Diet and Exercise?

I used to play hockey pretty competitively. Eating like crazy (never tracked calories). Eventually, I got older and hockey ended. Started to put on weight. I was never a "skinny" guy but was well built. Started to get sick of not pushing my body and did P90X. Gained quite a bit of muscle mass. Got a "cubicle" job, and put on weight. I'm 6'4" 285lbs. Still very proportionate, but not where I want to be.

I have E36 M3 knees. I cannot run or squat like I used to. Last week I bought a Ninja blender and a LA Fitness membership.

My problem is that I sleep like E36 M3 due to work/school schedule and need to get back into a normal regimen of getting up/going to bed early, etc.

I'll admit, I know absolutely NOTHING about meal planning. I am on the road for most of my day at work, so I've slacked to trying to find (healthier) fast food options. Trying to cut sugary coffee drinks, soda, etc.

I've been reading a few blogs about the subject (motivation was sparked from an auto detailing podcast, actually). I'm also exploring what some call an anti-inflammatory diet? I figured losing some weight and eating better would also create less havoc on my knees.

Initially, I figured that cutting on sugary drinks and cutting my meal portions would lead to some results. They have. I've lost ~20lbs since April. Still eating like E36 M3, just less of it. I try to eat slower, that way I tend not to overeat because I feel "full."

Where the hell do I start? I'd like to start tracking calories, but is that the first place to look? Should I focus on just simply starting a good routine and branching out from there? Who else is in a similar situation?

Definitely in a similar situation. I'd start by tracking calories but don't think it's not going to make you a bit miserable. My advice? Buy a mountain bike. Start out riding it on the street to get used to it, lose a few pounds, then look up local trails. Try singletracks.com for some more information on being a bit bigger and getting into mountain biking.

Uh... Start playing hockey again?

As far as the food goes, my fiance is a Dietitian. I've picked up a lot of stuff from her.

The basics of a good eating lifestyle (diet would infer a temporary change, make it permanent or near permanent) are really simple. Here are just a few tidbits I've picked up:

• Less than 1800-3500 calories a day, depending on the individual person
• Make sure you're getting your fruits and veggies, and you've made sure you're getting everything you really need(at least one serving of each a day, but better to make it a serving of each at each meal)
• Protein is necessary for muscle building, which will improve metabolism--i.e. someone who is 200lbs and all muscle will burn more calories just sitting down than someone who is 200lbs and all fat.
• Because of the above point, weight lifting/strength training is pretty much a win-win for fat loss (not necessarily weight loss)
• Gluten is not bad at all, and anyone who tells you that is lying (ignoring Celiac's). However, the gluten free lifestyle does cut out pretty much all the E36 M3ty food
• Calories in < Calories out, and you will lose weight. Eat the fruits and vegetables, and you'll be healthy doing it too. Count them. Do it on a notepad you carry with you, or on your cell phone. Track it somehow, every single thing you eat from a single cracker to a full meal. Booze needs to be included in this; they don't call it a beer belly for nothin'. Want to eat more? Move more.
• Eat the crunchy vegetables with a lot of chewing first. Your brain is tricked into thinking you've eaten more, because of the time spent chewing.

Dude, you're my age. I thought you were older. Seriously, start playing hockey again, start eating more vegetables (though my fiance disagrees with this, I view them as free calories), and when you go to the gym, hit the weights. You'll get in shape. Don't stress over it, just keep at it.

I have e35m3 ankles. Well, Achilles tendons specifically. because of this, I had to stop running... at 19. It's not always age or weight, at the time I was 160lb and 5'11". I would suggest biking to get your calorie burn on. I find that even though I can't run as far as I used to without paying for it the next day, I can bike as much as I want without the problems because biking is no-impact. Bonus points if you already own a bike. You don't need a fancy one, though a good position and making sure the seat is high enough etc... can help dramatically. I lost 20lb in the 6 months leading up to my wedding by sweating for an hour or so on a bike (strapped to a trainer in my living room in front of the TV ) 4 times a week.

Weights aren't a bad idea either. I've never lost weight pumping iron, but a little more muscle tone will help more than just lifting heavy stuff. Personally i've always hated lifting weights, but it does help.

I'm double your age and a little more. I ended up 20% overweight by eating poorly, and not getting enough exercise, but finally did something about it 3-4 years ago.

Mtn knows what he is talking about. Strength training, calorie counting, and lot's of fruits and vegetables. It really is as simple as calories in < calories out, and unless you count them properly, you're wasting your time.

This was an excellent resource for me. I signed up and never received a single spam email.

I thought I knew my calories, but I couldn't have been more wrong, and soon realized that I could wipe out a lot of hard work with a single stupid mistake.

Another exercise option is walking. Not lazily strolling, but walking at a fast pace near jogging speed. I started walking for 1 hr/day after work & have lost 30 lb in 4 months. I walk a little over 3.25 miles 4 or 5 days a week. Relatively low impact exercise and I listen to audiobooks that I borrow from the public library while I walk. Once I lose a bit more weight I'll probably start adding in some other forms of exercise.

Look at a paleo type diet. I joined a cult... I mean gym called IronTribe. It is a crossfit clone but they add in a focus on diet. I've gone from 230lbs to 198lbs since April and am much stronger. Most of the weight loss came from diet.

Here's the TL;DR....

Don't eat: bread, pasta, dairy, potatoes, sugars, chips, or processed meats.

Eat: fresh veggies, salads, fruits, nuts, lean meats.

Good luck!

The big mental thing is this, if you weigh 285 with an office job,then you're eating like a 285lb man with an office job. If you want to be 250lbs, you need to eat like a 250lb guy. The 250lb version of you eats healthier and less than you do now.

Try running on a soft surface like trails through the woods. Just beware of ankle breaking rocks.

My wife and I are both into bodybuilding, especially her. mtn hit a lot of the key points. I'd suggest keeping it simple, the basics aren't rocket science. Forget all those fad diets such as no carb, paleo, blah, blah. The body needs protein, healthy fats and yes carbs. The key is eating smart. Common sense will tell you what junk food is and isn't. You've got to make the choice not either eat them in calculated moderation, or if you don't feel you can do that then just don't eat them at all. If you're on the road all day, pack your lunch. It's easy to do. If you need, get one of those 12V fridges. I used to have one when I was on the road, and they're great.

Excercise. Same as with the diet, don't get caught up in all the fad exercise routines. Find your time, make it consistent every day. For me, it's super early in the morning. Figure out what time works for you. Make it a routine and stick to it.

Once you've got all that down pat, then you can start working on refining your exercise routine for more specific goals or play around with your nutrition a little.

Oh, and as for the bad joints...first thing is to make sure you're under the care of a good ortho. But from there, don't let the bad knees be an excuse. I've also got bad knees, have had them since I was a teen. Had surgery on both about 15+ years ago. Since I started a dedicated work out 7 or 8 years ago, my knees are better than they've been since I was a kid. I've also got other bad joints (had hip surgery 7 months ago), but I have no doubt my exercise routine keeps me from having even worse problems.

At one point in my life, I was just over 230lb, and at 5'10, that is fat. I only took a break playing hockey for undergrad, started back up in grad, and a league formed at work. Plus I did aerobics 2-3 times a week on top of hockey.

But I still was 230lb.

Then I changed to a low carb diet. Dropped to 195, hockey was more fun, etc... But I also dropped aerobics. So slowly that creeped back to 210. So I added aerobics back, but did drop hockey (I became disgusted with the tone of the game for a stupid beer mug). That got me to 185.

Then I started running. Just as I was getting a really nice half marathon done, and preparing to do a marathon, I got as low as 171.

Injuries, vacations, distractions, etc- I'm stable at just over 180- which is still 50lb less than what I was.

So to ME, what worked was more heavy on the aerobics side of working out- which, to ME, the most efficient is running- as I can burn most doing that. When I was training for a marathon, I found out that my body is ok to up to about 15 mile runs- above that, and I start to break (literally), but in a half marathon, I can burn over 2000 calories. Not bad. (theoretically, for my body weight, I burn about 140 calories/mi)

With injruries, I now bike/elipical 2-3 times a week, and run 2 times a week, trying to emulate about 35 miles of running per week in terms of burning.

Works for me. Running is super simple, eating is straight forward. Muscle work is nominal. May not work for you.

For years I mountain biked and road biked fairly seriously - 25-50 miles / week - and still couldn't get below 275 lbs at 6'1". Several years back I got serious about eating better and - more importantly - less. I was eating fairly decent as far as fat/ nutrition/etc but I was eating way too damn much. I used a free calorie tracker app on my phone (called Lose It) and got all Nazi about recording every calorie that went in my mouth - every added dollop of butter, every grain of rice, everything. It sucked but it really opened my eyes to how much we eat and never even realize it. Once I understood where the calories came from I stopped recording them but still kept it in mind and kept my intake down. As my weight came down I found I could increase my riding without hurting as bad, so I exercised more and enjoyed it more. The effect snowballed.

The main thing I've learned? You can't exercise hard enough to make up for eating badly. It's simple math of calories in and calories out.

One point I'm going to make on the carbs: There is absolutely nothing wrong with them. Potato's, Rice, bread, etc. While not necessarily healthy, they are certainly not bad for you.

The "problem" is that these foods are very quickly transformed into sugar, and the sugar leads to fat building if you don't keep up the physical activity.

BradLTL wrote: Look at a paleo type diet. I joined a cult... I mean gym called IronTribe. It is a crossfit clone but they add in a focus on diet. I've gone from 230lbs to 198lbs since April and am much stronger. Most of the weight loss came from diet. Here's the TL;DR.... Don't eat: bread, pasta, dairy, potatoes, sugars, chips, or processed meats. Eat: fresh veggies, salads, fruits, nuts, lean meats. Good luck!

Wrong. Most of the weight loss came from the fact that you were eating less calories and working out as well.

EDIT: Why was this all bolded? I only wanted to bold the "Most of the weight loss" bit

Second EDIT: Fixed it.

Amen, mtn!!

Carbs are a good source of fuel for the body and are important, especially when exercising. Check the diets of the best pro atheletes, you'll see carbs...especially pre/post game. The problem is the amount of carbs a lot of people eat. If you have a large pasta dish, you could be putting down 200g of carbs in that meal alone. Go ahead and have carbs, but in moderation. Go for things like whole grains or sweet potato.

EDIT.... Why is my typing in boldface??? It's not done on purpose, I have no idea why it's there and I can't seem to fix it.

??WTF?? Bold type again??

Like I said, I posted what works for me.

In terms of carbs, I have plenty of storage of excess sugar that was stored as fat. No need for more of them, but I needed to get my body familiar with turning fat into sugar and burning it instead of what I eat. That is how I observe my body burning fat.

I'll start a run with a small slice of bread+peanut butter+banana, but it's nowhere near enough to finish a run. And I've observed that if I keep my heart rate low enough, my body is capable of multi-tasking, and taking fat, turning it into surgar, and then burning it.

One other thing- using a fit athelete and trying to make a connection to them and a fat person is a mistake, imho. Their bodies tend to be tuned to burn the energy they eat, pretty spot on. Whereas I need to convert fat into energy so that I lose weight. And what is the most effective diet so that happens?

Again, what works for ME.

edit- who broke the thread?

Ok, so I'll join in on this one, because this has been a constant struggle with me as well.

I've always been a big guy, and never in really good shape. Back in 2000, I was 18, 6'1" and around 225 lbs. I was active, and drumming in a regularly gigging band. I never really ate healthy, but I remained active and exercised especially so I could keep my drumming chops up. Fast forward to 2006, and I was out of college a year removed, my band broke up, and I signed up for life on the cube farm. At this point I was around 250 lbs. I was depressed and bummed that my rock star dreams were crushed, and I turned to food. Eating large subs and fries everyday for lunch plus sitting in my cube led to me gaining weight at an alarming rate. I blew up like a tick and went up to 400 LBS. I stayed there for a while, and didn't care.

Back in 2011, I was getting ready to get married, and a visit to the doctor led to tests that showed that I was at risk for some heart problems, and my cholesterol levels were all messed up. So, I went out and bought one of those exercise video games for the Wii (EA Active to be exact) and got to work. I lost 50 lbs from doing that. After hurting my knee on one of the workouts, I stopped using it.

Fast forward to today, and I'm still at 350 lbs. I've been fluctuating around 340-350 all year. I've cut a lot of the crap from my diet (soda, most fried stuff, etc), and since learning that I have a stomach disorder that forces me to take a Prilosec each day, I've been watching what I eat even more.

In March, we adopted a very active dog, and that has led my wife and I to take her on walks a lot, and recently, we have been training her to run alongside our bikes. After reading an article about drumming and burning calories, I make it a point to play at least one hour a week. I rode 3 miles with my wife and the dog on Tuesday (pro tip: get the smartphone app Map My Ride, it's really cool), and I plan on riding tonight if I can. While I haven't shed a ton of weight yet, I already feel better.

I'll be following this thread, and following a healthier lifestyle. I want to be able to fit in a Miata.

Mtn is correct.

I was 220 and had a bad Dr. visit (blood pressure and cholesterol) for my 32th birthday (14yrs ago). To avoid the pills I did one of those couch to 5k things and I've been running since. At one point after I had been running for 3-4yrs I was running 40 miles a week and still weighing in at 205lbs... I was fit but still fat. Someone helped me fix the diet and I went to 190 and pretty damn lean in a matter of 2 months (same workout schedule).

Thinking about it - it makes perfect sense - for the exercise to build muscle you need to have good fuel to burn and you need to burn more than you take in to shrink. Simple.

If I was a fat bastard doing it over again, I'd start with fixing my diet properly combined w/ light cardio exercise like walking or biking every day for 90 days then once you have adjusted... commit to a serious exercise program. If you try to go nuts with exercise and diet from day 1 your body will be HUNGRY from missing Snickers bars and trying to build muscle with less calories than it is used to and you will over-eat. Like, for instance... trying a couch to P90X move... you will hurt, starve and fail in 2 weeks. So... get the diet right and work up to the exercise. It probably took years to get where you are... be patient getting back and it will go much better.

Good luck man...

Burn more calories than you ingest and you will loose weight. It's so simple...why is it so hard to do? My European friends tell me that portion control is the biggest issue that Americans face. They eat whatever they want and don't cut out much, they just do it in moderation. If you travel a lot, that's tough because there are so few good options out there. Our restaurants load everything with fat and sugar and the portions are ridiculous. We are just used to them and we don't realize how strange a 1200 calorie sandwich for lunch is, plus a Coke and a brownie.

So, what's the pro tip for when you hate exercise and always have? And for finding time to do it anyway when you are already an hour short of sleep a night?

Duke wrote: So, what's the protip for when you hate exercise and always have? And for finding time to do it anyway when you area already an hour short of sleep a night?

Honestly, the only answer is to suck it up and do it. Find good music to play while exercising, or something like that. I don't like lifting/running as much as I like racing, but I've come to really enjoy it. The best motivational advice I can give is to find that motivation from within. What's your goal? Why do you want to do this? Your health? Family? Have a specific goal of how you want to look? Use them as your drive to succeed.

Finding time is tough. My days are crazy...my wife and I both work full time and we have active kids, who are involved in sports. So the only time I can work out is early in the morning. I get up at 4:10am and head for the gym at 4:45am. I try to go to bed by 9:30pm, or 10:00pm at the very latest. Yes, I get tired...very tired. So I typically will go about 6-8 weeks and then take a one week break in my workout and sleep in until 6am. That, and I try to catch a nap on a weekend day if I can. Gotta do what 'ya gotta do.

Duke wrote: So, what's the protip for when you hate exercise and always have? And for finding time to do it anyway when you area already an hour short of sleep a night?

If you get an hour for lunch, take a brown bag of something healthy to work. Walk for 50 minutes and eat for 10. Park a mile away from work and walk in. Get up at the same time on your day off and use the time you would sleep in to take a hike or if you live in town... walk somewhere for a coffee and newspaper.

Or... take up something that is exercise but entertaining. Take a boxing class. Rock climb. Play basketball. Stroll. Ride a bike. Whatever. Just leave the house with intent and do something that makes you sweat.

My usual MO for workdays is I drop my kids off somewhere for some activity and then run for the time I have to wait for them anyway.