Introduction

[badsleepwell]

I found the site this morning while work was slow and have been reading it since.

Combining hypothyroidism with a terrible lifestyle I have come to a really high weight. I have just recently started to eat 100% healthy and have created my own diet. Depending on the day I will eat from 1200-1800 calories. If I don't change my eating habits, no work out could eve help me. Now that I am into eating healthy and enjoying it thus far I want to add in physical activities.

My goal right now is to lose a lot of fat. I weigh over 300 pounds at 6'3'' and I am 24 years old.

It sucks I can't even do a pushup or most exercises. I am trying to walk about two hours a day as well as do crunches, toe presses and squats right now.

If anyone can shed some tips or suggestions, please feel free to.

[JoeSixPack]

I found the site this morning while work was slow and have been reading it since.

Combining hypothyroidism with a terrible lifestyle I have come to a really high weight. I have just recently started to eat 100% healthy and have created my own diet. Depending on the day I will eat from 1200-1800 calories. If I don't change my eating habits, no work out could eve help me. Now that I am into eating healthy and enjoying it thus far I want to add in physical activities.

My goal right now is to lose a lot of fat. I weigh over 300 pounds at 6'3'' and I am 24 years old.

It sucks I can't even do a pushup or most exercises. I am trying to walk about two hours a day as well as do crunches, toe presses and squats right now.

If anyone can shed some tips or suggestions, please feel free to.

DO NOT UNDEREAT.

Believe me on this. You'll lose a lot of weight fast if you do that, but most of it will be muscle, which means your overall metabolism will die.

Good rule of thumb for a heavy person:

1) Multiply your weight by 11.
2) If you're sedentary, take 30% of that number and add on to it. This nubmer is your weight maintenance number.
3) To lose a poind of fat, you've got to create a 3500 calorie deficit. Most people suggest you lose 2 pounds a week or so. So I'd wager you'd need to eat around 2400 calories a day (without doing the math) to lose that weight on diet alone. If you're exercising hard, you can eat more.

JUST DON'T UNDEREAT.

[Moonduck]

Or you could figure out roughly what you lean body mass is, and eat a health y diet for that weight. Depends on which theories you read.

My personal anecdote regarding weight loss is that undereating is rather bad. I started working on my weight back in April. I weighed 316lbs on April 16th. Today, literally 6 months later, I weight 241lbs. 75lbs lost, with the initial 30-35lbs or so being done with diet alone.

I was originally not counting calories, just counting carbs (low-carb diets work well for me). Weight loss was okay. Then I went to counting carbs and calories, and that worked even better. I cut out the nutritionally useless calories (processed cheese, mayo, that sort of thing). My weight loss has averaged about 2.5 lbs per week, roughly. I was averaging about 1800-2000 calories per day.

Recently, I pretty much lost my appetite. I just haven't been hungry after dinner, so I wasn't getting my normal evening snack, and haven't been as hungry during the day. This dropped my calories to around 1400-1600. My weight loss totally stalled. I went from 2.5lbs perweek to nothing, and even the occassional weight gain. Crazy to think that could happen when I was eating so little. *shrug* The body does NOT like to starve.

The past week, my appetite has been more normal, and I've been getting closer to my previous 1800-2000 or so calories. Guess what, the weight began to drop again. At 241lbs, with a 42" waist, I'm sitting at about 23% body fat. This means I've got a lean body mass of around 186lbs. 1800-2000 calories is a bit low for 186lbs, but it is doable. And by monitoring my body fat, and thus my lean body mass, I've been able to forestall loss of lean muscle mass, the key to successful dieting. Unfortunately, I've not been able to put much muscle on during this, due to the restrictive diet, but I've still gained about 4lbs of lean muscle (per my calculations).

Largely, it is a matter of getting the right mix of nutrients, including lots of protein. Well, at least that is what works for me. The importance of exercise cannot be overstated either. Exercise is your buddy.

As an aside, take a look at Fitday (http://www.fitday.com). It's a food diary, calorie/nutrient counter, exercise log, and stat tracker. It's also free for use on the web. Nothing has kept me more on track with the diet than having a food diary.

Think about it this way, you're doing your diary and overeat for breakfast and lunch, and the diary allows you to know this and decide to lighten up on dinner. You can also plan meals and get an idea of what you day will be like beforehand. It's good stuff.