Dids's WSOP '05 Get Less Fat Incentive Plan.

[razor]

Exactly a year ago, I realized I was in horrendous shape (I knew it wasn't good but I didn't realize it was as bad as it was). I had been doing the treadmill thing - walking briskly (my knees don't take kindly to running) about 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week. But that wasn't doing my cardio any good and wasn't getting me any weight loss.

Once I realized how bad things were, I started doing a bit of research on the internet. I bought myself a cheapo polar heart rate monitor. I don't think they make the one I bought anymore, this Polar F1 is similar. Over the next couple weeks I increased the length and intensity of my workouts, until I was doing 45 minutes 4 days a week.

This site discusses fitness walking and this link in particular Target Heart Rates and how they are used for weight loss.

Once I increased the length and intensity of my workouts my weight started dropping and my heart got more efficient. I dropped about 27 pounds in the past year and got my bodyfat percentage to a more reasonable 17.5% (still could use more work there). Most of my weight loss was in the first 6 months. The last half year has been fairly stable, although I expect that diet improvements would yield further good results. Although I eat healthier than before that is one area that still need a lot of improvement for me. But I don't much like cooking or taking the time to prepare lunches, so I eat out far too much for lunch and don't eat as well as I should for dinner.


Site I found helpful:

The Walking Site

Rockport Walk Test

ExRx.net

MyBodyComp.com


GOOD LUCK!!!

[Gamblor]

Thoughts,

Don't be a fat ass man. There are enough people on this planet that may not judge you on your appearance alone, but certainly will get their first impression from your belly and multiple chins (more than the chinese phone book). I, for one, see a fat guy and think "doesn't he even care about his health?"

advice,

Don't worry about lifting weights and all that. You can't get rid of a belly with situps. Do stuff that's fun.

Play basketball for an hour every day until you're drenched in sweat. Then the next day organize a football game. Call up friends who you know are mildly athletic and suggest roller hockey. Working out is way more fun when you're trying to beat someone at it. When nobody is around, go for a 1K/2K/5K/10K run in the nearest park and try to beat your best time. But sports are the best way. sign up for a rec basketball league.

The key: if you're not sweating profusely, you didn't work out hard enough. Although something tells me you don't need to run to sweat.

Diets will only kill your motivation, and a good diet never ends. Believe it or not, you get used to salad and chicken and stuff like that - I used to hate that stuff, and over time it just becomes normal, as if there was nothing else to eat. You drive by McDicks and want to puke when you think about the [censored] in there.

Frankly, it's easy to love junk food - McDonald's, Oreos, etc. While I've never been anything close to overweight (actually a little too thin if you ask me), I finally over time got sick of junk food - probably a result of knowing what junk food really is; it's food made in test tubes, not real food that someone killed or harvested.

Next time you grab a piece of junk food, think about the scientist who sat there mixing chemicals into a test tube until he finally found the combination that would make it so chemically dangerous that bacteria died when they tried to eat it so it would stay preserved. Then, he poured in a little chocolate, and wrapped it in tin foil for $1.00.

Now, I can't even stand the sight of it.

abuse?

Fat ass. Get to work, you miserable piece of giant flab, then make me eat my words (are words junk food)?

[tiltboy]

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Don't worry about lifting weights and all that. You can't get rid of a belly with situps. Do stuff that's fun.


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I liked most of your advice but I have to take exception to this. First of all, some of us actually like to go to the gym and lift. I've been a regular (3x per week) lifter for more than a decade and I treasure my time in the free weight room. I also play league tennis and run and walk and swim and lots of other active sports so you can do both and being strong can help you do the other activities.

Another factor is the weight lifting is GREAT for losing fat. The more muscle mass you put on the higher your metabolism so you'll burn more calories even when you aren't in the weight room. Um, and equating situps to weight lifting is a little disingenuous. It is true that you can't spot weight loss, but you can build stronger core muscles that will help you burn more overall calories.

[Alobar]

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[ QUOTE ]
Don't worry about lifting weights and all that. You can't get rid of a belly with situps. Do stuff that's fun.


[/ QUOTE ]
I liked most of your advice but I have to take exception to this. First of all, some of us actually like to go to the gym and lift. I've been a regular (3x per week) lifter for more than a decade and I treasure my time in the free weight room. I also play league tennis and run and walk and swim and lots of other active sports so you can do both and being strong can help you do the other activities.


[/ QUOTE ]

I think he was saying that if you only have an hour to spend you are better off doing cardio to lose weight than you are weight lifting. Which is true. I'm not going to knock weight lifting, I used to compete as a power lift way back in the day (that expression sounds funny coming from a 26 year old). But if you only have an hour a day to exercise and your goal is wright lose you are much better off riding a bicycle or playing basketball than lifting.

A pound of muscle only burns about 20 calories a day on its own, which isn't going to drastically help weight loss. A 20 year old male who first starts a body building program can only expect to add 20 pounds of muscle in his first year of weight lifting. This doesn't add up to that great a caloric defeciet per day for the aveage person.

So while the "more muscle burns more fat" statement is true, its more a sales pitch by gym managers to get overweight people in the gym than it is an actual answer to weight loss. Like I said, I'm not knocking weight training, I would atually recommend incorporating maybe 1 or 2 days a week into your "activity schedule" for someone trying to lose weight, because it has so many other benefiets. But I have to say, weight loss really isnt one of them.

[Zetack]

Hey good luck.

I myself have decided to drop about 45 lbs. Which will put me in territory I haven't seen in about 12 years.


I've dumped about 10 lbs so far, though since I'm working out pretty hard, I've also gained some muscle, so maybe its a bit more than that in fat loss (I like to think so at any rate--but in the long run it doesn't matter as long as I keep working toward the goal--the exact numbers at any given time arent' that important).

Here's a thought about snacking. Don't buy snack food. Ever. If its not in the house you can't eat it. If snacking is a must, fruit is good--I think grapes are kinda like candy.

When I feel the urge to snack I make myself a healthy sandwhich, if the thought of the sandwich isn't very satisfying, I figure I'm not hungry enough to need anything. Maybe I'll just have a glass of water.

Oh, and I got a big boost by pretty much cutting soda out of my diet--and I was a huge soda fiend (I'll still have one if I go to a movie or something but there aren't any in my fridge). So if you have some regular but unecessary calories in your life that you can cut out like that, its a good jump start.

--Zetack

[SomethingClever]

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Posting this, if only because knowing that other people are aware of it will make it harder to mess up

I'm fat, I need to be less so. I have a plan to make that happen.

Thoughts, advice, abuse?

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My honest advice: Focus on the exercise more than the diet. You might lose some weight on a diet, but you have to stick to it basically forever. If you become more active, you'll lose weight and feel better all the time. And you don't have to worry as much about the foods you eat.

But here's the key: Pick an exercise that you actually ENJOY. If you hate running, don't try to be a runner. You'll just get frustrated and quit.

I happen to like basketball, so that's my exercise of choice. But almost anything will work, as long as you participate frequently and work up a good sweat.

Here are some ideas:

Basketball
Soccer
Tennis (maybe even Ping-Pong, if played vigorously enough?)
Volleyball
Cycling/Mountain Biking
Swimming
Tetherball
Ultimate Frisbee
Batting Cages/Softball
Weights
Breakdancing
Martial Arts
Hiking

I could go on and on. You could probably head to the local community center or Y and sign up for a league, or just play pickup games of your sport of choice. It might be intimidating at first, but there are often leagues based on beginner skill levels and/or non-competitive leagues.

The point is, if you enjoy your exercise, you'll do it all the time without complaint.

Exercise enough, and what you eat becomes less important. Although I'd refrain from putting bacon on your ice cream.

Hope this helps in some way. Good luck!

[SomethingClever]

As an addendum to my post, try to think of your activity of choice in the same terms as Poker.

That is, make it a challenge. If you pick, say, basketball, you'll probably get your ass handed to you for the first couple weeks. But try to work on your game, and make it a point of pride to improve. Just like poker.

If you become competitive in a healthy, excercise-like activity, the weight-loss will come naturally.

Also, take lowroller's advice: Start slowly, but once you're comfortable, always push yourself.

[lowroller]

Dids,

We're Brothers, Man!! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img] As a matter of fact, today I started up my exercise program again (put off starting it last week [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]) to lose about 10 lbs that I've put on in the last couple of months (since I started playing poker regularly).

One of the things I HATE about poker is that it is VERY easy to fall into an unhealthy lifestyle. Hours upon hours of sitting, sitting, sitting, eating unhealthy food (if at all), (sometimes) smoke-filled rooms, booze...

Prolonged exposure to this is not any good for you/me/anyone, and I've been having a real problem with it for the last couple of months. In alot of respects, I think it's been the toughest part of my game to handle. Part of me wants to play and put in the hours to learn/improve/win, but part of me hates myself for allowing myself to become so lazy and put my health in jeopardy.

Don't let it happen to you, either!!

Take control of your life and your health. It is, truly, the only thing you have in life.

The biggest thing I can say, has already been said: SWEAT

You MUST exercise vigorously in order to lose weight!! Don't just go through the motions (like so many do) and think you are getting it done...it won't happen. At first, I think you need to ease into it. But after the initial period of your body adjusting to the "shock" of exercise you need to keep pushing yourself. You will be so happy/proud of yourself!!

Lastly, you may want to check out www.mattfurey.com. He advocates using body-weight exercises (rather than free-weights) that you can do at home that are VERY effective at building strength as well as endurance (cardio conditioning).

I ran onto his site a couple of years ago when I was looking for a fighting/conditioning program and although I am not fighting anymore, I still use it to this day. If you have any questions PM me.

If you want something more tradional (free-weight oriented), I recommend The TRUTH, by Frank Sepe. This is a great book that promotes a graduated weight training and cardio program along with solid diet advice (carbs are OK, you just have to watch them).

Best of luck to you, Dids! I am rooting for you, and will be checking your blog to keep up with your progress.

[nolanfan34]

First of all, I congratulate you for having the guts to post this here. You're pretty much asking for people to respond with smart-aleck cracks, posting something like this. I'm glad people have been civil so far.

Those who have responded have provided some excellent advice and links.

Throwing in my two cents, there is no fast or easy way to do this. Diet and exercise are the key. Period. Any by diet, I'm talking more of what types of food you eat, compared to just limiting the amounts, or not eating carbs.

I have never been in a situation where I tried to lose as much weight as your stated goal, but I can say that there's an easy way to start losing weight. Stop eating out. When I first left college, I was working a job where I would eat out for lunch pretty much every day. Ate out a lot at night too. This was before I got married, and it was a lot easier to just eat out instead of cook for one person.

Once I moved in with my wife-to-be, I started to cook a lot more dinners. Also started to pack my lunch a lot more as well, which not only was healthier, but also saved money. Try to do the same, and you can also tie in the money savings to your WSOP goal.

Go to the grocery store, and price out how much an average meal costs to put together. I know when I did that, I was surprised how inexpensive it really was to make meals at home. Yeah, McD's is only $5 a pop, but you can cook meals at home for less than that.

Cutting out pop was also a big key for me. Same with beer, although I haven't kicked the one-beer-a-night habit yet. Those calories add up.

When it comes to working out, I would suggest finding a gym partner with similar goals, that you could work out with. Going to the gym by yourself consistently is very difficult I think. If you can find someone also looking to lose some weight, it's easier to rely on each other for motivation on those days that you just would rather stay at home.

Keep us updated on your progress, your goal is very possible, but very difficult. To truly achieve it, it requires not just a short-term fix, but really a lifestyle change in regards to eating IMO.

[daryn]

eat less food and exercise.