Fatties. My money where your mouth is.

[skunkworks]

[ QUOTE ]
It's like someone who "drinks too much" giving an alcoholic advice. You don't know what it's like until you've felt the burning in your veins, the hopelessness, and everything else that goes with doing something you KNOW will kill you but your mind and body won't let you stop. And again, unlike cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or gambling, you NEED to do it to live. It's like having an unhealthy addiction to air.

[/ QUOTE ]
Let me be a nit here: you don't need to overeat to live. Like Dids said, it's mostly a lack of motivation to change one's eating habits and lifestyle. Any sort of lifestyle change is difficult, whether it be "necessary to live" or not.

I also think there's a lot of misinformation about losing weight efficiently. If more people knew that they didn't need to starve themselves or go on some lame Atkins diet to lose weight... if more people knew how to cut processed carbs out of their diet... if people ate high-quality sources of protein and vegetables in every meal... etc..

[Dids]

"If more people knew that they didn't need to starve themselves or go on some lame Atkins diet to lose weight... if more people knew how to cut processed carbs out of their diet... if people ate high-quality sources of protein and vegetables in every meal... etc.."

I think even this is pushing it.

You don't get to be 330 lbs because of more specific nitty diet concerns like this. These changes are what help you drop that last 30 pounds.

You get to be morbidly obese by LOTS of overeating and lack of exercise.

I hesitate to suggest that any of us try and be too restritive in our diets at the outset. You want to make this do-able. Asking somebody to totally rework their diet is a lot.

Good first steps I'm taking:

1- cutting out sweets
2- thinking about portion size
3- avoiding fast food and exceptionally fatty food (burgers, attempting to avoid other friend foods).
4- eating a good breakfast

The biggest step for most us is just being active. If we maintain a normalish diet and just start walking and exercising, we'll start to drop weight. The better patterns and habits we build, the more we can refine things and move towards really doing things the right way.

[buriedbeds]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It's like someone who "drinks too much" giving an alcoholic advice. You don't know what it's like until you've felt the burning in your veins, the hopelessness, and everything else that goes with doing something you KNOW will kill you but your mind and body won't let you stop. And again, unlike cigarettes, alcohol, drugs or gambling, you NEED to do it to live. It's like having an unhealthy addiction to air.

[/ QUOTE ]
Let me be a nit here: you don't need to overeat to live. Like Dids said, it's mostly a lack of motivation to change one's eating habits and lifestyle. Any sort of lifestyle change is difficult, whether it be "necessary to live" or not.

I also think there's a lot of misinformation about losing weight efficiently. If more people knew that they didn't need to starve themselves or go on some lame Atkins diet to lose weight... if more people knew how to cut processed carbs out of their diet... if people ate high-quality sources of protein and vegetables in every meal... etc..

[/ QUOTE ]

You kind of missed the point - you don't need to OVEReat to live. You *do* need to eat. For people with certain physiological makeups, your body, when eating, tells/compels you to OVEReat. You can not avoid eating entirely, and therefore it is extra-difficult to quit. It would be like giving a taste of alcohol to an alcoholic 3 times (at least) a day and berating them for not stopping afterwards. It's very, very hard.

Also, I'd like to stick up for Atkins once again. It is a tremendous help to a lot of people. The failures attributed to it are largely based on ignorance of the actual, long-term plan. It's not just quitting eating carbs, it is a long-term plan that gradually comes to closely resemble the kind of plan you advocate. People constantly put down the diet without reading the book and knowing that it starts very restricted and eventually ends up being a pretty balanced diet with fruits, vegetables and whole foods with the artificial and processed foods cut out.

Rather than go into it again, I'll just link the previous thread on this:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1

-bb.

[astroglide]

i think the best way to approach it is to know how many calories you are eating per day. don't eat something if you don't know or can't find out. you don't even need to start dieting, just figure out how many calories there are in things. things will begin to make perfect sense after that.

[olliejen]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm down 75 pounds since last july.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be curious to see what this actually looked like.

I bet your girl is prolly thrilled tho.

[skunkworks]

Dids,

FWIW, I totally agree with you on starting out with a diet that you can easily stick to. I always think of Astroglide's post about how most advice on the forums is way too intense for the layman, so much so that it becomes discouraging to even try something new. When it comes to something like diet and exercise, I totally agree.

When you're really overweight, making small improvements to your eating habits or diet will result in huge losses. But yes, there will be a point where cutting out soda can only do so much. You probably don't need to know about how to eat clean food right now because you'll have rapid losses, but I also don't want to see anyone floundering to shed pounds because they don't know [censored] about what they're putting in their bodies. Needless to say, if you ever hit a sticking point in your weight loss journey, consider taking a closer look at what you're eating, when you're eating it, etc.

Also, the "first steps" you're taking are pretty significant on their own. Cutting out empty calories and avoiding fatty/fried foods, eating a good breakfast, being conscious about portion size... that's all very important stuff. Sounds like you're well on your way to effecting some positive changes on your lifestyle. Awesome work.

[grdeadhead]

[ QUOTE ]
Good luck guys. I went through the same [censored] earlier. It'll suck at times, but it's worth it in the end.


did u have any surgery what did u do to loose all that weight i would like to know, because maybe ill try it



[/ QUOTE ]

[MyTurn2Raise]

I wish all of those chosen much love and luck

I'm a little chubbly and will try to lose 25 pounds to match the effort of those chosen. I'm too poor to give any money. All I can say is that you guys are inspiring me before I get too far off the path.....thank you

[Hoi Polloi]

So this has been a roaring success, but we still have 48 hours. Any takers? Givers? Useful legends?

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I said I'd be interested in sponsoring another group of five. I don't think it's a good incentive to offer $0.25/lb so I'd like to get some more sponsors so we could get it up into the $1 zone. Let's shoot for $1 for the first 100 lbs and $.50 thereafter. I can commit to $0.25 across the board so we only need commitments of $0.75/lb for the 1st hunderd lbs and $0.25 for the rest.

If I can get that commitment by Thursday the new sponsor group will pick 5 by the weekend.

This means I would be withdrawing my sponsorship of bison's men, but I hope they will understand. I'm not a money tree like bison and it's for a good cause.

I would propose that should we get another group sponsored we follow bison's suggestions on how to keep track, etc.

I've removed bison's men from the list below.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

If somebody wants to compile a list of all the contestants, I'd be interested in putting my $0.25 on 5 others.

[/ QUOTE ]

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Name Age Height Weight Goal
Cry Me A River 38 6'2" 281 Loose 91-131 (~150-190 final weight)
David H 16 6'10" 240 Loose 70-100 (~140-170 final weight)
Evans67 19 5'11" 245 Loose 65-105 (~140-180 final weight)
dr3amer 43 5'10" 300 I will definitely try to lose 100lbs+
faquewdikhed 22 5'9" 198 Loose 30
FishNChips 33 5'9" 230 Loose 50-60
Force1 20 6' 250 Loose 70-110 (~140-180 final weight)
Jack of Arcades 19 5'8" 265 Loose 105-160 (~130-160 final weight)
JonPKibble ?? 5'9" 200 Loose 30-60 (~140-170 final weight)
jstnrgrs ?? 6'1" 314.4 Goal is 230lbs. by October 1, and 210 lbs by next summer
kipin 21 6'6" 320-330 Loose 110-160 (~170-210 final weight)
Kraln 19 6'1" 334 Loose 144-184 (~150-190 final weight)
Mr_Oog 37 6'3' 370 Loose 170-210 (~160-200 final weight)
nation 21 5'8"" 250-260 Loose 90-130 (~130-160 final weight)
Ortho ?? ?? ?? Loose 40
sandycove 62 6'1/2" 308 Loose 128-168 (~140-180 final weight)
Shakes 27 5'11" 340 Loose 160-200 (~140-180 final weight)
Skipbidder 35 5'6" 225 Loose 75-105 (~120-150 final weight)
tinga81 25 6'0" 280-300 Loose 100-160 (~140-180 final weight)
Tom1975 30 6'3 335 Loose 135-175 (~160-200 final weight)
xwillience 21 6'2" 345 Loose 155-195 (~150-190 final weight)
WayAbvPar 36 6'1" 299-301 Loose 110-150 (~150-190 final weight)
zephed 25 5'9" 218 Loose 48-78 (~140-170 final weight)

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>

(Can't get columns to align, sorry!!!)

[/ QUOTE ]

As an older guy, I'm inclined to sponsor the ancients on this list but I am more than willing to let other sponsors decide who we should go with as I really don't know anybody.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Kraln]

How's it going for everyone? I'm down about 10 pounds give or take.