Anyone who's getting into the whole diet and fitness thing current, let's help each other out. Post your current weight, your goal weight, and what you're doing diet/exercise wise to help yourself out.

Currently: 170lbs
Goal: About 140lbs

I say about 140lbs, because that's the weight I'd like to be, but then once I start building muscle I'm well aware that that weight will probably rise.

Diet wise I've cut out all fizzy drinks and beer, except for Coke Zero, which luckily has no calories in it. I'm drinking at least 2 fruit juices a day, and at least 2 500ml glasses of water, walking the dog for 30 minutes each day, doing the Wii fit as much as I can fit in, and I have a treadmill I'm running on 3 times a week. Last week I was 173, so I guess I'm doing okay for now.

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I'm going in for a huge assessment in a few weeks. I'm out of medication and I could exercise all day and lose nothing. (See: Hypothyroidism and its effect on metabolism)

As soon as I've given that time to kick in, I'm going to be hitting the gym at least 4 days a week for a 75-25 percent ratio vigorous aerobic exercise and resistance training. The gym is part of our hospital system and they have all kinds of certified staff on hand for everything to do with wellness. I'm going to go with fat percentage goals instead of weight. Body Mass Index and weight as a goal alone for simply being fit is a pile of bull shit. I'm 6'2'' with a large body frame yet I'm supposed to weight 150-190 lbs? No way. I'd be completely malnourished and skeletal if I were much below 190, so I'm going to just exercise until my body fat percentage is in a healthy range.

True dat. The Wii Fit measurements are so ridiculously off it's unreal. I'm overweight at the minute apparently (which I'm actually not, just slightly tubby around the midsection) and as I work out my weight seems to be going up, hmmm.

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It's because you don't actually burn a whole lot of calories when you work out, but since your body knows it'll be recovering, it wants you to eat more. The only way to actually lose weight is by having a calorie deficit. Otherwise, you'll be working out and gaining mass.

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169lbs this week. Yay?

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nice job man, gotta take weight loss one pound at a time. one down, 29 more to go. although honestly 140lbs is pretty small i think (not that i'm not tiny). how tall are you bid?

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I've gained like two pounds, but I have to tighten my belt more. Muscle ftw.

Wiifit isn't that bad, you will put on weight as you start to exercise. You'll only begin to lose it after your body begins to get used to the increased activity. And you do need to eat the right things, it's not just about a calorie deficit. Apples are one of the best things

The simple fact is that if you want to loose fat you need to have a calorie deficit.

When I wanted to lose weight, I did it as follows:

Calculate your basal metabolic rate (not BMI). Calculators for this exist online, and it's a function of your sex, weight and age. This figure (usually measured in calories/day) is an indication of the amount of energy your body uses just being alive - i.e. doing absolutely nothing, not moving nor even digesting a meal.

If you consume fewer than this number of calories per day, you can't help losing weight.

I think at the time, my BMR was about 2000 calories/day. I decided I wanted to have (at least) a 1000 calorie/day deficit, so aimed to consume 2000 - 1000 = 1000 calories/day.

The choice of a 1000 calorie/day deficit wasn't entirely arbitrary either - 1kg of fat is approximately 7000 calories, and since there are 7 days in a week, by creating a 1000 calorie/day deficit, that's 7000 calories/week = 1kg weight loss.

Of course, eating just 1000 calories/day isn't easy so if possible it's worth supplementing some of it with exercise, (e.g. eat 1200 calories/day, but do 200 calories worth of exercise), but of course, the weight loss through fat will probably be masked to a degree by the weight gained through muscle build-up, but if you stick to it accurately and don't cheat then you will definitely be losing fat whatever the scales may say.

Don't forget though that BMR is weight dependent such that if you lose weight, your body needs fewer calories per day to live (since there's less mass to "power") so your BMR decreases too and your original limit on the number of calories consumed per day will actually result in a smaller deficit and slower weight loss.

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Probably worth remembering that fruit juices usually contain a significant amount of (natural) sugar, and so though good for you, they are far from calorie-free!

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The problem with my metabolism is that it isn't normal due to Hypothyroidism. I'm having trouble treating it due to being completely broke with no one to see me to give me a prescription. We have no clinics in any realistic area where I live so I'm currently saving up a couple hundred dollars to get a prescription that only costs four.

Though I can lose weight, it's very difficult and I find myself having to go over the top to achieve casual results. I lose weight in short bursts but the important thing for me right now is that I do not GAIN any weight until I get my medication.

I remember you doing this, and quite impressively too. I tried calorie counting, but it's just way too much of an arse-ache, so I figure if I just exercise my ass off, and eat sensibly, logically I'm bound to lose weight. Problem is that as I'm not really fat, just a bit chubby, it seems to be taking a lot of effort, which is pretty lame.

Also: Interval training is awesome.

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having no plan/routine and just hoping that whatever you do will work is probably the worst way you can go about your fitness


you should be setting REALISTIC goals... realistic being the keyword. you can say that you want to drop 30 pounds but is it realistic for you?? do you really SEE yourself dropping that weight??

set short term goals and long term goals. ie:

-this month i want to cheat my diet/routine no more than 4 times.
-in the next 4 months i want to lose 10 pounds


keep in mind that once you drop that weight you need to keep up your routine in order to keep them off or else you'll just be rubber balling (drop weight then rise back up, and on and on)



try going for a run every day (or if you can't do a 20 minute jog, work up from a walk to a brisk walk to a slow jog, etc.)

-if you're treadmilling, try and add another minute or 2 every day or every other day
-if you're running outside, tack on another km every week



ps: i didn't proofread this post at all and just kinda wrote what i thought of at the time
pps: 140 lbs sounds excessively lean to me

I've set my self a goal of being 10lbs leaner in a months time. From there I'll just go with it til I think I look good, but a bit of weight loss will boost me to start with. 140 is pretty lean, but I'm a pretty tiny guy, so it's not too small. It'll probably be more than that what with muscle and everything too. I've been taking the dog for a 30 minute run every morning, and sort of counting my calories, but not exactly. I'm assuming what things have in them, then just making sure I stay below 1500. E.g. today I had a pear, a cheese sandwich with a pear and orange for lunch, then a jacket potato (fill you right up, and they only have like 300 calories in!) with some peas for my dinner. I think I've done rather well today, and I lost 2lbs since last week!

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We should have a before and after thread I have to go jail soon and my plan to pass time is do nothing but work out. I've gained like 50 more pounds (and I'm already a big guy) taking advantage of the good food on the outside. I'm not saying go shirtless haha just something to compare from. Maybe every month take a new pic? It'd keep us motivated, except for me it'll have to wait roughly 4 months