2012 Survival Monkey Fatty Challenge

Seeing as I started the year 2011 weighing in at 250, and having lost 25 pounds over the 9 months out of work, I was already inclined to lose more. I am down to 215 from 225 since Mid-December. Being out of work, been spending an exorbitant amount of time working out of doors with animals and preparations, compared to when I was a desk jockey. Stamina has increased markedly, and feeling healthier than ever. My goal is 180#, but I will settle for a comfortable 190-200. I'm in.

 

I'll jump in on this too. 6' even, starting at around 193. My goal is be comfortably sitting at about 170-175 most of the year, down to 165 for a couple special events each year.

I'm an endurance athlete. I race triathlons, run marathons, and hope to start racing in open water swims and paddle-boarding. I love long distance anything ... I put a few too many pounds on these last several months as I finished healing from an accident.

My nutrition is primarily "primal". I eat animals, plants, fruits, veggies, nuts, and of course beer. I stay away from processed stuff, not 100% of the time, but most of the time. I tend to have a fairly slow metabolism and lose weight comfortable at about 1700-1800 calories per day, not including training nutrition. I call this out separately because when I run for three hours at a time, I need to eat calories and they need to burn fast. This isn't in keeping with paleo/primal nutrition philosophy, but its what works best for my body. I won't bother elaborating on my nutritional usage ratios, etc. I have figured it all out overtime and it works for me. If anyone is interested, let me know and I would be happy elaborate though.

My caloric deficit comes from nutrition primarily and then exercise. I have structured exercise 6 days a week M-Sa. Sunday is a day of rest and worship, of course. I typically have short workouts of running or swimming m-f, with a long session of running or biking on Saturdays. I vary it all with different levels of intensity ranging from "barely break a sweat" to "did I just pass out"?

I don't do a lot of strength training. I have a couple metrics that I do use though. I must always be strong enough to squat each family member. I must also be able to EASILY fireman carry each one. I am still working on these, but 100 consecutive pushups, 50 consecutive pull ups, and 100 consecutive bodyweight squats.

Thats about it for now. I have studied a lot about nutrition over the years. I'd be happy to discuss/advise anyone that is looking for help in that. I can also coach you up on building cardio capacity. I'm probably not the best coach for strength training though.

 

Over the past few years I’ve lost about 50 pounds, the first 35 was mainly exercising 1 hr – 1:45 hrs 5-6 days a week AND watching calories. The second part I started not too long ago is mainly watching the carbs and sugar, no exercise due to letting injuries heal. I still need to lose about 30-50 pounds depending on how much lean mass I keep.

From my experience the best thing you can do is eat low carb and exercise regularly, I’ve lost weight just eating low carb and not much exercise and I am about to add regular exercise back in so the results will be even better.

I started out around 20-30 carbs a day doing a Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD), basically it is just a low carb diet, now I keep it around 60 carbs a day. I can still eat plenty of veggies and other food items I enjoy. The CKD is good for maintaining and gaining muscle mass while losing fat and eating low carb, a lot of weight lifters and fighters use the diet. One thing I like is I can still eat whatever I want once every 7-10 days, you have to be careful with a carb up though, make sure you get some exercise before and after.


Forum with a lot of info: Dieting / Supplement Discussion - Sherdog Mixed Martial Arts Forums


Topic with massive amount of replies but a LOT of good information and will get you on the right track if you want to try it: Zero Carb= Fantastic Results but Questions Remain - Sherdog Mixed Martial Arts Forums

Part 2 to above topic: The Next Low Carb Nutrition Thread - Sherdog Mixed Martial Arts Forums

A recipe thread: The Official LOW-CARB Recipe Thread: - Sherdog Mixed Martial Arts Forums

At any rate I would highly suggest cutting out most sugar and watching the overall carb intake. Even if you just limit it to 100 or 125 carbs a day although it won’t be as affective.

Having a smart phone with a food tracker (Tap N Track) has helped me tremendously to keep on top of my calories so if you have a smart phone I would use a good app. You definitely want to keep track of all calories, fat, carbs, and protein even if you have to write it down on paper, it is a pain after a while but necessary.

Look up a Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculator, they aren’t really super accurate but will give a you a idea of how many calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight, make sure you check as you lose weight because the amount you can eat will go down as the pounds go down, and then subtract about 1,000 calories from that, so if you need to eat 2800 calories to maintain your current weight then try to keep your daily calories around 1800, 500 calories a day equal 1 pound of weight loss. You don’t really want to lose more than 2 pounds a week of fat, not including dooky and water weight from reducing carb intake. Carbs will make you gain a massive amount of water, I usually go up 6 – 8 pounds in just a day and a half of carbing up but it’s all water and starts coming off as soon as I cut back the carbs, it can also give the illusion of losing a lot of weight when you first start a low carb diet.

For exercising I mainly focus on fast paced walking/run interval, when it’s cold though I am going to use a rower and the Power 90 DVD’s, heavy/reflex/speed bag work, tennis when warm, and weight lifting. I am trying to get where I can run more but I hate running, I usually do interval running for a few minutes at a time when I walk.

Be disciplined and don’t let yourself cheat unless it is a planned cheat and you do really well before hand, when you do cheat or carb up make sure you get in some high intensity exercising the same day. IMO it is very important to still be able to enjoy whatever I want every now and then so the CKD diet fits well, although technically even on the CKD you need to eat certain foods when carbing up, I don't and just eat whatever I am in the mood for and still lose weight so it works for me, but I don't really pig out big time either and if I'm not hungry I don't eat a snack.


It takes time to lose a lot of weight, a lot harder than putting it on for sure but keep with it and it will come off.

Another thing that helped a lot is cutting down on portion size, not including carb up days, lol. 90% of the time I eat an ounce of nuts for breakfast or a cheese stick and amazingly it holds me off well until lunch, for dinner I eat a little more like 9 ounces of meat, a cup or two of veggies and maybe a small piece of bread as long as it fits the carb limit..

Make sure you take a good multi vitamin, should do this with any diet or regular eating habits anyways. It's pretty much impossible to eat all the nutrients you get in a multi, even if you pee out a percentage of it you still absorb a good amount of vitamins.


The trick to it, to any diet, is finding the foods you can still eat and like to eat within the limits of the diet and nutrient limits, for example I really like pork, chicken, steak, eggs, broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, green beans, and celery and I can eat all of these in moderation without breaking my carb limit.

 

Before I took up the long distance endurance sports, I lifted and found a lot of success with the CKD as mentioned above. For me, though everyones' opinion will vary, I couldn't sustain it for very long.

 

Keep it up Quig congratulations. I could afford to lose 20-25 lbs.

 

1 lb off here... ( but i could drop an extra 3 lbs in no time if i dropped my EDC...)

 

I'm joining in late, but I'm in!

I lost 6 lbs in 2011 by almost entirely giving up soda pop and leaving the spoonful of sugar out of each of my daily 4 cups of coffee. (yeah I'll work on that too).

I'm 190 now with a goal of getting back under 175. So palnning to drop 15 pounds in 2012. Portion control is my plan. I simply do not have a willingness to avoid sweets entirely, but I CAN have one cookie instead fo six............

Same goes for alcohol. I will have 1 glass of wine instead of 2 or 3. Taht's my plan anyway.

Looking forward to sharing success with all of you. Keep up teh good work! You are inspriring to me.

 

I gained four pounds in the past month.

 

u can do it

u can do it Bruce - those double zeroes make a big difference, at least they did in my head!

 

Don't worry BT i have your back.... get the behind me chocolate... and quit pushing....

 

I'm in!

I was skinny all my life because I was a long distance runner, running all over the mountains, up and down the canyons exploring and taking pictures of wildlife. That ended once I blew my left knee out from a work related injury.

Now after 5 surgeries on my left knee, I have bone spurs on the back of my patella, bone to bone lesion on the medial femoral condyle, and osteo arthritis in the joint from all the wear and tear in my knee joint.

This limits me to a very low impact style workout since my knee hurts 24/7/365 until I can get some kind of knee replacement done on it.

I topped out at 225 lbs and never got past it, but I'm sitting at 210 now. I need to get back down to my Army boot camp weight of 145.

I will be using my exercise stationary bike to start for my cardio workout to burn the calories and tone muscles back up. I do have the P90X workout and if my knee will take the stress of it, I will be doing it after a few weeks on the bike.

 

They best way to pass time on the elliptical is skip the digital coach and bring your own music. The time will go faster and your mind can wonder where you want it to. Make a playlist and mix it up with fast and slow.

 

I know what you mean. I travel out of town with my wife for business a few days a few times a month and we always eat out at nice places. One thing that can help is make sure you reeeaally watch what you eat leading up to the travel time, while traveling try to eat super light for breakfast and lunch and then a normal dinner, still have to watch it for dinner but at least you have more freedom to eat out and enjoy yourself. If I am gone for more than a night or two I try to make sure I only go over my calorie intake maybe 2 out of 4 days.

Also make sure to do about 30 minutes of high intensity exercise to help offset eating more for dinner. I like using the gym and indoor pool at the hotel or go for a high pace walk if the scenery and temps are good. A recent trip I walked about an hour a day on the beach and it helped a lot.

It helps to find activities you can do in your free time, especially if it burns calories and keeps your mind off food.

I agree or even a Iphone or Ipad with videos helps a lot to keep you occupied. Nothing worse than a treadmill with no music or video.

 

I've found a new way to enspire joggers... see my granddaughter has made a pet of one of the local skunks... that is to say when she see's it she calls out to the little stinker and I pick her up and run for the house...

funny how's he's never there when I got my 10/22 handy... ya think them critters is started to talk or somesuch...

BTW I'm down to 295... I still got another 45 to go ...

 

56 pounds since September. Still going.