TwelveSticks Member

All good advice above. I'd summarize mine as: Don't set a goal of 80lbs in 8 months. You probably won't achieve it, no matter how hard you try. I lost 74lbs in 9 months, and I can't imagine it coming off any faster. Just set a goal of losing 80 lbs as soon as it happens. Ditch the sweat suit. Do what exercise you can -…

Self defense classes are highly recommended for everyone, if only because you need confidence and most of all, awareness in any dangerous situation. A lot of the time, being aggressive and loud will be enough to make an attacker consider you too much trouble. I recommend sticks - try to find a class that will teach you how…

Oh, no way I can run without music on - I hate to hear my own breathing. I become obsessed with it and end up getting out of breath - something which never happens when I can't hear it!

I do have an HRM, but it's a pain in the bum to use for running because it syncs with my iPhone and requires a little dongle to be connected to the phone - which then means it won't fit in the little arm strap that I use when running! I must find a way to get around this so that I can try out an HRM monitored run…

I'm intrigued... What do you mean by gross calories and net calories?

All the people saying "find something you like", though it is undoubtedly good advice, are somewhat missing the point if the OP doesn't like anything! However, all is not lost - you can certainly get to like exercise if you just keep at it. When I started exercising it was walking - I'd walk 20 minutes at a time, maybe 3…

I started c25k in June. Prior to that, I had run more than 100 yards maybe twice in the last 35 years, so in no way was I a 'runner'! I found c25k to be pretty easy - it just eases you through the increases in distance etc. A few weeks ago I ran my first 'official' 5k race and next weekend I will be doing my first…

I burned exactly 1000 in 61.25 minutes just yesterday (according to my HRM & GPS tracker). Does that count? That was on a 10k run. Not that I'd eat all those back! I only eat back 2/3rds of the declared burns anyway, and even then only up to a maximum of one decent meal (so, maybe 5-600 calories).

A good way to graduate to proper push-ups, if you want to, is to start with inclined ones and work your way down - stairs are an excellent way to achieve this. Start with using, say the 3rd or 4th step for your hands, your feet on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Make sure you can do at least 10 push-ups in that…

Yep - just keep running until you reach the 3.1 mile mark - don't worry about the pace. Then, once you've convinced yourself that you can run 5k (and if you can run 3k, you can run 5k), then just work on doing it again and again, running it a little bit faster each time...

Lol! Any single men reading this thread will be even more afraid of commitment than they already were! (not that this is a uniquely female phenomenon, of course...)

It's mental, one way or the other. I'm in the "treadmill is harder" camp. Outside, I run at a comfortable pace of about 11 kmh and I can easily cover 8-10km without a problem. whereas on my treadmill, I don't feel comfortable at more than 9 kmh and am fed up after 20 minutes (so only 3 km). I think it's a combination of…

This is surely just a (mild) extension to the rather odd attitude that exists in the US to "running up the score". Barely a week goes by without some College Football team or other being accused of it - just last weekend, Nick Saban was visibly annoyed that his own 4th-string Running Back scored a touchdown at the end of…

Yep - I really love food too. And I used to weigh over 300 lb and couldn't imagine myself ever being thin too. And I dieted and lost weight, then couldn't take the restrictions anymore and fell off the wagon and put weight back on too. Now... I am 2 lbs off my goal weight, and I eat LOADS. I've never eaten out in…

I've been on 5:2 since January 28th and have lost 70 lbs. I've never been healthier (I no longer need cholesterol medication) or fitter (I ran my first 10k this week), and I've never eaten as well (without putting on weight). Ill-informed people who believe this is some sort of starvation diet or an eating disorder should…

I am nearing the end of week 36 on 5:2, and as of this morning have lost 70 lbs on it! I am now just 4 lbs away from my goal, so will soon be starting to think about maintenance using 6:1, with the occasional week of 5:2 to balance out the odd weekend away/holidays etc. I just wish I'd found 5:2 25 years ago!

Lol! Thanks for pointing that out 3foldchord! I guess it was talk of weight on the chest that lead them astray, but I'm afraid it's moobs, not boobs! And yes, I'm a 5'11" bloke, so 180 is right at the bottom end of my "overweight" BMI range...

A couple of things spring to mind: re: censorship - while watching the US version of Top Gear, I was amazed to hear the phrase "holy s..." beeped out twice, yet the when the presenter said, in the very next sentence, "holy c...", that was not beeped. How does that work? re: "math" or "maths". The Americans treat…

It's both, I think. I've been prepared all along to put up with some 'baggyness' - you can't lose 120+ lbs at my age and expect your skin to snap tight like it may have 20-odd years ago. To be honest, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well I've done in that respect. But It's certainly not just skin - there's a naughty…

Thanks for the replies and great advice, everyone! You all say pretty much the same thing, which reinforces my own opinion too - keep losing until I'm happy with myself, and start doing some weight training to work on the areas I still have concerns about. I had intended all along to try P90X once I'd got to my goal, so…

Well, I've certainly had my motivation issues over the last few years - I originally lost 95 lbs following a Weight Watchers-style, calorie-controlled diet, but after 2 years I just couldn't take the day-on-day calorie restriction any more and I fell off the wagon, putting 48 lbs back on. Then, at the start of this year, I…

And, of course, the title of this post should have started "115lbs...", not "105lbs...". Doh! What an idiot...

Your story is very familiar - I went from 301 to 206 in 2 years, then the wheels came off and I put 48 lbs back on over 18 months. My eating wasn't terrible, but it was bad enough when I stopped my daily exercises too. I couldn't seem to do anything about it. Then at the end of January this year, I was introduced to the…

2 things for me - bread (bad, bad, bad!) and anything spicy! I've always said that when eating out, I'd much rather have 2 starters than a starter and a dessert (not that I would - I was never that bad!)

I started suffering with this at the beginning of the summer, when I started doing some running (c25k). I did a fair amount of research on what might be causing it and what to do about it. As far as I could see, the issues boiled down to: 1. Correct footwear - I bought better running shoes. 2. Inadequate stretching - I now…

I've always had to eat much less than is recommended for a man of my height, weight and age if I want to lose weight. In the past, I have been guilty of blaming this on a "slow metabolism", but over time I've come to realise that it's more to do with HOW sedentary I am during a normal day - which is pretty much "completely…

Cool. But it needs a "lost a load of weight recently" setting as well, to simulate the excess skin, moobs etc. :( If I looked like the 190 lb guy on there, I'd be happy already...

That's exactly what you should do. 'Eat what you like to eat' is the most important thing - just less of it! Eating a diet filled with things you don't like isn't a sustainable solution and even if you lose weight, it goes back on when you stop dieting because you go back to eating what you like again.

Oh yes, and this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I work my TDEE out using a 4-week rolling average of my food intake and weight loss. That's how I can be confident it's around 2200...

That sounds like a ****load of calories to me. I'm 5'11" as well, and was 215 only recently (currently 190). My TDEE is around 2200, including all the exercise I do (about 4000 calories burned per week). Without the exercise, my sedentary TDEE would only be about 1750. Now, we're all different, but based on what you are…