nanotek2024
Sat, September 2nd, 2006, 11:50 PM
Thank you all.
I have been lurking here for about 2 months. I just wanted to thank everyone for their participation on these forums. Daily reading of the new posts and searching the archives has yielded a wealth of information and experience that would have required searching the Internets forever to find. The support, motivation and lack of flame wars and nonsense is wonderful.
I haven't just been reading the forums, though, but rather attempting to put the principles learned into practice. I have been on the weight loss plan for about a total of 3 months now, but after finding this site a month into the weight loss, my program was modified to more of a fitness/health program.
The original plan (or lack thereof) was to simply lower calories (actually it was more of a severe calorie restriction) while adding "some" exercise and see where that would lead. At the time I wasn't really too overweight but rather had reached extreme skinny/fat proportions (Age: 34 Weight: ~175lb Height: 5'11" BF%: 24%+? Exercise: 0 Diet: Atrocious). The severe restriction was working and I was losing weight.
On the exercise front I started with walking once per week, which soon became walking 3 times per week, which then became walking 3 times a week and jogging 3 times a week. The benefits of exercise greatly surprised me. As I went from nearly completely sedentary (and tired and lethargic most of the time) to active, my energy levels started increasing. This was a wonderful positive feedback loop; as I exercised more my energy levels went up which meant I exercised more, etc.. And then I stumbled across JSF, which added 3 strength training sessions a week to the routine.
JSF soon taught me the benefits of eating proper rather than just severe calorie restriction. Fit day, measuring cups, a kitchen scale, more calories, more meals, and clean foods were slowly added to the routine as junk foods and my old eating habits were removed. Although I say slowly, in retrospect it happened rather quickly as I have been eating pretty clean for about 4 weeks now, which means that the changes happened over about a 1 month time. I am not as "clean" on my foods as I would like to be, but I could see myself eating the way I currently do for the rest of my life, so it may be good enough for me.
During all of this time I also gave up drinking completely. All of these changes have been MAJOR lifestyle shifts, and I have benefited greatly from each. The energy and happiness alone is worth it, regardless of the physical appearance changes.
Whilst changing foods, the amount of exercise, weight lifted, and body composition kept getting better. I even reached a plateau in weight loss 2 weeks ago that had lasted 2 weeks and broke through it by following advice found here by having a re-feed week.
During the past two weeks I have seen some of my best progress. Just this week I made the attempt and can now run around the lake near my home (3.6 miles) which has been one of my goals. Just this week I can now pass the US army's bootcamp physical fitness test for someone in the 22-26 age range. Two weeks ago I finally reached a point where I could do complete pullups, something my ectomorph body has never been capable of doing - and have now reached 4 reps.
My stats that have changed now look like this: Weight: ~153lb BF%: ~13% Exercise: 6.5 hours/week Diet: B+ (Tanita scale and tape measure give the same results for BF%). What an immense change. I want to get rid of the final bit of love handle and stomach fat that is hanging around. Currently my plan is to keep cutting to about 10% body fat and see if I get there and where exactly that puts me. At this point it has nothing to do with fitness and is all vanity, but so what. I know that these last few pounds are usually the hardest and hope that the current plan continues to work. And I think it will. ~1700 calories per day, with a net -600 calories per day average for the week according to fitday (and fitday has been extremely accurate up to this point as I have been losing at a rate the corresponds exactly to 3500 calorie deficit yielding 1lb of loss).
I have been slightly concerned that there is too much of a caloric deficit, or at least too few calories. But there was an article that was linked to from these forums that claimed a maximum caloric deficit to achieve fat loss without lean mass loss. The final conclusion was something like (current pounds of fat) * 31 = maximum caloric deficit. When I run my numbers I come up with 617. This deficit has been working well so far, so I am not too concerned. And I will readjust as the BF% changes.
The one piece of advice I wish I had followed was to take progress pictures. It would be great to show the amazing transformation in my body to this point. Oh well.
Thanks for reading.
I have been lurking here for about 2 months. I just wanted to thank everyone for their participation on these forums. Daily reading of the new posts and searching the archives has yielded a wealth of information and experience that would have required searching the Internets forever to find. The support, motivation and lack of flame wars and nonsense is wonderful.
I haven't just been reading the forums, though, but rather attempting to put the principles learned into practice. I have been on the weight loss plan for about a total of 3 months now, but after finding this site a month into the weight loss, my program was modified to more of a fitness/health program.
The original plan (or lack thereof) was to simply lower calories (actually it was more of a severe calorie restriction) while adding "some" exercise and see where that would lead. At the time I wasn't really too overweight but rather had reached extreme skinny/fat proportions (Age: 34 Weight: ~175lb Height: 5'11" BF%: 24%+? Exercise: 0 Diet: Atrocious). The severe restriction was working and I was losing weight.
On the exercise front I started with walking once per week, which soon became walking 3 times per week, which then became walking 3 times a week and jogging 3 times a week. The benefits of exercise greatly surprised me. As I went from nearly completely sedentary (and tired and lethargic most of the time) to active, my energy levels started increasing. This was a wonderful positive feedback loop; as I exercised more my energy levels went up which meant I exercised more, etc.. And then I stumbled across JSF, which added 3 strength training sessions a week to the routine.
JSF soon taught me the benefits of eating proper rather than just severe calorie restriction. Fit day, measuring cups, a kitchen scale, more calories, more meals, and clean foods were slowly added to the routine as junk foods and my old eating habits were removed. Although I say slowly, in retrospect it happened rather quickly as I have been eating pretty clean for about 4 weeks now, which means that the changes happened over about a 1 month time. I am not as "clean" on my foods as I would like to be, but I could see myself eating the way I currently do for the rest of my life, so it may be good enough for me.
During all of this time I also gave up drinking completely. All of these changes have been MAJOR lifestyle shifts, and I have benefited greatly from each. The energy and happiness alone is worth it, regardless of the physical appearance changes.
Whilst changing foods, the amount of exercise, weight lifted, and body composition kept getting better. I even reached a plateau in weight loss 2 weeks ago that had lasted 2 weeks and broke through it by following advice found here by having a re-feed week.
During the past two weeks I have seen some of my best progress. Just this week I made the attempt and can now run around the lake near my home (3.6 miles) which has been one of my goals. Just this week I can now pass the US army's bootcamp physical fitness test for someone in the 22-26 age range. Two weeks ago I finally reached a point where I could do complete pullups, something my ectomorph body has never been capable of doing - and have now reached 4 reps.
My stats that have changed now look like this: Weight: ~153lb BF%: ~13% Exercise: 6.5 hours/week Diet: B+ (Tanita scale and tape measure give the same results for BF%). What an immense change. I want to get rid of the final bit of love handle and stomach fat that is hanging around. Currently my plan is to keep cutting to about 10% body fat and see if I get there and where exactly that puts me. At this point it has nothing to do with fitness and is all vanity, but so what. I know that these last few pounds are usually the hardest and hope that the current plan continues to work. And I think it will. ~1700 calories per day, with a net -600 calories per day average for the week according to fitday (and fitday has been extremely accurate up to this point as I have been losing at a rate the corresponds exactly to 3500 calorie deficit yielding 1lb of loss).
I have been slightly concerned that there is too much of a caloric deficit, or at least too few calories. But there was an article that was linked to from these forums that claimed a maximum caloric deficit to achieve fat loss without lean mass loss. The final conclusion was something like (current pounds of fat) * 31 = maximum caloric deficit. When I run my numbers I come up with 617. This deficit has been working well so far, so I am not too concerned. And I will readjust as the BF% changes.
The one piece of advice I wish I had followed was to take progress pictures. It would be great to show the amazing transformation in my body to this point. Oh well.
Thanks for reading.