I have been inspired

[Pheidippides]

by the recent success of a family member to get my own weight under control.

Those of you who have met me will say that I don't look fat. But fat I am. After Christmas, I was just shy of 250. I am 6'1" and have a huge frame, meaning that I can support 250 of muscle mass. But I do not have 250 of muscle mass. I have 250 of blubber.

Or had, I should say. I have joined a gym and have been exercising daily. I have made significant changes to my diet (which was rather poor) and am following both a calorie limitation and a general food limitation (i.e., I can't get my 2000 from Burger King or from one meal, etc.).

I am down to 237. I am aiming to hit 195. I do not think I can realistically get lower than 195 without starting to run long distance, and I am pretty sure my knees aren't going to take that (too much skiing as a kid).

If I hit 195, I will be overjoyed. Also, I'll stop getting gassed during pick-up basketball.

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

Good luck and thanks for posting. At least the SRE failure needs all the help he can get to stay motivated.

[Teenage Dirtbag]

Good luck with the weight loss. Anytime you don't want to work out because you feel like you got hit by a bus, read Matt Long's story for motivation. He's a NYC Fireman who ran the NYC Marathon, three years after actually getting hit by a bus.

http://www.runnersworld.com/article/...3053-0,00.html

[RobinFinderson]

That is great new nikuman, and your progress thus far is inspiring. Keep up the good work and keep us informed about how it is going (it helps to have to report... just like my title fight with Goatnapper is going to be my excuse to get back in shape )

[Color Me Badd Fan]

by the recent success of a family member to get my own weight under control.

Those of you who have met me will say that I don't look fat. But fat I am. After Christmas, I was just shy of 250. I am 6'1" and have a huge frame, meaning that I can support 250 of muscle mass. But I do not have 250 of muscle mass. I have 250 of blubber.

Or had, I should say. I have joined a gym and have been exercising daily. I have made significant changes to my diet (which was rather poor) and am following both a calorie limitation and a general food limitation (i.e., I can't get my 2000 from Burger King or from one meal, etc.).

I am down to 237. I am aiming to hit 195. I do not think I can realistically get lower than 195 without starting to run long distance, and I am pretty sure my knees aren't going to take that (too much skiing as a kid).

If I hit 195, I will be overjoyed. Also, I'll stop getting gassed during pick-up basketball.

I'm 6'2 (well 6'1.5) and my weight was fairly consistently around 200lbs after my mission. Most of my weight gain over my mission was in my legs (bike riding) and in my chest and shoulders as I matured a bit more. But I was still probably around 185 before my mission. I played football in highschool and lifted weights quite a bit growing up.

By the end of my 2nd year in law school I was probably up to around 205-210. I wanted to get into incredible shape and get back to around 190. I didn't calorie count, I just cut out sugar and fried foods and tried to eat a protein and vegetable based diet (e.g. chicken salads, lots of tuna, etc.).

I coupled this with supersets and circuit weight training. If you ever observe the workout regimens of NFL type athletes, they're not sitting there trying to max out the weight they lift. They get a moderate amount of weight that they can do a relatively high number of reps in each set- say about 15. I bought a book that included a superset and circuit training regimen. I consistently did 12-15 reps of one exercise and then coupled it with an opposing muscle group exercise set- a basic example is I would do one set of curls and then immediately do triceps exercise with no rest in betwee. I would do this type of superset with a pair of exercises initially 3 times, and then worked up to 4 after a few weeks. You also do 3-4 pairs per day. The key is not sitting on your ass between sets, just keep going. After a month I was doing a circuit where I would alternate between 4 exercises and do five sets of the "circuit." I would also do another circuit after I completed the first circuit (8 different exercises).

The end result is you lose a helluva a lot of weight, you build extremely lean muscle slowly and you get significantly stronger. Along with not resting between sets (there's a real cardiovascular feature to this type of training), make sure you work out with an amount of weight that you can get up at least 45 times in three sets and 48 times with four sets, but make sure you're also challenging yourself with the weight.

By the end of the summer, I overshot my goal by getting to around 185 pounds. I lost about 25 pounds in three months without doing any real calorie counting or starving myself.

[MarkGrace]

Are you lifting, Nik? I have found that my body burns fat a lot better when I lift. Last summer, I was much more into running and would do anywhere from 5-9 miles about 4-5 times a week. During this period, I was pushing close to 200 pounds (I'm 6'2"), though I was eating very poorly.

I decided I wanted to lose some weight, so I cut down my running and started lifting regularly, and got my weight down to the low 180s over probably 8 weeks or so. I bike for 15 minutes, run for 15 minutes (about 6.5-7.5 minute mile pace) on the treadmill, and then lift anywhere from about 40-60 minutes depending on the day. I also tried to stop eating anything after 7 and cut down any candy/ice cream consumption to about 2 days a week. That part of the whole deal still isn't working out too well (I still eat too much crap -- lots of pizza, too much candy, etc.), but I want to get to about 175 and will need to be more regimented in my eating to get there.

[RobinFinderson]

On the eating side, I suggest you fill a pitcher with water and put it on the table when you eat. Drink lots of water when you eat. It gives your stomach time to send the "I'm happy" signal to your brain, and it fills the belly a bit faster with fewer calories. Anyhow, for me, I found that I would drink a lot more water if I had a full pitcher on the table when I ate. Try it out, if you don't do this already.

[YOhio]

I can't get my 2000 from Burger King...

Hold on a second. You got fat eating at Burger King? You've outed yourself as a phony food snob.

[TripletDaddy]

Hold on a second. You got fat eating at Burger King? You've outed yourself as a phony food snob.

see also, "hey guys, I'm in Chicago. What else should I do besides eat pizza and hot dogs?"

[YOhio]

see also, "hey guys, I'm in Chicago. What else should I do besides eat pizza and hot dogs?"

Seriously. How can you go to Chicago w/o hitting up Charlie Trotters?

[TripletDaddy]

Seriously. How can you go to Chicago w/o hitting up Charlie Trotters?

You can just eat that food on your UAL flight home from Chicago.

[SoCalCoug]

I had to bump this. My wife came back from some meeting with my daughter and the young women at the church tonight. We're both trying to lose a little bit of weight and were talking about how we need to get more (I mean some) exercise.

She said they saw this video about a guy who decided he wanted to lose like 80 pounds and did it in about 6 months, and now he's run several marathons.

I started thinking, "Wait a minute, that story sounds kind of familiar." I asked her if his name was nikuman (okay, I used your real name), and she said that sounded familiar. So I found a picture of you online (I'm not sure you'll be comfortable with how easy that was) and she yeah, that looks like the guy.

So (assuming that really is you in the video, and it's not that all runners look alike), thanks a lot, nikuman - my wife's now holding you up as a comparison for me. I hate running.

Actually, I thought it's a good time to congratulate you on what you've done - it really is a great and inspiring accomplishment, particularly if young women all over the church are now seeing a video of you (I'm hoping there are topless pictures/videos of you in it). I'm sure you're an inspiration to many who are more motivated than I am.

[Pheidippides]

I had to bump this. My wife came back from some meeting with my daughter and the young women at the church tonight. We're both trying to lose a little bit of weight and were talking about how we need to get more (I mean some) exercise.

She said they saw this video about a guy who decided he wanted to lose like 80 pounds and did it in about 6 months, and now he's run several marathons.

I started thinking, "Wait a minute, that story sounds kind of familiar." I asked her if his name was nikuman (okay, I used your real name), and she said that sounded familiar. So I found a picture of you online (I'm not sure you'll be comfortable with how easy that was) and she yeah, that looks like the guy.

So (assuming that really is you in the video, and it's not that all runners look alike), thanks a lot, nikuman - my wife's now holding you up as a comparison for me. I hate running.

Actually, I thought it's a good time to congratulate you on what you've done - it really is a great and inspiring accomplishment, particularly if young women all over the church are now seeing a video of you (I'm hoping there are topless pictures/videos of you in it). I'm sure you're an inspiration to many who are more motivated than I am.

Thanks SoCal, but I doubt it's me in the video (the pictures of me online I'm sure were legit, and it won't surprise anybody here (especially not Babs) to know that I know exactly how easy it is to find them). I don't think I've done any media spots since my first marathon. But the story is very similar. There are plenty of people who do exactly that, not just me.

Truth be told, I still struggle with my weight. I have a bad habit of not paying attention during the holidays (read: everything from my birthday in mid September to my January marathon) and getting pudgier than I should, and then losing it all in the spring. This year is no exception, and I have to stop that. I'm like a labrador retriever - if food is there, I'll eat it, unless I'm really careful.

Edit: I do have to say that this thread is blowing my mind right now. Almost exactly three years ago. I remember that fat guy who huffed and puffed going up the stairs at his home - this was right around the time I was starting to go to the gym and run on treadmills. I couldn't even run a slow mile without getting gassed. If you would have told me that I would have run one marathon - let alone 5 - in the next three years I would have laughed you out of the room.

Oh, and I got way under 195. I laugh at reading that now, but I guess I had to start somewhere.

It took me about six months to lose it all, and those six months weren't easy. But they have made the last 2.5 the best of my life and were well worth it, and something about which I have no small degree of pride.