AF Biggest Loser/Fitness Challenge-May 3 to Whenever We're Not Fat Anymore

[SaStrike]

Growing up I was always very athletic. Good at pushups pullups sprints etc.

But I've always struggled with cardio even though I'm 68.5kg and 180cm

Turns out because of my asthma my airways are much narrower than the average human. And it's not curable. RIP.

[Jackalope]

My wife is down 42 lbs, most of it in the last 9 weeks.  It hasn't been easy at all for her but it's getting better.

[emjay]

I just seem to keep putting it on now ; my appetite is pretty insatiable post quitting smoking... mainly for stuff like cereal, or other wet food. I suppose I could start drinking Pepsi again; I quit that before I quit the smoking, but what it did have in its favour is that, like smoking, it is an appetite suppressant. So I could just see it as the lesser of two evils and go back to it... it was, after all, very easy to give up in the first place... so stopping that if needed is not a big problem.

[Shell B]

I was insatiable too. It goes away. Try eating servings of whole grain and vegetables. You'll be too gassy and full to gorge on other stuff. Whole grains are particularly filling.

[Jackalope]

@emjay

4 or 5 small meals a day, 1/4 or 1/5 of your daily kcal goal. Eat breakfast, first thing in the morning. One egg boiled or cooked with cooking spray and a piece of whole grain toast is plenty, or something else that has a balance of macronutrients.

Avoid excess sodium and sugar. Soda and juice as well. Protein is filling and is better fuel for losing weight than carbohydrates. Snack on raw vegetables. Make sure you get sufficient fiber.

You get over the hunger eventually as your stomach shrinks. Most of the time I eat less than half the calories than I did at my heaviest and I get hungry but it's no big deal when I've been actively dieting.

You can do this.

[Joods]

Trying to stick to a good diet while on vacation is hard, but I'm doing it. My legs are also getting a great workout while swimming in the ocean.

[Mystical]

I just lost 15lbs in rehab hospital doing 3hrs physical therapy a day and eating small portion hospital food meals (for my gal bladder).

Does that make me a biggest loser? 😂

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@emjay

4 or 5 small meals a day, 1/4 or 1/5 of your daily kcal goal.  Eat breakfast, first thing in the morning.  One egg boiled or cooked with cooking spray and a piece of whole grain toast is plenty, or something else that has a balance of macronutrients.

Avoid excess sodium and sugar.   Soda and juice as well. Protein is filling and is better fuel for losing weight than carbohydrates.  Snack on raw vegetables.  Make sure you get sufficient fiber.

You get over the hunger eventually as your stomach shrinks.  Most of the time I eat less than half the calories than I did at my heaviest and I get hungry but it's no big deal when I've been actively dieting.

You can do this.

All solid advice. I just wanted to add that I just found out that it takes more calories to digest cold liquids vs hot! Weird huh? 

Also do you have any good snack tips for if someone gets the "munchies"?

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I just seem to keep putting it on now ; my appetite is pretty insatiable post quitting smoking... mainly for stuff like cereal, or other wet food. I suppose I could start drinking Pepsi again; I quit that before I quit the smoking, but what it did have in its favour is that, like smoking, it is an appetite suppressant. So I could just see it as the lesser of two evils and go back to it... it was, after all, very easy to give up in the first place... so stopping that if needed is not a big problem.

Aww way to go emjay! Last I heard from you, you had JUst quit! I'm proud of you for succeeding! 

Luckily cigarettes taste like shit after you've quit so long. Don't even bother, should you get triggered enough to want one. Waste of $5, that! Instead, get some fresh fruit from the produce fridge. It's just as fulfilling! Or cashews? Nuts? I like to challenge myself to see how long I can suck on a nut before I crunch it. 
I know, I'm weird.

Lastly, with regards to Pepsi.. is there no way for you to get one of those machines that makes the carbonation, and you add your own flavoring to it? Mixing flavors up helps me get massive amounts of water down. If I had a soda machine that would be awesome! And it's certainly better than Pepsi, is what I'm getting at.

[emjay]

@emjay

4 or 5 small meals a day, 1/4 or 1/5 of your daily kcal goal.  Eat breakfast, first thing in the morning.  One egg boiled or cooked with cooking spray and a piece of whole grain toast is plenty, or something else that has a balance of macronutrients.

Avoid excess sodium and sugar.   Soda and juice as well. Protein is filling and is better fuel for losing weight than carbohydrates.  Snack on raw vegetables.  Make sure you get sufficient fiber.

You get over the hunger eventually as your stomach shrinks.  Most of the time I eat less than half the calories than I did at my heaviest and I get hungry but it's no big deal when I've been actively dieting.

You can do this.

Thanks CD (sorry, you'll always be CD to me cos there's enough cats, kitties, and pussies around here )

I've just worked out my "Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)" according to online formulas... the rate I burn calories doing nothing and it rounds up to 1888 kcal. And my daily workout of 20 minutes on the exercise bike... which I hope will be a much longer workout in the future... reports on the console about 150kcal used at the end of it, but it's stated as approximate (as opposed to individually tailored). And then on top of that, whatever other activity I do in a day (which is not much I have to admit)... that means if I want to lose weight I think I should aim for less than 1888+150=2038 kcal to be on the safe side.

So say roughly 2000 kcal is the maximum... and ideally less than that. So 2000 divides easily by four or five, so as per your advice I could either have four meals of <500 calories, (I'll just use the word calories interchangeably with kcal even though it probably doesn't mean the same thing, but it's annoying me having to avoid the word ), or five meals of <400 calories. I certainly like the idea of snacks... as in lots of small meals as opposed to fewer large meals... since that's where my cravings are taking me... so probably the five meals thing would be best.

At the moment I'm generally just having either a bowl of scrambled egg or some cereal in the morning, but I do have to eat it... whether I like it or not... because I have to have food with the Champix pills I take... that enforced breakfast is part of my routine now (ie I don't usually eat breakfast so this is good in that respect). Problem is, cereal has become my favourite meal since quitting... for energy, a treat, and as a drink, but my comfortable portions are pretty large; for an experiment I tried measuring out what the box considered a portion (since I wanted to be able to calorie count), 40g of cereal (Shreddies) in 125ml of semi-skimmed milk, and when I poured that out, I couldn't believe how small it looked as a portion... what I considered normal portions would be three or four times that big. So since each one of those was 206 calories it means my previous portions were in the range of 600-800 calories each... which doesn't intuitively seem right to me but can't argue with the stats. So if I was having two or three big bowls of cereal a day, on top of other things, since quitting, I'd guess that that's where most of the weight gain has come from. I always thought of Shreddies as pretty healthy, but they're probably not, and since I'm aware of all this now, I can be more vigilant about how I eat them. Weetabix would probably be a better choice... certainly not as sweet... 206 calories for two 'wheat biscuits' and I would usually have three... so 309 I guess... but no means of overindulging on them, since I don't think I could ever manage more than three Weetabix at a time.

So Weetabix or these Ryvita Rye Crispbreads that I've got myself lumbered with should cover the fibre. I already snack on vegetables anyway; cucumber and sprouts, because they're wet (and they taste nice imo) and I always feel kind of thirsty. I used to have them almost after every fag, as part of the routine, so now that's obviously gone I need to find some other way of getting into routinely eating them. Drinks-wise I don't drink soda any more like I used to... I used to drink pretty much nothing but Pepsi Max... but in the end realised that was bad for me, so quit it. Now I just have the odd sip every now and then, and have for drinks generally flavoured water (as in spring water with a 'hint' of flavour preferably) or normal juice. As for sugar... yeah, that's a problem too, which I need to cut down on. For instance, one big problem is I eat a lot of mints... a few years ago I found that I actually needed them to help me breathe, so I would actually have a panic attack if I went out somewhere and didn't have some mints with me. So they became a kind of medicine to me, to eat after a fag, so much so that they reside in my medicine cabinet alongside all the real medicines and I make I sure I don't run out and get anxious if I do. And even after quitting, they still have that medicinal effect for me; there's just something (still) not right in my throat but they help with it. But the problem is, they're almost 100% sugar and about 165 kcal a roll... so I'm sure the calories from them mount up over the day as well. As well as other sweet treats... Ben and Jerry's being the worst

But at the end of the day, I just have to get hungry right? That's kind of what my dad said as well... that for every meal he leaves himself at least a little bit hungry (variable depending on whether he's looking to maintain or lose weight). Eating one of those small portions of cereal leaves me hungry like that... but I did find that it was manageable and soon forgotten, so if I can make that a routine and be mindful about it, I should hopefully be okay Thanks for the advice

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I just seem to keep putting it on now ; my appetite is pretty insatiable post quitting smoking... mainly for stuff like cereal, or other wet food. I suppose I could start drinking Pepsi again; I quit that before I quit the smoking, but what it did have in its favour is that, like smoking, it is an appetite suppressant. So I could just see it as the lesser of two evils and go back to it... it was, after all, very easy to give up in the first place... so stopping that if needed is not a big problem.

Aww way to go emjay! Last I heard from you, you had JUst quit! I'm proud of you for succeeding! 

Luckily cigarettes taste like shit after you've quit so long. Don't even bother, should you get triggered enough to want one. Waste of $5, that! Instead, get some fresh fruit from the produce fridge. It's just as fulfilling! Or cashews? Nuts? I like to challenge myself to see how long I can suck on a nut before I crunch it. 
I know, I'm weird.

Lastly, with regards to Pepsi.. is there no way for you to get one of those machines that makes the carbonation, and you add your own flavoring to it? Mixing flavors up helps me get massive amounts of water down. If I had a soda machine that would be awesome! And it's certainly better than Pepsi, is what I'm getting at.

Thanks Luckie It's funny though... I don't really feel like I can comfortably say 'I've quit smoking' because it all comes down to this drug, Champix. In other words without it I don't think I could have done this in a million years, so though I'm confident I'll be off the fags for the duration of taking this drug... at least fouteen weeks... what happens after that, I don't know. But clearly this drug doesn't affect my appetite the same way as smoking did (ie it's not an appetite suppressant) so hopefully it's sufficiently different from nicotine, to not cause any major problems when it comes time to come off them. Part of me just wants to come off them now... and get it over with... but the doctors seem to think it's best to do the whole course with 'psychological support' (which I've yet to see) with triggers etc... which are barely an issue at the moment. So I really have no idea what to expect when coming off this drug, but whatever happens at least I can enjoy at least fourteen weeks of smoke-freeness, and if there is a problem coming off them, they're perfectly happy to prescribe another course of them or a reduced dosage to wean me off them.

Not nuts I'm afraid... allergic... and it'll be a while before I see fruit as fulfilling, but I'll aim for it (Little steps... you can't expect to turn me into a tree-hugger/veggie-lover overnight )

I think it's the caffeine... probably... that has the appetite suppressant effect... but maybe the carbonated water has an effect too... I don't know. I think my sister used to have a machine like what you describe when she was a kid... it's an idea... something to research at least

[Shell B]

Emjay, I just remembered another trick I used-sugar free hard candy. You can't eat when you're sucking on candy.

[Jackalope]

I stopped carb loading a day too soon, I think. I went back to my low carb diet yesterday and I guess my body decided it didn't need all that water after all.

I think I'm OK though. In any case, I doubt I can do much in the next 17 hours except eat shitty food. I'm gonna feel a lot less anxiety about this after tomorrow afternoon.

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My wife had frequent vomiting up until maybe three weeks ago. She couldn't keep her tiny dinner down tonight. Rotini Bolognese. All it takes is one too many bites, having water and food at the same time, too rich of food, who the fuck knows what else. It's miserable for her, but at least it's less frequent.

She's hitting new lows all the time, nearly every day since she's gone back to work.