Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Weight Problem

Just wondering here how many sitting around the campfire has a problem with their weight? I don't mean the ones dealing with 10-15 lbs over but i'm talking 50 lbs and up. Most here know back in November I fell about 10 feet from a ladder and broke my right wing and been having problems since. They finally decided to try a electronic device called a Bone Growth Stimulator, hopefully that will help. Back to the subject, since I was just sitting around here not doing anything I got up the courage to weigh myself. OMG, I couldn't believe it 304lbs on a 6'2" frame, WOW! Got to do something here. I done some thinking on ways to loose the weight and decided it would have to happen from my food intake and not excercise since I vowed not to run again after I got out of the Marine Corps unless my arss was on fire, they run me untill my tongue would get tangled in my trowser blousing straps, so never again if I live thru this. Anyway, as of this morning I weighed in a 216 lbs. a 88 lb. drop and thinking about dropping it on down to 176, my weight when I mustered out of the Corps in 75. Now the biggie is making sure I keep it off, anybody here dealing with that and have any suggestions?

I am struggling with a weight issue gained from the sedentary jobs I have worked over the last 10-15 years. I am now trying to get a job with a local Sheriff's department and I need to lose between 70-100lbs. I am 5'10 and 300. I know I can do this as I tend to shed weight in a hurry if I get on a good program and can stay with it. I have also been working out twice a week with said department and they seem to think I'm making good progress to being hired on.



As for suggestions. Bicycling, walking and stair climbers are good. Running is great, but at our weight it's too painful so walk until you loose enough weight to take the pressure off. Also if you can afford it, get a personal trainer and work with them. I had one for a while and lost 40 lbs in 2 months. I then got sick, injured and lost my discipline. You can do this and so can I. The hardest part is realizing that you can't do what you used to when you were in great shape, and getting over the anger of allowing yourself to get "fat". A great tip is to get a copy of a calorie book. They usually list all the fast food places and regular foods so you can look up the calories you're eating. And then for the next 3 weeks keep a record of what you eat all day long, everything and what it's caloric value is. Add them all up at the end of the day and you'll see what you eat and what it's costing you. I was on a calorie restricted diet with the exercise program I was on with the trainer. 2000 was my limit for the day and I would guss you are like I was and are eating like 3500-4000 a day so cutting in half is the first step. After you do this and see some results you may want to take it down to 1750 calories a day.

(Check all these with a doctor and nutritionist first)



If you need a partner to keep up with feel free to email me off line.



Just read your post again. Great going!! I'll leave my comments as they are for anyone else to see.

Not eating (dieting) doesn't work. No diet works over the long haul.
Here's why. When you loose more than 2 lbs. a month, you are consuming much more than fat stores. You are consuming your own muscle tissue far more by weight than fat.
When you stop dieting, straving yourself, you have less of an ability to burn calories in the form of glucose or fat because of your loss of muscle tissue. Your muscles burn 98% of your calories.
Your body's prefered fuel is glucose. You get glucose primarily from carbohydrates. But the body can also make glucose from protein and, when straving, as in dieting, from your own muscle tissue. Think about the pictures you've seen of straving people. Skin and bone. No visible muscle tissue. Stravation.
Your body can't burn fat unless it has sufficent glucose to burn as well.
I suggest you not count calories. Count grams of fat you eat. Fat does only one thing. It is stored as your body's emergency fuel. A simple way to limit your fat intake is to read the food labels on whatever you eat. Anything with 4 grams of fat per serving is too much.
If you want to count something, count grams of protein eaten. Anything over 60-70 grams of protein a day, assuming the protein is balanced, complete, is not stored by the body as protein. It must be used as consumed, that day, or it is converted to fat and stored like the rest of the fat you eat.
In the US and Canada, we eat 43% of our claories from fat. And 3-4 times as much protein as we need. That's why 63% are overweight.
Following the Rule of Four, suggested above and limiting your protein intake will allow your body to loose about 2 lbs. a month. Be advised you will need to eat much more food. Carbohydrate sources like whole grains, beans and vegetables have less than half the caloric value of items high in fat. And they are much bulkier. Compare a medium baked potatoe with a piece of bacon. Very close in calories. For 2000 calories per day, that's 24 pieces of bacon. Not hard to eat. But the same 2000 calories, in potatoes, is 20 potatoes. Can you eat 6-7 potatoes per meal ? I can't. That's why you can't get fat eating a diet high in complex carbohydrates.
I eat this way. My body fat content is well down into the teens. I have plenty of energy as well. Heck, my resting pulse rate is in the low 50's. E

Buy the South Beach Diet book. I have lost 32 pounds since Jan and It's easy to follow.

When I retired I gained Twenty Two poinds in Six weeks because I quit my exercise plan.
Not wanting to exercise more than 15 minutes in the Morning.
I had been doing 50 Pushups/50 setups/ 100 squat thrusts
A friend put me on to the Atkins diet. Just eat all the Protein you can get down and you will lose weight. You can't eat ANY Carbohydrates the first two Weeks, after that restrict yourself to no more than Forty Carbohydrates a day. You will lose weight in Huge proportions and mostly from the abdomial area. Keeping it off requires a Physical regimen of at least Ten minutes a day. So the fact is you can't eat and not exercise. Good Luck.

Betwen shoveling manure, cutting tres down, working mules, and keeping up the place, I don't have time for exersize. I have been at about 155 for the past ten yrs, so I guess I'm ok

Ditto on eremicus the only thing i would add is try to take on your callories 40% in the morning 35% at lunch 25% at dinner. My family has a history of weight problems so i really watch what the hell i am doing. diets will work for a short gap but it is the lifestile change, that keeps you from going back. good luck

I'm not sure that I disagree with Eremicus too much, but I'd like to clarify some things.

When you say to count grams of fat, it almost makes it sound like you are saying to eliminate it (which I don't think you are saying, but some people may take it that way). Your body requires a little bit of fat intake. Eating fat will not cause your body to store fat. Also, fat in your diet helps keep you from feeling hungry because of a hormone that is released when you eat fat. If you take too much fat out of your diet and replace it with carbs, your insulin levels rise. High insulin levels will increase your chances of storing fat in your body.

Complex carbs are definately the way to go but some complex carbs are not that good (potatos in particular). A potato is definately a better source of carbohydrate than pasta, but a potato is not a very good vegetable to be eating very much of in your diet. It is digested very rapidly into the bloodstream as sugar. Green vegetable are better choice.

Try to get most of your carbs from fruits and vegetables. Try not to eat rice, pasta, and breads. It doesn't take much rice, pasta, or bread to add a ton of calories and carbohydrates to your diet, and they will turn to glucose and enter your bloodstream very rapidly. Fruits and vegetables (complex carbs) are high in fiber, have lots of vitamins and minerals, and they slowly enter the bloodstream as glucose.

Protein is also a very important part of ones diet. Protein helps keep and build muscle. You need muscle to be able to burn fat.

You need fat, carbs, and protein in appropriate amounts to be healthy. You will never feel hungry if you eat correctly. If I'm just working at the office all week and not exercising much, I try to eat about 90 grams of protein, 120 grams of carbs, and 20 grams of fat through-out the day.

Another key point of eating correctly is to eat small meals through-out the day; this helps keep your metabolism up and burning fat. Try to eat breakfast within an hour of getting up in the morning. Try not to let 4 hours go by without eating.

One can really take eating to a science by counting everything, but basically by eliminating or at least greatly reducing pasta, rice, bread, ice cream, candy, and foods with lots of sugar..........replace them with lettuce, peas, beans, spinach, cabbage, apples, oranges, grapes, etc.

A lot of diets you see advetised these days are "extreme" diets where they advocate either no fat, no protein, no carbohydrates. Moderation and balance are the key and at least a little exersize is good too, but weight loss can happen without any increase in exersize.

South beach
bowflex
Backpack
bicycle

I was diagnosed with diabetes three weeks ago. I went on a diet recomended by my Dr. (2000 calorie) and have been walking a lot. I was wondering how riding a bicycle compared to walking. I live in fairly flat ground and am 6'4" and weigh 265. miles

My wife has diabetes and eating correctly and exersizing is key to keeping blood sugar levels in check. I don't think it matters whether it is bicycling or walking as long as you do something; it helps drop your blood sugar by getting the glucose into your muscles. Some doctors still don't realize what is best for diabetics, so you need to watch out. It's especially important for diabetics to not eat rice, pasta, sugar, or breads.

What I outlined earlier is basically a diabetic diet, but I found that it works great for everyone for losing body fat and maintaining a healthy weight. Diabetics just need to be a little more diligent about following it more closely.

Thanks, miles

Appearently I wasn't too clear with my comments about counting calories. My suggestion was to keep a food diary and that would allow you to see what was going into your body and give you a starting point as to what the average calories you intake. This is still important as the calories are the stored energy. With this information you can adjust what food is kept at home and what is purchase when you go out. Since ultimately unused calories and fats are all stored in the same place...as fat, losing weight means you burn more calories than you take in. I NEVER recommended not eating. While on my fat loss program my trainer restrcicked my caloric intake to stop one side of the problem. Part of the programs was a tailored diet for me consisting of foods that would fuel my body and do so throughout the day(small meals). The calories were adjusted to be more in the early part of the day and less at the end. After several weeks and lots of weight loss(about 25-30#s) my trainer was going to take my caloric intake down a little to increase my ability to burn fat stores(increse metabolism) and match more what my body needed at the reduced weight. I did ultimately gain back 20 of the 40 pounds I lost but that was my fault not the programs. And with the exception of starting the program I was not usually hungry to the point of being ravenous.

Well, Guy's thanks for your input on this.... It looks like I will just have to watch the food intake from now on because I will not go to a formal excercise program. I think maybe now that this weight is just about all gone or at least I'm back to a normal weight I will have to watch and maintain a USDA recommended diet, such as what the recommend for a 2000 calorie diet, er. protien, carbs, fat, and etc. The excercise I get will have to come from daily activities, maybe they will increase when the arm heals and also the weather is turning to the better as well, that will help a lot. At this point I have lost enough to make another person, well maybe a younger person at least. The problem is I still feel the same, I do know my blood pressure has dropped 128/74 pulse 64 and I have't had to take any BP meds for several months now. It wasn't to bad to start with but it was there and I am glad it is gone. I also had to spend some money on new jeans and such. I went from a waist size of 44 to 36 and can wear a 34 but they are to tight to suit me at this point. I just wonder what I am going to do with my Gortex rain suit and other hunting clothes....I hate spending the money again for something I already have, just the wrong size. Some say that I should be happy to be able to do that, I am to a point but I kick my ars for letting myself get into that kind of shape to begin with, you know what I mean. I went for over 10 years after getting out of the Corps before gaining any weight and it was due to a back injury and being confined for over 75 days. But it has been slowly coming on since that day. Kinda sneaky as to how it gets you so you guy's watch out if it hasn't gotten you yet. Lost my cook a few years back so maybe that will help if I can get some of the chinesse buffets to close around here and burn the steak houses.LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Eat right & Exercise....I have been on fad diets before, and they work for a while.

But, I have found that eating healthy - and that should be obvious - in moderate amounts is a start. What does moderate amount mean? Eat when you are hungry. Eat slowly, until you are not hungry. If you eat until you are FULL you've eaten too much. Exercise, both cardiovascular, and muscle-workout greatly aid in the process.

ever consider swimming/pool exercises?
good workout, easy on the joints.
-mdv

A few random weight related thoughts;

A friend swears "Beer don't make you fat... beer make you lazy... Lazy make you fat!" Cannot do the accent, but believe me, it does be funny!

I do not have a weight problem; I still have a 32" waist... of course 36" pants fit so well I buy 40"! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

E
Potato is to complex carbohydrates as Redneck is to Fourier Sine and Cosine Series differential equations! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
art

RFLMAO!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Matthias
Glad you liked it... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
art

Ya, I am still trying to get back up on my chair... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />