Big Red

I am going to see my parents in a little over a month, about 5 weeks, I haven't seen them since i started my weight loss journey last year. I am getting close to where I want to be but not yet there, but since they haven't seen me since I started I was thinking of cutting calories for the next 30 days and seeing if I can't try and drop a bit extra fat before so it is a drastic change and they are genuinely surprised. Call me shallow but I want the jaw drop haha. So I guess that leaves me with 2 questions, first how do I calculate my calories for cutting? As in what total I should be eating. And second how do I count the calories? I know I can use myfitnesspal to keep track, but I am strict paleo and do 95% of my own cooking, and usually don't follow any recipe. Does it have generic "rare top sirloin" and I use that as an estimate or do I have to actually calculate the calories somehow? What about when I make up sauces and stuff like that? I suppose with it being a cut I would probably not do anything too fancy this month. I was also thinking I would do Green Smoothies for one of my meals each day (new blender that kicks ass) how do I count that since ill just be winging it with what goes in as I have a lot of tortoises and will likely just blend up a portion of their breakfast for me too haha. In case it helps you with helping me, I am 27 year old Male, 6'4" and I have no idea how much I weigh... I don't have a scale nor access to one but will buy one with my next check because I am actually very curious as my clothes don't fit anymore. I don't work out regularly... or much at all... but I am standing and walking around for 9-10 hours a day at work, with the occasional lifting of boxes and such, so I am not sedentary. I was thinking of starting the body weight routine that I have read here but haven't yet as I wasn't sure if it is good to start that with this calorie cut I want to do at the same time. I don't care much about building muscle right now, eventually, but right now I want to slim down. Thanks

Wow! Great work man, keep it up!

Sometimes I make bacon and egg rings, take a cupcake tin and put bacon wrapped around the inside of the holes then crack and egg into it and bake. They are easy because you can cook a dozen of them and then store them for later breakfasts during the week. I just throw them in the oven and do some other things I need to then grab them and eat on the way out the door if in a hurry. If you prefer scrambled you can do that too, scramble the egg and add seasonings or veggies to it and then pour it into the bacon wrapper and bake. Another easy breakfast I do a lot is almonds and raisins, not really any prep involved, If I have no time for anything or I forget to make breakfast I will have a handful of each for my breakfast. They were both some of my favorite snacks before I went paleo so this is actually one of my favorite breakfasts lol. Have you tried Almond or Cashew butter? They are pretty similar to PB but they are paleo, some apples dipped in almond butter is pretty delicious.

Cool, thanks for the advice, Ill work towards sprinting but its cold out and I am still fairly against running or sprinting but with a few weeks/months of other exercises maybe I will change my tune, I will do the beginner for now and see what happens from there.

Yea I am on the right track as far as diet, I have been 100% paleo for the past 30 days and don't intend on changing that any time soon, I have already seen improvement and weight loss. The exercise is my next step, I don't really care about the push ups, I mean I will do them but it doesn't need to be what I do, I just wanted to check with some people that know what they are doing before going off of an old memory of what a random person told me haha. So I guess then my question is, is the beginner body weight exercise good for where I want to go or should I focus on a different exercise type? I have an eliptical in the house that I can and will use, but I don't like to run so I am not going to go out running lol.

I don't really know other than wanting to be healthy, I guess if I had to pick some goals it would probably be to have around 12% body fat and be able to do the 300 work out, but for right now I want to lower BF%

A few years back I used to exercise regularly and at one point someone had told me that Marines and Seals had a routine where they did 200+ pushups every day for 10 days straight and then didn't exercise at all for 3 days, then repeat. Is this real? or is it better to do something like that every other day for healing purposes? I don't remember who told me that, it was several years ago, but I do know that I did that for a while and was doing between 200 and 300 pushups a day and while I was getting stronger, I was never really losing weight but that was mainly because I ate like shit. I am going to start doing the beginner body weight workout (Its been 2-3 years since I worked out at all so I am going to see where I stand with the beginner one first) and was curious if I could add the pushups daily in addition to the workout circuit every other day? or should I pick one or the other? or is the whole do it 10 days straight a bad idea and I should ignore it haha? Thanks.

Today marks the 30th day of being 100% Paleo! I feel great, more energy than I used to have, my complexion is clearing up, I am getting comments left and right from people that know me and can tell a difference, and the best part is all my clothes are starting to look too big! I actually just got back from my parents house for the holiday week and had a handful of non paleo items but it was barely anything, you can't say no to a piece of birthday cake, I just had a very very small piece, and then we had breaded chicken one of the days but that was an old favorite so I couldn't say no lol. Mom actually has a scale so I was able to weigh myself too, and I as of this past weekend I was only 260lbs, which is great because when I started I was 275-280 range. Looks like its time to start adding in some exercises too, keep this trend going! Now if you'll excuse me I am going to go make some new notches in my belt as I have finally run out.

Sometimes for breakfast I will do some raisins and almonds if I don't have time to make eggs, but I usually just have eggs. I like to put home made pico de gallo on my eggs, changes it up. You can also make omelets or scrambles to add things too the eggs. As for frying, I don't think its too bad because you don't need much oil to fry an egg in, plus with paleo you have to make sure you are still getting some fats and that is an easy way to keep some in your diet. I have only been eating paleo for about 20 days now, so I don't know a ton of different breakfast ideas but that is how I have been handling my breakfasts.

I used to live in New England so I have hiked parts of the trail in that region, one thing I suggest is keeping in mind how long it will take and when you are arriving in NE because some of the months can be pretty cold and very snowy, especially in maine they get pretty heavy winters. There are also stretches of trail in maine that say they will take 10 days to travel before you see another town, so be prepared for going a week or more without seeing another person. Part of the trail goes over the top of Mt Greylock in MA, there is an observatory or something like that up there that you can go in as long as you get there before the end of October. Oh and don't forget to bring Orange Hunting vests, there are several places in NE that people hunt near/on the trails (probably other parts of the trail too). hope that helps.

So I know this post is like a week old so you've probably already cooked it but if you have not I have a few suggestions for cooking, not a recipe just tips for cooking silverside. It is generally a drier cut of meat so you want to avoid salting much if at all while cooking, you also should sear the outsides in some oil before you put it in to roast, the crust will help keep the juices inside, and finally low temps and slow time like keeping it at 120-140 for a few hours. As for a recipe I generally see it cooked with onions (or the typical onion, carrot and celery) and served with a gravy, If you're paleo you would need to make an au jus or something like that because gravy usually uses flour and butter to thicken it. I will give the disclaimer that I am not a chef, I just have an interest in cooking and have been to Hospitality Management school and therefore have taken a few cooking classes, but I am not a chef.

The woot I am most proud of for 2013 is that I have not had a Cigarette or any other Tobacco product in just about 8 months (April 22nd was day 1 of quitting). I am proud of other things too but I was 1-2 packs a day for a while so its pretty nice to be able to breathe once again lol.

Filling up ahead of time is a good idea, I didn't think of that because usually I don't eat so I can save room for the sweets and such haha. I am counting on my little brother this year though, he is a star athlete in his high school and I know he is in great shape so I am willing to bet he has gotten our Mother to keep good food in the house, but my mom and sister both love their sugars and breads so...... we shall see.

Vegetables like collard greens and kale are both good ways of getting calcium, a lot of vegetables have calcium so you have probably been getting some. Google calcium rich vegetables and see what you find.

Today concludes 9 days of full paleo! I have had mostly grass fed meats too, however that's super expensive so I haven't had entirely grass fed but close to it. 9 days isn't much but I haven't had veggies in literally a decade, unless it was mixed in or generic (let, tom, onion) so for me to be eating mostly veggies every day is a big deal hahaha. The whole no sweets or chips is messing with me, I didn't realize how much I actually ate them but I guess I am living in CO so.... But it's getting easier, and in the 9 days I've been able to tighten my belt by 2 notches, which is awesome since I've not done anything except change diet, no counting or working out, I'll get there but I'm gunna do 30 days first. The real challenge comes in a week or two I'm going to be visiting my parents and younger siblings for a week....

Hello you can call me Big Red, its a generic nick name that I am sure lots of people have but I have adopted it as my own, I am 6'4" and have red hair, and currently a fairly large red goatee/beard that I am growing out so I can braid it. I love video games (Elder Scrolls Series is my absolute favorite, cant get enough of the lore), I used to watch anime, and I used to attend LARP events, I am a bit less of a nerd than I used to be but I can tell this is where I need to be for this journey. I am currently hovering around 270lbs, and I would guess somewhere in the mid to upper 20%s for body fat % but I don't know for sure. I have dieted and exercised in the past and have been fairly healthy, I believe my lowest was 230 and I held that for a while, but I have in the past 2-3 years become very complacent and stopped eating healthy. About 2 years ago I had my "best friend" screw me out of well over $6k and caused me to live off of free food, my room mate worked at a pizza hut delivering so he brought left overs and mistake orders home every day, and my co worker would buy me lunch most days but that was often fast food so that he wouldn't have to spend much since he was being nice enough to feed me. Last spring in April I decided I had enough of my life and have made several big changes in a positive direction, I haven't used a tobacco product at all since April 22 (I was at 1-2 packs a day depending on what I was doing that day), I got a second job so I can afford better food and cut out 95% of the fast food from my diet, stopped eating pizza except for once a week, and started cleaning up my appearance and life. So here we are now, December, It has been a bit over 6 months since I started and I am feeling a lot better about life, I am on my feet again and mostly out of the debt I had fallen into, but still wanting more improvements, I am not satisfied with how I look or how out of shape I feel. Then the other day I found a post on my wall of "25 great free sites" or something along those lines and one of them was nerd fitness, I spent the rest of the day reading articles and re-igniting the spark for being healthy. I started the Paleo trasition yesterday, seems to be going well but its 2 days in so its a bit early to tell haha, It makes sense to me and I feel it is a diet I not only can follow but WILL follow. As the month moves forward I will start to add in the beginner exercises and get back to feeling strong and healthy. At this point my goal is to be able to do the 300 work out without trouble, Since I can't even do 1 pull up at this point I have a ways to go but you've gotta start somewhere!