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Weight Loss Before/After Thread! (with pics)
- Thread starter lsslave
- Start date
ErasureAcer
Banned
I'm 6 feet and now weigh 221 lbs. Yikes! 3 years ago I was 160. 61 lbs. Holy shit. Sign me up for this thread. Time for a two-mile walk.
Price Dalton
Member
lsslave said:
What brand are you eating? I like the Valrhona from Trader Joe's.
Just give it some time. The stuff is incredibly healthy and delicious. Before long you'll be eating pure cocoa nibs.
infiniteloop
Member
I started eating dark chocolate as an occasional treat a couple of months ago. Took a bit to get used to it, but I love it now. A couple of squares with some strawberries is better than any candy bar. I used to get ~80%, but go for 90 now.
I think you're all bonkers, but I will stick with it to see if it gets any better. I feel like I'm punishing myself when I eat it, which is kind of the opposite of what eating chocolate has been previously for me. But maybe that'll help somehow!
Bought some frozen berries yesterday too, so maybe I'll try those in tandem. Oh, and it's Lindt, no idea if that's good or bad for this type of devil chocolate.
Bought some frozen berries yesterday too, so maybe I'll try those in tandem. Oh, and it's Lindt, no idea if that's good or bad for this type of devil chocolate.
Masta_Killah
Member
Shaneus said:
Look for Shirataki noodles. It smells fishy when you buy them, but a long rinse should get the smell out. There's a bunch of recipes online that you can use for these noodles.
umm.. this is bad info... cardio most certainly DOES NOT encourage your body to store fat inherently. the biggest problem with cardio is that on short stretches by itself (20-30 minutes) the fat burning is minimal to non-existent, and any bad fats or unused carbs throughout the day will just add on to your fat reserves. but long stretches of cardio (40 minutes or longer) or cardio immediately following weight training are arguably the only way (or at least most efficient way) to burn fat directly through exercise.Chinner said:
unfortunately, as I just said 30 minutes is a really bad amount of time to put towards cardio every day. Fat burning doesn't really kick in until somewhere around 30-40 minutes. At 30 minutes almost everything you are burning are stored carbs.. I mean it's fine for burning calories and with a good diet you'll still lose weight, but add just another 10-15 minutes to the run and you'll actually start burning real fat.Reckoner said:
oh, as a final update on my progress to this thread... pretty sure my weight loss is at an end a few pounds prematurely. Currently at 48lbs lost. 5'9" and down from 205lb to 157lb. My original goal was 155lb but honestly I am fighting too much now between eating foods I like, calories, and getting the nutrition I need to keep my weight lifting and running improving (3 months to the marathon). I realize we've said in here before (myself included) that once you get to a certain point your weight doesn't really matter.. but I really wanted to hit that even 50lb mark.
The big thing for me now is keeping the lifestyle going.. The workout part is easy as that really IS a part of my lifestyle now and something I enjoy greatly. The part I have to keep up on is the food part. I love food.. love love love.. those from this thread know that I am really not a fan of (to put it mildly) Atkins or similar super low carb lifestyles.. I shake my head at all of the low carb stuff posted in here (but we all have our own ways of doing this so carry on!!!). So for me the big thing is to make sure that stuff like eating out, eating a ridiculous quantity of bad fat or simple carbs, junk food, treats, etc. is kept minimal to almost non-existent. Fortunately some of this stuff has actually just become downright unappealing to me (most fast food for example). But I'm not going to worry anymore about having a small piece of cake at a party, or occasionally taking a second helping on a meal that I really really enjoy, etc. Keep everything sensible, keep a level of consistency from day to day, keep the really bad processed shit eliminated or damn close to it, and keep running and lifting. That's pretty much my life from now on.
Will post pictures by Friday... I know I keep saying I will.. but I am pretty sensitive about this shit.. I haven't even posted to Facebook or such and that is pretty much ONLY people I know personally.. but I'll get them up. and I'll swing in here from time to time as well to encourage and offer advice to anyone who wants it (and to update on my marathon time).
Peace
The big thing for me now is keeping the lifestyle going.. The workout part is easy as that really IS a part of my lifestyle now and something I enjoy greatly. The part I have to keep up on is the food part. I love food.. love love love.. those from this thread know that I am really not a fan of (to put it mildly) Atkins or similar super low carb lifestyles.. I shake my head at all of the low carb stuff posted in here (but we all have our own ways of doing this so carry on!!!). So for me the big thing is to make sure that stuff like eating out, eating a ridiculous quantity of bad fat or simple carbs, junk food, treats, etc. is kept minimal to almost non-existent. Fortunately some of this stuff has actually just become downright unappealing to me (most fast food for example). But I'm not going to worry anymore about having a small piece of cake at a party, or occasionally taking a second helping on a meal that I really really enjoy, etc. Keep everything sensible, keep a level of consistency from day to day, keep the really bad processed shit eliminated or damn close to it, and keep running and lifting. That's pretty much my life from now on.
Will post pictures by Friday... I know I keep saying I will.. but I am pretty sensitive about this shit.. I haven't even posted to Facebook or such and that is pretty much ONLY people I know personally.. but I'll get them up. and I'll swing in here from time to time as well to encourage and offer advice to anyone who wants it (and to update on my marathon time).
Peace
borghe said:
I agree that cardio doesn't encourage your body to lose fat (though this is a complicated issue and it can in certain situations). Cardio is a useful fat loss tool, though nowhere near as good as diet and not as good as resistance training.
You don't need long stretches of LSD cardio to lose fat. The 30-40 minute number you have is a fiction.
For example:
Say you run for 30 minutes and burn 300 calories. Those calories come from glycogen (carb) stores, and some from fat and free-floating nutrients. Now you have empty glycogen stores, and need to refill them with food. You refill your stores instead of using those calories for fat.
You burn more calories from running more time at the same speed, but that's the only difference. For the same reason, fasted cardio is also a myth provided calories are constant.
1 month and a day, no sodas! when i do crave one, which i have been lately, i have been drinking seltzer water. the carbonation curves that craving a lot!
also, bought me a mountain bike! been riding about an 1hr every other day. my legs are so heavy afterward. but, it's nice to get some exercise again. i'm thinking of walking/jogging on days i'm not riding. would that be over kill? the link Chinner gave is amazing. i've been eating chicken/turkey and spinach/collard greens for lunch and dinner for the last week and i need to spice it up a bit. i'm afraid eating the same thing day after day will burn me out and lose interest.
also, bought me a mountain bike! been riding about an 1hr every other day. my legs are so heavy afterward. but, it's nice to get some exercise again. i'm thinking of walking/jogging on days i'm not riding. would that be over kill? the link Chinner gave is amazing. i've been eating chicken/turkey and spinach/collard greens for lunch and dinner for the last week and i need to spice it up a bit. i'm afraid eating the same thing day after day will burn me out and lose interest.
Thats sort of what I was saying. The 30-40 minute number isn't a "myth". It simply the approximate time it takes to deplete your stores. The only thing I would add to what you're saying, which is where my point lies, is that under 30-40 minutes you aren't burning much fat. You will still lose weight through diet and from calories in/calories out, but if you go 40 minutes or more you will burn actual fat. If you go back and read what I said you'll see we're actually saying the same thing.grumble said:
Heh, you just gotta roll with it in this thread. At the end ofthe day this is a weight loss thread and not a workout thread, and it's best to remember that when reading the low carb stuff. With that being said, I'll still try to direct people to non-low carb stuff who are just starting out, or answer questions from people not interested in low carb.nilbog21 said:
Like I said, its a weight loss thread, and working out on a non-carb restricted diet isn't the only way to do it. *shrug*
Edit - though neither is low carb. I do agree that this thread is heavier towards low carb, but I think its because most of the people will have an easier time changing what they eat than they will adding time to the day for activity. Some people have super busy schedules, some don't want to (or can't) take on the physical effort.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
For my low-carb diet, I decided that I want a cheat day where only two things change: my lunch and an added snack.
The lunch would be a Fettucine Pesto Pasta w/Chicken instead of my usual low-carb lunch and my snack would be frozen yogurt from Yogurtland or Tutti Frutti. Is this okay to do once a week?
The lunch would be a Fettucine Pesto Pasta w/Chicken instead of my usual low-carb lunch and my snack would be frozen yogurt from Yogurtland or Tutti Frutti. Is this okay to do once a week?
edit - NVM pics look good bruhkoam said:I've lost 25 pounds since January.. this 19 is actually from the last time i tried wii fit which was October when i weighed a little bit less than my max.
Now the impressive part.. i went from 173 down to 148. I'm 5'10. I've almost got abs now
I don't plan on losing any more weight, that's for sure.
funkmastergeneral
Banned
Einbroch said:
Is there any benefit to this compared to say, a high fiber diet?
Shaneus said:
What exactly is so bad about carbs? I eat whole wheat pasta a couple times a week and love it
uggh.. very hard to explain. let me try.msv said:
your muscles store x amount of glycogen for energy. presumably there is also x amount of glycogen and glucose still unprocessed in your system. when you expend any sort of energy, this is the first energy to be consumed. afterward your body will try to break down your muscles for energy unless your muscles are in an anabolic state (i.e. recently worked out and rebuilding). so the catch to BURN FAT (of importance to this conversation) is to expend enough energy that you use up all of your reserves in your muscles and previously unprocessed, at which point provided you are also doing some sort of strength training your body has no choice but to go after your fat for energy.
Now how much energy does your body have? It depends on two things.. how much is your body able to store (i.e. muscle mass) and what activity are you doing. The running/jogging rule of thumb is 30-40 minutes. from a fully rested state (i.e. no workout that day) it's presumed that your body has enough energy stored for a 30-40 minute run. The bigger your muscles, the more glycogen you store, but the more energy you spend to run the same distance as someone lighter.. so you get to store more energy, but you spend more energy. So if you run under 30 minutes from a rested state, you're pretty much guaranteed only to tap into your energy stores. If you run over 40 minutes, you are pretty much guaranteed to be burning actual fat by that point.
As for other exercising, it's not the intensity but the heart rate. It might be physically harder for you to lift near your max weight in a 3x10 set, but your cardiovascular system is overall "working harder" walking for 10 minutes instead. of course walking those 10 minutes is doing nothing but burning calories, and the goal should be overall health, not calories in/calories out.. but in terms of cardio and fat burning, general rule of thumb is the higher and more consistent your heart rate for longer periods of time, the better.
http://www.health-news-and-information.com/4civista/libv/d12.shtml
this is a simple calorie expenditure chart.. "jogging" is basically considered the 30-40 minute rule.. so on this chart it's 740 cal/hour. so if this is your caloric rate (i.e. mass) then presumably your body holds somewhere "between 370-490 calories" of energy.
now a good trick is this.. lifting weights is usually a drastically lower caloric expense. usually around 250-350/hour. so say you lift weights for an hour.. you've epended around 300 calories. at this point if you run cardio for 20 minutes you're looking at around another 240 calories and presumably a good chunk of that is going to be burning fat!!
so like I said.. it gets complicated. I certainly understand that running for 40, 60, 120 etc minutes is a lot for most people.. I certainly enjoy running but yeah.. most people would rather die. but, if you are already working out for 45-60 minutes in a day, and looking to get rid of some fat in the process, tacking a 20 minute run onto the end of it is a good way to do that. just remember to grab some sort of protein immediately after your weight lifting and make sure that there are NO CARBS in your protein source to maximize fat burning.
negreenfield
Member
Ok, overall this makes sense but I don't understand why you would do any weight lifting and then follow it up with a no carb recovery afterwards. My understanding is that the carb portion is essential to the muscle recover/building immediately after a workout. Or is the point to not build any muscle but just to maintain and simultaneously burn fat?borghe said:
exactly. I am ONLY talking about burning fat. I am not even necessarily promoting this, just saying if your goal is especially fat loss this is a more efficient way of going about it than just randomly throwing 30 minutes of cardio into your life throughout the week. but you are correct, if you are weight lifting or not working solely towards fat loss, then starving carbs from your body immediately after weight lifting is kind of working against yourself.negreenfield said:
negreenfield
Member
Haha, ok, just checking. There's so much info out there with working out I just wanted to make sure at least some of it still makes sense to me.borghe said:
Chinner said:just made low carb pizza
it was amazing. a must for those who love pizza like i do!
Look, I'm not trying to discourage people from losing weight.. but do you have any idea how much sodium is in this? Low carb or not, this is terrible for your cardiovascular system to eat as anything other than a treat.
borghe said:
Your basic idea is right, but the wall should we well past 30-40 minutes. Runners don't typically hit the wall until 18-22 miles into a run.. which is at least 90 minutes into a run for the worlds best marathoners.. for J6P that is closer to the 3 hour mark. I've experienced "the wall"... believe me you know when your body is trying to convert fat to energy.
StoOgE said:
People are way too concerned about salt in food. If your blood pressure is fine, and you know it is fine even after eating things like that (or most chicken), go ahead and eat. Being irrationally afraid of anything, be it fat, salt, or anything else, often encourages people to make really bad decisions-- see people eating low fat diets, which are often in-turn high carb, high calorie diets and getting fat.
My blood pressure is pretty much perfect and my salt intake is huge due to how much chicken I eat.
Yaweee said:
No offense, but this is absolutely terrible advice. There is a difference between eating healthy and losing weight. Salt is not good for your cardiovascular system in large quantities, too much salt greatly increases your risk factors for heart disease later in life. 1500-2500 mg a day is the most anyone should consume on a regular basis.
Besides, if the point of "low carb" diets is to get back to the sorts of stuff that people ate back in our hunter/gather days then you should be working to eliminate salt as well. Naturally occuring salt is fairly rare in nature. Loading up cheese and processed meats all over a pizza is just as "unnatural" as carbs are if you are trying to get to one of those caveman diet things.
actually "the wall" is not what I am referring to, and in most cases it has been proven that it is almost purely psychological more than anything. I'm just talking about straight science, and our muscles really do only carry enough stored energy to get us by on a 30-40 minute run. It's why most average marathon runners are suggested to eat around 60 calories an hour or so while running starting into the second hour (on top of the usual pasta dinner). also remember that arguably, J6P (as in someone untrained and not particularly athletic) will actually start burning fat SOONER than a runner simply because they will tend to have lower muscle mass and fewer stored carbs.StoOgE said:
the best marathon runners might not hit their wall until 90 minutes into it, but you better believe their bodies started looking for energy outside of their muscle reserves long before then. usually from the gatorade/sports drink along the way.
the confusion comes from the term "increasing risk factors". If you are genetically predisposed to high blood pressure or heart disease, too much sodium can lead to complications with those symptoms. HOWEVER, too much sodium does not and CANNOT cause these issues. High sodium does not cause heart disease. It does not cause high blood pressure. It certainly does affect the amount of water in your body, but if those issues are not already present then typically it will at most manifest itself in your weight and water retention or depletion.StoOgE said:
What I will agree with you on is that most people don't typically know they have high blood pressure or especially heart problems until it's too late. In that respect it is definitely wise to keep salt intake to a non-ridiculous level. But, in a healthy individual, consuming vast amounts of sodium (well, at least non-lethal levels) really ends up having no detrimental effect.
This is what the SA low carb thread says about salts:
As for the cheese base pizza. Is it perfect? probably not, but in terms of carbs and salt it is a much better alternative compared to eating a real pizza. If that amount of cheese puts you off (it doesn't for me), then there are other recipes to make the pizza base out of such as cauliflower.
As for the cheese base pizza. Is it perfect? probably not, but in terms of carbs and salt it is a much better alternative compared to eating a real pizza. If that amount of cheese puts you off (it doesn't for me), then there are other recipes to make the pizza base out of such as cauliflower.
exactly chinner. thank you for the source. salt is VERY VERY bad for people with existing conditions where changes on the body's water level can play havoc with your blood flow. but salt can't cause those problems. it only aggravates them. if you don't have those problems, increasing or reducing salt in your diet will have almost no effect.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
How many grams of carbs should you be eating per day to be considered being on a low-carb diet? 20g? 50g? 100g?
I tried interval training, and it was way too much like workJayge said:
running for me is like biking. getting out and enjoying everything around you. my iphone tells me my splits but outside of that it's just listening to music and enjoying the run. interval training was spring, jog, spring, jog, sprint, jog, etc. Nothing at all enjoyable about it. And hell, I enjoy my weight lifting routine which is even more structured.but yes, interval training is a great way for losing weight.. for people who don't mind starting and stopping all the time
from all the low carb in this thread, this is actually a bit debated. I was doing 150-180 on calorie restricted days. I don't do low carb but apparently that is really at the start of low carb. but again, that was under a total calorie restriction of around 1000 calorie deficit. but I believe (someone correct me if wrong) that actual atkins levels and whatnot are around 50g at the high end.Domino Theory said:
most "old school" workout plans are usually like 50/40/10 for carbs, protein, fat. That would be like 200g carbs, 165g protein, and 18g fat. Most american diets are closer to 50/15/35
To quote the SA low carb thread again....Domino Theory said:
Ah hell, I'll just link you to the thread instead:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3299911&pagenumber=1
It's long, but it's seriously detailed and awesome. Well worth the read.
Domino Theory
Crystal Dynamics
Chinner said:
So having even a little more than 50g of carbs a day means you won't get the ketogenic effect?
borghe said:I tried interval training, and it was way too much like work
but yes, interval training is a great way for losing weight.. for people who don't mind starting and stopping all the time
from all the low carb in this thread, this is actually a bit debated. I was doing 150-180 on calorie restricted days. I don't do low carb but apparently that is really at the start of low carb. but again, that was under a total calorie restriction of around 1000 calorie deficit. but I believe (someone correct me if wrong) that actual atkins levels and whatnot are around 50g at the high end.
most "old school" workout plans are usually like 50/40/10 for carbs, protein, fat. That would be like 200g carbs, 165g protein, and 18g fat. Most american diets are closer to 50/15/35
I love interval training. The more rage I can expunge from my system during exercise, the better :lol