How'd you get burns on your hands?

Don't steroids make that frumpiness you speak of after losing muscle even worse than it would have been without them? And I don't mean because you have more muscle mass when you use steroids. That's just something I heard about once, that something about what steroids do to your body significantly worsens that effect.

Would doing aerobic exercises while not lifting weights keep that muscle-to-fat thing from happening? I would imagine so, since it would continually burn off the fat that the waning muscle turns into. Right?

Man we've discussed it before on the forums, but what you're doing is really amazing... I've went from 261 pounds back in january to 196 right now, so I know the feeling...

One thing though, try to make your "new diet" a life style you can maintain (with the occasionnal treat here and there), because otherwise you'll gain the weight back as soon as for whatever reason you won't be able to workout for a little while. Try to find meals/food that you like enough to keep in your diet that are healthy. I know I became a great fan of plain yugurt, milkshakes for breakfast/lunch, etc. I also found low-calories dressings for my salads, learnt ways to make those salads interesting and not a chore (I love using spinach instead of lettuce, for one), etc.

Oh, and whenever you hit one of those weight plateaus, take some of your old clothes and put them on. It'll show you all the way you've went through already, and bring some motivation... then head to the gym and give it a boost, LOTS of cardio, try new exercises you see people doing in the gym, etc.

Oh, and and of course, remember how easy it'll be to have your ways around women when youre comfortable with yourself. That's probably been my main motivation.

Keep it up!

i can definitely relate to the need to keep up with the weights

keep up the good work.

"One thing though, try to make your "new diet" a life style you can maintain (with the occasionnal treat here and there"

That is exactly what I am doing. The diet I am on isnt really a diet I am on; its a lifestyle change for me. I have always been a big kid, I owe that mostly to genetics (I was 11 pounds at birth lol) but also because I ate large servings. I was health growing up, but large. Then I went to college, where I ate the same quantity of food only 10x unhealthy. Add alcohol, and you gotta a recipe for disaster.

So anyway, my new diet is something I can stick with no problem, and its why I've lost so much weight. The only problem is I have to plan ahead, but thats not so bad...just gotta remember to take lunch and a piece of fruit to snack on later. As a former cook, its definately a perk being able to make all kinds of different salads; a lowfat chicken caesar here, or greek with cucumber, olive, and tomato there...it goes on.

As for my hands JP, its a combination of things. It was my first day at work and we use this chemical santizer, and its really dried out my hands. Then I wore these rubber gloves which pruned my hands up, essentially causing all but the last layer of skin on my hands to fall off. Then my ha nd would dry and crack. So I had to wait a few weeks for the skin to grow back. I went through 3 tall bottles of lotion during that time lol.

Glad to hear your hands are okay again. I hope you could use them, don't know what I would do with damaged hands. Can't train, can't work, can't game, can't even wipe your ass f.g.s... Guess I'd see plenty of movies and hire JP to wipe my bum for me. Lol, kidding, J.

I've never been an amazing athlete, but fortunately I don't have the "muscles turn into fat"-problem. My muscle tissue just disappears if I don't train. Like it's doing right now, damn it. It's harder to combine work with pumping iron than I thought. I'm still fairly strong, not as strong as you of course, because you are probably half man/ half bear or something, but the volume is gone.

I hope you succeed in your endevour, brother.