Hey all, first time posting here. I wanted to share my progress story so far. I noticed today that I got my alert on my Apple watch that my move streak is currently 180 days, which is a huge milestone for me as it’s been 6 months since I officially started working towards losing weight, so this is my progress report and what’s been working for me!
To start, I’m a 6’4 35-year-old male, who started the year at about 297 pounds. This morning, I weighed in at 231 pounds. I don’t really have a target weight, but I’d imagine the 200-205 range would be pretty good.
As far as diet, I found out based on another post here that I’ve basically been doing CICO, I just didn’t know there was a name for it. I’ve been monitoring my calorie intake along with exercise. I always hesitated to get started with a diet, so I just avoided it. I started by forcing myself to grocery shop instead of relying on carry-out for dinners and fast-food for lunch. I’ve gotten myself into a routine for my M-F work-day food schedule. I found my suggested caloric intake based on exercise is around 2200 calories per day to lose 2 lbs/week. I also read a suggestion to stagger your daily calories to help prevent a plateau, so instead of targeting 2200, I target 1800 for 5 days, which leaves 1000 calories per day, AKA my maintenance calorie goal, to be consumed over the other 2 days. What I basically found I do is that Friday night is takeout night, where I eat what I want. I still avoid sweets, but if I want to get Chinese takeout, or wings, or pizza, whatever, I do it and I honestly don’t even care about the calories. I know I’ve taken care of my body all week AND all day, and now I have room for the extra calories, so I get to eat what I want for one meal. Then on another day I just end up kicking up the calories throughout the day instead of over one meal. I’m not saying this is the BEST way to do it, but so far, it’s working.
As for exercise, I’ve got a Bowflex and a treadmill at home. Right now, I’m on a Bowflex schedule of every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I then hop on the treadmill until I’ve done at least 45-50 minutes of exercise. Wednesday I do 45 on the treadmill, Saturday or Sunday I do an hour, and the other day I mow the lawn which takes an hour and is honestly more of a workout than the walk because of my terrain. It’s also important to note that I’m only walking on the treadmill, not running. I walk at speeds between 4-4.3 MPH, and lately have been adding incline. I tried running but I have pretty bad shin splints and after about 10 minutes my legs are dead. I then end up having to almost stop entirely, so I find a fast walk for a longer period of time works really well.
The biggest sacrifice is that I’m a fast-food junkie. I would eat fast-food for lunch all the time. As much as 5-6 days a week for lunch. I didn’t just get a small meal, either. It was the half-pound burgers and large fries, then come home and get carry-out where I’d eat who knows how much. It was awful. Now, the wife and I force a grocery run where we buy our food for the week and buy enough to make dinner 5 of the 7 nights at least. We also make sure to try to buy fresh foods, and if we buy boxed, to buy things with decent ingredients, staying away from things with a bunch of added sugar. It helps when you need a snack to not have garbage available, but low-cal options.
I’m not claiming that the way I’ve done it is the best or only way, but I wanted to share this because of how effective it’s been for me. Some tips I have are:
- a) Stock your kitchen once a week. Don’t give yourself a reason to “run and grab a quick bite” if you’re like me and that quick run out turns into a double whopper with cheese at 11:30 am. If you have the food in your house, eat it.
- b) If you have a habit of missing workouts, do them in the morning. Make the time. There’s nothing better than having one of those lazy mornings where you just want to stay in bed, but instead you force yourself to get up and get moving for a 45-minute walk on the treadmill. When you’re done, you not only get to enjoy the fact that you don’t have to exercise later, but that you ACTUALLY make yourself do something you didn’t really want to do.
- c) If you’re like me and the type of person who likes to graze on food, make sure you’re counting that in your calorie goal. I leave myself about 300 calories a day just for grazing/snacking. I found that eating 5-6 times a day leaves me feeling less hungry. Just keep an eye on the calories as it adds up.
- d) I’m a drinker. I like beer, and I like tasty not-so-low-calorie beer. I’ve talked myself down to one night a week where I can drink that stuff. If I feel like having a drink on other nights, I made myself rules. I got into hard seltzers and I limit myself to 2-3 at max, assuming I left myself the number of calories to do so. On other nights, I keep non-alcoholic seltzers in the house. Things like Bubbly or Aha. I find it takes me longer to drink those due to the carbonation, so it keeps me from the booze. Also, no liquor during the week.
So yea, that’s my story. I set out on this journey with the mindset of changing my life, not just a diet/exercise plan. I’ve always heard of people failing diets and I don’t want to be that person, so I’m approaching this as a just the new way I take care of myself.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/oq84hf/my_6month_progress_report/
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