Weight Loss Wednesday: An Introduction
Published by Ryan March 14th, 2007 in Fitness, Food. Share This
Like most red-blooded American men in the 25-35 demographic, I’ve consistently put on weight since graduating (or, in my case, dropping out of) high school. Then there’s the whole living in the Midwest factor, where you are often eyed with suspicion if you don’t eat giant slabs of delicious meat at every meal; the married-ten-year thing, which seems to make most men complacent (who do we need to impress?); and, finally, the quitting smoking thing, since which I have put on a good 20 pounds of solid flab, split evenly between my burgeoning “Are you trying to steal a basketball?” belly and my budding man-boobs. Add in the fact that I learned to cook delicious meals primarily by loading them with things like pork fat and heavy cream, plus my fondness for fine wine and beer, and it isn’t hard to see how I went from a relatively slim 170 to my current weight: 227 as of this morning. At a nice and short 5′ 8″, that puts my BMI at 34.5, comfortably within the bounds of Obese, and well on my way to various heart conditions and diabetes.
If all goes according to plan, I’ll be putting a weekly post on Dethroner where I weigh in, upload an image, and write a brief synopsis of how things are going. Being the first in a series, this post is full of background info and is much longer and more detailed than the rest are likely to be. Fair warning!
I’ve been wanting to drop the flab for years; who wouldn’t? Unfortunately, I’ve found it nearly impossible to do so by just counting calories and exercise. While I love working out, I quickly discovered that just working out is wholly inadequate. Building muscle underneath your fat is fine, but it doesn’t make you any skinnier, so the only solution is to eat differently. It didn’t take long to realize that I suck at following recipes, even ones I create. I did spend a good couple weeks being very careful about portioning when I cooked, measuring every teaspoon of olive oil and every ounce of lean meat, but in the end I couldn’t stick with it. It took all the joy out of cooking and was making me miserable. Worse, I would eat these meals and find myself uncomfortably hungry long before bedtime—but no eating after 8:00! Ugh.
I wouldn’t like to say I had given up, but after my experience trying to lose weight in a conventional manner I had pretty much resigned myself to being fat. That is, until I started getting the headaches. They came every day for a while, and were accompanied by distorted vision and cognition problems. I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t see straight, and my head hurt. I thought, “Great, I have a brain tumor!” So I made an appointment with my doctor who, after running some tests including a CT scan of my head (just to be sure) declared that my headaches were most likely caused by the extreme hypertension (175/110) I had been previously unaware of, which was of course linked directly to my obesity.
I was prescribed a beta blocker and advised to lose some weight. Given the fat nature of Americans, I figured this must happen every day in every city in the country and mentioned it to my doctor. “Yes,” she said with her thick accent I assume to be Punjabi, “I see this all the time.” I asked for a ballpark figure of how many people actually lost the weight and got off the blood pressure medication. The answer was depressing, if not surprising: “Perhaps one percent of the patients I have seen.” One percent. She indicated that virtually all her patients ended up gaining more weight over the years, eventually having to take several different medications for blood pressure, and often ending up with diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and all sorts of bad stuff. “Americans seem to just want a magic pill,” she said. “They take the pill, they think everything is fine, but they would be far better off to just lose the weight.” Enough said.
Fortunately, right around this time I was introduced to a diet called MediFast by my good friend Vic (who has also written for Dethroner a time or two). It’s vaguely similar to those NutriSystem meals pimped by Dan Marino, in the sense that they send you a bunch of prepackaged food; but it’s more for people who are actually rather obese as opposed to those who want to drop five or ten pounds. There’s an ongoing Something Awful thread which contains several success stories, including before-and-after photos. That, and a quick chat with my doctor about it, convinced me this was a good option. A few weeks later and $275 poorer (that’s a month of the food), I have begun the diet as of this morning.
For those who aren’t already familiar, MediFast is basically a bunch of prepackaged shakes, soups, bars, and puddings. You eat five of them per day (mix and match) plus one DIY meal which consists of specific portions of a lean protein and veggies. Sounds relatively easy all things considered, and if the results from the SA forum are any indication it works as advertised. The MediFast site indicates that 20 pounds per month is not an unreasonable expectation. We’ll see how reasonable it is for me soon.
Date: 03-14-2007
Weight: 227
BMI: 34.5
39 Responses to “Weight Loss Wednesday: An Introduction”
- 1 Pingback on Mar 15th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Go, Ryan!
Thanks! If the numbers I’ve seen are to be believed, I ought to be slimmed down significantly by this time in June.
Ryan, you’re fighting the good fight, and it’s high tiime to get solid on healthy habits. I myself vacillate between being a smart eater with regular excercise (spring, summer, fall) and being a fat lazy pig (winter and the occasional weekends).
One thing that really helps and is easy to do - drink a lot of water all the time. All the time. All The Fucking Time. Watch skinny people, and note that they invariably have a bottle of water on them and they’re forever sipping from it. Sip yourself skinny. It’ll help flush food out easier, it’ll help you deal with hunger pangs, it’ll definitely help with the headaches.
Also - make sure you’re getting plenty of fiber. Take fiber supplements. It’s no bullshit that the less you crap, the more you keep/steadily gain. That which you don’t pass either turns to fat (yecch) or hangs out inside of you (BIG YECCHHH). Don’t want that.
Don’t underestimate excercise. Diet alone might help trim you down some, but you’ve got to raise your metabolism to make it count. A sedentary lifestyle is a recipe for obesity, no matter what you eat.
Kill as much of your sugar intake as possible. If you must do somethign sweet, eat apples and pears, fresh ones, not from a can. Eat leaner meats. Switch out starchy breadstuffs for lower fat content items (I switched from pitas to whole wheat matzah and they tasted like cardboard at first but now I dig ‘em.) And by god, make sure you get some dairy (nonfat yogurt’s good) but steer clear of cheese, that shit’s a diet-killer.
Dude, you can totally do it, but don’t push yourself; nothing sucks liek a crash diet that works great until you start fucking yourself in the ass afterwards. The best diets go slow but steady, and it’s really all about your habits: the ones you lose, the ones you start, and ultimately the ones you keep.
Good on ya man! best of luck with it… not too long ago I was pushing 210, then dropped to 185 withing a few months. i tried the Weight Watchers thing combined with frequent trips to the gym, wasn’t for me… the WW part anyway. I don’t know if anyone else has tried, but it drove me NUTS trying to count every little thing I ate. So, I stopped :) BUT I did make a point of eating healthier, and keeping up with the gym (typically as a lunch break from work).
The biggest thing, I found was controlling urges for fatty, oh-so-tasty items. Once in a while won’t kill you… and ya don’t have to eat the entire bag of Doritos apparently :)
Good luck man… I’m on a smaller scale mission myself.. drop 10 pounds of fat.. the belly persists!!
James….
FYI, love the site, been here everyday since day one!
BMI is a poor way to track obesity. It kind of works for the “average” person, but it doesn’t take into account body composition. From the sounds of it, our heights and weights are about the same, but my body fat percentage is probably lower. By definition, our BMIs would be the same though. If you can’t get a measurement from your doctor, you can either go to the local gym and have a personal trainer do it for your or get a pair of calipers for yourself. Good luck!
Without reading your links (sorry, I’m lazy), is there much evidence that the weight will stay off once you stop the diet? That seems to be the biggest problem with most diets - especially those using pre-packaged foods. Keeping it off requires lifestyle changes far above and beyond the diet. You have to learn how to cook and eat all over again once you stop it. It kind of seems to me that it might be easier (not to mention cheaper) just to do that to begin with. Then again, I’ve never been on any kind of real diet in my life, so what do I know?
Good luck, buddy. Oh, and Alex is right about the fiber - my Mom is doing the F-Factor diet and loving it.
Alex said, “The best diets go slow but steady, and it’s really all about your habits: the ones you lose, the ones you start, and ultimately the ones you keep.”
Yeah, I totally agree about this. And honestly, it’s not really that hard to *maintain* my weight, but when it comes to losing it, it’s been a nightmare.
Ben said, “BMI is a poor way to track obesity. It kind of works for the “average” person, but it doesn’t take into account body composition.”
Yes, I know this all too well as I’m a rather wide sort; I look more “normal” at 185 (which, according to my BMI puts me overweight) than I do at 165. However, it is not in my opinion an unreasonable way to get a fair idea of where you are in the overall scheme of things. Still, I have a caliper which I could use to produce bodyfat% readings in these posts if that would be preferable. It kind of makes more sense to do that now that you mention it.
@Tec - If one reverts back to the old eating/lifestyle habits, than any diet will fail after you go off it. With Medifast, you have a 6-8 week “transition period” where you slowly re-introduce things like fruit, breads, and other foods into your body. The lifestyle changes (hopefully) occur while you’re on Medifast, making the transition period easier.
1) 5+1 Meal Plan = small meals at regular intervals throughout the day. We should be doing this at all times, eating much smaller meals/portions throughout the day, to keep you from feelng hungry (and avoid stuffing yourself at lunch, or at dinner as a result), and to keep your metabolism up and running through the course of the day. This, in conjunction w/ the Lean & Green Meal (7oz. of chicken or fish, or 5oz. of lean beef, along w/ up to 2 cups of greens (or certain cooked vegetables)) also teach you about portion control throughout the course of the diet, something that one should carry over after the diet is over.
2) Water consumption = It has you drink a lot of water throughout the day, resulting in less feelings of hunger and shit, water is good for you! Definitely should be drinking water on a regular basis, and you’re required to drink at minimum 64 ounces of water (but recommends 128 ounces) while on Medifast. Again, if you carry that over, it’s only going to be overall beneficial for you.
3) Results = As you lose the weight, get to your target weight and get off the diet, personally for me I’m not going to want to fuck it up. With the amount of money spent in the meals for x amount of months, it’d be kind of pointless to readily throw away all that effort, sacrifice, and money down the drain just for the sake of munching down on junk food like I used to pre-Medifast diet. So, going on diet and having the results you want gives you a high level of incentive and motivation to _keep_ the weight off as you transition out of the diet.
Being on Medifast is the easy part; there is no guesswork, everything is very planned and rigid, and you just go through the motions. The most important (and very hard part is the transitioning period after you’ve lost the weight. Like I pointed out above, the diet itself helps get you into the right mindset and physical condition in order to better help you take up good, healthy eating habits, a healthy and active lifestlye, and to keep the weight off after you’re done with Medifast.
I used pre-packaged meals when losing my weight a few months ago. The whole “but what happens when you go off?” thing is a ruse that people use to convince themselves not to diet. You’ll learn how to segue off on your own, and I’d put money down that Medi-Fast has a transition period that will help, as well.
Also, to tec (jeez, I should have posted these all in one comment, sorry guys) I’m operating under the assumption keeping the weight off won’t be that much of an issue, because I haven’t had much problem maintaining my “fat” weight. Despite my slight exaggerations in the article, I don’t really eat that poorly (although I did live on Taco Bell for a couple years to get me here). While I do cook fatty meats and rich sauces sometimes, I actually eat meat relatively rarely and enjoy a wide variety of fresh vegetables and whole grains. I hope (and we’ll see how this actually pans out) that maintenance will require very little in the way of changes. That said, if my weight starts creeping back up I will immediately reevaluate what I’m doing. As far as I’m concerned I will not, under any circumstances, allow myself to grow boobs again.
I went from over 450lbs. to 220lbs. in a year. How I did it is in these blog posts;
http://benders-blog.blogspot.com/2006/10/lose-weight-now-ask-me-how.html
http://benders-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/lose-wieght-now-ask-me-how-series.html
http://benders-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/was-this-one-of-your-new-years.html
You don’t need pre-packaged meals or “fat-burning” pills or any of that other gimmicky crap and it pisses me off when people say you do!
It doesn’t take a lot of money, and it’s all basic common sense.
And I’m living proof that IT ACTUALLY WORKS!
Sorry about the double-post; I got an http error after the first one and didn’t think it went through.
Joel said: I used pre-packaged meals when losing my weight a few months ago. The whole “but what happens when you go off?” thing is a ruse that people use to convince themselves not to diet.”
This is correct. One thing a diet like this does is blast your bad eating habits. Not re-acquiring them afterwards is an order of magnitude easier than breaking them in the first place.
This diet is not like Atkins or something where they tell you that you can eat as much as you want as long as you eat don’t eat certain things. Those are bollocks.
Ryan said, “As far as I’m concerned I will not, under any circumstances, allow myself to grow boobs again.”
That, sir, is precisely why I WON’T diet. ;) As long as you keep that resolve, you should do well, I think. I just know that my Mom went on WW a few years ago and dropped about 40 lbs., but as soon as she stopped it, it all came back… even though she never really went back to eating the way she did before. It seemed like if she wasn’t strictly counting everything, it just wouldn’t stay off. You probably don’t have the same metabolic issues as a menopausal woman though…
James B said, “You don’t need pre-packaged meals or “fat-burning” pills or any of that other gimmicky crap and it pisses me off when people say you do!”
Certainly I never said you *need* prepackaged meals; I don’t think anybody has, at least not here. The whole point is calorie reduction, however you can accomplish it. Lumping prepackaged foods with “fat burning” pills is totally disingenuous; prepackaged foods merely do the calorie counting for you rather than offering a fantasy where you can get skinny without changing anything.
Calorie reduction is part of it. The quality of the calories you consume is just as important, if not moreso. The less processed the food, the higher the quality, as a rule of thumb. The New York Times Magazine just ran a great article on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=1174017600&en=11c0b7c116684b35&ei=5070
My personal initiative to lose weight (besides exercising) is to drop the junk food. Good snacks include vegetables like carrots or sugar snap peas with fat free ranch dressing, baked tortilla chips (the tostitos scoops are really good) with salsa, triscuits with hummus and popcorn (air popped or the reduced calorie microwave stuff). My problem is that I like to snack, and eating Doritos or random things out of the fridge just isn’t good. I’m also trying to eat the correct portions when I make dinner instead of piling on the food because I feel really hungry before I start eating.
We’ll see how it turns out, but I feel a lot healthier since starting it.
Also last year I stopped eating out as much (used to be the majority of the week, now it’s maybe once) and that helped me stop putting on weight. I still drink far more than I should, but my weight hasn’t noticeably increased since I stopped eating nachos and restaurant burgers and similar things.
My $.02,
I went and saw a endocrinologist about my weight. I’ve been over 300 for the better part of a decade, and I got sick of bouncing on my weight but never getting below 300. I started at 306, and… I’m like 6 months down the road and lost 16 lbs so far. Not a giant loss, but for someone who was never able to shed more than 4 lbs in a year, I’m hauling ass.
The best advice I can give, and certainly the first thing ANYONE dedicated to losing weight should consider doing, go see a nutritionist and join a gym. The gym’s the obvious one, but a nutritionist, you’d be suprised… I’d spent the last 3-4 years doing personal research on nutrition to try and clean up my diet, and the nutritionist STILL had stuff on me that I didn’t know and wasn’t aware of. As unfun as it sounds, a high fiber diet is REALLY a smart move for most people.
Most people are led to believe that a low calorie diet is also the key. Again, not necessarily the case. A dietician will cost you about $300-500 for a month, but it’s money well spent if it can make your weight loss permanent.
bridgitte said, “The quality of the calories you consume is just as important, if not moreso.”
Are you talking about overall health or weight loss?
Good luck, Ryan. As someone who dropped about 85 pounds a few years ago and has kept it off, I laud you. I was indeed a fat bastard.
I am not a big believer in BMI, but I do think that regular exercise and lots of water helps immensely. Also, as hard as it is, I had success by just cutting things out of my diet completely. As a result, I rarely drink soft drinks now, I drink loads of water, and I work out regularly.
One of the things that helped immensely, too, was cutting out group lunches. Going out at work for lunch was like the worst thing. You eat badly and you spend lots of money. Now, I do that every once in a while. I normally do a salad or sandwich with a yogurt and piece of fruit.
Both, Ryan. The two go hand in hand. I can tell you from experience, and having studied nutrition for the better part of a decade, that I had the most success losing weight and have felt the best i’ve ever felt on a diet of mostly (meaning about 95%) whole, unprocessed foods. I’m not eating that diet now, and haven’t for the past 3 years or so, and the difference is not only noticable, but downright depressing ;) Having said that, it’s not for everyone, and you should do what works for you. But educate yourself first and make the choice from there.
That NYT article is long, but gives a solid foundation for good nutrition. It’s well worth the half hour or so spent reading it. It was great for me to finally see something in the mainstream that expresses where my head is at about nutrition much more eloquantly than i ever could.
As an excess baggage guy of X lbs (put it this way, at a “Guess your Age N Weight thing at a theme park, they guy guessed I was 21stone. The scale only went to 24st, but the pointer went around the clock. I won(?) by a clear margin), I can only wish you luck with your diet. Posting it publically will apply some pressure to actually continue, which will help.
Me? I’m doing good old Hypnosis. Paul McKenna for “teh win”…
I’m just about the same weight and height as you, and I know how much it sucks trying to lose weight. It’s all about changing your lifestyle. Whether that’s adding exercise, reducing calories/fats/sugar/carbs, or however you choose to go about it, you have to make these things a part of your life, or the weight loss just won’t stick. Maybe you don’t have to be as drastic as you were losing it once you get to your target weight, but more or less the changes have to stay somehow. There’s no real secret to losing weight, eat right and exercise a good amount, it’s just REALLY HARD to incorporate those things into your life if you never have, or are out of the habit.
I also found this article funny and pretty spot on about some things: http://www.violentacres.com/archives/80/americans-arent-fat-because-they-lack-willpower-theyre-fat-because-theyre-broke
bridgitte said, “I had the most success losing weight and have felt the best i’ve ever felt on a diet of mostly (meaning about 95%) whole, unprocessed foods.”
I’m totally into nice fresh veggies and whole grains, fruits and nuts and whatnot, but at what point does something become processed in your view? I assert that virtually nobody eats “unprocessed” food. Even the fracking Kombai tribespeople process the starch from sago palms before eating it. Granted, I think anybody can look at, say, Cheez Wiz, and realize that such things do not occur naturally; but even the delicious brown rice I might enjoy was harvested and processed at a mill before undergoing a drying process, and before I eat it it will be rehydrated in the cooking process.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that less processing isn’t a good thing–on the contrary, I think it is a very good thing, and the evidence which has been collected by this generation of nutritionists tends to agree. I get what you’re saying and in general I agree, I guess mostly I’m taking issue with your use of the word “unprocessed.” Also, while I agree that Americans should eat more food that has been minimally processed, it can easily be taken too far into the realm of the hippie raw food weirdos, and I personally ain’t going there.
thanks for posting about this! being someone that could at least 30lbs, if not more, it’s definitely something i’m going to look into.
To those who have recommended ungodly amounts of water (upwards of 64 ounces), this sounds horribly disturbing. With that much water consumption, you are quite likely to piss away all of the important nutrients your body needs. It’s like when a flash flood hits a highly arable track of land; suddenly the land is less arable due to the soil nutrients being washed away.
By the way, to Alex, who recommended watching skinny people drink water. I am 6′ and 170 (which puts my useless BMI at 23.1), I am a runner, and I rarely have bottled water on me. Two years ago, I moved and started gaining some weight. I went from 166 to 180 (my 5 under my heaviest). The only thing that will help you succeed in losing weight and keeping it off is eating healthy and enough exercise to balance out the weight you gain everyday from eating. This will vary for people, so it’s best to see your doctor/nutritionist about how many calories you truly intake and burn daily. (It should be noted that if you exercise, you have to subtract the calories you would have burned if you did not exercise from the calories you actually burned).
There is no other way than to burn more calories a day than you intake. Period. No amount of water will change that. Don’t over complicate an easy formula.
Also, don’t make the mistake of seeing a label that says “no fat” and thing you can eat more. It’s likely loaded with something else that will counter the lack of fat, most likely sugar. Read the label and calculate how many minutes of time exercising it will take to burn off the food item. If you don’t want to work out for 120 minutes for that yummy bagel, then put it down and go for a banana (~17 minutes). There’s a book out there that has those equivalents but I can’t remember the name (it’s in the latest Runner’s World magazine).
Wow, you and I are almost exactly the same. I’m 34, 5′8″ 217 and was 170-180 most of my life. I’ve been trying to find some kind of inspiration to start my own weight loss program and this is IT. I will try to keep up with you and might post some of my own results in the comments when you give us updates. This is great.
By unprocessed, i mean nothing bleached, enriched, containing preservatives, etc. Basically anything in a package, with the obvious exceptions of beans, brown rice and the like. Food in as close to its natural state as possible.
Dammit, where were you when my co-workers and I started the Great Company Fat-Off of 2007? Eight contestants, $50 buy-in, greatest percentage lost by April 2nd wins the pot. I’m in the #2 slot right now, but I’m feeling confident I can take down the king with just a little more exercise. That MediFast would’ve been killer, though.
Eamon, we did something similar at my company. We all threw in money ($50 I think), and each had a goal of losing 10 lbs in a month. Everyone who made the goal, split the money. We called it the Hot Body Challenge. I lost 14, and split it with two other people. However, keeping it off proved to be the more difficult challenge.
my biggest nemesis in weight loss is beer. i love it. and simply for the sake of enjoying flavors, which means switching to a light beer really doesn’t do much …they’re bland and pointless. i guess it’ll be a weight loss/detox period for me. any thoughts on wine and how it affects a diet? (besides slowing the metabolism)
overall, i agree that light beer is crap. there are a couple, though, that are less crap. amstel light, heinken light, and i think there is a yuengling light. also, guiness is a lot better for you than most beers, surprisingly.
Good luck Ryan, I know you have the smarts and the willpower to do it! got to be easier than quitting smoking right?
I know for me at least, just switching from hardees to a bowl of fruit for breakfast has shrunk the tube of fat around my belly (good indicator of a high chance of diabetes).
Thaddeus said, “any thoughts on wine and how it affects a diet?”
A friend of mine is doing the Sonoma Diet with quite a bit of success, and is very happy because she gets to drink wine. My understanding is that the high-sugar dessert wines (Reisling & such) should be rare treats, but relatively low-sugar whites and reds are encouraged after the first 10 day period of strictly no-sugar. I’ve read a little bit about it, and it seems to be a really reasonable, balanced sort of diet. It seems to me that on any diet, wine in reasonable amounts shouldn’t be detrimental.
Here’s an article that gives some rough carb/calorie estimates on various cocktails: http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0846/is_5_21/ai_82333620
Awesome. So, I’ve been all over the place in the last couple years, but I’ve actually started dieting for real this time. Not really, “a diet” but more just portion control and making sure I don’t eat slop. I guess you could call it a modified Weight Watchers without the meetings, severely obese women in flower dresses and the whole monthly dues thing.
Things are coming along nicely. I’m down 22lbs as of my morning weigh in. I’m glad to see you’re joining in the fight against the American stereotype, Ryan. Keep up the good work.
I spent a year ripping off weight, and you will get countless tips, but here is what always consistently worked.
1. Nailing down protein intake first. Once i did this, the craving for crap food tapered off. I planned all my meals around what lean protein i ate.
2. Intensity. I committed to intensity, not time. This yielded more results than anything.
Weights was easy. Every single Mens Health and Muscle and Fitness has good beginner programs.
Cardio was tough. Too easy to get bored and burn out.
I did a sprint program for a couple weeks when i had no access to my regular gym. (along with kettlebells) I got more lean doing that than anything.
2 400’s (once around track)
8 40’s (all out)
The big bonus to sprints? You feel a whole lot more powerful, and you can feel the muscle development as well.
Kettlebells are also Diesel. Makes it easy to do olympic lifts.
You also need a hell or high water program. A program that you do every single day no matter what. Morning or back from the bar half drunk. You do it every single day.
Mine:
1 pushup more than the day before
1 more pull up than the day before (cheat of that extra one)
1 more bodyweight squat or lunge than before
1 more kettlebell snatch than before
1 more kettlebell hang clean
Start with 5 each on monday. Then six of each on tuesday, seven on wed, etc.
You’ll increase strength and muscular endurance, and as the program extends, you’ll increase stamina as well.
Once you get to super high reps, start a harder exercise (hang cleans, weighted pullups, jump squats, etc)
You know you are doing more today than the day before. That is key to improvement. Mentally and physically.
has anyone actually lost weight with medifast??