[Obesity Discussion]

Originally Posted by PassTheBypass

Yes, I finally accomplished something, I got 100 pound overweight. My doctor says that moves me from just obese to the magic category of Morbidly Obese. I can now get that cool gastric bypass I have been hearing the cool kids talking about.

However, I HATE surgery, doctors, being unconscious, nurses pinching me for blood at 3am, etc. So, I have decided to lose the 100 pounds without the surgery. (Not knocking the surgrery, just trying to avoid it out of personal cowardice.) When I do other things, forums help me to learn, chat, compete, motivate, etc. I am hoping the same works here.

How did this "accomplishment" happen? Well, it took an eye injury (retinal detachment) to knock me out of active sports, weightlifting, or even jogging. So, exercise went down to near zero. However, my appetite remained the same. Perhaps, with the loss of sports, it even went up. So, I went from 210 to 280 in a 7 year span, never enough in one batch to worry, just slowly, creeping, quietly, until my scale didn't like seeing me in the morning. So then, I did slimfast, (can I mention diet methods here?), got down to 250, and then my mom died, and I said, what the heck, why should I starve when I could go any day anyway. Live for today, eat what I want, and the heck with tomorrow.

Now, I am gonna try to compete with myself to see if I can lose 100 pounds. I figure it is motivation to compete, even if it is against my own appetite. I want to avoid getting the gastric bypass, and do it all on my own. I would like to avoid the fad diets, and just go with low calories to drain the fat away. Reading about the folks on the bypass in wikipedia (can I mention websites here?), they go through fatigue, depression, anemia, vitamin deficiency, and muscle weakness. I figure I can do that without spending the money on the surgery.

So, am I in the right place to get pumped, motivated, and challenged?

You are absolutely in the right place!!! Welcome! The best way to get great support/encouragement for your accomplishments and goals would be to start a topic in the blog forum cataloging your progress, daily activities, etc. Our staff here knows exactly what you need and will give you great tips and pointers along the way!

Those diets are definitely not the way to go in the long run; they're only a short term fix, and what you need is a lifestyle change. Have you ever counted your calories? We suggest that to everyone looking to lose weight the natural way, with a goal in mind of creating a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. The first step is to determine how many pounds a week you want to lose, the second step is to calculate how many calories a day your body uses, and the third step is to calculate how many calories a day you should eat to meet your weight loss goals. The fourth step of course is to implement your goals on a daily basis.

You want to lose 100lbs over 19 months, that should be cake! That's a little more than 1lb a week. No sweat. If you make sure you consume about 550-600 calories less a day then you expend, and average that amount every day for the next 19 months, you will hit your goal!

Although you no longer compete in active sports, do you get other types of exercise? Weightlifting? Cardiovascular exercise? Those will help you acheive your goals even quicker, or can allow you to eat a little bit more and still lose weight.

To answer your other questions, we do place a restriction on new members, by not allowing them to post links or send private messages to other members until they have 10 posts. This helps prevent spammers from bothering us.