What's your weight loss story?

Some inspiring stories in here, Well done to all who have battled through it and came out on top.

My story started years ago however the first chapter of this book started last week.
Seems I have overcome the depression I was in (Well I hope so).

Now it is time to get all my thoughts, goals and stats documented in the first stage in my quest to shed 50 pounds or 23 kilos if I am being European J
Almost 3weeks ago, after videoing my golf swing and realising just how big and fat I have got, I decided enough was enough and I HAVE to do something about my weight.
I am 43 years old and am 5’9” (174cm).
My starting weight on 25^th May was 102.1Kg.
So far I have cut out all the bad stuff I was eating like biscuits, cake, butter, fries etc etc, and for the last 3 weeks have been eating good stuff as 6 small meals a day. I have not been hungry once yet despite cutting my calorie intake in half to around 2100 per day.
I  joined my local gym two weeks ago and have done 2 x 45 minutes of swimming and 4x 45 minutes of my proposed cardio plan (15mins treadmill at a fast walk on incline with HR@145-150, followed by 15mins on the cross trainer HR@145-150 finishing with the Concept II Rower for 15mins at a ‘brisk’ pace. I did almost 2700 meters in 15mins. I was very tired after but felt great at the same time. I plan on doing 2-3 45 min sessions before moving on to some HIIT when my fitness levels are better.

After a week of carefully monitoring my eating habits using fitday.com and making some substantial changes to what I eat
I was weighed at the gym on the 1st june and had my body fat measured with two systems, one was some Tanita scales that recorded BF at 27.9%. The other machine was a Bodystat 1500 where I had electrodes put on my right foot and on my right hand and told to lie on the floor. I have shown the results below :-
FAT = 31.6%
FAT WEIGHT = 5st 0.9lb
LEAN = 68.4%
LEAN WEIGHT = 10st 13.6lb
TOTAL BODY WEIGHT = 16st 0.6lb  (different to my scales and with clothes on)
WATER = 47.9%
TOTAL BODY WATER = 48.8%
METABOLIC RATE AT REST (EST) = 2009 kcal
AVERAGE ENERGY REQ (EST) = 3214 kcal
There is a big difference in the readings of the two machines (27.9 & 31.6%) Since then I now have a set of accu measure BF calipers.
My first reading on 4th June was 26.32% (24mm measurement just above my hip bone)
My second reading on 8th June was 25.3% (22mm) That seems like a lot of difference, but I feel confident in my measuring, I take three readings and then average it only if two of the three readings are the same.
Did my first weights workout on 2nd June…..boy did I ache after. I think I might have overdone the squats a bit as stairs were very unpleasant for a few days :-0
I went to the driving range in the lunchtime and hit 60 balls. I think having stiff legs helped my swing as I hit some great shots!
Shown below are the details of my first workout:-
Warm Up                                           10 minutes on Treadmill (HR=140ish)
Leg Extensions (machine)              2x12 @ 22.5kg (a bit light I think)
Dumbbell Squats                              2x15 @ 8kg each dumbbell (they were tough)
Hamstring Curls                               I tried this on the stupid kinesis system RUBBISH need to find an
                                                            Alternative exercise using dumbbells.
Lat Pull Down (machine)                 2x10 @ 27.5kg
Incline Dumbbell Press                   2x12 @ 8kg each dumbbell
Flat Dumbbell Press                         2x12 @ 8kg each dumbbell
Seated Dumbbell Military Press    2x10 @ 6kg each dumbbell
Dumbbell Side lateral Raise           2x10 @ 4kg each dumbbell
Seated Dumbbell Curl                     2x10 @ 6kg each dumbbell
Dumbbell Triceps Extensions        2x10 @ 6kg each dumbbell
Calf Raises (using Leg press)         2x15 @ 40kg
Crunches (machine)                        2x20 @ 22.5kg
CORE
Curl Ups                                             1x10 @ 3 seconds (very tough)
Side Bridge                                        2x10 seconds each side
Bird Dog                                            10x 5 seconds each side
Finished with some gentle stretching all in all took about an hour J
 
Jumped on the scales on 6th June in the morning, and was pleased to find that my weight has fallen below 100kg.
my weight for 06/06/09 was 99.5kg.
I did three weights sessions in the first week, the first almost killed me, but the second and third were tough but I recovered much quicker.
The gym I joined is a bit lacking on equipment, but I found out that they have another four gyms in the area and one of them is much better equiped with squat racks, pull up and dip bars and loads more free weights. The good thing is that I can go to any of the five gyms as part of my membership plan.
The better equiped gym is about 10 miles from my home, but is on my way to my workplace, so for my weights sessions I will now be using the gym in Yate.
Last week, I visited one of my clients at his studio. I have always known he was very fit, but never realised that he is the same age as me.
We were talking about my weight loss asperations and Steve seemed to really know his stuff. It turns out that he has a degree in sports nutrition !!!!!
So, for the last week I have been on a 2x a day 30mg/200mg/50mg ECA stack. I can feel the extra body heat sometimes and they certainly give me a boost in the workout (I sweat loads more though). I am drinking loads of water, but do find that I pee a lot now.
After almost 3 weeks of eating correctly I have found that I can only eat small portions, but still feel as if I have eaten enough. Before I was eating a huge plate of food.
Even though it has only been almost 3 weeks of sensible eating and 2 weeks of structured exercise, I can feel a difference in my body and my energy levels.
Steve suggested that I might want to try taking some ZMA at night to aid recovery and a deeper sleep (I am a very light sleeper). I took my first dose last night, it did seem to make me dream some crazy stuff (not as bad as in amsterdam though).
Last weekend I took my wife to the local cycle shop and she is now the proud owner of a Specialized Hybrid Bicycle. Maybe now we will get to spend some exercise time together ;)
I am going to stick with the complete body workout plan for another couple of weeks then I think I will go up to the 3 day split routine.
Tomorrow is BF% and body measurement day. It will be interesting to see what has happened. I can feel a difference already.
I am a bit confused with all the different abs exercises at the moment I have been doing curl ups, side planks and bird dogs + machine crunches. I think I am ready to try something a bit more challenging , so today after my weights session I did some stuff with a swiss ball, they are not as easy to use as I thought but it seemed to work my feeble little abs pretty well.
I know that it's going to be tough to lose 50Lbs but so far I am almost 20% of the way there and I am pleased so far, I do know that the first chunk of weight falls off quite easily and it will get harder :D
This morning my weight was 98.2 Kg, so far I have lost over 8 pounds. I can really feel a difference and my jeans are definatley looser.
I see that there are a few people on here from brizzle, I live in Hanham and am brizzle born and bred :-)
'ow bis me babber
Cheers for now
Deaks
 
              
                                                           
 

Hi Deaks and welcome to MT,

Or should I say, "How biz thee moi babbers?"  hehe!  Hanham is 5 mins up the road from me, nice to have a local on here  

Have you thought about starting a Progress Journal on here maybe?

Well done on the weight loss so far!

Fiona  

RedHotF


Hi Deaks and welcome to MT,

Or should I say, "How biz thee moi babbers?" 
Fiona  

Can I get an an English translation of that ??
JK *wink*

HW (Matt)

Howards Way

RedHotF


Hi Deaks and welcome to MT,

Or should I say, "How biz thee moi babbers?" 
Fiona  

Can I get an an English translation of that ??
JK *wink*

HW (Matt)

"How are you my dear?"

RedHotF

Howards Way

RedHotF


Hi Deaks and welcome to MT,

Or should I say, "How biz thee moi babbers?" 
Fiona  

Can I get an an English translation of that ??
JK *wink*

HW (Matt)

"How are you my dear?"

I am fine (low carb day but I will manage), oh that was the translation !! LOLOLOLOLOLzzzzzzzzz *wink*

HW (Matt)

I don't post much, but I do lurk quite a bit- find these threads very inspirational.


I used to work out all the time after being a big (read overweight) child. 
I started working out when I was 30-ish, got down as low as 90kg with 17% bf.
It took me about 2 years to do it but when I did I looked like this:




Then I blew out my rotator cuff which meant I stopped training and a slow decline over about another 2 years.
Crap food, major depression and 6 beers a night and I ended up like this:




That is me around 135kg- I am not exactly sure- I stopped counting.

So... about 18 months ago I started training again.
Mostly cardio as I still have a bit of a shoulder problem.

Given I couldn't work out with heavy weights I started with a personal trainer working around the problem.
I still go and see him once a week to work on things, but I train 6 days a week at the moment- mostly HIIT
and some weights (finally) and have a strict diet. The booze was the hard thing to drop.

I've dropped to 104kg and now on a 3 month cut to get down to 95-98kg which I think is achievable.

I still battle with depression, but the HIIT really helps with that.
I did the BUPA 10k run this year (did it in 1hr 7 mins) and signed up for a 1/2 marathon in September.

My end goal out of all of this is to drop to 10% bf. I'm 37 now, think it is achievable as long as i stay out of the pub and stick with the program.
At the moment I look like this:




Still more work to do, but I am getting there.

Great work  ^^^^   well done

RedHotF


Great work  ^^^^   well done

2'nd that motion.

HW

Thanks for the words of encouragement Fiona :-)
 
I will start a journal later tonight. I started documenting project 'New Deaks'  in Word once I decided I needed to do something about my weight.
I even took some pictures of myself at the beginning (I hate them).
 
My jeans keep falling down now. I dug out some trousers that I haven't been able to wear for the last 4 years and bugger me they fit, a little bit tight but not much.
 
Weights day tomorrow :-)
 
next week I am in France working Mon-Wed, Hopefully I can get a workout in on monday before I fly (from Brizzle airport of course).
The next weights session I can do will be thursday morning.
 
I guess I should be putting all these ramblings down in my Journal. Going out for dinner tonight as it was our 21st wedding aniversary yesterday.
 
Deaks

Yes get a journal going, will be good!

Mine began 11th May 2009 (a week or so after the shape up after i'd been ill).  Have been following keto diet and with the assistance of TIO and All4n, have managed in 7 weeks to shed 28lbs of weight with just under 4 weeks left before my hols.

Have gone from the one on the right, to the one on the left (upload messed up put them wrong way around!).  Well chuffed atm!

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actually my aim was to become fat and iam now under weight
presently my height is 6foots and my weight  55 kgs and dont know why iam still under age and age is 19 ?
can any one tell me the reason ?

You aren't eating enough if you aren't putting on weight.  That simple.

Hey guys, my first post! and i hope i get a nice welcome to the site :)

And here is my story....

Being in school at the age of 18 is always a grueling time, especially if you are overweight at 20+ stone. Even being 6ft2 didn't do justice and I always sort of denied my weight problems. Fair enough I did eat some junk food but it wasn't the amount that would justify the weight. So being around those that were regulary in the gym gave me the motivation to ask a friend to go along with me. I started by a few minutes cycling and running, usually about 4minutes on each until I was exhausted.

Next came the diet, the most important part was always to have energy and not to totally cut carbs. I would wake up, have a reasonable breakfast (bowl of cereal or porridge, jam on toast - cutting out the butter, and a piece of fruit.

Lunch was always a problem in the school canteen, the urge was ALWAYS there to have the junk food. But I knew the exercise wasn't worth the loss to eat the rubbish, so fish pasta and salad it was for almost every lunch.  I'd always have an inbetween lunch & dinner meal when I got home from school, just something light and for dinner a chicken/fish/houmous salad. I would always encourage myself to eat as much veg and fruit as possible.

Back to the training, I always knew I had a good engine (even being at 20stone) so Fat Burn was never enough, I always saught to go the step further and get my heart beat into the cardio zone, from jogging & cycling for a total of 8minutes I had managed to get upto 10 minutes on each. By this point I would have thought I had lost 1 stone.

To cut a long story short, I continued my regime for 3months and couldn't believe the success it brought. Out of nowhere I had lost 30kg, from 20stone down to just under 14!! I felt like a new person, I could run 5miles pretty swiftly as I did cardio and even my doctor said my heartbeat strength had increase dramatically.

However, then came uni and I have let it slip a bit until now. Over the 3years (4year course) I have plumped upto 16stone (100kg) and now looking to lose fat and gain muscle.

thanks for reading

ibs

Brabus - You got from 20+ stone down to 14 in 3 months, this is one hell of an achievment. So im sure you'll have no problem going from 16st back down to 14 again, just find that motivation that triggered you the first time.

Good luck bud

Hey supergaz, yeah only 3months! the first 2-3weeks had to be the hardest as it shows little return however, as soon as I had built up a reasonable amount of fitness I was able to gradually increase the duration of cardio each week.

My diet compromised of no processed food, no fried food, hardly any sugar (except that from fruit and juice and the small amounts in certain foods) and eating only when I felt hungry hungry.

But I put it all down to motivation, if you have it you can achieve whatever you want!

Also, can someone tell me how to calculate my bodyfat %

Thanks in advance

Hi folks, just found this site today and after hearing a lot of interesting stories thought i would share mine. Not many before pictures kicking about but found these. I weighed around 16st7lbs, struggled to get into 38" waist jeans and wore XL tops, biggest sizes available from the shops i used to buy clothes from! 









I wasn't always that size but had got comfortable with a girlfriend far too young settling down in our own place at 18 with a terrible diet and both put on a lot of weight!
She dumped me and I eventually decided to do something about my weight, so i started walking LOTS. 3 miles each way to work and would walk for an hour on lunch break also, making it around 9 miles per day. I was losing about a stone each month from this walking combined with a lot of salad and cutting back on what i was eating.
After 4-5 months I was down to under 12stone, wearing 30" jeans and either small or medium tops. Ive fluctuated quite a bit along the way but back dieting, doing a bit of weights and cardio 3-5 days a week. 

these are some fairly recent pics but lost a few lbs since then 













I know my story isnt as impressive as a lot of peoples on here, but thats my story and i hope it may help to inspire people in their quest for losing weight. I am now far happier than when i was a lot bigger, i can do a lot more but still have a long way to go before i would be totally happy with how i am. 

NI3K

I know my story isnt as impressive as a lot of peoples on here, but thats my story and i hope it may help to inspire people in their quest for losing weight. I am now far happier than when i was a lot bigger, i can do a lot more but still have a long way to go before i would be totally happy with how i am. 

Im sorry but im not letting you be so bloody down trodden on what is a spectacular transformation and a testament to some hard ass work.

Its a very impressive and an achievement in itself which speaks volumes, to which i say well done and you as anyone else here who has made a positive change to their lives are a inspiration to others out there.