Farted myself to the moon....i've lost more weight then I weigh and a question

Ok, I've been waiting for this all week..... to lose that one lb which would throw me over the mid way point. This morning I got on the scale, and I've offically lost more weight then I currently weigh. Starting weight: 492 Today's weight: 245 Total loss: 247 To be honest it's kind of surreal....but a big FART for me. Scott OK off topic for a second (i might post this in a different post if i don't get any responses to it)....but I've been doing push ups and chest presses. Some butterfly weight exercises (not sure what they're called) and I'm wondering if anyone knows a type of weight lifting exercise that will improve the appearance of my lower chest. I still have moobies, and realize i might need a moobiectomy...lol...but in the mean time i'd like to improve the area as much as I can. Any ideas on how to improve the overall appearance of your chest area?

Congrats - you've lost a running back (!) That's a HUGE one. Lighting a match in your honor now !!! BRian

Scott, Congratulations on your loss. You're doing great! Losing more than your current weight is remarkable. I see you have started to do some strengthening exercises. You and I appear to be at the same point in re-building our muscles again. See my posting below this one. I think Dave and Carbonblob have given some sound advice for us novices to weight training. I plan on giving is a chance. As far as the sagging skin, I have it too; but I'm not too worried about it right now. I still have plenty of weight to lose. In the meantime I think that building muscle mass will make us healthier and help with the excess skin. May Your Lantern Burn Bright, Paul

way to go Scott! that's a huge fart in my book. i got just 3 pounds away from losing 1/2 my weight but that was not my goal. still kinda cool to lose half of yourself.....lol. as for the chest thing. Well, if you have a lot of loose skin there's not much hope for the moob thing. you'll just have a lot of muscle under the flab. same as having fat over muscle. frustrating, I know. You're actually doing great chest exercises. Keep doing the pec deck or flyes. that's what they're called and the push ups. also, if you have access to a dip machine those are good too but it will take a while before you can lift your own weight so there's ways to cheat that exercise. the best for under the chest is the decline press but that's kind of advanced. I like what you're doing now. go lighter on the flies and do more like 15-20 per set. that will help. In the end though is always comes down to body fat. the less you have, the more definition and tone you will have. I've lost a lot of weight for my size and even though my chest is developed, i have mini moobs! not nearly as bad as they were, some would say gone but i still see them. I think we're our own worst critic though. so concentrate on keeping the body fat down. I'm sure Dave will chime in with some excellent advice as always. post it again if he doesn't answer here......Carbonblob

Thanks everyone. Carbon, I've been working out really hard to try to get my body fat down. The last time I measured it (about a month ago) I was 33 percent body fat. I'm still doing 20-30 minutes of cardio, followed by some weight training. I vary the cardio, so I'm constantly working different parts of my body. For instance, today I did 10 minutes on the bike, and 10 minutes on the cross trainer, tommorrow I'll probably do 25 minutes on the step machine..etc. I've been doing 3 sets of 15 with a mid level weight (somethign that I can handle that almost brings me to failure but not quite), i'm afraid to pu**** more then that, because I injured my shoulder a few months ago and am still being "cautious" with anything too heavy. I do have access to the dipping machine, I tried it when I weighed 320 lbs, and it was too hard for me (the weight only weight up to 250 if i remember correctly), so now that I'm smaller, I think i'll try it again. Thanks again for your imput, I really do understand that I'm probably headed for plastics, but I want to go in with a good layer of mucles under the flab, that way when they pull the skin tight, I have good results at the end. I remember watching a documentary about a guy who had a male breast reduction, and after they did the reduction, he was smaller, but it still looked like he had breasts. I think a good layer of muscle will help prevent that. Scott

Scott, One of the ways to cheat the dips CB is talking about, that I use, is to step to the up position of the dip then lift your legs by bending your kness up and then lower yourself slowly. The lifting yourself part will develop as your muscles do and you get lighter. I use to do weights when I was younger. Then got away from it and jogging as the job got more white collar and the family grew. Bad choice on my part. Now since WLS, I am focusing on flys, curls, rows, side dumbbell pull ups, bench press, and militay press. I am also doing waist twists to impact the love handle flab and after situps (I'm all the way up to 25), I do a variation of leg lifts, knees together and bend up toward my chest and then back out and repeat without lowering (another 25 times so far). It really burns in the lower stomach/high groin area as I hope to minimize that serious flab collection point. Good luck, sounds like you are doing really good so far. CB and Dave are really good at this stuff and have the results to back it up. I haven't regained the results since losing it with the weight gain over 30 years of being a sluff. Oh and serious congrads on your loss and losing more than you weigh. Serious milestone of progress. My hat is off to you man. Joe

Congrats on that huge loss! Unbelievable, major loss that is! Actually, many serious lifters don't make the flat bench press their priority chest exercise. Dips are great for lower chest. I think Joe was saying step up on something and let yourself down slowly (negative dips****il you can actually lift your body weight up and down. Another one that many serious lifters prefer over the bench is incline *dumbell* presses. Be careful, though as the weight goes up. You can actually injure yourself trying to get the dumbell into position. I actually rigged two huge dumbells so that they are hanging the ceiling from a chain at just above chest leve. Good thing! The other day as I was lifting them, one fell off to the side, but the chain caught it and I let it back down to the start position. Chest flies are good, too after you have done the presses. I like to pre-exhaust the chest muscles with dumbell flies and then follow up with shrugs right away. I've made two chain handles for a barbell, so that the weight pulls at my shoulders from the sides, instead of from the bottom. It's a lesser known fact that shrugs work the upper pectorals, those tiny little muscles right below the collar bones. These shrugs also work the upper portion of the trapezius muscles much closer to neck than do regular barbell shrugs. Sorry for the rant and eccentricity, but hope this helps! Dave