View Single Post
      04-02-2020, 10:52 AM   #48
Megabrode
He's experimenting with something...
Megabrode's Avatar
United_States
335
Rep
261
Posts

Drives: 2011 e92 M3
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Shockoe Bottom

iTrader: (0)

OP, please forgive my length, but I have a ton of experience on this topic (it's a pun if you want it to be). I was where you are, and I hope my story helps you.

As a high-school left tackle, I was 6'1" and 290 lbs. I told myself and others I weighed 250. One memorable day, got a 1000-watt shock when I stepped on the scale in a drugstore. My vintage home scale only went to 250.

Over the next two years, I got down to 165 -- a loss, do the math, of 125 lbs. I was truly thin. One day, age 25, after running, I weighed 158. That was unhealthy.

To lose that much weight, you need enduring motivation, in my case the Pill had been invented, and it dawned on me that only fat girls are interested in fat boys.

My method at that time: I ate very little, mass-market crap for the most part, and played lots of indoor sports. I did suffer health consequences (mono, frequent lung infections, kidney stones) but as a young man didn't care. Or I couldn't put two and two together.

For the next 25 years, despite an occasional temporary 15-lb. gain, I stayed between 165 and 175.

Method: a balanced diet in moderation, no snacks, tennis 5 or 6 times a week, weigh myself every day and make eating adjustments.

I kept the weight off even after marriage at 30. Then we started having children, and my weight started moving south. Or north. My real downfall was a six-month book project that involved writing every day in a shed behind my house, tennis in hibernation, beer every day, and eating what the kids ate (was it mac & cheese EVERY night?). By the time the book hit the bookstores, I'd gained 37 lbs and given up trying to keep it down.

Over the next 20 years, I put on 100 lbs, very sad, and only got weighed in the doctor's office. Two years ago, I weighed 265.

When my wife died, I ate poorly again, but with no conscious effort gradually lost 20 lbs. Then, a year ago, I decided to get back to my youthful weight, or close to it. This morning I weighed 189.8 on my fancy digital scale. My doctor-approved target is 180.

Motivation: Match.com, mainly, and also I wanted to get off of blood-pressure medication, which I have done.

Method:
  • Eat sensibly -- almonds, yes, eggs, fruit, minimal bread, non-fat milk, yoghurt, instant oatmeal, lean ground turkey, cheese in moderation, never eat after 7:00 pm, and avoid snacks between meals. (I could definitely add more leafy greens.)
  • Play tennis 3-4 times a week.
  • Know the rough calory count for foods I eat and keep a daily mental tally, under 1200 to lose.

The payoffs: My daughter-in-law picks out my clothes now (36-inch waist, down from 44), so I look pretty hip for a geezer. At my 55th high-school reunion last summer -- my first in 50 years -- people were astounded. I ended the evening at a table with 5 unattached, still-attractive former classmates, out of reach when I was 18, one of whom kept ordering rounds of Jameson on the rocks. One of them keeps texting me (going nowhere).

What I've learned in 65 years of yo-yo weight:
  • There's no big secret and no foolproof fad diet (the Atkins diet gave me the kidney stones).
  • It's willpower, dude, which only emerges from enduring motivation to lose and keep it off. Find your motivation. Mine was and remains, frankly, heterosex.
  • It's eating healthy food you enjoy -- in moderation and on a regular schedule (some kind of breakfast helps).
  • And it's finding a form of exercise you enjoy and look forward to (as I say, tennis in my case).

These days, when someone asks how I did it, I say, simply, "Eat less, move more."

Good luck and stay healthy,

— Craig, age 74
__________________
Analog 2011 e92 M3 | Jerez Black | Black Novillo | 6MT | CF roof | No iDrive, Nav, M button, ZCP, EDC, or center hump | ZHP shift knob | OMP 1010 pedals | K&N filter | Dinan engine tune | OEM exhaust mod (bypass) | EAS exhaust tips | shaved front bumper | 19" Apex EC-7 | 12 mm rear spacers
Appreciate 4
chassis6373.50
King Rudi13152.00
JasonDot579.50