<p>interesteddad - amazing!
Congratulations!</p>
<p>idad, that is amazing. Congratulations!!!</p>
<p>iDad – Wow. That is really, really something. But you’ve also invested a huge amount of effort into it, so I’m not surprised – thrilled for you, but not surprised. Woo-hoo!</p>
<p>BC:</p>
<p>Here’s the weight loss chart for this year, starting with New Years Day, the morning after I started New Rules of Lifting for Abs. I had hit 180 pounds (70 pounds lost) on Dec 27th and then bounced back to start the new year at 181.2.</p>
<p><a href=“http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/160.jpg[/url]”>http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/160.jpg</a></p>
![http://i218.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/160.jpg[/url]](http://i218.photobucket.com/albums/cc14/hwc_1000/160.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>The red line is my daily weigh-in. The blue line is the rolling 7 day average. The three light black lines show the curve for a steady weight loss of 1/2 pound per week, 3/4 pound per week, and 1 pound per week. I’ve been averaging a little over 3/4 pound per week this year.</p>
<p>I started taking the thyroid med on 5/4 and it takes a couple of weeks for it to kick in. You can see an acceleration of weight loss since then. I’ve been averaging over a pound a week in weight loss for most of the last month. I can’t say that’s all thyroid meds because I also have further cut my carbs a bit. However, I suspect the thyroid meds are making a diffference.</p>
<p>Yay for idad!!! Congratulations! We all know how hard you have worked at this! You have earned much admiration and I, for one, truly appreciate the journey you have taken and am so happy for you! Good Luck as you continue to reach your health and fitness goals!!! 
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<p>I must be missing something regarding this thread. Can’t understand why this is the “hardcore” thread. I have found it to be motivating and informative. Most of us here really needed a weight loss for dummies guide at the beginning and I know I really needed a kick in the butt to get started. Thanks again for helping me along the way!!! :)</p>
Good for you, idad! Good for you.
<p>NM, I think we’re all members of the corporate culture that believes if you keep on doing what you’ve always done nothing will change. </p>
<p>When I look back at how I used to eat - well, it’s a miracle I didn’t have a heart attack. Fast food at my desk, my exercise was walking to the car in the parking lot after work, recreation was watching television. I wish I had the financial resources to go back to the gym - for social reasons as well as variety in exercise - but, isn’t going to happen right now. Thinking of a McDonald’s meal actually makes me feel physically ill. </p>
<p>I prefer not to think of this as the hardcore thread. I like to think of it as the thread for the successful. iDad, I’m going to make H read some of your posts. He created his own Livestrong account last night (which is a pretty big deal for a guy who hates computers).</p>
<p>And I say a prayer of thanks to you for starting this thread sabaray! :)</p>
<p>You all have no idea how helpful the thread has been to me. Weight has been a constant struggle for me my entire life and all of the information here has been so helpful. I feel better than I have in years, even when I was thinner, because when I was thinner, I wasn’t well. H has seen that and as he put it, he doesn’t want to be the fat dad at graduation. I don’t want him to be the dad who misses graduation because he’s six feet under!</p>
<p>I don’t know if then thread is more hardcore but it is more advanced. Starting a thread at page 694 is kind of like being a transfer student. I feel like I missed orientation everyone else knows everyone and those of you that have been posting since the beginning are a bit intimidating to the newcomers with some of your knowledge. I flip back and forth and feel like I can gain info and support from both threads.</p>
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<p>Me, too. I think being able to post my daily workouts and progress, five pounds at a time, has played a key role in keeping myself motivated and enjoying the fitness journey.</p>
<p>It is surprisingly hard to find outlets for ol’ geezer fitness support. On the one hand, you have the meathead weight lifter sites. On the other hand, you have Sparkpeople where the discussion is often centered around whether you need five or ten minutes of shaker weights to get fit.</p>
<p>It’s probably mostly my fault that this thread is viewed as “hardcore” with so much exercise talk that probably seems crazy hard. I wish I could show a picture of my first day on that old rickety $5 yard sale exercise bike. XL Walmart sweat pants, oversized Patriots t-shirt. Belly flab bouncing off the top of my thighs every time the pedals went around. It was a ridiculous picture, but I was determined to do the 5 minutes of intervals: pedal hard for 10 secs, rest for 50 seconds.</p>
<p>lotsofquests, we are glad to have you here and I do understand. Most of us have been at it for 18 months now or longer. I have to confess that I tried to follow along with iDad’s workout postings at first, but now I just skim them as they’re not really relevant to what I do. I like to talk about the food more than the exercise. I like to talk about eating for health rather than eating for weight loss (if that makes sense). </p>
<p>What I like best is the fact that iDad quit smoking. As a former smoker myself, that is just huge in my book. It is one of the best changes anyone can make for themself.</p>
<p>And thus concludes this meeting of the IDad Fan Club.</p>
<p>Quitting smoking had to be the starting point. It had made it impossible for me to exercise or be fit.</p>
<p>I am still paying the price, but every time I’m panting like a dog after jogging or doing burpees or walking up a steep hill really hard, I thank my lucky stars that I **can **pant like a dog and do any of those things. I know people who smoked as long as I did who are on oxygen 24/7 and basically fighting to breath at all. I don’t take this exercise stuff for granted any more. It’s wonderful to be able to exercise.</p>
<p>The nice thing about the thread is that idad and others throw research into the mix from time to time so there’s scientific basis for some of the approaches taken here. It’s what I would expect from a group focused on college.</p>
<p>The chart is mostly linear with a hiccup thrown in. That speaks to consistency which is pretty hard to do when losing weight as life events get tossed at you.</p>
<p>Played 100 minutes of tennis - it was quite humid on the court though not warm but I was sweating buckets. Used the new racquet and we split sets, 6-4, 3-6. I had a lot of trouble on serves with the new racquet which is fairly normal. I had 800 calories before the match but should have had more, maybe 1200. I was very hungry after an hour. Djokovich brings a banana on court and takes a small bite on every changeover. Good for some calories and electrolytes. Time for late lunch.</p>
<p>I went to the other kitchen and the donuts and muffins are gone. But the other goodies are still there. Chocolate, pretzels, M&Ms (many different kinds), nuts, all sorts of chips, gum, jellies, etc., etc., etc. I didn’t check but there’s probably ice cream in the freezer. I thought about getting some nuts but decided against it. I’m already at 1292 calories and that’s usually more than I eat at the office.</p>
<p>Right now there’s free pizza in the upstairs kitchen. Haven’t had pizza in quite a while. The guy in charge of the pizza knows it too - he mentioned it to me a few weeks ago that he hadn’t seen me there. I still have some work to do at the office - I guess I can just think about it while sipping a cup of tea. Dinner is probably hamburgers and veggies. I’m definitely going over calorie budget today.</p>
<p>I probably will too, BCEagle if it’s any consolation. Dinner tonight is chili. Very lean beef, beans, tomatoes. I wanted a treat so had a piece of toasted bread with a scraping of Nutella. Per Livestrong, I only have 379 calories remaining for the day. </p>
<p>At least I’m thinking about the treats I allow myself. At one time I would have been purchasing and eating a dozen donuts. I’d have a hard time with the pizza too.</p>
<p>sabaray- I, too, thank you for starting the thread. I feel like we’ve formed a nice little community here and newcomers are certainly welcome! We all have our successes and failures- it’s all part of life. I think the unifying thing here is that we are willing to make a strong commitment and we are willing to be open-minded and consider things we might not have tried before. Hey- iDad is doing some running intervals on his walks and I ordered up the stretchy bands! Yay, us!!!</p>
<p>We are fortunate to have so many knowledgeable posters participating here. When I look back, my initial goal was to run a 5k at my college reunion. That didn’t happen because: my son dropped out of school and entered rehab; we spent all our money on rehab; I didn’t go to reunion. At that point, the one thing I felt I could control was being well. I could have eaten a lot of donuts but to be honest, I wanted to be able to report back in one year and say, I lost weight. I did it. I told myself, I think, that I needed to lose 45 pounds? Ha. I’m pretty close to losing twice that amount less 10 pounds. Now I can actually think about running and I am running. </p>
<p>I actually feel good. Can anyone ask for anything more?</p>
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<p>Yep.</p>
<p>Something chintzy said motivated me to keep working on burpees, even after the first one or two just about killed me. hops_scout got me to think about adding dumbbell hang cleans to me workouts.</p>
<p>Reading about workinprogress’ race walking motived me to crank it up on my walks and, all of you runners made me want to throw in some jogging intervals here and there just because I think a fit ol’ (formerly) fat guy should be able to jog a quarter mile or whatever.</p>
<p>That’s how you make exercise “fun”. Variety. Try different things. Figure that, if you want to exercise several days a week for the rest of your life, you can’t do just one thing, every day.</p>
<p>I’ve probably motivated some people to try intervals, which is maybe the most efficient form of fat loss exercise.</p>
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<p>It gets kind of crazy when you blow right through your initial expectations, doesn’t it? For me, it made me realize that I really didn’t know how far this journey could take me. I knew that, in my 20s, when I was still skinny I weighed under 160 pounds, but I never dreamed that I could see that weight again in my late 50s. It just wasn’t even in the realm of possibility.</p>
<p>I stopped “trying to lose weight” back when I hit my ultimate goal of 180 back before New Years. From then on, it was just trying to see if I could continue getting fitter. Losing 20 more pounds has just happened as a consequence of that. Now, I’m trying on a bunch of MEDIUM tech shirts and planning to take back the ones that aren’t as trimly fitted. Crazy, really. 18 months ago, I barely even had any t-shirts that were big enough to cover my belly.</p>