Hey there all =)

[Jubirwu858]

Hey all

 

My name is Steven and after failing to lose fat several times I am once again going to try. But this time I'll be doing it differently. Let's start from the beginning.

 

My whole life I've been big. I was always the biggest in class, at one point I was the biggest in the whole school. This probably wasn't helped from everybody saying "he's a big lad, he needs more food". Anyway I was a happy kid. I played sports had loads of friends and was generally happy.

 

But then after I started high school people started telling me to lose weight. I done what they told me but they didn't actually know what they were doing. I was bounced from diet to diet, always ending in failure. I started becoming unhappy after all these failed attempts. It's kind of a cliché but the more unhappy I got, the more I ate. It was a vicious cycle.

 

After I left high school I tried again but done it wrong. I was actually starving myself at 1200 calories a day. I lost a lot the first few weeks, then I stopped losing and gave up again. There have been a few more attempts but none of them serious.

Then a few weeks ago I decided that this time I AM going to lose it. For the first time I'm doing it for me and not because someone told me to do it. I have done research and saw professionals about it and have joined Nerdfitness to keep me motivated.

Right now I'm 315 lbs and my goals are to:

 

-Lose 150 lbs. Well, more like get to 10% body fat because scales lie

-Do any kind of exercise daily

-Eat healthy foods, and after I lose enough, switch to paleo

 

Any help on my journey would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to being part of NF.

 

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Glad to have you in the rebellion. You've done the first step, finding your own motivation and owning your desire to be healthy. Since you asked for help, my advice is to get in on the current six week challenge, maybe check out the adventurers. Get some SMART (Specific, measuralbe, achieveable, realistic, trackable) goals for the next six weeks, and dominate them. You can start Paleo now if you want to, there's no rules about when you can start, and diet is 80% of weight loss. "Any kind of exercise daily" is vauge, get specific. I recommend alternating strength training and cardio, for example, do the beginner body weight workout MWF and run or do yoga TTHS.

 

Good luck.

[JessOfAllTrades]

Welcome! I think you've got some good long term goals and motivation. What kind of exercise are you considering? And switching to Paleo is a process you can start anytime. Since you already want to eat healthy foods, you can pick something like carbs and sugar and begin tracking and then lowering your intake amount. Any work you do before "going Paleo" will help the transition. I jumped right in and kind definitely went through a bit of carb-flu my first few days, so I definitely recommend transitioning. My boyfriend and I started by just researching and attempting paleo and primal recipes before we officially switched, which helped us work up a food repertoire beforehand. Depending on how used to cooking and meal planning you are, that could also be a big help.

 

Feel free to ask this community anything. I've found everyone to be super nice with minimal biting.

[Jubirwu858]

What kind of exercise are you considering? And switching to Paleo is a process you can start anytime.

 

I did a little bit of strength training when I was younger and enjoyed it so i plan to do that again. I've started with bodyweight training then when I get money join a local gym. As for cardio, I don't really have a plan. Never found anything I enjoy. I walk as far as I can everyday before the pain gets too much. I don't think I could do exercise classes or anything like that as I train at night. I have a debilitating fear of other people making fun of me so I train round about midnight or 1am so that there aren't many people around. As for paleo, I'll have to read more about it. I have been on something similar called ketogenic diet, which is high fat, moderate protein and low carbs. I was on this because it was the only way I could stop binging on sweets and crisps and it has kept my weight the same for about 6 months. Unfortunately I've been forced to come off it because someone figured out that it is used by bodybuilders in order to get they're BF% down to 3% before a competition with minimal muscle loss and is dangerous to do for extended periods of time. But the point is that keto used fat for energy and I never lost so I'm hesitant to try paleo. Could have been because of excess calories through eating too much fat or the fact I wasn't getting any exercise but it still makes me debate whether I want  to do it or not. Oh but at the beginning of keto I lost about 20 lbs in about a month and was all ready seeing the "snowman effect" so losing too fast on paleo makes me worry about that, and I put all that back on really quickly... So yeah, that's bad.

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Any diet works if you stick with it properly, if paleo isn't right for you primal (paleo's first cousin) may work.