Raigon's Pre-Exam Weight Loss Challenge - Asian Adonis Style

All right, so exams are coming up and with sequential staging (1271 flash cards of anatomical structures to memorize), KHI (hundreds of pages of texts to go through) and HPS (and over a dozen assignments to catch up on), all approaches and field reports are on hold until exams are done with, which should be over a bit over mid-November (and no I'm not exaggerating, that's why we need a few weeks advance to prepare for exams and can't cram for medical school on the last few days).

That being said, however, with the encouragement from Picks and Ben J, I am still going to develop myself in other ways - namely inner game (feeling good and confident about myself, which I'm starting to feel really nice about =D), and looks. Now, I'm a 10. I know I'm a 10 and I'm originally a 10. I've always known that. I'm smart, romantic, funny, sincere, nice with a bit of a bad and spontaneous impulsiveness, and originally good looking before I put on the tons of kilos I have now. And because of some issues that happened, I've become a 10 that is being projected as a mere 4 or a 5, which really sucks because it comes with the frustration of having the potential, knowing that you're amazing, so why aren't I getting results?

Confidence I'm getting through some social game with my classmates via study groups and other activities for the time being.

But my main focus is going to be on my looks. I've gotten the haircut to get my douche-bag look out. I know how to dress a bit and not look so "locked in room for 10 years playing who knows what".

Now onto my weight and trying to get back into shape.

My current weight is 105.5 kilos (*shudders). My goal before exams is to get it <100 into the 90s range. My ultimate goal will be to get it into the 80s region and attempt at a normal BMI of <25 (low 80s for a person of 6'0).

I will be posting weekly, every Monday, my weight and do a small reflection of what has happened (why I've improved or why my progress was hindered). And although this will not bring me back to the 10 immediately, it should add 2 or 3 points back if I get my original looks back to a 6-7. With confidence and bootcamp bombardment, I should bring it to a 8-9. And with long term practice, constant exposure, I could get back to the original 10 I am, or even better, beyond a 10 that I become a gigantic void of mesmerizing energy that will pull in all girls from all directions at a 5 meter radius due to the chick magnet of the new Asian Adonis.

I've done this before, but I've lost weight too quickly and bounced it all back. I know I can do this, but the more important thing for me now is to lose and keep the extra weight lost. I did it before by starving myself and becoming anorexic, and then when I reached my attained weight, I was like... OH YES, BINGE EAT TIME. Now I know better and I'm actually going to allow myself to eat dinner. While I know this will take a bit longer, it will be more stable and more realistic and combine this with my exercise routines of cardio and weights that I can fit into my daily cycle pre-study, I think I can pull it off

Anyways, wish me luck. Cuz I'll need it, as stress and exams and snacks will be trying to pull me into the other direction.

Current Weight: 105.5 kilograms

Hey Raigon,

Good luck with your goals, but honestly, from what you've written, I don't see any challenge to this. All I see is a goal. A goal is merely a waypoint, somewhere to go.

From your post, I don't see the vehicle that you're going to take to make it to your goal. You don't list what you're going to do. All I saw in your last post was the following information
1. Exams are coming up
2. I got new clothes and a haircut
3. I'm fat and I need to lose weight
4. I'm going to post every monday on what I did.

The point of a 30 day challenge is to push yourself further than before. You need to tell us EXACTLY what you're going to do. This not only lets us know what's happening with you, but it also forces you to keep yourself accountable for what you post on the forum. Do what you're going to say, and make that commitment right now. Look at my old 30 day Mind/Body challenge for reference 30-day-challengers-club-f58/mr-guile-s-maximum-body-maximum-mind-challenge-t5669.html

You need to:
1. Make a mental commitment and research what exercise and diet you want to do
2. Post it on the forum
3. Execute the plan

Especially with body stuff, you need to lay down basic framework. What's your diet plan? Exercise? Cardio? Weight Training? Tell us!

Johnny Wolf told me that gaining muscle/losing fat is 80%, and I fully agree with him. You are what you eat. For your research purposes, I have utilized 3 different diets that I really enjoy for fat burning.

LARRY STRONG'S HOLISTIC DIET
Larry was my old personal trainer, recommended to me by my Alexander Technician. His diet is very simple, as he was a natural bodybuilder. Your plate is:

70% Fruits + Veggies
20% Protein + Carbs
10% Fats

RESTRICTED FOODS - Dairy, white bread (whole wheat OK), Soda, Alcohol (sparingly), Bananas (too much sugar, causes water retention in abdomen)

TIM FERRIS SLOW CARB DIET
My personal favorite. Go google it, it's very popular and it works within the first week.

6 MEAL SPREAD
I have used this diet in conjunction with Larry's diet. This is a neat diet where nothing is restricted, but your food timing needs to be spot on. The idea is to keep your blood-sugar levels at an even rate throughout the entire day. 6 small meals instead of 3 large ones is the idea. Think of your food schedule as

Breakfast: 9AM
Snack: 12PM
Lunch:3PM
Snack 6PM
Dinner 9PM
Snack 12AM

Each meal is roughly 3 hours apart. Always keep food on you. Each meal can either follow the 70-20-10 rule from Larry's diet, OR if you want a more enjoyable route, you can do 1/3 Fast Carbs, 1/3 Slow Carbs, and 1/3 Protein.


Raigon, I hope this information helps. PLEASE tell us EXACTLY what you're going to do. We want to help you out here, but if you don't tell us your game plan, there is NO WAY we can help you.

Ben J

Monday, October 31st: Weight: 104.5 kilos

What I did - decreased my serving size from 2 servings to 1.5 a day.
Jogging 20 minutes 5-6:00 depending on time around the block.
Need more specific game plan. lol

@Ben J:

I am using the approach of homeostasis or basically input vs. output balance. In other words I am using a scientific approach from what I know of the human body from a medical perspective and applying it:

Input > output = Weight gain
Input = output = Stable weight
Input < output = Weight Loss

Input includes what you eat, as you said. And I am currently limiting myself to 1 serving of what I eat (800 calories per meal or less). An average male at 72 kilograms requires about 2000-2400 calories per day. 7000 calories are required to lose 1 kilogram on average due to the normal distribution of the human body via protein, carbohydrate, fat and water (and minerals, nucleic acids, etc for all you smarty pants). Realistically speaking, if I eat about 1600 calories a meal, and I reduce it to 800 calories a meal, I can reduce 800 calories a day and I can lose about 1 kilogram every 8-9 days.

And it is better to eat many small meals versus eat a few large meals. Your body can metabolize a lot of small meals and hence increase surface area of absorption in your duodenum than if you overburden yourself by binging. I'm going with your 6 meal plan on this. Reduce the overall amount of intake, but eat small meals so you don't become too hungry.

Output, of course, requires that you find ways to utilize and expend that energy. So I'm working on two things:

Cardio: Fat metabolism - expend your glycogen stores, creatine stores in your body to force fat metabolism (usually your body starts to burn fat after 15-20 minutes of aerobic exercise). I am jogging about 20 minutes a day at least and let my basic metabolism (what the body needs to live) do the rest until I find time to do elsewise. I'm trying very hard to try to fit it into my schedule with the mass amount of studying I really need to do.

Weights: Burning fat helps, but cardio does not increase metabolism. Muscles do, because there are more cells and hence more energy can be expended. I do not know how to approach this in the right way, so I'm using your post above as reference. Will's also got a pretty good basic workout routine. I'm importing my weights from Taiwan... seriously. I'm starting with 10 kg per arm. Can't really do much more than that. Some tell me to start with 5kg. Can you help me out with this? I can only do probably 1/2 hour of cardio and 1/2 hr of weights a day or I'll have wasted too much time that I can use to study, because exams are killing me ARGH.

What I need help with: Finding a plan that is not too time consuming, as I have exams coming up and I need as much time to study as possible. I wish medical school had mid-terms every block instead of stuffing a final exam at us every semester on all 16 weeks of material and only 1 week of break to study for it. *Rips hair out... wait no, I need my hair to get girls. Puts it back on.

My biggest problem is obviously eating too much (105.5 kilos, anyone???) because it's how I enjoy myself when under stress and trying to relax. So can you tell me about how big a serving size should be for each snack or each of the 6 meals? I'm thinking nuts and flaxseed/sunflower seeds can help. This can help if I'm feeling hungry almost all the time. Where's the challenge, then? Well, I eat too much and too often. It will be living hell for me to try to eat myself back to a normal weight. This is pushing me beyond my limits - aka starvation hell.

I f*cking swear that the hardest part about the diet is eating to lose weight. I've given in several times to binging already and the 6 small meals became 6 large meals on one day. Determination has been stronger over the past few days.

Hi Raigon, if you did 3 x 45min full body workouts per week for 12 weeks your noob gains would be amazing. Join a gym, you need to lift big to build big muscles. Forget bicep curls and just do compound exercises like squats, bench, deadlifts, pull ups, dips (burns way more calories).

For me the best way to avoid over-eating is simply to not buy extra food/snack/etc. It is a whole lot easier to make a single decision to not purchase the extra calories than trying to control myself 50 times in a row to not to eat another piece of chocolate out of a bag.

If you plan on hitting the gym and do anything more than simple aerobics, I highly recommend getting a personal trainer to see you through the first few weeks so you can learn the proper form to the exercises. You will see results alot faster, stay motivated, and avoid the #1 reason why newbies quit - injury due to bad posture while moving heavy weights.

Cheers for the posts, Qaz and Breeze! =D

104 kilos today.

So I calculated my basic metabolic needs if I have a completely sedentary lifestyle and it's roughly at 2600 calories a day. I eat about 300 calories for breakfast. 800 calories each for lunch and dinner. That's about 1900 calories a day. I need to burn 7000 calories to lose 1 kilogram, so I need about 10 days to lose 1 kilo. Of course, I could go about being a bit more aggressive by exercising as well. For weight, it's ridiculous how little you actually burn if you jog. Jogging once around the block once will burn 100 calories. But hey! Because I'm heavier, I lose more calories everytime I run.

Jogging at 5.2 miles/hr (12 minutes for 1 mile) will get me roughly 140 calories if I jog for 12 minutes. Weight lifting will be about 400-500 calories if I do some light weight lifting for 1 hour and 30 minutes will be roughly 200-250 calories. Combine the two and I will burn about 350-400 calories a day. That will definitely speed up my weight loss. Don't have any dumbbells... will need to resort to weight lifting my groceries. If anything, the greatest temptation for newbies like me to quit is because we get so tired and lazy from the workout. lol And of course, restricting your diet comes with some side effects, including starvation. So... hungry.... can't... breathe... meow.

Hey Raigon it seems like your on the right track for healthy weight loss keep it up. I thought I would try and cheer you up a bit. I see you have wisely added up roughly what calories you will be burning doing your running and your weights. The good news is that this is only the calories you will burn during the actual exercise. As long as your intensity is high enough when you run then you will have an increased metabolism for anything up to the next 24 hrs after the exercise the same with your weights depending on your routine. This could roughly double your amount of calories burned. The reason for this is simple. After your exercise your body has to recover e.g. repair muscles, replace atp stores, etc. This all takes more energy. So it may be better than it seems. Good luck with your healthy weight loss and your exams.

*Like*

If I were you, I would get rid of the jogging altogether. It's really not the answer to fatloss in my experience and from what I've seen. I know people who jog at least five miles a day everyday and they look like shit and they look the same every time I see them. Instead, direct that energy and focus more on lifting heavy with the big four exercises (Deadlifts, Squats, Bench Press, and Chinups) and adhering to a strict diet with lots of fruits, veggies, and protein. Avoid carbs and make sure you get in a good amount of fat. Avocados, whole eggs, and chicken thighs are great sources of fat.

I maintain around 8-9% BF just through eating correctly and lifting 3-4 times a week. I hate running and its never done anything for me. I also use to do the 6 meals a day thing but its such a hassle having to eat all the time. I've recently been turned onto Intermittent Fasting where I'll eat 3 meals a day within an 8 hour feeding window and then fast for the other 16 hours. It works great because I don't have to worry about food all the time and I can have bigger meals. If you want to learn about it check out Lean Gains and Aesthetic Muscle, two great blogs about IF.

Good luck I hope you achieve your goal