KevinB

Earlier this month i was searching for a bike as a reward for getting into shape and several people have asked me to tell my story and how i did it. I was kind of reluctant to do so because i am more upset with myself in becoming so out of shape than I am proud of myself for getting back into shape. As far as pics and calorie diet charts I really do not have any. As far as the pics when I was so overweight I refused to have my pic taken and I also kind of like to have a little privacy. Also as I will talk about later I did a very minium amount of calorie tracking because i just could not stand it and when I did try it was very inconsistent at best. I think in stead of telling a long drawn out story i will just break down different things that worked for me an some things that did not to keep it simple. Also I did many things that the main stream medical / diet gurus do not recommend so please do not take any of my recommendations with out a lot of thought and research on your own . First thing I finally did was forget about every diet health book that I READ and thought about what was the healthiest lifestyle that I could live with and be comfortable with for the rest of my life. For me eating and living someone else's lifestyle was never going to work . i had to find my own path. This is how cycling came back into my life because the last time i was in good shape is when i was using a bike for the major part of my transportation needs. I also realized that although i was in tremendous shape and a very good athlete at one time I never did live a healthy life. I was in great shape because of an active lifestyle and youth even with a poor diet.

As far as exercise I did start cycling again and started riding two hours every morning before I ate anything. I did also take 2 hydroxycut every morning when I woke. It seemed to get me going and I believe it helped me access my body fat as fuel but that could have just been in my head. Obviously there are somethings that the medical community would gasp at but it worked for me. For me it was better to ride every single day. Obviously there is an advantage as far as burning calories every day but for me it was even more important to keep the routine. Waking up at the same time riding and eating at the same time everyday single day was actually easier than trying to do it 4 or 5 times a week. Another thing that every health / diet guru preaches is that you should only lose 1 or 2 pounds a week to be healthy. Maybe I am niave but i do not really see how unhealthy it can be using your own body fat as fuel and losing more than a few pounds a week.

My Diet! What we are told about as far as diet and what is healthy is something that actually makes me angry. I believe the power of the $ has A lot more to do with our healthy diet perceptions than actual fact. The low carb diet actually makes me laugh both at the defenders of the diet and the people who attack it. The reason it makes me laugh is that i do not believe its a low carb diet i believe its a natural way of eating. People 1,000 years ago ate meat fruit and vegetables and a few civilizations had a steady supply of grains. The civilizations that did have the grains were over weight. Now people generally think that eating under 200 grams of carbs a day is very low carb and unhealthy. To those people I challenge them to eat over 200 grams of carbs every day for a month from food that is grown in there region and is in season. I bet very few people can do it. So as far as my actual diet. I ate as much fish chicken , pork beef and vegetables that it took to make me feel satisfied and give me enough energy to get me through the day. Though I do believe that fruit is very healthy I believe that while losing weight its best to use it as more of a treat than a staple.

Also this is just me but I have always been a bit of a perfectionist and when my idea of perfection gets damaged I then tend to get pissed and trash the rest of my life so I will tell a quick story that I will call friday night. Friday night at my house for several years has become kind of a meeting place party place that people randomly stop by bringing beer pizza and all kinds of different totally unhealthy snack foods. When i first got serious about getting in shape Friday night was the night i totally F up! I would go a while with will power but sooner or latter I would dip a chip or crack a beer and as soon as that happened I would keep going. So after a few fridays of complete failure I came up with a totally crazy concept. I let myself enjoy a small amount of crappy food and i drank some beer as well. I did keep my beers limited to six, mostly so I did not have a hangover so i could live a clean life again on Saturday. I am being a little sarcastic here in case people have not caught it but I believe its okay and maybe even a little good to damage your diet once in a while as long as you limit the damage and keep that damage contained to a half of day not days.

Okay forgive my random thoughts here but something else i would like to add that is against the advice of the main stream / medical/ diet gurus. I got on the scale every morning. Of course sometimes i would weigh more than the day before because of water and blah blah blah but over a weeks time I always expected to weigh less ever day than weigh the same or more. To me that constant feedback was very important.

Wow this is already longer than i thought it would be so I will end it here. if there is interest and I think of more things i will add them in the future.

Carbonfiberboy 

Thank you!

The two hours every morning was all you rode? Of course that's plenty, but just wondering.

200g carbos = 800 calories/day, which is certainly plenty if one is not racing or touring. 30g is more like what is considered a very low carb diet. I did 63 relatively hard miles today and probably did 300g of carbos, but I don't eat like that every day. And I'll be lighter tomorrow, anyway.

KevinB

Actually from what I understand 30 grams a day of carbs would be a very low amount of carbs a day even from low carb promoters.Especially for people who do not need to lose weight The people who say they are against low carb recommend that people get 70 percent of there diet from carbs. Lets say that a person needs 2500 calories a day to maintain there weight. 70 percent of 2500 calories would be 437 grams of carbs a day. If you wanted to eat 437 grams 0f vegetables a day you would need to go buy about 20 bags of frozen broccoli a day and eat it.

Not disagreeing with you just pointing out the fact the the math makes no sense when it comes to high carb diets.

TurboTurtle

First - congratulations! It's the lfe style that works (or doesn't).

"I believe the power of the $ has A lot more to do with our healthy diet perceptions than actual fact." I agree, but also think the marketters find us easy targets because we choose what we want to believe rather than fact. I equate pop-nutrition with astrology.

"The people who say they are against low carb recommend that people get 70 percent of there diet from carbs." I've never seen that kind of recommendation from someone that is just ant-low carb. I would call low carb less (generally much less) than 20%. Most recommend 0% intially.

TF

paulclaude

First of all, congratulations on the weight loss!

Realisticly, keeping the weight off is all about making lifestyle changes that you know you are going to be able to stick to for the future. If low carb works for you, then great! Finding a system that works for you is the most important thing. From what i've seen through others trying to loose weight and my own personal experience, I feel that moderation in everything is the best policy. Don't deny yourself anything, or things can back-fire, at least for a lot of people.

$ick3nin.vend3t

100 + pounds Lost

You get my respect.

Congratulations & keep staying strong.

Carbonfiberboy 

Uh, actually not. At only 2500 cal./day, you sure don't need to be at 70%. At 6000 cal., yes. One figures carb calories by first specifying so many calories for protein and so many for fat and then the rest can be carbs. So the higher the level of activity, the higher the carb percentage.