and stuffing yourself full, wrap up half for Saturday's lunch. A single hoagie can be 600-1000 calories. A reasonable lunch is usually 300-500 calories. By cutting your hoagie in half, you're in reasonable lunch range. And, you stretch your budget a bit so you spent, I dunno, 6 bucks over two days instead of 12 in two days. Adds up for that next audio upgrade!
    - The kind of food matters. A hoagie is nice to have and is actually a balanced meal with veggies, meats, dairy, carbs and fats. But, lunchmeat is typically loaded with salt and nitrates which wreck your blood pressure and can cause hypertension. So, you kinda want to avoid them if you want to lose weight. Because hypertension is stress and it can cause you to gain weight, especially in bad spots like around arteries. Reach for whole grain stuff and fresh vegetables. Lean, whole cuts of fresh meats matter too. Aim for top sirloin (a moderate yet fairly inexpensive cut of beef) instead of the hamburger and Hamburger Helper or chicken for cheap, lean protein. The sirloin is good and easy to cook in a broiler and is far better than greasy, fatty hamburger. Cut back on fried foods, bake french fries instead and treat yourself to fried french fries every so often. Basically, the more processed the food is before you get it the worse off it is for you. Also, don't eat out so much. Especially fast food. I know McD's fries are addictive but you also know they are horrible for you. If you make your own meals you control quantity and quality. One of the easiest things I did when trying to drop weight was to make a sort of stew with some macaroni, vegetables and meat or substitute like a barley or rice for the noodles. I'd make a bucket of it and portion it out for my lunches for the week. Balanced meal, controlled portions, easy plan to stick to, budget friendly and it was something I liked. Made a different one every Sunday. Didn't take long at all. Farmer's Markets in the spring, summer and fall made it easy to get the freshest local ingredients that were seasonal as well and on the cheap. Also, it's easy to make hearty soups that freeze well and you can make huge quantities of it easily and they are complete meals, typically. And not any of that Lipton instant soup stuff or canned soups. Loaded with salt.
    - Balanced meals matter. The point of eating is to provide the fuel and raw materials your body needs to function and stay healthy. Feed it garbage, it will reward you with garbage. Fad diets like Atkins deprive your body of needed resources and they just end up forcing your body to eat itself to survive. That's how you lose weight with them. You end up gaining it all back quickly because your body goes into famine mode and stores up everything it can as quick as it can so the moment you get off the fad diet, the moment you start gaining it all back. All any diet tries to do is cut calories while maintaining necessary nutrition levels. But saying your diet plan is to just eat less doesn't sell books, magazines or commercial time on Oprah. What they should tell you is that being on a diet is really learning a lifestyle change but that's haaaard and nobody wants to do that. The best diet is one that gives you all of your nutrients while cutting down the quantities and being easy to live with at the same time. So balanced meals with carbs and fats 'cause you need those too. Just in moderate quantities. At first it's a drag and you're hungry a bunch but stick with it and in a week or two your body adjusts. You can get past it by chewing sugarless gum. Worked for me.

    exercise
    - Get some, seriously. You don't have to burn calories and count them but you should be conscious of how much activity you get in a day. If you sit at a desk, download Google Fit to your cellphone if you can. It will track your activity for you and you can even set alarms where it tells you to get up and walk around. Makes it a cinch. But basically, you want to increase your heart rate and maintain that increased heart rate for at least 20 minutes a day. What I did when I couldn't lift heavy stuff was I got an exercise bike from a yard sale. I plopped it in my living room in front of the TV. Then I would watch the 6 o'clock news while pedaling my butt off for the duration. At first it was hard but 2 weeks later I was tightening down that tension screw to increase resistance because it got easy. I did that 5-6 days a week. I didn't see weight drop but I did notice my pants fitting better and my injuries were feeling better quicker plus less lower back issues.
    - It doesn't have to be planned. Planning it turns it into a chore but sometimes you have to be conscious of it so you don't hurt yourself. If you have back problems already, then yeah, plan it at first so you don't over do it and gradually increase your activity. But, now, I get far more exercise doing house projects or yard projects or car projects. I also tend to lose myself in them because I'm enjoying it and lose track of time so I end up working for hours and not realizing it. Then I end up getting 4-10 hours of activity a day instead of just 20 minutes.

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  • Jstas
    Jstas Posts: 14,707
    It said my post was too long...that's so unlike me!


    daily habits
    - drink more water. You don't have to necessarily cut out soda or beer or wine, just cut back on it and replace it with water
    - get more sleep. If you sleep for 8 hours a day, that's 8 hours a day where you are doing nothing but burning calories AND giving your body plenty of time to heal injuries. It also reduces blood pressure which can help things that are inflamed like a slipped disk or torn deltoid. You will also tend to need less drugs like pain killers. You'll be sick less often too.
    - go outside. seriously, get some sun. It helps with everything from vitamin processing in your body to mental wellness. It just makes you feel better and if you're taking a walk outside, you're getting exercise at the same time
    - Don't watch so much TV or sit in front of the computer, like this has to be said when saying to get active. But you need to rest and relax too so grab a book and sit outside and read. Also, your muscles are big and burn lots of calories but your biggest resources suck in your entire body is your brain. Something like 70% of everything you intake gets used to run your brain. So reading burns calories too because it makes you're brain work. Besides, people don't do enough of it anymore.
    - Eat regularly. Establish a schedule and it will help your body meter it's metabolism and then, simple activity changes like riding your exercise bike twice a day for 20 minutes instead of just once a day makes a far bigger impact than maybe participating in the occasional Donut Friday for a treat. Because when your body knows when it's getting more stuff, adding an extra 150-200 calories doesn't impact your metabolism that much, especially since you're doing tons of exercise and burning more calories than you take in anyway.
    - know your limits, don't push yourself to the point where you injure yourself. Push yourself to improve but don't take dumb risks in the name of health progress. That's kinda counterproductive. If you already have health issues like a slipped disc, talk to your doctor first. Hell, go talk to your doctor about it anyway. Pretty much every health insurance company out there, including Obamacare, covers preventative doctors appointments 100% so make an appointment and give the reason as "weight loss consultation" and they can code it as that and the insurance company would rather eat the $250 visit than pay for the $250,000 bypass surgery.


    It is slow going but the biggest changes you can make are:
    - cut down portion sizes, you don't have to change what you eat so much as change how much of it you eat
    - cut out the real bad stuff like salt, bad fats and such. Like skip Bagel Tuesday or Donut Friday at work and make it Tangerine Tuesday and Fig Newton Friday
    - eat vegetables. fresh ones or frozen fresh ones, canned is not so great and is just mush anyway
    - get active, if you work in an office, grab your lunch and take a walk outside. frustrated with work? take a walk for 15-20 minutes. get up and take a lap of the office every hour or so. Stand up at your desk for half your day. Just do something and do more of it. Exercise is everywhere, get some!
    - treat yourself. If you're gonna do something like cut soda out of your diet, allow yourself a another "vice" of sorts or maybe the occassional Dr. Pepper or something because the soul is just as important as the mind and body. You need to exercise restraint but if you feel like you're in a bland life devoid of pleasure, weight loss isn't going to matter to you and you'll lose interest.


    The most important thing in all of it is that weight is not an indication of weight loss. I'm 5 foot 7 and 180 pounds. In 3 years I've technically "lost" only 7 pounds. But I went from a size 36 waist to a size 32. Granted, for most that doesn't seem like a big deal but when you're 5 foot 7, that's at least 20 extra pounds of fat in your belly and a pretty big gut for such a small frame. So I've made a big difference and lost a bunch of bad weight. But all the activity has added muscle and strength and muscle is more dense than fat so the same weight of muscle takes up less space. Strength has also been critical to staying healthy. I too started having back problems from gaining weight and sitting at a desk all day. I was getting shoulder stress and lower back stress because the extra weight was putting me off balance and my muscles in my back were not strong enough to keep compensating and keeping everything in line. Getting active and getting strength back dropped the weight and made everything hurt way less. Your muscles play just as much of a part in keeping your body geometry correct as your bones do. If your muscles are weak then it stresses your bones, especially at the joints where all the stress is to begin with. In addition, muscle takes more energy and more nutrition to maintain so you burn more calories by just existing. And you don't need to necessarily do weight training to get it.

    But so far, lots of good advice in this thread. It sucks having the back problems that limit your mobility but it's possible to make a conscious effort and see significant results/progress.

    Just stay away from the scale and get a tailor's tape measure. The scale is not your friend and the tape measure is a far more accurate indication of progress.
    Expert Moron Extraordinaire

    You're just jealous 'cause the voices don't talk to you!
  • Conradicles
    Conradicles Posts: 6,010
    That's a lot of words.
  • Willow
    Willow Posts: 10,862
    My story, I'll keep it much shorter than Jstas (sorry Viking maybe only a couple lbs lost) 2 back surgeries 2 kids... not making time blah blah blah... It wasn't until I saw a picture of me in Mexico. WTH??? that's what I look like man I've gotten big. (5'11 I was 195 lbs) I don't care too much about numbers. My wife said let's try Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. Ya sure what ever. That was mid Feb to early March. I was doing 20 mins a day for 2.5 weeks until I caught a nasty flu. Now I'm back on it and doing it every couple days. I have my veggie greens in the am with some fish oil and a protein shake here and there during the day. Have I lost weight? Don't know and don't care. What I do know is my pants fit much better, I can climb stairs and not feel out of breath and I'm getting definition where I once had many moons ago. I drink 1 coffee a day the rest is water and the occasional kumbucha. On the weekends I drink wine. Seeing as I'm gluten free it really helps not to eat fast food because I can't. I eat breakfast every day as well as lunch and dinner. In between I snack constantly. Healthy stuff, nuts fruit, veggies, yogurt... My lunches consist of salads, every day. Usually rice, with lettuce, more veggies, feta cheese and left over meat from the night before. It is working for me. One thing about the JM shred video she does say that a mild squat position and punching is great at raising the heart rate especially for those who have back issues. Anyway my 2 (Canadian) cents. My pants fit better and my shirts and Tshirts seem to be a bit more snug in the areas where I am getting arm and shoulder definition. Good luck on your quest and remember any movement is better than no movement.
  • kevhed72
    kevhed72 Posts: 4,949
    Two words....whole 30. I dropped 10 lbs and Im pretty slender and run quite a bit. My tryglercides dropped over 300, which have been an issue for a loooong time. I also agree with Tony said above. Sugar is poison and I try to avoid dairy as much as I can.
  • BlueFox
    BlueFox Posts: 15,251
    Lots of good advice here. Basically, the idea is eat less, exercise more. Eat good food; vegetables and protein. No junk and/or fast food. Keep the bread/bagels to one or two a week. Hit the gym, lift weights, use the treadmill.

    I classify calories as useful (good), and useless (bad). However, at least for me, you need some useless calories to maintain your sanity. Think of them as a reward. For example, I treat myself to beer (useless calories) on Friday/Saturday night. I still eat useful calories those days. Seems to work for me. I will be 69 in a few months, and am 170-175 pounds at 6’3”.
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