Losing weight!

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So... as you may or may not know, I am losing weight. I just thought I'd let you know how I am doing it for any that want to advice about losing weight.

Naturally, the way I go about doing it will not be the same way everyone goes about doing it, but it's similar enough that this advice should help:

For those of you wondering about caloric intake: This calculator works very well, especially if you know your body fat percentage. Make sure to read what it talks about below that! I put in my 350 lbs and 5'9" and got back about 3000 calories. I apparently can eat as little as 2800 calories, but going below that... As has been said, it's better to get too much than not enough. Therefore, I shoot for 3000 and, if I don't quite get to that, then no harm done. I'm eating small meals every two hours to get to that 2800-3000 (my last two meals were a half a peanut butter sandwich each).

I'm a strong proponent of resistance bands. Scott Herman has some workouts (with resistance bands, weights, and with just your body) that you should try out.

This is the workout I am doing. I started on it seriously today (finally got my long resistance bands, I had been using short ones before), and am going to be doing it every other day. For the first 2 circuits, I did 15 reps each, but it became obvious that the shoulder press and shoulder fly were too much for that, so I went down to 10 reps for the last circuit. Even doing that, I had trouble. In the future, I will go with 10 reps per circuit until I feel I can handle more. Additionally, I am excluding the lunge for now, as my balance is not good enough to do it. After I can do 20 reps per circuit without issue, I'll switch to the FTW exercises. I'll do the upper body exercises on one day and the lower body exercises on another.

In addition to that, I entered into a pact and I'm walking every day. The pact had us start with 10 minutes, rising by 5 minutes each week. We're at 15 right now and in the next couple of days, we'll be at 20.

For the record, the eating every two hours and resistance band exercises are part of the pact as well (though I'm the one doing the resistance band exercises, she will likely eventually be doing this workout).

Unfortunately, I don't have a scale at the moment, so I will not be able to speak very well about my progress in terms of absolute weight for now. However, my underwear does not feel as tight as it has in the past months, so I feel I am making progress in that regard already.

Good luck!! Do please let us know how it goes.

So I finally examined the peanut butter label closely. Don't get me wrong, I knew roughly how much stuff is in peanut butter... or I thought I did.

They list 2 tbsp as the serving size... and 17 grams of fat per serving. Here's the thing, though: 2 tbsp is nowhere NEAR enough for a peanut butter sandwich. In fact, for a standard sandwich, I use about a quarter of the jar... that's about three servings, or 51 grams of fat. Of course, I use bread that's quite large (Bohemian Hearth 12 grain... it's SOOOOO good!). Still, even with regular size bread, 2-2 1/2 servings seems to be the minimum you could use. So why isn't that considered a serving size? Now, given the fact that I'm on a 3000 calorie diet and not a 2000 calorie one, 51 grams of fat is only about half of my maximum intake (I'm trying for not more than 80 grams, preferably between 60-75). I don't get that much fat normally, so I think it should be fine. Still, it's a little shocking to get that much fat in one sandwich.

I'm a little worried about my protein intake. I know that peanut butter has incomplete proteins or some such, so eating it with 12 grain bread means I'm getting more protein from it than if I had used buttermilk bread or some such, but I'm still worried about my protein intake. I don't eat a lot of meat. In fact, the only meat I'll have gotten today is about 3/4 oz of summer sausage... and even then, that was a fairly fatty meat. Moreover, I did the math, and there's not enough money in my budget for me to get four helpings of low fat cottage cheese a week (I usually go with 2 servings and some crackers to soak up the whey). As I'm doing resistance training, protein is especially important. Those muscle tears that resistance workouts cause need protein to heal properly. I don't know how much protein shakes are, but I may have to get some. I know that protein bars are far too expensive for me to be getting right now.

I had hoped to have increased my bankroll enough that, within a month's time, I could move up in levels enough to increase my income. That doesn't seem to be happening, though (the poker gods seem to hate me right now).

If anyone has any advice for CHEAP lean protein, please let me know. Keep in mind I said CHEAP. Chicken and fish are not cheap. I'm currently considering eggs as a possible source, but if there are other options, I'd appreciate the information.

beans & brown rice = cheap, lean protein (though w/ lots of carbohydrates along with). You have to eat a lot to get as much as an animal source.

According to my sources, I'd have to eat about a cup each of beans and brown rice to get the same protein as 2 large scrambled eggs with a bit of cheese. I'll look into getting some egg whites. I'd use regular eggs and just take out the yolks, but I really hate the waste.

First attempt at microwaved scrambled eggs.

...This did not go well. See 2:15 of this video for details.

Furthermore, the cheese I added to the eggs in the middle of cooking seemed to disappear on me. I ended up putting it on a piece of bread in order to make it palatable

But now I know how much time is too long and to add the cheese at the end. I'll also be getting some egg whites on Monday or Tuesday to be using instead of whole eggs.

use the whole egg, and fry it with a touch of butter (or a ton of butter like I do). Yolks are good for ya.

I'm going for egg whites because I want to increase my protein intake ratio and egg whites are almost pure protein (aside from the water). Besides, I'm pretty sure I get most of my fat needs from my peanut butter. Most good sources of protein are rather expensive.

The reason I'm microwaving them is mostly just for convenience. I hate dirtying a pan if I'm only going to be making two eggs in it.

I found another source of protein: Seitan. It looks to be about (Edit: 20%-75%) protein, which is nice. I think I'll try making it with some chicken stock or bouillion and frying some up in a bit of oil (possibly butter...).

Edit: By the way, second attempt at microwave eggs. They turned out better this time. I reduced the time I cooked them to about two minutes and added the cheese afterward. Problem is, I have a dial controlled microwave rather than a digital one, so all times are approximate, and eggs, well... they're rather picky about the way they're cooked.

Last edited by MrLoony on 14 Jan 2011, 6:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Try raw (freerange) eggs, whole. I am of the opinion that whole foods are far better for you. I eat whole fat dairy products when I do eat dairy, which is getting rarer.

I am eating slightly more expensive foods like coconut oil, but I am more satiated for it, and eating less food in total. Sometimes spending a bit more money on food is good economy.

I like hemp seed, that's a good source of protein, and very good for you. It's not too expensive, at least here.

If you're trying to lose weight, I would jack in bread and peanut butter altogether, or at least seriously cut down. I like oats, potatoes and occasionally rice for my carb fixes. I tend to use PB as a condiment, using a teaspoon here and there in a meal for some flavour.

One last thing; I think people tend to eat too much protein. There's an idea that you need tons of protein to build or maintain muscle that I think is just plain incorrect.

The (very rough) calculations go that I should be getting 150-175 grams of protein at the least. I'm figuring I average about 100 a day at the most. I won't know for sure until I count up all my food intake for an average day (I'll also be counting up my average caloric intake, I hope to get all that done today). It's not a TON of protein I need. Just... more than I've been getting. My diet is semi-vegetarian. I think I eat meat about once every other day on average, but I'm also not eating the protein sources that vegetarians eat. I'm mostly just getting carbs and some fats (most of my fats come from my peanut butter sandwich).

Scott Herman explains the need for protein in this video.

Edit: I counted it all up and I do get about 100 grams of protein a day. As far as calories go, on that particular day of eating, I'd be getting 2913, which is enough, but if I forget my tea (which often happens), I'd be down to 2793. The day I'm using also happens to be a high calorie (and protein) intake day relative to other days (and also makes some assumptions about the serving sizes, which I've likely overestimated). I figure about a half pound of seitan per day will fix both these problems. This is just a quick fix for now. I'll re-examine what I'm eating and try and calculate where I can fix certain holes in both my protein and calorie intake. I can always get some protein shake mix if I need to. Until I start making seitan, though, I'm not going to do any resistance band workouts.

Also, I must have read wrong. Seitan is more like 30% protein, not 70%.

Edit2: OK, so it's apparently anywhere between 20% and 75% protein. Oi.

but then you're missing the vitamins that are in the yolk.

Well, I added up all my options, and looked over the price of them, and as much as I don't like doing it, I'm going with whey protein. The one I'm getting claims 52g of protein per two scoops. I figure if I go with about one scoop + 20% twice a day, I should be able to get a little over 60g of protein per day without getting too much in one sitting.

And, since that's how it's going to be, I'm going to go ahead and eat the whole egg. Two, in fact.

Good to read this story. I am looking forward.

So I should explain some things:

I don't go to Wal-mart. My mom does. I go to a different store. If one of us needs something from the other store, we give the other some money and they pick it up.

So that protein mix that I asked my mom to get at Wal-mart? They were out. She, figuring it was better than nothing, got JIllian Michaels protein mix ($10, 15 servings of 15g of protein each). Even though it wasn't going to get me to my protein intake needs, I decided to try it anyway. That was quite an ordeal. I had heard that shaking is better than spoon-mixing, so I tried to use various containers my mom has (I have similar containers), but it always leaked. I ended up having to mix it by hand.

I was going to compare it to diet soda, light beer, and boiled spinach combined, but I realized that that's an insult to all three of those. Seriously, it was nasty. I couldn't drink it. My mom tends to be able to eat and drink things I can't, so I offered it to her. She didn't mind the taste.

I am told that it tastes better when mixed with milk. I'll try that later tonight to see if that works, but I don't have high hopes.

Seriously. I think what they did was just put in whey protein, pure cacao, and then, well... I have no idea what made up the rest.

no you dont,look for higher protein such as split peas,tvp,tofu,and meat substitutes there are a lot more,esp sprouted beans that are cooked are higher protein and tofu has less cals than meat so you can have more and more protein and it also had calcium.also,if you pair split peas with spinach in for example a split pea soup and have whole grain seed bread or a roll w it,it will up the protein.

Last night, I saw a commercial for some Jillian Michaels product. I pointed to her and I said, "I hate you."

So anyway. Today, I tried making the shake with milk. It wasn't bad... and then I got the aftertaste. Still nasty. I tried adding some sugar and the aftertaste got a tiny bit better. After salt, it mostly went away.

I'm not going to drink it regularly, though. I'm going to wait until I can get the kind I had wanted before.

Lately, I've been walking about an hour before I go to bed. Today, finally, I walked for 20 minutes as soon as I got up. I don't really know why I'd been putting it off so much. I just had been.

Edit: I had a headache as I typed that, and I couldn't figure out why. Turns out, that protein shake apparently has MSG and soy (in spite of being whey protein) in it. Fantastic.

Yeah. I'm going to go ahead and hold off on that drink for... well, I'm not going to drink it at all.

Edit2: It seems that the other protein shake I was looking at has it, too... In fact, it seems that whey protein concentrates and isolates have MSG just as a general rule.

Last edited by MrLoony on 19 Jan 2011, 11:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.