More paddling
and less time in front of this thing helps keep the weight off. Oh yeah, laying off the greasy foods and using fresh fruit and veggies for snackers is a big plus too.
Weighed 182 lbs with a 34 inch waist when I retired from the Navy in '90. Weighed 204 (38 inch waist) when I got out of the restaurant business in 2001. Have been at a a constant 187 with 36 inch waist for the past four years.
SYOW
Cal
2 CENTS
– Last Updated: Oct-04-05 9:53 AM EST –
YOU MUST START EATING LESS AT EACH FEEDING AND BURNING MORE CALORIES. THAT IS THE ONLY WAY. EXPECT IT TO TAKE MANY MONTHS SO YOU WILL NOT GET DISCOURAGED. Sorry to yell..lol.
no dairy—we need calcium
Make sure to keep good calcium supply going.
230
Was the highest I have ever been at 6 ft. I smoked for 20 years and was constantly at 185-190. After I quit smoking over a period of 4 years I slowly crept up.
My family goes to Brazil every summer for a month. This last June I dropped them off at the airport and went home and threw out everything that was fatty or processed…ie. donuts, coffee cake, etc etc. and went on a strict diet.
My plan…eat well in the morning…no carbs after 2 pm.
AM bran flakes with fruit and one teaspoon of sugar with low fat milk. Blueberries mostly or a banana occasionally. Small yogurt. 1 multivitamin. 2 bottles of water during the drive to work.
Lunch. Swiss cheese and smoked turkey rolls. Basically I vary the condiment with either dijon or other mustards etc and just roll up the turkey inside the cheese and eat like a burrito…throw in a little lettuce or a carrot sliver to not get bored…small pot of apple sauce or diced peaches. Two bottles worth of water - refill from the water fountain.
On the days that I go to the gym I may allow myself a piece of toast with vegemite and avocado for a carb infusion. Or a small baked potato in the microwave…I get off at 1430 so I will eat this around 1330 just in time to kick in for the gym. 2 more bottles of water
The gym is minor…45 minutes or so with 30 on the treadmill and about fifteen on the machines…then off to the lake and the boat for an hour or so. The kayak also becomes an exercise machine too with torso rotation and real effort for about 45 minutes. then the last 15 minutes relaxing and enjoying the sights. More when the family was away.
Dinner. Tilapia, salmon, or snapper 3 or 4 times a week with lots and lots of veggies and salad. think of your plate as being 1/3 fresh greens, 1/3 cooked greens, and your meat or fish. Tofu works great for a change from fish and also very lean breakfast steaks grilled in a george foreman grill. Water only. I really try for eight bottles a day.
I am now 200 lbs and very happy. My wife thinks I am just right. I have gained about 8 lbs of muscle mass and lost a lot of fat. Feel great, blood pressure dropped about 10 points, lots and lots of energy.
Highly recommended that you find a regimen that works for you. Even my family is much more aware of healthy eating and as such we have cut out a lot of the sweets etc. Having a 9 and a 6 year old it is not easy to do that but we try. What is interesting just as another poster mentioned is that when you do taste something really sweet, after the first couple of bites there is no real gratification any more.
I had to do something. My job entails a lot of sitting now as I have moved up and I could just see myself spreading and spreading and spreading… It is a total of two hours of your day. 8 hours for work, 2 for you…its the least you can do for yourself.
“I am 50 years old and in the best shape of my life” 
where have I heard that before?
Paul
Without Starving…
– Last Updated: Oct-04-05 6:34 AM EST –
Honestly, you have to be a little hungry for a part of every day. When you compete with your buddies on a bike, and sometimes win, it makes it worthwhile. Some folks can be a little hungry when they go to bed. Not me. Early in the day I can handle it, but before sleeping I have to be full. The only foods I really need to avoid are almonds and ice cream. Those pack the weight on me.
Here's how you have to talk to yourself at times:
"I'm hungry."
"Sheeeit! You don't know hunger you fatassed, lazy, coddled, affluent, motorheaded, tv watching blob. Your ancestors would be ashamed of what a pansy you are."
"I'm hungry."
"Alright, before bed have a good meal so you sleep good, but tomorrow just deal with it and quit your whining, girly man."
Brother String, do you like to bike? If you do you could hook up with a local club and start riding with folks with similar abilities. It really is a great, and fun, motivator for staying in shape. Uhhhh.... watch out for dogs.
just like a camp fire
lots of little twigs (read small portions) they burn quickly. throw a big log in there (read large full meal) it takes a lot longer to burn. If you don’t exercise after, this converts to fat.
Pretty simple.
Paul
I wanted to see how active people
deal with this issue.Obviously, it is a sensitive subject. There are certainly plenty of examples of the inactive ones.
A friend and sometimes poster suggested I buy the larger pants and enjoy myself.I can see the merit in that . At 6’5" most people won’t notice.They think I’m skinny.
NO!!!
Pay no attention to your evil “friend”!
Active people compete. There are liars out there that claim they don’t like to compete but we ALL compete in different arenas.
The lean folks I know compete on bikes and it’s FUN. We’re friends and have biked together long enough to call each other ‘bastids’ and ‘sumbitches’ and laugh when we get our asses whipped. Some of us compete in kayaks also.
Come on out and play. Race ya to the bridge.
bicycles are for wimps.
just wanted to get a rise out of Kudzu. Home sick today and feel like annoying someone. infected tooth.
Actually, I am in the process of building a cart/trailer for my tempest and my bicycle so I can pedal to the lake and paddle around. Makes for a much more complete workout. It is going to be similiar to the carolina caddy cart but thinner to accommodate a 22" boat. will let you know if it works or not.
Paul
.
you can burn off a turkey dinner doin that.
.
congratulations Paul. You’ve done well.
what about the positive benefits?
Caffeine also is an appetite surpressant and it increases your metabolism. Is that offset by the negative properties (encouraging fat storage)?
weight frustration
Weight gain in in my gene pool and consequently I don’t often get into my jeans.
Years on high doeses of prednisone didn’t help, I know what it is like to want to eat the whole cow and have some turkeys for dessert. It is very expensive to be that hungry.
Two years ago I tried Atkins for about 4 months and lost about 50 lbs. Then winter came and back with it some bad habits and the pounds.
All of my life, I wanted my own canoe or something. I’ve had my kayak three years but this is the first year I’ve had and/or made opportunities to use it.
I’ve paddled once a week all summer, swam less than usual, cut back on beer and long island ice tea, lost two inches around the waist and gained twenty more pounds. However my body has changed its shape or something. I tried on Lotus Mildwater lifejacket in Adult X-Large in early spring and it wouldn’t fit but by September I was able to wear one.
Confused!
From reading your posts the caffiene issue is also confusing. I use coffee as a drug anyway, for bronchitus and asthma quick fixes. I can fall asleep over a pot of coffee or perk up and clean the house - but I can’t plan these events well enough to put them to good use.
We who need to lose weight, many of us need a support group. It’s very tough and the same rules or diets which work for one person don’t for the next.
No one told me, when I was first determined to get a kayak, about weight and body proportion versus choosing a boat.
What I’m trying to do now is picture myself in a sleek kayak - whenever I eat. It helps me trim back my portions, but will it work? I don’t know yet. My goal is to see if I can lose 7 pounds a month for a year and then keep it off.
However that 20 I gained kayaking this summer was not part of the plan.
Hopefully , some of that 20 lbs. was
muscle, and it must be with the body changes.
muscle mass
is heavier than fat. I got upset too when I started gaining a little weight before losing it but it was because I was putting on muscle. Do not give up…that is precisely the stage where you start losing fast. Just remember no carbs after 2 or 3 pm. (well thats for me cause I get up at 0400…for normal people I guess 4 or 5 would apply. good breakfast and lunch, don’t worry about the calories too much…then exercise and no carbs afterwards. works for me.
Paul
TRY THIS AGAIN…
– Last Updated: Oct-05-05 2:45 AM EST –
Unfortunately, string, we don't have your 6-5 frame to stretch out our weight on.
Fortunately, the same principles apply: as the prior poster noted:
If (Cals in) less than (cals used), you loose.
If (Cals in) more than (cals used), you gain.
Of course, that's the distilled essense of many, many other processes, but that's about it...
And as sing noted, as we age our metabolisms slow.
I went from 215 to 185, 38 waist to 33. Sally dropped about 85#, went from 16 to 6.
We did it by changing our lifestyle.
First we didi it by revising our diets -we didn't go ON a "diet", we revised the way, and the foods, we ate.
And second, we exercised. Compensation for slowing metabolism? And to accelerate the process as well.
A pound weight loss is about 3000 cals burned, more or less.
As far as changing our eating habits:
1) Elimination of simple sugars from our usual beverages: no sugar in the tea or coffee, no sugar in the sodas... It's amazing how quickly the 30, 60, or 80-100 cals/drink incrementally adds up over the course of a day, a week, a month... We use Nutrasweet or Splenda analogs, or just go without.
2) Significant reduction of alocholic beverage intake. We still enjoy our wines and microbrews, and I still enjoy my single malts -but we just do so more sparingly. These days if I have two beers at a sitting, it's cause to have a beer! Er, I mean, it's relatively rare. I usually have one and that's it.
Beers, wines, and -most especially -distilled spirits are notorious for packaging many calories into small packages, and making it progressively easier to consume more as the hour goes on...
3) Significant reduction in fats intake. This is the easiest way to pack in calories: at 9 cals/g, as noted above, they're the most calorie dense of foods. And because they're dairy, they come complete with usually significant amounts of cholesterol.
So we vastly reduced cheeses eaten, and almost eliminated butter, margarines, and oils. Not completely, of course, but truly cut down -dry toast, etc. A bit much? Maybe -but it's a great way to drop caloric intake -again, because you dropping calorie dense foodstuffs, where even a little has twice that of other foods.
4) Significant reduction of desserts. Again, these can be simply killers -because not only are they laden with simple sugars, which provide little nutrition, only calories, they also usually are accompanied by all those mouth-watering, pants-busting fats as well. Caloric density non-pareilled, in attarctive and delicious packages.
If desserts are a regular part of your diet, this should be a prime consideration!
5) Maintain intake of complex carbohydrates. We kept on eating potatoes, pastas, as well as vegatables. We even continued eating French Non-Fries -at home: julienned potatoes baked underthe broiler on foil eliminates the need for fat-immersion cooking.
We enjoy salads, so we upped our intake of these, keeping dressings to minimums, and being careful about using ones with as little fat in them as possible.
6) Maintain a good food pyramid intake while restructuring the balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats to 20-40-10 or thereabouts.
7) Cut WAAAY back on snacks -especially the nightime ones. That alone is probably worth 100-150 cals/day. 10 days=1500 cals, 20 days=300 cals=1 pouind lost.
8) And here it is, the last part of the deal. The dreaded word: EXERCISE.
Yes, friend string, we exercised. Sorry...
And we EXERCISED exercised -we just didb't show up and go through the motions. When we did cardio, we did CARDIO, NOT aerobics.
Aerobics WILL burn fat, but it takes longer -cardio gets the heart rate up, and causes EXERTION, and SWEATING -and struff like that. Don't need all that of course, but you can leisurely stroll fo 3-4 hours, or pump a bike hard for a half hour, burn the same amount of calories, and do you heart good in the latter as opposed to the former.
So we went to the gym 5 days a week, spent 20-30 minutes a day doing the second "aerobic training" leg of the golden triangle of weight loss, spent 30-40 minutes doing strength-buidling with weights doing the "resistance training" second leg of the golden traingle, and went home and ate sensibly.
Heck, at one time, I was taking in about 3000-3500 cals/day between heathy meals and protein shakes, exercising, and went from 185 to 195, got my bodyfat down ton 17-18%, and had to get new clothes.
But that was around 10 years ago. I'm now around 200 or so, don't push QUITE as hard in the gym, and have relaxed some of the eating strictures.
But we still hit the gym at least 4 days a week, we still watch what we eat. And we're in not too awfully bad shape for a couple of old folks.
Be thankful that you have several exercise machines you can use to enjoyably burn a few calories -use those paddlin'achines to work out while you
PADDLE ON!
-Frank in Miami
I thought your waist was suposta keep up
with your age!
All of Y’all sound mighty scrawny
Im a towering 5’7" 245 on a good day, haven’t seen 135 since I was about 13 and now 43. No flab to speak of just this barrel like thing resting upon my belt.
My idea of a diet is biking or paddling to the bar instead of driving. Don’t know why but its not working, repetitive trips to the restaurant make me believe Im well hydrated.
But Im a believer in the only long term weight loss and maintenance is changing your eating habits, cut down on quantity and low quality and overtime you will be rewarded. I also believe in a quick weight loss program for starters to help promote the mind and get the exercise program in motion then switch over to a more realistic eating routine. Diets are short term.
Brian
aka Gordito
unfortunately my waist was keeping up
And right now I find your humor, a bit funny but I think it is the cough syrup I’ve been drinking for my bronchitus.
Reading everyones thoughts has been helpful to me, I have a long way to go but I’m on a path. It would be great if we could support each other on a mission toward healthier trimmer waist lines.
Saw a show on TV last night with a 650 plus pound woman on it who went for bypass surgery.
What a nightmare to be so heavy.
Between that sad image of that very fat woman and the one I create where I visualize myself paddling in a sleeker craft than my Pungo, I may find my motivation to continue to change my eating habits for the better.
Sometimes you have to want something bad enough to seek it out. Nine years ago I had congestive heart failure from too much asthma medicine (prednisone) and I couldn’t walk to and from my car without a lot of effort. I’ve a lot to be thankful for.
So if the weight CAN be lost, perhaps I now have the motivation.
Lift Weights
I am 52 and I do both cardiovascular (CV) and weight lifting workouts and I have found that lifting weights burns more calories than just CV. CV is good for your heart to keep it in good condition, and it also helps for an overall good feeling since it improves circulation and lots of other things.
But I have read, and experienced myself, that weight training actually will burn more calories than CV. For the record, I would not recommend doing just weight training in place of CV, but in addition to it.
The question was once posed, and it continues to rattle in my head. When you go to a gym, how many flabby people do you see on the weights, vs. how many you see on the stationary bikes and treadmills. As I understand it, weight lifting burns more calories because as muscle is broken down, it takes calories to rebuild it. Rebuilding occurs during times when you are not lifting weights, whereas when you are done with CV, the calories are done being used. That may be an exaggeration, but I think it might be pretty much right.
Lou