How does your weight limit you?

I started thinking about this over the 4th weekend... how does your weight or lack of strength limit you? I don't know that I had really stopped to think about it in detail before then.

Strength / weight:
- I can't lift myself out of the lake onto a tube
- Ride on a roller coaster with my children
- I can't pull myself into a boat on the lake
- Pull-ups? Never.
- I take Karate with my son and my wife. Good exercise, but I'm always the one to be gassed first.
- 10 push-ups are challenging


Appearance / emotional effect
- I always wear a swim shirt when I go to the lake.
- I can't look good in any kind of business attire.
- There are less than 10 pictures of me in my house (not counting wedding photos). I'm always the photographer so I won't be in the pictures.
- I always make fun of myself so others know that I know I'm a fat ass.
- Even though I'm married, it would be nice to know that another woman found me attractive. Even if they said so, I wouldn't believe them.


This is quite a list. I mentally go through items on this list whenever I want to eat more than I should or foods I shouldn't eat.

I am 100% concentrating on eating less and make a bit better choices. Nothing radical, but when I eat, I just don't eat as much. It is amazing to me how I would stuff myself in the past. I'd have to force myself to finish a cheeseburger now. Half is fine with me.

My challenge to you is to make your own list and decide if eating less and maybe some exercise is worth being able to do those things, maybe even for the first time.

GT

 

Well, the first thing is to take a little pride in yourself and get into a gym. What you need is a fairly strict diet and daily cardio exercise. Half hour minimum on the cardio. Every day.

You shouldn't be making excuses - almost all of this stuff is correctable through diet and exercise. If you need to, get a trainer.

RMX

 

I'm 46, looking 50 straight in the eye now

Been working out HARD for over a year now and I'm strong as a bull. I can bench 90 dumbells and I can probably do a 100 yard dash in under 15 seconds and I have massive endurance but it took A LOT of work, discipline, and doing without to get here. I dropped from near 230 where I felt tired and had little endurance to 205 now and I think I'm in better shape now than I've ever been in my life w few exceptions.

My goal is that when I hit 50 I want 18 yr kids to look at me and say "DAMN" !!! LOL

Still have to drop maybe 15-20 #s but its getting a lot easier to do now

 

Not being able to lift ones self is an issue. There are lots of skinny people who can't lift themselves. Work on doing pull ups, when you can only do one, do 10 sets of 1 until you can do 2.

Hey Will, I want the opposite. I want 50 year old women to look at me and say damn! lol

 

LOL, I already got that. Working on the 25 yr olds

 

Wish me a happy birthday next month and I'll help you out.

I have trouble holding a drill to hang curtains. Rather than muscles, I think I want a ladder.

 

Hiya, Noelani - long time no see!

 

I always find fchat when I need a distraction, and the stupid bar exam is no exception.

 

Technically I do too.....got a 38 year old.

 

Great thread!

I am 42, 6ft and weigh 252lbs.

I have two kids 12 and 8. The eight year old has taken to patting my stomach now instead of giving me a hug.

Going on holiday in 8 weeks and I would really like to lose 30lbs before then.

I eat rubbish during the day in work as I am bored.

My wife has given up on me losing weight - I have been on so many 'this is it!' trips.


Watch this space .....

 

I lost 42 pounds ( size 40 to34) in 9 months through exercise and diet. Worked out for ~ 1 hour 3 times per week and ate 6 high protein-low carb small meals a day. No soft drinks or alcohol, water only. That was 5 years ago and I've kept off the weight and developed some pretty good muscle definition for a 53 year old fart.

 

Your story is very similar to mine.

For a long time, my weight bounced between 175 and 185 and size 36 pants fit well. I also worked out fairly regularly on our home ellipse trainer.

Around 2004, it started creeping up into the 185 to 200 range and I had to go to size 38.
We moved, and I never got the ellipse set up.

Early this year, the 38's started seeming tighter and tighter, but I didn't worry about all of those pizzas and donuts. By summer, the 38's would hardly button. I was in full denial.

In the first week of August, a friend took me to the conveniently-close neighborhood YMCA.
I joined and started a 3X per week ellipse trainer workout program. After a month, I decided to weigh myself on the balance beam scale...224 lbs., the heaviest I've ever weighed in, and I'd probably lost two or three pounds by then.

After coming home and indulging in my own little self-pity part for a couple of hours, I realized that the only way to go was down--continue the workouts and clean up my diet. No more pizzas, candy, ice cream, or donuts along with reasonably strict calorie monitoring of regular meals.

Since then, it's become easier. Weight was down below 220 last Monday, and I'm hoping to see more progress at tomorrow's weigh-in.

This is a long term project, but doable. My goal is to be at last back down into the 190 range by mid-spring '11, and from there to 170-175 and 36 pants.

 

I have come down with what I consider for me, to be a bad case of fatness/out-of-shapeness. My solution which seems to be working well so far is to ride my bike to and from the gym to go lift. I don't mean a leisurely ride, I run intervals in both directions. It's been surprising how well it has been working so far. I have tried to avoid getting on the scale frequently because it's too easy to get obsessed about a pound here or there but I can already see a difference and I feel a lot better.

 

I decided to try to get back in shape when I went to play indoor soccer a few years back with my daughters in tow and said "Thanks for coming to see your fat, old, out of shape dad play soccer." To which my youngest daughter quickly replied,"Oh dad, you're not old!" Ouch! Lost about 30 lbs and am in much better shape but could still drop another 30. P90X was huge in helping me and also working out as a group. Group accountability really made a difference!

 

Simple fix: buy a missile silo and renovate it! You'll be fit in no time....



Jedi

 

Unfortunately all of those near me are occupied and heavily guarded.......

Oh the real side I do need to lose some weight here but it is really not hindering myself too much. I have fun chasing my 9yo daughter all over the place. On top of that camping, jet-skiing, dirt bike riding, and snowboarding.

 

Sorry - it was a reference to a long-running thread in the Silver section. Didn't mean
to sound cryptic... but the OP will know what I was referencing.



Jedi

 

You can do anything you set your mind to. 2.5 years ago I was in the exact opposite situation. I was 6'1" 121 lbs and took crap from people all the time for being weak and skinny. I hit the weights hard, at first to impress a girl, but that didn't work out. Now I do it for myself and I've gained 50 lbs of muscle and doubled my self esteem. My advice: don't let people tell you what you can and cannot do; find a picture of a person on the internet you'd like to look like and hit the gym hard. Do everything you possible can to get there; it's worth it. Who knows? You could end up looking like Arnold back in his day. There is no limit. Good luck, I know you can achieve anything you want; you just have to work hard.

Kevin

 

it hit home for me when I saw my 'Dad staring back at me from some family vacation pics; and then my wife added that the weight was "impacting the quality of our life". ouch!

That was four years ago, and I've kept it off.

 

That's a great idea. I have a very nice mountain bike just sitting in our outdoor shed, and the gym is about a mile away on neighborhood streets.

 

The added benefit is that I am warmed up when I get to the gym, my cardio is enjoyable and outside and I usually get to play a little bit doing bunnyhops onto curbs, etc. I find myself riding longer than I need to on the way home sometimes simply because it's a nice day and I'm enjoying it and kind of feeling like a kid again.

 

used to be a regular at the gym till my life altering surgery 2 1/2 years ago at 51 years of age ... needless to say, i feel AND look like a ruddy whale at this point ...

however, restarted the gym with a personal trainer 2 months ago after getting the doctors' all clear ... starting to feel better but got miles to go ...

 

I'm 5'2'', around or about 100lbs give or take.

The only issue I have ever had was with women. Most women don't want a guy who is shorter and weighs less than they do. Most short women though want taller guys. It's a catch 22 at times. Anyway, I keep a smile on my face and I am very happy the way I am.