120 kilos and 5 foot 7

throwaway10

Long Time member on another account.

Enough is enough. I am 5 foot 7, and 120 kilos. Throughout school and college I was chubby, but things were never this bad. I immersed myself into work, and it became all too easy to eat out, or in, and drink away the evenings. I am now absolutely miserable and I feel my weight and unhealthiness are a large part of that. I played rugby and hurling through school and always played 5 a side. My gut has stretched to a horrible size in two years.

I have never stepped foot in a gym. I have always been classed as a "strong" guy, but I know that counts for little. I suffer from social anxiety so that hasn't helped with my efforts to change things. Enough is enough, though. Tonight I joined FlyeFit gym. I am worried about being embarrassed in the gym as I do have quite a large gut and now some breasts to go with it. I am a 24 year old male.

Should I be focussing on cardio? I have no idea where to start and my social anxiety stops me somewhat from seeking help in person. If this is the wrong place, I am sorry.

Yer Aul One

If you browse through the stickies you will find the information you are looking for but here is a taste of what you will read:

Diet is key for weightloss. You cannot outrun a bad diet. Download myfitness pal, buy a weighing scales and a cup measure and start recording everything to the absolute mg. After a week of doing this, you will quickly see what is costing you a lot of calories and how you can amend your diet to maintain a calorie deficit. Self prepared meals are usually a better way to regulate diet.

Exercise is amazing for mental health, confidence, body health etc. It is hard to quantify calories burned doing weight training so for that reason some people choose cardio based workouts, because they can see the calories burned figure on the machines (however inaccurate). Weight training, cardio based workouts or sports will all aid the process, the preference you mostly see here is in resitance/weight training but the overarching question you should ask yourself is: what will I enjoy and more important what will I be able to sustain? Try out a few things. In flyefit you have an opportunity to try lots of things.

Read the boards fitness forums, I love them. There are some lads on here that are incredibly helpful, knowledgeable and also sound. Encouragement is easy to come by on here. Use it to your advantage. A nice example:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057510648

Get onto the nutrition forum as well, get studying up on diet and nutrition. You could make some serious weightloss easily with diet changes so the investment in this area is not to be underestimated. The common idea is to get to the gym after xmas or in instances like yourself etc. The idea should be to go to the presses and throw out all the junk, study up on healthy, appropriately measured meals and get to the shops to get the materials you need, this will help more for weightloss goals than getting on the threadmill.
In saying that, that is for the goal of weightloss only, see previous point about the equal importance of exercise for mental and body health.

Set yourself achieveable goals and reward yourself for them. Forget the scales, use more "life" relevant measurements. Can I go down 2 waist sizes in x time. Can I fit into x size t-shirt. Can I run a full 5k in x amount of months. Could I play a 5-a-side again. Whatever you really want from this. Write your goals down, be honest. It might even just be: I want to feel better about myself by March.

Its a marathon not a sprint. It took you a long time to get to this point, it will take a lot of time to reverse it. Be realistic. Do not let bad days kick you off your ultimate goal. You may actually find yourself having to make a start back to this good lifestyle a few times. They will be hard again but don't give up because its hard. You know it will be hard, the positives will outweigh the negatives, maybe not on bad days but they will on the majority of days.

Alcohol is a major hindrance to your goals. Manage it better, drink less and less often. Drinking usually causes 2 negative days to your training plans. It also means mass amounts of calorie intake. Ask yourself how often you can afford to do that. It also affects your recovery, mental health etc. I wont preach on this because I am bad for the drink myself but I am acutely aware of how it affects me and I battle against it, sometimes I win, sometimes I lose.

I can totally understand the flyefit apprehension. But just like everything it will get easier. The first few times you go you will be nervous and feel out of place. If you persist past this stage you will have achieved something in itself. Add this to your list of goals: "Keep going to flyefit until I don't feel nervous about going anymore".

Not very often someone can sit down and say: I am going to drastically change my life. What an amazing opportunity this is for you. You are totally right to do it and it has the potential to be a genuinely life changing decision. I really hope you get there pal- keep posting on here because you will get motivation for the bad times and encouragement & rewards for the good times.

Yer Aul One

Oh and..
If you can afford it, a good PT will also help. If you go down that road, ask for a PM recommendation here too. A good PT can sometimes help with your diet plans, teach you how to exercise safely, push you and also may also help with your anxiety of going to the gym.

MightyMandarin

Yer Aul One made a fairly lengthy but certainly helpful and informative post there.

All I can advise OP is that strength training with some cardio at the end would be the best form of exercise for you imo. Hanley's made a great program to follow, and I'd suggest focusing on big movements (squat, bench, deadlifts) and supplement with others like pullups, rows etc.

Diet is the main thing to change here, however. Get a food scale,start tracking calories, and focus on cutting down on sugar and carbs (don't fall into the 'low fat' trap when eating food). Weigh yourself every week, and if the weight isn't falling, lower your calories more. You can still drink, just drink less and try to fit it in your calories; if it doesn't fit, don't drink it.

Other than that, just give yourself time. 120kg at 5'7 is a challenge, but nothing's impossible if you are disciplined. Motivation will be needed for the first month or so, but you'll be surprised at how quickly habits develop and before long, training several times a week, tracking calories and drinking less will feel like normal.

Lombardo86

Really important thing to stress here - You need to be the one who does this.

I have learned a lot about nutrition, fitness and general health/well-being from the people on this forum, but i only made progress when i applied myself to training and made a conscious effort around nutrition.

by joining the gym you have definitely made a statement of intent - But you need to be the one to make it happen.

I would also suggest starting NOW. Don't cut-out everything over Christmas, but the more disciplined you are from NOW, the closer you are to your end goal. Dont give yourself more of a mountain to climb by putting more weight on over Christmas.

JJayoo

The thing to remember, especially over the xmas period, is that you don't need to be perfect from day 1 in order to move towards your goals. Your current diet and exercise levels = 120kg, if you make small positive changes to both diet and exercise you will make a positive change. As the weeks go by you can learn from and build on these small changes.

You also need to be smart with your initial exercise choices. For example if you go into the gym and want to do the big compund exercises from the start = Bench/Deadlift/Squat/Chinups you might leave the first few sessions feeling very frustrated as these lifts require practice to perfect form and a level of mobility which you may not initially have, but can and will gain.

It would be great if you could start a log, you would be able to ask any question training/nutrition wise and it's a great way to track progress.

lyinghere

Have you considered following something like Operation Transformation in the new year ? It provides meal plans and basic excercises suitable for beginners with variations each day. Could be useful for you for improving the diet , beginning to excercise again , cutting out alcohol. I think something like this would be ideal for you to start off with.

All available online. There's a new series starting in Jan I assume but I think if you are feeling particularly determined right now you can start last years plan anytime

http://ot.rte.ie


Best of luck.

throwaway10

Wow. Finishing up with work and reading all this really swelled me up a little. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their day to write. It means the world.

This morning I made a phone call to a PT who came reccomended from a colleague. I think the ideal situation for me would be a couple short sessions to ascertain where I am at strength wise, and to teach me how to actually work out correctly and safely, and then some form of online contact? My hours of working out will be mainly late at night so I know that's not ideal.

Also, my diet isn't godawful. I enjoy a wide variety of foods and everything like that, so changing won't be as hard as I may think, I just love food and it's also a crutch for me. Thank you so much again, guys. Really.

Transform

throwaway10 wrote: »

Long Time member on another account.

Enough is enough. I am 5 foot 7, and 120 kilos. Throughout school and college I was chubby, but things were never this bad. I immersed myself into work, and it became all too easy to eat out, or in, and drink away the evenings. I am now absolutely miserable and I feel my weight and unhealthiness are a large part of that. I played rugby and hurling through school and always played 5 a side. My gut has stretched to a horrible size in two years.

I have never stepped foot in a gym. I have always been classed as a "strong" guy, but I know that counts for little. I suffer from social anxiety so that hasn't helped with my efforts to change things. Enough is enough, though. Tonight I joined FlyeFit gym. I am worried about being embarrassed in the gym as I do have quite a large gut and now some breasts to go with it. I am a 24 year old male.

Should I be focussing on cardio? I have no idea where to start and my social anxiety stops me somewhat from seeking help in person. If this is the wrong place, I am sorry.

where are you based?

hardCopy

It's been mentioned already but myfitnesspal is a massive help.

Vegetables are hugely important too. You can still have big meals if their full of healthy veg instead of empty calories. Don't bother with weight watchers meals or any of that. (I've tried their manky lasagnes, you can make a tastier lasagne, twice the size by filling it out with veg and ditching the bechamel).

Install a pedometer app on your phone and see how many steps you're taking in a day. Make an effort to take as many stairs and park as far away from entrances as possible.

Christmas needn't be a struggle. Turkey is about the leanest meat you can get, load up on it and go easy on the roasties and roses.

granty1987

Great stuff!

A few things that sprung to mind for me;

Get measured at the gym - not sure about Flyfit but a lot of places now give you a free assessment. Get your weight measured, body fat % checked with calipers, meaaure your thighs, waist, arms etc and the "before photo" if you want. Seeing these tangible measurements improve gives you a boost.

Keep a log of what you eat and what exercise you do. I am not great at keeping track of my food intake in my fitness pal but I am good at tracking what i do in the gym. I use Fitlist and it allows me to track what sets/weights/reps i do and personalise workouts, keep notes for future exercises. If you started tracking your food intake you would be surprised how it quickly adds up. You become proud of your dedication when you can see it.

A year or two ago i started going to the gym again after a hiatus but never kept a regular program / schedule. I realised that the odds of me going to the gym decreased a lot if i stopped off at home before leaving. Next thing i knew I would be sprawled out on the couch with a list of excuses. My golden rule is to bring my kit bag with me to work and go straight from there, I also found that I really needed some food in between lunch and gym time so try to bring something with me as if i didnt, id be tempted to go home to get something and end up stuck back on the couch!

You need to find out what motivation works for you long term. Personally i am not trying to lose weight but just become stronger/healthier/happier. One thing that motivates me in a strange way is how I now hate missing a session because of travel/hangover/injury as i can tell it impacts my ability - benchmark is the amount of pull ups i can do per set decreases if i dont do them religiously. I feel like dancing when i can improve my number of reps per set

Setting small goals and achieving them feels great. Think about them and don't go setting massive ones that are seemingly unobtainable. You can do it. Think baby steps first. Speak to the PT about this once the two of you have figured out where you are.

You should write down how you feel now and keep a diary of some kind. Note things like stress levels with work or at home, how the body feels doing day to day things, do you feel irratic? Im not an expert but I can see the benefit of writing things down. When its down on paper you can reference back to that time in your life and see what sort of progress you have made. As you get healthier, mental state improves and you feel happier with yourself..

There are studies that show how doing something fun actually reduces peoples need to eat as a reward. Basically the case study looked at two groups of people. One set was asked to do exercise by complete a 5km walk. The other were invited to go on an interesting walking tour or some such which was also 5km. At the end, the groups were presented with a table of food, ranging from sweets and crap to healthy alternatives. They found that the people who enjoyed themselves on the walk chose the healthier food options, whilst the people who were told that they had to go walk 5km went for the sweets. There is a link between food being a reward for people completing a workout or exercise. Exercise should be fun, if you enjoy it, you will be happier doing it, and it will also have a knock on effect of subconsciously improving your eating habits and cravings for a reward.

What i am getting at here is, get outside and play sports that you enjoy. You mentioned 5 aside, rugby and hurling. Team sports like those is a hell of a lot more engaging and rewarding than the treadmill ever will be. As a rule of thumb, i never do cardio in the gym as i know i cant stand the monotony of it. I get my cardio blow out on the pitches playing tag rugby and 5 aside. The gym for me is left to weights and i love it for that. If I "had" to do cardio there, i wouldnt bother. There are groups all over fb looking for people of all standards to join teams in these sports.

Diet, Sleep and exercise are the three main things for me, In that order.

Best of luck

Yer Aul One

Any progress mate?

The_Honeybadger

Hope you made the leap and started in the gym op. Six months ago I decided to make a change myself and haven't looked back. I was coming from a different place in that I would have been considered skinny fat, I had a spare tyre, man boobs, triple chin and very little muscle mass. My bmi was in the normal range but that doesn't tell the full story as I was so pathetically weak and out of shape. My diet was ok in terms of what I ate during the day but my downfall was beer and junk food at night while watching TV.

Joined the local gym and had a couple of pt sessions with the guy there. Dunno why I even joined, I just got a fit one day and went in and signed up. I can now run 5k handy and have gained lots of muscle by following my pt's advice. I still have a weakness for drink and crap food but have cut back massively over time (I used to drink 7 days a week). I love working out now and get real satisfaction every time I add another 5kg to what I'm lifting. I train 3 mornings a week before work and try to get plenty of sleep and drink lots of water. You need to change those old habits if you want results. Get a good personal trainer and learn all you can about nutrition and you will get there. Best of luck

Mister Know It Not

I've lost 25 kg in about 5-6 months, and I mostly credit diet for that, though I also try to lose about 500-600 cals a day, either with a speedy walk or 45-60 minutes worth of swimming. But that only tends to happen about 3-4 days a week. And while it is healthy for other reasons, it's not essential for weight loss.

As others have already said, cut out the carbs as much as possible, but also avoid low-fat foods. Instead, go for high fat – but focus on healthy fats (see reading recommendations below).

Also, myfitnesspal and logging food is incredibly helpful. I also have a Fitbit Charge HR, so I can roughly keep track of calories burned. If I set myself a calorie goal for the day and find I'm running out of calories that I'm allowed to consume, I can always go and "earn" some more by exercising.

I recommend a few books – if you read your way through these, I think you'll find the road ahead is easier than you think:

Tim Ferriss: The Four-Hour Body
Jimmy Moore, Eric Westmann MD: Cholesterol Clarity, Keto Clarity
Nina Teicholz: The Big Fat Surprise