A challenge

Potential-Monke

EVeryone knows someone who's overweight, doesn't eat healthy and is heading down a long heavy road of weight gain. Well, thats me. And i am begining to realise i need to do something. And i need help.

I'll begin with me. I'm 24, 5'6", and about 13.8 stone.

Exercise regime: The less i move the better.

Diet: Really bad. The only veg i eat are cabbage (with bacon only), beans, spuds. carrott and parsnip (mashed together only) and turnip (occasionally). I don't drink water. My main source of liquid is Coke, about 4-6 cans a day. Taytos, chocolate and sweets are my main source of food, aside from the dinners me ma makes me (when i get home every now and again), Carrolls Cuisine Lasagne, garlic bread and chinese/fast food take-aways.

Now, i've given up the chocolate, taytos and sweets, i know i can keep that cuz i done it before for a while. The Coke is extremely hard for me to give up, i don't think i can actually do it. If i drink loads of water (wait for it) i get indigestion so bad that it burns the back of my throat and i get an infection, thus equaling sick time!

I went to a Gym and got a fitness regime, but didn't really go.

What i want to know is, how can i lose at least 1.5 stone in 4 weeks?

I'm avoiding fast food, but won't be able to live without the chinese.

I think i'd be willing to do a 40 minute run on the threadmill every second day (recomended by a friend), but weights are not my thing, and i'm self concious so none of that bouncy ball thing (reason i stopped going to the gym in the first place, had to use this).

Would that be enough? I'm desperate, cuz i need to basically fit into a certain jacket in 4 weeks, and at the moment i can't even get the buttons to meet the button holes.

I am a very picky eater, so the majority of wht you'll probably recommend would not tickle my palate (i have been knowing for getting sick at the taste of certain veg...).

Generally, i'm near a worst case scenario. Can anyone help?

Bo Malicious

howya,

Id suggest everytime you feel the urge to eat something sweet (chocolates, sweets, crisps etc) to eat one or two pieces of fruit. I suspect that in doing this most of the time you wont feel such an urge for the goodies.

Start slowly too. Perhaps reduce your intake of coke by one less can per day per week. IF your drinking 6 now per day for the rest of this week only drink 5. AFter a couple of weeks you should find it easier.

LEt me know what you think/

randomer

I was drinking upto four 500ml bottles of diet coke per day up until two and a half months ago, and then one day I just decided to stop buying it. And I stopped!

Jimmy Bottlehead

Potential-Monke wrote: »

EVeryone knows someone who's overweight, doesn't eat healthy and is heading down a long heavy road of weight gain. Well, thats me. And i am begining to realise i need to do something. And i need help.

I'll begin with me. I'm 24, 5'6", and about 13.8 stone.

Exercise regime: The less i move the better.

First off, well done for finally getting in gear and deciding to sort yourself out.

Diet: Really bad. The only veg i eat are cabbage (with bacon only), beans, spuds. carrott and parsnip (mashed together only) and turnip (occasionally). I don't drink water. My main source of liquid is Coke, about 4-6 cans a day. Taytos, chocolate and sweets are my main source of food, aside from the dinners me ma makes me (when i get home every now and again), Carrolls Cuisine Lasagne, garlic bread and chinese/fast food take-aways.

Now, i've given up the chocolate, taytos and sweets, i know i can keep that cuz i done it before for a while. The Coke is extremely hard for me to give up, i don't think i can actually do it. If i drink loads of water (wait for it) i get indigestion so bad that it burns the back of my throat and i get an infection, thus equaling sick time!

I call bull**** on you saying you can't give up coke. You're only saying that because you like and it DON'T WANT to give it up. Big difference. Chuck out the coke you do have, and do not buy any more. If it's not there, you won't drink it. Trust me, I know this. If I have sweets or biscuits in the house, I eat them. If I don't, I sub something in, like nuts (good). Don't drink loads of water, but keep yourself ticking over. Unless I'm very wrong, water DOES NOT cause an infection.

I went to a Gym and got a fitness regime, but didn't really go.

Thats the hard part my friend. That was then, this is now.

What i want to know is, how can i lose at least 1.5 stone in 4 weeks?

Well if you sorted out your diet and hit the gym, I'd actually be inclined to say yes. But thats only cos your diet is abysmal at the mo, so changing it would make a HUUUUGGEEE difference.

I'm avoiding fast food, but won't be able to live without the chinese.

Again, bull$hit. Throw away the menus, delete the numbers from your phone, simple as. Go to tesco (or whatever supermarket is near) and pick up good food. You'll find plenty of info on whats good on here.

I think i'd be willing to do a 40 minute run on the threadmill every second day (recomended by a friend), but weights are not my thing, and i'm self concious so none of that bouncy ball thing (reason i stopped going to the gym in the first place, had to use this).

I'm assuming you're a guy, so go for weights. If you go to the gym and are working hard, people respect that. Nothing worse than someone half-arsing about in the gym. Just get in, do your stuff, and get out.

Would that be enough? I'm desperate, cuz i need to basically fit into a certain jacket in 4 weeks, and at the moment i can't even get the buttons to meet the button holes.

I am a very picky eater, so the majority of wht you'll probably recommend would not tickle my palate (i have been knowing for getting sick at the taste of certain veg...).

If you do the very basic requirements (eat well and workout hard) then you may indeed fit. But it'll take some ball-busting work. Use the occasion (whatever it is) as motivation. use anything and everything and EVERYONE as inspiration.

Generally, i'm near a worst case scenario. Can anyone help?

Not sure if it did, but hopefully I did. If not others will. But it's down to you my man. If you want it, you can do it.

Trev M

Bo Malicious wrote: »

howya,

Id suggest everytime you feel the urge to eat something sweet (chocolates, sweets, crisps etc) to eat one or two pieces of fruit. I suspect that in doing this most of the time you wont feel such an urge for the goodies.

Start slowly too. Perhaps reduce your intake of coke by one less can per day per week. IF your drinking 6 now per day for the rest of this week only drink 5. AFter a couple of weeks you should find it easier.

LEt me know what you think/

He's aiming for 1.5 stone in 4 weeks? No way thats gonna cut it in my view, but hey Im open for correction?

I think realistically a serious committment would be called for and a strict diet ...that has zero coke , zero chinese?

Do ya drink beer?

Is this 40 min every 2nd dat your only exercise?. If it is I think youre not gonna get anywhere near 1.5stone in 4 weeks

You need to drink water, ya dont do this when trying to lose weight your gonna have problems

Im guessing ya definitely need to revise your regime statement.

Read the stickies ,

As Dragan would say man, you gotta be honest with yourself.

Seriously its gonna be hard work , given your recent diet , you lack of excercise and current condition.

Im noexpert , my post here is based on my own experience of runnin myself into the ground last three weeks and eating zero junk , zero beer. Just started my weights program recently .... the weight is shifting but working at it every day , and pushing hard in the gym most evenings 5/6 a week. I may get close to a stone in 4 weeks.

Trev M

Just wanna add best of luck!

Its hard but ultimately its the best thing you can do for yourself.

Youre a young guy, you do this now , stick with it, it will stand to you for the rest of your life .

Do it now before things get really bad!

randomer

To hit your target, I think it will be 80% diet, and 20% exercise. If you don't change your diet, you could run for an hour every day and I dont think you would lose much weight. If you sort out your diet and cut out all of the rubbish you could get to your goal.

Somebody told me on this site a few months ago that if you are eating 5 meals a day (including snacks) that is 35 meals per week. And it is ok to have one or two "cheat" meals per week. Provided it is only one or two then you can easily lose weight.

Bo Malicious

TrevM> ah i agree he/she needs to do alot more - alot of it obvious if they make the effort to read these boards. My suggestion of the eating fruit thing was something I find and have found works for me when the urge for something sweet comes on. Never feel like that Mars bar after a nice, juicy orange :-)

Potential - Monke > you need to be honest with yourself. Treat losing weight seriously and you will loose weight. If your half arsed about it the MOST you'll get out is half assed results. If you've been living an all too sedentry lifestyle then you can get big results quite quickly with effort. Little things can make all the difference in breaking some of your bad habits but also some new good habits/rouintes will ,at this stage in particular make a big difference... be that getting off the bus a few stops earlier, walking home in the evening and giving up the infamous Coke.

Racing Flat

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Can anyone help?

YOU, YOURSELF.

As it's only 4 weeks it should be really really easy to lose 1.5stone in that time considering your current diet, which sounds beautiful to me, but obviously not very healthy. 4 weeks should be bearable to give up the bad food and coke, or at least severely cut down. I, personally find it easier to give stuff up completely for a period. If I have a bar of chocolate one night I want one the next night as well, so if I really need to lose weight I give it up completely for a period. But it does sound like you'll struggle wiothout the Chinese and Coke, so if I was you I'd nearly try and go cold turkey but set a date 2 weeks for now when you can have Chinese and Coke, so you've something to look forward to and then you'll only have 2 weeks left anyway.

I used to be worse than you - when I went to the chipper I'd say they thought I was buying for a family. Into Dino's or Lennox's in Cork - one fish, 2 bags of chips, 1 potato pie, 1 cheese burger, carton of curry sauce, 2 cans of coke....damnit, getting hungry now, why did I ever decide to get fit!!!! Now if I had 1 fish and chips I'd manage it but I'd be stuffed after and not want it again for a while, so it's amazing how much of it is habit....Best of luck. You gotta get in to that jacket so be tough with yourself, it's only 4 weeks...

aye

Drop the garlic bread, drop the chinese, drop the take aways and drop the ready made meals.
buy some frozen vegetables, they take 4 mins to boil, buy some chicken/tuna, and some rice/pasta.
get a simple cook book, cos i think the main problem here is you are too lazy to cook, which is quite common.

also a can of coke has 9 - 10 teaspoons of sugar! so 6 cans a day, 60 teaspoons of sugar!!!
a suggestion to see how much sugar you are eating is to start the day with an empty jar, and for every teaspoon of sugar you eat, put a teaspoon of sugar in the jar.
at the end of the day you may get a shock on how much sugar you are eating.
you need to lose the coke in a bug way, as all that sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes.

as suggested, dont buy it in the shopping, you'll find you wont miss it.
if you need something sweet, get some robinsons (no sugar) or something.
also dont finish off the cans you have at home, throw them out tonight.

ali.c

Potential-Monke wrote: »

The Coke is extremely hard for me to give up, i don't think i can actually do it. If i drink loads of water (wait for it) i get indigestion so bad that it burns the back of my throat and i get an infection, thus equaling sick time!

Hmm yeah you be allergic to water so, maybe you just drank it too cold or too fast. Seriously ditch the coke switch to diet coke or coke free if you need to maybe try some fizzy water during the transistion.

I am a very picky eater, so the majority of wht you'll probably recommend would not tickle my palate (i have been knowing for getting sick at the taste of certain veg...).

So go find some vegetables that you do like the taste of or try cooking them in a different way.

As for chinese, well i used to really enjoy that too till i started eating proper food now IMHO most chinese takeway is utter muck!

dv6

hey potential-m, losing 1.5 stone in a month is possible, ive done it before but through fad diets and then putting it back on again nearly as quickly. Im 25, 5'9" and currently 14 stone, at my heaviest i was well over 16 stone but just by making a few changes to my diet and more exercise the weight slowly came off, well fast at first and then slowly, but all i can say is keep at it. You've made the decision to start, thats the hardest thing. I still have a long way to go meself but aiming to lose 1.5 stone in a month, sounds like you just wanna get down to get in this jacket and then let it on again. Dont do this, a few changes at first like dropping the coke and chineses will make a serious dent in it and then as you keep going change something else, slowly getting a healthier diet. Ya dont have to be a monk, by try to see it as a lifestyle change rather than a diet.

markesmith

A couple of tips that have worked nicely for me:
- quit the spuds, try sweet potatoes instead (they're savage).
- go from Coke to Coke Zero. Tastes the exact same, IMHO.
- if you're going for Chinese, boil up a bag of brown rice and have that instead of the egg fried rice.
- give up white bread. Go for brown instead.
- if you can, have a wrap instead of a sandwich.
- chips, biscuits, and all that cr*p need to go. It's carbs (especially consumed after 7pm or 8pm) that will kill you.
- 40 mins on the treadmill at a messer's pace isn't as good as 20 minutes on there really going for it. I listen to a 7-minute song on 12 k/ph, and then a 3-minute song on 14.5 k/ph.
- try and calm down on the Guinness and beer. Maybe try wine instead.
- try and get some protein in all your meals. Nuts, chicken, etc.

Just my €0.02!