Mod note: Blast from the Past - "Best of Eddie." This one is originally from September 2011.
We all know banking is a relatively sedentary lifestyle. Working long hours together with near-constant access to junk food, not to mention Seamless, can make staying in shape an uphill battle. It doesn't get any easier as you get older, either.
Some of you will remember that one of my goals at the beginning of the year was to get under 200 pounds. I was 235 at the time. Using the Slow Carb Diet from The 4-Hour Body, I pulled off 31 pounds by the end of April. It was really easy to do, too. I didn't do a bit of exercise and I still lost the weight.
Around the end of April, however, we started receiving guests here in Paris. Happens around the same time every year. We had family and friends staying with us for all of May and most of June. And when people fly halfway around the world to experience Paris, they're not interested in baked chicken and cauliflower for dinner four nights a week. In other words, I went off the diet in spectacular fashion and started eating (and drinking) anything I wanted.
This is what I found amazing: it took forever to gain weight. I had dropped to 204 when I started eating crap again, and I expected to put on weight right away. It didn't happen. I guess four months of discipline had trained my metabolism to handle the sudden influx of carbs and calories. Up until about a month ago, I was still around 215.
My point is that losing the weight wasn't difficult (I got to eat most of the things I love anyway, and the forbidden stuff I got to eat once a week on Cheat Day), and I had a blast putting the weight back on. Sounds like a win-win in my book.
But now it's time to knuckle down and lose the weight again. Summer is over, and the holiday "party season" doesn't kick off here until the Beaujolais Nouveau release on the third Thursday of November. I'm not going back to the States for Christmas this year, either, so I'll be able to avoid all those nasty New Orleans temptations.
I'm also thinking about taking it up a notch this time. I lost all the weight with no effort last time, so I'm going to get into some regular exercise in addition to the diet this time to see if I can punch through 200 by year end. I'm also thinking of registering for the Paris Marathon (April 15, 2012) because I've never run a marathon and it would be pretty cool to do it here.
So I'm wondering if you guys would be interested in putting together some kind of weight loss challenge here on WSO. I'm thinking Biggest Loser style. I've always had better results when I was competing, and I think that's true of a lot of the Type-A personalities on the Street.
Let me know if you're interested in getting into a challenge and pulling off some pounds. I can set something up for us over at Daily Burn. Might be fun. Just let me know.
Also, I'd appreciate any training tips from the marathon runners in the crowd. I'm basically coming off the couch, so I don't expect it to be easy.
I'm aiming for a beach body by the end of the winter (holiday to Cancun). Currently weighing in at 81 kgs, so I've got a head start, but I'm game for this. Also doing the 4HB routine, and if you're throwing in exercise we'll need to get a body fat % measurement in there too, otherwise it's not a fair test. T
Best training tip (avoiding the shit storm that will ensue if we get into rep ranges exercises etc..) is to find a buddy to train with. As men we are genetically competitive, as men who live by Adam Smith for a job we are even more so, I feel that this instinct is very well used in training.
I agree ! Find buddies to run with, its always cool to set some challenges. In addition I would recommend you to get a Nike+ sensor. Its awesome. Calculates your average speed, calories lost and saves your running distance. If you plug it on an iPhone with a dataplan you can have it connected to a GPS and save your itinerary.
I personally only have the device for a simple iPod nano and its a great gadget to have. Once you plug in your iPod on your computer you can upload your stats online and see your progress on graphs, see how fast/far you run against others etc... Its something you should really consider if you want to start running. Compatible shoes from nike start at 60 euros and the apple gadget costs about 20 euros. When I ran my first race, most people had these, cant go wrong !
http://www.apple.com/ipod/nike/
Too late for me to join in because I am about to finish my diet: Started in May, 1st 2011 with 210lbs and have now reached about 170.
How did I do it? - Going from 3,200 cal. per day to 1,200-1,300. Nutrition changed from business lunches/dinners/fast food/cocacola to chicken, fish, oatmeal and water. - Went from 3 large meals a day to 7 smaller ones (tricky if you work in an office but I had protein bars, oatmeal and fruits to help). - Went from waist size 36 to 30. 28 is coming up. - Exercise: Running before first meal and before work. Gym (4 day split) after work in the night.
Totally worth it and it wasn't very difficult at all. You will feel 10 years younger and very active. Talk to your doctor before you start off though as a precaution.
Good luck!
Recommended resources: bodybuilding.com A big help was the "lose it" app on my iPhone.
^^^ Holy shit, dude. That's great! Nice work.
The key for success in a healthy lifestyle is that you need the willpower and perseverance. I am 100% certain that the users on here have this, otherwise they wouldn't be in life where they are right now!
Consider the fact that you only need 30-40 minutes per day to significantly improve the quality of your life.
Let's do it. I'm in for the weight loss, but not the marathon. Currently weighing in at 235.
If you're just getting started running, or getting back into it, I'd recommend you check out a program called Couch-to-5k. I've done it and it's a really good interval routine that helps with leg strengthening and injury prevention. It's definitely available for free as a podcast and I believe there are iPhone apps for it as well.
how about you let me slice some bacon of your back?
I need something to get me motivated to get off the couch when I get home from work. Id be interested.
Okay, guys. For those interested, I set up the WSO Weight Loss Challenge 2011 over at Daily Burn. You'll need an account at Daily Burn, but they're free and you can (and should) use your WSO username. Here's the link to set up your free account:
https://dailyburn.com/
and here's the link to our specific Challenge:
http://dailyburn.com/challenges/wall_street_oasis_wso_weight_loss_chall…
It's a private challenge, so you'll need the invite code:
FFDE94
I have it set up to run through the end of the year with the winner being the one with the most weight lost. Winner gets 100 Silver Bananas. I realize there are better metrics than total weight loss to run the contest, but it's the easiest since we have to use the honor system anyway.
I'm game.
Currently 190 lbs, 36 waist. Want to get back down to 32.
If you are planning on exercising a little bit this time around you should check out this diet chart. http://www.military.com/military-fitness/nutrition/three-hour-diet
I follow this guy pretty regularly, and he just posted his 90-day transformation today (coincidentally). Pretty astounding:
http://www.therisetothetop.com/davids-blog/flab-fit-fitness-model-shape…
The guy got jackeddd
currently reading this while stuffing my face with 2 super chicken burritos. For a guy who is 5'10 I weigh 160 lbs, waist 30 inches. My keys to success: extremely high metabolism. let the hate begin!
6'0 159 waist 30 Exactly the same thing high metabolism life. But putting on muscle is a bitch
im trying the opposite...currently 181 and looking at 190 by years end (of muscle)...def. a hard gainer
Braverman, I am 100% in. I too love competitive weight loss (and competitive eating haha) and once you get deep into the competition it becomes an addicition. My weight during college was a hell of a roller coaster:
Freshman Year: 180 to 195 then back down to 185 Sophmore year: 185 to 215 by the end of the school year (the first 7 weeks of summer I dropped down to 175, no joke) Junior year: 175 to 185 Senior Year: hovered around 190 but then topped out in the 200 club once again by graduation
*Note: I look like a fat ass if I am over 190
Ed, try cycling. I got into after I suffered a horrifically broken leg in December. Running was a no-no due to a smaller range of motion, plus, I always found running fairly boring because of the monotony. On a good road bike, you can easily cruise at 30 mph. I quickly fell in love with the speed and power that could easily be mustered on a bike. I started with a 160 dollar GMC Denali Road bike and have progressed to a pretty sweet carbon fibre bike.
Edmundo, how are you finding the food in Paris? I've found that the food in Europe was generally fresher, and full of less preservatives and additives etc. The key to any exercise routine is the diet... one can exercise 20 hours per week and still not make progress unless their diet is adequate. I regularly see a guy at the gym I workout in who is a mutual friend. Every time I saw him (maybe once a month or so) he was several inches thinner... he claims to have lost over 70kg in about 10 months. I don't know if he actually lost that much weight, but he is now about one third of the size he used to be, literally. He got so sick of being the size he was that he started to exercise before and after work, and was spending most of his pay check on his fitness (mainly a healthy diet, which is the most expensive component). To get himself started, he threw out EVERY piece of crap food in his house (potato chips, butter, chocolate, jams etc).
Like some of the above posters, I'm ectomorph body type... at 24 years old, I'm 5'9" and only weigh 71kg. I have a very fast metabolism, so putting on weight is an absolute task for me. I do weight training three-four times a week and I need to limit my cardio exercise or else I won't make any progress.
BenedictPowers; gaining muscle is pretty tough. Took me over a year to gain 6-7kgs.
It doesn't matter what kind of food you eat
Calories in
I'm in. Currently around 205, decent bit of it is muscle but I am straight up out of shape and look like shit with my short off.
@yage It's true, the food here is much better. The sort of factory farming that goes on in the US would cause riots here. So everything is fresher, tastier, and for the most part organic (the notion of terroir extends far beyond wine), but because of that food is much more expensive.
If I want a Thanksgiving turkey, I'd better be prepared to pay around €70 for it because the butcher's son is going to go out into the forest and shoot a wild one for me. Most of you guys are aware of Kobe beef and how well the cows are treated; we've got pigs in Normandy that receive the same treatment.
It's just a whole different philosophy towards food here. When I go to the produce market, I tell the owner what I want based on what day of the week I want to eat it and he picks out my produce for me to ensure maximum ripeness and freshness.
Edmundo, Do you think you would have been able to keep this diet for a long time? I mean not eating rice,bread and pasta,cereal, and potatoes, that has to be helluva difficult and no fruits? How hard was it for you?
The Slow Carb Diet was really easy for me, actually. The thing that sucked the worst was giving up bread (the boulangerie across the street is amazing).
I happen to love veggies, especially as fresh as they are here, so it was pretty easy to stay full on really healthy stuff. Once a week you get a Cheat Day, and some of mine were absolutely EPIC (I tried to hit 6,000 calories one Cheat Day but I literally couldn't eat another bite after 5,500). So once a week you get to eat anything you want and as much of it as you want. I found that was enough to satisfy my cravings for the week, and the caloric shock of that one day jumpstarts your next week of weight loss.
Could you stay on the Slow Carb Diet long term? Sure you could. But I think at some point it's better to go full Paleo and start eating fruits again.
Wow, sounds like I'd never get bored of eating over there.
You're right on the 'disciplining your body' theory, it works on the same set of logic driving muscle memory. I burned a set point into my body from the ages of 15 to 25 conciously knowing that as an adult there would be stretches of years at a time where I may not be able to care about my health. Get to where you want to be and then stress test it to reinforce the new set point: eat a lot then excercise, and then don't eat much and don't excercise, then try combinations of the preceeding two ideas.....just make sure you stay on target for an extended period of time.
You want your body to maintain a certain band of settings on its own regardless of what you do to it. This calls for medical supervision and a giant heaping dose of common sense, and it also takes time. But it's entirely possible to change the set point up until old age......at which point, just go for a walk in the park and thank God for being alive.
The MAJOR downside of actually pulling this off is that you can get suddenly killed by heart disease or something and not see it coming, whereas the fat guy at least KNOWS he's at risk. Again, talk on a regular basis with a doctor before, during, and after totally crashing your metabolism. Good luck.
I love veggies as well and they are cheap here (Central Africa) but giving up on the rice,pasta and bread (I do have some nice boulangeries with some patisseries to die for) would be hard for me.I'll probably read the book and see how I can make it work for me
This is interesting about why the French don't get fat:
http://blogs.ocweekly.com/stickaforkinit/2010/10/five_explanations_for_…
I guess I should be happy my country was colonized by them at least we got some of the good eating habits and not the strike fever ahahaha
I'm in Eddie, although I think total weight loss is a bit unfair. Wouldn't % lost be just as easy? It's not that big of a deal since I likely have the most to lose out of anyone on the forum, but I want things to be fair for the smaller guys.
Regards
It would, but % lost wasn't one of the Challenge options. It was either weight loss or fat loss, and since fat loss is so much harder to measure accurately I just figured this would be simplest.
I'm down as well. Former athlete now weighting in at 105 kg at 195cm... up from 93kg 2.5 years ago.
Switching gigs so it should be possible to loose weight, aiming for 90kg, considering that I'm now built like a WW2 child.
another former athlete here and weight gain is a bummer. adding serious amounts of exercise to the lifestyle is very difficult for me given the hours, so i've really been focused on the diet. a few easy things i've been doing:
1) for breakfast, i keep healthy cereal in the office. i also buy fruit at the stands on the way to work. adding fresh raspberries or peaches to cereal is really tasty. prior to the cereal i'd always make a pit stop at the bank's cafe and buy something like a bagel and cream cheese or an egg sandwich. we have skim milk in the office.
2) salad for lunch. there's a million of those salad joints in midtown, and you can get a pretty healthy mix of protein, veggies, and a low cal salad dressing.
3) i have a few places on seamless i order from when i want to eat light. when i order with a group, i just make sure my 'sides' are not too heavy, ie ordering the rice instead of french fries.
Start by running 1K a day. Run at a speed that is slow enough for you to talk without huffing and panting. Do this three times a week until you are comfortable with running 2K. Keep it up from there. It's the way to build true stamina from the ground up.
I too have the lofty ambition of one day completing a marathon and that's the advice that I got from the veterans.
Ran 1.75 miles today. First time in a LOOONG time.
As long you are consistent, this is great! Work your way up slowly and one day we will both be comparing marathon stories.
Edmundo gratz on your weight loss man. It some what sucks for me though since I came dowm 35 pounds in the last 4 months. I wont be able to win this.
this workout is boss trust me
just cut 25% of each meal and try to break it up but if you cant it doesnt matter. Drink lots of water too (the basics of eating healthy)
Also look at crossfit if you are struggling. But this workout has changed me a lot. I do this 5 times a day and try to do 100 pushups for chest, and 700 jumpropes. Its really fast.
Ed man congratz, and this WSO weight loss thing is a brilliant idea!
Edmundo gratz on your weight loss man. It some what sucks for me though since I came dowm 35 pounds in the last 4 months. I wont be able to win this.
this workout is boss trust me
just cut 25% of each meal and try to break it up but if you cant it doesnt matter. Drink lots of water too (the basics of eating healthy)
Also look at crossfit if you are struggling. But this workout has changed me a lot. I do this 5 times a day and try to do 100 pushups for chest, and 700 jumpropes. Its really fast.
Ed man congratz, and this WSO weight loss thing is a brilliant idea!
I am setting myself an aim of going from 200 lbs to 175 lbs in the span of Sept 15-Dec 15. I'm about 5-10 and still in college.
I have been basically eating very unhealthily and haven't worked out in ages. I tried doing a few push-ups, but I couldn't even do that. I need to make some drastic changes.
Any specific tips for me guys?
Google Couch-to-5k. Complete the 9 week program (free podcast). Get a pullup bar. Do as many pushups and pullups as you can 3x per day. Drink less beer.
Question... what if "we" (I) don't have 40 pounds to lose, but would like to lose 10-15 pounds which could be similar to someone bigger losing 40 pounds. Is this factored into the contest, weight lost compared to relative body mass / size? or is this contest based purely around how many pounds we can lose?
Does substituting beer with other purer forms of alcohol help?
It does, actually, though of course it depends on quantity. In other words, a couple shots of liquor are better diet-wise than 3 or 4 beers. It goes without saying, though, that red wine is the best choice for drinking on a diet (variety of ancillary health benefits).
Yes. The calories in most beers (and wines) exceed that of distilled spirits. Distilled spirits also have no carbohydrates. Absolutely avoid liqueurs for obvious reasons.
A glass of wine may actually be healthier due to the antioxidants and purported benefits if you're just settling down for a quiet glass. But if you're looking to go out and drink copiously (though always unwise when on a diet), distilled spirits served on the rocks would be best in terms of calories/carbs.
I'm in. Gonna try to get back up to 6 miles/day, and up to maybe 185 in muscle. So lose 5 lbs. of fat maybe, and gain 20 lbs. of muscle. I think two years is a reasonable time frame for the muscle; getting to 6 miles/day should be doable in about ten weeks. I've been doing the whole elliptical + tv thing. I've become that guy :'( Currently 170 and 5'10. Used to be in shape when I was in high school and college, from cross country and martial arts, but not now so much lol.
What the fuck? 5'10" 170 is out of shape?
At 5'9 230, I'm lucky "round" is a fucking shape.
While I was in high school, I did JROTC. I met this guy over a summer training period once - seriously one of the most amazing, and physically fit people I've ever met. He was leading one of the groups of kids in the program I did, and he was the battalion commander (leading senior in charge of the corps of cadets) at the university that the program was being hosted at. Guy lead the morning drills, and had the biggest pecs Ive ever seen. Seriously like a full c cup. Last I heard, he was leading some marine spec ops team in Afghanistan. I like to think back to that guy when Im setting goals for myself.
Edmundo Braverman I have been waiting to hear about the weight lost program you were on. I really need to get in on this. On a 4 week trip with the firm and I know I am gonna come back worse than when I started. And I am bad. 231 after being 210 a year ago. Gotta get my swagger back
@James Hetfield, for pushups, try this out: http://hundredpushups.com/ worked for me when I got really out of shape. And yeah, skipping beer helps out a lot man.
Was doing p90x last month but switched to the insanity workout last week, thought stuff like that was pretty gay at first but then I almost puked and passed out during the first session so yeah lol.
Anyone else on it?
I've sorta started it. I am way too out of shape to get through a whole program but at this point my goal is to stop being lazy, which means getting back in the gym on a regular basis.
I'm also switching, or want to switch, from an extended weight lifting regimen to more cardio and less weight lifting but focusing more on heavy weights and fewer reps. So, something like 50lbs standing single arm curls, 8 reps, 3 sets and 120lbs standing dual arm curls (on a machine), 8 reps, 3 sets...as opposed to 5 or 6 different bicep exercises. The reasons for this is my strength and muscle size are adequate, my lean body mass is non existent, lol. Plus I tend to push myself hard on weights so I am far more likely to stop cardio early, or do none at all, because it's getting late and I'm hungry/tired/etc. So if I can knock out 45 minutes of cardio first, then 20 minutes of weight training afterwards is far more likely to happen than 45 minutes of weight training and another 45 minutes of cardio.
Regards
Was doing p90x, but shit, the sessions are so long, and they get so boring after a while when youre just doing the same thing over and over for weeks on end. Thats why I prefer clubs and shit. Id be interested in insanity, quite possibly - 30 minutes as opposed to the hour of p90x right?
Yeah, that's exactly why I switched. It just took too damn long. Insanity's like 35 to 45 minutes which is about perfect but don't expect to gain any bulk with it, I find that it's more a stamina builder with the emphasis on cardio routines over resistance work.
It's really tough though, haven't finished a workout without taking a few quick breaks in between so far. Then again I'm no Ironman lol.
http://www.twohundredsitups.com/ this is good too, be doing for a couple weeks
I did P90x a while back too and it was great but as seabird said the sessions are so long that it does get too much of a deja vu feeling after a few weeks.As far as the gyms I have a hard time finding intensive sessions in clubs, most of them are for out of shape folks.
did p90x last year did insanity this year. both are hard but insanity is riduculous. This last 4 weeks are horrible. I lost 10 pounds though but i probably put 3 of those back on in the past few weeks.
Get a part time gig as a fitness trainer. A couple of my friends did it (they NEEDED it) after going to the classes part time. They approached the staff and asked how to get involved and within a few months they were getting paid to keep in shape.
I've checked out both P90x and Insanity, both are garbage. Think about it, when you see or read about professional athletes training do you ever see them doing stationary cardio? The answer is no. People tend to get overly complicated in their schemes to lose weight/get in shape. Here's what I do, 3-4 times a week run 3 miles of intervals on the treadmill, I do .25 miles of 7 mph followed by .25 miles of 10.5 mph repeated until 3 miles. If you can't do that right now just adjust the sprint speed down, you'd be amazed at how fast you'll improve. Occasionally do something like push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, or squats to improve some important muscles. I lost 15 lbs after freshman year in about 2 months doing this while still eating pretty poorly and am now back to the 6'3" 175 lb I was in high school.
Solution:
Run 4 -5 times a week Lift 4 - 6 times a week stop being a vagina
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