Shepp30 

Well it wasn’t as long a road back as I thought. Went in for a check up in December at around 270 pounds. Doc said the blood pressure was through the roof; 140 something over 100 something. Said I need to quit acting like a d**n kid and start taking better care of myself. Put me on a low dose blood pressure medication and sent me in for a stress test – was having some weird pains. Anyway, after the stress test and heart pictures said all was OK, I started to use the treadmill and stationary bike at work in January after the holidays.

Spent January and February working out 3 or 4 days per week – riding about 10 miles 3 times per week on the stationary bike and walking a couple miles on the treadmill. March 7th I dusted off the Trek 850, aired up the road tires and rode 10 chilly miles…snow on the ground etc. I slowly worked up to 30, 40, 50 and on and on to riding basically 100 miles per week since the third week in May – got 157 miles two weeks ago, road 70 miles on the bike path in 4 hours and 50 minutes or so - sorry, had to gloat about that - my wife didn't seem as excited as I was about the time:>)

I was shooting for 199 pounds by Thanks Giving but had better success at weight loss then I anticipated…I hit 199 pounds yesterday morning. I only took the BP meds for 2 months and my BP has averaged 117 over 72 for the last two months. I'll probably level off somewhere around 190-195 and see how that feels, I am 5'11" and graduated from High School at around 190 and pretty fit.

In the mean time I've bought a Trek Hybrid, took the classic Bianchi road bike out of mothballs (after I hit 220 pounds) and have totaled 1730.6 miles on the three since March 7th.

Just thought I would share my story and encourage those that have hit the proverbial wall to stay at it. I struggled for many years with my weight and finally had success, if I can do it...well you know. The bikes were only part of the over all regime, but they played the key part - fun exercise. Reading the postings on this web site nightly before bed time was a tool I used to stay motivated and I’d like to thank you all for that - I feel like I know half of you personally. Though I will obviously still frequent the Clyde forum and other forums on the site, I thought I'd stop by and wish you all happy trails.

spooner

Really big gratz. I hope to be able to make a similar post in a few months.

tortugaflats

lets see some before and afte pics. that's pretty impressive

mebert72

Congrats on the quick weight loss and lowering of BP!

CPFITNESS

you need to tell these people about your nutrition because quite honestly, you didn't ride an extraordinary amount of miles. A very solid amount, don't get me wrong, but to drop 70lbs one would expect you to be really riding non stop and you didn't, that tells me you really nailed the nutrition aspect of it. I see too many people in this subforum thinknig that becuase they are doing a 4 hour ride that they ahve to pack a lunch like they are going to work and it's ridiculous to me. Nutrition is so key, especially since you had some minor heart issues to clear up as well.


Great job, keep it off!

spooner

He dropped 70 lbs in about 27 weeks for an avg loss of 2.6 lbs per week. If an obese person simply cuts out junk food and other crap and gets more active they can lose weight at that rate.

Pink Lemonade

That's exactly what I did. All I did was cut out junk food (with no increased activity) and surprise, I was 50 pounds lighter after 6 months. If I'd actually gotten out and gotten more physical, the weight loss would have certainly been more... perhaps another 20 pounds? Not really that unheard of for 26-27 weeks.

Lobs616

As someone who is hopefully at the beginning of a similar journey, first let me congratulate you on a great job. This is a truly inspirational story. I for one would love to hear more about the dietary change that you must have included in this process. It would certainly be helpful for those of us who are at the starting line now. Thanks and Congrats again.

FunkyStickman

Fantastic! People underestimate the power of diet and controlled portions... good job, Shepp!!

scrming

Agreed! Great job!!!

Amheirchion

Fairly new here, but a big congratulations to you, nice work.

NH Girl

Congratulations! I've just started my journey of getting back on the bike for health and fitness and of course fun Keep up the great work. Don't forget to post your before and after pictures in the other thread

CraigB

That's so true. The first 60 pounds I lost were from not much more than paying a little more attention to the nutritional quality of the foods I ate (in my doctor's words, "You don't have to eat ice cream every night"), and commonsense portion control, plus some semi-regular brisk walking. But even that will only get you so far, both physiologically and psychologically. Weight loss, like so many other things in life, has its share of "low hanging fruit" - the pounds that come off first are the easiest.

I got to the point where my weight was creeping back up. I'm not saying it was entirely physiological - I was definitely eating worse, and eating more. But I was doing it in response to the more difficult and slower progress I was starting to see. It became increasingly clear that I needed more activity, and more importantly, a structured program I could follow. I found the former in getting back into riding again, and the latter in one of the well-known national weight loss programs. So my wife and I started doing that in early April and I'm down over 30 pounds since then.

jr59

Great job! We are all proud of you. Soon you will have to find another place to post, for if you get any lighter, you will no longer be a clyde.

Keep it up and you will be ridding with the fast guys.

Shepp30 

Thanks all, I am flattered and am blushing. I'll try to get some pics posted when I get home from work or at some point this weekend. I don't typically push folks to try what worked for me but since you’re asking, if I can help someone else, great. I’ll take a chance on getting lectured, the word “flamed” annoys me. I don’t think that my diet plan was a politically correct one for the simple fact that my success was dependent on consistent and persistent results lol. I approached this little journey with much the same attitude, that who is it on here, maybe CPFITNESS, uses in his coaching and critiques (no offense what so ever intended) of nutrition and health - drill sergeant like – again it worked for me.

First of all if I ride and eat whatever I want or don’t pay attention to what I eat, I tend to put on weight, always have - so do most of my riding friends. You all know that feeling that you get an hour or two after getting off the bike, yeah that one. That feeling is the toughest thing to overcome when you ride to subsidize weight loss. Maybe it is the same for runners and the like too; can’t say, I have never been a runner.

Here we go, my motto - weight loss won’t happen by chance or accident. I tracked everything, calories per day, weight loss per week, mileage, work out hours, etc I was able to see the trends and what was working and what wasn’t. I adjusted things in the regime if necessary, whether it was calories, miles, hours etc. I used Excel. It was kind of weird, or was it, I never failed to lose some weight every week and I think that is why I never lost focus.

I just looked back at my mileage chart; it looks like I have been averaging roughly 8 hours of riding weekly and have been since May or late April. Not a lot, but 8 hours more then last year lol. Other then riding, I dieted and made changes to my diet that will again, be changes that will remain in effect for the rest of my life and for that matter my families lives.

As important as the data, I weighed myself EVERY morning after I got out of the shower and intend to do so everyday for the rest of my life. It is a consistent weight…the naked weight that is…and it is as light as your ever going to be lol. How else will you know?? I suspect if I gain a couple of pounds back, which isn’t going to happen, it would be much easier to lose a couple then to have to lose 71 pounds again. There is an awful lot of “don’t get on the scale” advice out there but that doesn’t work for me. How else will you know if what you’re doing is working? Also I am the most impatient person that I know, if I don’t see consistent results, I don’t see any point in continuing, change something. Literally, if it came down to the end of the week and I hadn’t lost any weight I cut my intake until I lost a pound.

I started with a strict calorie counting plan only – other then we are and were eating healthy foods mostly – I did not care about carbs, fat, high fructose corn syrup and all the other stuff that is counted or monitored. I used the calorie count web site along with others, to identify calories in foods that weren’t labeled (which are all the healthy ones).

I cut my calorie intake to (don’t lecture me lol ) 1000 calories per day for the first two weeks – I lost 13 pounds in those two weeks – kind of a cleansing of sorts, I reckoned. Did I mention that I am impatient? If I exceeded my calories for a day...say by lunch, I was done eating for the day. I went to bed early most nights in the early stages of this plan. But I quickly learned how to not exceed the calories by eating more salads, fruits and generally more healthy stuff.

Every week after those first two, I at minimum, maintained the weight from the previous week for 5 days…by eating (for me) around 1500 to 2000 calories (it varied as I lost weight and rode more). The following two days I cut back to 1000 calories per day. So basically I dieted two days per week if you want to call it that. Early on I lost 3 pounds per week, then 2 pounds per week every week up until June 4th. Continuing this regime, I have lost 1 pound per week since the week of June 4th and continue to do so. I’d venture to say, that 2000 calories in two days will cause weight loss, for most of us no matter the fitness level. It might not be the healthiest thing in the world to do but neither is walking around at 5’11” and 270 pounds with a high BP.

I improved the quality of my calories as well. My wife has always fed me a fairly healthy diet but in January we decided to no longer have chips, cookies, ice cream, hotdogs, Coke and the like in the house – on a regular basis. Instead, we have all variations of fruits, veggies and nuts for snacks these days. We eat more fish and chicken then red meat and we now eat whole grain everything…pasta’s (when we have it) and breads, pizza crust etc. All variations of steamed veggies are really delicious and we have them most nights. If you don’t like the taste of these things initially, you’ll eventually find a brand or several that are far tastier then others – or I did.

That said, I now weigh 199 pounds if I want pizza or ice-cream I am going to have it – and always did – even during the early diet phase. I simply eat smaller portions and I ride it off that evening or the next day. These things are simply things that I enjoy far less frequently then before. LOL, I had two white chocolate Reese’s cups on my 70 mile ride two Saturdays ago :>) that’s justified and permitted on my plan lol.

My advice, to those trying to eliminate something that you love (PEPSI) completely from your diet, is don’t. Have it on occasion it’ll make your journey less of a nightmare. I’ll have a coke on pizza night; I simply don’t have 4 or 5 a day like before.

I also needed help and support (and so will you) to pull this off and I got it from my family, co-workers and friends, so will you. As I have said, this web site was instrumental as well. Good stuff and advice in all the forums, I used the Clyde, Nutrition and Mechanics forum quite extensively.

I think I covered all of the high-points and sorry about the book, but you all asked.

CraigB

You've found what works for you, and that's great. I'm one of those who weighs only weekly, and if I weren't so short-sighted when it comes to motivation and reward, I'd cut that back to bi-weekly or even monthly. Why? My weight fluctuates a lot on a day-to-day basis, depending on hydration levels, sodium intake, yata yata yata. What I see in the window of the scale can have absolutely no correlation to my body's burning of excess fat. And seeing weight drop more than expected one day can lead to disappointment the next when I might be better hydrated. This whole weight-loss journey is fraught with psychological and emotional pitfalls that I, personally, need to avoid if I can.

But like I said, that's just me. You're on a path that works for you, so that's fantastic! Keep up the good work!

Craig in Indy

Shepp30 

Yep, Craig I rationalized that the morning naked, pre-coffee/breakfast weight was about as average as it was going to get. I forgot to mention that I began to hydrate to the recommended levels daily, and still do, which I had not done previous to my weight loss. My scale is rather particular, to the 10th. I could see results on a regular basis which kept me motivated.

I don't think the sensable diet and loosing a pound every couple of weeks would keep me motivated enough to continute to create a calorie deficit for that long of a period. However, the sensible diet to now maintain seems OK - that and there isn't anthing else in the house to eat lol. But as someone mentioned I only averaged a little over two pounds per week which my doc was OK with. After smacking me around for being over-weight and unhealthy early on, he smacked me around again when I showed up several weeks later 30 pounds lighter.

For me it all boiled down to the impatient thing and losing interest. I don't know, I can't seem to not weigh in every morning and know where I stand every day. I simply am going to do everything in my power to never put that weight on again.

spooner

This may be the most well punctuated forum posting I have ever read.

Shepp30 

LOL...that right there is hilarious. I don't know, PeterC and the Historian among others usually get their points across in a very effective manor.

CraigB

As a relative newcomer, I can only aspire to that level of efficacy in my communication.

EasyEd

Good job, and thanks for posting your story. Now you get to be an inspiration! Is that cool or what?

big_al

That is so awesome!!!!!! Congrats!!!!

I pray to God every night that I will be able to some day post in here my success story.......for me so far in eight weeks 297 to 288-9 and having a real hard time eating correctly but I will overcome it.....

I log in every night and use this forum as my motivation for tommorrow mornings ride.....

Velo Gator

Congrats!