And so, my journey begins...

[Claymore]

Well, I've always wanted to drop weight, but about two weeks ago, I lost my dog of about 7 years (she was actually like 12, rescued her from a shelter), and to put it bluntly, it's really made me take a look at my life and get a grip on my personal bullshit.

So, starting today, I'm putting myself on a strict diet and exercise regiment. I'm cutting myself down to 1200 calories a day plus a salad, and 1700 calories on Sunday (or on a rare occasion, like a date). Plus, I'm cutting out everything but Water to drink, save for Sunday, when I figure I'll let myself have a soda as long as I count the calories.

I've still not totally settled what *kind* of calories I'm doing to be taking in, though. I feel like I should start eating some kind of Fruit for breakfast, but not really sure what fruits are really good for you. I dislike bananas, but if it's healthy, then screw it; I'll eat those for breakfast, too. If any of you guys have some feedback here, please post!

For lunch, like I said; Salad all the way. Truth be known, I actually prefer my salad plain anyways, which just a tiny bit of Italian dressing, and my sister usually picked up Baby Spinach Leaves that mix pretty well. It's simple, but it's not bad; will take some adjusting to, no doubt.

For dinner... there's the problem, really. I'm living with my sister right now, who doesn't need to diet and doesn't want to diet. I think she'll be supportive as she can, but considering we were pretty much raised on pasta, pizza, and fast-food, I think it's going to be a hard-sell to find something truly satisfying to cook for dinner. Best if it doesn't have a ton of prep-work (around 45 min or less, preferably). If any of you guys know a good site or book with good, healthy recipes, or have a recipe of your own, please share!

And finally, the exercise. Used to, I would drive down to the local YMCA and jog their track, but A) it takes a lot more effort to drive somewhere, B) it actually burns through a ton of gas, and C) I don't like working-out in front of other people. So, I guess I'm just gonna do what "normal people" do, and just walk around my neighborhood in the mornings. If I stick with it, I'll probably buy a bike, since I've found jogging to be kind of hard on my knee (injury from a few years ago, being overweight and jogging probably isn't helping it).

Aside from jogging or biking, any other personal suggestions for physical activity? I've thought about trying to get into Boxing more, as I have a bag already and have always loved the idea of it, but I tend to lose interest about like 15 minutes, lol.

Anyways... well, that's my game-plan! If you guys have any suggestions to add, please, feel free to throw them at me! I will so, though, that I'm adamantly against any sort of Atkins or Paleo diets, as I don't really care for meat that much to begin with, and I always feel *REALLY* sick when I try those, as well as sapped of energy.

Time to go H.A.M.!!!

[obdigore]

Should probably be in the Fitness section. Of course, there are already tons of these kinds of threads in there.

Depending on your weight and activity level, 1200 a day might be very low.

[Crianthia]

Going onto a strict diet after not being on one for so long and losing weight fairly quickly is very unhealthy for you. I would look into exercise programs first that allow bigger diets by burning more calories. I dont know your total fitness situation/level but P90X and Insanity are some of the best programs out there, 40m-1h a day and idk the number with P90X but insanity burns 2k-3k calories per workout allowing more intake for foods with energy/protien/etc. plus both get you ripped for da ladies just warning about the small diet, its smaller than you may realize.

[Claymore]

Should probably be in the Fitness section. Of course, there are already tons of these kinds of threads in there.

Depending on your weight and activity level, 1200 a day might be very low.

Ah, my bad; didn't see the Fitness section!

Anyways, I was actually originally going to shoot for 1500 a day (and 2000 on Sunday), but knowing myself, I would just eat really unhealthy crap. I figure, 1200 a day for "normal food", and I won't bother counting the salad I eat; since I use less than a spoon-full of dressing, I can't imagine it being too bad calorie-wise .

[Sevyvia]

Doesn't matter if it's salad or crisps. Salad has calories too, it counts for your daily limit. Also, don't be a fool and go for 1200. You'll go nuts on that. Set something decent every day, like 1500 at least. Depending on your weight beforehand, you could lose upwards of like 2 pounds a week or more on 1500/day, and it's a limit where you don't have to feel hungry most of the day either.

[obdigore]

Doesn't matter if it's salad or crisps. Salad has calories too, it counts for your daily limit. Also, don't be a fool and go for 1200. You'll go nuts on that. Set something decent every day, like 1500 at least. Depending on your weight beforehand, you could lose upwards of like 2 pounds a week or more on 1500/day, and it's a limit where you don't have to feel hungry most of the day either.

Depending on what he used to eat, he could eat 2000 calories a day if he was eating quite a bit more than that and changes his activity level, and still manage to lose weight.

[Claymore]

Well, the issue I run into with salads is that, honestly, it seems hard to actually *count* the calories. Plus, I'm clueless enough when it comes to any sort of nutrition, so I figure if salads are "free" on my diet, surely it's something I should try to eat more of?

I mean, if there's a good, more reliable source of information for this stuff, I'm happy to hear it. I've tried Google'ing this stuff before, though, and the information you get is just so conflicting, it actually does a lot more harm to my motivation than it does actually inform me of anything.

That said, if I find myself feeling sapped for energy, I'll consider bumping up my calorie-intake. I think I'm just going to have to fine-tune my diet as I go along, learning what kind of expectations and goals are reasonable, and learning which foods to avoid and whatnot. The end-goal isn't just to lose weight, but actually live and eat healthier; counting calories just seems the best place to start.

[starlord]

whats your current height & weight?

[Claymore]

whats your current height & weight?

6' and 293 lbs

[Deleted]

6' and 293 lbs

Then 1200 calories a day is *far* too little. You have to eat more or your brain will revolt.

Edit: to be honest, twice that would be about in line of appropriate for you to eat and still lose weight at about 2 lbs a week.

Edit 2: the most important rule is to not overdo things. If you're serious about wanting to change your lifestyle, set up a week of food and drink intake that you can live the rest of your life with - rushing things is never a good idea and in the case of overweight, it'll often result in going back to old habits, possibly even worse than before.

[Beavis]

If you want to count salad, go to a tracking site that lets you create meals, like calorecount.about.com or myfitnesspal.com. You can enter the amount of each ingredient and then save it as a recurring item. Generally speaking, greens are about 20 calories a cup, but other things are pretty variable, usually depending on the sugar content. I'd really recommend you take the time to do that, especially at the beginning. An undressed with tomatos, cucumbers, greens, and a couple of other things will usually run in the 80 - 100 calorie range. But, you throw in an avocado or some nuts and it could hit 200. Toss on a modest amount of dressing and you're at 250. That's worth paying attention to.

Also, I wouldn't recommend such an aggressive calorie cut until you know how you're going to feel on a diet. Some people can walk around on a 1000 calorie deficit and be fine. Others get wiped out. If you're tired and hungry at 1200, you're much more likely to give up over the long term than if you're satiated and energetic at 1800.

[starlord]

6' and 293 lbs

yeah 1200 is far far too little. maybe 1800 - 2000 for your height, depending on your exercise.

[Deleted]

Just like the brutal majority of people, you will lose the will to continue after a few weeks/months at best.
Then you will rapidly gain the lost weight back.

[Beavis]

Too little is really relative. It's more a matter of comfort and sustainability than anything else. Doctors routinely prescribe 1000 calorie and below diets to individuals with severe weight problems. 1200 is pretty aggressive, but if he's comfortable on that it's pretty much fine.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 06:55 AM ----------

Just like the brutal majority of people, you will lose the will to continue after a few weeks/months at best.
Then you will rapidly gain the lost weight back.

Way to be supportive. Weight loss and maintenance is definitely a challenge, but millions of people have done it successfully.

[Deleted]

Too little is really relative. It's more a matter of comfort and sustainability than anything else. Doctors routinely prescribe 1000 calorie and below diets to individuals with severe weight problems. 1200 is pretty aggressive, but if he's comfortable on that it's pretty much fine.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 06:55 AM ----------



Way to be supportive. Weight loss and maintenance is definitely a challenge, but millions of people have done it successfully.

Supportive? More like realistic. As I said earlier, goal #1 is to not overdo it; make a schedule of calorie intake that you can sustain for the rest of your life. If you just want to lose weight, chances are you'll gain it again, even if you do succeed. To maintain a healthy figure, reform your lifestyle. Sounds harsh, but it's reality.

[Laize]

Here

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=weight+loss

This calculator will tell you exactly how much you should eat to reach your goal weight in a reasonable amount of time without overdoing it.

For me, that number is between 1400 and 1700 calories a day. I find that number to be quite reasonable and it's produced great results so far. I'm down 45 lbs.

[Deleo]

Good luck with your journey. I hope you get what you want and that sexy girl next door.

[Deleted]

Counting calories is the worst way to lose weight ever. EVER.

All you have to do is eat healthily. You can eat as many greens as you like. Huge piles of it. Don't bother counting how many calories are in a tomato, just stuff your face. Protein is fine too. Chicken breasts, steak, fish, even bacon and sausages are fine. Try finding interesting ways of cooking them. Chilli always adds flavour to a meal, and a curry is perfectly fine. Nothing beats coming home to a fucking huge steak, devouring the lot alongside a pile of fresh veg or salad. Berries are incredibly tasty and almost 0 calories. You can go through heaps of them if you want something nice to eat.

Just stay away from starchy carbs, rice, pasta, potatoes. Do some exercise and you can more or less eat what you like.

[Kuniku]

hey OP, i've recently also started a similar journey,

check out BMR, from what i understand it tells you vaguely how many calories your body uses to do nothing, i.e. stay in bed all day. Mine came out at about 2250 (185cm 105kg when I did it) so i figure anything less than that + getting out of bed and i should lose weight!

I downloaded an app for my iPhone - MyFitnessPal (i think they have a website too if you can't get the app - although there are others out there, but can't comment on those) - I put in some basic information and it then works as a calorie counting diary, put in everything you eat/drink each day, plus what exercise you do that day and when you "log" the day it tells you how much you'll weigh if you keep eat what you ate that day every day for 5 weeks (or that many calories etc) You also put in your target weight and how much a week you want to lose and it sets your net calorie limit.

as i said i started on tuesday at 105kg and my target is 93kg (which is one weight class down for jujitsu/mma where i should be able to compete better as I lack the upper body size to compete with heavy weights) as such i said i want to lose 2lbs a week (which i think is roughly a kilo?) so my daily net calorie intake is 1600, which is surprisingly easy to hit.

combined with 2-3 jujitsu training sessions a week I hope to be much closer to my target weight come xmas.

my slight problem with the calorie counting is that as i still live at home i eat whatever my mum cooks 3 or 4 nights a week, and its hard to gauge how many calories is in that, most meals in the app have a homemade option and you can say how big roughly it was, so i use that as a very rough guide, so i try to keep the calories for breakfast and lunch as low as possible to accomodate dinner safely - and if I end up under my 1600kcal target that can't be a bad thing!

All i need to do now is sort out gym membership and work on my stamina! =D

[Letmesleep]

Then 1200 calories a day is *far* too little. You have to eat more or your brain will revolt.

Edit: to be honest, twice that would be about in line of appropriate for you to eat and still lose weight at about 2 lbs a week.

Edit 2: the most important rule is to not overdo things. If you're serious about wanting to change your lifestyle, set up a week of food and drink intake that you can live the rest of your life with - rushing things is never a good idea and in the case of overweight, it'll often result in going back to old habits, possibly even worse than before.

Such amazing advice. Nutrition is not one of my areas of expertise, but I can tell you right now that you're literally going to feel like you're starving at that height and weight to try and go down to 1200 calories. I guarantee it won't be possible. As Noxiye said, your brain will revolt, you'll get discouraged, and you'll give up. No one who's 6 feet tall can live off of 1200 a day. Google search your height and weight and see how many calories you should be taking in and go from there. What Noxiye said was wise though; make a plan you can live with for the rest of your life.

The reasons diets fail is because they are so short sighted. Diets focus on quick loss and temporary bans on crappy food. Weight loss has to be a life change. Everyone is different but the only way I lost weight was to stop eating sweets, junk, and fast food entirely. I have an "all or nothing" personality, and I found it easier to cut out the crap completely than to dabble in it. After my weight had been brought under control and I had learned to moderate myself, I was able to add some sweets back in and still stay fit. You may be different, but one thing remains true: if you view weight loss as a temporary thing, you'll eventually go back to the way you are now. If you are determined to make a life change and be healthy from now on, then you'll probably succeed. Weight loss begins and ends in the mind but it remains a lifelong pursuit. It's always tough to start these kinds of things, but it won't feel like such an uphill battle eventually. Good luck.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 02:11 AM ----------

Counting calories is the worst way to lose weight ever. EVER.

I disagree, it's how I lost 75 pounds.