Needing general advice.

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ethanclafferty
ethanclafferty Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
Well, I guess I'm going to get right to it. For pretty much all of my life I've had a very poor lifestyle. Let's just say my family was never privileged and money was always hard to come by. Our harsh living conditions took its toll on me and eating was how I coped with things. Eating healthy is hard to do when you're living off of food stamps. Cheap, unhealthy food was all we could afford. By the time I was 12 I was 200lbs+. I've peaked at around 280 lbs and hit a breaking point. I hate the body I have and I hate that I let myself get to this point. I'm just wanting to lose all this fat. I'm 5'11 and currently around 260 lbs. I have access to a home gym and I'm thinking about purchasing one of the Beachbody programs. Any and all advice is welcome and greatly appreciated. What would be the best and fastest way for me to lose weight?

Replies

  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    You lose weight in the kitchen - so get your calorie allowance from MFP and weigh and log all your food and eat to that limit

    BUT, include 50-75% of the calories you earn from exercise

    Walk more - generally up your activity level, not just purposeful exercise

    Use your home gym - excellent to do progressive weigh training
    - this is a great beginner's bodyweight programme: http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2009/12/09/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/

    - this is a great progressive weights programme:
    - http://stronglifts.com/5x5/

    there are more out there - but they're good starting points

    but the most important advice is to weigh and log - work out which foods you love and how to incorporate them in your eating at the right proportions. Remember you can't out-exercise a bad diet, there are no good or bad foods and you've got this!
  • SergeantSausage
    SergeantSausage Posts: 1,673 Member
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    It ain't expensive to eat healthy ... and "healthy" eating has nothing to do with losing weight.

    Quit making excuses,Bro, and get started doing what you know you need to do. Nobody cares about your excuses, right?
  • jsobole
    jsobole Posts: 139 Member
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    We can help you with best - but stop thinking about FAST. Slow and steady wins this race. It's about more than just losing weight - it's about getting healthy and doing it in a way you can maintain for the rest of your life!

    It's 80% diet, 20% exercise - so start there. Focus on your diet and start moving more. Don't try to start out doing too much all at once. Feel free to add me as a friend for motivation! :)
  • terbusha
    terbusha Posts: 1,483 Member
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    Consistency to a nutrition plan (at a moderate calorie deficit) and intense exercise is what will get you to your goal. What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. If you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~2200 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few weeks, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.

    I think that the Beachbody programs work great when you combine them with a good nutrition plan. I dropped 64 lbs with P90X in ~10 months. Figure out your plan, and stick to it.
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
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    Hey Ethan- This is offbeat advice but pay attention to your self-talk. In your post above, look at all the negativity- "hate", "very poor", "bad", "harsh", etc. You can limit your own success by saddling yourself with a disabling story. Consider stopping the blaming and hating and viewing yourself and your health in a positive perspective. Take pleasure in all the things your body CAN do and and all the options you have now.

    Re. Beachbody... Video workouts can be terrific but that company has some really lousy, manipulative business practices and terrible prices.
  • maillemaker
    maillemaker Posts: 1,253 Member
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    Boils down to calories.

    This.

    I wouldn't worry so much about the exercise. The 80%-20% mentioned above is good but if you can only tackle one thing at a time focus on calories first. It is far easier to not eat 350 calories a day than to burn off 350 calories a day.

    "Junk food" is only important to avoid in that "junk food" tends to be calorie dense so it is trivial to over-consume calories by eating what seams like only small portions of it. Other than that there is nothing inherently unhealthy about "junk food". You can lose weight eating Twinkies and in fact it has been done.

    Log your food here diligently so that you know your caloric intake. If hunger is a problem you can try to mitigate it with higher protein intake or see a doctor for appetite suppressants.
  • rollingeyes
    rollingeyes Posts: 10
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    Hi Ethan. Losing weight is a bit of both physical and mental condition. First you have to deal with your emotions. The faster you will go the more damage you will take if we talk about longevity. You gained this weight in your whole life, so just be easy with it and give it a few months. With proper diet and exercise it is really possible. I have seen people reducing from 300lbs+ to around 200lbs.

    I have a great resource for you to read out...

    http://allrounderfitness.com/free-guide

    This guide will walk you through all steps in detail that you need to take to begin your journey. If you need more information or motivation feel free to message me or send me a friend request.
  • Dustinsteven22
    Dustinsteven22 Posts: 280 Member
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    Congrats on your decision! I recently finished P90X and I will be starting Body Beast in a few weeks. I will be hosting a fitness accountability group which starts on March 23rd. You are more than welcome to join us.
  • esjones12
    esjones12 Posts: 1,363 Member
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    Start counting calories and eating at a deficit.

    I reached the "breaking" point as you described it 2.5 years ago. I was 228 pounds at 5'8. I started working with a trainer (BeachBody programs will be awesome if you can't afford one), learned all about nutrition and how to count calories and what macros are and this and that. Nutrition and calories really are what weight loss is all about. I made slow and steady changes in my life and am now at 188 pounds. Sure it wasn't fast, but I didn't yo-yo, and it's been a steady downward trend. I'm in shape and I am strong. My life has changed dramatically and I've even started to love my body even though it has some fat still left on it. You have to decide that you are doing this for you and not accepting any more excuses. And then DO IT. If you fall down, get back up.

    Best of luck!

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