The Monster Zero Weight Loss Challenge

[Hybrid Gojira]

Oh yeah, it's not official that I've lost, but I've lost.

I have so many (lame) excuses, but we are moving this week and I'll have a workout room starting next week and zero excuses after that. Right now my place is a bunch of boxes.

[DannyBeane]

I hit 187 the other day or down 26 lbs

[Hybrid Gojira]

Alright.

So I completely lost the challenge and managed to weigh more than when we started.

Congrats to Jelly, who smoked me...your copy of the Godzilla Blu Ray will be coming shortly per our wager.

Anyway, I'm going to continue this thread only because I am creeping on 220 now (217.8 this morning). I was 180 when I met my wife and needed to lose 10-15 then. My goal is to be ripped again. I'm not a big guy so this +40 lbs is killing me. I'm experiencing all the issues you'd expect - low energy, worn out, constantly feel sick or tired...it's got to stop.

Luckily, several of my co-workers hit the gym during lunch and I've joined in. It's a start.

[Jorzilla]

I've been doing C25K and MyFitnessPal. It's worked great and I've lost about 15 lbs since starting a couple of months ago. I also don't eat Breakfast, so I'm actually inadvertently doing a fasting program as well...the end result is I've hardly had to change my diet and I'm just more conscious of useless snaking.

[Hybrid Gojira]

My employer pays for my gym membership, a few co-workers and I have been hitting the gym at lunch. This was my first week, but I managed to work out all 5 days and only have 2 cokes (which is my vice) total. That's a win for me.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Tomorrow will make 2 straight weeks of working on for me. Another win and a good start. Now I have to maintain the drive. I've also been pretty good about eating so far and had minimal coca cola.

[jellydonut25]

With the wife going back to work, my normal workout time from over the summer of right after I got home from work doesn't fit into the day anymore. I'm picking up the baby from day care, making dinner, cleaning, paying bills, getting the mail, etc...

So, that leaves me either waking up at 4 AM to workout (which would actually STILL be tight, since I usually wake up at 5:30 and after an hour workout I sweat so much I need a solid 20-25 minutes to cool down) or working out at night after the baby goes to bed (which sucks because it's never a consistent time, and my dinner's still usually sitting with me, which makes me very averse to working out).

I need to get this figured out SOON, before I don't even want to work out anymore, but my schedule just flat-out sucks right now.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Monday check in - was sick all weekend (along with my son and wife) so we ate some comfort food...but I'm still down 5 lbs and on my way to a 10 lbs loss for a 4 week period. Not too shabby.

[jellydonut25]

Ugh. I SWEAR I'm gonna start again this week, but last week, the baby was AWFUL with going to sleep at the end of the night. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday she was up until 12:30...and when you wake up at 5 AM, you don't really want to spend that 4 and a half hour bit of free time to sleep working out...

[Hybrid Gojira]

Missed my workout yesterday and this morning. I might workout at home.
Mainly, my eating has been much better. I'm allowing indulgences on the weekend or during special occasions (going out today for lunch with my boss). Other than that, I'm laying off the coke and sweets and watching my food intake.

[Hybrid Gojira]

It seems like this is a never ending struggle....

I was up to 219.4 lbs this week (aka the heaviest I've ever been).

Anyway, the plan now is basically to eliminate all cheat days except for Halloween (though I won't be crushing a ton of candy) and make it to Thanksgiving (my next splurge day).

[jellydonut25]

Between getting sick and the insanity that has been October, I haven't even hit the gym in a month...the light is at the end of the tunnel though, I think.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Ugh.

I was out of commission with a sinus infection that both myself and my wife had...plus our little one has been sick. I didn't do anything for the past week. I'm on new meds so hopefully they resolve my sinus issues. I'm planning to work out tomorrow...at 218 lbs this morning.

[XvGojira]

Had my work's healthy lifestyles' yearly biometric screening, which saves me over $200 in insurance costs, and I gained five pounds from last year. Sure 209 isn't horrific, but I've been meaning to do more cardio and what what not just because of my heart issues. But this is solidifying my need to do it.

I had to buy new shoes for this, as I don't want to wear out my work shoes working out. And I've been going to my apartment's club house and using their treadmill (I'd use the elliptical but it's setting are broken so I can't increase the incline or the tension, and that treadmill is the only large device not broken in that manner). I do fifteen minutes on a cardio setting (speed and incline increase, peak and then decrease) and fifteen minutes of a weight loss setting (flat incline with spikes in speed). I made it through the weekend but I missed it today.

[jellydonut25]

My typical day over the past month has been:
Wake up at 5:30 AM.
Go to work
Get home at 4:40 PM
Feed the baby.
Put baby down for a half-hour nap.
Wash bottles
Watch baby learn how to crawl
Make baby food
Put baby to sleep.
Sort e-mails, do work and independent studying and training.
Go to sleep at 1 AM.

I get a total of maybe 95 minutes where the baby's not awake and I'm not doing work...and I use those to take a minute to breathe, not work out. Somehwere, somewhen, there will come a day when I am no longer being insanely overworked...and on that day, I will sleep. Then maybe many moons later there will come two days in a row...and I'll sleep one day and wonder what to do the next. THEN, stillmore moons later, I'll get like a week off, and somewhere around the halfway point of that week, I'll begin to work out again.

[Hybrid Gojira]

So... Tomorrow is basically "I'm starting this weight loss over again" day. I've been terrible for the last month. Between a sinus infection and eating horrible (read: delicious) food, I'm nowhere close to dropping lbs. let's see how this next round goes.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Man.

I really suck at making changes to my eating habits.

I was up to 220.6 lbs as of Monday.

This week, I've started the 17 Day Diet (it's a thing) that basically goes in phases. Each phase lasts 17 days. Initially it's basically a low carb, unlimited protein and veggie diet. After each new cycle is started, you introduce new foods (in moderation) until you are able to maintain your goal weight. It also encourages exercise, which honesty I haven't done much of lately.

Updates as they come. At this point, need to drop 50 lbs to hit my goal. I can't believe I've let my weight go this long.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Well.

Thanksgiving is over. I can lay off the candy and bad food until Christmas. My goal is to drop about 10 lbs by Jan...wish me luck.

[Hybrid Gojira]

This thread should be renamed to "The I SUCK AT Monster Zero Weight Loss Challenge," because I do, indeed, suck at it.

Long story short - the Doc has me on a Gluten free diet to see if that reduces my headaches. So far, it seems to be working. The bad part is that this month has been so crazy that we are eating out a bunch and I've found...gluten free pizza. Which I've eaten far too much of. And candy. Lots and lots of candy.

ANYWAY -

After the Holidays it's time to recommit to this. My son turns 1 in March and I turn 30 in July - two milestones (3-4 months apart from now and each other) that are also perfect dates to check my progress at.

[Hybrid Gojira]

Monday (the 5th) is official "Let's stop being fat" day for many people. I plan to start and actually follow through this time. Anyone wanna join in?

[Destroysall]

[Hybrid Gojira]

Update:

Well, the first two weeks were rough. Basically, I'm starting over again as of yesterday. I need to lose about 55 lbs. My current weight is 224.4 and I need to be around 170-175 (maybe less...I weighed 180 a few years ago and then ballooned).

[kidnicky]

I realize your contest is over,but if you're still serious about losing weight you should join weight watchers. I was a little over 300 lbs when I did it and got down to like 240 in a couple months. It really works. BTW I'm 6'5" so 240-250 is basically as low as I'm gonna get.

[jellydonut25]

I usually do pretty well when I put my mind to it, the problem has been a TON of changes to my life over the past 6 months. I have been laid off, had a new baby, gone from 2 vehicles down to 1, been a stay-at-home dad, had a dozen interviews, and now I probably start back at work in mid-October.
I haven't been able to find a solid chunk of normalcy to be able to schedule something. I was doing okay for a little bit this summer, and had gotten back into shape (in terms of being able to work out regularly) and I was about to kick into "diet mode" and really try to lose some weight but then my son was born and I needed to sleep.

Hopefully, I can find a groove at my new job and figure something out. If nothing else, I need to start eating right, but I'd definitely like to get back into shape again too. I look at pics of myself from just 2 years ago and I'm like "Dang, I look good." and I wanna get back to that. I don't need to be SKINNY, I just want to have some muscle tone back and lose some lbs.

[XvGojira]

I seem to have plateau-ed around 205. Admittedly my eating habits could be better, although they have improved over where they were from like a year ago. I've actually grown to like eating mushrooms and onions (still a bit on the fence on tomatoes though and I still haven't tackled olives). Although I'm still weary of the slimy canned pizza mushrooms, but fresh stuff I'm totally down with. All thanks to real ramen noodles. And I've been doing pretty good at not eating tons and tons of bread and cereal. Wheat products are a bane to my dietary existence. One of the issues is that I live with 3 other people and it's not like a family where we all sit down for breakfast and dinner and all that jazz. Two couples and we, for the most part buy, for ourselves and our fridge and cupboard get full rather quick. I don't like going out to eat all the time, as it's usually less expensive just to cook at home, but there are usually left overs.

Several months ago my cardiologist suggest I start using the 5BX (or the Royal Canadian Air force Exercise) regiment. It's rather simple and I really like it. But I've just gotten off the horse of doing it though. No real reason why, just missed a few days and just kept on missing. Whenever I actually do it though, I feel so great. Damn internet sucking me in when I should be exercising. And my cardiologist even told me that I really don't need to go beyond the first chart. When we talked he talked about how people tend to self defeat themselves with "I got to take an hour out of my day to do this" but a better way of thinking, at least at the start, is "How little do I think of my health that I can't even do two minutes of exercise?" and after two minutes, it's not hard to do two more and then two more. And by then you're almost done with the 5BX for the day so why not finish it off.

I'm partly ranting for my self, trying to pump myself up to do it. I meant to work out before work but I also meant to do that yesterday too. But tonight! Tonight's the night.