I Need Help...

[Ged21]

I need help losing weight...my girlfriend recently teased me about my weight and although she meant no harm it did get me thinking...now ive never been a skinny dude, i weighed 180lbs in high school but only because i played sports, after i graduated i jumped to 215-220 and thats where i had stayed for quite some time (its been 7 yrs since i graduated) but ever since i got with my girl i (2 years now) i have really put on some pounds... i now weigh about 250-260 (im afraid to even look)...and things seem to be heading for the worse, I have extremely bad eating habits and drink alot of beer...I want to commit myslelf to losing the weight and getting back to 210 hell maybe even lower, but i need advice as to what to eat...I have a treadmill and a stationary bike i can use but i think with me the biggest thing will be the food, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[msagrain]

tell her to **** off.

[P4PKING_2008]

All you have to do is not eat fatty foods and use ya damn exercise bike and treadmill. It is not that hard!

[sterling]

Rearly isnt hard but stil if you have eating habits it can be because i have no been over wieght so i wudnet know how hard it is.
Eat healthy tuna,pasta,fish,chicken etc.. and go for runs and go to the gym simple as rearly but it is hard if not strong mentally.

[patrionus]

The first thing you have to have when trying to lose weight is patience. Be patient, have a plan and stay committed. Also remember one thing, the scale doesn't always tell everything. When I started boxing, I lost fat but gained muscle at the same time, so my weight has stayed the same since I started. If I only went by the scale, I'd be lead to believe that my physical condition hadn't improved one single bit. However, I and other people can clearly see that I look a lot more cut now and the tape also tells the same tale.

The second thing you must do is sort your diet out. You mentioned beer, get rid of it. Get rid of any soft drinks, drink water or juice instead. Eat more fruits, I personally like nice juicy oranges, apples and bananas. Even if you're eating healthier food, it doesn't mean that the food does have to taste bad. Remember to get your protein in. Eat eggs, meat and fish.

The third and most important thing is training. You should start boxing. Four rounds on the heavy bag can do to you a lot more than an hour on the treadmill, at least this has been the case with me. Seriously, my metabolic rate has gone crazy after only about 2-3 months of boxing. If you don't want to try boxing, then try some other fast paced sport which makes use of your fast twitch muscle fibers.

Hope this helps a bit on your quest to a healthier body.

PS: If you have any questions, I'd be glad to help.

[tmoqsudz]

ye pretty much everything he said! patience is definitely the key, dont expect to see dramatic changes. but with time they will come.... u should be aiming to lose 1 - 2lbs a week anymore is unhealthy, so thats 6 - 8lbs a month, so in a bout 6 months you could potentially lose 48lbs achieveing your goal. Set yourself short term goals and give your body a lot of rest aswell. Sleep - make sure you get at least 8 hours of sleep a day, this is very important. And for diet make sure u dont starve urself, bcoz if u do ur body goes into starvation mode and slows down your metabolism so u will burn fat even slower! so try to eat approximately 2000 calories a day and avoid too much carbohydrates. Thats all i can say really hope its helpful!

Ps. it aint hard to lose weight when its youve got your life ahead of you and you think abt that! i recommend definitely joining a gym, they well set you programmes etc!

[Ged21]

I appreciate everyones responses especailly patrionus and tmoqsudz, i think my biggest problem would have to be food selection, you mentioned fruits, and thats fine i love fresh fruit which i can use to snack between meals, but what kinds of foods and portions should i be eating and how many times a day? cus i know what i eat now is definitley hurting me... i guess what im asking for is a "typical day" in what you guys eat and do to stay healthy.

[patrionus]

I really don't have any rules set in stone, I just have guidelines that I try to follow.

Normally I'll eat an omelette made out of 3-4 eggs for breakfast and drink a half-liter of water and maybe eat an orange. I really must stress the importance of breakfast because it really gets your metabolism up and running. Don't miss it. I eat breakfast around 7 AM.

For lunch I will eat meat or chicken with pasta, rice or noodles. Around 12 AM

If I'm having a rest day, I will have another lunch around 4-5 PM if I feel like it. If I'm training, I won't have it since it would interfere with my training.

Then finally I'll have dinner at 8PM. (Pretty much the same as lunch)

I think a good guideline you should follow with food is that you don't want to eat too much to the point that you feel really full. You want to eat so that you don't feel hungry nor full to the point that you're bloated; try to find a middle line. On some days this can hard for me because I feel as if I'm constantly hungry.

Before bed I'll have two big glasses of non-lactose milk. Around 11PM.

Foods you ought to eat are eggs, meat or chicken along with rice, noodles or pasta.

You can have fruits at various times during the day. Drink a decent amoun of water, especially if you are training.

As for training, I train on Mondays, Tuedays, Thursdays and Fridays for three hours(it's not non-stop though). The other days are for recuparation. My training involves 4 rounds of light shadow boxing, 3-4 rounds on the heavybag and 3-4 rounds of sparring. The heavy bag and sparring are intense. My training day can also fluctuate as I really go by how I feel. For example, during my last training session I only did like 4-5 rounds of shadow boxing concentrating on technique and moving because the day before I had had many intense rounds on the heavybag and sparring. You want to train smart. Sometimes less is actually more.

During my training I also do like 300 sit-ups/a form of crunches with my legs resting on a bench. Plus I use the wrist roller 4 or 5 times. This is done during the warm up before shadow boxing. The idea is to generate body heat so that the body is prepared for intense activity.

Learn to listen to your body. With intense activities that put a lot of stress on the central nervous system you have to very careful not to overdo it. Sometimes you'll feel all good during a training session and the fatigue may come several hours later. With low intensity activities such as using a treadmill you can more "careless" as the stress on the central nervous system is low.

This might be a lot of information for you to digest, but try to follow some of it. I'm sorry for not writing this in an organised fashion and I apologise for any mistakes.

[JC Warrior]

Drink water, avoid alcohol, don't eat loads of protein, and get on the bike. With your weight the treadmill or running might be too much for your knees. Otherwise everything else on this post looks pretty much spot on.

Good luck and I hope you can stick with this, keep us updated

[aussieboxer2320]

join a boxing gym and dont eat crap and the weight will fall off- the hardest thing is to motivate yourself, just imagine you having to have heart surgery cos your so fat or sumtin if u dont feel like workin out or you want a burger

good luck