KartMan

Ok, it’s not my final goal – but it is one that I have really been waiting for and am super excited to have achieved. I knew it would hit sometime this week and I did it this morning:thumbup: I jumped on the scale and it read 185! I started this journey back in February at 285. Another of my big goals is to hit 24.9 BMI, which is only a pound away (184lbs) and should happen in the next day or so. I have set many other mini goals along the way that have been great to hit as well: - Overweight instead of Obese (BMI) - L Shirts and 36 Pants (started with XXXL and 44) - Lowest diet weight 206lbs - Onederland - M Shirts and 34 Pants - 100lbs Loss :scared2: My real goal is to get to 15% Body Fat. I started checking that about 2 months ago (I was 22.3% then). I am under 19% now and figure I need to get down to about 170-175lbs to reach 15%. I expect to be there in 1-2 months. Who would have thunk it:confused:

Love it!!! Banded 2/18/09 and had pretty good restriction right from the start. About 2 months ago I gave the last of my fat clothes to goodwill, absolutely nothing from pre-band days fits me anymore. I went from tight XXXL shirts and size 44 pants to a comfy M shirt and loose size 34 pants (about to go down to 32). I am about 1lb for 100lbs down and 2 lbs from my goal weight/goal BMI (184lbs/24.9BMI). I am not stopping at the goal though. I have set my new main goal to 15% Body Fat (Body Fat, not BMI), at my current fat loss/muscle gain I should be there within 1-2 months.

I take a GNC Mega Men Sport Vitapak every morning and a L-Glutamine Capsule before and after working out.

Super easy, had approval within a few minutes. Billing was straightforward and website was good for checking account status.

Huh, I forgot all about the hands/arms falling asleep thing. It was bothering me a lot about 6 months prior to the surgery and I only just remembered when I read your post.

Have you even read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights? Or did Glen Beck tell you that?

Well said:thumbup:

Ok, I’m gonna digress a little here just because a part of your analogy confuses me. Why does being a victim of the crime make Mrs. Smith look favorable in God’s eyes? I can see that he might have pity for her loss, but why would he look favorably on her for having been a victim? What if I was an all around bad guy (a sinner if you will) and a crime was perpetrated against me, would that increase my position with God? Sometimes I just don’t follow your logic. I studied Islam a bit as well and there are lots of examples in it where you get more or less reward for the type of praying you do, the frequency, the number of recitations, etc. I don’t get that either.

Personally, I think the bible has been interpreted, relied on, pointed to, used as an excuse for, and counted on for far too much. I know right from wrong, I learned it when I was about 4 – I think I’ll stick with that.

Don’t believe the whole “you’d look sick below xxxlbs” hype. As long as you are not technically underweight (for you that would probably be around 150), you will look fine. I am 20lbs below my lowest diet weight right now and about 5 pounds above my Navy Boot Camp weight and nobody is saying I look sick. I would suggest though that once you start to lose at a good pace you start excising and getting the right amount of Protein. I waited about a month or two too long and I lost a little more muscle that I wanted too. But, it is coming back though – so no worries.

I weigh 30 lbs on the moon. Give it a try:biggrin: Your Weight on Other Planets | 3FC

I don’t think you can really set a final goal until you get in the “normal” range. Don’t believe the hype (yours or others) about looking scrawny at what would be considered a normal weight for most people. You don’t have a fat skeleton, you have fat on a normal skeleton. Get down to a “normal” weight and then figure out how far you want to go beyond that. I’m not a big fan of BMI because it doesn’t take body composition in at all, however, I do think it is fine for setting your initial goal. Beyond that, I think you should look into Hydrostatic Dunk Testing to see what your true Body Fat to Lean Mass is. Taking this test will give you a real idea of how much of your total weight is fat versus lean mass. If there is an excess of fat, you can and should continue to lose it. For me, I set my initial target to a BMI of 24.9 which is the upper boundary of normal. I am exactly 6’ tall, so that works out to a weight of 184lbs (I started at 285lbs). When I got to about 200lbs I realized that 184 was probably still going to be heavier than I would be happy with, so that is when I started the Body Fat testing. The great thing about the testing is that subsequent tests tell you how much of your weight loss is fat versus lean which is helpful in adjusting your diet and exercise. My lowest dieting weight pre-band was 206, so I couldn’t really see myself lower than that. I too used to say I would look sickly below that weight (I think this is more of a coping mechanism than anything else). Well guess what? With good restriction (which I have been blessed with) the weight continued to come off past 206. As of now, I am about 188 and still losing. Guess what else? I don’t look sickly, scrawny, or anorexic. Most people think I look great. I am still losing, but now I am trying to focus that loss on fat versus muscle so the pace has slowed a tiny bit. I know that I did lose too much muscle initially though because I am WEAK in the gym. I can barely bench anything, but this has started to improve with regular workouts.

Really??? Are you actually advocating that? Do you think it is ok for us to attack a sovereign nation so that we can secure their oil for us?

Restriction is GREAT!!! Target weight is an interesting thing. Back when I started, a goal of 24.9BMI (101lb loss for me) was kinda one of those “yeah right” things. Now I am less than 5 lbs away from that goal and still losing at a good pace. I decided to strive for 15% Body Fat rather than an actual weight or BMI goal to try to get the best possible outcome from this. The way I see it, if I’m even a little overweight and can still comfortably lose, I might as well keep it up. Good call on watching the muscle loss. I was starting to see that too. I added in strength training and protein. I try to do strength 3-4 days a week and keep my protein intake up to 1g per pound of lean mass (works out to about 150g of protein for me). I also started taking the sport multivitamin daily from GNC and Glutamine before and after working out.

Wow, such a great loss and at a great pace. Just my 2 cents, don’t let your doc (or BMI) be the judge of if you are at goal. If you are still losing fairly easily and you can still “pinch an inch” than why stop? Keep going till your body stabilizes on it’s own.

Our bodies are so funny. I have been real good on food types/quantity over the past week and no significant loss. Last night I had a hot fudge sundae (bday treat) and I dropped a pound this morning. Go figure:confused:

FighterGirl, 2 years! Good for you!!! Those are the stats I like to hear.

I LOVE this post:thumbup::thumbup: I totally agree with the doing it for you part. Way way back when I used to be a smoker other people always wanted me to quit, but I couldn’t do it till I did it for me. Same with this weight loss. I know that over the years friends and family wanted me to lead a healthy lifestyle, but I wouldn’t know true success until I did it for ME. As for what is the right amount lose, you have to make that decision for yourself, only you will know for sure. When I started this journey I was at least exactly 101lbs overweight according to BMI (I am 6’ tall) so I set my weight goal to 184 in order to get to a BMI of 24.9 (right on the upper edge of normal). At about 200lbs (about 15lbs from goal) I realized that I wasn’t going to be happy with that amount so I started to look into what was a more ideal weight for me. I discovered that BMI is really a useless tool. BMI doesn’t take actual body composition in at all. I think it’s fine for a starting point because lets face it, if you have a BMI of 38 (which I did) or higher you most probably have a lot of work to do. I found a much more useful tool for me was to measure my Body Fat by doing a Hydrostatic Dunk Test. I was just over 200lbs when I took the first test (I was still overweight by BMI standards) but was pleasantly surprised to find that my Body Fat % was 22.3%, which is considered “Average” for a male my age (the Average range is 18-24%). I got really interested in stepping down to the next level which is “Good”, that range is 14-17% with 15% considered “Ideal”. I have gone in for two additional tests and my Body Fat dropped to 21.2% and 19.3% respectively. At the rate I am losing, and the ratio of Lean Loss to Fat Loss, I estimate that I need to get down to about 175 to be at 15% Body Fat. One of the things that I really like about the test is that it shows you how much Lean mass you are losing relative to Fat each time you retest. For example, the second time I tested my total weight loss broke down as 55% Fat and 45% Lean. This wasn’t the result I was looking for (losing Lean is counter to obtaining a good BF%). So this spurred me into starting a weight training regimen and to start increasing my daily Protein intake. It paid off, on my third test, the ratio improved to 76% Fat Loss to 24% Lean Loss. Can I do it? Can I get down to 15%? Hell yes! My progress has been superb so far, I am really enjoying working out and I feel great.

When I say “lost cause”, I am referring to you or any other person trying to convince me of the presence of God or the viability of the Bible. Don’t despair for me though, as I said before I am perfectly content with my disbelief. If God exists (doubtful, but if he does), I’m sure he will find me and do with me as he sees fit.

I think there is another reason… Christians are taught to Evangelize and Proselytize for the Lord. That’s fine, I can understand that that is a mission for you. But you folks don’t take no for an answer and that is very off putting to people. I’m a lost cause, I have absolutely no interest or desire to “find” God. But there are others out there that may be on the fence. If I could offer some constructive criticism, I would say soften your message a bit and you may find that you do better at increasing your flock. The other thing I would say is put aside your judgment and let people be who there are. If you are right about God, he will judge – there is no need for you to do it. Now before you snap back that you are not judging, I would suggest that you are doing so without realizing it. Whether you are trying to or not, your tone comes across to others as judgmental. I think if you brought that down a notch (or 10) you would also endear more people to your cause.

I’m gonna have to do some research on this topic (don’t like posting hearsay), but I heard or read a few days ago that the Bush Tax cuts cut out something like $2.3T in revenue plus another $230B in some sort of interest. That money would have covered TARP, Health Care, and a chunk of the Stimulus plan. Here is a link (this is one of several that are out there) The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48trillion over the 2001-2010 period. This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed. [...] Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion. (One committee trimmed the costs of its health care bill below that amount, but an official estimate of the cost reductions was not available at the time of this writing.)

Patty, I can’t disagree with you more on this topic. Whatever you “think” the founding fathers intended, what we ended up with is a Secular Democracy. No politician in their right mind would succeed in politics today trying to defend your point of view.

Well said. My only wish is that he would use his mandate to push even harder on the things that matter - The Economy - Health Care - The Environment - Foreign Policy - Green Technology - Don’t ask Don’t Tell I agree with Obama’s assessment that it is better to be a one term president than to allow these issues to fail. He should put his money where his mouth is and fight the good fight and get some sweeping change passed, damn what happens in 2012. As far as I see it, the only obstructionism that matters right now comes from within the Democratic Party. The Republicans have made themselves irrelevant and we are not capitalizing on it.

How about we copy the successful Single Payer or Government Option Health Care programs that rest of the Free, Industrialized, Western nations have all adopted and enjoy:confused:

And yet we voted Yes on Prop 8, go figure:cursing: