November Weight Loss Challenge

[Lynn]

Anybody remeber the monthly weight loss challenge we started almost a year ago?

Wanna try again?

I go laid off about a month ago, so have more time to exercise and participate in a thread.

And, I got a head start. My wife and I started doing low-carb, high-protein dieting, and making trips to the gym. In the last two months I've gone down from 228 to 213.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner. Don't wait for the New Years Resolution. Who's with me? Copy/Paste the below:

Starting weight:

Goal for the Month:

Overall goal:

Weight loss to date:

Biggest Challenge, Fitness:

Biggest Challenge, Diet:

Plan of Attack:

Day of Weigh In:

[Lynn]

Starting weight: 213

Goal for the Month: 199

Overall goal: 180?

Weight loss to date: 15#

Biggest Challenge, Fitness: Getting motivated to do something daily

Biggest Challenge, Diet: All that leftover Halloween candy

Plan of Attack: Gym on the days my wife can go (she works a strange schedule, and is picking up extra shifts since I'm now a deadbeat) and the mini stair stepper on gym-less days.

Day of Weigh In: Sunday seems good.

[stevenmd]

Starting weight: 225

Goal for the Month: 215

Overall goal: 205 (I am 6'-1")

Weight loss to date: Just dropped from 240

Biggest Challenge, Fitness: I f*****g hate squats

Biggest Challenge, Diet: Doritos, Ranch Dressing, Pizza, Bacon, Beer... geez, I could go on forever.

Plan of Attack: Eat correctly, supplement correctly, work out correctly for my goals.

Day of Weigh In: Yesterday, November 1, 2009

My biggest problem is muscle memory. I used to be bulky. I say "bulky" now b/c I had quite a bit of fat on my body also. Now, as I am losing weight, my muscles are returning to their "pre-lazy" state. As I lose fat, I am gaining muscle. It might be best for me to measure body fat % and LBM % (lean body mass).

[biglos454]

Starting weight: 342

Goal for the Month: 320

Overall goal: 255 (im 6'6"

Weight loss to date: 8lbs. i was 350 2wks ago

Biggest Challenge, Fitness: small town with 1 crowded gym makes it hard to get motivated to go.

Biggest Challenge, Diet: keeping a healthy steady diet while working shift work. working alternating 12 hour days and 12 hour nights makes it hard to eat right.

Plan of Attack: revamp my diet as best i can to deal with work. hit the gym on days off. go walking/jogging/running after work either in the morning or the afternoon depending or night or day shift.

Day of Weigh In: november 3, 2009

[Stan the Man]

Mine is a little different; I'm not trying to lose weight, rather gain some. I need to gain muscle mass and get in better shape through the holiday season. Good luck everybody!

Starting weight: 210

Goal for the Month: 218

Overall goal: 235

Weight loss to date: N/A

Biggest Challenge, Fitness: Hitting the gym hard consistently.

Biggest Challenge, Diet: Candy. I always find a way to eat chocolate throughout the week, and thats not the weight gain I want.

Plan of Attack: Hit the gym hard 4 days a week, working on shoulders, arms, chest/back, and lower body. Getting in cardio and abs on my non-lifting days.

Day of Weigh In: Nov. 3, 2009. I'll check my progress on the 30th.

[stevenmd]

Mine is a little different; I'm not trying to lose weight, rather gain some. I need to gain muscle mass and get in better shape through the holiday season.

Try adding Ultimate Nutrition's Iso Mass Extreme Gainer to your program. It has several different types of protein and creatine. I hear it can be kind of nasty tasting sometimes and you have to drink plenty of fluids. Then eat really clean - chicken breasts or fish, brown rice or sweet potatoes, and veggies. Eat 6 meals a day, 3 hours apart, supplement meal #1 and #5 (right after you workout) with the Iso Mass.

Adjust your starchy carb intake (brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.) if you are putting on too much body fat or losing it as well. If your goal is to gain weight, you will not do so if you are losing too much body fat.

Creatine is a must.

[stevenmd]

Biggest Challenge, Diet: keeping a healthy steady diet while working shift work. working alternating 12 hour days and 12 hour nights makes it hard to eat right.

Get a small cooler you can take to work or pack protein powder & a shaker. Plan & prep everything out ahead of time. Stay away from protein bars, they are just candy bars with a little bit of protein added.

If needed, spend 1 day per week cooking your chicken, starchy carb, and fibrous carb. Put it all together in meal size packages - tupperware or even plastic freezer baggies. Prepare your meals for the week so you don't even have to think about it.

People make the biggest mistakes in their proper eating when they fail to plan ahead. I don't want to say "diet" b/c they never last. It is really all about changing your lifestyle.

[DarinM]

I've been completely rebuffed in all discussions with my HMO regarding bariatric surgery, which I honestly feel is the most likely to work option for me at this point in my life.

So I'm looking at options for self-pay. It's going to be a pretty significant expense - probably $15,000 or so. That's going to be a major hit to my discretionary spending and mean no cool guitars or Jeep mods for awhile. But, you gotta do what you gotta do, and I have to do this.

I have a consult with a bariatric surgeon on 17 November. If it goes well and I can get the financing lined out, maybe I'll get cut on before the end of the year. It will be laproscopic, so the recovery time should be minimal (barring any complications of course).

Lynn, you've met me. You know I'm a big old boy (understatement).
I'm probably north of 450 pounds and I'm about 5'10". I've been very healthy for all of this - cholesterol is fine, BP is high side of normal, no diabetes, etc., but I'm sure that is bound to end soon. My knees are shot and my back is starting to hurt. I turn 40 in a few months so it's not like I'm a kid anymore.

My goal? I must lose a couple hundred pounds and then just see where I plateau. I want to go kayaking, I want to be able to fit in an airplane bathroom, I want to be able to go out and hike a few days out to the middle of nowhere and be able to make it back.

It's good to see this thread come back just at a time when this issue has been seriously on my thoughts. Great minds must think alike... or something.

Y'all have a good one.

[Lynn]

Biggest Challenge, Diet: keeping a healthy steady diet while working shift work. working alternating 12 hour days and 12 hour nights makes it hard to eat right.

Plan of Attack: revamp my diet as best i can to deal with work. hit the gym on days off. go walking/jogging/running after work either in the morning or the afternoon depending or night or day shift.

Day of Weigh In: november 3, 2009

Biglos454, I can sympathize. My wife and I are working on this together. She’s a nurse that works 4-12s, Sun., Thurs., and Fri. nights. She’s utilizing some online tracking tools, and it seems that most days she actually doesn’t get enough calories, and her body hoards ‘em in ‘starvation mode.’

At least she has a regular schedule. Bouncing back and forth between days and nights must really screw with your metabolism.

What kind of work do you do, and what town do you live in?

[Lynn]

Darin! How's it going?

I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the HMO.

I can kind of vicariously sympathize. My wife tried to get a weight-related surgery, and was turned down by her insurance because she hadn't 'tried hard enough' to loose weight. Very frustrating, because exercise would be much easier after the surgery...

Anyway, she found out that the insurance would pay for a medically directed weight-loss program. Have you checked into that? My wife has met with a doctor several times, and is on some meds that help. Now we're hoping that she can qualify for the surgery after she does the medically directed program for a while.

We are also members of the local YMCA, and she has met with a personal trainer a few times. I think it was $99 for four sessions. The trainer gave her a long list of personalized exercises to do.

Your knee problems certainly put a damper on exercise. Could you do water aerobics or swimming?

Keep us posted with your progress.

What part of town do you live in?