Need to Lose 80 lbs.

[godnavynd]

Thank you all for your great posts! Long ago, in February 1992 I had to lost weight. At 5'7" and 180 lbs, I was overweight. I was getting married in June and absolutely needed to drop some pounds. There was a rower in the gym and I sat down - hooked immediately! My goal was to get to 160 lbs. By the time June rolled around, I was a slender 154 lbs, fitting into shorts I wore in high school! The rower kept me completely motivated.

Fast forward two decades, and now I'm 210 lbs (ACK!). I had been talking about getting a rowing machine for years and years and years.... well finally my wife gave me a rower for Christmas (well the go-ahead to buy one). Through research I decided on the Concept2 - I believe this is what we had in the gym back in 1992. Since late January, I have already done on 61k meters! Trying to get in about 20km / week. I joined the Military Challenge (Navy vet) and am looking forward to the March Madness Challenge.

I have dreams to go back to 170-or so pounds. When I first lost weight back in 1992, a doc said that it's important to maintain a high metabolic rate. Exercise raises your metabolism. So does eating. So for me I'm following the plan I laid out for myself back in 1992: Exercise in the morning (30 minutes, trying for everyday except Sunday) to raise my metabolism. Eat a healthy breakfast in the morning, piece of fruit in the morning, healthy lunch, something in the afternoon, and lighter dinner in the evening. I haven't been too particular about counting calories yet. I'll see if this plan works still. I haven't weighed myself since I started working out back in January. That's when I weighed 210. I'll see how it goes and adjust as necessary.

Thank you all for your stories... it is very motivating!

Cheers.

[DiscePati]

Excellent posts all. I'm a newbie to rowing and this forum. I just got my concept 2 model d (just did my first 2k). Last year I ended up losing 80 lbs in about 6 months. I did p90x plus a ton of running. I adhered to the "Warrior Diet" (intermittent fasting)-which I would highly recommend. Unfortunately, I gained most of the weight back. No excuses, I just quit. But now I'm back at it with my erg and the goal is to lose 100 lbs and maintain at the 185-190 lb level. I'm encouraged by the many stories of success here and look forward to updating my progress.

[kennyhassman]

Excellent posts all. I'm a newbie to rowing and this forum. I just got my concept 2 model d (just did my first 2k). Last year I ended up losing 80 lbs in about 6 months. I did p90x plus a ton of running. I adhered to the "Warrior Diet" (intermittent fasting)-which I would highly recommend. Unfortunately, I gained most of the weight back. No excuses, I just quit. But now I'm back at it with my erg and the goal is to lose 100 lbs and maintain at the 185-190 lb level. I'm encouraged by the many stories of success here and look forward to updating my progress.

Welcome back. I find the stories of weight loss success very inspiring as well. With 70 pounds more to go I need all the encouragement I can get!

Ken

[Rockin Roland]

In order to lose weight you only have to do two things:

1) EAT LESS

2) EXERCISE MORE

Unfortunately the one thing stopping most people from doing that is the mind(will power). It's very difficult to re-program the mind to resist hunger or deny exercise due to lack of time or convenience. Worse still, in order to succeed in losing weight and keeping it off, you have to maintain an excercise routine and reduce the volume of food intake, FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. Otherwise you go back to your old ways and put all the weight back on. That's one reason why I believe diets are a complete waste of time.

The first step is to reduce the volume of food you put in your mouth. Doesn't matter what it is, just reduce it. Then gradually change to eating healthier foods.

Increasing exercise requires a lifestyle change. The easiest way I found was by incorporating exercise into my daily commute to and from work. Keep the car at home in the garage and walk to public transport (the long way if necessary). Or ride a bike to work. The key is in reducing the amount of time you spend sitting on your arse.

However, I'm not sure that using a static rowing erg is going to work wonders for an obese person. I've always been very fit and strong and attributed a lot of this to more than ten years of erging. However, despite having very good lean muscle tone on all the major muscles groups, there was this stubborn layer of fat(roll of fat) around the hips,waist & lower back region. No matter how much erging I did it refused to move or reduce.

I was stuck on 94 kgs for ages but by doing two things differently I have reduced my weight down to 86 kgs The first thing was to reduce the volume of food. I never ate junk food but even the healthy food was keeping the weight on. So I just ate less. Then I sold my static C2 erg and bought a dynamic erg with a limited tilt seat. I found that this extra movement around the back turn, in particular the hip rotation and use of core muscles to get stability on the limited tilt seat, made a noticable difference in fat reduction around this region. Something that the static erg could not do very well. Hence I beileve an obese person would get better results on a dynamic erg, preferably with a limited tilt seat.

[ausrwr]

Is there ANYTHING a dynamic erg can't do?

[Bob S.]

Is there ANYTHING a dynamic erg can't do?

Float.

[Rockin Roland]

Is there ANYTHING a dynamic erg can't do?

Teach you how to get back into a boat for when you fall out.

[godnavynd]

So when I weighed myself on Feb 10, I was actually 212.4 pounds!! So I was probably heavier actually when I started rowing in January.
On March 10, I registered 203.2 on the scale, 9 pounds lighter.

I use MyFitnessPal.com to track my food and exercise. I set a goal of 170 pounds at 1 pound/ week. I eat a very balanced diet, the only thing I have cut out is deserts. Not restricting anything else. And trying to row about 30 minutes / day on average. So far I have done at least 5k meters every day in March (14 days / 14).

I already lost a notch or two on my belt!

Progress... a long way to go, but progress nonetheless.

Thank you all for your great posts! Long ago, in February 1992 I had to lost weight. At 5'7" and 180 lbs, I was overweight. I was getting married in June and absolutely needed to drop some pounds. There was a rower in the gym and I sat down - hooked immediately! My goal was to get to 160 lbs. By the time June rolled around, I was a slender 154 lbs, fitting into shorts I wore in high school! The rower kept me completely motivated.

Fast forward two decades, and now I'm 210 lbs (ACK!). I had been talking about getting a rowing machine for years and years and years.... well finally my wife gave me a rower for Christmas (well the go-ahead to buy one). Through research I decided on the Concept2 - I believe this is what we had in the gym back in 1992. Since late January, I have already done on 61k meters! Trying to get in about 20km / week. I joined the Military Challenge (Navy vet) and am looking forward to the March Madness Challenge.

I have dreams to go back to 170-or so pounds. When I first lost weight back in 1992, a doc said that it's important to maintain a high metabolic rate. Exercise raises your metabolism. So does eating. So for me I'm following the plan I laid out for myself back in 1992: Exercise in the morning (30 minutes, trying for everyday except Sunday) to raise my metabolism. Eat a healthy breakfast in the morning, piece of fruit in the morning, healthy lunch, something in the afternoon, and lighter dinner in the evening. I haven't been too particular about counting calories yet. I'll see if this plan works still. I haven't weighed myself since I started working out back in January. That's when I weighed 210. I'll see how it goes and adjust as necessary.

Thank you all for your stories... it is very motivating!

Cheers.