A journey long overdue

[JBerry85]

Hello everyone. My name is James. I wanted to create this log to track my progress, discuss my shortfalls/slips, and seek motivation.

I've been the fat kid/guy for as long as I can remember (3rd grade) and I've never really done much about it. Undoubtedly I've progressively put on weight year over year and now it's difficult to do daily task like put on shoes or play with my kids.

As I'm sure many in my position have felt it's super embarrassing to shop for clothing or be the one super fat guy in a meeting with important executives. I can feel their judgement with every glancing look.

Last year I started this journey in August and had good success with a workout buddy. He is gone and this entire year I didn't go to the gym due to laziness/work and family stress, and laziness. Obviously, I have a problem but I want to fix it. I really enjoyed weight lifting but feel my biggest hurdle is nutrition. Let's just say I'm not a big veggie guy. I love all the crap that's not healthy in large amounts. Breads, pasta, cheese, butter, and sugar. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

All that to say if you have a way to get me eating more veggies and like it I'm all ears because forcing myself just doesn't seem to work.

Thanks in advance. I hope to update this thread often and speak with many folks.
Cheers,

JB

[basica]

Hey James, welcome aboard. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give you is start small. Diet is going to be your main hurdle to weight loss, but if you want to succeed you'll need to start small because big changes are often hard to adapt to. To use myself as an example, I decided that from now on I was going to bring my own lunch into work instead of eating out all the time. I brought in a couple sandwiches, a kids pack of chips (like doritos for example) and a can of coke. This change alone dropped probably 15lbs. I eventually cut out the soda by switching to cordial, and eventually water. I then cut down to 1 sandwich but kept the chips. This dropped another 10lbs. I've recently incorporated going to the gym and walking on the treadmill a half hour, and the last few weeks I've lost near another 10lbs. I made all this incremental changes over a period of months, maybe close to a half year as I didn't really keep track of when I started.

I suggest you find something similar for you to start off with, like bringing in lunch instead of going out. Switching to cordial or diet soda if you drink a lot of that and eventually working more towards water. Other changes to look for are portion sizes, snacks, food content and so on. Find the easiest thing to target for you and start there. For example, for me it's easier to have less meals a day than to eat better food, so that's what I started off with. For you it might be easier to eat healthier foods than to eat less. Find which works for you.

In the end don't be afraid to take it slow, as it's important to develop habits as you'll need them for the long haul. This also includes of course exercise, don't be afraid to start off small. I started off going to the gym for only 15mins, now I average about 30mins a day. Try something similar for you if you find it hard to find the motivation to go. In any case best of luck, and I'm sure I can say we hope to see more of you!

[AndreSerra]

^^^
this is solid advice right here James.


Also, learn a few recipes to add veggies to your daily diet.

For example, if you eat scrambled eggs in the morning, before putting the eggs in the pan, fry with olive oil some onions and green/red/yellow peppers, and then add the eggs. It tastes GREAT. It is not a diet thing. Also, you could make some zucchini stuffed with lean minced beef, topped with some parmesan cheese for lunch and put it in the oven over low/medium heat. There are the famous smoothies too. You could start off by drinking one every morning.

There are many recipies that you can use veggies and taste great. You don't have to just eat them steamed and unseasoned.

But anyway, I think what Basica said above is a great approach. Small changes will make a lot of difference.

Looking forward to hearing from you.