ckworksalot's Journal, 18 September 2014

I feel the need to get on my nutrition education soap box. I have been seeing many posts from FS members struggling. One thing I see over and over is "I had some success, but then I gained it all back". I completely get that! I was there! Back in 2001 I went to a personal trainer and he gave me a meal plan and a workout plan... I weighed 245 lbs. I followed the meal plan to the letter. Workouts were NOT intense; 30 minutes max. If it was chest day, all I did was 1 set of 20 reps for each exercise, just trying to tone up muscles that had not been used in years. 3 days a week with 30 minutes of cardio. In 2 months I was down 30 lbs! I thought, "My body responds well to exercise!"... and I stopped following the nutrition plan... and the weight loss ceased... then it began to climb even though I was still working out. Eventually working out without weight loss results got disheartening and I said, "What's the use!", and stopped all together. End result? At 50 years old I weighed 262 lbs on Jan 8, 2014. I could feel my body starting to fail... chest pain, constant reflux and indegestion... I had to do something. So I pulled out that old meal plan and started following it again. As before, I was eating plenty, and the weight started coming off again, even before I started working out. But this time I started researching to understand why I was losing weight so easily on the meal plan. I thought the trainer had designed it to help tone my muscles. What I came to realize with a little education was that he had given me a plan that eliminated large amounts of processed food(?) and put me in a slight calorie deficit... my body did the rest, and would do the rest, with or without the exercide. The exercise just accelerates the process. Today I am 8 months into this journey, and just broke 200 lbs and never felt better!

My FS friends, Stop the fad diets; stop starving yourself; stop applying fitness model meal plans designed to burn the last few lbs of fat before a competition, when you have 10+ lbs of FAT to lose....GET EDUCATED or you will NEVER succeed!

My heart goes out to those of you struggling. I have a picture in my mind of someone struggling to stay afloat in the water, while several friends shout encouragement from the shore, each giving different advice for how to stay afloat, "Kick your feet! Move your hands! Arch your back! Lay on you stomach"... all the while there is a life jacket floating in the water right next to you! But you don't grab it??? ... bacause you believed the myth that "It has to be harder than that". I am here to tell you it is not... but "YOU" have to reach out and grab it... IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!

I have 2 real resources, both of which are free:

1) FS Calorie Counter... but only to log my calories consumed and burned... I ignore the RDI and net calories number... I customize my RDI using below tools.

2) Scooby's Workshop.com... he has tons of free and simple advice on understanding nutriiton and getting fit. I get my calorie requirements from one of his many calulators. He is into bodybuilding, but his advice applies to everyone seeking better health and fitness... and he is not selling anthing. He will give you the simple education you need that will get you 80% of the results! GRAB THE LIFE JACKET! If you want he can teach you the other 20% too, like carb cycling and the like, if you want to be a fitness model at 4% body fat... BUT YOU GOTTA SURVIVE FIRST... you gotta let your body take you to its ideal weight... and it will if you let it!

The only resource I have paid for was an eBook called "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" by natural body builder Tom Venutto ($15). Natural body builders change their body fat at will becuase they understand nutrition. Tom goes into greater detail than Scooby on the nutrition, but Sccoby credits his book as the source for his very short and simple synopsis on nutrition. I had already lost my first 30 lbs when I got this book, but this book helped me tweak my meal plab to suit my goals. This book helped me recognize the difference between real food and what marketers have been peddling to us as food for years. Soda's are not food (even diet soda); Chips are not food; hot dogs are not food; candy bars are not food. EVEN heavily processed breads are not real food. They are the drugs that perpetuates our food addictions. Recognizing this is the first step to being free from their grip... and not just til you lose the weight, but forever! I believe it is within each of you, regardless of age or weight, to succeed at FAT loss... GRAB THE LIFE JACKET... IT IS WITHIN YOUR REACH!

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2346 kcal

Fat: 58.43g | Prot: 137.68g | Carb: 332.55g.   Breakfast: Cooked Egg Yolk, Egg White, Kirkland Signature Clover Honey, Cinnamon, Sun-Maid Natural California Raisins, Quaker Old Fashioned Oats. Lunch: Clif Bar Builder's Bar - Chocolate. Dinner: Papa John's 12" Original Crust Pizza - Cheese. Snacks/Other: Nabisco Belvita Cinnamon Brown Sugar Breakfast Biscuits, Frozen Strawberries, Optimum Nutrition Performance Whey 100% Isolate, Banana, Clif Bar Builder's Bar - Chocolate Mint, Gatorade Thirst Quencher Lemon-Lime Beverage. more...

2199 kcal

Activities & Exercise: Resting - 16 hours, Sleeping - 8 hours. more...