Trooper Fit Club

[irocink33[TK]]

I have stayed true to my word as of now. So I am working out, no calories after 7, etc...

 

I feel good, but it's only been 3 days, so I can't expect drastic changes. OOOO that reminds me, I forgot to post a pic. I got so caught up in my hasbro blaster build the last 2 nights, I completly forgot.

 

I'll see if I can remember tonight.

 

And Chris, Sorry to hear about the rugby incident. I injured my back playing ice hockey in Germany when I was stationed there. When i did it, I didn't feel a thing and continued the game and finished. THe next morning, I couldn't move. Funny how that happens. We'll get through this.

[CSH]

Thanks Tiffanie, this thread has given me a lot to think about and some very inspiring stuff here as well.

 

Sports injuries are the worst Ryan, if these are the sort of injuries that we pick up from playing in our spare time then imagine what it must be like for people who play pro sports all their lives! We'll kick this fat to the kerb with a bit of good old fashioned hard work and common sense :)Great to hear that you are following through on your plans, I've found that 3 days tends to be the initial hurdle into incorporating something into your daily routine - if you can do it for 3 days in a row then you're more likely to stick with it.

 

On that subject, I've started doing some very light exercise - 30 situps and 10 pressups every day. I'm aiming to do this every day for a week, then next week I'll up the reps a little bit. At the moment I don't think I'm getting much benefit from it apart from a sense of accomplishment and probably won't see anything more substantial until I start doing more reps per day. I'm doing it this way because I really want to try and get myself to do exercise every day and make it part of my life. Lord knows how many times I've said "Right, starting today I'm going to do 60 situps and 60 pressups every day!" and spectacularly failed to implement it.

 

Tonight is my sister-in-law's graduation and we're going out to dinner afterwards, and then tomorrow is the party/celebration dinner. It's likely to be full of food loaded with fat, sugar and all of that other unfortunately delicious stuff so I'm busting out my Eating Out Survival Guide.

 

- Don't eat the bread if your food will arrive quickly, but if you need to eat some then have very little. Look for brown bread if provided, and it goes without saying that you shouldn't eat the butter.

- If I have a salad, I have it without dressing as salad dressings can have a very high fat or calorie content (who else remembers Supersize Me, when the dude finds out that the McDonalds salads with dressing are actually just as bad and in some cases worse than their burgers?) It also lets me say "I'll have a naked salad" which causes a few upraised eyebrows and laughs amongst dinner company. If you do want to go for dressing, then look for "light" or "low fat" options.

- When choosing a main course, in general a protein-centric dish will be better than one centred around carbs like a pasta dish. There are of course exceptions!

- Look for roasted, boiled or grilled rather than fried.

- Ask if your portion of chips/fries can be substituted for one of boiled vegetables or a green salad.

- If you end up having something with a load of sauce then don't eat all of the sauce. That took me a surprising ammount of time to work out!

- I tend to look at the menu and decide whether I'm going to have desert or not right at the start of the meal. If I see something really special that I want then I be as healthy as possible for the main, but if I don't want desert then I can afford to take a few more liberties.

- If you do have desert, see if someone wants to share. Being a baker and confectioner taught me just how much sugar and butter goes into those sweet sickly treats, so share the load if you can.

- Lastly, and the most important thing for me: if you end up eating something that you didn't originally want to or ate something that went against your meal plan, then don't go "ah screw it" and dig into the junk food! It doesn't make you feel better. When it happens to me I eat quite lightly the following day and then get right back to it.

 

Ye gods, what an essay

 

Wish me luck for the next couple of days!

[TK9926]

Weight loss, January my goal was to drop from 212 to 185 and yes I did. 185 and now I must try my armor and see if I need any tweeking, no gut so mabe a strip of velcro to the back of the abb plate will be all that is needed. I'll keep in shape from here on out. TK kit is next on my list at 5'9 I'll be a perfect TK with abs to boot.

 

Later,

 

Patrick

[irocink33[TK]]

Small sucess at least. I weighed myself this morning, I was at 241. So I lost 3 LBS. Now, I'm not getting my hopes up, but looks like I am starting on the right track. First mile marker past... And that just means I started the process.

[tigger68[501st]]

Weight loss, January my goal was to drop from 212 to 185 and yes I did. 185 and now I must try my armor and see if I need any tweeking, no gut so mabe a strip of velcro to the back of the abb plate will be all that is needed. I'll keep in shape from here on out. TK kit is next on my list at 5'9 I'll be a perfect TK with abs to boot.

 

Later,

 

Patrick

 

Congratulations on reaching your goal! That is great news.

[irocink33[TK]]

i have sad news, I had a bit of a set back. I know where it comes from, and it is sort of in excusable. Still, I want to share so I can move forward.

 

I went home to Iowa last week and sort of pigged out on the road while driving too and from there. I gained almost 7 LBS in a week and a half. It didn't help that I was drinking beer just about every night. ugh.

 

The sad thing is, I don't really recognize what I am eating until after I have eaten it, and then I feel guilty. REALLY guilty. So now I am at 248LBS and making this even harder on myself to complete. Looks like I need to buckle down even more to regain the start I had on this.

 

Anyway, that's my progress. And a sad one it is.

[tigger68[501st]]

Okay, time to repost here about guilt. The motto to remember when trying to lose weight or get fit is. "NO GUILT!" Ever.

 

So you went on vacation and gained pounds, that's okay. It isn't like you gained 50 lbs on your trip. 7 lbs isn't a big number to be concerned about. The human body can gain or lose 10 lbs of jus "water weight" in a week. Most fad diets where you lose a lot of weight initially it isn't fat.

 

So remember, if you have a setback it's ok. It's life. Don't beat yourself up over it. This isn't an overnight change. It is long term and there will be bumps along the way.

 

Good luck and remember...NO GUILT!

[jeffreybas]

Ok well I don't have my armor yet but I do have it on order. I am doing this cause I can afford to lose some weight before hand. I am doing this for my TK armor but also for my over all health. Don't want to be that dad that sits on the side lines I want to be that dad who is out there playing with his kids.

 

1. post a picture(s) of yourself at your starting height and weight in your armor.

(Pics in street clothes are welcome too.) Will post up a picture of me soon.

 

2. pick a goal weight: 170 to start off

 

3. explain what things you are going to do to lose weight: I plan on doing a weekly set of increasing workouts. Each week adding something new to the mix

 

4. Report back with your weight loss on either a weekly or monthly basis. Week 1 for me is almost complete. Tomorrow will be day 5 of 5.

 

5. Post progress pics, to show how well the armor is fitting as the weight comes off.

 

Started This week at 196lbs.

I have been using the elliptical for 30 minutes each day this week.

Here are my current stats for each day:

Day 1 30 minutes 494.4 calories 1597 rotation ..... 20 minutes forward 10 backwards

Day 2 30 minutes 498.2 calories 1608 rotations 20 minutes forward 10 minutes backwards

Day 3 30 minutes 498.2 calories 1604 rotations 20 minutes forward 10 minutes backwards

Day 4 30 minutes 516.0 calories 1676 rotations 20 minutes forward 10 minutes backwards

Day 5 TBA

 

For week 2 I plan to add onto my 30 minute elliptical workout.

[jeffreybas]

Day 5 complete 30 minutes 520.8 calories 1694 rotations 20 minutes forward 10 mimutes backwards

 

I will be starting back up monday and adding something new to the workout.

[jeffreybas]

Start weight 196

Week 2 weight 191.6 ( I am sure this may be a little off I am trying to weight myself exactly at the same time and with same stuff on.)

Goal: 170

To go: 21.6

 

Week 2 started today. I am going to be continuing on with my 30 minute elliptical workout and now throwing in 10 minutes of combined push ups and sit ups. Seeing how many I can do in a 10 minute span. I will keep this up all this week and see how much I can improve.

Here are today's stats:

30 minutes 516.3 calories 1674 rotations 15 minutes forward 15 minutes backwards

30 situps 30 pushups

 

I will update again after Fridays workout.

Edited July 19, 2011 by jeffreybas

[jeffreybas]

Started This week at 191.6lbs.

I have been using the elliptical for 30 minutes each day this week.

Here are my current stats for each day:

Day 1 30 minutes 516.3 calories 1674 rotations 15 minutes forward 15 minutes backwards 30 situps 30 pushups

Day 2 30 minutes 523.1 calories 1704 rotations 15 minutes forward 15 minutes backwards 30 situps 40 pushups

Day 3 30 minutes 501 calories 1618 rotations 15 minutes forward 15 minutes backwards

Day 4 30 minutes 520.4 calories 1686 rotations 15 minutes forward 15 minutes backwards

Day 5 Was feeling really sick today. My allergies were out of control

 

Week 3 I am looking to cut the Elliptical down to 15 minutes and will be doing the fit test for Insanity all week and throwing in Ab ripper x from the P90x program.

[irocink33[TK]]

been working at this, no seeable results on the scale. I don't feel much better, but I am trying.

 

I drank nothing but water today and a small glass of milk. I seem to eat at work more than I do at home, so that is something I can focus on.

 

All in all, I am doing all right at 246 as of now. I think I am going to try to get my wife to go to the pool and do lap swimming with me. See if I can get her motivated as well.

 

But I have my armor now, I am trimming and shaping now. So getting there with the weight and with the armor.

The hard part about the armor is figuring out the elastic strapping system and seeing if I can get it accurate the first time.

 

Any way, different topic for a different thread. I just wanted to say hi and I am still here, working at this!

[bobojuice]

I've been out of the exercising loop for quite some time as life got in the way, but now with new armor on the horizon, I have to get back into my Trooping weight. I started 3 weeks ago Monday at around 226. I don't generally go by weight since I usually put on more muscle when exercising, but I know that a weight of around 200 is going to be a lot better for fitting into my suit. If i can get lower than that then it'll be awesome but as of now my target is 200.

 

I've done this before and it usually doesn't take me that long, but usually I'm dieting extremely strictly and working out like crazy six days a week. This time around I'm taking it a bit easier. I hope to get to my goal in the next three months. It took me 52 days last time, so I figure with an extra 40 days I should be good.

 

As of this week my weight is 223. I'm working out five days a week in the morning, for now, to see what it's like. If I'm too tired, I'll switch back to nights.

 

My diet consists of eating around 6-7 smallish meals throughout the day. Eating only whole foods, no protein or other supplements.

 

Exercise consists of a Five day regimen. Each day I focus on one muscle group. Mon- Chest Tues- Back Wed- Shoulders Thurs- Legs Fri- Arms I'm only throwing biceps and triceps together so I have a five day workout instead of the six. Might be nice to have the weekend completely off. After three months I'll switch this up.

 

I'll be updating my progress on an irregular basis or when I feel I've accomplished something worth posting. Wish me luck!

[seantrooper[TK]]

sounds like a good routine mate! If you want to lose fat, make sure you do a heap of cardio. Weights are great, good for building up muscle, but you should try to combine it with some cardio to get the best results. Try going for a run of doing some skipping after you finish your weights session

[bobojuice]

I actually do high intensity weight training. I only rest 1 minute in between sets. This keeps my heart rate up and basically allows me to get away without doing cardio. I've done it before and it's worked REALLY well. I'm at 220 now. I had to skip the last two days of working though, as I've been under the weather.

[silverBoyd[501st]]

i'm in the process of working on getting everything together for TD armor. A month ago I was 278 lbs (my heaviest). I'm 6'-2". I joined Weight Watchers on July 5, 2011. I was a little leary about it since i was the only guy in it but I have lost 10 lbs. in one month. It was pretty easy. The main reasons i'm doing this is to be healthier for my family and to look better in the armor. I walk 1-2 miles at least 4x/week (min.). I have cut out fast foods w/ the exception of a few occasions in the past month. I hardly drink sodas anymore. Mostly sticking to lots of water, Crystal Light and juices which i water down slightly. Counting the points in Weight Watchers is pretty easy too. I never feel hungry. I also have started to snack healthier. I feel great already. Hope to get down 20-30 more lbs. by Christmas this year. Hopefully. Oh yeah, i've also cut out most breads and have started eating lots more fish. Since it's summertime I've been grilling out like crazy. Lots of grilled chicken breast (boneless /skinless) as well as grilled flounder / salmon & tilapia.

[irocink33[TK]]

Sounds like your well on your way Jason! Keep it up. I am fighting the bulge too, and my situation isn't helped any. But I hardly ever drink soda, my vice is beer and it's hard to quite that.

 

I can do portion control, calorie counting, and all else, but beer is what kills me.

 

Any way, good luck on your goal. I know we can do this. We just need a strong support group and I am here if you need support.

[Madmartigan]

I decided I'd had enough when I hit 207 or so and could no longer close my TM up without a gap on the sides.

 

About 5 weeks of P90x (well...most of it anyway) and pretty strict diet later, and I'm just north of 190. Should probably be back into the high 180s in the next few days and back to target weight of 180-185 in a few more weeks. Then I can think about pulling out the Spidey suit again, too.

[bobojuice]

How tall are you, Chris?

[Madmartigan]

How tall are you, Chris?

 

6'0"

[SmilesLikeJoker]

This is a great thread, and great idea! I'm pretty sure this been mentioned before, but here it is anyway.

 

I fluctuate between 180-195 lbs. I've got a little stomach, but not that bothers me too much. I wouldn't say I'm in the best of shape, but I'm slowly improving while maintaining a decent level of fitness. I did hit about 220 a couple of years back, but the military frowns upon not being able to meet fitness standards.

 

One of the biggest mistakes I make, even to this day, is actually under eating. Eating healthy is a great thing, but there is still a certain amount of calories your body needs daily. It varies person to person based off the individual and their goals. I struggle to hit 1800-2000 calories a day with my meals. Don't under eat! Do some research and see how many calories you should be shooting for daily.

 

Second.... water. I can't say enough about water. Drink it daily and often.

 

Along with my cardio stuff I do, I also do the '200 Sit-ups' and '100 Push-ups' workouts and the occasional group exercise session. A quick google search and the workouts pop right up (all the same website). The program covers some standard 'core strengthening' exercises. I can vouch that the guide is pretty close, but you have to put forth the effort to hit the numbers. I would recommend the Iphone/Ipod app. That's what I use.

 

That's all I got.

Patrick

[Madmartigan]

One of the biggest mistakes I make, even to this day, is actually under eating. Eating healthy is a great thing, but there is still a certain amount of calories your body needs daily. It varies person to person based off the individual and their goals. I struggle to hit 1800-2000 calories a day with my meals. Don't under eat! Do some research and see how many calories you should be shooting for daily.

 

*Truth*

 

I think becuase I was trying to support my wife in her post-pregnancy weight loss, I was undereating by a LOT! Here I am -- just a hair under 6'0" and because of what I would allow myself to keep in the house (to keep her from being tempted) , etc., I calculated over the last week and I was probably only eating about 1200-1400 calories a day! While exercising intensely 4-5 days per week. Yikes.

 

The past two days I bumped that up to make sure I was eating at least closer to 2000 and I'm over my plateau. Hit 189 yesterday. Undereating = almost as counterproductive as overeating.

Edited August 18, 2011 by Madmartigan

[irocink33[TK]]

still working on my goal of 210, right now at 246. Down a little, but not much. Been just really really busy. Although portion size has been cut significantly. No longer a huge steak and a big pile of potatoes. Now, steamed veggies, smaller portion of meat and some other smaller changes to a life style.

 

I am still healing from back injuries, so the gym seems to be my biggest up hill battle. Getting back there and thinking I will hurt myself again deters me. Something like "tomorrow I will start" and tomorrow never comes.

 

But i'm down. So making progress.

[senna1rossi[TK]]

very good thread! i hope it gives me the impetus to start my own weight loss... i hate being fat.

[HawesEA2]

OK, I'm new to FISD (only been here about a week) but I have gained a wealth of information and love perusing through the forums. That's how I stumbled upon this thread. As I have no pictures of TK Armor to post because I'm still in the process of building everything, I would like to share my story in hopes that it will motivate somebody else to 'Get their life back.' I am 6ft 1in tall and currently weigh 240lbs. When I was in high school I weighed a scrawny 140lbs and couldn't gain weight to save my life. I joined the military after school and went through my BCT and AIT training at Ft. Benning, GA in the summer of 1991. After 13 weeks of training and while on a family day weekend before graduation, I got to weigh myself for the first time. I gained 35lbs of muscle mass. To my surprise I couldn't fit into the clothes I had worn to Ft Benning. Throughout my military career, I managed to keep my weight at a very healthy 185lbs. I was able to do this due to the very 'on the move' lifestyle, coupled with 3 square healthy meals per day. While an Airborne Infantryman in the 82nd ABN DIV at Ft Bragg, NC, I was always on the go. I never did so much PT (physical training) ever in my life as i did in that unit. Throughout the years and different units, my weight stayed the same till I got to recruiting command. Long story short: I injured my spine on a mass tactical combat jump one night in the early 90's. Approximately 2am, I exited the door of a high performance aircraft, counted to 4 and felt the opening shock of my chute opening. A few seconds later I noticed another paratrooper heading in my direction from a higher altitude. He ended up landing on top of my chute and got entangled in my suspension lines of my canopy. There was a full moon that evening and I was able to watch his footsteps on my canopy as he ran across the top of my chute. We ended up leap frogging (his chute would inflate and hold us both up in the air, then his would collapse and mine would inflate and vice versa-all the way to the ground). Attached to my body was all of my combat equipment, somewhere in the realm of about 120lbs. Normally about 150ft up you pull a tether strap and lower the equipment below your body so it hits the ground first then you, as it dangles about 15ft below your body attached to a D-ring on your parachute harness. Needless to say, with everything happening, I never lowered my combat equipment. I hit the ground hard enough that it blew two discs out of my spine. I sucked it up and drove on like we were all trained to do because mission comes first. Years go by, and finally my back pain is to the point where a CT Scan is done. That leads to a MRI and ultimately a fusion of my spine from L4 to S1. I had two discs removed and two carbon fiber cages inserted in between the vertebrae. A bone graph was taken from my left hip and mixed with stem cells and spread over the construct to promote bone growth for the fusion. A titanium rod and three screws were also inserted for strength and stability. That surgery was in Sep of 2004. In Aug of 2005, after 14 years of active duty service my career was taken from me when I went for a medical board to get a permanent profile which would keep me from having to do things that would possibly further hurt my back. I was honorably discharged under medical conditions with a severance pay.

 

At this point in time my weight was approximately 245lbs. I collected unemployment for 6 months while looking for a job at the end of 2005. I was hired with a company to sell commercial air time on a certain big cable tv provider. During my time there, I made a decision to lose some weight. So with the help of the VA's MOVE program I met with a dietician and was given a bunch of information on how to stay healthy and lose weight. I followed the dietician's plan to the tee. I lost about 20 lbs in 6 months but I was always hungry because of the small portions I was eating. I left that job to work for the government in another field I won't name here. I managed to maintain a weight of 225lbs while doing this job. However during the course of one of my job functions I had an elevator malfunction on me and drop me 14 floors at a rapid rate of speed comparable to an amusement park ride. When the elevator abruptly came to a stop it jarred the hardware I had in my back loose. This led to another back surgery to have a spinal cord stimulator installed in my lower right stomach with a cord the wraps around my right side under the skin that attaches to a lead connected to my epidural layer of my spinal cord. I went up to 300lbs in weight after this injury. I was tremendously out of shape, depressed, and a walking time bomb of health problems.

 

A friend of mine from the military told me about an author of a book that he felt I needed to read. At first I was skeptical yet open minded. Now, I'm not on here to promote this guy or his book in any shape or form. However, I will tell you this, I have done many things, from weight watchers, to Slim Fast all with minimal results and always feeling hungry. The book was called, "The Paleo Solution" by Robb Wolf. A little back ground on the author: He was a research biochemist and now is one of the most sought after strength and conditioning coaches in the world. I bought the book which was a really good read by the way. I was extremely surprised by the content as most books related to diet and nutrition tell you what you should and shouldn't eat and always stress to eat small portions, blah blah blah. This guy took the time to explain your entire body and what each organ does and how what you eat determines how these different organs work to produce certain chemicals and enzymes, etc to break your food down. It explains everything in lay mans terms that i was able to relate to. There are many stories from different people also in the book. Some people you may even be able to relate to. Now when I started reading this book not only was I fat but my body hurt and ached all the time. I wasn't aware that certain foods contain things that cause inflammation and cause pain. What I really liked was that Mr Wolf actually tracked his progress and his study findings by using his own blood work and shows the markers in the blood and how they improved, etc (I guess it helped that he was a research biochemist).

 

So the month was February 2011 and I came to the conclusion I was going to die young if I didn't do something so I read the book and started following his advice. Bottom line up front is this: PALEO as it is called is nothing more than eating like a caveman. Basically, eating food that we as a species are meant to eat. There are many products that are on the market that contain chemicals, etc that we as a species haven't evolved enough to digest. Grains being one of those things. He talks about how the Food Pyramid is completely flawed yet the government still tells you it's correct. If you think about it, we feed cattle grain to fatten them up before slaughter, when in all honesty their diet is supposed to be grass. Well if this type of food, which came about by agriculture, (GRAIN) fattens cattle up, what do you think it does to a human being? I learned that I needed to only shop on the outside edges of the grocery store, and stay completely out of the aisles, where all the man made garbage is. First thing i noticed by following his guidelines were that I was never hungry. I ate three meals per day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. In each meal I ate a lean protein from meat source, Dark Green veggies for my carbs and always, always, always ate a healthy fat with every meal. I also cut out all carbonated beverages and drank nothing but water and if I wanted flavor I added a slice of lemon to it. In roughly 3 months I dropped 60lbs of body weight, yep 60lbs. Here's the funny thing, I never once went to the gym to work out because of my low back injury. I not only dropped weight but the severe pain i was having drastically dropped. It's amazing what the human body can do when you feed it a proper fuel source. I took it a step further and went gluten free which is the main reason why I think all of the arthritic pain I was experiencing almost totally disappeared. I basically cut out all foods the caused inflammation, like milk, dairy, certain Legumes and grain. I didn't have to kill myself in the gym and actually there is a chapter or three on working out in the book. I am sure I would have seen even more results if I would have worked out. The thing is, he doesn't talk about spending countless hours in the gym. He talks about 20 to 30 minutes a day doing exercises that utilize more than one muscle group and movement at a time. His training philosophy is utilized by some Spec Ops groups in the military now because of the explosive speed and power individuals can achieve by eating and working out this way. The amount of protein I was taking in basically quelled my hunger all day long. The carbs from the veggies aided in that also, but the key was the healthy fat which the body needs to properly digest food and aid the body in healing, etc. Funny thing is the doctor and other government groups tell us we should be eating a low fat diet, well, after reading this book and seeing the scientific evidence, I totally disagree. Healthy fats, from nuts, olives, avocodo's, Olive oil, etc are key to health.

 

My blood pressure dropped to normal, my sugar levels in my blood are all normal now and my cholesterol improved big time. All because I am eating the things my body needs. The same things a caveman ate many moons ago. Also called the Hunter Gatherer way of eating. Not only do I feel better, but I am no longer in a depressed mindset and I get plenty of sleep which is probably the second most important thing in his teaching. Without sleep the body doesn't heal and produce certain chemicals needed for digestion and weight loss, etc. It's all a vicious cycle and we are nothing more than a high performance engine. If you put the right fuel in the engine, the engine runs at peak performance, put the wrong fuel in the engine and you get pinging and sludge build-up and ultimately failure. If you don't want to buy the book, don't. He has a website filled with tons of information all free. I love Star Wars, and I love being able to give back to others so that they too can better themselves and also be productive. I am joining the 501st to be able to put a smile on someones face, especially kids. I have three young children and ultimately what it comes down to, is i owe it to them, to be there for them whenever they need me. I can't do that if i'm dead from diabetes or a heart attack or laid up with back problems and pain. I am truly sorry if this is really long and drawn out, as that was not my intention. I just saw this thread and felt I needed to share my screwed up life and how I have managed to turn it all around for the better. I ultimately managed to get down into the high 220's in weight loss from almost 300lbs. I am at 240 now, but I haven't really been sticking to the regiment I started. It's a work in progress and all I'm trying to show is it can be done without killing yourself. Here's to trooping and looking your best and ultimately living a long and healthy life:)

 

His book is "The Paleo Solution", his name is Robb Wolf and his website is www.robbwolf.com

 

If I helped one person who reads this thread then I have been successful. Pass it along. Once I get my armor I will post a 300lbs pic of myself and what I look like now. Cheers