Dear Veeky Forums, big fatguy here who is interested in parkour, but am fat...

Dear Veeky Forums, big fatguy here who is interested in parkour, but am fat. I'll list my physical stuff so you guys can tell me if I can still do it, and if so, what I should work on first to be able to do it.

Just turned 25

6'6" tall

400lbs (lost 20 or 30 pounds over the last year after getting a dietician and doing literally nothing but eating 4k or less calories a day)

No joint/back/muscle pains or hernias

Can barely do a few pushups, but no pull-ups. Besides that, I don't have any mobility problems. Squatting, crouching, jumping, running etc. is all ok, though I don't have much stamina.

No allergies or anything physically wrong with me besides high cholesterol and intermittent claudication (which I haven't noticed as much in the last month or so).


Is it gonna be forever a dream, or is it possible for a guy like me to do parkour with any proficiency? Assuming I put the work in.

I assume you mean after you shed a metric fuckton of weight right?

>6'6
LOLOLOLOLOLONDON

Yea, that's a given. I don't really know where to begin, but I don't want to be so overweight and feeling like I'm missing out on all the coolest shit because I'm too heavy for it. Went to Canada's Wonderland a couple years back and got kicked off every ride (including the ones NAMED Leviathan and Behemoth) except for like two of them. Started doing stairs a year or two ago and it was good for a week before I got surgery for ingrown toenails and got told not to do them until it was healed, then just got comfy on the couch again.

Yea, I'm tall. Later years are gonna be suck with back pain, but I'm fine for now.

Yeah. 6'0" 290 myself, down from 331 since the beginning of june.

Honestly m8, just count your calories in an app and start walking every day as much as you can without hurting yourself. At that size even walking can strain the joints, and be hard on the knees, but some exercise and really really make sure you maintain proper diet. Eventually you'll shed more weight and moving will get easier.

Personally I'm waiting until around 260-250 to hard switch from walking to jogging/running.

And yeah, I live within 15 miles of Kings Island in the States, and I haven't been in 2 years because I'm afraid I won't fit / am fat enough to break a harness.

I count my calories using the back of the boxes of shit I eat. My main problem eating-wise is that I mostly just eat frozen shit. I have pizza once a week and occasional takeout food besides, but it's mostly just frozen stuff like Stouffer's, Swansons, and Hungry Man. Which is why my cholesterol is so high and I know that. I live at home (was asked to, to help take care of bed-ridden old lady) and don't buy the food myself. I do have a job and my own money, I just don't buy food with it because I'm too lazy to walk to the store. Which I'm hoping to change by getting more active.

At the moment I eat 4k calories a day, sometimes a little more or less, which is down from the 6k I was at last year. I don't do any walking or anything besides what I do at work (I'm a bouncer/security guard, so I do a bit of walking at work but nothing exceptional).

I wanted to do the couch to 20k, and had even started doing it with a friend (again, got surgery at that time and ended up comfy). Is that something that should be ok for me? I get tired quickly, but I don't have any problems doing the jogging itself unless that claudication acts up. And even then I just sit for a minute or two and am fine. But say it does act up and I just ignore it until I finish the jon I'm on. Would that be beneficial or should I really just start slower with walks?

Also, what do I need to train to be able to do pull-ups? Or should I worry about those after I lose more weight?

Stop eating food with sugar, and not as much food in general. Go for a walk everyday.

Focus on one thing at a time. If you lose weight first you'll have to pull up less weight and then you'll be able to build muscle easier since you'll be able to do reps. Parkour basically has a requirement for amazing upper body strength since you'll be climbing around a lot.

Any specific amount? I was once told something like 10k steps a day or so, but I'm not sure if that's a big or small number when it comes to walking.

Yea, I know that much from watching videos of it. I there anything I can do to build body strength while losing weight, though? I know you said focus on one thing at a time, but couldn't I lift weights during rest-days from the jogging?

Go raw vegan for a month and you'll see fast results. Lets say you live 1000 months in your life, is it so hard to try for one of those months? Also just start moving, 1-2 hours a day, doesn't matter just move yourself. In the end it won' t matter what anyone says here, getting fit is 100℅ mind and willpower. Start today or you'll never will, TODAY. GO.

I am DEFINITELY not gonna live that long, being overweight, tall, and native (putting me at a higher risk for diabetes and shit). Plus my father just had a seizure and died when he was like 40 or 50 something. If Death's got an abacus, mine has a few less beads on it know'msayin'?

That aside, I don't actually know how to eat raw vegan and maintain balanced nutrition. Granted frozen dinners aren't balanced nutrition either, but I need to make changes that I can maintain. "Vegan for one month" is going to help me if I'm just itching to get outta veggieville and back to junk. Might even make things worse if I overeat because I'm just glad to be back to good tasting foods again.

I've got will power for exercise. I was enjoying it both the last times I started it, but got surgery and got comfy. I won't have issues once I start again, in theory, I just need to know what's best.

Proper diet will do wonders more for you than exercise ever will, not that getting some level of exercise isn't important too.

Also, you said you were eating 4000 calories a day. My quick plug in to a TDEE Calculator says that if your activity is mostly sedentary, your TDEE is around 3500 calories.

My advice, is to continue walking as much as you can, and cut down to about 2750 or even 2500 calories a day, you have enough mass yo justify a -1000 defecit

It might've gone down from when I started the study I'm in, when I was 430 or so. But I did get my numbers from a dietitian. She said 3500 was about good for me if I wanted less and I definitely shouldn't go below 2.5k. I've steadily lost weight on 4k, and I could probably do 3.5k. But there's no way I'll be able to cut it to 2750. Not least of which because I don't know what foods are filling but only pack about 550 calories per sitting (eating every 4 hours).

I know the basics of eating healthy. Adding ground Flaxseed to food and watch out for shit with high sodium and/or transfats, but I don't know what exactly will make me feel full but also have some variety to it so that I'm not just eating the same shit all the time since I'll never be able to sustain that.

You should recalculate your TDEE every 5 pounds lost. Otherwise you are slowing your own progress.

Is part of this study eating every 4 hours or is that just what you're doing/accustomed too?

Oh naw, the study was some new type of insulin. When I started the study I was prediabetic, and they wanted to test it because one of the side effects was appetite suppressing. My dietitian said I should eat every 4 hours to keep metabolism going rather than just eating one or two large meals a day.

Parkour is not exactly a sport that you can pick up. Hear me out: The thing is that there are no (qualified) parkour coaches that knew their physiology and training methods etc. Most people who do parkour started out as gymnasts, and were daredevils enough to just try it out "without the safety net". Granted, this is more true for freerun than for parkour, but still - most parkourists are people who have been doing sports since a very small age and are regularly unafraid of anything.

So my point is, that this is a sport where the learning method is basically trial and error to some extent. Thus, injuries will be commonplace (they're common in any sport, so this makes it extremely "dangerous" in a way), because most of the time you will not even be able to tell whether you're doing something wrong till you break/pull something or otherwise injure yourself. You would be much better off with something that you can learn in a safe(r) environment.

Final thought: you're pretty late to the party but not everything is lost yet. But you do have do shed half of your mass because with your gravity well, you will not be able to practice ANY sports without absolutely fucking yourself up. Well, maybe swimming.

If insulin is a problem then condensing all calories into one meal is probably a bad Idea.

But having to eat every 4 hours isn't necessary really.

Foods that make you feel full while not being ridiculously calorie rich, Chicken Breast comes to mind. This would require you to learn how to cook, and buy your own food.

Seriously though, use the TDEE Calculator in the sticky, and then lop 500-1000 calories off the result, and you have what you should be eating daily to lose weight.

As far as not being able to make it at 2750 calories, I know you're much bigger than I am and accustomed to eating more, but it really is important to make that work.

And it's not impossible. My TDEE with my level of activity is about 3200. I've been cutting at around 1800 calories a day.

Breakfast: instant oatmeal made with 2/3 cup milk- 245 calories.

Lunch: 2 slice of whole wheat bread
2 servings of turkey breast
Slice of provolone
1 tbsp of mayo
365 calories

Dinner: whatever the fuck I feel like as long as I don't fuck my cut and stay reasonably within my macros.

Usually comes out to 1000 calories or so.

Also have a snack of 1oz of peanuts if I get cravings throughout the day.

I never really feel hungry and it works. These are just examples for me, though I highly reccomend oatmeal for breakfsst, does wonders to keep you full.

One of my goals for when I started weight loss was being able to do that Russian cossack dance and finally after 30kg and a shit load of flexibility I can finally do it
Go for it bruv, keep that goal in mind for all your time spent cutting

I've been interested in parkour ever since I first saw someone doing it, but I always just thought I'd never be able to do it because of my size. I may not be able to do it competitively if that's a thing, but I want to be able to do at least some of it. I'm not so worried about injuries in the process of learning, not that I'm rushing to just wreck my shit either. I'll be careful and just accept injuries as they come.

Yea, shedding mass is something I need to do for probably half a dozen reasons. Memberships to gyms are expensive, but I could probably get one for a pool pretty easy.

It's not anymore, I'm not prediabetic anymore and know how to avoid becoming prediabetic again.

That's what I'm saying is I don't know what foods are filling but aren't calorie or carb monsters. I could learn how to cook, since I have in the past.

That 2500 stuff is crazy. That's 1250 calories per meal if I only eat twice a day, and currently that's about how much I eat three times a day now. I get you mean "eat something with less calories" but on paper it sounds like you're just saying "cut an entire meal out of what you eat now," which is already two thirds of what I was eating before. I *still* overeat sometimes now, let alone dropping an entire 1.5k off of my diet. 3500 seems manageable, and I can probably sustain that if I work on it. 2500 just sounds flat-out impossible where I'm at now.

Like, what you list as eating for breakfast and lunch individually wouldn't even stop me from feeling hungry for that meal if I doubled it. Maybe if I added a bunch of fruit or something after the double...

I'll try the oatmeal thing. Also, I don't mean to keep saying this like it's an excuse, but my dietitian told me that 2.5k would be like the bare minimum before I'm not eating enough to sustain someone my size. I'm gonna cut some, but 2.5-2.7k just seems like way too much for me to handle.

Yea, I will. I'm just trying to make sure I don't go overboard.

>Memberships to gyms are expensive

Jesus christ if you are a 400 lbs lardass you are already literally spending 10 times the amount of a gym membership on your shitty food. Stop making stupid fucking excuses

Go on keto. It helps guys your size. I went from 3k and always hungry to 1k and never hungry.

Go on keto. After you're done cutting do whatever.

I already said earlier that I don't currently buy my own food. I did go to a few gyms in my area though to check them out, and they all pretty much try to steamroll you into committing to a year without assessing how you think you're going to feel in a year from when you walk in. "Look, it's only 24.95 a month if you settle into a year long commitment. I can give you 15 a month if you sign on for three years! That's dirt cheap!" It's like you need to talk them into being aware that you know there's a chance you won't want to work out for an entire year and you know they have prices for one month. Every single one of them came back like "If you don't want something in the book (all at least year-long stuff), then you're going to need to pay about $120 for one month."

It's seriously fork over $300 dollars over a year or 5 months worth of membership for one month.

Keto?

Don't they have daily prices?

You are supposed to feel hungry when losing weight. Not every meal should sate you.

No, I had to get ALL of them to go run numbers from some source that wasn't in the binders we saw. They bank on you having the urge to get better for maybe like a week or two, finding out that working out, working, and doing other things you like takes up too much time and it's easier to be lazy, and then bailing out while still committed to paying however long you agreed to. If they agreed to only let you pay for days you actually use the place, they'd go broke unless it was something like $40 - $100 until they closed for that day.

That doesn't sound healthy... I mean like, overeating isn't either, but I can currently eat enough to not be hungry and still lose weight. Isn't that just accelerating way too fast?

>ITT: OP's obviously not going to make it
It is painful to read..

Go to the gym and follow a beginner routine while losing roughly 1% of your BW a week. Switch up your routine and start doing pull ups/negatives once you're below 300lbs. When you're around 200lbs get surgery to remove excess skin.

Congratulations, you've probably made it by now. Enjoy your huge-ass calves and forearms.

This will roughly take 1.5-2 years and some motivation. If you can't afford a gym find a way to afford it.