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Losan weight, having trouble!
Sikarian
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Sounds dumb, but I really don't know where else to turn. I've tried asking on other fitness places (4chan's /fit/) and just pretty much get called a lazy fat arse, im trying to find some actual constructive help, aside from "GOOGLE IT".
I'm 255 pounds at last weighin (yesterday), 5'9". Body tape around stomach is 47.3" or so. I'm fat, plain and simple. I've been like this for pretty much as long as I can remember. The problem comes with the fact that I'm trying to get into the Army, and they won't even look at me unless im around 220 pounds, 26% body fat. RIght now I'm at like 36+%. I've got no job right now, no school, my week is open and free to be dedicated to working out, problem is that no matter how much I try to work out, I see no progress and it only gets harder and harder each day.
Everyone tells me "Just run." I can't run. My typical workout routine which I do daily is thus: Walk on treadmill at 3.5mph for 5 minutes as a warmup, with a hair bit of stretching my legs beforehand. After my 5 minutes I begin a pace of 60 seconds of jogging at 6.0 mph, then 120 seconds of walking at 3.5. I can keep this up until about the 15 minute mark, when my legs/breathing just get labored to the point all I can do is walk. Someone told me that I should just start running until my legs/chest/everything hurts, then keep running and eventually it would stop hurting. I tried this, and ended up with my legs just about giving out and me almost faceplanting into the treadmill.
If I just get on the treadmill and walk, however, I can walk 45-60 minutes. I was told this is not worth it, and I'm better off just jogging for 15 minutes. It doens't seem very effective though. I tape and weigh myself daily, I see almost no change in my tape and very little change in weight (6 pounds over the last month and a week). After my ineffective cardio, I do sets of 10 pushups until unable to do any more, which is roughly 25 or so pushups, and then sets of 10 situps until failure, which is about 30-40 situps. I've done this for weeks and I don't see any increase in the amount of time I can jog or situps/pushups I can do.
My diet consists usually of a bowl of rice around noon - 1ish with a banana and some crystal light'd water, then dinner time (10-11pm)is usually a chicken +cheese sub from subway and a small bag of baked lays. No other food or snacks throughout the day, just lots of water (2-3 L a day).
I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong or what I could do different. I had hoped for some sort of website I could plug my stats into, get a calender of "Do this on this day, that on that day" and maybe see results, as opposed to just hobbling along the treadmill every day, doin some situps and pushups and hopin for the best. We've got a 1/4 mile loop of road outside where I live, would it help to jog/walk there instead of the treadmill? Should I get a trainer? I live at a fire station, we've got a gym with treadmill, bike, stairstepper, weight sets, bars, etc. I've asked the guys here for help, and they all talk about making up some sort of plan but no one ever does.
Kinda hoping someone here has some kind of advice. Does the keep running until about the point of hurting and then eventually it'll go away actually work? Should I just assume if I do I'm not going to faceplant? Is it better for me to walk 45-60 minutes watchin a tv show on the television or should I try my jog as much as I can until failure, then stop. 15 minute thing?
Halp
I'm 255 pounds at last weighin (yesterday), 5'9". Body tape around stomach is 47.3" or so. I'm fat, plain and simple. I've been like this for pretty much as long as I can remember. The problem comes with the fact that I'm trying to get into the Army, and they won't even look at me unless im around 220 pounds, 26% body fat. RIght now I'm at like 36+%. I've got no job right now, no school, my week is open and free to be dedicated to working out, problem is that no matter how much I try to work out, I see no progress and it only gets harder and harder each day.
Everyone tells me "Just run." I can't run. My typical workout routine which I do daily is thus: Walk on treadmill at 3.5mph for 5 minutes as a warmup, with a hair bit of stretching my legs beforehand. After my 5 minutes I begin a pace of 60 seconds of jogging at 6.0 mph, then 120 seconds of walking at 3.5. I can keep this up until about the 15 minute mark, when my legs/breathing just get labored to the point all I can do is walk. Someone told me that I should just start running until my legs/chest/everything hurts, then keep running and eventually it would stop hurting. I tried this, and ended up with my legs just about giving out and me almost faceplanting into the treadmill.
If I just get on the treadmill and walk, however, I can walk 45-60 minutes. I was told this is not worth it, and I'm better off just jogging for 15 minutes. It doens't seem very effective though. I tape and weigh myself daily, I see almost no change in my tape and very little change in weight (6 pounds over the last month and a week). After my ineffective cardio, I do sets of 10 pushups until unable to do any more, which is roughly 25 or so pushups, and then sets of 10 situps until failure, which is about 30-40 situps. I've done this for weeks and I don't see any increase in the amount of time I can jog or situps/pushups I can do.
My diet consists usually of a bowl of rice around noon - 1ish with a banana and some crystal light'd water, then dinner time (10-11pm)is usually a chicken +cheese sub from subway and a small bag of baked lays. No other food or snacks throughout the day, just lots of water (2-3 L a day).
I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong or what I could do different. I had hoped for some sort of website I could plug my stats into, get a calender of "Do this on this day, that on that day" and maybe see results, as opposed to just hobbling along the treadmill every day, doin some situps and pushups and hopin for the best. We've got a 1/4 mile loop of road outside where I live, would it help to jog/walk there instead of the treadmill? Should I get a trainer? I live at a fire station, we've got a gym with treadmill, bike, stairstepper, weight sets, bars, etc. I've asked the guys here for help, and they all talk about making up some sort of plan but no one ever does.
Kinda hoping someone here has some kind of advice. Does the keep running until about the point of hurting and then eventually it'll go away actually work? Should I just assume if I do I'm not going to faceplant? Is it better for me to walk 45-60 minutes watchin a tv show on the television or should I try my jog as much as I can until failure, then stop. 15 minute thing?
Halp
Sikarian on
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Way more protein.
Way fewer carbs (in relation to the amount you eat, a bowl of rice isn't going to kill you)
Eat more and stick with it.
If you starve yourself, you wont be able to work out. You wont enjoy it and it wont feel like a good thing to be doing. There's a pretty handy fitness thread here that talks about all sorts of stuff.
edit: You may want to lose weight with swimming or biking before you start running. That much weight is going to murder your joints.
check out the fitness thread in SE++, and check out the starting strength program http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/Starting_Strength_Wiki
It is simple, effective and will likely give you the motivational boost you need to move on to bigger things.
The plus side to putting on muscle is that the more you have, the faster your body burns calories while doing nothing.
Also stop weighing yourself every day. It'll send you crazy.
Remember that this is a lifetime thing. It'll be months before you not only see results but actual changes. But it is worth it in the long run.
I don't sleep until about 3-4 AM, so that's about normal dinner time for other people, time before bed wise.
Yes, don't eat late at night. Yes, don't eat a lot of carbohydrates. Eat salads. Eat fruits and vegetables. Eat meat...not red meat: fish and chicken is preferred. Watch your caloric intake.
I'm 5'8 and you weigh about 100lbs more than me.
You just need to be consistent and dedicated. Try lifting twice a week and performing some type of cardiovascular exercise three times a week.
Good luck.
If you're at home and staying up that late, go to bed fucking earlier. Start getting up at the crack of dawn. Start the 100 pushups program (google it!) and do it in the morning before breakfast.
Walking is mostly pointless. Follow the couch to 5k plan.
Do the couch to 5k between breakfast and lunch, and do the 100 pushups program before breakfast. That's something else I didn't see: If you're not eating breakfast, start.
Figure out your diet. Get your 2000-2500 calories per day, but get at least 1/3 of them at breakfast, and split up the rest of it across the rest of your day.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
I have so much trouble eating breakfast, I've been like that since middle school or so. If I try to eat early in the morning I just don't feel hungry, have to force feed myself and get a little nauseous. I might be able to chow through like a bowl of cereal like some cheerios, like an apple and some milk.
On call or not, you should try and get on a "normal" sleep schedule.
And breakfast is ridiculously important. A bowl of Cheerios and a piece of fruit is great. Go with that.
Also delightful are hard boiled eggs with hotsauce and toast. As are scrambled eggs with both of the same.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
That's something I should add to my breakfast. A hard boiled egg. Thanks, Pheezer. I'll just make a batch once a week.
At the moment it sounds like you simply aren't set up physically or mentally to get straight into running, so I would pause on that - you are simply going to injure yourself or give up. It also sounds like bodyweight exercises such as press-ups are going to be difficult for you until you loose weight as well, so that should be the priority.
Where do you live? Is there anywere outside the town / city were you can get out and simply walk through the countryside? Even within a city you can do it, all you need is ground and legs. You said you have the time, so use it.
Start doing a minimum of 2 hours speedmarches. To start with, carry no extra weight (if you are doing this on pavement / concrete, do not carry extra weight at all). You are aiming to do 8 miles in 2 hours. To do this, you need to walk fast, and will feel the workout. Best technique is to lean forward slightly and swing your arms from side to side for momentum - it looks stupid, but get over it.
As you start to loose the weight, you have the option of adding what you have lost from your body into a backpack. If you are aiming to loose 35 pounds, that will end up as the basic minimum weight that much military training has you carry when doing speedmarches. If you also work as a firefighter (seems to contradict your original post?) then you should be used to carrying extra weight already, which will help. Alternatively (see concrete disclaimer above), increase the pace. One of the standard exercise sessions we have to do is 10 miles in 1hr 45mins, carrying 35-45 pounds. That requires quite a lot of running, but demonstrates the range of paces that you can do speedmarches at.
As you start to get fitter and loose the weight, then work in running and other exercise into your routine, but until you get a basic level of fitness and thin down it is likely to be counterproductive. Swimming would also be a good thing to do starting now to loose weight, but getting used to speedmarches may give you an advantage in basic training (someone from the US military can correct me on this if I'm wrong). Eating correctly and all the other advice here is obviously also important, but won't fix the basic problem - you need to get fit.
And eat breakfast. For a long time I thought eating breakfast made me sick, it just turns out most "breakfast" foods make me ill. So now for breakfast I eat whatever I feel like cooking; pan-seared tuna with a mass of green beans and a cucumber, today I had a small piece of lasagna with a big salad, I've even had steak and veggies for breakfast before. You don't have to eat immediately when you wake up but for me personally anything more than 1 1/2 hours and I get dizzy and my stomach starts to hurt, which makes me even less inclined to eat anything. It also depends on how soon before bed you ate - at an estimate right now you're going 14 hours between when you eat and when you get up, of course you feel sick in the mornings - and then you're waiting several hours to give your by now ravenous, into starvation mode system some rice, a banana and some sugar-free water.
Try biking or swimming, but if all you can do is a treadmill at least jack the incline on it way up. I used to do three miles a day of a fast trot (3.5mph for me is a quick walk) at a 10/10 incline; it wasn't a full-on jog but my heart rate was elevated enough for it to at least not be completely ineffective. Also be warned biking is about as effective as walking unless you're on a good resistance setting/high gear or biking entirely up inclines, or doing a spinning class.
Khain has an easy-to-miss point in here: don't expect to lose more than 2 pounds per week. It's not healthy. Remember that muscle is more dense than fat. Despite your fairly low-stress workout, you're probably replacing some of the fat with muscle. Muscle's also nice because it burns more calories than fat at rest.
The first few months you exercise you'll probably stay near the same weight (after you adjust your diet you may lose a few pounds of water weight; the typical person (especially American) has a high sodium intake which increases water retention). Body weight - like body temperature - fluctuates during the day, so don't even stress yourself measuring every day.
As difficult as it may seem at first, try to incorporate 30% or more of your caloric intake as protein (skinless chicken breasts, tuna or protein mix tend to be typical). As noted, to boost your metabolism 5 or 6 small (300-450 kcal with a larger breakfast). For instance, a chicken breast and a cup of green beans would work as a meal. A protein bar or protein shake could also work as a small meal. Try to avoid bread as your means of carbohydrate intake (try vegetables, whole grains or fruits).
Something I took away from the fitness thread long ago was that weightlifting is key component for weightloss (the other big key being diet). Aerobic activity will only get you so far. If you're in a firehouse I'd assume there are some weights around - visit the fitness thread to find the proper way of doing various exercises (or ask someone at the gym).
I worked at it with a mix of weightlifting 3-5 times a week and running or swimming after workouts or on off days with a half-assed diet (followed caloric intake below 2400 (not so much the 30/30/40 rule, but still had more protein than a typical carb-heavy diet)). That got me from 225 to 200 in about 5 months (which is about 1.25/lbs a week; although my weight hung around 220-225 for the first 4-6 weeks).
My sleep schedule was whacked out too. Just make sure you actually get enough sleep and that you're eating breakfast. Keeping on a schedule helps, but sleeping at 10 and waking up at 5 doesn't provide some magic benefit over going to sleep at 3 am and waking up at 11 or noon (although you'll probably find exercise and a good diet does give you more energy).
Start lifting to go with your cardio.
Start paying attention to what you're eating. Fat, carbs, sodium, protein, there has to be a balance to make sure you're getting everything you need without overdoing anything.
Also, visit this thread. You're not going to get a play by play routine there but you can see what others are doing and ask questions.
Pick a time frame, like a week or a month, and stick with that for weight ins.
Besides that, just change your physical activity from time to time. The body becomes accustomed to activity that is done frequently, thus you will see less and less gains. Do some walking one week, some biking the next and some swimming the next or something like that. If anything it will help with burnout and should make it easier to stick with the plan.
If you mix that cardio with some weight training and complex cardio 2 times a week you should start losing weight. I've gone from 259 to 239 in only 2 months.
Bike or ellyptical for pure cardio improvement, if you're overweight and don't have the muscles for running yet. Biking would probably be your best bet.
Get a heart rate monitor if your machine doesn't have one, and keep your heart rate at 130+. (Take that with a grain of salt, because you ARE overweight, and I don't want to be responsible for a heart attack.)
Typical advice for normal sized folks would be a heart rate of 160ish. Thats basically sprinting for your heart, which makes it all big and strong.
I'd like to second/third/fourth/fifth or whatever advise you to do weight training.
Muscle EATS calories by just BEING on you, let alone when you're developing it. And being thin wont help you in the army if you can't do a pushup. Go check out the fitness thread, its packed with good info, and keep a scheduled routine going.
Look less at how much you weigh, and instead push for advancements in your lifting and endurance, the weight will fall off, and its a far healthier approach.
I had nausea in the morning with breakfast too, but its just because you're not used to eating breakfast. I forced cereal down my throat every morning, and now I can eat pancakes and eggs with the best of em. (And I feel healthier)
I'm 5'9" and they wouldn't let me in until I had dropped below 190lbs.
Who told you 220?
Why would he burn over twice as many calories by walking instead of cycling if his heart rate is equal for the same time period in either scenario?
Either way he's raising his heart rate primarily through the use of the muscles on his legs, and he's using them to about the same degree in either case. Some of the stabilizers used will be different. But you burn calories with your quads, not with the stabilizers in your ankle.
The benefit of cycling however, is in the dramatically reduced strain on his joints. Running as a means to lose weight when you're overweight is harder than all hell on his knees, and joining the army is going to destroy those in due time anyhow, so he might want to not go in with a bad pair to begin with.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
My recruiter. They said they can wave the max limit (which is as you said like 190-200 or so) as long as you meet the 26% body fat, which my recruiter estimated to be probably around 220 pounds.
Eating Habbits: This is a very important thing, and it's important to understand that your body will lose weight faster if you feed it well. Kicks your metabolism and stuff into a healthy space, so you'll want to find local, organic, and tasty foods in your area. Find out where the farmer's market is in your town and go. I guarantee this will not only help you lose weight, but help with your over-all health and feelings of well-being. Right now, your diet is too sparse, you need more leafy greens 'n shit. You'll want to eat a salad at least once a day. Don't be afraid to cook the kind of meats you like, either. Fish and chicken are very healthy but if they're going to get you craving mcdonalds, well, maybe just having a steak and being done with it is a better solution. You know what kind of person you are, so don't sweat the little things too much. Just keep trying to move forward, don't lose focus on the big picture. Just, eat around the fat, and try to reduce "white" intake (rice, flour).
Also, start snacking! I'm not sure if you're comfortable eating around people, but you really should start doing this. Digestion burns calories and it's better for you, anyway. Ideally, you want to have eaten something about six times a day.
Workout routine: People telling you to "just run" are assholes because it's not going to be feasible for you and it would be horrible for your knees. I'm currently doing, oh, 3 days a week, hour and a half each visit (including stretches), evenly spread over the rowing machine, elliptical, and sometimes the bike, sometimes some arm/chest stuff. If this is a bit long for you, don't sweat it, but you'll want to build up to it. Full body machines are what you want to focus most of your time on, just don't push so much your heartrate drops too much and try to keep a pace. If you like walking, you can do it to cool down, before finishing with stretches, but you won't build enough muscle from just walking. Plus, it's mostly working your legs, which is likely where you've actually got muscle. Remember that the idea is to push yourself, while keeping your heart rate up. If you have to stop you have gone too far (but if you need to stop during your first 5 visits, don't sweat it too much, once you get a rythm you'll start to learn your limits, which is great, because you'll be able to start pushing them). You'll also want daily activity. A lot of people like the pushups daily, or the squats daily, I do jump-rope (and before that I did jumping jacks). Up to you, just pick whichever you enjoy the most. Just dedicate at least 10 minutes to it, preferably 15 or 20.
Good luck, and if you can, ask if any of your friends go to the gym. Having someone fun, you're comfortable with, can make a seemingly painful visit a whole lot of fun. Alternatively, don't forget the iPod. And, don't worry, it gets easier as you go. Consider gloves for the rowing.
Now, doing what I did wasn't a good idea because it was a lot of weight to lose in a short amount of time, and losing water weight so suddenly isn't safe. Thankfully, I had a bodybuilder friend and a friend who did BJJ to keep me in check, as the former was very disciplined about nutrition and the latter knew how to make weight.
I'd say that eating smaller meals more frequently is good. Lots of steak, chicken breast, protein shakes, and eggs. Be strict on carbohydrates. Stay away from junk food (although I did get to have two cheat meals throughout my whole stint). And of course, veggies.
As for exercise, I was well off because I lifted a lot of weights before I decided to join the Army. Normally I did a lot of low reps, high weight, but I switched it over to circuit training for a month, and also did a lot of HIIT. That was when I lost the most amount of weight. I switched it up for the last month to more military type training, such as running, pushups, situps, pull ups, with heavy lifting twice a week.
Honestly, most plans, especially the ones outlined here by these fine people, will work. It just depends on how well you stick with it.
Also, the Army might change their Physical Training from less long distance running and old school stuff to more sprints type stuff. The days where I did jump roping and sand bag sprints really paid off.
What MOS do you plan on going into? And what's your time frame?
You can swap out brown sugar for splenda and use more.
Gross. It doesn't take much to sweeten up oatmeal. A touch of the brown sugar and some cinnamon is plenty. Dumping Splenda all over it is just disgusting.
EDIT: We need to derail his sweet tooth, not encourage it.
Throw 1/3 + of your bodyweight into a pack and walk hard for 2 - 2 1/2 hours. You want to aim for about 15km (you wont reach that for the first few weeks).
In the Australian army where I am we try and fit this in at least once a fortnight.
Eat less or workout more.
Fuck walking. Swim or cycle until you're in better shape, then start jogging. Jog 1 minute, walk run minute, over and over.
Learn roughly how many calories are in certain foods.30 grams of peanut butter = 1.5kgs of celery.
Some foods aren't palatable for other people like they are for you. I can't stand bare or lightly sweetened oatmeal. If you don't mind manufactured chemicals splenda could work, but you're probably best off finding something you don't mind eating for breakfast. I tried it with fruit which was better, but still not to my taste.
I found yoghurt with granola's pretty good. Omelettes are pretty versatile as well. If you want something more carb-heavy, consider french toast made with decent bread (eggs sans yolks ends up being debatable). Fruit also has an abundance of carbs and useful fiber.
Try to avoid packaged foods (like packets of oatmeal or granola bars), they tend to have unnecessary unhealthy stuff in them (like more sugars than you need in the form of preservatives).
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
You really need to make out a scheduled plan, and a few pushups and situps is not going to burn your muscles.
Do you feel sore for a day or two after the workout? If not, you're not working the muscles hard enough. (Typically you should hurt at the start of a regime, especially if you aren't used to it)
You want as many muscles in your body to hurt. (Sore, not oh god I tore a muscle right off my bone)
Lay off the body weight exercises for now, you can't do enough of them to mean much. (By all means throw them in at the START of a workout to see if you're improving, but 25 pushups just wont help quickly)
Theres two types of workouts I could recomend. The 20-10-20 Weird New Fad thing out of Japan (which i find mak me hurt quite well) and the typical 3-4 sets of 12ish reps max weight.
20-10-20, you take an exercise, (arm curls, situps, whatever) and you do as many as you can for 20 seconds, than you take a 10 second break. You than start it up for another 20 seconds, same arm, same muscle. Repeat this 6-8 times. (It really makes your muscles sore)
Typical: 3-4 sets of x12 exercises, with the heaviest weight you can manaage 12 reps for, with 45-90 seconds of rest.
Non body-weight exercises I would suggest:
Arm Curls
Tricep (Hold weight behind your head, and extend arm, like fist pumping at a concert, watch your elbows on this one because if you use a heavy weight you can hurt yourself if you dont keep those muscles working)
Lunges of Doom: Put one foot on something about a foot or two off the ground, toes facing backwards, heel of your foot facing up. Than step forward and touch your knee to the ground lightly (same leg that is on the raised object) hold some added weight if this is too easy.
Bench Press instead of pushups, get a spotter, or use two dumbells for now.
Situps can be pretty hard on the back, especially if you have an underdeveloped back. Instead, do the bicycle ab exercise, I'm sure you can google that sucker.
Theres tons more, but read the workout thread, its probably a lot more informative than me. just thought i'd throw you a few ideas.
There is a whole spectrum of choices and actions you can take. You can walk for an hour, run for an hour, do nothing for an hour, etc. etc. etc. If you are pushing yourself to jog as much as possible and can't seem to go further, then use that time to walk. What you don't want to do is tell yourself, "Well, if I can't get my fat ass up to run for more than 5 minutes then I might as well do nothing at all." Don't rationalize bad behavior (in this case, not doing anything as opposed to at least walking for an hour). Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
In short: Get into a schedule, and do as much as you can within that schedule. If you can only do 15 minutes, then do 15 minutes and walk for the remainder. Then next time, add 30 seconds. The time after that, another 30 seconds. And so on. As long as you aren't regressing, recognize that you're doing something good for yourself.
I used to drink soda, juice (which gives you a lot of sugar calories and not very many health benefits - you're better off eating the real fruit), eat fast food, white bread, white pasta, have a crazy sweet-tooth, etc...but I've since changed my ways, and now it's just common practice for me. It's hard initially, but not if you make the changes to your diet one step at a time.
But: treadmills, I'm going to say, are useless. I did all of my walking outside, and most of it on uneven ground. Stairs are also your friend.
The most important thing was going out and doing physical exercise. My activity of choice is hiking, which I still do very regularly, but having a job where I'm out doing physical activities for much of the day helps quite a bit.
These are called Tabatas or Tabata Protocols or Tabata Intervals, after the guy who invented them. They're high intensity interval training exercises and promotes fat loss and increased endurance. Allegedly, they increase metabolic rate so that you will continue to burn calories AFTER you are done training. I've tried finding the original paper by Dr. Tabata, but I can't find it and the excerpts I've read lead me to believe I can't understand it anyway, so I can't verify that claim, but anecdotally, I've lost five and a half kilograms in three weeks by controlling caloric intake and doing mostly Tabatas six days a a week.
I imagine this result would have been even better if I had been doing some righteous weight lifting at the gym, but money and time are an issue with me.
Here's a bit of advice from me if you want it: The signs of success for Tabata Intervals are lactic acid and complete exhaustion. Seriously, if you can comfortably talk during your ten second rests, you're not doing it right. If your arms or legs are not on fire, you're not doing it right.
If you need ideas for exercises, just search for Tabata on youtube or google it.
Here a few articles on the matter:
http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/tabataintervals.html
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_tabata_method
http://www.squidoo.com/tabatatraining#module12009964