Over thinking Weight Loss

[scoobygeek]

Hi Gang,

I am 48 yrs old, 5'8", 230 pounds currently, My goal weight is 185 pounds.  I have been trying hard to loose my weight but even with the fitbit Blaze I can not loose the weight.  My courage and motivation is wearing thing. My wife is not being motivational either.  How can I do this on my own?

[scoobygeek]

forgot to add also that I can't afford to do gym stuff

[IvanDaThug]

The good news is you don't need gym stuff. Aslong as you have a comfortable pair of shoes just try walking. Sounds too easy don't it and well, it is. I'm 6'3", 48 and was 265 punds in old money when I got my fitbit at the end of December 2016. My weight didn't change much for the first couple of weeks mainly because I wasn't keeping a check on how many calories I was taking in. Who knew alcohol had so many calories? Anyway, I started walking and found that A) my shoes weren't comfortable for walking for longer than 30 mins. B) You can burn alot of calories. 

Through taking control of the things I eat and mainly walking I lose 2~3 pounds per week without any dramas.

Just don't go overboard with distance, let it build up gradually and you'll avoid stessing your body making walking something you enjoy doing instead of something you have to do .

Hope this helps

[DanielleinDC]

You need to exercise too. Do you have access to a treadmill? If not, there are tons of walking videos online you can use. Or if the weather is nice, go for a walk. I'm lucky enough to live across the street from a park, and when the weather is nice enough, I'll walk there in the evenings. (It was so nice yesterday that I did just that, but it had to be a short walk because it's a bit sketchy after dark.)

Get yourself a pair of dumbbells and do strength training exercises. Pop Sugar has cute videos and diagrams, although they seem a bit woman-centric to me. FitStar isn't my cuppa, but it might work for you.

All a Fitbit can do is monitor what you do. You have to do the work.

[Dominique]

You want to lose 45 pounds. You need to have some kind of plan for that. For instance, let’s say you want to do it in one year: that would be 0.88 lb per week in average. For that, you would need a weekly deficit of 0.88 x 3500 = 3088 calories, or a daily deficit of 441 calories. Let’s say your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is 2300 calories at your current activity level: if your activity level stays the same, you would need to eat 1860 calories in average in order to reach your goal. If you can increase your activity so your TDEE is 2600, you would be able to eat 2160 calories.

Your Blaze is not a talisman that will cause weight loss just by wearing it, but it can help you assess your TDEE and make sure your activity is high enough to let you eat enough food while still being in the deficit you need for the weight loss to happen. That’s for the exercise part of the equation. Now for the nutrition part: you probably need to take a critical look at what and how much you eat. There’s only so much food you can fit in 1900 (or 2200, or whatever amount you come with based on your activity) calories. You’d probably want to make substitutions (for instance, drink water instead of soda or beer, unsweetened black coffee instead of latte etc.) and pay attention to portion sizes. If you don’t have a kitchen scale, it would be a good idea to get one. You don’t necessarily need to weigh everything that goes into your mouth, but it can be eye-opening to weigh a few of the items you eat most and get an idea of their caloric content. 

[wootsie]

Hi Scoobygeek, I'm 68 and don't go to a gym either. Summertime I like to walk outside,but in the winter it's just too cold for me. Believe it or not, what I do is, in our basement we have a pool table and tv. I watch Tv while walking around the pool table, Sounds crazy I know but, I have been doing 12,000 to 15,000 steps a day. Trying to lose about 15lbs. I also cut out sweets and going slow on carbs.

[emili]

I am curious what you have tried? I can't tell you how many times my own friends have come crying about how hard they have tried and nothing is working just to realize they haven't actually done anything that will cause them to lose weight. Their routines haven't changed, they don't move more or eat less. They just want it to happen so it should. We start talking about making changes to their diet, parking further away or skipping the car altogether. Coming to the gym with me as my guest - all way too hard and time consuming. The rant actually does have a point- if you really want to lose weight, then trying to may not be enough. Doing what needs to be done will be. Dominique laid it out for you with science- start there. And in a month, come back and share your weight loss success with us.

[A_Lurker]

@scoobygeek- losing weight can be as simple as making small, manageable changes.  Liquid calories (beer, wine, coffee with cream and sugar, soft drink, fruit juices) can sometimes add up to more than you think.  The best way to start is track what you eat for a number of weeks.  Be brutally honest, you're the only one who will look at it (unless you ask people to look at it).  Sometimes this is enough to let you see where you're taking in those extra calories.  I'm assuming that you are maintaining your weight currently.  So, once you figure out what you're taking in, decide to cut something down, or out.  Some people can go to radical lifestyles changes and do well, others can't.

As for exercise, walking is good.  You can do a number of things without a gym:

http://greatist.com/fitness/50-bodyweight-exercises-you-can-do-anywhere

http://greatist.com/fitness/no-gym-bodyweight-workout-infographic

And even with those, start slow if your fitness level isn't the best.  All can be done with little to no equipment (a yoga mat is nice for cushioning though).

[Kenn.Sanchez]

That's some good advice Emili

[TMacNJ]

scoobygeek,

I'm 6'2", 45 years old, and am working my way down from 284. I'm back to 274 in seven weeks, which is right on schedule for a successful weight loss program. I'm right there with you, but I'm enjoying myself, even though it's taking time for me to see the results that I want.

Kids, commute, sleep. Those are our killer road blocks at this stage of our lives. Here's a few suggestions that work for me now, or worked for me years ago before the kids became teenagers:

Caloric intake is always a problem for guys. We underestimate the effect of our eating habits. The South Beach Diet is now 13 years old, and its principles are still scientifically sound. If anything, they're being proven scientifically sound over and over by the newest research. Get a copy of the book and learn its principles. The online resources for the plan are also by far better than they were back in 2003 when I first dropped a lot of weight following the plan. 

Just remember, The South Beach Diet is a plan for type 2 diabetics and pre-diabetics, and heart disease candidates. That means that following those principles will do you a world of good over the long term beyond simply trying to "lose weight."

Take over the cooking if you need to. South Beach food tastes really, really good. But it requires planning, and shopping. And fresh produce costs money.

Every bit of steps helps, but, aim to build your endurance through your cardio work, not just walking. You need to break a "controlled" sweat, and learning to keep your heart rate at a level where you're challenging yourself but not driving yourself into anaerobic metabolism. You want to walk out of the gym, four to five days a week, after forty-five minutes to an hour of work at the max. Your goal is to internalize the habit of working out, not to kill yourself and turn the gym into a negative experience that you then avoid.

Get instruction on how to properly lift weights, and work with dumb bells and perfecting your form, two sets max. This is going to fly in the face of your instructor's advice to do three sets, and it's going to also cause you some concern when you initially put on a couple pounds instead of losing them. But, that weight gain is healthy muscle mass, and the sooner you start building back up your muscle mass, the sooner your body is burning a higher number of calories, even when it's at rest. I say two sets instead of three, because at our age, three sets leads to longer recovery periods and a higher risk of overexertion for very little extra marginal benefit. Just make sure to work in sets of 12-ish reps instead of 10 or 8, and keep your time between exercises to no more than thirty seconds. That means that you're turning a non-cardio exercise (weight lifting) into a cardio exercise and getting the benefits of challenging your heart and speeding up your metabolism at the same time! 

Once you've built up your endurance, perfected your form, and gotten your muscles used to the exertion of lifting, then you can go back to add the third set for each exercise . . . If you have the time, and that's always a question for people at our age.

[TMacNJ]

scoobygeek, 

There's gyms at every price point. Planet Fitness or the local YMCA are often great choices for those on a budget who don't want to throw down $400 on a pointless registration fee! Dial that phone and get answers from all your local gyms that you might not be able to find online. You might be able to drop your costs to belong to a quality gym by as much as 80%!

[SunsetRunner]

Maybe you can't do this on your own.  Have you considered Weight Watchers or TOPS?  Either of these would provide group support and accountability and Weight Watchers provides a plan tha is relatively easy to follow.  If your wife isn't motivated, you can't do anything about that but maybe when she see's that you are succeding she will become motivated.  Exercise is crucial to keep us strong and healthy but weight is lost in the kitchen.