Hello,

I just joined and not sure what to say. I am 27 years old and almost 300 and I have some serious medical conditions and they only way they will go away is if I lose weight. I recently lost my father due to complications with gastric by-pass surgery and I need to lose this weight so I can be here for my son, my husband and my mother.

I have wanted Wii Fit since it came out but never got it cause i wasnt sure I would use it, some of my firends have gotten it and I have watched and figured now that I am serious about losing weight ie on a diet now and on the treadmill everyday for 30 mins.

Well my reall question is what should I get the Fii fit or the AE new thing or the workout games that you can get.

I am super serious about this now and need help PLEASE

Renee

It would be really nice if I could get the encouragement from here and meet people and share stories . Thank you in advance for your help.

It depends on your financial situation. If you can afford it I would get Wii Fit Plus which includes the board and EA Sports either Personal Trainer or More Workouts. The Wii Fit is a great way to track your weight and BMI to monitor your progress but the games on it are not great calorie burners nor are the much for strength or cardio if you are serious about exercise.

Both of the EA Sports exercise programs are geared for real gym type workouts in your own home. They have easy, medium and hard settings with either pre set challenges you can do, preset stand alone workouts or you can create custom workouts of your own.

Although getting active will really help with weight loss another big factor has to be your eating. You need to burn 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat. Most ppl can't exercise 24/7 so the easiest way to cut some of those calories is through your eating. For me carbs are my downfall. As long as I limit my carbs I do fine. If I let them start creeping in again, on come the pounds.

There are lots of websites that you can enter your ideal weight and height, etc and it will give you an idea of how many calories a day you need to get to that weight. Keeping a food diary for a week or so before you start trying to cut back can really help. You have to honest and write down every bite that passes your lips then total up your intake. Most ppl are really surprised and what they eat in a day when they look back at it.

There's lots of support here so feel free to post with your thoughts and progress.

Well you sound serious, which is good. Having a motivation like your family can make all the difference.

If you are just starting out, then I would stick to Wii Fit Plus, and concentrate on doing the things you enjoy, especially at the beginning.

The most important thing is to keep at it, so doing the games and exercises you enjoy, even if they are not the most intensive ones, will have more effect than trying to do all the hard ones and getting bored/frustrated and giving up. That's what happened when I used to go to the gym, I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm, so stopped going after a while.

Also, if something starts hurting, especially your joints, stop and do something different. If you have a lot of weight to lose then you may find that some exercises are hard on your knees. Don't damage yourself trying to lose weight, that will just stop you from exercising

I would also second monkey41's advice about keeping a food diary. I keep one most days, but then I'm a bit obsessive Even if you only do it for a week it will be a real eye-opener, you'll be amazed how many calories are in some foods, and how little are in others (grapes are my favorite at the moment, as they contain so few). It isn't really that hard, most foods have their calorie contents listed and for things that don't have a label you can just google for them. You might need to have a set of kitchen scales and a calculator handy.

My final bit of advice, something I've learned from experience, is that losing weight and keeping it off takes time. Be patient, don't try and rush it, and don't get down if you have small setbacks. It took me about 10 months to lose about 45 pounds, about a pound a week. There is loads of evidence that the faster you try to lose weight the more likely you are to fail, and the more you are likely to put back on. Avoid fad diets that claim that you will lose loads of weight in a short period. Most of them are nonsense, and require you to radically alter your diet, making it very hard to keep going.

Let us know how you get on and if there is anything else you need help with.

Thank you both very much.

Like I said I am very determined to lose the weight. Losing my father and watching how sad my mom was is the kick that i needed, I dont want to leave my son and husband in that situation.

I think I am going to go and get the wii Fit on payday so I will start it on Monday. I will contunie doing the treadmill until then, I seem to want to do it and it gets easier to actually get off my butt and do it.

I have a gym membership and I dont use it and really need something at home and that is my decision, I hate the gym, it is hard walking in there when you are my weight and watch all the skinny girls working out and the muscle men checking them out. I feel like I am at a meat market, at least at home I will have my husband check me out and feel good about myself and he will even join in and even my mother will to.

With the diet I am on the Dr Daniels diet, where you eat these cookies for breakfast and lunch and then a sensible 300 calorie dinner with as much salad, vegetables and 1 fruit a day and a 30 calorie desert if I choose. I have started that this Sunday that past, I was doing it for a while but cheating once and awhile and then all the time, I went to Florida last week and I went shopping and realized i am sick of stuff not fitting and decided this was my last time to eat whatever and it is serious time now. I will stick to this diet and continue working out.

Thanks so much for all your help, I will keep you posted on the outcome and if I have any questions. Thanks again.

Renee

I'm not so sure about that diet in the long run. It's not really teaching you to eat healthy and will become extremely boring over a period of time. It's not hard at all to plan sensible meals for yourself that you can live on for the rest of your life. It also sounds like you are really cutting your calorie intake drastically and may end up feeling lethargic. Your body needs a certain amount of fuel to be able to function properly, especially if you are going to being exercising.

Grapes are my new snack addiction lately too. I have a cup of grapes as a snack at night instead of mindlessly munching on chips or cookies. It's amazing how they fill you up, I get the sweetness I'm looking for and some extra vitamins and fibre. There are so many healthy things to choose from that I never really paid attention to before!

I can see the benefit to a diet like that when you have a lot of weight that you need to lose. I guess the important thing is to know when to change to a more "normal" diet.

As a smart man once said "Any fool can fast—only a wise person can break a fast properly". So long as you are careful, and are getting all the nutrients you need, I think that sort of diet can be ok. But you have to know when to stop and change your diet in a controlled manner, rather than crashing out of the diet.

In the past I've tried some fairly hard diets that got too much, and then when I gave up I probably ate more than when I started

The most important thing is to find what works for you. Any diet where you consume fewer calories than you use will result in weight-loss (you can't help it, it's the laws of physics at work ). Whether a diet "works" is really just down to whether you can stick to it for long enough. If this cookie diet works for you then stick with it, but just keep an eye on your own mental state, if you think you are going to give up, try just easing off for a bit, don't just stop.

Anyway, good luck with it, I'll be really interested to know how you get on with it

Hi Renee

I don't have diet advice like the others, but I would like to say welcome. You came to the right place for support

Keep posting updates, good or bad, and support you will get. The people here already feels like a family to me and I think you will find the same.

Good luck and keep your exercise FUN!

Zelda

Welcome to this forum.

Some other points you might wish to consider to help you meet your goal:

Make sure that you get enough sleep. What is enough? Enough so that you feel rested when you wake up and only tired after working out and at the end of the day. Why is sleep important? There is plenty of research out there that shows that when people get tired, they tend to eat more to try to revive their energy. Tiredness also makes it more difficult to resist temptation.

In the winter, keep warm. People tend to eat more when they feel cold. Turn up the heat, wear warmer clothes, whatever it takes.

Take a look at not only *what* you eat but *what you are doing* when you eat it. For example, do you find yourself snacking when you watch TV or when you read a book or surf the net? That sort of thing. The thing is that you should address the circumstances around your eating as well as what you are eating. If you find yourself, for instance, snacking when you are doing sedentary activities, perhaps you should find other activities to do. Perhaps you can switch to healthier snacks, such as, as Paul suggested, grapes.

Keep not just a journal of what you eat, but what you do during the day. If you have other goals as well, they can help to take your mind off your hunger. Do you, for instance, have a hobby that you would like to do? Do you have a career goal you would like to reach? Plan out your goals as you plan your diet. Set out small steps you can take to achieve your aims. Keep a journal and write in it every day what you have accomplished and what you have eaten.

Planning, indeed, is a big part of success. If you find yourself disorganised, rushing about trying to fit in one thing and another and then grabbing something, anything to eat, then you will not lose weight. Planned meals, planned activities, are the key. That is why studies often say that eating breakfast is important when dieting. It's not so much the act of eating, but the act of organisation. If one plans one's meals, knows what they will have in them and when they will be, then it is easier to ignore hunger between meals: you can tell your growling stomach, 'look, I had a decent breakfast a few hours ago and lunch will be in an hour, so hush'.

You will find that as you eat less, the less you will *need* to eat. This is, in part, due to the stomach shrinking and, in part, due to the amount of sugars capable of being absorbed by your system. The upper part of the small intestine is where most of the sugars are absorbed, but the surface area of this part depends on how much sugar has been previously absorbed. Simply put, the less you eat, the smaller, up to a point, this area becomes: so the less you eat, the less total sugars you can absorb. The upper part of the small intestine responds to changes in sugar levels very quickly, on a daily basis, so it is important to stick to your routine. If you start eating more, you will find that you can eat more. But you can, remember, turn that around very quickly.

Avoid foods that give you a 'sugar high'. What happens is that your body then secretes more insulin, expecting to mop up more sugar, only to find that it has got it all, so you end up 'crashing', feeling lethargic and hungry. It's not just overtly sugary foods such as sweets that cause this: I can get a sugar rush from unsweetened orange juice, for instance, because of all the natural sugars in it. If you are going to eat something sugary, then have some sort of fat with it or 'slow' substances, such as fibre, to slow down absorption.

Be prepared for ups and downs in your diet. Sometimes you will slip up. For instance, when I'm a bit under the weather, I eat a bit more and gain a bit of weight, but it comes off when I return to my normal eating habits. Sometimes you will retain water. Sometimes you will gain a bit of muscle. And sometimes, of course, the weight will come off. It just takes time. It took time to gain the weight and it will take at least twice that long to lose it, but it will come off if you stick to your routine.

I hope you find this of some help. Good luck with your diet and keep us informed.

Hi Renee, welcome and I agree with others that you should do fun exercise. Wii Fit Plus is the greatest, and it is the only exercise program I have stuck to for a long time. I hate boring exercise and give up soon.

There is great friendly competition here on the Island cycling exercise. You go up in levels and each new level has new things to find. The final level is the Free Ride, and it has 20 balloons hidden on the island that you find and pop. At first it is hard to get them done as they are a bit of work to find and you only have 30 minutes per session. We have found various tricks that are exposed in the "Cheats" section. But don't look there if you want to find them on your own. You might do it that way for a while first; you might appreciate the help more after that!

I suggest B vitamins with each meal to help metabolize your food. I find it helpful.

Enjoy your exercise and it is a good example for your child.

Thank you all very much.

I have decided to get Wii Fit. I will have to get it in 2 weeks as I had some stuff come up and cant really afford it this pay. But until I get it I will be doing the treadmill as I have been doing.

I go to the weight doctor every Thursday and the update for this week is I lost 2 pounds. I am now down to 290. I was really hoping for a 280 something. LOl. Just so I could say bye bye 290's hello 280's. But this thursday for sure.

Thank you all for your support. I love it. This is a great place.

Give you another update on Thursday.

Renee