Update-A-Rama

August 8, 2010 @ 08:55 am

So I haven't blogged in about three months. Why? Where have I been? What have I been doing? Did I fall off the wagon again? 

It's been a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I had a ton of travel at the beginning of the summer, a lot of work, and very little time or energy left to concentrate on the Journey or the blog. Then when I finally got home and was ready to get back into the swing of things, I fell on the subway stairs and sprained my ankle. Not just a twist, a full on nasty sprain complete with the wickedest, weirdest bruises you've ever seen (one was in the shape of a star). I couldn't walk for a few days and then just hobbled around for a couple weeks. It's best not to push it with a sprain or it'll never heal correctly, so I was stuck.

Then I just got lazy. It's been stupidly, wickedly hot and humid in NYC this summer, and that's left us not wanting to do very much or go out at all. I've been to the gym off and on for the last 4-6 weeks or so since I could start walking again.

I don't think I completely fell off the wagon. I certainly haven't been doing well, and in the last few weeks we've been eating take-out and other crappy food. Towards the end of July I felt myself starting to spiral with food addiction, eating a little crazily anything I could get my hands on. It's been a clear connection between stress and food, lately, with my stress increasing from worries about money and work and having to pay for a wedding and a bunch of other expensive stuff next year. Work's been frustrating. And so I spiral.

But this time we went on vacation. We just got back from an annual family vacation - this time to the Smoky Mountains. The break from day to day life in the city was just right, at just the right timing. The vacation itself was actually rather stressful, but it was still good to break from the monotony of the city and daily life and work (in a total lack of cell service, too). I fell rather rested, and ready to realign and continue on my Journey as I should.

This little break from the Journey is different, too. In ages past I would work out, lose a little weight, but quit and gain it all back until I feel so bloated and gross and my clothes get tight and I can barely get up from the couch. This time I know I've put on a little weight again, but not to those extremes. My aunt thinks I lost some weight (compared to the winter which was SUPER high stress time, I'm sure). The Beau thinks I'm generally lighter than before, too. So maybe, just maybe, my body has adapted to a lighter weight (albeit just a bit lighter) and works to maintain that instead of the 320 it used to.

I won't know until I weigh in, and I won't weigh-in this week. The Beau keeps hammering at me to weigh myself but I've been in that space before - where I convince myself I'm lighter, and I'm actually heavier, and its demoralizing. So I'm going to spend this week getting back on track and we'll go from there.

As far as the blog goes, I'm just really too busy to update a lot. I'm going to keep updating, but I'm not going to stick to any sort of schedule. This is my journal. I'm never going to be one of those bloggers that everyone goes to and reads. If people want to read along, comment and join me on the road, then rock on. But I feel less a need to try to force those connections.  I'll continue to twitter, and blog, and create goals, and publish my weights, and all of that. But my job is not to blog, my job is to get fit.

2 comments | Topics: laziness, mistakes, travel

When Will People Notice?

May 3, 2010 @ 10:16 am

I mentioned a little while ago about the random trainer at the gym who noticed my weight loss efforts slowly paying off. Every time I've tried to lose weight there's been someone who noticed first, and it's always a curiosity to me who that person is, and who else may or may not notice and say something.

It's definitely noticeable to me, since my clothes are loser and my belt is running out of notches. And it's noticeable to the Beau, who see me and hugs me every day and can tell when his arms reach just a little bit further around. But what about our friends, many of whom only see us every two or three weeks?

People in New York often have trouble seeing past their own mirrors and noticing what goes on in the lives of the people around them. I don't know how far I'll have to go before anyone says "hey, have you lost some weight?" It's further than 20 pounds, because no one's said anything yet. Is it 30? 40? 50? The thing is, fat looks like fat, so I think I probably look pretty much the same to the casual observer. I still have a big hanging gut, I still have big clothes. Until I simply must get smaller clothes, it'll be tougher for people to casually notice, maybe.

I've thought about what it would be like to go into seclusion for six months and re-enter the world 50+ pounds lighter.

I've also thought about whether I even want people to notice my journey just yet. Even though I've come further than I ever have in the last three years of trying this, I could still relapse really easily and end up right back at 300+ pounds without batting an eye. I feel like if anyone notices I've lost weight, then they'll notice if I fail again, and that would feel worse. At least for now, I'm still just a fat guy.

So I honestly do not know if I want my friends to notice, or if they notice, to say anything. I don't like talking about my weight loss journey at all, anyway, so I'd prefer to not have to have it enter the general conversation of an evening. That said, having someone notice, and even say so in a passing offhanded comment, is a nice barometer of progress. So far it's just been the random trainer dude at the gym and then this past weekend RFID (Random Friendly Indian Dude) - another random patron of the gym - also noticed I was losing weight. So if random strangers notice and say something, I suppose that's good enough for now.

3 comments | Topics: community, encouragement, friends

The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 16

May 2, 2010 @ 05:51 pm

I have lost about 22 pounds this year. I've lost a whole heck of a lot of it in just the last 3 and a half weeks. That's something I've been reminding myself of over the last several days.

This may be the week my weight loss starts to slow down. That's good ... I guess. Frankly, I could get used to losing 5 pounds a week, but I know the chances are higher that regular high-losses is muscle and bone rather than fat loss. And I want fat loss. Nevertheless, I really want to lose five pounds a week. But it's probably safest if I don't.

The human body is a tricky thing, the subconscious actually a bit subversive at time. Our evolution has no idea what to do with modern society and at times the body adapts to what it thinks is going, but what it thinks is going on hasn't happened in a few millenia. So, we just have to be trickier than our bodies. Since weighing in at 285ish with a 5 pound loss on Wednesday, the next three days were really high calorie days. I ate, easily, well above the average I'd been eating at.

That doesn't bother me, really. I was eating all good foods - real food, nutritious food, nothing processed - but it happened to be high in calories. But I wasn't necessarily working out as hard as normal either. In the grander scheme of things, I was doing just find. But in the microcosm of my week, it felt like my body was taking a breather. Naturally, without me deciding to, it was scaling back the intensity a bit.

Yesterday (Saturday), my mid-week weigh-in was just about a half pound. And I'd planned to wear a particular shirt that a week ago was really loose on me, but now was tight around my middle again. It was a little discouraging, in a way. But it's been hot here, and I know I've been a little dehydrated, so maybe I was retaining water. Maybe I just needed a little break. Maybe my body was adjusting to the heavy program, low calories, and needs a change. I don't know, but I'm choosing not to worry.

Because if I just lose one or two pounds this week, that's healthy, that's fine. If I hit a plateau over this week and next week, then I'll make some adjustments and get through it.

But I made it through the six week mark of this Fourth Great Attempt - and though I faltered a bit there through vacation and faulty nutrition, I've not lost sight of where I'm headed. And I will not fail again.

0 comments | Topics: progress

Weight Loss Goal: Climb a Mountain

April 30, 2010

Why climb a mountain? Because it's there.

There are some great mountains in this world and before long The Beau and I will probably be living very near to some of the best in this country (woot - Colorado). But I want to do more than look at them (or drive up to my luxury chalet on top of one ... maybe someday), I want to conquer them. I want to be fit and sporty enough, with the endurance and the strength to climb them.

I've actually gone rock climbing before. It's all in the legs when it comes to rock climbing, and hauling around 100+ pounds of fat my whole life has made for some reasonably strong ones. But I didn't really enjoy it; I got worn out, I was worried about being too heavy for my belay-partner, the harness barely fit. It was fun (and rappelling was awesome), but not as much as it could have been.

At University we had a ridge of foothills running behind the town. Directly behind the college was a trail that scaled the ridge. It was a mile and a half long and jumped something like 1,200 - 1,500 feet ... so it got steep in places. I went several times by myself; it was a workout, I huffed and puffed, and I loved it.

I don't want to climb Everest, I don't want to suit up with ropes and picks and a ton of equipment geared for long-term wilderness survival. I just want to hike up a mountain, scramble over some boulders, and maybe go rock climbing again. I want to do like I did in college, but more often and in time with a little more difficulty. I would love to hike into some wilderness, up a mountain, and go camping for several days, doing nothing but enjoying time in the great outdoors. Some day... and some day soon.

Read more about my weight loss goals

Weight Loss Goal: Make A Difference

April 29, 2010

I have dealt with my obesity my entire life. The only time I've ever been close to thin was when my mom put us all on a diet while I was in the third grade.

All my life I've dealt with the issues of obesity. It's hard as a kid; you don't really understand what's going on inside you, you're teased and tortured on the playground, ostracized and ridiculed. There aren't many resources out there for kids and kids haven't necessarily built the self-actualization skills needed to stick with their weight-loss goals.

But adults, too, have some serious issues with this. Our generations haven't been taught the right things as kids, and so why should we expect adults to know anything either? I read blogs, listen to friends, see forum posts from people who are clearly clueless about healthy living and weight loss. It's no wonder that the fad diet industry does so well for itself; our problem is cultural, we want a quick and easy fix we don't have to think about. Meanwhile we don't understand the basics of food and nutrition and exercise because for the most part we don't have to - the food industry takes care of everything for us.

With over a third of the country obese and two-thirds overweight, we've got a problem. I'm not really in a place to lecture anyone - I've failed more times than I've tried! This blog is never meant to lecture, teach, extol, or anything of the sort. It's just a place for me to document my journey and write the things I'm learning along the way. But I don't want that to be the end, and I when I ultimately reach my goal weight and am living the healthy life I want, I don't want that to be the end. I want to make a difference. Some how, with someone, I want to help others in their journeys and battles. I'll have learned a lot, I'll understand their struggles in a unique and personal ways, and I'll be living breathing proof that it's possible to beat back the bulge.

I don't know exactly how to accomplish this goal yet. I could write a book, I could open a gym or boot camp or nutritional consultancy. I'm considering getting certified as a personal trainer, I could go back to school to study kinetics or nutrition. I could work with kids and families. But whatever I do, I don't want to lose weight just for me, I want to help others do it too.

Read more about my weight loss goals

Weight Loss Goal: Learn Martial Arts

April 28, 2010

Much like boxing, martial arts is a total body experience. It's also a total-mind experience, requiring concentration, mastery of thought and peace of the soul. To really do the fun stuff, you have to be fit and strong.

I've long marveled at the things guys can do with their bodies, from the sharp, svelte movements you can almost barely see, to flying through the air, spinning, kicking, punching, almost hovering over the mats they work out on. I'm mesmerized and long to be able to reach that level of fitness, to be that in tune with my body and my mind and to lose myself in what must be a euphoric intersection of peace and will.

Like I've mentioned before, I've never been a fighter and I don't particularly want to be. But I do want to build the self-confidence and self-reliance that comes from being able to floor an opponent in the blink of an eye. Losing weight is not enough for me. I don't merely want to be thin, I don't want to build muscle and live fit just for the sake of looking good. I want to use my body as a tool, I want to celebrate what it can do, and I want to force open and walk through the doors that I've only ever stayed away from out of fear.

Conquering that fear of humiliation and finding a new source of internal strength and peace of mind will not be borne only of losing weight. I won't wake up thin and suddenly feel like I can do anything I please. I have a long road of mental reinforcement and healing that will take place over the next year. It won't solve everything, or even anything, but losing this weight and getting fit will set my stage for taking hold of goals like this. And someday my body will work for me rather than the other way round.

Read more about my weight loss goals

Weight Loss Goal: Start Boxing

April 27, 2010

Boxing is a total-body exercise. One jabs, pulls back, hops around, dodges, ducks, lunges, spins, then repeats. I've long marveled at those who use this for their regular exercise and toning. I see it used more and more as a component of exercise routines. You see it on The Biggest Loser a lot, because it's apparently great exercise.

There's hitting a big hanging bag that is akin to pummeling a padded wall. It never moves, it just hangs there, laughing at you. There's hitting that little thing - a speed bag? - that looks a little like a uvula in the back of your throat; it always looks like it's gonna snap back and hit you in the face. Then there's hitting a person in sparring ... where they actually do hit back.

I've never been in a fight, I've never been a fighter. I certainly have never felt up the physical toll, stamina, strength needed for it, and I'm pretty sure I'm a big sissy. But I want to start boxing. Guys who box a lot are fit. It really is a great workout, and I want to some day work it into my routine. These days I do mostly classic cardio exercise - treadmills, ellipticals. It makes me sweat and it does the job, but it sure gets boring after a while.

 Someday, that stuff will just be the warm up, and some day, I want to enjoy all sorts of cardio and exercise that I feel I'm not ready for ... or am too embarrassed yet to learn. I can join a boxing gym, I can learn to fight and be in tune with my body. I can enjoy an all new level of fitness I've yet only dreamed of.

Read more about my weight loss goals

Weight Loss Goal: Get Married

April 26, 2010

The Beau and I have been together for more than five years, and it's been a wonderful, amazing five years with our eyes set on fifty more (or more). We're unshakable, and we're very much in love, such that when we made our engagement official and public many were surprised not that we'd be getting married but that we weren't already.

There's no date yet. It'll be a spring wedding mainly since we won't change our actual anniversary date, we'll try to get married close to when it is (April 1). So at least a year - and there's a lot to consider and deal with in the mean time like whether we intend to move and of course, weddings ain't cheap, so there's some savings to be done.

But there's another thing I want to do - obviously. Getting married is like the culmination of a bunch of my weight loss goals all at once. I want to be able to wear the clothes that look good and feel good. I want to wear an absolutely fantastic suit. I want to get our pictures taken and enjoy it, and enjoy looking at the pictures afterward. I want to enjoy all sorts of great activities on our honeymoon. In short, I want to lose this weight so I feel absolutely perfect come the big day.

Since it'll be about a year before we tie the knot, I have time. I just need to stay focused and parlay the successes I have into bigger better ones. I can lose the 100+ pounds I need to use in a year safely and sanely, and by the time we're standing at the altar, I'll be the healthiest, and happiest, I've ever been in my life.

Read more about my weight loss goals

Time for Some More Goals

April 26, 2010 @ 09:00 am

So as I continue to lose weight and see some real progress, it's time to take another look at my goals and think of more great things I want to do and reasons to lose this weight once and for all. So this week I'm going to be putting up a bunch more goals! Stay tuned

1 comment

Sunday Funnies

April 25, 2010 @ 12:29 pm

0 comments | Topics: sunday funnies

The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 15

April 24, 2010 @ 11:21 am

This past week feels like it went really quickly. It also feels like I didn't get anything substantial accomplished. I felt "blah" for a lot of the days, kind of unmotivated, and occasionally my depression issues popped up. It was worst on Thursday, but like I wrote yesterday, I pressed through it, chose not to binge eat, and came through just fine. I've been working on using meditation to help get through the depressed feelings, but I'm not sure it's working all that well yet. I've had trouble focusing again, getting distracted by random sounds and what not. But that's okay, because the time I am able to spend is spent reinforcing a positive view of myself, my journey and my future. That helps in the long run.

This turn-around in my journey has been pretty incredible. Generally, I don't get too excited about anything - I have a very even-keeled and tempered personality. So I'm not bouncing off the walls with glee over all the weight I'm suddenly losing. But it's no less remarkable how fast my body has responded to proper nutrition. This morning's mid-week check-in was 287.5 lbs. It's like the weight is just falling off.

Though the numbers are falling and I can certainly perceive changes in my body, I find myself frustrated that I still look so fat. That's ridiculous, of course. I'm constantly reminding myself that I've always thought I looked fat - and I've always had quite the gut hanging down in front of me - even when I was 260, 230, or less. So I'm going to be struggling with this for a while. But the gut is shrinking ever so slightly - shirts are fitting - so that's something.

Since getting my nutrition under control, I've realized I don't want to eat more than I am. I'm maxing out eating about 1500-1600 calories on a heavy day. That's technically too low. But the fact is, I don't know how to eat more. When I eat a meal, I'm fully satiated. If I ate any more I'd just be eating for the sake of eating. I don't necessarily respond to every hunger cue but I do eat through the day when I need something. And I've been trying to eat more in the morning and at lunch than at dinner. But all in all, I simply don't know how to add more calories while eating real food. It's a little maddening if I think about it too much, but at the same time I'm not worrying too much about it since I'm listening to my body and retraining it to have a better relationship with food. If I continue to lose 3+ pounds a week over the next several weeks, I'll have to make some sort of adjustment because I want to be careful about losing just body fat and not other healthy tissue.

So that's where we are this week. Making progress, pressing forward. Onward and downward.     

1 comment | Topics: progress

Small Victories

April 23, 2010 @ 01:45 pm

It's been over two weeks since I last binged at night. Before kicking myself in the butt on April 7th about nutrition, I was frequently snacking like a madman. I'd have a "few" chips or crackers, "some" cheese, just "a little" ice cream, "a glass" of wine. It all added up - and in reality I was gorging myself. That all stopped ... and I feel just fine. In fact I feel better. I have one glass of wine a night to wind down with, and that's it. Occasionally some popcorn. But no more binge eating, no more emotional eating.

Last night I was having another rough evening. This whole week I've been off-and-on feeling a little down or frustrated about my looks, my weight, whatever. It's all silly and baseless, of course, it's just a resurgence of depression. But I recognize it and do my best to dismiss it. But last night was a particularly good victory.

Normally, when I'm having a depressy evening and I'm by myself (as I was last night with The Beau out on the town with a friend), I'm prone to eating. And eating. And eating. And drinking. And eating some more. And watching television mindlessly while mindlessly eating.

Well last night ... I didn't. I had one thought of it - I thought to go eat the extra food I had from dinner, or pig out on cookies and ice cream. In actuality I only had that thought after I realized I wasn't emotionally eating on an otherwise emotional evening. Then my brain said, oh - I should want to gorge myself! But really, no. And I moved on. I had had my dinner, I had watched some television, and then I turned it off and read my book the rest of the evening while sipping my singular glass of wine.

Yay for small victories.

1 comment | Topics: depression, food and eating, progress

No Such Thing As a Day Off

April 23, 2010 @ 10:09 am

I don't really get to take days off.  I run my own business and aside from always needing to be working on something, I could be essentially on call on any given day in case of a server meltdown ... or a client meltdown (though I don't really tolerate those). Sure I take it easier on the weekends and I love to travel and get away, but I'm never truly far from the office as long as my phone is in range of a cell-tower.

Similarly, I don't really believe in "cheat days" when it comes to my weight loss journey. I hear tell of diets and dieters who work hard to eat nutritiously five or six days out of the week and then go hog-wild on the weekend. I have a few problems with that notion (for me):

• Eating nutritiously is not a temporary hobby to lose weight. For me, I have no intention of going back to processed foods and weeks-worth of pasta and bread. I may loosen the reins a little bit - some day - but when I reach my goal weight I'm not going to go back to the way I used to eat. I love real food, I intend to keep eating and cooking real food.
• It's too easy to overdo it on the cheat day; you can have 800 net calories a day (net! including exercise) for five days, but then skip the gym and go out on the town and easily eat 3500 or 4500 calories a day on the weekend. The risk is to completely negate the whole notion of eating well the rest of the week ... it's merely treading water.
• Looking forward to cheat days subconsciously associates eating right with negative connotations. You have to cheat because "the diet" is so awful. That will just lead to more cheating during the week, and before you know it, the "diet" is blown and we're starting over again.
• Cheat days do make "the diet" awful. If you reserve every notion of sweetness and tastiness for one day a week, then you may be forcing yourself to live on bread crust and water during the week. Another recipe for failure.

I don't have cheat days, but I do vary my calorie intake. "Cheat days" are colloquialized versions of the science that we should vary our caloric intake over the course of a week. It's not good to subsist at very-low calorie intakes every day of every week, our bodies will flip into starvation mode. So instead, on some days we should eat more, but not a lot more, than the average to tell our bodies there isn't really a famine out there.

So that's what I try to do. Rather than "cheat" and gorge myself silly on ice cream and Starbucks (or ice cream WITH Starbucks) one day a week, I enjoy my little treats every so often on any given day. One or two days a week I eat more than the average, and I keep switching it up to keep my intake varied, but my overall weekly caloric deficit constant.

Anyway, a bit of my philosophy. And by the way, this applies to the gym, too. I will take days that are much lighter or even skip the gym, but it's because the body needs a rest day, and I tend to work really hard the rest of the week.

0 comments | Topics: exercise, food and eating, strategy-philosophy

Basal Metabolic Rate Equations

April 22, 2010 @ 11:33 am

I've been thinking a lot lately about calories and the basic numbers game that makes up weight loss. Essential to a weight loss effort is understanding Basal Metabolic Rate or Resting Metabolic Rate. In a nutshell, BMR is the number of calories your body needs to burn for basic operations every day (breathing, heart, moving, walking, cellular regeneration, etc). Eat less than your BMR and you start burning your reserve energy ... your fat.

Calculating BMR is a squishy science. It's pretty tough to know exactly how many calories our bodies use, and everyone is different. The BMR for a fat 250-lb guy with 32% will be different than that of a 250-lb guy who's all muscle and 4% body fat. But still, we can get rough estimates using one of three equations.

Harris-Benedict

Harris-Benedict is the oldest equation for calculating BMR, developed in 1919, and is the most widely used. But it's also the least reliable, having the potential to overestimate by at least 5%. The discrepancy was highlighted by Mifflin & St Jeor who came up with the second equation below. But since this is a squishy science, it's better to look at all the equations for a rough estimate of where your BMR actually is.

Mifflin-St Jeor

In the 1990s, Mifflin & St Jeor came up with a new equation for calculating BMR. They found that the Harris-Benedict equation tended to overestimate by up to 5% (more for heavier people), which would mean people could think they have a higher BMR than they do, eat more than they should, and not lose the weight they would expect to lose.

Katch-McArdle

So the first two equations only take into account total body weight, BMI and age. But the reality is that muscle and fat have different energy requirements, so it's important to distinguish between them for the most accurate estimate. Unfortunately, the downside of this equation is that most people don't have a reliable method for calculating their Body Fat percentage, leading to a garbage-in-garbage-out problem with Katch-McArdle. At-home devices are not always accurate, or consistent. Nevertheless, as part of well-rounded view of your BMR, if you have a scale that measures Body Fat %, try this one too.

Handy Tools

So this is a lot of math, and it's in the metric system, which just adds more complexity for those of us in America. For me, I created a behemoth spreadsheet system in iWork Numbers that calculates all sorts of things and predicts my weight loss journey. But I've simplified that a bit for an easy download that calculates your BMR based on all three equations. I also threw in a "Weight Loss Predictor" that mathematically predicts your weight based on your calorie intake and calories burned*

Download the LWD Basal Metabolic Rate Tool (Excel)

* Note the predictor is just an estimate based on mathematical extrapolation. Individual actual results vary from person to person based on a lot of factors, so this tool does not guarantee any particular weight loss at any particular rate.

1 comment | Topics: BMR, science, weight loss tools

A Moment

April 21, 2010 @ 07:52 am

Just taking a moment, here, to reflect and consider. This morning I weighed in at 290.8 lbs. That's 3.2 lbs off from last week, and puts me at my lowest weight in many, many years and certainly the lowest in all of my weight loss journey since June '07. Body fat percentage fell which means I burned fat. At this point, every weigh-in will be the "lowest I've been in many, many years." Every weigh-in will be a milestone.

I started working in NY five years ago this week, moving from CA where I went to school and met The Beau. I weighed somewhere around 280 - 285 at that time. I officially moved into the city 2-3 weeks after I started working here so by the time it's been 5 years since I've lived here I should be right around the same weight.

And it's all downhill from here. (ha!)

0 comments | Topics: progress, self-respect

The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 14

April 17, 2010 @ 06:00 pm

Well it's been a good week, all around. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about this week, myself, or my weight loss journey. I'm in a good place. I'm learning to listen and be in tune with my body. I'm feeling better. My house is clean. That may seem weird but the cleanliness of my home reflects my state of self-respect and contentment. It's just how my brain works. So anyway ...

The scale is all over the map lately. A week and a half ago, I weighed in at 306 lbs - nearly the weight I started at 3+ months ago.  This past Wednesday, I weighed in at 294 ... apparently I lost 12 pounds in a week. 12 Pounds! What the hell? I even checked the scale by weighing a five pound bag of flour and a bowl of water (a half gallon should weigh about 4.16 pounds). The scale was accurate. Who knows what was going on last week ... maybe it was water weight, maybe I was retaining a lot of gunk because I'd not been hydrating as much as I should, or whatever. But something between the 7th and the 14th made my body whoosh! it all out.

And that, ladies and gents, feels really damn good. Because the normal safe track for losing weight is 2-3 pounds a week, tops, I had the potential at being stuck above 300 all the way through April. To basically get a chance to reset to where I was in a week, well, it's a relief. I wish I could lose those Biggest Loser-sized weights every week, but that's not safe and it's not going to happen. I'd rather lose weight, build muscle and get healthy at a steady clip than deal with the side effects of going too quickly.

Food-wise, I've been good. This is kicking in. I don't eat after dinner (maybe some popcorn). I've had virtually no processed foods and I'm loving all the good tastes that natural, real food can have. I'm drinking tons of water and only about a glass of wine a night.

And I did a mid-week check-in this morning and was down 1.8 pounds, so I know I'm on the right track and it feels good to be movin' and groovin' again.

2 comments | Topics: progress

Weight Loss Is A Numbers Game

April 13, 2010 @ 10:26 am

A number of the bloggers I follow don't weight themselves with any regularity ... or at all. The idea is that one shouldn't let their lives and weight loss efforts be ruled by a number on a scale; it emphasizes that this journey is about overall health and well being, about how clothes fit, etc. It's totally valid, and I agree with not weighing oneself daily, but I can't avoid the scale entirely.

When I avoid the scale, bad things happen. Humans tend to have a skewed perspective on themselves; we're really good at fooling ourselves that we've not eaten that much, or that we're losing weight when nothing is further from the truth. I'm the king of this - and so I need a frequent reality check to ensure my perceptions are still grounded.

The Game

Whether you use a scale or not, weight loss is a numbers game. Number of calories in, number of calories spent. Spend more than you've eaten and you start tapping your reserves, a.k.a. fat. If you tap 3,500 reserve calories you lose a pound of fat. Then repeat the process 100 times.

The key is knowing your basal metabolic rate (BMR) - this is the number of calories your body needs to fuel its daily operations. For me, it's around 2,200 - 2,300 (all equations are only estimates). That means to maintain my weight, I need to eat that many calories. If I eat less than that, I'll start burning reserve calories, which eventually whittles away at my fat stores.

You would think staying under 2,000+ calories is an easy task, that feels like a lot of food, until you start eating a lot of breads, pastas, and pints of Ben & Jerry's in a single evening. When I think about what I've been eating this week compared to what I must have been eating before, it astounds me. Especially when you consider how much exercise I was getting.

Exercise affects the numbers game by essentially giving you wiggle room. If I eat 1,500 calories a day, that's a deficit of 3,500 a week, or 1 pound. If I also exercise and burn 500 calories a day, that's a deficit of 7,000 for the week - or 2 pounds. The key is net calories - calories eaten less calories burned. Measure that against BMR and you have your deficit (or God forbid, a surplus).

The Awesomest Weight Loss Spreadsheet Ever

All this is basic weight loss that anyone on this journey comes to understand. But it's been refreshed in my head because it's become painfully clear that unless I focus on the numbers side of weight loss - and track what I'm actually doing - I will fail. So being a business & tech nerd, the obvious tool to turn to is a spreadsheet. I may have gone overboard. Click to see a full version.

5 comments | Topics: BMR, calories, food and eating, science, weight loss tools

The Fourth Great Attempt: Week 13

April 10, 2010 @ 12:09 pm

Well this was a bipolar kind of week. I knew I had to finally weigh-in after going a long time avoiding the scale. I was feeling kind of good about it; I'd been working out hard, even extra hard on Tuesday before my weigh-in, and I felt surely that had been making up for nutritional indiscretions over the previous weeks. But clearly I'd wandered way off the ranch. Perhaps if I'd weighed in sooner, even if it was bad news, I would have readjusted my course. Instead what I thought would be an "okay" result was utterly demoralizing.

It's like stepping into a really bright room. At first I was blinded by the reality that my weight had ballooned again in spite of my gym efforts, and in spite of feeling good. Then as my eyes and brain adjusted I saw more clearly just how felonious I've been in the last few weeks.

• Eating whole pints of ice cream
• Cooking a lot more pasta than two of us need and going back for seconds.
• Cheese, glorious cheese. And lots of it
• Routinely 1/2 to 3/4 bottle of wine a day
• Snacking, snacking, snacking ... heavily between dinner and bedtime. Snack packs, cheese, cookies, peanut butter, anything especially refined breads and processed foods.
• Not drinking nearly enough water. Eating too little during the day so I binge at night. 
• Not taking my vitamins and supplements, not eating enough real foods like veggies, flax, or nuts.

I've been moving the line. I've been getting 12-inch Subway sandwiches when a 6 inch is fine if I eat it slowly. I've been having just a little more and a little more.

Well that stopped on Wednesday. I've started analyzing more closely what I'm eating to understand better what's going into my body. I'm reeducating my brain on what proper nutrition feels like. I'm hungry at times, but I have fruit, nuts or veggies. I drink a lot of water ... I pee every 10 minutes (well it feels like that). I've calculated my basal metabolic rate, the number of calories I need to eat and burn each week. Over the last three days I've not eaten a lot of calories, actually, about 1300 - 1600 total not including exercise (which reduces net calories), and it's been fine. I've been satiated.

And most importantly I stopped eating after dinner. There were times after dinner where I would think "I'm peckish" but then I realized, no, I wasn't, and I didn't need to eat. I drank water, I had a glass of wine, and maybe a bite of ice cream if I was getting some for The Beau but otherwise, I've cut out eating so late at night. And by the by, my dreams haven't been as crazy either as a result.

So progress this week? I've done well over the last month of kicking my ass into the gym but eating has again been my Achilles' heal. That's changing again and I'm now focusing on training my mind as much as I have been training my body.

0 comments | Topics: food and eating, mistakes, progress

Well, F*ck.

April 7, 2010 @ 09:32 am

It's been six and a half weeks since my last weigh in. Today's weight:

306.2 lbs.

That ... is not what I was expecting.  Not even close.  I thought maybe I'd maintained around 297. I thought maybe I'd even lost a little bit more. I've been hitting the gym really hard - so hard I've frequently had to take quick naps afterwords just to see straight again. I feel better, even if my clothes aren't as loose as I'd like ... I guess that should've been a bigger clue.

Sigh. I'm not happy this morning; not at all. I'm shamed. I'm confused.

And clearly I've been eating way too much and all-wrong. I've known this. I've known I've been drinking too much, eating the wrong things, and most egregiously I've been eating a lot late at night, whether I'm hungry or not. I can go all day and not feel a bit of hunger and forget to drink water and then I just binge come nighttime. I eat, and eat, and eat.  I eat a bowlful of ice cream or a whole pint of Ben & Jerry's.  I raid the fridge for leftover meat, cheese, and bread. I scarf down 100 calorie packs in a single gulp (well, almost) and then go back for more. I have a glass of wine, and then another, and then probably another.

I'm doing great at the gym, it's my routine, I feel good. But good exercise cannot make up for poor nutrition, and this morning I was hit upside the head with the fact my nutrition has been for shit.

Dingaling, time to wake up. Time to be tracking my food with the @LWDFoodLog twitter account again. Time to stop eating after dinner just because I'm bored or have a craving. Time to cut back on the alcohol for the forseeable future. Time to guzzle 3-4 litres of water a day. Time to be taking my vitamins and supplements like I'm supposed to. Time to get back on track with meditation and stress-relieving visualization.

Basically, it's time to do the things I know I'm supposed to - beyond just going to the gym.

(Interestingly, the scale says my body fat percentage was unchanged ... maybe some of the weight is muscle, but then, body fat percentage is a difficult thing to track accurately so I always take it with a grain of salt.)

2 comments | Topics: exercise, food and eating, mistakes, progress, shame

Workout Momentum ... Gymentum?

April 6, 2010 @ 07:55 am

Yummy Endorphins

When we feel pain, stress, or sense danger, our bodies release endorphins to mask or minimize that pain. Exercise is pain. Therefore about 30 minutes after we get our tired, cramped legs movin' and groovin' on the elliptical, our bodies release endorphins to help the physical ailment it senses ... and damn does that feel good! This endorphin release is often associated with a sense of euphoria just well-being. The cause of which may be the endorphins themselves (they bind to the same receptors as morphine or opium), or the fact that since they mask pain we are more sensitive to other chemicals being released as a result of exercise like serotonin.

Either way, after a while, it actually does feel good to exercise. This isn't always the case, sure. It usually starts to kick in for me about a week or two after starting or restarting a regimen. And even then, since it can take upwards of 30 minutes for the endorphin release to hit, I find I actually need to be exercising a bit longer than that to feel it. 40 minutes on the elliptical is about right (10 minutes of pain triggers the release 30 minutes later and by the time I'm in Cool-Down mode I suddenly feel good again).

Go Go Go!

So all that to say, the gym is somewhat starting to feel good again! After a nearly two week break due to work, schedule and vacation, I got back into the gym two weeks ago today. Within 10 days I was feeling the happy little endorphins by the end of my cardio and I was ready for more. Same goes when it comes to strength training. I get off the equipment or I wrap up my set and I stand there and think to myself "I could do more ... I should just stick around for another hour or so."

Of course there's a line between feeling good and working hard, and working so hard that I collapse as soon as I get home. I have to balance a good workout with having a life, and some sometimes that means not necessarily using every last shred of energy on the equipment. But it still feels good. And since the endorphins are like opiates, one can get addicted to them, driving me back to the gym. It still takes willpower, it still takes planning and dedication, and it still hurts, but somewhere in there it feels good, too, and keeps me going back for more.

1 comment | Topics: exercise, gym, motivation, workout