gigantic primitive gets exercycle (new update evening of 12-21)

[The Village Idiot]

I wonder if Jeanette shops at one of those dent & scratch stores? hhmmm

[GOBUCKS]

May primitivis gigantus achieve his first goal of 378.

It will never happen. To get to the point of simple obesity, he needs to lose 200 pounds. A pound of fat is 3500 calories, so he needs to generate a deficit between his diet and the calories burned in exercise of 700,000 calories. He calls 13 minutes on the recumbent bike a workout. At the resistance level he likely runs, he burns no more than 5 calories a minute unless he's pedalling like a bat out of hell. So his workout was less than 100 calories. And then he celebrates with a stockpot full of tomatoes and potatoes. And he isn't counting the bags of Cheetos he scarfs down during his all-day computger game sessions. The blimp will fall over dead with orange fingers on his controller.

[crockspot]

There is no doubt he is large and I know that there can be debilitating physical issues either by genetics or poor luck but somehow I don`t see a person that should be bedridden as he claims.
We all know folks that are as large as that and while not healthy to be obese they do get out and do things in a productive society.

I wish Kirk well in shedding ALL his demons but deep down I don`t think he will.

On edit...

Kirk if you do read this at Pams direction know one thing.
Even though we differ politically you could find true support here,it may not be a pat on the back and someone telling you everything is okay but you would find folks that want you to succeed and not wallow in a morass.
Give it some thought.

To be honest, I have worked with a pretty fair amount of people who are that large. IT, software design, etc., does not require extreme fitness. Kirk, get off your ass and get a job.

[dandi]

Sounds like they're going to make a punch bowl of chip dip. Must be movie and nookie night.

I don't want to even imagine the logistics involved in that.

[Toastedturningtidelegs]

There is no doubt he is large and I know that there can be debilitating physical issues either by genetics or poor luck but somehow I don`t see a person that should be bedridden as he claims.
We all know folks that are as large as that and while not healthy to be obese they do get out and do things in a productive society.

I wish Kirk well in shedding ALL his demons but deep down I don`t think he will.

On edit...

Kirk if you do read this at Pams direction know one thing.
Even though we differ politically you could find true support here,it may not be a pat on the back and someone telling you everything is okay but you would find folks that want you to succeed and not wallow in a morass.
Give it some thought.

This guy is nothing but a big fat lazy ass! I know people larger than him who manage to hold down full time jobs working 40-50 hours a week! Don't get me started on Jeanette{Florence Nightingale Syndrome}....Jesus! Talk about being co-dependent! Fatass also needs to turn off the damn fan and sweat some of that fat off as well! I don't feel a bit sorry for him! He put himself where he's at!

[franksolich]

This guy is nothing but a big fat lazy ass! I know people larger than him who manage to hold down full time jobs working 40-50 hours a week! Don't get me started on Jeanette{Florence Nightingale Syndrome}....Jesus! Talk about being co-dependent! Fatass also needs to turn off the damn fan and sweat some of that fat off as well! I don't feel a bit sorry for him! He put himself where he's at!

That's exactly the attitude of the 56-year-old 404-pound guy who shovels grain at the grain elevator here five and a half days a week.

That's a guy who knows both sides, and I trust his judgement.

The gigantic primitive needs to get a job, something more physical than sitting at a table in a casino dealing cards.

[franksolich]

Latest updates:

Ege Bamyasi
December 20, 2009

June 21, 2009 - 488 (-31 from Dec. 2007 lifetime high)
June 28 - 488 (unchanged due to quitting 3 daily doses of diuretics)

July 5 - 485 ( -3 )
July 12 - 478 ( -7 )
July 19 - 476 ( -2 )
July 26 - 475 ( -1 )

August 2 - 456 ( -19 ) ** (resumed diuretic and diabetic meds)
August 9 - 449 ( -7 )
August 16 - 454 ( +5 )
August 23 - 444 ( -10 ) (tried stopping lasix again -- no go)
August 30 - 449 ( +5 )

September 6 - 443 ( -6 )
September 13 - 442 ( -1 )
September 20 - 441 ( -1 )
September 27 - 440 ( -1 )

October 4 - 441 ( +1 )
October 11 - 435 ( -6 )
October 18 - 437 ( +2 )
October 25 - 436 ( -1 )

November 1 - 433 ( -3 )
November 8 - 439 ( +6 )
November 15 - 434 ( -5 )
November 22 - 434 ( 0 )
November 29 - 435 ( +1 )

December 6 - 437 ( +2 )
December 13 - 436 ( -1 )
December 20 - 437 ( +1 )

A month and a half goes by with nothing to show for it but a four lb. gain. Someone is righteously indignant about now.

It's time to drop some plates on this b**ch plateau. Enough of the plateau. My depression is gone, but the cough isn't. So what. I don't care. It's time to get medieval on the plateau.

More biking today. More coughing. So what, don't care. Gonna bust some caps on the plateau. Lots of yummy potato wedges today, and maybe a bowl of oatmeal with bananas. At least 30 minutes on the recumbent today. Notice to the plateau: It's on. Like Donkey Kong.

Goodbye plateau. Goodbye 430s by the end of the month, and goodbye 400s by my 41st birthday on March 17. I've had enough of this freaking plateau. The plateau has been served.

Ege Bamyasi
December 20, 2009

What it is that I can account for is my near total lack of movement up until yesterday when I began exercising in earnest. Between my bout of depression -- and its attendant SAD eating for a brief period -- and my present battle with the Cough from Hell (tm), I've been pretty much waylaid for several weeks.

Furthermore, what I suspect is that I could be hypothyroid or have some other metabolic condition which is impeding weight loss. Maybe, maybe not, but when I think about my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) versus what I actually eat and drink, the numbers do not add up. According to my vital statistics (Male, 40 years old, 6'3" tall, 437 lbs.), my BMR is 3462.2 according to the formula you can find on many websites. This means that, even if all I did was lie in bed, I should require 3462.2 calories per day just to maintain my present weight.

I'm sorry, but there is no way I'm consuming that in potatoes, rice, veggies, fruit, etc. every day. I'd need to go back on a fast food SAD diet to accomplish that, given my appetite. I'm going to start inputting everything I consume over at SparkPeople for a while to get a true average of my caloric intake. I'll also post the information here. I'll lay money that it's not over 2,000 calories per day.

If that's true then, according to the BMR forumla, I should be at a calorie deficit of ( 3462 - 2000 ) x 7 = 1462 x 7 = 10,234 calories per week! Given that 3,500 calories is supposed to equal a pound, it logically follows that I ought to be losing 10,234 / 3,500 = 2.92 lbs. per week just lying in bed 24 / 7 and pigging out on 2,000 calories per day of plan legal food.

Even at 3,000 calories per day, I should lose over a pound a week! Why yes, I will have the Super Size fries with that pair of Big Macs. And I would love an apple pie with that!

I'd love to get all kinds of tests and stuff run to determine just what's going on here, but of course that's not going to happen anytime soon. So, I will be charging ahead with ever-increasing amounts of exercise to lick this once and for all. I'm still coughing hard enough to get massive headaches and serious pain in my right shoulder from tensing up my upper abdominal muscles all the time. I hate it. It sucks. Hell, even my roommate hears me going at it when he's in bed on the other side of the apartment.

But once again, unless I go down from a collapsed lung or something, there won't be a doctor's visit or any type of relief beyond OTC stuff which does very little. It warms my heart, though, to know that insurance company stocks are soaring while Congress works steadfastly towards passing one of the most pathetic pieces of legislation ever in the name of "health care reform".

Well, okay. Not really.

Anyway, life goes on and I'll get this done somehow or other. I'm not about to give up, cynical attitude nonwithstanding.

And, before I click "Submit", I should at least thank you for your encouragement here in my journal. I forgot what my main purpose even was, what with all the ranting. If this keeps up, there'll be a future for me at a Greyhound station somewhere yet.

[Carl]

I'm sorry, but there is no way I'm consuming that in potatoes, rice, veggies, fruit, etc. every day. I'd need to go back on a fast food SAD diet to accomplish that, given my appetite. I'm going to start inputting everything I consume over at SparkPeople for a while to get a true average of my caloric intake. I'll also post the information here. I'll lay money that it's not over 2,000 calories per day.

I bet he will be surprised how much he is eating if he is honest about the portions and includes all soda,alcohol and sugared coffee if he drinks any of the above.

Has he ever mentioned how much water he drinks as it seems that a basic component to many or most diets is a large volume of water consumed in a day.

[Karin]

I still think he consumes way too many potatoes.  And you never hear about any protein.  How about just a piece of baked chicken breast or fish?   

I've worked with lots of IT guys just this size.  But, I don't know, does the guy have any marketable skill besides dealing cards? 

I'm glad he got the bike, that's an excellent start. 

[franksolich]

But, I don't know, does the guy have any marketable skill besides dealing cards?

Apparently not; if one reads the gigantic primitive's autobiography, it appears that had always been his life's goal, to sit around in casino dealing cards.

Not to be a fireman, a general, a physician, or a senator, but a card-dealer.

Well, the gigantic primitive achieved that goal, but unfortunately one of the fringe benefits of the job was all the free food from the casino restaurant one wanted, while working.

It is eminently possible the gigantic primitive ultimately lost that job because he was bankrupting the casino kitchen.

[BlueStateSaint]

Apparently not; if one reads the gigantic primitive's autobiography, it appears that had always been his life's goal, to sit around in casino dealing cards.

Not to be a fireman, a general, a physician, or a senator, but a card-dealer.

Well, the gigantic primitive achieved that goal, but unfortunately one of the fringe benefits of the job was all the free food from the casino restaurant one wanted, while working.

It is eminently possible the gigantic primitive ultimately lost that job because he was bankrupting the casino kitchen.

Coach, if that were the reason, there would be at least one news story about it.  I think that maybe he wasn't as good as he would have hoped to be, at cards.  Or, maybe there was something where he let "friends" of his win at the table.  With the massive video surveillance in those places, he'd be toast in one hour or so.

[The Village Idiot]

I do not understand how he thinks he using 3,500 calories per day

[Karin]

Oh, I blew right past that, FGL.  Indeed, he starts out this particular thread telling us that because of his cough, he's bedridden for half the day.  Maybe somebody on that blog of his should gently point that out. 

[Celtic Rose]

I do not understand how he thinks he using 3,500 calories per day

Basal Metabolic Rate calculators assume an "average" fat to muscle ratio, so they are not accurate for those who are very lean with a lot of muscle, or for those with a lot of fat.  He isn't taking the fact that his body contains an extremely above average amount of fat.  Most fat tissue doesn't actually burn calories.  Really, what he should do is figure out what his BMI is, and what his percentage of Body Fat is, then subtract a good amount of it from his weight, then recalculate his calorie needs. 

If he were working out, he would burn more calories than the average person, because his muscles would have to work harder to move his mass, but if he is sitting around and laying down all day, his body is not expending a lot of calories.

[franksolich]

Update again.

For some reason, I got confused about the day--credit the Soviet socialist calendar on the desk, thinking this is the 22nd, when in fact it's only the 21st.

If that's what socialists can do to simple calendars, imagine the havoc they could wreak with our medical care.

Anyway, this, new from the gigantic primitive:

Ege Bamyasi
December 21, 2009

sksamboots, I totally agree that I should be steadily losing at least a little weight right now, but since it's not happening it's time for me to step it up. I've been wanting to exercise anyway, in order to eventually achieve a very high level of fitness. I have to start sometime and somewhere, and that time is now just doing a few minutes a day which will eventually turn into many hours per week.

As for eating more vegetables, I'm trying but our only close-by grocery store is ridiculously expensive on everything. We buy bags of potatoes, brown rice and frozen vegetables from them (which themselves are much higher than Trader Joe's which is over an hour away by bus), but since even frozen vegetables add up to major bank in a hurry, we stick with lots of starches because they're just cheaper.

For Jeanette to run to Trader Joe's or Fresh & Easy and buy lots of veggies or salad blows most of one of her days off, then there's all the cleaning around the place that she's stuck with by default because I really can't do it yet and Joe just doesn't. She's tired all the time so I have to keep it simple for her sake, or else I'm literally crushed by feelings of guilt.

The way I figure it, as long as I keep my calorie intake reasonable, then this recumbent riding is going to kick start my metabolism. The last time I did this was back in 2003, before my plantar fasciitis made it too painful to even stand up. I started riding a recumbent bike weighing in at about 435, just like now, and after the first couple of weeks I dropped a steady 3 - 5 lbs. per week on a far richer diet than I consume now. I only rode one hour per day then. My goal is to exceed one hour per day eventually this time around.

seestorcoo, you're so sweet! I'm glad that my talk of Jeanette put a smile on your face. She's really an angel walking the earth, and I wouldn't be here today without her.

As for my situation, I'm definitely disappointed on some levels, but that's different from feeling defeated. I'm definitely not defeated. I'm going to keep rallying back and trying harder until I'm where I need to be. I don't believe that my coughing is in any way related to edema. I can see my legs getting smaller below the knee, and my thighs, while still pretty massive, are getting closer and closer to matching in diameter.

I know I still have tendencies to water retention, but it's under much better control than it has been in quite some time. This cough I have is an upper respiratory thing rather than lower. I have an irritating itch in the back of my throat that nothing will abate, and that's the major source of my coughing.

I'm on the recumbent pushing harder and harder with each passing day, and I'm now to the point where I'm beginning to sweat noticeably, but my breathing is deep and steady with no difficulty. As I've said, the weirdest thing of all is that I don't hack and cough when I'm pedaling my butt off. But when I'm sitting idle? Look out world! I've always thought of myself as a square peg or a walking contradiction, and this just adds another one to the ever-growing pile.

I don't appear to have any of those symptoms of hypothyroidism you wrote about. My hair is so thick that I'm the bane of barbers and hair stylists everywhere! In fact, we have a Wahl trimmer from Target that cost about $40, and when Jeanette tries to run it through my hair it sounds like a push mower when it encounters a patch of 2' high grass, weeds and shrubs. A brief pitiful whine and then near silence, followed by my screams of pain as Jeanette tries to dislodge the damn thing from my head.

She's taken to using scissors to cut my hair really short, and then carefully and slowly runs the Wahl over my head to even everything out with a #2 trimmer, but it takes bloody forever. It's insane. I began graying in my teens, but I'm always going to have a thick mane like the singer Michael McDonald, I think.

As for your reference to Daniel on The Biggest Loser, I can easily envision that kind of transformation. I have to say that while I can't stand the product placement and often dubious advice given on that show, I really respect the trainers and contestants for working themselves completely raw for hours per day, day after day!

I might not have the ability to work all of my muscle groups, and I certainly don't have a supporting team of trainers, doctors and fancy equipment to assist me, but I will be going balls-out with what I do have to prove just what is possible coming from the horrible lows I hit earlier this year. How many people have toes, feet, legs that look like they're ready to die and fall off, and then turn that around just with diet and a naturally occurring oil?

Once I can say I'm well and truly healed, Dr. M is going to be receiving photos of my wounds from a couple of months ago -- when I was already well into the healing process -- along with thorough descriptions of how bad things were, and the final healed result. I want to see a major research project dedicated to the use of coconut oil in the treatment of wounds. The stuff works, and so well it's actually frightening.

Well, I've gone on long enough just replying to the two of you. I'm going to take a break before I post about my day. Thanks again, to both of you, for all the encouragement and support!! {{{hugs}}}

Well, damn.

Not only does the long-suffering wife of the gigantic primitive have to clean house after a hard day at work, but she has to cut his hair too.

Damn.  Just damn.

[Carl]

That is just so sad.

I can almost hear him whining...Jeanette I can`t get onto the cycle...if you loved me you would help

[franksolich]

I just hit a speed-bump.

.....and my thighs, while still pretty massive, are getting closer and closer to matching in diameter.

Why, other than bodily injuries due to work or accidents, would thighs not approximate each other in diameter?

[GOBUCKS]

She's taken to using scissors to cut my hair really short, and then carefully and slowly runs the Wahl over my head to even everything out with a #2 trimmer, but it takes bloody forever.

As if her life were not miserable enough, he complains about how long it takes her to cut his hair. And she hasn't even started the pedicure yet- no way giganticus could reach his flippers.

[GOBUCKS]

I just hit a speed-bump.

Why, other than bodily injuries due to work or accidents, would thighs not approximate each other in diameter?

I think he accidentally left out a phrase:

"my thighs, while still pretty massive, are getting closer and closer to matching in diameter the washtub Jeanette uses to mix my dinner."

[franksolich]

That matter of, uh, mismatched thighs has gotten me greatly concerned.

I grabbed one of those cloth, or fabric, yard-sticks used by seamstresses.

I wasn't sure where one measures the thighs, so guessed about mid-point.

One thigh on this body is a tad bit under 19 inches.

The other thigh on this body is a tad bit under 19 inches.

I am truly perplexed.

Barring some sort of mutilating injury from work or accident, or past paralysis of one limb or the other, why would thighs not be approximately the same size?

[longview]

Poor circulation from diabetes and edema from... a few things, can do funky stuff from one side to the other on a person.

Yes, I'm back reading this thread.  I know his weight loss goal can be made by March next year.  He'll need help with a resume from what I've read.

[The Village Idiot]

Update again.
Not only does the long-suffering wife of the gigantic primitive have to clean house after a hard day at work, but she has to cut his hair too.

He has issues with "Joe". I bet Joe and Jeanette are an item, I think she tends to Jabba out of guilt.

[Boudicca]

I do not understand how he thinks he using 3,500 calories per day

He isn't keeping a diet diary, or at least not an accurate one.  Less than one percent of overweight folks have a thyroid issue, alas, I am not one of them. 
Hopefully he will keep exercising more and control his portions.  One can lose weight on a candy bar diet, short term, provided the caloric content of said diet is less than one expends hauling one's carcass around.
There is such a thing as a fat vegetarian; starch isn't exactly low calorie especially if he is eating the massive quantities I suspect he is.
I do believe this thread has inspired me to lose the last 30 pounds I've lugged around long enough.  Hopefully SC will lighten up soon so he can lighten Jeanette's load.

[njpines]

but since even frozen vegetables add up to major bank in a hurry,

This is total BS!  I'm looking at the weekly ad for "Fresh and Easy" in Las Vegas and 1lb bags of all types of frozen vegetables are only 99 cents.  They could majorly stock up for that price.  Actually, most of the prices in the ad seem pretty reasonable to me but I'm used to NJ prices for stuff.  I don't think sitting around all day making up excuses for why he's not losing weight burns many calories!

[kenth]

This is total BS!  I'm looking at the weekly ad for "Fresh and Easy" in Las Vegas and 1lb bags of all types of frozen vegetables are only 99 cents.  They could majorly stock up for that price.  Actually, most of the prices in the ad seem pretty reasonable to me but I'm used to NJ prices for stuff.  I don't think sitting around all day making up excuses for why he's not losing weight burns many calories!

.99 a pound in quantities you or I might consume probably wouldn't be much. His quantities, though, might be a bit higher.