SpaceAce

I wish it were that easy. For the last month or so, I've been slacking off but for pretty much the last year I have managed 0 weight loss no matter what I do. I have drastically improved my diet in many ways, I eat less than I ever did before in my life and I eat better stuff. I avoid things I used to love and shovel a lot more salad in my mouth. I've spent countless hours on the treadmill and heaving weights around and it has had no effect. Seriously, I was dedicated. In about a six month period, I was doing 45 minutes-1 hour/day on the treadmill (start out at a 3 or so, do a 5.5-6 for my fastest parts and a 3.5-3 for cooldown - I weigh 325, I would have destroyed the treadmill and my knees if I tried to run on it). In that period I don't think I ever skipped more than 2 days in a single week, and usually I skipped none. I was also doing a 3-day workout routine with weights. I literally did not lose one ounce. Literally, as in I went from 323 and 12 ounces to... 323 and 12 ounces. It was insane. My friend suggested that some of that might have been muscle replacing fat because I had been hitting the weights, but I have my doubts. First of all, the weights I was using only went up to 200 on the stack, about 55 in freeweight for one dumbell and maybe 130lbs in assorted freeweights. It was practically cardio.

When I was in my mid-to-late teens, I was about 240lbs even though I got tons of excercise. Me and my friend (who also reads this board) were constantly walking, running, wrestling, etc. I worked 5 days a week, that was at least 3 miles each way (on foot every day, except when I had a bike... usually on foot) + my jobs were all on my feet types of employment. We would regularly walk several miles to and from the mall, even further to and from the bowling alley/pool hall. We played basketball, we had mock fights, we played with swords, climbed hills to run around on train tracks, all that happy shit. I would seriously say it's no stretch to figure that I walked 30 miles/week just going to and from work, plus probably another 15 or so from our activities. That doesn't include incidentals like the energy expended in doing the actual things we were walking places to do.

Every since my early teens, I've just been bigger than most other people. In high school, it was no big deal. I was 240 but all that moving around (and all that being young) kept me pretty solid. I would say I was no more than 30lbs overweight at 240. I know that's a lot, but now that I am a little older and a little slowed down, I have more like 100 to lose. I'm not a total porker, I'm strong and I don't get out of breath climbing to my 3rd-floor apartment, but after so much failure at trying to get rid of extra weight, I can definitely see the appeal in something like the Atkins diet. After a while, you just want the weight gone even if it means a risk to your health.

SpaceAce