Enough...

[Carp614]

I'm John.
I'm a 45 year old gray haired fat guy. I'm 6' 2". I weigh somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 very unfit pounds.

I was an athlete in my youth. But I fell apart. Emotional issues, alcoholism/addiction (almost 15 years sober now). I joined the Navy to turn my life around and succeeded, but when I left the service I fell apart physically. At one point, I was pushing 270 lbs. I made some changes and lost some weight, but plateaued. Good enough and pizza is awesome is where I ended up. There are other areas of my life that are inspiring. But I hate the way I look and feel. I'm disgusted by what I see in the mirror. The lack of discipline, the lack of self control. It's revolting to me. There's no symmetry between what I've accomplished in life and the way that I look.

Then this past January I got sick. Not like hospital sick, but knocked down hard. Maybe it was Covid. I don't know. When I recovered I found I had trouble just walking up a flight of stairs. I was shocked at the loss of so much strength and stamina. Sickness has never done that to me before.

It was frustrating to be so frail. I thought, "oh well, I guess you just a useless old fat guy now for good." But you know what...

NO

I am not ready to give up. My wife and two beautiful daughters deserve better than this. I deserve better than this. I don't have any specific goals yet. No weight goal or muscle goal or physique specifics. Just a powerful resistance to the idea of giving up and a curiosity about what I could actually accomplish if I apply myself.

I decided to start by getting more active. I have a large property and this time of year I do a lot of strenuous yard work like cutting down trees, or trimming a 3 acre fence line, so I feel like cardio is pretty well covered to start with. I'm starting on conditioning by doing ten (proper breaking the plane) push ups a day .

Honestly, this is how weak I am; I spent an hour string trimming my yard yesterday and did my first ten pushups when I finished. I did them without stopping with good form. I was happy with the start, but within hours it felt like I tore muscles in my shoulders/pecks. This morning I did my second ten and I could only do eight before I had to take a knee. #$%&! So frustrating!

Right now I'm feeling overwhelmed. When I look at Body Mass Index numbers it looks like I need to lose about 50 pounds. That seems impossible. I don't know where to start. I'm hoping to get some advice and encouragement here.

Thanks

[AlexSays]

THAT is the goddamn spirit, I believe you can do it!

Make small changes to your eating habits that you feel you can sustain long term, no diets, nothing dramatic, no complex, internet garbage advice. Maybe commit to not eating between meals, maybe cut out soda, maybe just reduce your meal portions by 20% to begin with. Something you can keep up without ruining your life.

Commit to staying active. 10 pushups is a result however maybe space them apart from your yard work. Go for walks, use the stairs, walk places you might normally drive. again small changes. Once you have started to regain strength and mobility it could be time to start throwing other exercises in there and maybe when you are confident you could embark on a beginners program for strength from these forums.

Commitment and consistency are the key, not complete lifestyle overhaul as some awfully misleading reality TV shows would have you believe. Set out things you can achieve and when they have become the norm set fresh goals.

With weight do not focus on losing 100lb. Set a goal of 5, then maybe 10 more and then keep it rolling.

You sound like you truly want this and i want to wish you the best of luck

[NearlyBigAngus]

Slow and steady wins the race and this will be a long process - but you seem to have got your mindset right and I'm sure you'll be fine.
I would suggest setting yourself a modest calorie deficit and aiming to lose about 1lb per week - this will help to preserve muscle while you lose fat and should mean you are happier with what you see in the mirror in the end than if you crash diet and lose a lot of muscle in the process which can be disheartening.

Continue the basic conditioning that you are doing but don't worry about heavy weight training yet - whatever you are doing just focus on form at first because this will give you a solid foundation to progress from.

If you don't already use one a food tracker is a useful tool that will let you manage your daily calories - and food prep so that you have ready made healthy meals that fit your goals is another very useful tool.

I didn't need to lose quite as much as you but have been on a similar journey and understand how it can affect your mind - stay strong and focus on the long term goals.

[athenna11]

A very interesting website

[brit-iron]

You got this! As said small changes swapping out crap for good nutrition. slow and steady, no starvation s##t, just good food and you will start to feel more energetic as you go along. good luck.

[MSCL100]

You have already realised the problem, which is what most people don't get. I have one suggestion that helps staying consistent with training -> ALWAYS track your weightlifting results. Incredibly powerful. It might be notes app in your iPhone, piece of paper, doesn't matter. Just track it & make this your safety zone. Try not allowing your strength to go a lot lower, especially if your weight is going higher (simply put - unless you're on a cut - don't allow strength loss). Of course at age of 70 you might be slightly weaker so you might want to allow SMALL % of strength loss in few years. But never something like 20-30 %... Plateau is not bad in comparison to going out of shape. Imagine if you'd be pushing 270 lb since your young age till now, even with 0 progress you'd be way happier with your shape after all these years.

Obviously for future - best thing is never to allow yourself too far out of shape. +10 lb to your good enough weight means red alarm.
Think of your body as building a business - with every year your business adds some followers or customers - it is getting better. With every consistent week of training your body is closer to staying in good shape.

[District]

Intermittent Fasting.

You are welcome. You can send me a gift of your choosing when you drop 50 pounds in 8 months following IF. Visit the subreddit intermittentfasting. There is a lot of inspiration there from average people like us.

It is not a 'diet' per say, it is just limiting the window you are allowed to eat. I suggest you start with 18:6 (18 hours fasted, 6 hours feed period). You can eat whatever you want, but naturally, when you realize you can't munch on food all day, you are going to want to intake proper nutrition in your 6 hour window to keep you healthy!

First couple of days will suck, you are going to be really hungry, your body is going to be expecting your evening meals, your snacks in between, all the bad habits are still there. Usually after the first couple of days/week, the hunger goes away and you feel absolutely fine being fasted.

Optimal period for feed is 9 AM - 3 PM (research evidence for following evolutionary guidelines). I like to finish my feed period with a protein shake as it will keep you feeling 'full' well into the late evening.

I can't say this often enough, sleep will be the make it or break it. If you have a bad sleeping pattern, fix it now, be in by bed by 10-10:30 and sleep! In your mind, choose when you need to wake up, and your body will awake you at the proper time!!!! The clock is there!!! GOOD LUCK!

[CommitmentRulz]

Intermittent Fasting.

You are welcome. You can send me a gift of your choosing when you drop 50 pounds in 8 months following IF. Visit the subreddit intermittentfasting. There is a lot of inspiration there from average people like us.

OP, just to be perfectly clear, there is NO MAGIC to IF. It is simply a way to help SOME people eat less.

The bottom line is, if you eat fewer calories (on an ongoing basis) than you burn, you'll lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight. You'll learn that eating 200 calories of good whole foods is MUCH MORE filling than a donut.

[cryoung]

Slow and steady gets it done. Look at the link in my sig below