Hey I'm Pat and I'm looking for tips
 

Hi my nae is Pat i'm new on here and i love the site already, im 23 yrs old and weigh in at aprox. 350 im looking to looses weight for myself but more so for my family my fiance just had our first child 6 months ago so, i'm looking to shape up for him and her too.

i work out very hard in the gym with weights and i usually run a mile on the treadmill every other day or so i play semi-pro football and i am very active, my eating is where i go haywire i doo well and as soon as i feel i have messed up on 1 meal usually the rest of my day has plummited as well, im working on going around that so it does not happen again. like i said i am new here and would like any tips i can get.

thanks much
-pat

I can relate about the eating. I'll eat too fast and the message that the stomach is full hits after I've over eaten.

As far as one meal screwing up the day. Imagine opening the fridge and you reach for an egg. You accidentally drop it and it breaks. You don't have to drop the remaining eggs.

And if you screw up at one meal, one meal isn't going to make you gain weight. You'd have to eat 3500 calories over at that meal to gain a pound.

You got great motivation to get a handle on your fitness. You're going to be chasing that baby for the next 18 years or so....

Dave

Although I would have rather done it faster, I found that making small changes to my diet helped me move toward eating healthier. Looking at the journey as a life style change and not just a diet.

One of the first changes I made was deciding not to drink my calories. I severly limit soda and beer. These have lots of calories with almost no nutritional value beyond the alcohol and sugar that are easily converted to fat by your body.

I found it works best for me to limit my intake of simple carbohydrates like white bread, and sugar. Instead I try to substitute whole grain products and fruit. I also try to get at least 30% of my calories from protein (I do drink protein shakes). This is to help preserve muscle that would otherwise be lost while maintaining a caloric deficit. I don't want to just lose weight, I want to lose fat. I don't worry about my fat intake as I know that those I am ingesting are good fats. I cook almost exclusively extra virgin olive oil and I use unroasted almonds as snacks (10 at a time) when I am hungry between meals. The almonds provide good fats that help satiate hunger. (I also read recently that fat is neccesary for testosterone production and men should get at least 30% of their calories from fat.) My carbs come mostly from vegetables and some fruit.

Use the Fitday tools to find your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) and then set a goal to establish your daily caloric deficit. BMR + Exercise - Food calories = Caloric deficit. Hit your deficit and you hit your goal.

Good luck!

Daily counting.
 

This tip sounds like something that could have been written by someone working for fitday.com but really, count everything!

I know there are magical diets all over the place - but a diet is a diet, you have to live with it and it has to work for you the REST OF YOUR LIFE from now on!

What I noticed myself is that I put weight on and then realize that I haven't been looking at the number of calories I put in my mouth in a day. So I've gone back to fitday.com and started logging all that I eat every day.

In a year, I gained 14 pounds and I'm slowly working my way through taking that off. I made a rule for myself - it goes in my mouth means it goes into fitday.

At the end of the day, are you really wondering where weight comes from if your honest logging shows that you ate 3500 calories and upwards every day?

I can see just what having one drink of alcohol does to my calories for the day. Huh? It was just a drink, it's not like it was a meal! Yeah, but look at those numbers now....

It turns eating into a learning experience.

Skip the treadmill, and get yourself a nice jog stroller or a baby back-packer and take Jr. out for a run everyday and push yourself to go more than a mile. Maybe even look for a local 5K and start yourself training for it. Also I find that activities that are fun for the kids really elevate the overall fitness of the whole family. You're a dad now, it's your job to set a good example, and generally speaking it's your actions not your words that have the biggest impact. So sign the little man up for water babies and make some baby friends and schedule some playdates at the park, check out Kindermusic and Baby Yoga and in a year or two maybe you can take a family karate class.

Just so you know that I'm not joking about the baby classes, I took all 3 of my girls to water babies, and they all learned to swim by age 4. Nowadays I spend a lot of time in the water with them practicing for meets and dive team. It's been a great way to help me lose weight and raise them to lead a healthy lifestyle.