mikeross

I have about 60lbs to get to goal and it seems like 90% of that weight is in my stomach and love handles. Its so frustrating because my arms, chest, shoulders and legs look great (been lifting weights since week 3) but my stomach is still pretty big and sticks out slightly more then my chest.

wow good job... you are seriously tiny now lol. Give us noobs some tips. Whats your daily diet looking like. How many cal/carbs/protein. thanks

wow you look great and losing quickly. How big was your waist size on surgery day? Whats your daily meals look like? Looks like you are not going to have any loss skin problems. Im jealous you dont have any love handles lol... my upper body looks great but have decent size stomach and love handles still.

Is this the supplement you are talking about ... http://www.bodybuilding.com/store/phd/fat-catalyst.html;jsessionid=F1205D8155E496A280B8D000DEBFEA7A If not can you link me to this product... wanna check out "catayst" I remembering seeing threads about it on bb.com but didnt know it was a like a preworkout/fatburner. Keep us updated on your results with this supplement... sounds promising.

I would like to know as well....

Dont feel like typing out a long reply so I am going to copy and paste a reply I wrote a few days ago in another thread...

whoa nice numbers bud... 20% body fat, I'm jealous lol. How did you figure out your body fat percentage?

Your 291 in this picture???? How tall are you... you look a lot slimmer then 291. Great job

great job everyone... you all look awesome.

Quest and atkins advance look pretty good... if you go by net carbs I think each bar has about 4-5 net carbs. They do have close to 200 calories so they are almost like a Meal Replacement for people who are sleeved. I have not tried either of them so not sure how good they taste. My wife eats the kashi go lean bars and I decided to try one even though they have 21g net carbs. It tasted great so I decided to research Protein bars that were low in carbs. My research lead me to certain quest and atkin bars.

It sounds like you are on the path to reach your goals. All those exercise are considered compound movements which are a must if you want to build mass and strength as quick as possible. I never really was sure what crossfit was. I looked at some vids and its pretty intense stuff. Its a cardio session just in itself... no wonder you lost so quickly. You must have been burning come serious calories 1000+ in your workout sessions. I'm gonna shoot you a pm when I have the time and figure out the questions I want to ask you. I mainly want to compare my weightloss to yours and see if I am on track. You loss quickly and in a healthy way, looks like you maintained tons of muscle while doing it to.

Are you still trying to lose weight or are you at goal? I saw a side shot picture of you a couple days ago... you were wearing a red shirt. You look very thin but a fit type of thin, not skinny thin lol. You have your own goals on what you want to look like but with my goals of getting big and bulky muscle, now would be the time I would be playing with my diet. I would be adding a few more carbs to my diets pre and post workouts and see how my weight responds. Your at the point now were you should know if your weight gain is muscle or fat. If you gain a pound or two over time and doing everything right diet and exercise wise, the majority of the weight could be muscle. The more you challenge your physical daily activity the higher your BMR will clime. I am not sure how eating at a caloric deficit for a long period of time effects this though... I believe it has a negative effect on your BMR though. Again, I am not sure and its a good questions to find a definite answer for. If you do find out please let me know. I know that when I get to your weight I am going to eat at a caloric surplus to try gain muscle mass. During this 8-12 week bulk I am going to play around with my diet and try to eat about 500cal above my BMR everyday. I also plan to eat around 150carbs daily. My end goal during this bulk is to gain mass, play with my cal/pro/carbs and see how my body react and get my diet to a place that is somewhat normal. I would love to be eating 2500cal, 180g Protein and 150g carbs daily... eating that and exercising at that rate will raise my BMR to a normal level over time.

^^^^ totally agree... always push and challenge yourself when it comes to your diet and exercise. If something feels to easy its not optimal to your weight loss. This week I found myself on the arc trainer, which is my favorite piece of cardio equipment. I have been using it for about 5 weeks building up my strength/incline and distance... also playing around with HIIT cardio. A few days ago I realized and was actual surprised how easy my cardio sessions were starting to feel. I decided to change it up and exercise on the bike. I felt completely drained in half the time riding that bike because my body was not use to it. I had been about a week or two that I have not had to push myself and work hard during my cardio sessions. Its not easy but it was nice having the feeling of setting mini goals during a cardio session and trying to surpass your personal expectations.

I had my surgery on Jan 22nd @ 310 surgery day. I hit 253 this morning but the weight bounces around up to about 255. I have a goal of 245 by april 22nd which will be my 3 month anniversary... If I can hit that goal is will be 65lbs down in 3 months. I consider my weight loss above average but I also burn 750-1000 calories in the gym 6 days a week. The weight loss has slowed down big time in month 3.

You can lose weight with or without the sleeve @ 6,12,18 or 24 months, even years down the road.

Good for you... you must be working that sleeve pretty hard. I am close to your loss post op but I am a guy. Its a lot easier for us men to lose. Your loss numbers posted for a woman are amazing... good job.

can you share with us the brand of tortillas you used? So how many cal/pro/carbs in each pizza and how many did you have to eat to feel satisfied?

Actually there is and its pretty simple; eat at a caloric deficit and you will lose weight. If you are not losing it means your metabolism has taken a beating, your BMR and your RMR has lowered down probably into the low 1000 calories. Overtime you have went from eating very few calories, 500-600 1month postop, with a BMR close to 3000cal per day to around 1000cal at 5 months postop and your BMR has dropped down to around 1200cal, thus why you are not losing. Your not losing because you are eating at a very small caloric deficit each day. The above figures have you losing at 1month postop, 5lbs per week. The above figures also show losing only 1lbs every 17days, 5 months postop. Those numbers are just examples but I bet they are pretty close to whats going on with members who are not losing. People talk about breaking stalls by eating more. It works because they eat more for a couple days. Their metabolism picks up increasing their BMR and RSR. They go back to eating as usual and lose a few pounds because of their increased metabolism/caloric deficit. Its easy to say I broke my stall because I upped my calories but its much more important to your overall success to understand why/how you broke the stall. Members who are losing quickly are going above and beyond what your doctors minimum requirements are. They are researching and implementing techniques to lose quicker, finding out what works for them and how their body responds to certain practices . 50g of Protein might be what your DR prescribed but thats really not a lot. 64oz of Water might be whats recommended but most members losing quickly will drink 64oz of water during their daily workout... its not really a lot of water. You DR tells you to start walking, why not hit the gym and lift weights a couple times a week... how about 15+miles of walking/jogging/running per week? Walking around your block for a half hour 3 times per week might burn 400 calories all week long. Thats roughly 1600 calories a month... not even half a pound loss. Get on an elliptical for 45mins at a steady pace for 45mins every day and thats 600+calories a day, 18000 per month and over 5lbs loss. Tweak your diets and change it up from time to time. Challenge and push yourself in the gym. Work hard towards a decent size caloric deficit and you will lose weight. Its plain and simple. You can make every excuse in the book but if your not losing it simply means you are not eating at a caloric deficit. If you think you should be losing because of the 800 calories your eating daily, it means your metabolism is shot and you need to figure out a way to increase your BMR and RMR.

how many calories does 8oz have?

I am at 10 weeks and hungry a lot to but I have found a way to curb it... it works for me in more ways then one. I have been doing this for the last 2 weeks. At the start of the week I take 1 pack of mixed greens and combine it with 1 pack baby spinach and store in in the fridge. I take about 2 cups of 0% fat free fage greek yogurt and mix it with a packet of hidden valley ranch dry mix seasoning. It taste exactly like a very rich ranch dressing but without the calories and less than 1g carb per tablespoon and over 5g Protein per serving. I grab about 2 handfuls of salad, peel and cut up 2 mini cucumbers, mix in about 2-3 table spoons of dressing and season with a little garlic salt. It taste so amazing and refreshing. I usually eat it in the late evening after dinner or if have a really late dinner I will have it in the early evening. I was having a BM about 1-2 times a week and it wasnt easy. In the last 2 weeks since eating this salad everyday I have a BM once a day and some days even twice... and its a normal BM with no constipation feeling. If you enjoy a good salad this works for me. Sometimes I also will have 2-3 mini cucumbers, the ones from costco, with a little salt as a snack. Helps curb the cravings as well.

I stall every other week... weight jumps up and down for about a week but eventually catches up. I am losing about 3lbs a week, almost 10 weeks out. I exercise a lot so I like to tell myself I am gaining muscle and losing fat. I did notice I dropped a pant size during my last stall which lasted about 10 days... go figure.

Hit 55lbs lost today, since surgery... .

Thats a good question and I can give you my "assumption" or you can wait for marks replies lol. I know he's into power lifting but I would assume he can give good insight... also ask your instructor. I guess I was under the impression you wanted to get big up top, thinking bodybuilder type, If you just want a little bulk and definition I am sure your main focus can be running while reconditioning your upper body. I would tell your goals to your instructor and get his opinion, but remember its only his opinion haha. Hope he give good advise because I have heard some pretty useless stuff coming out of the trainers at my gym; they all contradict eachother. More then one way to skin a cat so find out what works for you. Please report back with what he advises you. Good luck....

Fiddleman, You need to lift weights with the same intensity you give running/crossfit. IMO you have reached your goal weight if your main concerns are building lean muscle. You are at the point were you should not be focusing on cutting or bulking but more so reconditioning. I am just shy of 5'11", so almost the same height as you. My goal weight is 185, but 185 of pretty lean muscle... 15-18% body fat. I could care less about seeing any abs but want big arms, bulky chest/shoulders and definition in those areas. I know it might should crazy to you but I would cut back on the cardio, focus more on lifting weights and maintain your current caloric intake. If you maintain your calories you shouldn't lose or gain weight but rather recondition, or reshape, areas of your physic while staying the same weight. Personally I would shoot for the high side of your goal at 185. I think a lot of people focus to much on cardio. Its great for overall health and hitting your daily caloric deficits, but, If your goal is to get a big and bulky upper body, you should focus that effort into diet and lifting weights. You still burn a ton of calories lifting heavy weight. I lift 6 days a week and end my workouts now with about 20mins HIIT cardio. I do it because for now, I enjoy the cardio, and the body parts I am working out for a specific day are to fatigued from lifting. I only do the cardio because I cant lift anymore and need to burn more calories. Once I reach my goal weight I am going to cut back on the cardio and dare I say it... eat at a caloric surplus

I use a product called upcalD. Its a powdered calcium supplement that has no taste and mixes into anything. I mix it into my protein shakes or greek yogurt. I take 2 500mg packets a day and get another 500-800mg from regular food.