Posts by djeffroy

Stats: 27, M, 186.2 lbs (as of this morning), light activity

Got my maintenance calorie level from the CC burn meter.

I'm in!. Short-term goal just happens to be to lose 10-12 lbs by May 1.

HW: 207

LW: Birth

CW: 187

GW: 175, then reassess

CALORIE LIMIT: 2100 (deficit of approx. 600 through dieting - any extra comes from exercise). Have been trying to up my protein to meet the 1g per lb of body weight.

BREAKFAST: English Muffin breakfast sandwich & glass of V8 Fusion. Breakfast sandwich = 1 whole wheat english muffin (140 calories), 1 kraft single (50 calories), 1 egg (90 calories), ketchup (20 calories) = 300 calories. Juice = approx. 120 calories. Total = 420 calories

LUNCH: Something around 400-500 calories

DINNER: Something around 500-600 calories

SNACK: Two or three snacks, 100-200 calories each (approx. 400 calories). Two double-double coffees (90 calories each). Total = 580 calories.

EXERCISE: 30 min. brisk walk every lunch hour (3.5-4 mph). Workout 2-3 times per week. Workouts include 25 minutes circuit weight training, 15 minutes HIIT, 45 minutes steady state cardio @ 75% max heartrate, in that order.

WATER: Approx. 2 litres/day

GOOD ADVICE FOR ANYONE:

1. Plan your week of meals on the weekend and buy your groceries accordingly. This cuts down on tempting miscellaneous food in the house and way down on your food bill. 

2. Try Kraft Foods recipes for dinners. We get a magazine in the mail every month or so with tons of delicious, nutritious, quick & easy options - and nutritional info, including calorie counts. We use Kraft recipes probably 2-3 dinners per week and have really expanded our 'menu'. Keeps it interesting and easy to know exactly how much you can have at dinner to be within your daily limit.

3. Make larger meals and take leftovers to work for lunches. You'll know your exact calories and I find leftovers keep me more satisfied than what I used to bring for lunch (sandwich, something purchased, etc.)

Good luck everyone, I'm down approximately 8 lbs since mid-February and looking to better that over the next month by stepping up the intensity and duration of my workouts.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Gi-jane, glad to hear you still believe it is just a 'pause'. Although even so it is pretty discouraging to workout hard, walk everyday and be eating right just to end up at the exact weight I was two weeks ago :S

The body shot sounds like a good motivation tool though so I will at least have visual proof of progress / no progress if I'm not seeing results on the scale.

Anyone know the official acceptable daily 'allowance' ? I've found things here and there that talk about parts per million, etc. but nothing that translates it into how many cans you can have of the various types of tuna (skipjack vs yellowfin vs albacore).

Melkor, thanks for getting back to this thread :) What would you suggest for my steady state cardio program in 3 weeks? Should cardio still follow the weight training portion of my workouts for that 'afterburn' effect? What should my duration and intensity (heart rate) be for cardio sessions during the 3-4 week lock-in period?

I absolutely have noticed that I don't have the urge to overeat like I used to. I was talking to my wife a couple of days ago about this and saying that between the meals and snacks I'm eating on my diet, it seems like I'm eating all the time. I can't believe I ever actually ate enough to be over my daily 'maintain' calories and gaining weight! But when I look back at my previous eating habits, I was for sure eating 1.5-2x the portion sizes for meals and snacks - basically eating to the point of 'stuffed' every time I sat down to a meal. After only a month I already find I'm getting full on a lot less and couldn't possibly pound back the portions I used to without feeling seriously uncomfortable in the guts.

Hi, sounds like your current eating habits might be similar to what mine were before I decided it was time to drop some lbs. I am a notoriously fast eater, I shovel my food back like someone's going to steal it. Often the people I'm eating with will still be prepping their meal, adding salt / pepper, etc. and I've pretty much cleaned my plate. What's worse, on top of that my idea of a meal was eating until I was uncomfortably full. Being stuffed at the end of a meal meant I'd had 'enough'. This was a deadly combination because it takes a while for your stomach to tell your brain that you're full. So the fact that I was eating rapidly until I felt stuffed actually meant I had packed my stomach past the point of full by the time I felt it. End result: waaaay too much food at one sitting.

What's really helped is that every weekend we plan our meals for the entire week so that we only buy the groceries necessary to make those meals. This reduces the amount of tempting miscellaneous food in the house and ends up saving us a lot of $$$ too. We try to pick recipes that specify the amount of calories-per-serving so that we know exactly how much we should eat to meet our daily caloric targets and when we've eaten that amount, whether we feel full or not immediately after finishing what's on our plate, that's all we get. After 10-15 minutes we always end up feeling satisfied. Not always full or stuffed, but definitely no longer hungry, which is probably what you're supposed to feel like following a meal. Also, there are things you can eat higher quantities of without blowing it calorie-wise. If you really need that 'full' feeling in your stomach to feel satisfied, try adding higher amounts of low-calorie foods to your meals / snacks so that your stomach will be physically full without skyrocketing your calories.

Anyhow, long story short, I used to think I was supposed to feel 'full' after I'd eaten and would eat until I felt that way. A healthier approach might be to try and aim for 'no longer hungry' after a meal since 'full' might mean you've had too much. Of course it might not be realistic to be able to plan all of your meals but just offering a suggestion that's worked for my family. Good luck!

Ok, here's a hypothetical.

Say I am eating 2100 calories a day for a 20% deficit but my metabolism is slow now for the next few weeks because my deficit was too extreme for the first 3 weeks of my diet. I will probably not be dropping much or any weight through dieting even though I'm taking in 20% less calories than my 'maintain' amount.

But then say that on top of that 20% dietary deficit, I burn 500 calories per day working out. Will the calories burned through exercise allow me to drop 1lb per week even though my metabolism has temporarily slowed and my dieting deficit isn't losing me any weight? My body shouldn't be as hellbent on clinging to every calorie I feed it anymore because my dietary deficit is more moderate, right? 

Or am I grasping at straws and have sabotaged the possibility of losing 15 lbs over the next 7 weeks by having too great a deficit during the first 3 weeks of my diet?

I guess my question now is how long before my metabolism is back on track and I start losing again now that I'm going to start eating approx. 2100 calories per day? I've only been eating 300 under that amount per day but I ate like that consistently for 3-1/2 weeks. I just hope I haven't sabotaged my goal of dropping 15lbs between now and May 1 :S

Dana, Babiurbeautiful and Malynda,

Despite varying weight loss / fitness goals, I'm hearing a common theme: beach bod! haha :) Count me in! I'll probably catch some heat as a guy whose focus, at least in the short term, is how I look in a pair of swim trunks. Probably just comes across as vain. But the way I look at it is that right now, I know I don't look and feel the best that I could. I'm not reaching my full potential from both a health and esthetics standpoint, and, as far as I'm concerned it only makes sense to strive to be at your best... that, and I guess I'm a little (a lot?) vain, haha

Nice goal kelly, great that you have a sport you do in the summer to keep you motivated to get fit. Bet it's an extra kick in the pants, over and above just wanting to lose weight and look better, to have something like that to work towards where fitness is going to equal better performance :)

cosmographer, thanks for the reply. I thought the rule was more bran = more fibre = more #2-ing but it totally makes sense that cutting my water would counteract that.

Thanks for the reply, gi-jane and especially thanks for pointing out that 0.4 is the equivalent of a pack of butter! Much easier to grasp and feel like it's something significant looking at it in those terms  !  Good point about starting too low with daily calories and then having to go even lower.

What would you suggest with regard to drinking water - should I shoot for closer to 2 litres again?

So it sounds like I might be overdoing it on the water! For example, yesterday I drank 2-3 coffees and 2 litres of water at work, a glass of water with dinner, and another litre of water at the gym. The litre at the gym was truly out of thirst but the majority of the water at work was mostly just because I thought I was supposed to. The notorious 'the more, the better' water myth claims another victim!

Wow, that sounds like a lot. That would mean 190-270g of protein per day,  or 5-7 chicken breasts !