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After reading Validus' recent update about the paleo diet, I decided to give it a try. I have to say that I'm amazed by the results. It's a little difficult to adjust at first. I miss potatoes, bread, tortillas, etc. But I've lost 19 pounds in 2 weeks without excercising and the weight continues to fall off at a startling rate. I'm very happy with the results. Anyone wanting to lose some excess weight should give some serious consideration to this diet.
Also, to make this post relevent to the site, my hair is much healthier since I trimmed it so it's all one length. It was a scary experiment, but it paid off. I no longer have uncontrollable tangling. It's currently down to the bottom of my shoulder blades and I have no plans to cut it anytime soon.
Keep growing!
I've lost 45 pounds. I've posted the comparison photos on my blog.
My Blog
Wow Jason nice work! If you ask me you look better now than you did when you were 25. Very inspirational.
I'd never really been thin (always just slightly chubby) but really started getting fat around the time I was 13 and by the time I was 20 I weighed around 280lbs (about 5'11" tall). I'm 22 now and currently weigh around 185lbs. No special diet, but it's amazing what cutting out soda (about 99% of what I drink now is water, used to guzzle soda like it was going out of style) and cutting my portions in half did for my weight.
Very little exercise involved for me as well, I do pushups occasionally (couldn't even do 1 when I started out, now I can do about 30) but that's mostly all I've done in terms of exercise. I could go about 2 minutes on an elliptical machine at my peak weight and can now do 30 minutes without wearing myself out too terribly much, though I rarely do any cardio even though I know I should, been trying to get into it more lately. I feel so much better than I used to. Could probably stand to drop to 165lbs or so since I'm not very muscular and don't hit the gym or anything, but it's no longer an urgent thing at this point as I'm feeling quite healthy.
It's hard to start out but it's really worth any initial struggling to get away from obesity. Tip to everyone though: avoid crash diets and diet pills, most people bounce back from them. It has to be a steady change, so make it something you can stick with.
If I got all the units converted right (I swear I will never understand the Imperial system), then I went through similar stuff as well. At this point, my current height/weight (180cm/5'11", 73kg/160lbs) is pretty similar to yours. I used to be about 90kg+ (just over 200lbs) in my teen years. Better eating (more fresh vegetables and the like), less junk food made a big difference. The thing that's given me the most trouble is not maintaining my weight or better eating (that's just a fact of life now, it's a force of habit), but trying to shake the feeling that I'm still a lot bigger than I used to be.
I'm 22, and my weight has been pretty steady for the last couple of years, but thanks to my terrible self esteem, it doesn't really feel like it. I still see and carry myself as the chubby kid I used to be. Trying to shake the image is incredibly tough. As strange as this may sound, for the weight I'm at now to be someones goal on the road to being healthy makes me feel a bit less shit about myself. If that makes any sense.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I still feel fat sometimes (to be perfectly honest I do have some pockets of fat on me that I'm trying to shake), but compared to how I used to be it's nothing. I guess the change is just gradual enough that I fail to see the big picture sometimes. I guess it can't be that bad though because I've had people (that I hadn't yet met when I was heavier) tell me I'm thin without me even bringing up how fat I used to be. I still could stand to lose another 20-25lbs but overall I guess I'm no longer in the fat crowd, which is kind of a new thing for me since I was there for so long.
Also, I have no idea why we use the imperial system either. The metric system makes about 10x more sense and is so much easier to follow. Here we have centimeters, inches, feet, yards, miles, all of which exchange at insanely random rates. 2.5 centimeters to an inch (why don't we just move up to meters??), 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard, 5280 feet to a mile etc. it's really stupid. I had to look up the centimeter to inch and feet to mile conversion also because they're just impossible to remember.
We should really have a full on conversion to the metric system but people are just used to thinking in inches and feet over here (I know I am) but it would be worth it once we got over the initial shock, because our system is whack.
I really need to drop about 40 pounds. What exactly is involved in the diet you're talking about?
It's also called the hunter-gatherer diet. It's based on the diet humans followed thousands of years ago before agriculture made grains and root vegetables easily available. Basically, meat, veggies, and fruit. No grains like oats, rice, corn, or wheat. Anything made of grain, such as bread, cookies, tortillas, etc., are also off limits. Root vegetables like potatoes should be avoided as well as beans and dairy products. It takes some getting used to, but I also have more energy.
Several years ago I dropped about 50 pounds of excess weight
by the old traditional method, cutting calories, getting more
excercize, the old tried and true method. Typically
I'll get at least an hour a day of excercize, alot of
it just walking. For example when I got to the store i'll
park at the far end of the parking lot, it kills two birds with
one stone. It gives me walking that much more plus it keeps my
car in from from getting dinged/scratched/hit by cars/carriages/etc. that I would encounter if I parked closer.
I also lift weights, do a lot more walking throughout the day.
So far i've successfully kept the weight off.
I'm glad to hear that you're enjoying such great results from following a paleo-correct way of eating. Jason's success with the paleo lifestyle is incredibly inspirational and motivating, as well. Congrats on the continued awesome mane, too!
--Val