I'm 23 years old, male, and finishing up a graduate degree. I've been eating poorly and not exercising during my college career, so now I weigh around 295 pounds at 6' 2" (this is close to the most I've ever weighed, I think; I might have exceeded 300 pounds at some point). I'm trying to become healthier and am looking for some confirmation that I'm on the right track given the changes I've been making. Any advice or warnings are appreciated as well! You'll see I've included some questions below that I'd love to have answered. I tried to read a good portion of the links in the side-bar so that I don't ask anything too obvious or anything that's already been throughly addressed. I don't smoke or having any issues/disorders. I'd like to lose a significant amount of weight. I'm far from where I want to be, so for now I haven't really set a target weight...
Exercise: I've been making sure I log around 10,000 steps on my phone each day (mostly by taking study breaks to walks around campus), and my average is about 12,000 steps per day. One day per week I play tennis for an hour with a friend. He's a lot better than me so I get a pretty decent workout from that. Do you think I should be getting more exercise if I want to achieve a fair amount of weight loss? (I realize this also depends on my eating habits, so I'll discuss that in detail below.) When I was at my healthiest, it was when I was in high school and playing football and tennis and taking P.E. classes. I was still losing weight while eating about the same amount as usual.
Food/Drink: I've completely cut out sugary drinks; I drink diet soda, water, and iced black coffee rather than what I was drinking previously (lots of juice, non-diet sodas, and caramel macchiatos).
For breakfast I've been thinking about eating either low-fat cottage cheese and berries or these frozen Lean and Fit Evol breakfast sandwiches/burritos I've seen at the store that seem fairly healthy. I tend not to eat a huge breakfast, so I don't think I want to funnel too many of my daily calories into breakfast. I also don't have a lot of time to make a big breakfast when I'm getting ready for class.
Lunch is probably the hardest meal for me to figure out. I'm on campus all day and it's not super convenient for me to go home, and it's more convenient for me to not use my department's refrigerator (although I could). So for lunch I've mostly been doing snack foods throughout the late morning/early afternoon; a package of fruit snacks, reduced-fat Cheese-Its, jerky, almonds/pistachios, etc. I've been tracking these using the MyFitnessApp; I think one of my main problems was that I would idly eat tons of snacks throughout the day while doing homework/studying. The app helps me to curb that habit. Something else I think might be reasonable for me to eat for lunch is a turkey/reduced-fat cheddar cheese sandwich on whole-wheat bread. I think I've seen reduced-fat cheddar cheese, is that a thing? And do you think the sandwich for lunch seems reasonable?
I think my main problem with dinner was overeating. I would eat maybe three servings of pasta whenever I had pasta (which was at least three or four times per week, I'd say; I love pasta). So now if I have pasta I make sure it's only one serving. I used to get a lot of calories through fast food as well, but now I'm making dinner at home most of the time. The seemingly-healthier foods I like to eat include lean turkey, chicken, eggs, cheese, sweet potatoes, light soup, and hashbrowns. Foods that are high in carbs are my favorite, but I've been trying to limit my consumption of those foods. I like dairy and most fruits. Not so much vegetables, though; I don't mind them in foods such as soup, and I'm not opposed to sweet potatoes and squash. But if anyone has any ideas on how I can maybe enjoy eating vegetables more, let me know (or just tell me to suck it up and give them a chance). I make this turkey-quinoa meatloaf that I really like, but I kind of just estimate the quantities of everything; if anyone would be willing to help me adjust my "recipe," please let me know and I'll tell you how I'm currently making it! And if there are any other important foods I need to consider eating, I'd love to hear them.
I'm pretty nervous about hitting the gym (I know, I know, I shouldn't be...), but I'm thinking about going to use a treadmill there whenever it's less crowded. (When do you think that would be for a college gym? When it opens at 6am? Or 11pm, an hour before closing?) And currently the only thing I could really think to do in the gym is use the treadmill. Is there anything else I might want to consider in addition to just the treadmill?
Regarding calorie intake, I'm not sure what I should aim for. After messing around with putting different food combinations in the MyFitnessApp and seeing how it affects my daily nutrition, I feel as though I'm willing to cut quite a few calories. Can someone give me a range I should be shooting for?
Basically, any comments you have regarding what I'm doing or what I should be doing would be very much appreciated. You don't have to address all of my question. Or any of my questions if you instead have some advice or concerns about what I'm currently doing. Thank you in advance for whatever you can offer!
Submitted February 16, 2016 at 12:11PM by SuperPRise http://ift.tt/1U4Xaqa Fitness
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