Fat dude that needs your support
 

Hello, I hope you allow men in this forum. I decided on May 1 of this year to do something about my health. I'm on blood pressure, cholesterol and depression medicine. I was 223 pounds when I started my diet. After 6 months I have loss only 4 pounds. I walk/run/jog 2.6 miles a day, 5 days a week. I don't take any weight loss medicine, because I don't want to lose muscle as well as fat. I want to become lean. As a single man, I know I don't have the best diet and besides, I don't cook. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Hi! Welcome! My name is Rachelle and I've seen men on this board, and I know that there is a man on this board who blogs. Explore the website and post messages...everyone here is really supportive! We're all in this together!

:welcome:
Yes men are welcome at 3FC.

Please take a look around and post where you are comfortable.

You may want to post a typical day's menu and ask for feedback. If you are exercising that much and not losing weight you are either eating a lot of not so good for you foods or not eating enough calories. You'll be sure to get lots of comments with a sample menu of which folks believe it to be.

If you don't cook, you may want to learn some basics. Again ask for advice. There are also healthy things you can eat that you can grill, microwave or prepare on a George Foreman type indoor grill. Also, preparing raw vegetables for snacking or sides like salads isn't cooking, but can call for the use of a knife - or sometimes just washing something before you eat it. We've got some guys on here who have learned to cook. Grilled lean meat and microwaved frozen vegetables is minimal cooking. Adding a few seasonings or healthy sauces can be simpler than it seems and add a whole lot of flavor.

Hi!!! :wave: I'm new here, and just wanted to welcome you to 3FC! I wish you the very best along your journey! You came to a great place! :)

Rachelle, thank you for the welcome. I certainly need the support.

Thank you for your encouraging words. I know I spend too much money for lunch and probably the wrong foods for me.

Hey - and welcome!

It's been 6 months and you haven't given up - that's sheer determination.
You can absolutely do this. WebRover's food advice will get you a solid start on the diet factor of weight loss.

Also - I suggest you learn how to count calories. It's possibly the most effective way to keep track of your food intake and get you losing weight.

Good Luck. :)

Kim, thank you. I see you have already lost 4 1/2 pounds. Great job. So, what are you doing to lose weight?

David

Welcome! I agree with webrover. Also, you might want to explore the boards and see if there is a forum you fancy, they are very supportive :)

Hello, i think it's refreshing to see men on here. I have seen a couple. Its a good idea to maybe post what you are eating on an average day. That way you will get lots of feedback, and pointers on where you are going wrong, or what you are doing right. good luck:carrot:
also, it would probably be helpful to learn how to cook a little. It's just healthier for the most part. there are a lot of good recipes online, that include videos on how to cook it. try myrecipes.com, and cookinglight.com

Welcome to 3FC - everyone here is really supportive and always ready to answer whatever questions you may have or suggest something you may not have thought of! Even in this thread, you have gotten some wonderful ideas!

Also congratulations on losing 4 pounds already! That's the equivalent of 16 sticks of butter!

Hope to see you post more often!

Welcome and good luck! We have several very successful men on the boards. You do need to find a diet plan. I personally find counting calories work best for me . Others prefer Weight Watchers or South Beach. There are many diets to choose from including meal delivery systems. It is OK to experiment until you find what works best for you.

:welcome: and I hope you're finding some new ideas and coming up with some new plans for food! Baby steps :carrot:

Hi there and welcome! We always have room for one more man around here. There are a few men that post around here pretty regularly. All who have had great success. EZmoney and griffogrubb are the only user names i can think of. I believe Charles as well has awesome success stories. Make your way on over the the goal forums and check them out. Good luck and dont be a stranger. There is TONS of great info and support around here.

Welcome! There are several men on the boards and we love having you all here! 3fc is not just for chicks! :)

You are already doing great! The fact that you are still in this after all this time and little loss shows real commitment! That is a HUGE part of losing weight. Congrats on getting exercise in too! Even without the weight loss that should help you raise your good cholesterol levels!

I think you may need to have a serious look at your diet. If you post what you normally eat we can help. There are lots of wonderful people on here that will give you good advice.

I would suggest you learn some basic cooking skills. There's a couple of cookbooks I always buy for bachelors or others who can't cook. One is: Help My Apartment Has A Kitchen. This book explains things simply and has basic recipes in it. Another my husband likes is: A Man and A Pan. Now neither of these books are brimming with super healthy eats, but you learn basic cooking skills and you can always tweak stuff to be more healthy (like making whole wheat pasta instead of regular and eating a proper portion.)

There are also some things you can buy at the grocery store that require little preparation, but are much better for you then eating out all the time.

You'll get the hang of it!

Welcome to the boards. If you are anti-cooking you could always switch over to Lean Cuisines. They're not the best choice of course, but it's a good step away from fast food runs and pizza pick ups on the way home. Also what do you drink on an average day? Are you getting in enough water? I am a runner as well (I don't run more than 2.5 miles still) and I need to drink TONS of water before, during and all day after my runs or else I feel like crap and I don't lose any weight. I cut out almost all caloric drinks and I have seen a large surge in my loss. Good luck and welcome again!

Hi. As a single woman, I don't do a lot of cooking, either. Not that I can't, but it's just a bother to do it for myself alone all the time. A lot of times it's salads and easy stuff. You can get the prepared salad mixes and stuff to put on them, like nuts or even pre-cooked chicken. Often don't even bother to cook the vegetables, which is fine because they taste good raw. If you do learn to cook, one thing I've found that helps is to cook a big batch of something, like a whole pot of soup, then put it into individual serving containers and eat on them. If you take a day and make several things, it can stock up your freezer with healthy food for weeks.

There are some super easy cookbooks out there that guys I know have been really pleased they could use. It feels good to learn a new skill. I think one of they they'd recommend is the "I Don't Know How to Cook Book." Even if you're not in college, I think there's also an easy book called something like the Healthy College Cookbook.

What is your weight loss secret?
 

Hello,

You look so great and you lost so much weight fast. What is your secret? Are you on any particular diet? Do you go to a gym? Hope to hear back from you soon.

David

Have you talked with your health care provider? Maybe meds could be affecting your weight loss. Anti-depressants definitely put weight on me. There are also some meds that don't allow your heart rate to increase when exercising, thus the exercise really doesn't do any good for weight loss.

It's not that I can't cook, I guess I choose not to. As a single person, you know how hard it is to buy for just one person. I drink between 32-48 oz of water a day. May not seem a lot, but before I didn't drink any water. David

I wonder the same thing. I take Bupropion a generic for Wellbutrin, and I hear that it doesn't effect weight loss or gain. I'm going to call next week to schedule a complete physical.

A physical is a great place to start - I've been overweight all my life but it wasn't until a couple years ago that my thyroid condition was found with a simple blood test and confirmed with an ultrasound of my neck. The doctors I saw when I was younger all assumed I was lazy although looking back I was a pretty active kid. They always told me I just needed to exercise more. My doctor who did the thyroid test was really mad that no one had even bothered to check. So I totally believe in starting with a doctor visit. I think Wellbutrin is one of the few anti-depressants that is pretty good about not causing weight gain.

Welcome David
 

Hi David - :wel3fc:

Yep, they allow men around here; they've always made me feel welcome.

Congrats on continuing on through four months. And congratulations for finding 3FC and posting - this place can be a springboard to find out what you need to do to keep losing.

It could help to find one of the boards to regularly post what you're eating and what exercise you're doing. A little group accountability helps a lot.

Good luck whatever you choose; I hope you keep posting.

Hello,

What is the Beck Diet Solution? Great job with maintaining your weight. I hope to be joining you.

Well if medication is not affecting weight gain/loss then you are probably just eating crap foods. Weight loss is 85% diet...

Learn how to cook, if you are serious about weight loss. Grilling chicken and boiling eggs is not rocket science. I'm guessing your min calories would be around 2500, eat less than that and exercise.

ROFL, then explain this!!!!
 

I never said I can't cook, in fact I use to be a cook at Disneyland. What I said was, I DON'T cook. See if you can figure this out. I eat better now than I did before I started my weight loss program. I walk/jog and sometimes run 15+ miles a week now. Generally a person will burn 7 calories a minute by walking briskly. My exercise usually takes between 38-45 minutes. So, if I burn 7 calories a minute for 38 minutes, I should burn 266 calories (minimum) a day. If I hadn't change my diet at all, wouldn't you think burning an additional 266 calories a day someone would lose more than 4 pounds in 6 months?

Hi,

Welcome Aboard, I'm a man too and I lost around 33 lbs from the date I joined this forum..Their are lot many men over here and I believe you'd find loads of information over here.

To find out why you ain't losing enough weight I suggest you to keep a food log, one good site to maintain the food log is www.fitday.com. Log your food for 7 days and then post your public view of the food log here...lots of experts can find and let you know where things are going wrong.

Mods : Now that lots of Men are joining 3fc can we have a new forum subcategory for Men too :)

About The Beck Diet Solution
 

The Beck Diet Solution is a program to stay on our diet plan and exercise plan using the techniques of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). A few comments about it are located at the start of the November thread for support, discussion, and being diet coaches to each other:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=155386
Also there you will find links to the prior months threads, as well as a link to buy the book, The Beck Diet Solution, from Amazon through 3FC (so that they get a coin for your purchase).

I had already lost my weight when I found out about this site, 3FC, and subsequently about Beck. I felt that I still wasn't on solid ground with my eating. I was still drawn to food and was worried that it would be easy for me to slip back into my old continuously grazing way of over eating. The steps in the Beck plan have helped me to get better grounded in both my healthy eating and my exercise.

Hi there,
Welcome! From what you posted I think you are not losing much because you are eating your calories back if you eat out. You will have to make some changes in your lifestyle and start taking care of your nutrition at home. I am sorry to say that - I know how convenient it is to go out and order something but even if you try to eat healthy while eating out, it will never never be as healthy as when prepared at home.
This is my advice for all people who don't like to cook - crockpot! If you get a big one (5.5 quart) you can make a ton of food at once, with absolute control over how many carbs, how much fat and much protein you are eating. You can divide into portions and freeze so that you don't eat the same stuff all week.

Welcome, David!

You are already getting great advice so I don't have much to add. Post often and hang around here and you'll start absorbing lots of great advice on weight loss and exercise. I know I have!

Good luck and way to stick with it! :carrot:


I think that's an awesome idea for the guys! :comp:

I think it's a great idea, too. I've always wondered why there wasn't one. I do very much hope that all you men hang out all over the boards. We need everyone's input. But if I were you, I'd want a men's forum also.

I know for myself that now that I have started eating out very little (I only go out if it's a social event and then only once a week or less) I have noticed some positive changes. One is portion size! I always cleaned my plate when i went out to eat but last time I went out I brought half my food back with me because at home I have been retraining my brain to see portion sizes much more realistically.

If you do want to keep eating out, pick a few of your favorite places and research the nutrition info for their menu. Some chain restaurants can be found online, others you'll have to ask for in the restaurant. That way at least you'll know what your eating. Personally, I was surprised at how inflated calorie counts were. For example I made an omelette with a side of bacon and toast at home and it was about 650 calories. The same meal at a restaurant was more than double that. Partly due to portion size I think.

You can also make special requests if you don't already. Even simple things like having your salad dressing on the side, or getting the bake potato fixings on a separate plate so you can add how much you want helps.

I think you can eat out and stick with your calorie goals but only if you know how many calories are actually in the foods you're eating. And personally I have found it harder to eat out and stick to my eating plan.

I should note that eating in meant I had to make some lifestyle changes. I have to be home more and I can't stay late at the library (I'm currently back in school) and I have to plan food to take with me. This definitely took some getting used to.