For many years, I've struggled with my weight and trying to maintain motivation for a diet. I tried many different types, except Veganism, and I just could not get myself to stick to it. Earlier this month, we learned that my father had high cholesterol, heart issues, and a plethora of other things and his doctors urged him immediately to go onto a special diet or he was (literally) going to have a heart attack.

This made me question my own habits and health, which made me decide it was time for some change; to finally get myself where I've wanted to be for several years now. One night, Zach (my other half ♥) and I were discussing about wanting to get back into shape again. That it would be beneficial for both of us, especially with everything that's happened this year. So, thus, we are now BOTH on the road to weight loss!

My last known weight around February was 298lbs, but I did not keep track of it. Today on the scale, I got the reading of 274.4 lbs, which is an awesome 22-lbs loss and I've only been on my new diet a week! But, for the sake of simplicity, I am going to use this as my starting weight to properly track myself. Zach decided last night that he too wanted to get on board with me so we are currently working as a couple to lose weight together. Hopefully, this will keep us more motivated lol.

Zach got his starting weight of 165 lbs and we each have our ( what I call ) "Hub Centers" set-up to begin this challenge; our overall goal is to achieve what we each set our finishing results. My ideal weight goal is around 120 - 121 lbs by February 2019 and Zach's goal is to be around 140 lbs with some more muscle mass for his career. And both of us want to gain our flexibility back.

I will try and update this weekly as we go on our milestones including our bad days.

Wish us luck!!

Yay! Any tips? I know I need to change up my style, too. 

what are "diet/lifestyle" change are yall doing?

@ Jaya - Nice you wanna try this too! :) Since I've taken between taking 2 Nutrition courses and doing diets in the past, so I do want to offer you these 3 important tips to help you:

• Let Yourself Have Cheat Days - I have tried this before and it never works out. The maximum you can fend it off is a week, then you either get annoyed and stop dieting entirely or you indulge like 3500 calories on junkfood because you missed out on it.

• Find Outlets - For me, I have a strong problem of eating out of stress/boredom. I've been currently working on ways to either distract myself when I feel stressed or bored or find something to chew on to give the "eating" sensation. Typically for me, I like having a pack of gum, Icebreaker mints or Tic-Tacs to crunch on. They're very little calories depending on what you buy (I stay to mint as that has the lowest amount of calories/sugar/salt).

• Use Apps If Possible - I strongly recommend using apps for anything you know you struggle with on dieting, whether this is water intake, calorie calculations or just exercise routines. For me personally, it's all 3 of these that's an issue. I use Youtube for my Hathi classes as they have many great ones online that range from beginner to expert. For water intake, I use an app called Hydro that reminds me based on when I set alarms to get my 9 glasses in a day. And for calorie intake/loss and weight tracking I use MyFitnessPal.com (Zach has the app). We both love them so far!

I've learned the hard way that trying to go "The Fast Way" like T.V. advertises does not benefit anyone. I strongly suggest you cater a plan to your own preferences/dietary needs than what someone online says what you "should do". Since I've done these tips, I've stayed way more motivated on my diet and it's kept me excited for the next milestone. Hope this helps and good luck!!

@ Maharet - We're are both on a diet that excludes all junk food, high salt, sugar, and fatty foods. But the way we each do it a little different. Zach is a vegetarian so for him, this is a bit easier. Although his main lacks are potassium and iron and he needs to drop down the amount of salt he consumes. For me, I prefer to eat veggies/lean meats (i.e. turkey, chicken or freshwater fish since I'll allergic to saltwater) than my father is. So for me, his new diet is perfect.The hardest thing for me really is cutting down my consumption of caffeine, but I'm slowly weaning myself off that. I also installed a Hydro app to help me drink more water instead ( I don't drink near enough) and use Zach's MyFitnessPal app's website to track my calories and weight. It's worked beautifully so far! I've been managing to stay 1,000 calories under my "max limit" for safe weight loss.

For exercising, I'm not very flexible so I've been experimenting with doing Hathi yoga. I do them after my classes on Tuesdays - Thursdays. On Monday and Friday I tried campus' gym or the local YMCA to work out at, but I honestly prefer the yoga. So right now I'm experimenting with this and taking weekends off until I can find 2 exercises to switch between that work for me. Zach, on the other hand, is an outdoor guy so he's pretty easy to plan a work-out for. I gave him a Strava app since he loves jogging/bike trails, as well as basketball. He's also going to try a Yoga Class with me today and see if he wants to follow it or not. It's a slow road, but we're getting there! :) This week is mainly just planning lol.

Go get 'em Eir! :D I've been getting my diet back under control since I went a bit wild over the summer with takeout and bingeing on carbs. :P Would definitely love to get in better shape for riding and lose some weight if I can instead of getting softer and heavier like I normally do over the winter.

That's awesome.

I applaud your determination to get in shape, but my only concern is you being 1000 calories under your max limit. I dunno what your max is, but if it's 2200 or less, being 1000 cals under that is not quite safe. To put it in perspective, an active 5 year-old needs 1200 cals to maintain their weight. Yoga might be gentle exercise, but it still burns calories. If you don't eat enough, your body won't burn fat. Basically the lowest calorie amount that is apparently safe for a dieting adult is 1200, and that's if you sit all day. 

The other thing is you're giving yourself 5 months to lose 154lbs, aka about 38lbs per month. That's WAY OVER even the most aggressive (yet safe) weight loss plans, which aim for max 2lbs lost per week. If you really do it safely, you'd only lose 32lbs by February. 

At least Zach's plan sounds more doable, except that 10 lbs of muscle weighs the same as 10 lbs of fat, except that muscle is way more dense. And to build muscle, he needs to eat enough. The number on his scale might not change, but his body sure will if he does it right ;) btw if he's doing yoga with you, does that mean you've finally met in person and are like, living together? Or what? 

@ Tana - We've both purchased a webcam and do yoga this way in a meeting app with a Youtube Yoga Session.

@ FWF - Thank-you! ❤️

Keep us posted with how you're doing!

9/28 Update:

After typing this post, it was noted that the scale I was using was inaccurate, so I decided to call my doctor and see if the starting weight was too. Apparently my memory was just as inaccurate; according to her, my last weight in Feburary was 305.5 lbs not 298 lbs. So therefore, I am currently not setting at 274.4 like I thought. But I decided to change this guessing game so today I went down to the CVS store and bought a new scale.

I weighed myself as soon as I got home. My current weight right now is accurately 304.2 lbs, which according to my Fitness App is 1.3lbs lost from my February weight. This is not the amount I'd of liked to have lost, but it's certainly a start. And this helps too to plan my program accordingly to my real weight.

Here's hoping the "race" (not literally) to weight loss gets easier from here!!

I'm 15 days postpartum and my last weigh in at my doctor's office on 09/10 was 242lbs. I'm currently sitting at 220lbs. My prepregnancy weight was 206lbs. My 6 week PP appointment is on 10/25 and I hope to achieve my pre-pregnancy weight by then.

I don't really have a goal "weight" because I'm a huge non-believer in the scale. Two people can weigh the same but have extremely different body make ups. Considering the muscle and fat weigh the same, just have different density.

So my "goal" is to achieve a healthy weight under 200lbs (preferably around 160-170 lbs) of good muscle tone. I'm an avid lifter at the gym so I'll be happy when I'm medically cleared to go back to the gym.

Equ - I'd recommend calibrating your scale at home by weighing something you know the for-certain weight of (like a 10lb hand-weight) to make sure it matches what your scale tells you! :) Some commercially available scales are just inherently innacurate, so it's good to check!

Gonna agree with mero, but moon also reminds us of the different density of fat vs muscle. Also yay another lifter! :D and yay for realistically-planned goals without being too specific on numbers.

@ mero - Good idea, I'll try this!

@ M.oon - Good luck!!

FFC18 WEEK TWO UPDATE:

It's week 2 now of the new challenge and I've lost a total of 7lbs! I am currently at 299 lbs from when I started, which is great! I've also figured out more how my body works so that I can accomodate. Currently, I have low stamina and flexibility, which definitely makes doing yoga a challenge. So, therefore, to gain some stamina, I've started doing walks. I've currently accomplished walking 1,702 steps in a week, which is the farthest I've ever been able to walk without getting sore or tired.

I'm going to work towards trying to walk 3,000 steps within the next 2 - 3 weeks next.

Walking can definitely be a good way to build up stamina for more intense workouts down the road! Do you use a pedometer or an app to track steps? I was really religiously using my FitBit for a good while but sadly it died a few months ago and I've yet to replace it. :( Back when I was tracking things I tried to average 10,000 steps a weekday while at work (walking during my lunch break) and 15,000 per day on the weekends (walking the dog, walking around the barn when I went to ride, etc.) Good start on the effort though!! :)

@ mero - Sorry about your FitBit :( Currently, I use the My Fitness Pal's sister app MapMyWalk which is free to download and use. It's the closest I can come to a FitBit right now. It's a GPS that can tell you your average pace (per min/per mile), duration of workout, distance, calories, steps, and elevation gain on the basic. And if you have the MyFitnessPal app it'll sync your nutrition/steps to your diaries on both apps, something I've come to love. And if you have the MVP or the Amour Hover shoes, it can also track your current heartrate. Sadly, I do not have this but it could be worth looking into if you wanna go intense on workouts. 

Personally for me, I'm not trying on intensity. For me, I just want to set goals for myself to get my stamina back up to what I used to have. I used to be able to do a mile and a half run in middle school and now I can barely run half a mile without losing my breath. So I'm working towards getting back to that, however long that takes. 

I can't remember if I said it in one of my previous posts, but I don't think any beginner should do yoga from internet videos. The positions are each technical in their own way, and even the gentlest poses can make your muscles cramp up or worse. The teachers might give tips in the videos, but it can be hard to actually feel what your body is doing. For example, in taekwon-do, my shoulders are both supposed to be pointing forward in certain positions/strikes/what have you, but it's been pointed out to me that they're sorta crooked. I don't notice 'til I'm told. If you're gonna keep doing yoga, which you should if you like it, I recommend finding a class you can join in person.

I just know 10k steps is the generally-recommended baseline that most health pros tell folks to shoot for on a daily basis. Working your way up towards that can be a great goal! I'd generally agree with Tana as well on being super careful about trying to use purely videos for yoga - it is super easy to really mess yourself up if you stretch something too far/the wrong way, and something like that could set you back even further from your goals.

While you're building up physical stamina, how's the diet been? :) Had any weird cravings yet?

@mero - I saw the 10,000 on my app which I knew there was no way that was getting done so I just shot for 1k. I'll get to 10k eventually, but this week's not that day lol. Surprisingly, the diet has gone really well! Infact, this is better than my other attempts really at dieting. Before about this time I'd cave and buy a big liter of soda and eat 2 packs of chips from cravings. But pleasantly, I've had none on the sugary, salty junkfood at all! The only craving I did have was for some Avacadoes so I ran out and bought like 5 to use in cooking lol.