Im in the RAF, have been for just under 12 years and im what you could describe as a fat techie!!

However Ive decided to apply for Non commissioned aircrew.

The problem is that i am over the max weight to apply by 15 kgs so i need to shift them asap!!

I also need to be a lot fitter than i am now, i guess they both go hand in hand.

I dont really want to diet as sch as ive tried before cutting back on everything (sugar,carbs etc) and in the 3 months i did i lost literally no weight at all??

One of the main problems with getting fit is that i am a very bad runner and cant really run all that well (iv had operations on both legs for compartment release to try and help)

What is the best way to approach this as i want the weight gone quickly but i also want to keep it off!!

help

cheers

steve

Drink less booze, worked for me I dropped 8kg in a month or so then when I add do exercise it goes faster..

for me the only way to lose weight is a varied exercise regime with as much as possible in the fat burning region (usin a heart rate monitor)

cut back on drinking and snacks. if your serious you should do a food/ exercise diary you really need to be burning more than your consuming.

dont really want to diet as sch as ive tried before cutting back on everything (sugar,carbs etc) and in the 3 months i did i lost literally no weight at all??

Bad news chap, eat less, move more is pretty much the only real method. If it didn't work before, you either weren't moving enough, or cutting back on the food intake enough

It's really simple;

if calories in exceed calories used you'll gain wait.

if calories used exceed calories in you'll lose it.

whatever you've doen to cut down in the past hasn't resulted in you using more calories than you consume.

If you want to lose weight then you really have to get to the point where you feel slightly hungry most of the time.

and ride a bike – it's fun 🙂

R.
There are some very good articles on Bike Radar dot.
One was recently was talking about a uncomplicated 40 minute 60% – 70% ride every morning before feeding.
The way to lose weight as professional teams see things.

cheers for the quick replies so far!

in the 3 months i tried a diet and exercise plant this is what i did…..

2 hours in the gym 5 times a week doing cardio at a fat burning level(using a heart rate thingy!)and various weights…

food wise a day i was eating the following……
brekkie…
bowl of cereal semi skimmed milk,no sugar
glass of orange juice
cup of coffee

mid morning…….
low fat yoghurt

lunch……
salad with chicken

afternoon snack…..
cereal bar

tea…….
anything my wife cooked!

so as you can see i was not eating much and i was exercising lots and in that 3 months i lost about 4 pound!! thats it?

oh and i very rairly drink anymore either!

The answer seems to be different for everyone. I've been trying to lose about the same amount for about a year now. I've lost 2 lbs. I dont drink, dont eat junk, make all my meals from scratch, mostly lean meats and veg. I've tried months on end at 1500 cals intake a day and less. I've tried commuting the 20 miles a day to work and eating about 2500 cals a day. None did any good. I just seem to sit static at my current weight. IT varies with water intake and thats about it! (I'm an avid follower of the cals in – cals out = 0 equation but somehow I can't seem to solve it myself).

Eat less move more indeed. Booze is a big suplier of calories so cut out beer if you drink it.

swiming is good escercise – or cycling or a mix of both.

I( bet you both ate far more than you think you did – no way can you eat only 1500 calories a day and not loose weight – simply not metabolicly possible

coffeeking i know how you feel mate!! my wife can drop weight like its going out of fashion!! 🙁

TJ most days i ate what i listed above, even went to the docs at one stage as the fitness trainer on camp couldnt understand it.

checked for under active this and that and all came back normal!

Weight loss has to be all about diet, IME. Exercise is something that can help, but it's not enough on its own. In other words, you can be fit, exercise well and still have a weight problem. OTOH, you can be unfit and not do any serious exercise and lose weight effectively if the diet is right. Exercise is so entwined with eating more to fuel the activity that the weight-loss benefits can be lost.

In any case – the structure of the diet, training regime are all just window dressing. It's all about being ready to take the psychological step of changing the way you live your life and be prepared to go hungry. If you're not ready, what will it take to get you ready? We can talk all day about different diets that do this, that and the other but it's just a distraction. Anything commonsensical based around calorie deficit will work, but only if you're ready to take it on.

you're a medical marvel and totally **** then.

what's your bodyfat percentage? Mine's about 10% and even if I needed to lose 3 or 4 kgs I'd struggle because it would be muscle I'm trying to drop not fat.

Anythign you want to do with regards to maintainging body weight long term is goign to revolve around real lifestyle changes rather than crash diets or the like.

I'm affraid i'm with coffeeking again on this one, i was stuck at a certain weight, unable to get under it, or get leaner. I was cycling 30-40 miles 5 days a week, plus a long sunday ride. I was consuming about 1800 – 2000 calories a day with no booze. My weight didn't change at all from when i started to do this to when i stopped as i moved work to home. Then i had a very stressful episode in my life (family illness) although i was still eating i lost over a stone in a month. wierd! I'm not advocating stress as a weight loss programme, but it does demonstrate that the purly food in/minus energy out = weight eqaution is not the whole picture (in my experience).

R.
You seemed to have crabbed around the "40 minutes cycling at 65% before breakfast" article.
Have you even made the effort to look it up on Bike Radar?
If not – why not?
Now go read.
This is real information. Not a debate.

You seem to be pi££ing about the edges, as most "dieters" and joggers and such-like do. Join the Army or Marines and that'd change your perspective, but in the meantime, please do as I suggest.

And if you are making no head-way, look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek.
Correcting – all those reading should explore this link.
Most joggers I know, know nothing about this absolutely fundamental method. If you don't use this, expect to fail. Expect to fail.

Sometimes the truth is all it requiers.

if you eat less than you need to survive you WILL lose weight; don't want to sound like a **** but no fat people in belsen.

Eat Less Exercise more.

don't want to sound like a **** but no fat people in belsen.

oops, too late. poor taste.

DOUBLE POST.

I( bet you both ate far more than you think you did – no way can you eat only 1500 calories a day and not loose weight – simply not metabolicly possible

Nope, I measured it all out and added it all up. It was easy because I ate very simple meals with known quantities and values. I'm wholely behind the science of cals-in-cals-out, but I'm not sure my body wasnt adapting to lower cals by working slower etc? As an engineer I follow rules of conservation of energy, so it baffles me! 6 weeks, the same meals every day, carefully balanced.

I have actually lost 13kg since Jan 1st this year and have done it in 2 more intense periods and the concentrated on not getting back into back habbits between times.
There is no avoiding the fact that you need to feel hungry some of the time and you need to finish meals NOT feeling full. You will probably have eaten enough, but not as much as you need to.

Key steps in the food part
NO sugar cut out the museli bars, orange juice sugary cereal (check the labels, many are nearly 25% sugar) unless it is DURING exercise
Avoid drinking callories in milkyt drinks, beer, soda milk etc
Avoid anything white (bread, butter, lard, mayo, sugar: this is a great rule)
Try to limit starchy food like potatos, pasta and rice

Make every decision the right one, my problem in the past was always something along the lines of "I'm tired, or I deserve it" I didn't really, I deserved not to have it!

Good luck mate, I know how it is and don't underestimate it.

Eat uprocessed food – vegetables, avoid potatoes and wheat and fat and sugars and bisuits, exercise portion control, eat breakfast ( porridge made with water 1:2.5 parts with raisons/banana is the key), switch to goats milk far better for human digestion, forget alcohol, dont shop when hungry, dont even keep "crap" in the house – exercise and make sure you enjoy the exercise and change the exercise monthlyish

Good Luck dough boy! (joke)

Not joining this thread other than to say email me.

How old are you and what's your BPFA/BFT time?
Have you been to see your unit PTI?

get down to circuits in the gym – PTIs are paid to beast you after all! your line manager should be pretty on-side with you as long as you're putting in the effort, so IME sloping off 5 minutes early to change/5 minutes late back tends not to be an issue.

i guess you'll need to run for the NCO course, so start at it. it's a great way to lose weight even if you're no good at it. it'll come – just make sure you work with in your limits. you might feel daft warming up, running for 5 minutes then cooling off, but if that what it takes to begin with, that's what you need to do, then build up. far better than injury and having to pester the med centre for treatment!

do the bleep test more often than you have to (actually to max effort too, not just the green sector!) and use the scores as a measure of progress.

i guess if you're still 15kg over the maximum, you need to start slow so you don't give your system too hard a time.

and, since you asked on a bike forum, i'd best add that you should get out on the bike more! ride harder than you usually do even if you can't get out more, but also make the effort to get out more. see if there's a station MTB club? a half hour ride before your shift every now and then does wonders for your motivation! the other techies will just have to get used to the smug smirk you are mandated to wear all day after a pre-breakfast workout…

Coffeking – yes your metabolism can slow down when starved – which is a part of the reason very low calorie diets are not useful.

However 1500 calories a day is barely enough to keep an averaged sized man breathing let alone doing any exercise. Somewhere there must have been calories you were not counting. Milk in your tea is one common one. Underestimating the amount of food is another common one – ie you thing its 100g but infact its 120 grammes. Cooking oil is another – that sort of thing. The handful of peanuts you blagged of a pal, the energy bar when you bonked on a ride, the half pint of beer. Underestimating the amount of food you eat is really really common when people "diet"

Either that or you are a medical marvel of some unknown kind.

I know this will really annoy you but unfortunately something here simply does not add up. Apologies for the annoyance – sincerely meant

thanks for all the replies!!

im based at a civvy camp and the gym dont run circuits!! how bad is that.

The army section i work with actually have to do pft/cft etc , dont really want to do them as im making good progress getting my legs back into shape for running and this would put me back at square one!

oh and i do actually ride my bike and i can see ive made major improvements there !! i normaly ride with 2 other lads, one of them stopped coming out for 4 or 5 months and he has just come out and me and my mate are leaving him for dead!

Typical Crab

linky for the bike radar article pleeeze. Ta

ti29er!!! i take it your from the other side then!!

listen i genuinely do want to shed the weight mate, im fed up with the label of fat techy!!

Also i am getting fitter though,not thinner but definatley fitter , i just cant seem to shift the weight by ding exercise?

Im not able to run properly because when i joined up we had to do a lot of marching and fast walking in boots, never done it before and t messed my legs up to the point where i had compartment syndrome on both legs(ther was a program on the tele about marines who went through training and the doc overlooking them said that basically if they get compartment syndrome then their career is over).

Im finally getting over it now, just able to run/jg for 20mins at a time with no pain, hnce why i dont want to jump in and mess mylegs up again.

The army section i work with actually have to do pft/cft etc

I'm vaguely familiar with the aircrew training and this will stand you in good stead. IIRC the most physically demanding phase is the one administered by the RAF regt which would suggest that the Army yomping etc would be majorly beneficial. Maybe suggest that you swallow your pride and get thrashed by/with the Army lads (it might hurt a little at first!). Also, if they are doing PFT/CFTs, they must have a PTI, could you not approach him/her?
EDIT; Sorry just read your last post. Compartment syndrome is a very good reason to lose weight. Go to a running shop and have your gait analysed and don't skimp on the running shoes!

yep your right backhander, im trying to break my boots in as we speak!!

I've gone from 120kgs to currently about 83kg and how did i do it?

Turning veggie
Training quite a bit
Avoid processed food or anything starchy/white
Lots of fatty acids/efa's
And plenty of vit/minerals to look after things

Oddly i still don't feel that slim despite my 34" trousers hanging off me. 😆

If you are 15kg over the maximum weight, how much are you over the 'average' weight…

Come on lets us know, how heavy and how tall?

Pi&& off.

"when i joined up we had to do a lot of marching and fast walking in boots, never done it before and t messed my leg"

Are you from another planet?

What bloody use are you this countries deferences? Go be a Fat Civvi. What a waste of text.

im 6 foot 1 and 111kgs!!

i used to do a lot of power lifting up until about 4 years ago .

all of my family are what you would call big boned!!

It's pretty bad that they're using the BMI scale. Even I'm overweight according to that (trust me I'm not). Don't let that rubbish dishearten you and I believe that when you get to the required fitness, you can request that a doctor examine you and possibly receive a bye (you'd have to check on this).