Trying To Lose 2 Pounds A Week

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
21

The good news: Losing weight is simple, eat right and exercise regularly.

The bad news: Simple doesn’t mean easy, “eating right” and “exercising regularly” is harder than it sounds.

Here are the biggest things I’ve learned so far:

  1. Read the package labels and stop eating anything that has sugar or corn syrup in the top three ingredients. This is a suprisingly large number of products including some forms of garlic salt!

  2. Your meals should be planned around fruit, vegetables, and meat, with only small amounts of anything else.

  3. Track your weight daily using an exponential smoothed moving average. (as described in “the hacker’s diet”)

  4. Measure and track your bodyfat percentage regularly.

  5. Either keep a food log of everything you eat, or pre-plan all your meals John Berardi style.

  6. Plan on doing AT LEAST 4 hours of exercise each week counting both weightlifting and cardio. (yes, you should do both).

  7. Find a workout partner. This will double your chance of success.

  8. Read everything you can get your hands on regarding training and dieting. Knowledge will set you free.

  9. Don’t expect overnight success, but use the feedback from your tracking tools to ensure that you’re always headed in the right direction.

  10. DON’T GIVE UP! If you get stuck ask for advice or make some changes.

22

[quote]MichaelOH wrote:

Vegetarians are usually slender, rarely the typical american fatass. I am one of the few exceptions:) They typically enjoy great stamina. They are rarely diabetics and they dont suffer from allergies (my own were drastically reduced when I began eating vegetarian).
[/quote]

Vegetarians are usually slender, because they have both low body fat and low levels of LBM. Congratulations (seriously!) on being one of the few exceptions.

I believe the cause of diabetes and obesity in the Average American is not related to eating meat, but rather to the high-carb, highly processed foods sthat make up the AA diet. Simply switching to a balanced diet of whole foods would likely result in major body composition changes.

[quote
So what is it that you think is missing?
[/quote]

A complete source of protein (eg. not soy) that doesn’t have serious repercussions of heavy metal contamination if overconsumed (eg. fish).

To the OP:

You’ve received a lot of good suggestions. I’d add a couple.

  1. Weigh yourself once a week, at the same time, on the same day. Say, Sunday morning, after you use the bathroom, but before breakfast. This can remove a lot of the pressure from daily body weight fluctuations.

  2. If you can’t track BF%, track inches. Measure your waist weekly to track your progress. Ellington Darden also recommended an old school way of tracking your bf.

Measure your bicep cold and hanging at your side. Measure your bicep cold and flexed. Since you can’t flex fat, if the cold arm circumference goes down while the difference between the two measurements remains the same, you are losing fat and not muscle. If the difference decreases, you are losing LBM because you can’t flex as much muscle.

Other areas you can track are Neck, chest, hips, calf, shoulder, and upper thigh.

  1. Don’t cut calories too low, as your body will freak out and go into starvation mode. I believe most of the nutrition articles cover this.

  2. Try to increase your daily movement beyond exercise. Try the LYO experiment, where you Lock Yourself Out of the house for a set amount of time and walk/run/play outside.

I believe Shugart has some entries in his blog about increasing Non Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA)

23

You have been given good advice.

As it has been said it has to become a lifestyle change and not a diet. The first thing to do is throw all the crap out of your refrigerator and pantry and go shopping Baked lays and diet soda are not healthy. In my opinion when you have a lot of weight to lose, the only thing you should drink is water, with some occasional crystal light. Cheat meals need to be outside of the house only if possible initially.

This is what your kitchen should look like:

http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/berardi_kitchen_1.htm
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/berardi_kitchen_2.htm

Here is a good general list of foods (go easy on fruit and nuts during weight loss). It is not all inclusive and just a general idea of what to buy:

Proteins

Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
Tuna (water packed)
Fish (salmon, seabass, halibut)
Shrimp
Extra Lean Ground Beef or Ground Round (92-96%)
Protein Powder
Egg Whites or Eggs
Ribeye Steaks or Roast
Top Round Steaks or Roast (aka Stew Meat, London Broil, Stir Fry)
Top Sirloin (aka Sirloin Top Butt)
Beef Tenderloin (aka Filet, Filet Mignon)
Top Loin (NY Strip Steak)
Flank Steak (Sir Fry, Fajita)
Eye of Round (Cube Meat, Stew Meat, Bottom Round , 96% LeandGround Round)
Ground turkey, Turkey Breast Slices or cutlets (fresh meat, not deli cuts)

Complex Carbs

Oatmeal (Old Fashioned or Quick Oats)
Sweet Potatoes (Yams)
Beans (pinto, black, kidney)
Oat Bran Cereal
Brown Rice
Farina (Cream of Wheat)
Multigrain Hot Cereal
Pasta
Rice (white, jasmine, basmati, Arborio, wild)
Potatoes (red, baking, new)

Fibrous Carbs

Green Leafy Lettuce (Green Leaf, Red, Leaf, Romaine)
Broccoli
Asparagus
String Beans
Spinach
Bell Peppers
Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower
Celery
Other Produce & Fruits
Cucumber
Green or Red Pepper
Onions
Garlic
Tomatoes
Zucchini

Fruit (if acceptable on diet):

bananas, apples, grapefruit, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries
Lemons or Limes

Healthy Fats

Natural Style Peanut Butter
Olive Oil or Safflower Oil
Nuts (peanuts, almonds
Flaxseed Oil

Dairy & Eggs

Low-fat cottage cheese
Eggs
Low or Non-Fat Milk
Beverages
Bottled Water
Crystal Light

Condiments & Misc.

Fat Free Mayonnaise
Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce
Reduced Sodium Teriyaki Sauce
Balsamic Vinegar
Salsa
Chili powder
Mrs. Dash
Steak Sauce
Sugar Free Maple Syrup
Chili Paste
Mustard
Extracts (vanilla, almond, etc
Low Sodium beef or chicken broth
Plain or reduced sodium tomatoes sauce, puree, paste)

You will learn to make a variety of recipes you enjoy that are quick and easy over time.

I lost 80 pounds in under 6 months. Once I decided to change my life the results came faster than I expected. The basics are easy and with dedication your results will come fairly fast. Get educated (everything you need to know is on this site) and stay dedicated and the fat will melt. Most people lack the dedication.

There is excellent advice on this forum for nutrition and training. You need to learn as much as you can.

I did a lot wrong and did not truly make a lifestyle change or look at this site until the end of my weight loss. You have the advantage of doing it now.

The first 2-4 weeks for me were like drug detox for an addict. Try your best to eat especially clean your first month to get your body used to your new lifestyle. Burger King would actually talk to me when I was driving home in the beginning (not really, but you get my point). I was not an overweight child, and did not have emotional eating issues. I just became inactive, my portion size became to large, and I was eating too much crap with most of it late at night.

Now I actually enjoy eating healthy (I never expected this to happen). I do not count down days for a cheat meal. I really do enjoy the taste of most of my meals, but I now mainly eat to survive. I try to add variety to my diet, but I could also care less if I ate the same leftovers several days in a row. I do not ?deprive? myself of anything and I do not feel like I am missing out. I have occasional cheat meals (mainly restaurants with family and social functions), and once in a blue moon I have a day where I eat like complete shit. One day I had 2 pieces of cheesecake, and a whole large Dominoes pizza after I already had dinner. That was the worst I can remember in the last 6 months.

Much of skin changes are affected by age and genetics in regards to weight loss. IMHO you have a good chance of not having loose skin, and only having few stretch marks. If you were older and heavier I would say otherwise.

Not to say it is easy, but losing the fat is much, much easier than gaining muscle. I now truly have respect for the dedication it takes to add a significant amount of muscle to someones frame.

Since you already posted you picture, take monthly photos and post them with your weight to keep yourself motivated.

24

id hate to say it. but low carb food as much as you can. it keeps you full, gives you alot of protien, and its hard to munch on at all possible time so it lowers the volume. but on the down side, it does make it hard to think do to the low carbs.

25

Okay first me, I was in the same place you are back in October. I have dropped 50 pounds in the last 5 months. Everyone gave you great advise, but I want to pass some stuff on.

  1. The scale is your enemy. I weigh myself everyday and log it. BUT, and this is a big but, I don’t look for loss, I look for trends. Your weight can vary day to day as much as 4 pounds, depending on various factors, water haven’t taken a decent dump in a few days. Weigh yourself, but do not make your self crazy with it.

  2. After a month of eating right and clean, have a cheat day. The reason for this is simple, a cheat day will break your boredom, shock your system a little to keep it from thinking you are starving and you got to have a social life of some sort.

  3. Keep a positive attitude. Do not say “I am on a diet” instead, tell yourself you are getting right.

  4. learn to deal with temptation. I work in an office full of chubby Hispanic women that love to eat and cook. They bring stuff in all the time. At first, I would just be somewhere else when the goodies come out. Now I can walk by them without a second thought. WHen you do crack, take a small taste, enough to satisfy your curiosity.

  5. If you do cheat, don’t beat yourself up. Just get back on the wagon. Shrug it off.

  6. This has to be about you. You can not lose weight for anyone else. If your wife or other is not on board with you, well learn to cook for yourself. My wife was PO’d when see saw what I was eating and really gave me a hard time at first. Now she eats what I do.

Check in here from time to time. You will find advise, maybe sympathy and you can bet that if needed a good swift kick in the ass.

Good luck buddy.

26

[quote]happydog48 wrote:
I have a recumbent exercise bike and I love it. Here’s my HIIT routine: 90 seconds at 70% of Maximum Heart Rate then 30 seconds all out, then back to 70% for 90 seconds and then 30 seconds all out. Do that 15 times for a total of 30 minutes and you’ll have a killer workout. I used just such a workout to drop 190 lbs. I did my cardio on non-lifting days.
[/quote]

Damn dog! Yer makin me look like a sissy here. A month or so ago I started sprints for a bout 2 weeks. Loved em but no way could I recover at 70%. After my 30 I was wasted and just limped along for 1:30 rest.

As to the original poster, I do not think that a guy just starting out need fear doing sprints. If 30 seconds is too much then do less! If 1:30 rest is not enough then take more! In any case now that you are on it I dont see how whatever you do is not a major improvement so best of luck.

27

[quote]Jaegor wrote:

Vegetarians are usually slender, because they have both low body fat and low levels of LBM. Congratulations (seriously!) on being one of the few exceptions.
[/quote]

Weight training will improve LBM of veges as well as it will meat eaters. It is not often that one finds the two lifestyles in the same individual.

[quote]
I believe the cause of diabetes and obesity in the Average American is not related to eating meat, but rather to the high-carb, highly processed foods sthat make up the AA diet. Simply switching to a balanced diet of whole foods would likely result in major body composition changes.[/quote]

I think you are right.

[quote]
So what is it that you think is missing?

A complete source of protein (eg. not soy) that doesn’t have serious repercussions of heavy metal contamination if overconsumed (eg. fish).[/quote]

Complete source protien: Corn, beans, squash. The 3 sisters is how Dr. Saul puts it. Now I have to admit that I hate squash so I just do my protein the easy way- powder! Milk and egg protien powder. I also eat Tuna frequently, and salmon, and beans. Between the 3 nearly every day. Protien is no problem. (Did a little research on merc contamination in tuna and added in salmon as a result)

Dont want to give anyone the idea that Im preaching vegetarianism. I dont want to be on a soapbox ( nor hijack the guys thread) but I have benefited from eliminating the chemicals pumped into the feedlot animals from my diet. I dont think there is any health disadvantage to eating organic meat, if you can pull it off. Intestinal cancer perhaps might be higher than for veges.

28

When it comes to nutrition, you have to get it all right. What foods you eat, what percentages of carbs, protein and fat you eat, when you eat, it’s all important for losing fat and minimizing lean body mass losses.

Okay so far I am getting great feedback and advices.This is the part that push me a way from a eating plan…
The calculations.I know this is an important part of the plan but I get so carried away and fustrated by how much percentage of fat,protein and carbs one should eat,I end up saying to hell with it all.

Maybe thats why the low carb diet work for so many people it keep it simple.I guess I am just lazy…But if I have to do it I have to do it.

29

Wow the website say’s I need to consume 3263 kcal a day.

So to lose weight I need to eat 500 less,which is 2763,5 meals a day equal 550cal a meal that seems a lot.So now I have to figure out the percentage of Carbs,Protein and fat to intake.

So what is the right combination? lol…

30

Since you didn’t mention a running background, I would avoid ANYTHING ballistic OR high impact. You are too heavy right now. The strain on your body will cut into your workouts.
You need a workout that won’t require too much recovery.

I like to think of my workout as a “grind”. I feel that I am grinding off the excess fat on my old body.
If you have to spend too much time in recovering, that is time you are NOT working out.

This is about an acumulation over time, not intensity for now.JMHO

Ricisan

31

When I see that pix, I think syndrome-X or metabolic disorder, insulin resistance, low testosterone, elevated estrogen, and pathologies related to those things.

The likely shift in hormone balance may make the weight loss close to impossible. I vote for a full blood work, preferably by an age management specialist. HRT may be needed and a complete diet/supplement/life_style rework.

Avoid intense workouts until a full CV workup is done.

32

[quote]bobbrich wrote:
Wow the website say’s I need to consume 3263 kcal a day.

So to lose weight I need to eat 500 less,which is 2763,5 meals a day equal 550cal a meal that seems a lot.So now I have to figure out the percentage of Carbs,Protein and fat to intake.

So what is the right combination? lol… [/quote]

Again, just my opinion, take it or leave it: I think you need to keep things relatively simple. What’s your diet like now? From the picture you posted (I am NOT trying to offend you), it’s probably not very good. Cleaning the diet up, with making sure you get enough protein, keep the carbs from good sources moderate to low, plenty of fibrous vegetables along with regular excercise should start taking the fat off of you.

In my personal opinion, it’s not ALL that hard. Now if you had a good deal of muscle underneath there, you could obviously be concerned about preserving it (which could make your diet/excercise selection slightly trickier), but it doesn’t seem to be the case from your picture.

In addition, you wrote that your main goal is to lose weight, correct?
In hindsight, I made quite a few mistakes when I decided to drop the excess fat, but still manged to lose about 70lbs or so in a year, while preserving and even adding muscle mass.

That being said, everyone’s different, perhaps such a simple approach will not work for you. I had a general understanding of what I should and shouldn’t eat, and kept a running total of daily protein intake in my head. I don’t know how much nutritional sense/knowledge you have. Fitday offers a free diet log that calculates the percentages for you, you just have to type in what you ate. Pretty damn easy! www.fitday.com

And again, I’d like to reiterate, that at around 280lbs without (presumably) having been all that active beforehand, starting off with sprints and HIIT is not the way to go.

Just trying to help.

33

Not trying to start a fight here fellows but I think there is a little confusion about sprints/interval training. Every year there are about a gazillion fat boys in this country that decide to get fit. Now some of them start walking and usually dont lose an ounce but some of them start running. They can run for about a half a minute then they have to walk it off and catch thier breath. When they get some more wind they do it again. They do that cycle for 15-30 minutes and they’re wasted. Over the months they get stronger and the rest periods get shorter, the sprints get stronger and the fat melts off.

Well gentlemen that is sprinting/interval training. I do not pretend to be an expert but I just do not see why that is not an excellent strategy. Certainly it is one that has been used many, many times though the users didnt know it. JMHO

34

Well I believe that is what I will do for cardio, I tried the bike yesterday I was not that huffing and puffing for the amount of pain my legs felt.
I started walking for 3 miles on the treadmill and as the week went on I find myself jogging for a minute, the walking for a minute.So I can see some progress there.
I am going to do that 4 times a week and lift weights 3 times a week.Also will start eating 5 times a day, high in protean and green veggies and low in carbs like potatoes etc.
Fitday is an awesome programm so I will start tracking on that.It says i need to lose 1.94lbsa week to reach my goal.

35

Great job for coming on here and outlining your goals. You will need to make some slow gradual changes to get where you want to go. Your nutrition will be key, and there are plenty of articles that detail a fat loss nutrition program. Stick with total body movements since those burn more calories. As far as energy system work (aka cardio) start out with 2 times per week increasing periodically. Your initial weight loss will be great at first, but will slow down with time as you lean out further. Use measurements and not just scale weight to keep track. Keep your head up and stay in it for the long haul.

36

[quote]MichaelOH wrote:
Well gentlemen that is sprinting/interval training. I do not pretend to be an expert but I just do not see why that is not an excellent strategy. Certainly it is one that has been used many, many times though the users didnt know it. JMHO[/quote]

I don’t think that there’s any confusion as to what constitutes sprinting and HIIT style training. My point is, that if he can make progress using low-impact cardio, why should he do HIIT right off the bat? Why not wait to see how far it can get him, then use HIIT to get the last stubborn pounds off? Different things work for different people, I’m sure that by now he can make his own informed, educated decision.

And to the OP, whatever you do, stick to it, you’ll do just fine. Don’t get too hung up on the scale, a weekly weigh-in as was suggested beforehand is a good idea. We’re looking forward to seeing your transformation.

37

[quote]bobbrich wrote:
Well I believe that is what I will do for cardio, I tried the bike yesterday I was not that huffing and puffing for the amount of pain my legs felt.
I started walking for 3 miles on the treadmill and as the week went on I find myself jogging for a minute, the walking for a minute.So I can see some progress there.
I am going to do that 4 times a week and lift weights 3 times a week.Also will start eating 5 times a day, high in protean and green veggies and low in carbs like potatoes etc.
Fitday is an awesome programm so I will start tracking on that.It says i need to lose 1.94lbsa week to reach my goal.[/quote]

Well i think we have fleshed out a few different options for you, eh? Lots of good advice i think. And even where there are differences I think ANYthing you do now is going to be much better than what you were doing. Cant go wrong.

Another thing you may like about sprinting is the mental toughness you gain as your cardio fitness increases. And it will improve rapidly. That mental toughness is something that benefits the rest of your fitness routine. If you can sprint your as* off for 15-20 minutes you can jog for an hour:)

But you won’t!

38

Captians log 1:2 which means week one log 2.
I did cardio again use the treadmill
started at
3.4 mph 2 min
4.4 mph 1 min
5.4 mph 1 min
6.4 mph 1 min
I did this 3 times then walk for 3 min did a mile and a half.Man i was sweating.
Did 2 set of 30 incline sit ups…BLAH

Now I have to work on menu still not able to have 5 meals a day,No excuse just lazy and not organize.I will get it going tomorrow.

39

Captians log 1:3

treadmill
3.4 mph for 2 min
4.5 mph for 1 min
5.5 mph for 1 min
6.5 mph for 1 min

Did this set 5 times my heart rate was at 167 on the high and 134 on the low. I then cap it off with a 7.5 mph sprint for 1 min.Felt like i was going to barf…

Did 30 incline sit ups.I also did barbell curls.
30lbs x 12
40lbs x 10
50lbs x 8

tricep pulldown
40lbs x 12
60lbs x 10
80lbs x 8
40lbs x 12 burning man.
After th jog I felt so pump i wanted to lift weights so I hit some a little.

40

Luck will have NOTHING to do with it. 2 pounds per week is a great goal, and very realisitc. However, you have to remember that even if you “only” lose 1 pound per week, that is ALSO great. Any progress is progress.

We hope to see you in the lean and mean club soon enough. Stick with it and it will happen. You have already given yourself a head start by setting a realistic goal.