# Medics for big dudes



## codeman2443 (Jun 4, 2015)

Ok so I'm 17 years old and I'm about 5 foot 6 inches and weigh 310 lbs. I really want to join a volunteer fire dept and get my emt certification then once I've been an active emt for 2 years go to school to become a paramedic at my local fire department. The thing I'm worried about is that I wont be able to lose enough weight by then. I've been working out and dieting and only lost about 10 lbs in a month and I get discoiraged hearIng about people losing 30 lbs a month. So say I got myself down to 200 in 2 years is a 200 lb guy too big to be a medic?


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## chaz90 (Jun 4, 2015)

Lose the weight now while you're young. Get into some good physical habits of exercise and diet control before you get into EMS. This career is absolutely terrible health wise. If you don't start out with good habits of bringing in healthy food from home for shift work and maintaining a consistent exercise schedule you'll likely quickly gain more weight and bad habits at work.

Moving humans as a career is horrible for your joints and back as well. Seriously, I cannot stress enough the importance of keeping excess weight off of yourself to avoid unnecessary wear and tear beyond what you're already going to endure on the job. 

You already know the platitudes about achieving a healthy weight and maintaining it, so I won't beat a dead horse for too long on that topic. Best advice is to make sure you make your own health and well being your number one priority. After you lose the weight then start looking into Fire or EMS if that's what you're interested in. Look for professional help and a support system if you need it, but the job will still be here for you after you take care of Priority Number One.


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## PotatoMedic (Jun 4, 2015)

Your doing fine with 10 pounds a month.  Any faster and your likely to rebound and gain it back.


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## squirrel15 (Jun 10, 2015)

codeman2443 said:


> Ok so I'm 17 years old and I'm about 5 foot 6 inches and weigh 310 lbs. I really want to join a volunteer fire dept and get my emt certification then once I've been an active emt for 2 years go to school to become a paramedic at my local fire department. The thing I'm worried about is that I wont be able to lose enough weight by then. I've been working out and dieting and only lost about 10 lbs in a month and I get discoiraged hearIng about people losing 30 lbs a month. So say I got myself down to 200 in 2 years is a 200 lb guy too big to be a medic?



Continue working on yourself, 200 lbs at 5'6 isn't that big, especially if you've made most of it muscle. Im 5'6 or 5'7 on a good day with the right slant, I hit 190 lbs and while I didn't feel great about myself, I wasnt to big for anything, except for long distance running at the time.


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