Technically this is a day late, but shouldn't matter because my weight hasn't budged between yesterday and today. I wanted to make a post to compile my experience on my weight loss journey both so I can better reinforce the habits that have worked for me and provide guidance to those who may be struggling. A little about myself; I'm 5'11" (but in the beginning incorrectly thought that I was 6'0"), 24 years old, male. My starting weight was 265, my current weight is 232, and my goal weight is 180 lbs. I determined my goal weight using this site. Although I've spent the time and effort to write this post I am by no means an expert or authority on any of these topics. I'm just regurgitating what I've read, how I've applied it, and what has ultimately stuck to the wall.
Why do I want to lose weight?
A lot of people answer this question that they wanted to live a longer or healthier life, or at the least to prove to themselves they could do it. I'm going to be completely blunt and vain in my answer: I want to be more attractive and I think this can be achieved by losing weight. I don't think fatness directly correlates with being unattractive and I know tons of people who are overweight and look amazing, I just personally don't like how I look with fat. It's as simple as that.
Bad Habits
There are so many bad habits in the realm of weight loss and nutrition that I can't possibly go over them all, and there are probably some that I've overcome that I'm not even conscious or aware of right now so this is very much a personal endeavor in discovering which of your habits will doom you. I probably have a bit of a "headstart" on a lot of people in that I had braces in high school which forced me to switch from regular soda to diet, and I ended up quitting soda entirely in early college. I don't drink calories at all except in the form of alcohol, and at that probably only twice a month. I recommend most people make similar concessions because drinking calories you could have eaten is the worst.
Some pretty common habits are stress eating and eating out of boredom. I'll touch on these a little in the nutrition section, but one way I overcame them is just recognizing when I'm about to do it, getting myself away from the kitchen and doing literally anything else. I'll go upstairs, hop on Discord, and ask some friends to play games with me, go to my roommates room and hang out with them, go in the living room and watch some Netflix, whatever. I just make myself do something that commits me into something for some arbitrary amount of time where I won't have to think about food.
My worst habit was eating out. I would frequently grab fast food for daily meals and go to restaurants with friends multiple times a week. This is bad not just because fast/restaurant quality food is so calorie dense, but because it dulls your enthusiasm for meals at home, or at least it did for me. I've since cut basically all fast food out of my life and restrict going to restaurants to a few times a month; this had the added benefit of saving you money, which, if you're thrifty like me is a nice bonus. If you lead a busy life and convenient food is a necessity, at least try and make vaguely healthy choices like perhaps Chick-fil-A. I get grilled chicken nuggets from there when I do have to eat out and it's not the worst thing in the world.
Nutrition
I think most people will tell you this is most important. I didn't decide on any special fad diet, I just do CICO like most people who post here. I wanted to incorporate Intermittent Fasting because I've never been the three square meals type of person anyways, but I work a PRN position so when my schedule constantly flip-flops between day and overnight shifts it's hard to maintain. When I started, my TDEE was very nearly 2700. A lot of people recommend you taper off your calorie deficit over time so you don't make a drastic change to avoid relapse or binging, but in everything I do I'm a bit of a min-maxer. I wanted to find the bare minimum amount of calories I could eat a day healthily and start at that. From various threads and resources I determined that minimum for men is 1500 and 1200 for women, so I've done 1500 calories daily since day 1. For some or maybe even a lot of people this won't work and I encourage you to try and scale it to what works for you. I've also read that losing faster than 2 lbs a week is quite an aggressive weight loss strategy which may result in loose skin, so play around with the numbers and find something that feels good to you. The extra 200 calorie deficit in the beginning didn't seem like a big deal to me so I just rolled with it. Now my TDEE is like 2450ish, so my daily deficit is just shy of 1000.
I don't think eating "healthy foods" is totally necessary to losing weight, but I think it will become a byproduct of it. If you're being honest with your calorie counting and you're still eating calorie dense foods you won't be able to take eating a few slices of pizza, some fries, and a soda, capping out your calories before dinner every day. I started out eating bad stuff, bad portions, and tracking the calories in a calorie app (I use Lose It, prefer it to MFP) and seeing how wasteful it was made me explore other options. Even eating vaguely healthier pays dividends in allowing you to eat more often throughout the day, because as I mentioned earlier I have a problem with bored and stress eating. It's so invaluable to be able to have a light snack of kettle popcorn- which is only 100 cals- if I'm not able to get myself away from a situation where I won't be able to avoid bored/stress eating, as opposed to like 500 cals in Doritos or something. I also have a history of being a picky eater in childhood and in my effort to lose weight I've forced myself to eat a lot of things I formerly thought I hated and just sticking with it. To my surprise, I love some of those things I hated now. Bananas and eggs used to taste awful to me but after sticking to them for a while I discovered I actually love them, they're staple to my diet now. I think limiting eating of rich fast/restaurant quality food has something to do with this as well; I generally appreciate food so much more that I wouldn't have gone out of my way to eat before.
Proper servings and portions are essential. I bought a food scale and measuring cups/spoons and use them daily. Sometimes you have to estimate and when that's true, always overestimate. Underestimation will make you wonder why you aren't losing weight when you essentially didn't tracks some amount of calories, whereas overestimating allows you to prepare for the unknown quantification by simply eating less somewhere else.
Some days I actually have trouble reaching 1500 calories. My meal plans have reached a point of optimization where I usually have between 200-400 calories I have to fill. Speaking of meal plans, I'm going to plug mine. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm bit of a min-maxer, numbers-oriented kind of guy. Repetition doesn't really bother me so I basically have a formulaic approach to my daily meals. Lots of people tell me this is lunacy and they couldn't be bothered to eat the same stuff daily, but hey, works for me.
Lifting day meals:
Breakfast - Eggs and salsa, one fruit (peach cup, blueberries, or pineapple), one kind of nuts (pistachios or almonds) = 140 + 20 + 80 + 160 = 400 cals
Lunch - Whey Gold Standard Protein shake, banana = 120 + 105 = 225 cals
Dinner - 6-8 oz of chicken, 1-2 servings rice, veggies (carrots, broccoli, onions, usually all together), some type of BBQ or Teriyaki sauce = 330 + 300 + 90 + 60 = 780 cals
Snacks - Kettle chips, kettle popcorn, popsicles in variable amounts to fill up to 1500 cals
Cardio/off day meals:
Breakfast - Oatmeal, one fruit (peach cup, blueberries, or pineapple), one kind of nuts (pistachios or almonds) = 160 + 80 +160 = 400 cals
Dinner - 6-8 oz of chicken, 1-2 servings rice, veggies (carrots, broccoli, onions, usually all together), some type of BBQ or Teriyaki sauce = 330 + 300 + 90 + 60 = 780 cals
Snacks - Kettle chips, kettle popcorn, popsicles in variable amounts to fill up to 1500 cals
Even a numbers monster like myself messes up sometimes. I don't get exactly 1500 cals a day. Sometimes I'm under by like 50, sometimes I'm over by like 100, the point is to remain consistent within I would estimate ±10% of your cal goal. Obviously try to stay at or under your goal. Lastly, I treat myself to a cheat day usually once a week or a few times a month. However, on the cheat day I do not exceed my maintaining TDEE. This way you don't blow an entire week of eating in deficit for one gluttonous feast.
Exercise
At the risk of losing credibility I'll go ahead and say I don't think exercise is super necessary for weight loss. If you maintain a calorie deficit you will lose weight, it's simple math. Exercising can also create a trap where people tire themselves, make themselves hungry, and end up overeating to restore their energy. Finding and then attending the right gym can be a waste of your time and money when you can focus those resources on other more important things like your nutrition. However, as I stated at the beginning, looking good was my primary goal, and so exercise is necessity for me. The only reason I even attend a gym is for weightlifting. If you're only concerned with weight loss and not gaining muscle or toning up, basic cardio like walking or jogging at the park or whatever is probably totally sufficient for you.
The program I use is Starting Strength. This is a basic program for people who have little to no experience lifting and it's probably the best in class for that market. I lift three times a week, usually Monday/Wednesday/Friday but if something gets in the way I'll just shift my days to Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. Sometimes I go to the park and play Pokemon Go or just walk around with friends between lifting days.
Some people track their calories burnt through exercise. Some people make up those calories by eating them. I do neither. Calories burnt through exercise are a black box that I don't care about the results of. I don't track them, and I definitely don't eat whatever I worked off. I recommend you do the same, but I would also say if you're feeling a little extra hungry on a day you worked out don't worry about going over your calorie goal just a little bit.
Changes, Bodily and Socially
One of the things I was most curious about when it came to the weight loss process was what happened throughout the progression; at what point could I expect my breasts* to shrink, my thighs/stomach, etc. This information is largely variable I've discovered even among people with similar height, weight, age, etc. Regardless, I'm going to describe the differences I've experienced in the hopes it's useful to someone with goals similar to my own or to act as motivation for those who haven't yet experienced much change. For context, 33 lbs is at this point is about 33% of the way to my goal weight.
My face is slightly less chubby and my facial hair seems as though it's less patchy. I've been less scared by the idea of taking selfies and generally think my face looks more attractive. My collarbones are more prominent, but that's always been true, even when I was heavier; I've always had pretty prominent collarbones. My arms are slightly less flabby and when I flex them there's some tone. I'm not gym rat yet but the muscle is starting to become visible. My breasts have decreased slightly and I can tell because when I stand up straight the bottoms of them don't touch my midsection whereas before they drooped low enough that there was always constant skin contact. The bottom of my rib cage is becoming prominent above the fat of my stomach. My stomach seems a little smaller, mostly in the front rather than at the sides. My thighs seem mostly the same. My legs are super toned up; thanks, squats! Next one is TMI but what they say about weight loss and penile length is definitely true; I've definitely looked bigger which has been a pleasant surprise.
Social changes weren't something I was really ready for so soon. I've received lots of compliments from friends saying I'm looking good, lots of compliments from people who haven't seen me since high school saying I look great. I've received more attention in public, I guess I just seem more approachable now. Strangely, no one at my work place has commented on my weight loss.
*slight adjacent rant: one of my biggest pet peeves is when people try to tack on "man" to something as to not detract from the masculine ego. Man cave, man breasts, etc. It's all super fucking dumb. Men sometimes have breasts, it's not something so inherently unmasculine that you have to precede it with a big fat obvious "man" to save your ego.
Tips and Tricks
-Stuck in a plateau? Throw a party! Legitimately, every time I've hit a plateau it ended after a night of drinking. This is partly because you'll wake up slightly dehydrated from the alcohol. You'll quickly gain back the water weight, but I think you'll find after a couple recovery days that your plateau is broken. -That being said, don't min-max a night of drinking. Early into my weight loss journey I thought I would be clever and eat 750 calories in food for the day and then drink the other 750 calories. All this did was make me puke a lot and go to sleep several hours before everyone else which is clearly not a fun party experience. Be safe, eat plenty of food, and drink lots of water when you plan to party. -Sugar-free Popsicles are only 15 calories and are an instant palate cleanser if you're eating something you don't necessarily enjoy for its nutritional value. I always keep my freezer stocked with these bad boys and they've served me well. -When you eat out you're likely going to have to estimate how many calories the meal is worth. I normally enter ingredients separately, ballpark the portions, then round up. You should be wary of places that do list their calories as they sometimes don't consider their cooking oils etc. I've been told multiplying their amount by 40% is a good estimation for what the meal is actually worth.
I know this is a massive wall of text but if it's useful to literally one person I'll be happy. I wanted to give back to this community in anyway I can because I've been lurking for the last couple months just letting information soak in. If anyone has any questions or input I'm very receptive to compliment or criticism. I'm eager to continue losing weight and I'm hopeful everyone on this sub achieves their goals. We're all gonna make it.
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2PUFDm3
No comments:
Post a Comment