[ewth8tr]

Originally Posted by FMCoug

This thread was inspired by RunnerCoug's suggestion that I start a blog to keep track of things. I'm too lazy to do that so if nobody objects, I'll just use this thread. Hopefully I can get a bit more feedback here than I would on a blog as well. If you feel like it doesn't belong here ... say so and I'll stop.

Background
Some background for those who don't know. I'm 5'9" and was 310 lbs when I started this on 2/19. I'm down to 302 at this point. My initial goal is to get inside 200. I'm 37 years old and getting to the age where I HAVE to get this weight off or I'm going to see real health issues. At my last physical I had high blood pressure (not dangerously high but higer than it should be), high tryglycerides, and borderline high cholesterol. Doc says I'm a great candidate for diabetes as well.

Also, I have not always been fat. In high school I was on the swim team and played water polo ... weight at graduation was about 165. So I wasn't a fat kid by any means. Just started gaining on my mission (cars the whole time), college, etc. I have talked to a fair amount of HS swimmers who have gone through the same thing. My theory is that you combine the metabolism of a HS aged male with swimming / polo workouts and you end up with some REALLY bad eating habits. Anyway, that's just a little history.

The plan
I'm using http://www.fitday.com to tracky my food intake, calories burned, weight loss, etc. According to the site, at my height/weight/age, I burn about 3000 calories a day between my BMR and lifestyle.


Food plan:
- 2000-2500 calories a day, spread out over 5-6 meals
- Daily breakdown of approx. 40% carb, 40% protein, 20% (or less) fat. I know the fat should be lower but I also know how I eat. And when I don't get that much fat I'm a lot hungrier on the reduced calorie diet.
- At least a gallon of water a day. They say half your body weight but 155 oz is a LOT of water.
- Also taking multivitamins to make sure I get the nutrients I need. FitDay has charts for that too.

Exercise Plan:
- resistance training on my home gym 2-3 times a week. Not going very heavy in weight ... just trying to build a little muscle to burn calories and tone up.
- Daily cardio that burns at least 500 calories. Hopefully can get this to 1000.

Between the diet and exercise, I should create a daily caloric deficit of 1500-2000 calories, allowing me to take the weight off at 2-3 lbs a week.

This is a great thing you have decided to do. My dad is your height and about your weight (probably a few pounds heavier, but not much), but is almost 56. At 46, he developed Type 2 Diabetes, he has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, and about 3 years ago he was diagnosed with Parkinsons. I have been doing all I can to try to convince him to lose weight, but it's certainly been a losing battle this far. For a little while there during the Atkin's fad, he did atkins and lost about 30 lbs, but wasn't doing any exercise and once the weight gain slowed down, he got discouraged and quit. His parkinsons really limits how much he can walk and he goes out to eat a lot now since my Mom died, so it's been a constant battle. Don't get discouraged or give up, I think it's a great idea for you to track your progress here where we can provide encouragement. I'll be looking forward to the updates.