Ask buriedbeds about losing 200 lbs (very, very long)

[spider]

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The day-to-day readings don't mean anything, it's the long-term trends that matter.

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Yeah, great point. As important as the scale is, you have to realize it easily fluctuates by a couple of pounds. It helps to have a consistent procedure (no clothes, first thing in the morning) but even that will show fluctuations.

Another very simple thing along the lines of your multiple forms of feedback is the belt. Most men are storing a high percentage of excess weight in the belly, and you can get a suprising amount of feedback just from day to day tightness in the belt.

[evagaba]

I didn't read all the replies, but great story.

I have always been overweight myself but not obese. Lets just say I could have always afforded to lose 20 lbs.

4 Years ago I quit smoking after 18 years. 6 Months after that I gained an additional 25 lbs putting me at 246 on a 5'9" frame. I had never been able to lose weight myself and this was just around the time that Atkins was taking off. I decided to give it a try and LOVED it. In 6 months of Aktins and exercise, I lost a total of 57 lbs. Be warned though, it only works ONCE. I had a friend who did the same as me, lost 45 lbs, put it ALL back on and then tried Aktins again 2 years later...IT DID NOT WORK the second time around.

Anyways, good for you!

[buriedbeds]

Spider - I agree.

Evagaba: Thanks. What you're talking about is usually referred to by people as "the golden shot." It's generally, however, not that it won't work, just that it doesn't work as well at the same carb levels:

http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/goldenshot.html

-bb.

[riverrchic]

This has been a great read - thank you for sharing. I'm really impressed with your drive and dedication.

My question: are you a fan of shows like the Biggest Loser?

[buriedbeds]

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This has been a great read - thank you for sharing. I'm really impressed with your drive and dedication.

My question: are you a fan of shows like the Biggest Loser?

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Thanks. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I hate hate HATE that show. I admit that I watch it (this season's my first), but my girlfriend gets annoyed with me while we do because I scream at the TV so much.

It's ridiculous how bad that show is in terms of what you really need to do lose weight in a lasting way. The grand majority of the contestants have apparently regained the weight, and I think that that's largely a function of how horrid and unhealthy the whole process is. Here's an article on what happened to contestants after being on the biggest loser.

My list of complaints with the show is long, but here are some of them:

1. They are NOT doing it in a sustainable way. They are killing themselves for hours a day in the gym. This greatly affects their metabolism - and what's going to happen when they go back to work and CAN'T work out as much?? Their bodies will gain more from eating less.
2. They are not doing it in a healthy way. They are eating almost nothing - which screws up your metabolism when you do it for a long time so that when you DO start eating again you gain massive amounts of weight. This isn't even mentioning the fact that they are intentionally making themselves horrifically dehydrated - and calling that weightloss. Losing and gaining weight very, very quickly is a horrible shock to your system, and they are setting them up to run their bodies through a meat grinder. WTF is the rush?? You didn't gain it overnight, you don't have to lose it overnight, either.
2. They have a completely unrealistic situation regarding their motivations. They have someone (like, for instance, the millions in the viewing public, who they have to be aware of at all times, what with the cameras...talk about peer pressure) watch their every move. When they get home, are they going to have that? No. They will have to find that motivation internally. That is the single biggest adjustment that anyone has to make in doing this, and as far as I can tell they will have no support in doing it.
3. Relatedly, they are in an isolated environment. In order to REALLY lose weight in a sustainable way, you MUST learn to do it in the course of your everyday life. When do people fall off the wagon? When they have interactions with other people that trigger their bad habits, either in the form of people or events causing tension or in the form of people or events that they've previously associated with foods that are not healthy (gatherings, birthdays, holidays, etc. etc. etc.). When you're isolated from that, you don't have to learn how NOT to grab a box of twinkies when the person you're dating dumps you, how NOT to eat candy at Halloween, etc. etc. etc. And when you put them back in that situation, they're just not going to be prepared for it the GRAND majority of the time. I can't tell you how much of the traffic on my weightloss board is seasonal - people screw up during the the christmas holidays, then show up repentant in the new year, or people work out for the summer and then fall off at halloween. Life doesn't stop just because you need to lose some weight. You need to learn how to deal with that, or you absolutely will fail.
4. The show is goddamned degrading. This week they had them digging through donuts to find a coin worth $5,000, and they had to eat a donut just to play. Ha-ha, fat people digging through donuts. Where's your [censored] dignity, people?? The fake goddamned sympathy and empathy they toss around and then have them do garbage like that is revolting to me. What a lot of people don't realize is that these people are essentially addicted to a drug, and they're having them degrade themselves and their situation on national television. That donut thing is exactly the same thing to me as if they had a bunch of coke addicts sifting through kilos of blow looking for cash, and forcing them to do a couple of lines beforehand just to participate. It is exactly the same thing. These people are killing themselves with that drug, but it's a socially-acceptable drug and people love making fun of fat people, so it's okay. Having been hooked on that drug and nearly killed by it, I honestly just find it repellent.

I seriously could go on for a while, but those are my biggest complaints with it - and that's before I get to the basic things, like how annoying the trainers are, how annoying the commercial breaks are (because they always hold you "in suspense") and how I wish they'd find SOMEONE to be on there who's not a wuss because they seriously ALL cry like every 5 minutes, which just leaves me embarrassed for those people.

That said, go kae! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] She's the one who I think is the least likely to regain, along with Bill.

-bb.

[fmxda]

Now that you've reached your goal of XL and a weight of mid-to-low 200's, which is a great achievement considering what you've been through ... why not set the bar even higher?

You say that you have a big build--which I don't doubt, considering your weight growing up--but depending on your height, it is a widely accepted medical fact that your ideal weight is a probably good 30-40 pounds lower, and losing that extra weight will be definitively beneficial.

Even pro football players that are jacked, in the best shape man can be--with massive muscular builds and extremely low body fat percentages--still top out at around 210-230 lbs for a 6 foot person. In my opinion, it is virtually impossible to weigh more at that particular height and be of a healthy weight.

One may enjoy reasonably good fitness and have little to worry about on the yearly blood test at the age of 30, but about 1/3 of all Americans (I assume you are American) die from heart disease, stroke, diabetes... diseases correlated very strongly with being overweight/obese. Many more than 33% suffer from these largely avoidable diseases.

I don't think you'll find a lot of 30 year olds with early stages of diabetes, hypertension, or dangerously high serum levels of cholesterol. Not a lot of 30 year olds ever expect they are already headed down that path.

But it's a fact that one of the strongest correlates of who will be that 33%+ to develop heart disease are those who are in the top third of weight. Even in fat America, the top tertile of weight at age 30 would be surprising low imo.

I'm not trying to diminish your accomplishments: they are quite impressive and inspirational. But it kinda seems from your comments in this thread that you feel satisfied with your weight and health and don't have much motivation to slim down further.

[TheProdigy]

Good to hear!

I admit I have always looked down on morbidly obese people and this does give me some insight. It also shows that anyone can make their way out of it.


In your mind, do you feel there is any excuse for being obese?

[buriedbeds]

Sorry my posting's been spotty lately...things are REALLY busy for me right now, but I'll still try to keep up in here as often as I can (as long as there's interest).

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Now that you've reached your goal of XL and a weight of mid-to-low 200's, which is a great achievement considering what you've been through ... why not set the bar even higher?

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Nothing. I never said that I was done. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I said I reached my goal size - which was an impossible dream where I was. I hadn't shopped in a non-plus-sized (i.e. "normal") store since I was 11 years old...think about that. I'm now thinner than I was when I was 11, and I'm probably 8 inches taller.

Do I still want to lose weight? Yes. I am still in weight loss mode. But my goal when I started was XL, because I was a 6x and it seemed like even this was literally impossible, after years of dieting. Again, I tried EVERYTHING - and I'll also tell you that ANYONE you see who's big is the same...you don't get that big without trying EVERY WAY POSSIBLE to lose weight. It just doesn't stick or what you've tried isn't what your body needs - or any other the other million things that can and will sidetrack you. I'm just thankful that I finally had the strength to try one last thing. If it didn't work, I was done. I was pretty much conceding to early death.

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You say that you have a big build--which I don't doubt, considering your weight growing up--but depending on your height, it is a widely accepted medical fact that your ideal weight is a probably good 30-40 pounds lower, and losing that extra weight will be definitively beneficial.

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Again, I don't disagree...I know I'm still probably really fat by the standards of the people on this board. But I'm no longer a freak who sticks out walking down the street and I'm healthy, and, again, that was more than I could have dreamed when I started this.

I do disagree with the term "ideal" in an absolute sense - I don't think that weight/height charts are worth anything. I do agree with it in a relative sense - where YOU are healthy and YOU are strong without being under-weight. And I'm shooting for that. I have no idea what that weight will be, as I have never been it. But I'll keep going until I get there.

This thread was done because I'd set it as a goal of mine when I got to this particular goal, largely because of the many threads I've seen related to weight loss (Bison's OOT weight loss challenge, the thread about being prejudiced against fat people that ElD started in here, all the abuse that Dids has taken (even if he and I never got along all that well)). I wanted to both potentially let people who are in my old boat know that it can be done while maybe humanizing the other side of the fence for people who so bitterly dislike the obese.

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I don't think you'll find a lot of 30 year olds with early stages of diabetes, hypertension, or dangerously high serum levels of cholesterol. Not a lot of 30 year olds ever expect they are already headed down that path.

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How old are you? Being around that age with lots of friends around that age, I totally disagree. This is when a lot of people start having those bad checkups at the doctor's office...my gf went on it because of high cholesterol (which went down, btw), my friend went on it because of high blood pressure (which went down, btw). And as to diabetes - well, there you're just wrong...a lot of people have even stopped using the term "juvenile onset" for type one diabetes because type two is showing up so often in younger and younger populations:

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi.../full/27/4/998
http://www.nih.gov/news/pr/nov2007/niddk-13.htm

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I'm not trying to diminish your accomplishments: they are quite impressive and inspirational. But it kinda seems from your comments in this thread that you feel satisfied with your weight and health and don't have much motivation to slim down further.

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I hope we've cleared that up, then.

Incidentally, everyone should read this book if you're interested in diet, exercise, epidemiology, etc. It's interesting, and it's written by a reputable main-stream writer (for the NY times and Science magazine) for a mainstream publishing house. It's not some marginalized whacko, and it's not a diet book that tells you what to eat. It's about the science of nutrition and the flaws with the science that has forwarded a lot of the present day nutritional beliefs.

-bb.