Hi everyone,

My name is Lothurin (for now), i'm 23 of age, and engaged to a beautiful canadian woman (yeah i'm american). All my life I have been a big boy, I've been teased all my life, i'm even one of those kids that have snapped in high school from all the teasing, nothing deadly happened tho. Anyways a friend showed me this site, first time i saw was the animated gif of john losing weight, i was in shock and awed.

At my current state I'm a shameful 300+ pounds haven't weighted myself in a while. I unfortunally gain weight quiet eazily. Being in college still and currently jobless, i don't have alot of time for doing alot of weight training or a membership at a club.

By next year i will be married, and i wanna lose weight for my own reasons and for my future wife. (who is also loosing weight, for medical reasons)

So any advice on how i can go about losing weight being jobless and not having a whole lot of time on my hands, btw i also suffer from sleep apnea, which weight loss can cure. I do own a 100 pound weight system from walmart and just need to buy one more dumbbar handle for 2 dumb bars (spelling?)

Please any help is greatful.

Hi Lothurin,

Welcome to the boards. :)

Congrats on getting engaged :tucool:

I could write pages advising you on how you could go about losing weight but the best way is for you to Read Up and Learn as much as you can then you will know the best way to train for you rather than having someone guesstimate. Read everything on the forums here and check out bodybuilding.com and go to the library. Trust me the science of weight loss is pretty simple and it wont take you long to build up a good knowledge.

It doesnt matter that you cant afford to go to the gym, just use the weights you have and hit the pavement in the mornings before breakfast.

Just learn everything you can, define your goals, make a plan and take action!

Good Luck Mate :gl:

Marcus

:) i'd love to hit the payment outside and do some walkin or running, but not in -30 to 0 degree F weather:) thanks for the advice, i will start reading up on weightloss more once i get all this homework done :(

Lothurin

Yeah maybe -30 might be a bit tough. Its summer over here, 20-30 degree celcius days so I'm enjoying getting outside. :cool:

Hey on the plus side, being cold increases your metabolism. :nod:

After gaining some knowledge, write yourself a program and then post it here and we can critique it for you.

Marcus

If you're in college I would assume they have a gym on campus?

Nope we dont its a techical/community college

The best way you can choose cardio and weight training workouts is to read about them on this site, and others as people have mentioned (don't forget John's site, which has tons of good info on it).

The best advice I can offer, which really helped me as I read it on this forum about two weeks ago, is keep things simple at first. Don't get overwhelmed by everything you read. Just make a few simple adjustments to your life at first. And very quickly you will see that you want to make more and more adjustments.

Based on your desciption of yourself, I think the best place to start is your diet. If there is not a medical reason that you weigh 300+ than your diet is probably the reason. The first thing I did about 19 days ago. Was change the number of times I ate each day. Instead of eating 3 meals a day, as we are all trained to do from birth, I immediately switched to 5 meals a day. There is a really easy way to do this without getting to complicated. Eat breakfast. If you don't do this you need to. Start eating your lunch at your normal time, say noon, but only eat half of it. Then pack up the rest and put it somewhere away from you (in another room, in the fridge, whatever) then at about 2:30-3:00 eat the other half. Then do the same for dinner. Eat half at 5:30-6 and the rest at like 8pm. This takes will power but each day you get use to it more and more.

But keeping things simple like this at first will help tremendously.

Besides that here is a list of things John Stone wrote in an email:

1) Eat 5-6 meals a day spaced every 2-3 hours.

2) Eat 10-12 times your body weight (in pounds) in calories each day.

3) Eat only clean, whole foods--no junk food.

4) Stay away from all food that contain sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, white flour and saturated fats.

5) Stay away from foods like white rice, potatoes and fruit (fruit is high in sugars)

5) Drink lots and lots of water, nothing else except maybe black coffee in the morning.

6) After 5:00 PM stay away from all carbs, except those found in veggies.

7) Aim for a 40/40/20 macronutrient split (Protein/Carbs/Fat).

I didn't realize that John advises staying away from fruit. I'll have to keep that in mind.

I was also not aware of no carbs in the evening. Glad you posted that.

I think you shouldn't do so dramatically changes directly. Start by logging exactly EVERYTHING that ever slips into your mouth during a week, check Johns food log for example.

When you realise what crap you (probably) are feeding yourself with it's time to change that by cutting the worst crap and then learn everything about Glychemic index.

After that you will be ready to setup a meal plan a week ahead, and trust me, it's so much easier to follow a plan than trying to stick with a healthy diet just out of your head.

:gl:

Thanks for the advice everyone, to the times I'd eat during that day might have to change some cause i have classes from 11am to 2pm on Tuesday and Thursday. And cause of my Sleep apnea problem i have a hard time sleeping at the times i'm suppose to. I'm lookin at trying a herb that someone recommended called "valerian root" can be found in drug stores or walmart.

Has anyone made a basic template in Excel for logging things? I'm also lookin at buying a PDA once i get a job again, any program out for those that are useful?

http://www.fitday.com is a great resource for logging your calories.

my Sleep apnea problem i have a hard time sleeping at the times i'm suppose to.

I bet as soon your diet falls in and you start moving more your sleep will be much better.


Has anyone made a basic template in Excel for logging things?

Check Johns excehlsheet: http://www.johnstonefitness.com/transformation.xls it's as good as anyone.


I'm also lookin at buying a PDA once i get a job again, any program out for those that are useful?

I would recommend you to commit yourself to a plan that you should followe for x numbers of weeks before you buy anything at all.
Trust me, I have spent thousands of dollars on gym meberships, equipments etc during the last 20 years. At no effect at all. This time, started 19th jan this year, I have told myself to not buy anything at all until I've stucked with my schedule for atleast two months. I did rent a stationaty bike though, something I highly can recommend.

I agree with the others. Just start logging all your food and do nothing else. Chances are you'll start to change your diet automatically just by seeing exactly what you're putting into your system.

I started logging my food three weeks ago because I was curious, and when I saw I was actually eating more than 4000 calories a day I immediately started cutting down. The next week I was down to 2700-3000 and the week after 1800-2200 which is where I want to be (I'm 190cm, 98kg).

Make it a point to find food that you really like that can fit with your new diet. If you don't like what you're eating there's no chance in hell you're going to succeed... Remember, you're doing this for the rest of your life, not just for a short period of time.

Is there snow where you live? Try cross country skiing... Great cardio excercise!

Good luck!

I didn't realize that John advises staying away from fruit. I'll have to keep that in mind.

I was also not aware of no carbs in the evening. Glad you posted that.

No Problem, I was also surprised by the no foods with high fructose corn syrup. I hadn't been tracking that at all. My cereal has it, my granola bars and even the balance bars I eat have it (honey peanut). I'll have to figure out exactly why its bad and find substitutes. If anyone knows, let me know. Thanks.

Thanks for the advice everyone, to the times I'd eat during that day might have to change some cause i have classes from 11am to 2pm on Tuesday

Just take something to class with you, like a protein bar or something. I assume you can eat in class as it is college.

Thanks again everyone for your advice and encouragement! The purpose the PDA program wasn't for a program to tell me what to eat but something i can long while i'm on the go, like at work or school or parents place while i'm away from my home computer.

I know what current foods i eat and they are foods i love, and thats what killing me, since i'm also so short on money i have very few options when it comes to purchasing good healthy food from a grocery store, it is really alot cheaper for me to goto mcdonalds and get a burger and coke. other foods i love is pizza, pasta, or just about anything italian, potatoes, and my fruits and veggys are a bit limited, i didn't like a whole lot of those as a kid and still do i'm slooooowly starting to like some but not every many, well i have a test coming up now, so i'll post more later :)

thanks again!!!

Lothurin

Tuna, Chicken, etc is much cheaper than mcdonald's. You can get a pound of chicken fo rnot much more than a mcdonald's meal.

I know what current foods i eat and they are foods i love ..... mcdonalds and get a burger and coke. other foods i love is pizza, pasta, or just about anything italian

That's the beuty of changing your diet, you will start loving healthier food on the path. My first language isn't english, but I will try to explain what has happened in your body up to now, and what will change when you start your transformation phase (if I get any english terms wrong here, please let me know):

Today:
You have been eating alot of fast carbohydrates, they are called fast because the body can very easily convert them to glycogen, which basically is what the body use for fuel. Slow carbohydrates is the same thing, but the transformation to sugar(glycogen) goes rather slow and gives a more even bust of sugar to your body.

When the body has a lot of bloodsugar in the lope it starts producing insulin, which is the substans that tells the cells: "Hey, mates. We have sugar in the whole. Start using it guys!".

Unfortunately, just like we human beings, the cells stops listening to Mr Insulin if he yells to loud and to often, which makes him yell even worser (aka, your body starts producing even more insulin) and you end up in a bad downward spiral, there comes sugar in the blood - insulin is created - the cells (actually the receptors in the cell) are getting more and more tolerant to insulin and you body creates even more insulin. It's very very bad for the body to have too much bloodsugar in the blood circulation, that's why it keeps producing insulin.

However, physical training has proved to make the insulin receptors more 'recievable' too insulin and less insulin is demanded in your body.

As it is today your body screams for sugar all the time, that's why you love pizza and pasta and other quick carbohydrates. When your cells are more sensitive to insulin you will achieve a taste for other grocerys such as bread with whole korns, parboiled rice etc.

So everything will fall in place as soon as you start moving around a bit more. I understand you're on a budget so I guess you should start doing exercise with only your body as weights, this along with an hour fast walking would be a good start.

Also, remember to eat often, that will keep your bloodsugar in an even curve and those irrational needs for a pizza in the evening will not occure anymore.

This is proved by science in all ways, but more important: It's been working for me.

Again, start logging your foodintake down to each gram, and also start doing something TODAY (a walk, some crunches, some push-ups, ANYTHING) and keep doing this until you have read through the information there is to find (especially Glychemic index in your case) you can create a good meal and excerise plan.

The only advice I stress you to follow is that you shall start NOW! :tucool:

Absolutely. I've found that there may be a higher upfront cost for food, but it lasts longer. A bag of chicken breasts may be 10 bucks, but that will last a lot longer than the $4 meal at McDs. Not to mention that nutritionally you'll be much better off.

If you're having trouble, I'd suggest removing one bad food item a week. Start with easy stuff, like drinks. This week, cut out beverages apart from water (You can get water anywhere). Next week, cookies and chips, and so forth. It's best to progress quickly, but barring that, progress slowly. They both beat relapsing into bad habits. Once you get used to the new way of things, you won't even miss the old ones.

And water is definately cheaper than the alternatives. :)

an option is to do the atkins diet (>20g of carbs a day) til you want to build muscle and lose fat. atkins will make you lose straight fat, ketosis its called. where your body uses fat as fuel.