RebelWithACause

Awesome work!

I'm pretty sure that I haven't won the genetic super lottery. So... I just focus on being a better "me" today than I was yesterday. I work on doing things today that my future self will thank me for, even if the results aren't showing up just yet. Simply feeling more energetic can happen before you start losing weight. The whole key for me was to make eating smarter, eating less and moving more a part of my lifestyle...integrating it into my daily routine. You need to experiment and find out what's fun and sustainable for YOU. For me, that changes from time to time. During the winter, I'm in the gym 3 times a week. During the warmer months, I like to do long walks and more body weight exercises at home. I like to change it up to keep things interesting. A friend gave me his old mountain bike, so that's something I may be getting into soon. The fact that you're on this forum and making lifestyle changes suggests to me that you're on a good path. Just keep at it... RwC

Great stuff on your 10km breakthrough! RwC

Excellent summation! Speaking of drugs not being the answer: Someone once told me one that she can eat whatever she wants because she takes Crestor. Well, she waddles more than she walks now. Really sad that mainstream society has sucked up the lie that drugs are the pathway to good health. We're too lazy to exercise and eat right. RwC

Excellent! How are you doing with diet?

Caffeine withdrawal was never an issue for me. Whenever I drank coffee or pounded down soda, my head would pound like a drum. So, it wasn't necessarily a caffeine fix I was looking for... I just liked the taste of soda. Unless I poured tons of sugar and creme into coffee, it just tasted nasty. So I rarely bothered to drink coffee anyway. I hope you can navigate the caffeine withdrawal symptoms until they are gone. RwC

Rock on!!!

Soda is absolutely brutal for your health. The sooner you get that cut down the zero, in combination with a sensible diet, the quicker you'll get results. RwC

That was the key that unlocked it for me. RwC

Just saying "I'll eat healthy today" isn't going to cut it. So much is against us. There is much trashy food out there. So you need a plan: 1. Write down everything you eat every day for a week: what it is and how much! 2. Do an inventory of what food you have in your house. Doing both of these will be quite revealing (and probably shocking) If you go through the stuff here on Nerd Fitness, you'll get a pretty good idea of what's good to eat. Get rid of the shit that's not good to eat. When you go shopping for food, get the good stuff, not the bad. It's much easier to exert will power once a week at the grocery store than it is to decide several times a day at home or work between good food and bad. If potatoes and bacon are a particular weakness, don't have them in your house...PERIOD. Another key is portion control. We ingest way more calories than we need to survive. Using a smaller plate for your dinner can be a good hack for that. Intermittent fasting is an awesome way to crank up the fat loss. But you need to be sure that you are eating healthy, whole foods as your diet. Attempting intermittent fasting on the "Standard American Diet" would be a miserable experience. Bottom line is that you need to create an environment that contributes to your success. Motivation comes and goes. Most people eat mindlessly. The people who eat with the purpose of fueling their body for optimal use are the ones that lose the weight and keep it off long term. RwC

I always work out alone. Ipod with music or even podcasts keep my mind in the right frame. You find a way to make the best with what you got. RwC

I just looked it up: Yes, James Bond was his goal. The before and after is pretty amazing. Awesome work! RwC

I'm new here and it's a big forum, so I haven't seen your intro post. If that was your goal and you're getting there (or close at least)...awesome! But I don't know whether that would work for most people. If it did, I think we'd see a lot more people looking like James Bond. Anyway, I'm at a stage where I looking to "level it up" and it looks like I've found some cool people to learn from. And hopefully, some people will learn a trick or two from me as well. That's the beauty of a forum. RwC

Right! My point is that MOST people will fall from the tracks quickly if looking like a magazine cut-out is their initial sole goal. Because that standard of perfection does not exist in nature. If you're 100 pounds overweight, your immediate goals should be to ingest higher quality (real) food, eat less food and move a bit more each day. Results breed higher goals and better results. It's a classic positive feedback loop. RwC

It does mean something: it means that it will take a lot more time.

If someone is 50, 100 pounds or more overweight, I think the focus needs to be on eating healthy and eating less. The weight loss becomes a symptom of improving health as a consequence of better diet and starting to move around more. Focusing on getting 6 pack abs from the start is a sure way to get derailed when you're starting at square one. RwC

For me, losing weight needed to be a means to an end instead of simply a means. I was 37 years old and had been 30-50 pounds overweight since college. The things I enjoyed doing were starting to get difficult for me. Even walking up a flight of stairs in my own house was getting me winded. I took a long look in the mirror and decided that I wanted to keep doing the things I love doing for a long time. That couldn't happen without losing the weight. That moment changed everything. In a strange way, I became "mentally" 50 pounds lighter, but my body was going to take time to catch up. I just got it done. You may not be a model. But guess what? Neither are most of us (in that air-brushed, fitness-magazine way). I don't have 6 pack-abs and I still have some stretch marks on my belly. But guess what? I'll never go back to being 50 pounds overweight because I have tasted the reward. For me it is: Eat smarter Eat less Move more Notice I said "it is"....not "it was." This needs to be your life, from this point on. Don't get scared about the moving more part. My only real exercise during the majority of my weight loss was taking a 1 or 2 mile walk on my lunch break instead of ordering Chinese takeout, Subway or pizza. RwC