Do your self a favor and get well under the weight limit man. I can’t speak specifically for the army as I was in the Marine Corps., but our drill instructors hated the over weight recruits. They had the worst time by far out of all of the recruits in my platoon. The Drill Instructors spend the majority of their time trying to break the fat ones and your platoon will hate you because the instructors will take out your failings on them.
Maximize your PFT or whatever the army calls it and make sure you will LOOK good in a uniform. If you are struggling now to maintain a certain waist to neck ratio what do you think is going to happen a year into your enlistment when you do your annual or semi annual tests? I’ll save you the suspense you will hate being in teh army like every other heavy set person I knew while on active duty.
As a side note I think losing the weight you have and wanting to join is admirable. Keep fighting for what YOU want. I’d rather have a guy that has struggled through and overcome adversity than a guy that has never faced adversity in my fox hole 10/10 times.
[quote]gregron wrote:
Have you actually figured out how long you will be in the Delayed Entry Pogram (DEP) once you sign up? When I enlisted I was in DEP and waiting for 9 months before shipping off to boot camp.
You’re probably not going to sign up and then leave the next week… Just something to consider.[/quote]
He has a 43" waist. The issue isn’t whether he can diet down in a few months. The issue is whether he can be that depleted and THEN go through some of the most stressful periods of his life. In that condition, I would give this at least 6 months to a year just to get half way ready for this. If he was already down to a 40" waist or less AND well trained, then I could see him being just a couple of months out from MEPS.[/quote]
Another problem X is the recruiters don’t care about the quality of the recruits they send, but their quota. That’s why this kid needs to be ready for himself, by his standards, not the recruiters.
I agree with a lot of people here if you were in my platoon I would be pissed. At Basic its about the team and the team is only as strong as its weakest member. You would be bringing everyone down until you could get in shape. Not to seem attacking but if you do pass meps get your ship date scheduled for a far time from now so you can get in shape. This way you will have more respect and I wouldn’t have to be helping you every two seconds and lugging your crap around so the platoon doesn’t get punished. I recommend getting your cardio up. Your run everywhere you go there is no walking. Then get on a good program that is proven and work that till you leave. There are lots on this website to pick from. But also as important is keeping a clean good diet. my .02
Another thing to mention if you’re trying to get down to 26% by the taping standards just to enlist you should realize to make it out of basic and to stay in the military its 22% by the tape. Like others have said as well you don’t want to be the fat recruit.
Thanks to those that have continued to post in this, I havent checked it in awhile being as I’ve been more focused on doing the work than actually reading about the work. It’s been going pretty well, and while I’ve only dropped about 2 lbs my pants are down to 35 and my actual waist is down to 40" on the dot.
I dont plan to quit and run off and join just yet, though I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about getting the actual weight loss started again, or should I just be happy with the strength gains and the measurements going down?
All else aside, to me this is probably one of the most important things said. Ive been there done that, and its amazing how much fat you have to drop to make progress in your love handles.
Good luck.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]Almack9 wrote:
I’m not in as bad of shape as it sounds, really I’m not. I can pass the PT test, I just carry nearly all of my fat in my love handle area. I will never be able to get low enough to meet their weight requirements because my build is just too large. If I could get below 200 with exercise I would be surprised.[/quote]
I know you will take this the wrong way, but you do seem to have a distorted view of your current shape if those numbers are correct. You can probably expect to have to lose 30-40lbs just to get your waist to 40". It is going to be very difficult to get through basic if for no other reason than how depleted you would already be from trying to drop that much more weight right before.
But hey, what do I know.
Post a picture. My guess is your “build” isn’t too large. Your waist is…and that means you are carrying too much fat all over.[/quote]