Hello Folks,
I am 27 years old and in need of some serious weight loss. When I look back, I'm not even sure how I got here, but I'm finally prioritizing fixing it, so there's that. For most of my life I was thin, athletic, and sometimes underweight. Somewhere around 14-15 years old I started to pack on the pounds out of nowhere. I think I always ate a lot, but was extremely active, and my activity level dropped around that age and bad habits finally caught up to me. Anywho, I'm 73 inches tall and by the time I turned 18 I was around 300 pounds. Got diagnosed with diabetes at 18 and decided to get serious about my weight. I went on the south beach diet for about six months because I thought it was a great way to limit calories and a good plan for someone with diabetes. I also exercised every day by going on multiple mile walks. In six months I was down to around 220 pounds. Around a year later I got busier and stopped paying as much attention to my diet, went off the south beach diet, stopped keeping track of calories, and crept back up to just under 270, where I have sat ever since.
I met my beautiful wife just over 5 years ago. She has since put on 80 pounds. Some of it was due to pregnancy, but I figure that my eating habits transferring over to her accounts for about half that weight. It's not so much that I eat insanely unhealthy food, we actually raise or grow a lot of what we eat right on our farm, I just tend to eat more than I should, especially when I am stressed out. We're both at a point where we finally feel like enough is enough and that our stress levels are down enough that we can start taking a more healthy approach to eating, so I guess you could say this will be a joint effort.
We started a 1,500 calorie diet a week ago. I decided that I don't personally want to attempt a low carb diet again, so we've decided to essentially eat whatever we want to eat, but balance it out so that the portions remain within the 1,500 calorie range. Something I've learned about myself over the years is that I sort of eat on a routine. What I mean is that I generally eat the same few meals over and over and just recycle them throughout the month. In that sense, I'm not someone who really cares about variety. So, my approach to this diet so far has been something like this:
Breakfast: 2 eggs [produced on our farm], 1/2 a serving of oatmeal with 1 tsp of brown sugar and cinnamon, and a fruit OR a glass of whole milk [both produced on our farm].
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly [produced on our farm] sandwich and carrots w/ hummus.
Dinner: One serving of meat and a small greek salad.
In terms of exercise, we've just done our normal farm chores, although we did go on a 5 mile walk today.
In a week, I lost 6 pounds and my wife lost 8. Remarkably, I'm not feeling any serious cravings or anything yet, which is a change from past weight loss attempts. I'm aiming to ultimately weigh 200 pounds.
I guess what I am looking for is some feedback on what I am doing. Does it sound like I am on the right track? I know my diet plan could probably be better, but I know that if I cut out all unhealthy food [jelly, for instance] I'll definitely crash and burn.
I am 27 years old and in need of some serious weight loss. When I look back, I'm not even sure how I got here, but I'm finally prioritizing fixing it, so there's that. For most of my life I was thin, athletic, and sometimes underweight. Somewhere around 14-15 years old I started to pack on the pounds out of nowhere. I think I always ate a lot, but was extremely active, and my activity level dropped around that age and bad habits finally caught up to me. Anywho, I'm 73 inches tall and by the time I turned 18 I was around 300 pounds. Got diagnosed with diabetes at 18 and decided to get serious about my weight. I went on the south beach diet for about six months because I thought it was a great way to limit calories and a good plan for someone with diabetes. I also exercised every day by going on multiple mile walks. In six months I was down to around 220 pounds. Around a year later I got busier and stopped paying as much attention to my diet, went off the south beach diet, stopped keeping track of calories, and crept back up to just under 270, where I have sat ever since.
I met my beautiful wife just over 5 years ago. She has since put on 80 pounds. Some of it was due to pregnancy, but I figure that my eating habits transferring over to her accounts for about half that weight. It's not so much that I eat insanely unhealthy food, we actually raise or grow a lot of what we eat right on our farm, I just tend to eat more than I should, especially when I am stressed out. We're both at a point where we finally feel like enough is enough and that our stress levels are down enough that we can start taking a more healthy approach to eating, so I guess you could say this will be a joint effort.
We started a 1,500 calorie diet a week ago. I decided that I don't personally want to attempt a low carb diet again, so we've decided to essentially eat whatever we want to eat, but balance it out so that the portions remain within the 1,500 calorie range. Something I've learned about myself over the years is that I sort of eat on a routine. What I mean is that I generally eat the same few meals over and over and just recycle them throughout the month. In that sense, I'm not someone who really cares about variety. So, my approach to this diet so far has been something like this:
Breakfast: 2 eggs [produced on our farm], 1/2 a serving of oatmeal with 1 tsp of brown sugar and cinnamon, and a fruit OR a glass of whole milk [both produced on our farm].
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly [produced on our farm] sandwich and carrots w/ hummus.
Dinner: One serving of meat and a small greek salad.
In terms of exercise, we've just done our normal farm chores, although we did go on a 5 mile walk today.
In a week, I lost 6 pounds and my wife lost 8. Remarkably, I'm not feeling any serious cravings or anything yet, which is a change from past weight loss attempts. I'm aiming to ultimately weigh 200 pounds.
I guess what I am looking for is some feedback on what I am doing. Does it sound like I am on the right track? I know my diet plan could probably be better, but I know that if I cut out all unhealthy food [jelly, for instance] I'll definitely crash and burn.
