from 333 pounds working on getting thin. Middle aged mans journey.

Still plugging away but this site is first and foremost of me. I've stalled over the last few months. Not gaining or loosing. Just maintaining. But my workouts are rockin'!  Stay tough. I'm within 25-30 of goal and I"m looking forward to hitting the goal of 199, but I'm not dying over it.

I can't say it any better, so here is the article, in full. http://cutthefatpodcast.com/1593/cut-the-fat-blog/lifestyle-and-weight-loss/the-weight-loss-hierarchy-manual

Just a quick note to my 5 fans (including my mom). It's been a stalled month, but I was trying to build some more muscle and take it a bit lazy. It worked! Now I'm taking back the weekends and "watching", again. Been catching up on some podcasts and trying to help people in real life. But as I just learned, a good friend of mine that drives truck is starting to show high blood pressure and his doctor said " 30 pounds in 3 months." He listened to me blab on and then had to go and never called back. He wants to do it because he needs to do it, but he will buy a fitness program and not take care of the 80% of the program and thats diet and nutrition. He will exersice and hope to loose the weight, but he isn't sold on fat loss versus weight loss.      Most people want to be thin TODAY and the scale is their personal god, they want it fast and simple. They want to do cardio and burn all those calories from foods they wont give up. (his are long island ice te...

  To many free days and meals. One HUGE carnivor's party. (Pig roast). and some suspected water regaining. Not a big issue. Changing back to a 3 day weekly workout with weights. Monday:  Chest, shoulders and tricepts. Tue: Legs Wed: back and biceps and forearms. This is really funny. I did a late night run to our local store. Usually it would be for something like this (up till a few years ago.) Warning:   FOOD "PORN" to fallow: My all time favorite cookies: they actually didn't stock them for several years and I would check to see if they where back in a few times a year. Even went to Ebay...so sad. But, I went to the grocery store late last night for THIS: I was going to do a calorie comparison, but even a 5 year old could tell beans beat cookies. Why the beans? I make a complex carb that I eat every morning, with my protein. It includes: Brown rice, Lentils and steamed mixed veggies. Now it includes beans! Great complex carbs, fiber, veggies and some...

I still remember my dad saying " pretzels are fat free". Yes, Dad, they are. But... that doesn't mean your getting anything good out of them. Beside the salt it's just a unhealthy choice. One step above a candy bar, but you could eat some whole wheat toast or something better. A good sized handful is about 300 calories. Not much if you do it once in a while, but every night could add pounds to your weight over a year.     The more natural I eat the MORE I can eat and I love that. I'm trying to eat foods with only one ingredient. No "no sugar added" apple juice, I'll eat the apple. No Mcdonalds egg mcmuffin (they advertise only 300 calories), but it's crap calories. Enriched flour, greasy eggs and imitation cheese. I'll make my own at home for half the calories and it's on a whole wheat toasted bun, with real cheese and real eggs.     Get the idea? It's the little choice we make, over days, weeks, months and years. If your like me yo...

  Learn and think. Try and change. Read all you can and learn how your body works. It's the only one you've got. I'm constantly scanning podcasts, blogs and books. If I like something and it fits i try it, if it doesn't work I revert back. It's little things I change as you can't measure the success if you changed many things at once. But some of my golden rules are: 1. I'm hardly ever really hungary, I'm always eating, it's just healthy food. 6 meals daily. 2. I work out at least 4x weekly. 3. I keep my protein higher, because my body needs it from weight lifting and my body works well on it. 4. I weight in almost daily, but it's just to record it, the scale is not my god. I know I did well or when I mess up. 5. Most of my weight loss.  success comes from eating well 90% of the time and doing my workouts. The fat      goes on it's own. 6. I still count calories, but I'm working more on macro-nutrients. Good proteins and carbs and f...

exercise is movement of the body. If I only had 3 hours weekly to do something my first choice is weight lifting. The math is just undeniable. I'm 225 pounds right now (two bucks and a quarter, Russ and Jeff from Fat2Fit podcast gave me this one!).      I've gained OVER 25 pounds of muscle the last 2 years. (actually I regained about 8 pounds from my natural muscle loss over the last 14 years and some from my past crash diets.) But, the important thing is that now, everyday, all day long I'm burning FAT.  I'm guessing around 750 MORE calaries daily!! Thats over 270,000 calories yearly. That's, my friends, 78 pounds a year of possible weight loss.    So to loose fat my  weight lifting is my favorite and most used form of exercise. Then the secret exercise program I will describe next is the most important. It's called "cheating". I park as far as I can and walk into stores, I take stairs instead of elevators, when driving I dance in my seat (night tim...

For years I wanted to be thin, to look normal and feel normal and then I figured out it was fat I wanted to loose and that doing it quick would just bring the fat back and while loosing it I'd lost some muscle and water.     I figured out that this "diet" is for life and as such, a lifestyle change was needed. I decided to start weight lifting, in my own home, with my powerblocks and pandora radio. Music loud enough for some to think that it was a teenagers home :)  I got hooked. I started eating like a weight lifter and that means more protein then ever!    gaining muscle is slower for a middle aged man and loosing fat at the same time is just as slow, but I'm on a quest. I want to see what I look like at a "normal" weight that I was meant to be and NOTHING takes that away from me.      My chocolate fix is satiated with my chocolate protein bars and powders and I'm eating mostly foods made with only one ingredient. Chicken is made of chicken, ...

Found an interesting web site from my podcast and internet searches. It's been said that if you want to learn how to win at something you need to find someone who has done it and learn from them. This research team has been tracking individuals who have lost and maintained weight loss over a long period of time. AS with most programs I've found, there is not a "one size fits all" for many things in life. I had a hard time doing math with one teacher, but with another I finally got it. Weight loss is the same thing, it's just finding what works for you and doing it. http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm National   Weight  Control   Registry. The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR), established in 1994 by Rena Wing, Ph.D. from Brown Medical School, and James O. Hill, Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, is the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight loss maintenance. Given the prevailing belief that few individuals succeed at l...

 My fat % crept up to 27.3 so I'll keep an eye on it. I weigh in daily, but only my Monday is the "official" weight for the week. The scale is not my god, but a measuring device. It helps me to see that I am doing what i intended to do. My daily goals are what count the most. I ate 93% on goal this week and my workouts where pretty intense. Work kinda put a crimp in my last two workouts for Thursday and Friday, but I made them up over the weekend.      This is so cool. I'm enjoying my slow drift down into this unknown area. My goal is to get to 199 pounds without loosing any muscle and to gain some by October 30, th. 127 days to loose 28 pounds smartly. 1.55 pounds weekly. I'm not racing there, I'm just doing what I've learned to do and just tweaking my lifestyle. I"m watching my carbs much closer and keeping them higher earlier in the day when I need them.       I tried on my newest suit jacket from last fall and it's very big on me. I'm lo...

It takes a life changing event to get most of us on track. I just got this bug up my butt that I needed to loose weight when I thought I broke my bathroom scale and then again when my blood pressure was boarder line going to keep me from getting my medical card renewed to drive my tractor trailer.  Over the last 2 1/2 years my need has turned into a N E E D!!!  I like it, how I feel, how I'm begging to look. I want to explore this unknown frontier and see what God really meant me to look like.      I have so many family and friends, some I love very much, that WANT to lose fat, but they aren't to the NEED stage. My aunt wants to loose those last 15 pounds, but wants to have ice cream every day and not just a 1/2 cup. " That was not enough, so I got some more."  My work buddy when I explained what I eat in an average day "that doesn't sound like fun."    Honestly, at times, it's not. But "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels." I have...

Charlie “Tremendous” Jones once said that “You are the same today as you’ll be in five years except for two things: the books you read and the people you meet.” I submit that the same applies to our walk with Christ. Over the next five years, our growth – our ability to live a life that truly reflects and honors God – will be exactly what it is today except for the books we read and the people we meet.     Read, listen to podcasts and when you have some new info pass it on. Write a blog and learn. I'm trying to become an "expert" on my weight loss. I will always be open to change and tweaking of what is working for me. I need lots of information and I am learning to listen to my body. When I weight lift  i fallow a chart and always try to get one more rep in until I hit 12 then up my weight a bit. But i then spend the next few days listening to my body. Did I hit the right muscle groups? Did I help myself grow? You get the idea. Eating Lentils is my newest food for prote...

   One of the most important things I've learned is that the more natural foods I eat the healthier I'm getting and the less I have to think about what I eat. If I stay in the natural food arena I don't have to worry about eating "fat free", because most of my food choices have only ONE ingredient.     My only really refined "foods" are my protein bars and shakes. They're to help me get to my 199 grams of protein I need daily. My lentils and meats make up the majority of my protein, but when I'm driving and working for 12 hours daily I need something quick and easier. If I'm going to eat something and I have to choose between pretzels or a banana, I can think of the ingredient list. Pretzels have over 12 ingredients and a banana only has 1. Guess which is better to eat.

this is how I do it . One my friend ask how about lost 105 pounds , I saw stop at mcdonalds before work . long term slow weight loss is a simple thing, its just not easy. If you must call it a diet , then its a life long change. I can say I'll never eat mcdonald's again ,but that jumps only good for maybe once a year ." nothing tastes as good as being thin feels . I want to die young, as far in the future as I can muster."

 At 222 i can "boast" that i'm 33.3% of my former self.  What's cool about this is that I'm kinda happy with how I look in clothes, now. It's getting to the point where I'm happy with myself without clothes, or at a beach without a shirt on. I don't know about the men in my groups, but I'm not happy without a shirt on, in public.     The Moobs (man boobs) are MUCH smaller (can't believe I'm saying this in public), but I've been working out for 2 years and I want the darn effort to show.     The analogy I made about weight lifting vs finances makes sense. The 20-25 pounds in muscle I've managed to gain ,or regain from my crash diets in the past, I want to be able to show off. I'm a endomorphic/messomorphic, built like a dwarf. Shorter arms and legs, barrel shaped (not so much now) and honestly I like being a "big" (strong) guy. Now I realize the muscle does more then fat.     With over 30 pounds to go I'm still s...

   I haven't been this "thin" since....I was in my middle teens. I'm now lighter then I was at any adult time in my life except for the 4 months I crashed my weight down , at age 18, to try and get into the Marines. I'm allergic to bee stings and it's documented in hospital records. I quickly regained that weight and the last time I was in the 230's after that was when I got down to "dating weight". Met my future wife, Karen and became "fat, happy and stupid."    You know, the "lions not on the hunt", so time to go out  to eat several times a week, dating stuff.  16 years later and a bunch of failed attempts, now I get it. It's the lifestyle change and the scale is just one measuring of my success. I've eaten well this whole weekend and got out from in front of the T.V. Went to in-laws and helped wife in getting their yard all pretty :).     Mindset is everything. I want to get thin, less FAT and build some more musc...

I'm not on a diet. They have beginnings and ends. I used to know how to loose weight quick, but keeping it off was the problem. I've probably lost over 800 pounds in my life through yo-yo dieting. This is for life, a lifestyle change.    I don't want to loose weight, I want to loose fat. I brag about loosing over 100 pounds now, but I'm more proud of the 20-25 pounds of muscle I've gained. I will steal from the fat2fit radio show when Jeff mentioned that he wants to eat as much healthy food as he can. I heard that and got the full picture.     I want to eat as much food at my proper weight as I can. More muscle equals more good eating! I don't want to be a 199 pound guy how has to eat like a 170 pounder, I want to be a 199 pound guy that is above average in muscle and eat the amount that a 199 pound guy or 215 pound average guy would eat. Each pound of muscle needs 20-50 calories daily to maintain.

I choose to eat healthier. To like veggies and to work on eating the best foods for myself. I choose to workout and really love weight lifting. (cardio, not so much). I don't know when it started but it has been and active and progressive experience over the last 2.5 years. For over 40 years I've loved Mcdonalds, Wendy's and almost any processed and easy to make food. The microwave was my best friend, now it's my George Formen Grill.     It's not going to happen over night and it's (mostly) the little things. Believe me I was great at binge eating. give me a medium pizza from Giant Eagles and I would wolf the thing down. A pint of double chocolate chip ice cream was a weekly thing for me. I actually had a co-worker say " Yuck" when I mentioned that instead of a cheeseburger I'll have 4 slices of ham or turkey and a piece of cheese on a 90 calorie thin whole grain bun. For under 260 calories I'm getting the feel of a meat burger but it's lo...

My daily goals are to keep my food sobriety for today. This is my only day. I'm stealing from AA, Alcoholics Annonomous. I've never been a member but I've had experience with the Big Book through OA, Overeaters Annonomous.  Today is my only day. Yesterday is gone and todays actions will affect tomarrow. I'm the sum total of all my thoughts and  actions taken to this point in my life.      All I need to do is make good choices for today. I don't think about how much weight I have left to loose, all I can do is make smart choices for today. From the time my head raises off the pillow till it hits it is the day I have control over. One other piece I will steal from AA is the Serenity prayer. " God grant me the serenity to except the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." This fat loss (not weight loss or diet) is 90%  in the head. If i can control what goes in my mouth for today and eat slightl...

I've used journals since 3rd grade. I like them, but if you look at over 3/4 of what I used to write about as a pre-teen it was about what people thought of me, what girl I liked and stuff like that. Once a teen it was how quickly I could loose the "weight". You could tell how well I was doing by how long the journal lasted. A few weeks of one or two meals daily, yada yada yada.      This last 2 1/2 years I started doing it better, safer and slower. In small controlled steps I've improved my health and built upon my knowledge and skills. Up to 6 months ago I thought cereal was as ok food choice and pretzles where ok to eat daily. A year before that diet pop was cool and a year before that Ben and Jerry where a staple of my life. (If you don't know who or what Ben and Jerry is, I WON'T TEMPT YOU.)      Ben and Jerry stopped sending me "We miss you" letters after several months. I was chowing down on 2-4 of them monthly. I was also very good at conse...

Every day I make a choice. To eat like i used to eat and end up eating like a 300+ pound man and end up back there or to eat like a thin guy and finally get there. I'm at 235 pounds with 27% fat.  I'm up 1.5 pounds but that's partially normal fluctuations since weekly and monthly count, but I'm also down a 1% in fat.      The most important thing is to eat right most days most meals. 90% perfect eating is my goal. Working out 4x most weeks is also part of it. I'm about to start my workout. I took a few days off because of the crazy Memorial day weekend. And that's ok. I'm 44 years old and my body needs more time to recover then a 22 year olds :).      Staying free from destructive eating is a day by day ordeal. I will always have to "watch" and reinforce my better habits. It's not just good and bad or as Fat2Fit radio hosts say "good better best" it's food choices and exersice of "poor, fair, good, better and best."  ...

www. fat2fitradio .com Go there and listen. Only thing I can say is they don't charge for anything. Yes, they have a book and you can listen to 121 of their 141 podcasts for free. Two real guys how have lost and are maintaining their weight loss. I'm not impressed when someone says "I've lost 101 pounds." It's when they have been able to keep it off over years and years and years.       Most current dieters think that you have to live on 1000 calorie. 1200, 1600. I'll tell you the truth. 1000 calories is the requirement for a 60 pound 4foot tall child! It doesn't work!!! I'm eating 2300 calories daily. Weight 232 pounds and am slowly melting fat down to my 199 goal. I'm 5'8 with a fat % of 20-40.  (real big difference between my two devices. One hand held the other a scale. I'm have it professionally done once I'm close to goal.)       It might take another 6 months to loose this last 23 pounds. That's OK. Cause 5 years fro...

God knows i'm not perfect. Went up a few pounds from week on vacation and water gain. I'm not worried, because I'm back on the wagon. Never fell off, just was walking and stumbling besides it, but I had a hand on the darn thing.      I'm sorta happy with where I am because of where I'm heading. In a nut shell, I'm happy to take this weight loss, scratch that, FAT loss slow. Less then 1% weekly of my body mass. i just don't want to lose muscle. I work to hard as a 44 year old guy to make the muscle.  just increased my workouts to 4 times weekly and split my workout between upper body and lower body with back. increased my sets to 5 from 3 and slowed down my movements and improved my squat form and decreased my rest period to 45 seconds per set. My traps and calfs and quads are screaming! Feels GOOD.       I'm working on my goals and here is my newest. I am going to set a weight goal of 199.9 by October 30th. My 45th birthday. That's just around 1.5 ...

  I can't do it anymore. The pain of trying to diet the weight off and then when my diet is done I go back to eating like I did before brought me decades of y0-yo dieting. NO MORE!  I'm choosing every day to eat healthier and I'm liking it.  I even had cake and ice cream last Sunday. Not only was it Easter, but my moms Birthday :)  I allow my self cake and ice cream at those events. Small cake and one scoop, but it's still 14 or so times a year. Much better then my old habit of a quart of Ben and Jerrie's a few times a month.     instead of pretzles with my dinner, you know the "go with" item i'm eating celery and like it! Grilled turkey on whole bread with a touch of ranch and one slice of cheese beats a cheesburger. It's all the small things.

   So exciting to be at the thinnest weight I've ever seen in 16 years, since I met my wife, Karen.  I had gotten to "dating weight", nabbed a girl and the lion was no longer on the hunt, sooooo...... I got Fat Happy and Stupid.    Now i'm doing it slow and steady. Over the last 29 months I've had 3 stops and starts where I didn't loose but actually gained weight, but it was over months. I think that helped when I started weight lifting to get my muscle up. Now i'm working on maintaining my muscle mass while loosing the final 38+ pounds of FAT.      Just want to see what a thin me looks like. I've never been below 203 pounds as an adult. I hit 203 when I was 18 and tried to get into the Marines. So exciting. I"m happy I choose this as my midlife crisis. The life style change is responsible for the slow fat loss and for my ability to keep it off. It's kinda like driving my semi truck. You can drive it after a few weeks of training, but if you...

My other "blog" is on 43 Things.  http://www.43things.com/people/progress/ooreach/4811114 .

Undiscovered country since 16 years ago. This was the weight group I was in when I met karen, my wife. I had gotten a good women and became fat happy and stupid :) In other words, I crashed the weight down and quickly popped back up to the 240’s and upward.  Now I go down. Slower. My next mini goal is 233 because that’s 100 pounds lost. The 220’s will be cool and the 2(teens) will be sweet, but 203 is my lowest adult (age 18) weight. Again, I fasted back then, soooo I didn’t stay there long. This time I will slowly sneak up on it. Eating like a thin person, my body will adjust to it. 199 is my goal. I will look in a mirror, see how my fat% is and decide if this is my goal weight or if I need to go down another 10-30 pounds.  My fat % is between 27-29% so I’m not sure. This is the fun part.  Like building wealth slow and steady gets you there. It’s not sexy or quick, but slow means the body has time to adjust and you don’t go into starvation mode.  BTW : I’m still usi...

   Then I choose to NOT "diet". I'm not training for a marathon and then once i finish it, hit a weight on the scale, go back to the old "me". I'm practicing being 199 pounds. I'm eating like the thinner person. I'm sorry to say I just watched this show on bariatric surgery and I was sickened. The only "way out" is through a surgery? People die from this and they don't ever get to eat like a normal person. It's like being addicted to a drug and being forced to live in a bubble your whole life.     I learned some cute sayings this last week. I'm up to episode 60 of the Fat 2 Fit radio podcasts. "Hunger is fat  cells shrinking." And, " hunger is not an emergency."  What really sickened me is that after theses surgeries these people where so happy to be dropping weight so fast (including muscle). They're bodies where not able to shrink their skin because it was done so fast. I have spent around 25 years bei...

     For all us middle aged guys out there. I'd like to get down to a fat level and fitness level to ensure a longer and healthier life. Less possible medical problems, live a life of higher physical ability and look and feel normal.    I grew up the fat kid. My lowest adult weight was 203 pounds and that was for a few months. I'm currently 242 pounds and around 27% fat percentage. I've gained around 12-20 pounds of muscle over the last 15 months. I know i'm able to eat, at least,  500 calories more each day because of the muscle I've built (ok, rebuilt.)   We loose about 1/2 pound of muscle after our 30's and I've lost 7 pounds in muscle over that time and my crash diets over the last decades probably took another half to a full dozen.       I used to eat ice cream many times a month and eating whole half sized pizza's was a normal event. I worked hard to put the weight on with my binge eating habbits. Cool Whip sized bowls of cereal ...

     I type like I talk and if not for spell check I'd be in trouble. Doing this blog to help myself and  a few other people. I've been driving semi-truck for about 6 years. I work for a company out of the east coast. I live in Ohio and drive within 250 miles of home and am home every day. I drive a popular soda around to other plants and like it. I'm married to a pretty nurse who has suffered with weight issues her whole life,too. I volunteer some of my time with my hometown police department as a auxiliary police officer. It's fun. Get to direct traffic and help out with parades and help the city in times of need.       We're in the process of saving for a down payment for a house, but refuse to do this until we've got 20% saved with our emergency fund and money to spruce up the house. We're dept free and going to stay that way, except for the house payments and a possibly a small car payment for the wife.     Back to the topic of th...

     I was a over 300 pound guy. Happily married and 41 years old. Struggling with weight my whole life. Up and down. Up and down.  This was my highest weight ever. Over 330 pounds the scale read "E" so I call it 333 pounds. Nice round number.     Let's start with the past. As an adult I hit 203 pounds, at age 18 when I tried to get into the military. I was allergic to bee stings, as was shown in a medical report, so I didn't qualify. I had reached my goal after another "diet" and began to eat like my "normal" (fat) self and rained it all back in about 6 months.     Every time I crashed the weight down some of what is lost was muscle and that is why I feel it's easy to not only regain your lost weight but to add more weight. As I learned from listening to the Fat2fit podcast every pound of muscle uses 20-50 calaries every day. Doesn't sound like lots but thats 2-5 pounds you could gain every year if you ate the exact same amount every day...