MikeIsLosingIt.com

It’s time for a break! For weeks now I’ve been discouraged about the significant slowdown in my weightloss despite my strict diet and exercising as much or more than ever. I’ve tried multiple things and nothing has helped significantly. I intensified my workouts but just felt tired. I changed my diet and had a quick 3 lbs loss, but within two days it was back up more than a pound and continuing with the same very slow rate I’ve been seeing for the last couple of months. Furthermore, for the last week my discouragement has progressed into total burnout. I’ve been on my regime for over seven months now and the calorie-restricted diet portion of it for five months. I’ve lost 59 lbs on the scale, and probably more like 65-70 when you factor in muscle gain. Things were going great, but now I’m just feeling stressed all the time.

I don’t know for sure what’s wrong (pushing down my metabolism, over training, whatever), but regardless of the actual causes and effects, I need a break from the diet and major cardio/endurance workouts−I need some time to rest and recover. Even the thought of another low-calorie diet day and endurance workout stresses me out. I am burned out, burned out, burned out. I’m sick of the diet, sick of feeling exhausted after my workouts, and sick of seeing the scale inch down by about one pound per week for my trouble. Did I say that I’m burned out and need a break? Well, I do. ::insert primal scream here::

I talked to Tim about it, and starting today I did a complete change in everything. No weightloss diet and no crazy cardio/endurance workouts. I’m upping my calories to about 3000-3500 per day and switching to a muscle-building regimen. For the next month or so (at least) I’m going to work on building muscle and not concern myself one whit with losing weight. So, today we did chest and triceps, higher weight and lower reps. I benched 205 lbs, and for now we will work toward a tentative starting goal of me eventually being able to lift my own body weight. And you know what? I had FUN today. Wow, what a novel idea! I actually had fun…at the GYM. I left the gym today feeling good and with a smile on my face…and I’m actually looking forward to my next workout. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that since I started this back in February. I’ll still be doing a modest cardio workout a few times a week, but I’m leaving the other stuff behind me for awhile.

Maybe in a month or two, if things are going well and I feel ready and recovered, I’ll switch back and hopefully get a “reboot” and see good losses again. But right now even the thought of switching back makes me feel like finding a padded cell and drinking a lithium smoothy…so I won’t be thinking about that for a bit. For now I’m going to enjoy…hmm, yes, “enjoy”…going to the gym and doing something that I like for a change.

I missed posting my Wednesday Weigh-in last week, but I was down 1.2 pounds again, which makes three weeks in a row of losing exactly the same amount. I was getting a bit annoyed, since it would take me the better part of another year-and-a-half to lose the rest if that rate continued. I talked to my trainer about it and he suggested that I up my protein, cut my carbs a little, and eat about six times per day. Well, that seems to have done it. I’m down 3.2 lbs in the last five days, despite feeling like I’m stuffing myself all day long. I’m eating around 230 grams of protein and something like 80-100 carbs, but still only 1900-2000 calories per day. I’m eating so many egg whites and chicken breasts though that I’m starting to think that Bod Pod really did cause some kind of chicken metamorphosis in me.

Down go the calories, but not down my throat. As of Thursday I cut my calories down to about 1000 per day. But I should be doing this only for a few weeks and then I’ll push it back up to normal. I have a physical scheduled for June 16 and a BMI requirement attached to it. I have to be under 40 BMI by then (for reasons that will have to remain my own at the moment), which means that I need to weigh about 280. I’ve already dropped over 3 pounds since my last Wednesday Weigh-in, so it is going exactly like I hoped so far. I’m kind of hungry in the afternoon and evening before my small meals, but nothing bad. I’ve left my breakfast the same…but of course now I feel super stuffed after it since I’m eating so much less the rest of the time. Coincidentally our 15th Wedding anniversary is on the 17th, the day after the physical. So, you can bet I’ll be enjoying a nice cheat that day. 🙂

Here’s the rundown of my daily diet…

Every morning for breakfast I have three slices of turkey bacon, a six egg-white omlette (yes…six), and a piece of whole-wheat bread. Last week I got tired of the smell of bacon sticking around in the house for hours every day, so I changed my tactic. Now I fire-up the grill every weekend and cook seven days worth in advance. Yesterday I cooked thirty pieces at once to have my supply for the week (yes, I do realize that 3×7 doesn’t equal 30, but I couldn’t cook all that bacony goodness without us having some right then, too…so there). Then I broke up three pieces for each day into seven zip-top snack bags. Voila! Now I just empty the baggy of bacon bits into the eggs I cook every morning and I’ve got my ginormous bacon omlette, and all without the house smelling like IHOP’s kitchen all day.

Now what about the egg whites? Egg whites are the best protein you can get, but what a pain to separate six egg whites every morning by hand. My alternative for that is to use some egg whites from a carton that we get from Costco. They taste good, are real egg whites, there’s little mess, and so on. They’re a little more expensive than buying cartons of eggs, but well worth it. The best thing about egg whites? Those six egg-whites have the protein of six whole eggs but the calories of only about two-and-a-half. Excellent!

So that’s breakfast, but now what?

Next comes my first protein shake and some nutritional supplements. For you Hobbits out there I guess we can call it Second Breakfast–usually had about three hours after breakfast. Once again, more egg white protein for that too. Our solution for that? We bought 20 lbs of dried egg whites (powder) directly from Rose Acre Farms. That should last us half a year and it’s half the price of buying a protein shake powder from the health food store. The problem? It tastes NASTY! Three eggs worth of that powder in 8 oz. of milk might even make a billy goat retch. But, add some Splenda and a little bit of vanilla extract and it turns it into something kind of yummy. Billy goats no longer need to fear.

Lunch. Baked boneless chicken breast and either some brown rice or a large salad with a couple of tablespoons of dressing and a little bit of parmesan cheese on it. Nothing fancy. Louanne marinates the chicken in something like Newman’s Own and cooks it up for me every couple of days. She helps me immensely.

Second lunch, early dinner, afternoon snack, or whatever you want to call it…protein shake number two. Just like the first one, but I also have a couple of pieces of string cheese. Sometimes I skip the shake if I’m not really hungry at all.

Finally, dinner. That’s basically the same as lunch. Typically if I chose salad at lunch I choose the rice here, or vice versa. I may also throw in some green beans, broccoli, sugar peas, or some other good, green vegetable.

So, that’s what I eat every day. I’m having something every three hours or so, and I frequently feel pretty stuffed after I eat. It feels like I’m eating a ton of food, but it is actually only 1500 to 2000 calories every day, depending on portion sizes, whether or not I skip my second shake, and other variables. It’s also very low carb but about 200-225 grams of protein, which for my size and the amount of weight-lifting I’m doing is pretty basic for muscle gain.

So far this has all gone really well, and I’ve rarely had any sort of cravings. Yesterday and today I felt stressed over food a couple of times, but I just upped the portions a little and drank more water. I worked out really hard on Friday (I went to the gym twice), and this weekend I ended up having to repair a bunch of storm damage on my roof. So I just think the extra activity meant I needed to eat more. I’m also guessing my metabolism is increasing some as I get in better shape. In any case, upping the portions and water seemed to knock out the stress I was feeling over eating.

My point in all of this? If I can do it, so can you. I’ve finally come to grips with the fact that the only realistic way you can lose weight and keep it off is to eat less and exercise more. It’s not a difficult concept, but for some reason we seem to constantly search for some magic answer or revolutionary scientific program. You can read a thousand different diet books and bounce from program to program, but 99% of them are useless. Ultimately the solution always boils down to that same simple answer. If you want to lose weight and keep it off forever…eat less and exercise more, for the rest of your life.

What? Were you expecting something profound?