2009 Chainsaw Health Challenge!

[BlackCatBone]

I just saw this thread. I'd like to join in, see how I can do. I am 38, been hovering at around 288 lb at 6' even for the past 5-6 years. I graduated from college at 225 lb, military school running PT every day and I was wearing size 34 pants and tough as nails. Could easily bench 300 and squat 750. Now I sit at a computer 4 days a week and hike around in the woods one or two days a week (engineering & surveying). I don't drink or smoke but I like to eat hi-carb foods and drink soda. Both my parents are skinny and my kids are all skinny (5 of 'em) so it must be me being a fat guy. I don't exercise nearly enough. A day of running a saw and I'm beat. I used to play racquetball and lift weights but the gym cost got too high. The past two years I've been playing men's league rugby and while it's one hell of a workout, it's only two days a week and doesn't do me much good weightwise (and they need the big guys for props anyway).

I've also been a volunteer FF for the past 12 years, the turnout gear and pack was easy for the first few years, now I can't fit in my old gear and I think I'd die in an interior attack. I'd like to get down to about 225 again and be able to get myself moving again.

750 squat? Wow, you should get back into shape and destroy some VT records. Currently the open class 220lb bodyweight weight record is about 250lbs less than your personal best. You've even got 50 lbs on the 308lb weight class monsters!
http://www.rawpowerlifting.com/records/VT/VERMONT STATE POWERLIFTING RECORDS.pdf

 

[BayAreaBucker]

I'm on day 6 of not smoking...don't piss me off.

 

[gruff4531]

I'll join

I can always use a little more motivation.

In February I turned 29 and was the heaviest I have ever been 250lbs, I am 6'4" and was able still to do most everything I wanted, then I joined a Y basketball team and was rudely awaken to the fact that I was slow and could no longer jump. So since February 9th I have cut out soda, cut back on the beer and Jack D. (how I miss them), and started working out and doing a lot of cardio and light max rep lifting. My goal is to get back to where I was when I finished college 200 lbs (I was 180 in HS) and still able to dunk a basketball.

Now 2 months later I am down to around 230 still wanting to lose 30 more lbs. I have a lot more energy and am able to at least grab the rim with both hands, but not dunk (maybe in a couple more months).

 

[gilraine]

lets see, thanksgiving day 2008, I weighed 301 pounds.. I'm 6' tall and have always been big.. my log splitter was stolen and I have been splitting with a fiskars super splitter ever since.. went from a 44 inch waist to 38 being loose, still weigh 255, but I can now one hand my 066 out of the truck bed... I feel so much stronger it is incredible... my shirts fit different too.. went from snug on the bottom to being snug on the top.. I have starting jogging last month and the Girlfriend loves it. I run a 11 minute mile now and the goal is 9 minutes by the fall..I am convinced the hardest part of weight loss is keeping motivated..

 

[Boogieman142]

Well, I guess i've been doing this for awhile. I was 320lbs...Then i bought a 660 last year, now i'm 255 and 10" shorter around the waist. I also refuse to pay for csd wood as well, so that helps out a bit too.

 

[BuddhaKat]

Time for me to weigh in I guess. For the last couple of months I've been going to the YMCA gym in preparation for cutting wood. While I would have liked to have spent more time in the gym, I was making some progress.

I started cutting wood last week. One of the first things I noticed was that my big new Husky 576XP, that weighed in at 18.8 lbs. bone dry, didn't get that heavy at the end of the day. I've got about 3 cords in on 4 days of cutting, with a couple of days off in-between.

I reached my max weight of 356 lbs a year or so ago, diabetes was out of control, I couldn't walk very far, and was riding around in one of those electric chairs whenever I went out.

Today I weighed in at 291.0 lbs. A new low for me. Around the time this thread started I think I was at 305 or so. My diabetes is very well under control and I have stopped taking one of the two types of insulin, and have cut back 70% on the other. I was also taking 2,000 mg. per day of a diabetes pill but have cut that back to 1,000 mg. per day. All this and my sugar levels are actually too low, so I think I'm going to have to cut back a little more on the insulin. I've also cut my heart and BP meds in half.

I've also gone from being barely able to bring in an armload of wood to burn to doing 100% of the cutting, loading, and unloading of the truck. Some of those rounds were pretty darn big and heavy too.

I see my Dr. every month. Two months ago she actually gave me a hug because I was doing so good. Same thing the last time I saw her. I thought that was pretty darn cool. She says I'm her favorite patient.

I'm shooting for 260 lbs. by the end of the season.

 

[JohnL]

I've been on vacation for three weeks, ate fast food every day and had 4-5 beers every day. Not sure of my weight but it has increased, guessing around 185. I'm 34 5'6". My plan for the new year is to lose about 15 lbs, and start lifting, and to eat better. There is heart disease in my family, I need to cut out the fats, and exercise more.

Well I started at 176 Lbs in January, lighter than I felt. Switched to light beer, stopped eating fast food (95% of it), bought a mountain bike, eat about 1/2 as much as I was before. I now weigh 160 Lbs, feel alot thinner. It's a trade off, I miss the Sonic burgers.

 

[joatmon]

Ken,

I need to redistribute and/or loose a few pounds. I'm 60, 5'10" and 215 pounds. I just took my BP, 127/70. My body fat is currently 17.9%. I'd like to do the following this year:

- body fat under 15%
- increase stamina, flexibility and balance

I do mostly cardio, core and intervals.

I'll let the weight take care of itself.

Here's to everyone's improved health ...

May your year be blessed ...

Joat

Check in time ladies,

5' 10"
210 lbs.
17.0 % body fat
115/61 BP

Fellin' more Stihl, less Husky,

Joat

Ladies and gentlemen,

Anyone out there stihl doin' the 2009 Chainsaw Health Challenge?

5' 10"
203 lbs.
16.4 % body fat
123/68 BP

Stihl goin' strong,

Joat

5' 10"
199 lbs.
15.9 % body fat 4 weeks ago, probably a bit better today
122/70 BP

I'm now doing all compound barbell lifts: squat, bench press, overhead press, dead lift and power clean.

Life's been good to ole joat so far.

 

[stinkbait]

I'm 22, 6'1", and 175lbs. I don't need to lose any weight, but I would like to tone up a bit and gain some stamina. I think I need some cardio workouts added to my schedule. This thread is a great idea because the first step is acknowledging the problem.

 

[BuddhaKat]

So a funny thing happened in the woods this weekend. I hired a couple of guys in their early 20's to help me cut wood. Granted, I ran the saw, they loaded the truck. So who wussed out first, the old man or the young bucks? It was the young bucks. "It's hot". "I had to work all week". "This stuff is heavy". "I didn't get much sleep last night." Meanwhile, the old fart kept the chips flying.

 

[Airecon]

Well I haven't checked-in in a while. I decided to wait for my health test at work which was today. I needed to be below 187 not to be considered overweight- I came in at 185. I've lost 27 pounds since last year's test ( 47 since Jan, 08 ) and 5" in my waist. My body fat is still pretty high, but it was down 9%- I've got to work on it, build some muscle and reduce more fat. I was hoping to pick up points for weight and body fat and get a company reward, but for some reason my blood pressure was up today, which will reduce points, so its going to be close. I said I would be running 3 miles by mid May, that didn't work out, but I've been back on the program for three weeks and Im working on it.

I'll admit I'm not in too good of shape and not as strong as some of you guys, but I'm working on it. At least I can say I'm not over weight for the first time in 20 years.

STATS
(weight at home)

Age: 48
Start: Jan-09 Weight: 201
Feb Weight: 193
March Weight:
April Weight: 188
Current Weight: 183

 

[Sochr000]

Well, I missed the start of this, but figured better late than never.

Current Stats: wt-170lbs ht- 5'11" (graduated high school at 103lbs, so this is huge for me)
Goal: get my weight to 160lbs, and lose the gut.

I've got to quit drinking as much beer, and stop hitting BK, McD's, and start riding bike again. That, and I've got to be more active in the winter, each winter(since I got out of the army anyway) I gain 10lbs and lose 5 by the end of summer. Also, gotta buy more fruit to snack on, instead of candy.

Will keep you all posted as time goes by.

 

[cjcocn]

Way back when I weighed in at about 295 or so and didn't do anything about it.

Started to think about it again and am now at 272.

I will likely end up at 260 right quick and it might slow after that, but I will be at 225 before I start thinking about stopping the loss and switching to maintaining my weight.

 

[leiterch]

I missed this one at the beginning, but never too late to start.

We had a biggest loser challenge at work and it just concluded the 1st of july. It was for three months and it did a wonderful thing for our plant. We had 80 people in the contest and lost over 800lbs. In the tough economic times our plant actually donated the prize money for teams and each individual put up a small entry fee for the individual prizes.

My stats at the start.

Height - 6'1"
Weight - 254lbs

Ending 6/29/09
Weight - 216lbs
Goal - 224lbs

Lost 38lbs in 3 months. I exceeded my goal which made me very happy.

I have been cutting and stacking wood during the competition, but I had a 2 week European vacation that kinda took a little away. I figured, I missed 213 due to the vacation. Now the real work begins. My wife and I are starting P90X next week. Should be fun. I still have all my wood to cut and put up for the year, so exercise shouldn't be a problem. I will keep updating.

Chad

 

[Meadow Beaver]

Yup I'm 133Ib

 

[BuddhaKat]

Update on the fat kat.

Just hit a new low on the scale the other day, 286 lbs. I'm up a little bit since then because of a dehydration issue, but I'm always below 300 now.

My diabetes has been very well controlled as of late, with my glucose level at 87 this morning. That's actually a little low. Easy to fix.

The thing I was most surprised about was my bloodwork. Total cholesterol: 122 (<200), Good HDL: 34 (>35), Bad LDL: 61 (<130), Triglyceride: 133 (<150). The numbers in () are the "normal" levels. <= Less than.

Considering that I've been out of the woods and on my back since mid May, I'd say I'm still hanging in there pretty good. Can't wait to get back to exercising.

 

[cjcocn]

Update on the fat kat.

Just hit a new low on the scale the other day, 286 lbs. I'm up a little bit since then because of a dehydration issue, but I'm always below 300 now.

My diabetes has been very well controlled as of late, with my glucose level at 87 this morning. That's actually a little low. Easy to fix.

The thing I was most surprised about was my bloodwork. Total cholesterol: 122 (<200), Good HDL: 34 (>35), Bad LDL: 61 (<130), Triglyceride: 133 (<150). The numbers in () are the "normal" levels. <= Less than.

Considering that I've been out of the woods and on my back since mid May, I'd say I'm still hanging in there pretty good. Can't wait to get back to exercising.

Kat

Didn't read anywhere about you being on your back. Sorry to hear that and hope things improve quickly for you.

Good stuff on the weight loss and numbers. I haven't been over 300 for a while (304 was the highest), but hovered around 295 for quite a while. It is good to start dropping the weight and gets even better down the road!

Keep it up and let us now how it is going. It is good for me to read about how everyone is doing and hopefully my posts in this thread will provide motivation for someone down the line.

 

[Meadow Beaver]

I wish I could gain weight

 

[BuddhaKat]

Kat

Didn't read anywhere about you being on your back. Sorry to hear that and hope things improve quickly for you.

Good stuff on the weight loss and numbers. I haven't been over 300 for a while (304 was the highest), but hovered around 295 for quite a while. It is good to start dropping the weight and gets even better down the road!

Keep it up and let us now how it is going. It is good for me to read about how everyone is doing and hopefully my posts in this thread will provide motivation for someone down the line.

Yeah, I've been down. In Nov 2007 I had a partial amputation of my right big toe. In the subsequent year and a half, the incision from that surgery never quite completely healed. Always a little bit left open. I was out chopping wood one day and got up the next morning to go out again. Went into the kitchen to get a pot of coffee brewing, turned around to go back and get dressed and I had blood spots all over the floor where I had walked. Split the incision open. I went to the doc and she sent me back to the surgeon. We decided to go ahead and take the rest of the toe off. I supported that decision. On May 27th I had the rest of the toe off. Well, things have gone downhill since. It's been very hard to get the incision to heal. Always leaking a clear fluid. Lots of fluid. A couple of weeks ago I had to have them go in and re-incise the original incision to get rid of dead tissue and to put in a different type of suture that provides a much tighter seal. That was pretty successful and I had the last of the sutures removed last Thursday. However, there is still fluid leaking from the wound. Actually, it seems to be leaking from two holes from one of the sutures.

The problem is, I have to stay off my feet for the healing to be effective. Yeah, that'll happen. But I have been very good at staying off them most of the time and wearing a special pressure relieving shoe the rest of the time. I'm making progress, but it's still not finished.

On the last surgery they cultured the inside of the toe cavity and it came back positive for a Staph infection. It's a common type of Staph that we all have but being under the skin might be the underlying issue. I'm seeing an Infectious Diseases specialist on Wednesday and he'll put me on a different antibiotic. We'll see what that does.

Yesterday I finally decided to put a dressing over the wound and put my boots back on and work around the house. At the end of the day I changed the dressing and was very surprised that the leakage had been held to a minimum. I think the pressure from the side of the boot helped keep the fluid away from the wound area. But it sure did tell me that I can get back into the woods and start cutting again.

 

[woodyman]

Won't give up beer,no way,no how.Right now I am a little over 6' tall and 180lbs. 10 more pounds than I was when I graduated high school in 1970,and people said I was thin then.I have always been active and eat like a pig,as the wife says.Bought a push mover just for exercise.When I go to a store I park as far as I can from the front door.I don't snack alot and drink alot of water during the week.I think some people just gain weight more than others or they are just lazy.Except for yard work my lazy time is summer ,I get most of my work done and exercise in the fall,winter and spring.I would like to win that 361 but I am not losing any weight.