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

  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...