Jim's battle of the fat (Wish me luck!)

Hello, James Lee McKigney here with something a little personal. I am overweight and I am young to boot. Yes, America is the widest country of all the world over. Greasy foods, Poor Decisions, Mega Fast Eating (Which I am gulity of.) and drinking too much of that liquid corn we call "Soda."

But there is still hope for me and I decided to take matters to my own hands. Yes folks, it's time for a health journal!

Part of my problem is that I have a seditary life style. Seditary means you sit on you gute and do nothing but watch a electronic screen. I have also purchased a DDR Pad for my computer and I will work out with it for at least 30 minutes for the first 2 weeks and then 60 minutes when I'm out of school. I will also do some walking and track how long I take moving around outside.

*Snap! Click! gulp gulp gulp...* And yes I am gulity of drinking Too Much Soda. My goal is to stop drinking said drinks by cutting back on it. for now I'll focus on drinking 3 cans / 1 and a Half Red Cups then 2 cans / 1 Red Cup of soda. I'll have to drink my share of Tap water to assist me on my goal.

Wish me luck guys!

Starting Weight: 333.0 lbs

1st Goal: Lose 10 pounds in 2 months

Unfortunetly, I can't stop drinking soda. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to stop soda intake?

Plenty of willpower.

That's all that's needed to stop drinking soda.

Drink juice instead.

If you REALLY want to leave soda, you will, with no suggestion needed. It all depends on your interests. I left soda from one day to another, and I haven't drunk even a single drop in almost 3 years.

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I wish you the best of luck.

I myself was about 280 a year ago and I am down to about 215. We should route each other on!

Just by changing your lifestyle from a seditary one ot an active one will make a dramatic change. I lost all that weight without dieting. I just made myself move. I went from being a couch potato to a Zumba Fitness Instructor!

Best of luck my friend!

Once you get into it and start building muscles, you're body will show you how much it craves water more than your brain thinks you crave Soda.

Once you get to Step 1 and lose the 10lbs, you'll realise the advantages of water over soda

Good luck!

Better yet, drink water instead.

Also, good luck.

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To stop drinking soda... stop buying it? : D...
But I'd agree that your body will wind up wanting water way more. Soda just leaves me thirsty.
I'd suggest Gatorade for sweet hydration (freaking worshiped it when I first played DDR) but I'm not sure if it's more or less evil in terms of sugar and whatnot...

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Two bits of obviousness:
1) Make sure you take some 'before pictures'. You know the sort of thing. Facing camera, then sideways to camera. It will really motivate you once you begin to see real changes, and will look amazing next to the 'after' ones when youve lost some weight.
2) Your weight is ever changing, and you will vary during the time of of day and or week. So ideally, weigh yourself on a specific part of the day (e.g morning) and if you can stand the suspense, once a week on the same day every week. This will keep the results as accurate as possible.

As far as the Soda goes, until you wheen yourself off it, can't you drink Diet Soda (I think the US calls it 'Light') which uses sweetner instead of sugar?

Good Luck!

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Sweetners are even worse than normal sugar, so is diet soda. I went to a conference regarding this, I don't remember the details though but the speaker at least recalled us a lot how bad sweetners are.

Just drink water, and leave soda. It's easy tbh, it's not like an actual addiction.

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I would still say, it's worth doing until he gets off Soda completely as the sheer number of calories saved will get him off to a good start until he finds a way to cut soda out.

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Our science teacher actually talked to us about sports drinks and energy drinks. He said energy drinks are just plain evil, and sports drinks aren't much better. He also said something about sports drinks only being good if you're exercising for an hour or more straight and something about one of them actually sucking the water out of you like soda does, leaving you dehydrated.
So he's better off drinking soda.
How about soda water instead of regular soda ? It's fizzy like regular soda and if you want flavor then you can buy bottles of syrup to put in it.

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You can also mix soda water with fruit juice.

Have you ever heard any of the Neuro beverages?

http://drinkneuro.com

They make some unique formulations. A few of them are carbonated like soda, but don't taste like soda. Some formulations such as NeuroTrim, Aqua, and Sport drink more like regular water than soda (and aren't carbonated). All varieties contain only 35-50 calories a bottle, and come with unique blends of antioxidants and other nourishing minerals and amino acids. I drink NeuroSonic (which is carbonated) on occasion as an alternative to soda. I mostly drink it for the energy and antioxidant benefits, more so than the taste. Where I live, they cost around $2.60 a bottle, so they're rather pricey compared to soda.

If that doesn't work and you still want fizz, try sparkling water.

Continue playing DDR. The more you progress through the game the more weight you'll lose.

I really wish you the best, I'm going through a weight loss journey myself and it aint easy.

Leaving soda can be quite easy, like someone said, just stop buying it. Out of sight, out of mind. Just make sure not to move to juice drinks as they tend to have more calories than soda.

Counting calories is another good way of keeping track of what you eat and making sure you don't go over what you should be eating. Someone's regular diet should include no more than 2000 calories and since you're gonna be burning a lot of those playing DDR you should start losing weight in no time.

Just make sure not to stress about it too much, and don't expect to lose weight right away, you'll start noticing it over time.

If you want the flavor of something in your water, I suggest keeping a pitcher with water with about a cup full of chopped fruit in it. Lemons, Strawberries, Pineapple work well. Just let the fruit sit in the water and eventually the flavor of the fruit will be infused in the water.

Hell, go through a pitcher of a good amount of water a day and notice what happens to your skin!

Also, I've been hitting the dance pad myself pretty hard on a regular basis. You don't notice it after a day or so...but after a week you get more endurance and then it's time to up the ante as they say. On the DDR side of things, songs with high stream and jumps are REALLY effective workout songs.

Source:
Experience.

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Well I didn't have a scale to track my progress but Luckily I have a swimming pool that I swim in every so often.

All I need to do is to try out all of your advice everyone and I will defeat my soda craving. I've also decided that sunday I will only drink water to clean out my body from the sugar toxins.

ONLY sunday?

I just got the motivation to only drink water every single day now, if it's breakfast, lunch, or dinner I only drink about one cup of juice/soda/sugared drink, but after that it's just straight water for me. It REALLY is hard to ween yourself into drinking water other than something like soda and stuff, that's why my parents BARELY buy soda nowadays, but they do buy powdered drinks and freezer-cans of juice (which is "said" to be more healthier than powdered drinks) as well as the occasional orange, milk, and juice gallon drink, but more so my parents have stopped buying juice altogether.

I know it's hard but trust me, drinking more water in the day is FAR better than downing soda/juice/sugared drinks throughout the entire day

Ummmmmm also, scales shouldn't be that expensive, I mean, it can't be over $60 nowadays, even the electronic ones. We still use a scale but I really think that things broken seeing that we've had it well over 5 years now XD

You can always drive over to Publix and check your weight there?

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This isn't directly related to water or juice, but I recently made the switch from dairy to almond milk (not to be confused with soy milk, not the same thing). Almond milk contains tons of antioxidants and is lactose free, unlike dairy milk. I'm not lactose intolerant or anything.

As for juice & pop, I hardly drink those at all anymore, maybe every once in a while. But I know for sure that I don't drink enough water. Water has FAR more benefits for your body than just keeping you hydrated. It helps your body function properly and aids digestion. And i've read somewhere that if you down water BEFORE your next meal (not during), you're not as likely to eat as much (which in turn saves calories) because of the space your stomach is taking up for water.

I got to try that suggestion about water before a meal.

And yes, my parents keeps buying soda. I think my brother and father likes it but my mom only likes the sparkling water and the occasional "sprite" soda.

Edit: I've decided to do this: Drink plenty of water and walk for 60 minutes each day.

Also I'll buy the latest "Eat this, Not that" and use their website.

What kind of food should I eat and what kind should I avoid? (besides Sweets)