Weight Management

Getting back on the losing train

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

The goal for 2014 was to be less fat. Check that, it still is to be less fat.

I’ve tried to go down this road numerous times, with varying degrees of success — but really, it’s all failure because I haven’t STAYED there. In fact, right now I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been: 265# (more or less). I don’t know my precise bodyfat measure, but if you Google around for body fat estimation pictures, I’m at least 30% body fat. Let’s do some math. That means I’m 185# at 0% body fat, which is unrealistic but it’s math good to know because assuming I maintain that lean body mass, then a 15% bodyfat would be about 215 pounds. 15% body fat is a good goal for me to start with and folks… that’s a 50# difference.

Put it this way. You go to the gym, and those big plates? The 45# plates? Lug one of those around for a while… I’m wanting to lose a little more than that. I have a little more than that just sitting on my body, weighing me down, stressing my body, my joints, and everything. And that, to me, just sucks. I also get stupid and think about how if I do decide to compete in powerlifting, that’s dropping down 2 weight classes (vs. being in the 275# class when I’m not a guy lugging around 275# worth of muscle). So yeah, I’m tired of it.

I’m tired of being fat. I’m tired of all the downsides it brings. I don’t want a flat stomach because “abz” aren’t a priority, but I do want the ability to carry things on the front of my belt, like AIWB. I want my clothing to not fit me because of muscle, not fat. Yeah, there’s vanity. But there’s also a desire to accept that my 40-something body is only getting older, going to fall apart more, and I have to change a lot of habits to help me manage this “over the hill” thing so I can still kick ass when I’m 70 years old, like Sonny:

The diet has always been my struggle. I eat to manage stress, to find comfort, escape, joy, whatever. All the things I’ve tried, I can manage somewhat, but there’s always some piece of the puzzle I’m missing. I’ve come to accept I cannot do this alone, and that having a coach, someone to direct me, to kick my ass when I need it, to be there to answer questions — well, I stress the value and importance of this in every other aspect of life, so why should it be any different here? It may not work, but at this point, it’s well worth trying.

As I’ve mentioned in some prior posts, I’m trying out the guys at Renaissance Periodization. At this point I’m doing a 6-month plan with them. I’ll talk more about this as I go along, because it’s going to be a journey. But so far, it seems like a lot of stuff I already knew, just well-structured and in a manner that I think should be more consumable with less information overload. We’ll see how it goes.

The other thing is how my lifting will go.

Since the primary goal is fat loss, I know that strength and muscle mass will be lost as well. I want to minimize this, so it seems the best recommended path for me to take is one that builds muscle mass. While a strict bodybuilder approach isn’t what I want right now, because strength is still more important to me, that philosophy is certainly there. So, I’m going to give Paul Carter’s Basebuilding a go. Philosophically it seems the right thing to do. I don’t know how well it will work on the restricted diet, but then I’m willing to adjust and adapt as I go along. I believe I read somewhere that Paul said BBing works out well in a diet phase since you can just adjust your weights (downward) and keep going. I just have to remind myself that the key isn’t to focus on the numeric value of the weight as much as it is ensuring I work to preserve strength and muscle mass. It’s the work I do, not the weight I lift.

The other thing? I have to do cardio. 3x a week I’m in the gym lifting. On my non-lifting days, I have to walk for an hour. That’s part of RP’s plan. Ugh…. not my favorite thing to do. But, I will say for a while there I kinda dealt with it because I listened to podcasts while I was walking and I kinda miss listening to them. So this will be useful. I may try just simple reading too as my reading list is backing up.

RP wants a semi-weekly weigh-in, so the plan is to weigh myself on Sunday and Wednesday. I will also take periodic pictures, probably just on Sunday. I debate posting the pictures. Part of me doesn’t want to because I’m sure you don’t want to see me half-naked, nor do I feel like sharing my half-naked self with the world. But I think about it — that’s in part because I do not like how I look. But 50# from now? Yeah, I’m sure I’ll like it more and be kinda happy to run around with my shirt off. So I dunno… part of me thinks that the public shaming and accountability it would create for myself would be good for me. Plus, look at a guy like John Stone and his pictures. If that’s not some level of inspiration…

So… here we go…. voyaging down this road again.

2014-08-01 training log

/ hsoi

No gym today.

I’m officially starting with Renaissance Periodization. Paid my money for 6 months of diet protocol.

Yeah… 6 months. I reckon I’ve probably got 50# to drop, at least.

Today, day off. Rest up. Work and personal life will be kinda crazy and stressful the next few days, so I figured more rest and reduction/removal of anything stressful that I could (including lifting) would be good.

Next week… Monday I’m going to test squat and deadlift. Wednesday I’ll test bench. And then after that, whenever the RP stuff is ready to go, I’ve done the needed shopping to get started, etc….. well… then I start.

Lifting will be bodybuilder style. I actually may start off with basebuilding, but that may be too much for the diet. Still, I’ll stick with it as long as I can, then transition to bodybuilding style if it’s just too much. The goal is fat loss, and the lifting direction will be to support that.

Here we go!

Diet frustration

/ hsoi / 25 Comments

Frustration is where I’m at right now.

*sigh*

I haven’t been losing. I’ve been eating an unpleasant, unsatisfying diet. Not that CarbNite Solution is a shitty program, but rather I’ve got to force myself to eat particular things, and mostly not eat a lot of particular things. And the shit is getting old.

I could deal with it if I was seeing progress, but I’m not.

I was, but even then it was an unsteady progress.

I know my strength will go down. I know I’ll lose a bit of muscle mass. And I can live with that, if I also see myself losing the flab.

But I’m not.

One thing may have been a reduction in activity, due to my ankle injury. Thankfully that’s healing pretty well (probably a few more weeks before I’m ready to really get back to working hard with it), and I am ramping things up. And finding things like kettlebell swings I hope will be helping me too. I’m going to keep working my way up with those and try to jack up the intensity even further. I hate slow “steady state” cardio, so it’s gotta be HIIT-style stuff. I’ll get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I didn’t get this gut overnight either.

I know all of this. I’m dedicated to shedding this flab, and I won’t give up even tho I’m frustrated as hell.

But when things aren’t working, you can’t keep doing the same thing. You have to change something.

Right now the best I can think of? I’m eating too much. I overestimated what I needed and/or started eating too much because I was trying to follow the vague protocols outlined in these dietary programs, but I just need to adjust it more downwards for me. I sit behind a computer all day, I’m getting older, etc. and so I probably need more adjustment.

I did a little math. I may not remember the exact numbers here, but you should get the point.

A popular CarbNite thing to do is have morning coffee with cream. The intent of the cream gives you fat, but also helps you stave off hunger. I am not a coffee drinker, but I started drinking it just because of the protocol. I also was having a steady stream of breakfast as 6 scrambled eggs and 2-3 of these Purnell’s Old Folks Sausage. I mean, gotta have fat, right? Well, in doing this I discovered a few things: 1. overall my macros profile did seem to be about right for the whole day, but it was very front-loaded on the fat (as you can see); 2. that’s a lot of fat.

Here’s where it started to dawn on me.

One of those sausage patties? like 110 calories. 10g of fat, 4g protein. Multiply that by 3. The cream? I don’t recall the exact values I was using, but there was like 5-10g of fat in the cream I was using. And the eggs…. 30g fat. When you do the math, sure that gets the fat I’m supposedly supposed to get, but it’s still a lot of calories.

I made a small change. I went to 1 sausage patty, skip the coffee, and now have 3 whole eggs and 3 whites. That dropped me like 450 calories right there!

Now granted, fat is important to consume on keto-style diets. But the problem I keep reading is, no one tells you how much. It’s all rather vague (probably good from a liability and legal standpoint; but not so useful to the dieter). But look right there. I bought into the “eat fat” and boom… that’s a damn lot of fat. Because in many respects, calories in calories out still matters.

So this is what I’m doing, cleaning things up. It’s too soon to say if it’s made any difference, but it’s the change I’m making.

I think another thing I have to accept is something I read from Paul Carter. That you just have to accept you will be hungry. Deal with it. So many of the “low/no-carb” guys talk about eating to control hunger, but I think given my past history, that may have been part of the mistake. I just have to deal with being hungry at times.

But to help me further?

I got the MyFitnessPal app and am going to track all my eating with it. I’m not really thrilled to do it. It feels weird, wrong, unnatural. I should just eat, not keep tedious records of all my eating. But, if it’s going to help. if it’s going to keep me on track, and ensure I don’t slowly creep up, things don’t creep in, and that I just keep things managed well…. that’s good. And if it also helps me remember to keep adjusting downwards as I drop weight well, that’s good too.

So, this is what I will try now and see where it gets me.

Fingers crossed.

Training log – so what IS next?

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

After looking back on 2013, now it’s time to look forward to 2014.

While I’m thrilled with hitting 1000# total and a 315/245/440 on my lifts, I’m not thrilled with all that it took to get there.

Gaining weight.

And not the good weight either.

I presently weigh 250#. It’s the most I’ve ever weighed in my life. I wish it was all muscle, but alas I’ve got a nice layer of flab over my entire body, and I’ve got a visible gut. I’m estimating 30% body fat, but that’s just based on some basic measurements and looking in the mirror comparing to some charts I’ve found online. Really, it doesn’t matter what the specifics are because the bottom line is…

I hate it.

I hate how it feels. I hate how it makes me feel. I hate the difficulties it brings. I hate that it stresses my body in ways that it doesn’t need stress. And yes, I hate how I look, even with clothing on, because I just do not like seeing that gut sticking out. I want my shirt to hang from my pecs, not rest on my tummy.

Yeah I know, I’m not all that bad compared to a lot of people. But this isn’t about them, this is about me. And this is not where I want to be. It was a means to an end, and I sure learned a lot in getting to this point. Now it’s time to learn more in going the other way.

So my next goal? Losing fat. Not weight, per se, because I really don’t want to lose muscle (tho I know I will). I want to drop fat.

Exactly how much? I don’t know. It’s not as much about scale weight as it is about how I look and how my clothing fits. I don’t need to get bodybuilder ripped or anything, typical pictures of someone with 12-15% body fat looks good to me. So doing some rough numbers, I figure 40# is a good number to initially target. Again, tho it really isn’t about the numbers, having numbers helps when figuring things out.

How To Get There

I tried Carb Back-Loading in the past, and I’ve also looked at Carb Nite Solution. I’ve read on things like the Renegade Diet, Anabolic Diet, Carb Cycling, Shelby Starnes’ stuff, various Paleo-things. You name it. I’ve looked at all sorts of things. And when you get down to it, it all tends to be similar enough: high protein, “high” fat, (almost) no carb. Stick with it for a while and it’ll work. Carbs are evil, protein and fat are not. Well, carbs aren’t totally evil, but for what I’m doing, carbs are what I do not want.

So what am I doing?

Well, I actually stumbled into Harry Selkow’s version of the caveman diet. It’s a pretty simple protocol. It’s 3, 2-week phases (6 weeks total). Breaks down like this:

Phase 1 – only food you can eat is food that has, or will have, a face (so meat and eggs). Can only drink water. No carbs, period.

Phase 2 – add dark green leafies (spinach, kale, dark romaine, chard, etc.).

Phase 3 – can add all the colors of veggies, and local seasonal fruit after 5 PM.

You don’t count calories. You just eat. If you’re hungry, eat until satisfied. Tho I will say, given some stuff I read from Shelby Starnes about doing very-low carb diets, it seems like if I want to target something, 300g protein and 100g fat per day is a reasonable place for someone like me to start. I do think I keep that somewhat in mind as I eat so I can ensure I am eating enough (even if I have to force it) but not eating too much. There’s more to it than that, but that’s the basic idea. It’s not only there to put you into the physical state of ketosis and get your body burning off that fat while keeping protein pretty high to avoid muscle loss (tho there will be some muscle and strength loss), but it’s also a huge mental component. There’s a discipline aspect, which is critical to any diet success.

And really, regardless of protocol, just about every ultra-low-carb diet starts out with this 7-14 day “recalibration” phase. There’s minor variation in what you do, but it’s all essentially the same. So, protocol doesn’t matter as much as just getting the carbs out and getting into ketosis.

Thing is, as you read this, I’ve already been on it. The day I deadlifted the 440 and got my 1000# total? I started immediately onto Selkow’s protocol. However, after 5 days on it, I had to change gears. In short, the complete lack of fiber becomes um… difficult. I’ve got some medical issues that ultimately all of this isn’t meshing with, so I had to stop for my health. But, all I did was change to CarbNite Solution.

Carb Nite Solution was the protocol I was originally considering, so I don’t feel all that horrible. And again, the first 10 days of CNS are all about ultra-low-carb, so I’m essentially on track. I can just add in fibrous veggies, which is a good thing! CNS has a lot of success stories, and I intend to be another one.

I will say, doing the no-carb thing isn’t as bad thing time around as it was some months ago. I know a lot more, I can manage hunger better, there are better recipes to work with, Wife’s changed a few dietary things herself which impacts what foods we have and eat around the house. And the biggest thing is I’m squarely motivated to drop the weight, which helps with the discipline part of things.

As for exercise, that won’t change much. I’m not going to be bumping up cardio or anything like that. I’m just going to keep lifting same as I have. I am still doing the math on things, but I’m considering resetting my weights (now that I have some true 1RM’s), recalculating all my percentages, and going from there. I mean, keep working hard, lifting as I have, but acknowledge I’m going to lose some strength. So if dropping my weights helps me be a little more in the “mass building” range, helps me get more reps which means more ability to focus on technique, and dovetails with the unavoidable strength loss well… yeah, that might be the way to go. Still figuring.

And will I report?

Yeah. I figure some logging of my progress will happen. Pictures? Well, I am taking pictures of myself, but I’m not sure I’ll share those. It feels a little too personal. So I’m not expecting to share pictures as I go along, but… I wouldn’t be surprised if when I got to the end I shared a “before” and “after”. 🙂

Other Goals?

The body recomp, the fat loss, that’s my main goal. Whatever it takes to get there. But I would expect I should be able to get there before the end of 2014. Frankly tho, I’d like to get there before spring/summer.

After that, we’ll see. I’m sure I’ll pick up on carbs some and try to rebuild my strength and muscle mass.

I keep having thoughts about competing in a powerlifting competition, but that isn’t something I’m counting on because I want my focus to be not on bar numbers but on scale numbers, y’know? Still, right now I’d have to lift in the 275# class. To lift in the 220# class would be nicer. 🙂 Yeah, that sorta sits as some motivation on this too. I just don’t want to focus too much on this thought tho, because I don’t want to have conflicting goals. The fat loss has to be my focus.

I want to look good in some tighter Under Armor t-shirts I have. I want my shirt to hang from my pecs, not rest on my belly. I want to have a flat enough stomach so I can carry AIWB. I want to drop weight that is doing nothing but adding stress to my ankle and knee joints. And hey, what positive effect will it have on my ability to do pull/chin-ups?

Onwards.

Random nutritional things

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

So I’m doing the Carb Back-Loading thing.

I’ve only begun so it’s going to be weeks or months before I can really say much about it. But here’s what I can say right now.

Caffeine

Wow. There’s a lot of caffeine on this program. I’m not anti-caffeine, but I also have tried to minimize it in my life just because I haven’t had reason to ingest it. Plus if I wanted the “alertness” affects to really take hold when I need them, better in my mind to not build up a tolerance so that if I’m driving late and need a “5 hour energy shot” to get me through, it’ll work out.

So I’m just taking some caffeine pills to help out, per Kiefer’s dosing. I should note part of my (extra) reasoning for this is because I train in the morning, and caffeine becomes a necessary part of that approach. But when I dose, well.. first few days I tried the higher-end of the range, and found that as the day wore on I got really… out of whack. So now I’m trying to lower-end of his suggested ranges and we’ll see how that goes. Perhaps over time I might have to increase the dose, but I can do that then because obviously I presently don’t have the tolerance for it (thought I did, I was wrong).

BTW, I have been using some caffeine pills/tablets that I bought at Walgreens. I just put in an order with TrueNutrition.com and am getting caffeine anhydrous in 200mg capsules. The powder should work better (given what Kiefer recommends) and this is FAR cheaper — Walgreens was 100 count 200mg tablets for about $10; TN is 120 count 200mg capsules for $3.50.

Morning Workouts

Because I work out in the morning, I have to change protocol a little bit. But it seems only a slight change, which is fine. I haven’t noticed a horrible feel or change in stuff in terms of going into workouts with an empty stomach. I’ve played with this on and off for many many months, trying to generally err on an empty(er) stomach. First, too much food and I’d just feel bad. So try something light, a little sugar, maybe a pre-workout like TN’s Buzz Saw. But now, it’s nothing… well, just some caffeine. Not feeling any adverse effects, but it seems to require that I do in fact ensure a good loading the night before, which is fine.

So far, so good.

Fish Oil

I ended up reading more on fish oil, because I knew not all was created equal. I ended up learning about Meg-3. Someone said that Meg-3 is to fish oil what CreaPure is to creatine.

The fish oil we get tends to vary depending where and when Wife grocery shops. I’m going to ask her to stop and buy only on Meg-3 based brands. Not too hard, given Meg-3 sources to folks like Wal-Mart/Sams, Costco, and so on.

But hey… I contacted TrueNutrition and asked, and their fish oil is Meg-3. Again, it’s a price issue. Their fish oil softgels are 1000 count for $25, whereas anything I buy in the store is a LOT less quantity for a lot more money. I think the Sams “Simply Right” runs like $20 for 150 or so. Again, TN wins on quality AND price.

Yeah I know… this is reading like a shill for TrueNutrition. I’m not on their payroll, just 1. satisfied customer, 2. it’s simple math, folks.

Coconut Oil

Medium-Chain Triglycerides are a part of CBL, so coconut oil it is. I had no idea coconut oil was solid at room temperature. 🙂

But it tastes really nice. Like a subtle buttery coconut. It’s kinda neat.

One thing I’m doing to help consume it is to use a metal measuring spoon. Run warm water over the spoon, then scoop the oil out of the jar – the warm spoon helps to scoop oil into and release oil out of the spoon. Since I’m not putting the oil into coffee, just mixing with my water and whey, I’ll heat it up in the microwave for 10-20 seconds to melt/liquefy it, then drink up. It’s really not bad at all. I know there are liquid MCT’s out there, but this is kinda fun for now.

I’d like to look into full-fat coconut milk too. But here I’m a bit at the mercy of Wife’s grocery shopping.

Lifestyle Impacts

I think one of the cool things about this is that it’s actually fitting into my general life better than any other plan I’ve worked with in the past. In my case, it’s a combination of just my personal life but more so my family life.

Before, anything I attempted would really impact the rest of the family. If we went out to dinner, Dad’s needs had to be taken into account. If Wife was cooking dinner, what did Dad need. When grocery shopping, what does Dad need? etc.. There was a lot of special-casing on Dad. And while I’d often tell Wife to just make whatever and I would make due since I was the exception, still, it wasn’t always enjoyable and often became difficult to manage. It’d just be another factor in the failure.

But with CBL, this looks like it could work out and blend better.

First, most of the “meals” from waking up until dinner aren’t that much of meals (at least, given my early morning workout approach). I do a lot of supplementation, whey and shakes, caffeine, simple snacks like almonds, and so on. My lunch? In a lot of respects, it’s not much different than what I’ve been taking to work already. Yeah sure, maybe not taking leftovers so much now, but it’s fairly straightforward: about 8 oz of “plain meat” and then a bunch of fibrous veggies. That’s really simple to make, to assemble when I’m trying to get out the door, and so on. In fact, one thing I can try to get better about might be something like grilling 3-4# of chicken breasts on Sunday and then I’ve got lunch meat for the week. Couple that with some bagged salads or whatever fun might come in our weekly CSA veggie box, maybe something different from time to time, but overall, there we go. Simple.

The better part comes with dinner. Now Dad doesn’t need to be special-cased so much. The other night Wife made home-made pizza (make the crust dough herself, etc.). Sure she piled on the meaty toppings special for me, but she was able to make pizza instead of me saying “no, can’t have it”. Dad can just eat with everyone else. It’s really wonderful and fits so much better into the household.

So CBL has this going for it. It isn’t so much “work” to make it go, and it fits better into the rhythm of the household. Chances are better.

Questions

I’ve got a bunch of questions about CBL. Biggest of which is the ratios. I mean, if I’m reading the “amount of carbs” to get table correctly, am I really supposed to take in 800g of carbs!?!? Holy crap that seems crazy. I hope I’m reading things wrong.  There’s a forum specifically for this stuff, and I’ve registered but am still waiting on activation.

Supplemental Details

There are numerous “shakes” that one is to take during CBL to make things go, since CBL is all about manipulation of insulin levels. So I’m working on my shopping list from TrueNutrition.com for things like leucine, hydrolysates, etc..  Right now I’m keeping it fairly simple, e.g. using whey isolate for all the protein needs. So we’ll see what difference things make once I can follow the formulas precisely.

Overall

I’ve only been doing CBL for a little while now, so the jury is still out.

So far, it’s alright. Yes, the mornings can be a little tough. I still need to experiment to see what I can do about improving on hunger. Even eating well at lunch and having some sort of afternoon snack… it’s hard to get through to evening. Every day gets a little better, but it’s still hard. I’ll get there tho. Really, this has a fair chance of success given how it does work pretty well into the lifestyle.

Time will tell.

12, really 22, to go

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

So I’ve been trying to shed weight.

Not just to remove the unsexy love handles, but lack of belly flab sure helps with inside-the-waistband carry. 🙂

I’m presently at 212 lbs (6’3″ tall). Not obese by any stretch, just a little belly flab.

The thing is? I was about 4-5 lbs. lighter a couple weeks ago. *sigh*  I know why. Vacation, time off, slacking on the diet, drinking too much beer on vacation. It’s all a matter of high caloric intake and not burning enough off.

But I’m back on the wagon. Still doing the up-day-down-day approach because it works well in terms of pure results but also just the mental impact to get through it all. I’m also going to pick up the physical activity. I’m tired of being out of martial arts practice, but even if nothing else, ensuring puppy gets a good walk every day (and me being the one doing it, not just Wife or Kiddos). So, caloric intake reduction, caloric burn increase, that’ll be a win.

Next two weeks will be tough tho. Since I’m essentially starting the diet over well, I’m truly starting it over. That means for the next two weeks each down day will be restricted to 500 calories. That will be tough, but it’s necessary to make this happen.

My true goal is to get down to 190 lbs, but passing 200, being such a pretty round number, will be a nice milestone. Once I get to 190, I’ll reassess where I am and if I need to go more or can stop there. Meantime well… I started at 225 lbs so I’ve technically dropped 15, and if I’ve been able to slow and steady drop 15, that means the next 12, and then 10 after that? Should be do-able by summer so long as I stick to it. But then, sticking to it is the trick isn’t it?  🙂

Twinkie Diet

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

A professor of human nutrition goes on a 10 week diet of eating Twinkies and other junk food.

Clearly eating all that unhealthy junk food should have made him balloon out and become obese, right? That’s “conventional wisdom”, right?

He lost 27 lbs.

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one of these sugary cakelets every three hours, instead of meals. To add variety in his steady stream of Hostess and Little Debbie snacks, Haub munched on Doritos chips, sugary cereals and Oreos, too.
[…]
Two-thirds of his total intake came from junk food. He also took a multivitamin pill and drank a protein shake daily. And he ate vegetables, typically a can of green beans or three to four celery stalks.

So why did he lose weight? It’s all a matter of calories. If you take in fewer calories than your body burns in a day, the body has to find reserves somewhere to burn… so off goes that fat from your middle. It’s simple math. Haub did this to make the point that weight loss is a matter of calories, not necessarily perceived nutritional value of food.

But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.

Haub’s “bad” cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his “good” cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.

“That’s where the head scratching comes,” Haub said. “What does that mean? Does that mean I’m healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we’re missing something?”

Despite his temporary success, Haub does not recommend replicating his snack-centric diet.

“I’m not geared to say this is a good thing to do,” he said. “I’m stuck in the middle. I guess that’s the frustrating part. I can’t give a concrete answer. There’s not enough information to do that.”

So before we all jump on the junk food diet, note this isn’t the new fad to try for weight loss. It’s merely a demonstration of calorie reduction. That’s why my current “up day down day” is working quite well. I have changed NOTHING about my diet other than portion size. I’m down almost 15# since I started.

Before his Twinkie diet, he tried to eat a healthy diet that included whole grains, dietary fiber, berries and bananas, vegetables and occasional treats like pizza.

“There seems to be a disconnect between eating healthy and being healthy,” Haub said. “It may not be the same. I was eating healthier, but I wasn’t healthy. I was eating too much.”

That’s something that I’ve long maintained, it’s not so much WHAT we eat but how much. People want to blame “bad foods” and force that we only eat “good foods” to help combat the “obesity epidemic”. But folks, if you eat a vat of yogurt, if you eat a bushel of apples, if you drink a gallon of milk, if you consume tons of “healthful food” you’re still going to get fat. It’s all about calories and portion control. You have to learn when to put the fork down, to push the plate away and say enough. I know it’s easier said than done, but that’s really all it comes down to — when it comes to battling obesity. Good nutrition is another topic.

“I wish I could say the outcomes are unhealthy. I wish I could say it’s healthy. I’m not confident enough in doing that. That frustrates a lot of people. One side says it’s irresponsible. It is unhealthy, but the data doesn’t say that.”

But we need more data.

Bottom line? It’s simple. If you want to lose weight, consume fewer calories than you burn off. You can eat less, you can increase your calorie burn, you can do both. It’s that simple.

10 down

/ hsoi

So about 4 weeks ago I started to work on “serious” weight loss. You can read the background that got me to this point, and the course of action I’m undertaking.

Since I started, it appears I’ve lost 10 pounds. 10 pounds in 4 weeks? I can live with that, especially since not all weeks were ideal. There was the business trip to California, and that was tough because meals are social events, but even if I couldn’t be strict about a down day I still kept the intake reasonable. Then there was the trip to Georgia to get Sasha, and while that wasn’t ideal I was pretty close to sticking to the regimen. I’d like to think if I had been able to stick to the diet perfectly I’d probably be down another couple of pounds, but hey, so long as I’m seeing steady progress I’m alright with that. And again, about 2.5 lbs a week is a good average rate.

I don’t really notice the difference when I look in the mirror, but it’s 10# of loss spread over a very tall frame. Now that I think about it, stupid me should have taken pictures. I guess I should remedy that now. I’ve no plans to share the pictures. Too scary (for you), too personal (for me).

But I have noticed my clothing fitting differently. For instance, I’m using the same hole on my belt yet the belt is a little looser. I can’t switch to the next hole yet, but I know that will come. So, seeing what I see on the scale along with a little bit of “tangible” evidence, I can dig that.

As for the program itself (up day down day), I have to admit, it’s working. On paper it works because you are decreasing your total caloric intake but not starving your body. But the best part? It’s not a mental stress. In fact now after 4 weeks of it I’m finding myself in quite a groove with it. Week 2 was the hardest for me — the down days just got old. But you press on because you know it’s merely a matter of hours until you can eat normally again. Then when you can eat, you eat but you always keep your goal in mind. It works out pretty well. I also like that this program requires nothing but my own discipline. That’s as it should be. No buying meals, no buying other products or supplements. I like that it costs me nothing and I can still eat all the good food Wife cooks.

So all in all, this is working out well. It’ll feel neat to break through the 200 lbs. and hopefully by the end of November I’ll be there. I did notice that Thanksgiving itself will be a down day for me, and yes I will stick to it. Besides, the leftovers are always better than the original meal. 🙂

Wish me luck

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’ve been reluctant to post about this because not only does it feel a little personal, but I’ve had so many false-starts (read: failure) that I feel if I fail again I’d like it to be my own business. But I’m wondering, if I make it public, maybe it might put some extra pressure or motivation on me to hang in there and make it a success.

I’m trying to lose weight.

Background

I’m 6’3″ tall and presently weigh about 225#. It’s the most weight I’ve ever carried around in my life. Of the three body types, I’m closest to ectomorph. I’ve got a long tall frame so most people don’t believe I need to lose weight. But if you look closely, I’ve got a growing gut, and certainly there’s growing flab spread over my entire frame. While no one would really look at me and say I was fat, certainly I’m carrying around more flab that my frame should have.

I’m not happy about it.

How did this happen? Food is more than nutrition. It’s comfort, it’s pleasure. I love to eat. While I was good about holding my weight around the 200# mark for quite some time, the past some months I’ve packed it on because I’ve been eating. My life is good, but it’s full of stress. Generally the solution is to address the stress directly, but when you cannot you seek other ways to balance out the bad with something good… and food provides pleasure for me. After a brain-frying day of work, sitting in front of the TV for 30 minutes to let my brain disengage is nice. Couple that with a beer and some chips and salsa, and I might scarf down 500-700 calories right there. Then my level of physical activity has dropped the past some months since I stopped attending martial arts classes on a regular basis, and while I want to go check out Aikido I haven’t yet due to lack of time (other things have been priority, all that stress). So I’m taking in more calories than usual, and burning off fewer calories than usual, and the result is obvious: weight gain.

I don’t like it. I don’t want it. But I’ve struggled to deal with it.

Struggle

I’m aware of my issue. It’s simple caloric intake: taking in more than I’m burning off. My overall nutrition is good, I’m overall healthy (doc always gives me a clean bill of health, better shape than the vast majority). There’s no real issue of what I’m eating, it’s a simple matter of amount.

I’ve tried to cut back on amount. I’ll succeed for a little while, but eventually my body screams that it’s being deprived, I handle it for a while, but then other stresses rear up and I fall off the wagon. And I repeat this cycle and always feel bad about it. Plus, depriving myself of the comforts that food brings just adds additional stress, and it’s a big snowball effect.

I will say, I have gotten better about amounts, about minding how much I put on my plate, to stop before I feel full (because that’s a mighty large amount). I accept I’m not 18 any more and cannot eat like I did when I was a teenager (tho my brain still wants to). So management concepts are better, but still consumption is more than it should be.

I don’t like to deal with fad diets or well, any sort of diet, because I know it’s a passing thing. You need to make a lifestyle change that you can accept, live with, and live with for the rest of your life. It must be a long-term thing. While things like Weight Watchers or NutriSystem are solid in their concept, I don’t want to be tied to their food. Besides, that means I have to eat their food — and Wife is an awesome cook! I’d hate to have to eat some packaged crap and be deprived of Wife’s cooking.  But I will admit, NutriSystem did appeal to me, mostly because I appreciated the simple aspect of portion control that they provided. I thought about perhaps doing it for a month just to see how the portions looked, how a 200-250 calorie setup would be. But I never pulled the trigger on it because of cost and deprivation of Wife’s cooking. 🙂

But a friend of mine has been losing weight for while. Slow and steady, but solid. I became aware because sometimes we’d go to lunch and he’d mention having a “light day”, so we’d just eat at Subway. I saw how much it was working for him, and how little effort he really had to make. It wasn’t a massive lifestyle change, but it was manageable. So I was curious and finally asked him about it.

Up and Down

What he followed was something called the UpDayDownDay Diet Plan. Now, the notion of following some faddish plan turns my stomach, but this doesn’t seem all that bad. It’s a simple premise that’s quite do-able, and the logic behind it is sound. No fad, no “cleansing”, no products to buy, no change in food or diet or much of anything. I like that because having to make a radical shift is generally a path to failure because it’s a radical shift and those things can be hard to stick with over the long-term. Of course, this still requires a change, it still requires dedication, it still requires self-discipline.

What I think is different about this for me is I examine the problems I have and reasons for past failures. I’m hoping my body won’t have serious deprivation issues — especially when I start martial arts study again. If I do feel a need to have a bowl of chips and salsa, I can do that, just on the up day. It doesn’t totally take away the comfort aspect, just regulates it. But in the end, overall caloric intake goes down.

Will I succeed? I don’t know, but I want to. This seems better than other approaches I’ve tried in the past, so why not give it a try.

Goals

My goal? I’d like to get down to 190#, but that’s only a guide. What I want to shed is fat. If I stay at 225# but I drop fat and gain muscle instead, that’s fine. I won’t be doing any serious weigh-lifting tho, so I figure at least 200# and then see from there…  190# is probably likely. If nothing else, 190# is a good initial tangible target. Once I reach it, I’ll see where I am in relation to my more nebulous goals.

One tangible goal I have, yet I can’t put a hard number on when that point will be, is I want to be able to have a slim enough stomach so I can easily carry AIWB. 🙂  The gut pushes the holster out, thus pushes the bottom of the holster (muzzle) into you and just hurts. That’s a big motivator. I’ve put my AWIB holster on my desk as a reminder. Speaking of reminders, I added notes to every day in my iCal calendar to note “up” days and “down” days. That should help.

I would love to drop it overnight, but so long as the loss is steady and constant I’m willing to take the time. If I can feel good about my shirtless appearance come next summer, that’ll be great. I mean, at a rate of 1-2# per week, might take me 6 months or so to drop it. Of course, I also feel I need to get back to formal martial arts study and practice, not just for the enhanced physical activity, but I’ve been “all work and little play” and I need to bring some of that balance back into my life. Hopefully tho as well, that will help the weight loss not just from the enhanced calorie burn but if it can provide some stress relief then I can use that instead of a before-bed-snack.

So… wish me luck. It’s a journey, and I want to succeed. I wouldn’t be surprised if I fail, but so long as I pick myself back up and get back on the wagon, that’s alright.

First Week

I started composing this post last week. I just dove in and made the decision on 15 September 2010 to start on this, so the 16th was my first down day.

My friend told me the first week would be brutal. Frankly, it’s not been that bad. Not easy, but certainly not brutal.

I have already lost 5 lbs, and I know it’s not water weight because I’m drinking a lot of water. The past some weeks (even prior to this) I got back on the exercise wagon. I might just do a session of calisthenics, I might do time on the treadmill, I might go work out on the heavy bag, but whatever it is that I do, it’s more expenditure of calories. That’s good.

I haven’t felt my body screaming that I’m depriving it and felt a need to gorge. In fact, on my “up” days I’ve found myself still wanting to eat less! Not a bad thing.

The hardest part so far has been, of course, the down days. Overall it’s not bad. I mean, I budget in a beer… how bad can that be. 😉  But after my last “meal” of the day, I know it’s going to be probably 12 hours until I eat again, and that is a bit of a mental and emotional blow. But the upside is the point of the program: it’s only at most a day away, and really, the 12 hours isn’t that bad since most of it I’m sleeping away.

All in all, it hasn’t been that bad. Wife and Children are all supporting me. They find it odd to look at Dad’s plate on a down day and see so little food on his plate, but they know I want this and are helping me (even if it’s the kids lovingly calling me “Tubby”). 🙂

So far, so good. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m sure I’ll blog about it from time to time. Maybe the public pressure will keep me motivated.