MikeIsLosingIt.com

After about eight weeks stuck in the 270s, I’m finally out of them. I weighed in today at 268.8, which is 1.2 lbs for the week and 52.8 total. As I mentioned in my last Wednesday Weigh-in, several of those weeks I was stuck between 270.8 and 272.8, including last week. After last week’s weigh-in at 270.0 I immediately went back up to 272.8 the next day and fluctuated back and forth all week. Finally, after getting discouraged about it Sunday afternoon, I decided to get fanatical and blow through the wall that I seemed to be up against. I talked to Tim about it on Monday and then worked out really hard…really hard. Then I did cardio yesterday and worked out hard again today. I also went super strict on my diet as well. The result? I lost a couple of pounds in the last couple of days, skipping right over 269. My goal is to get the heck out of the 260s…FAST. I want to see 250-something within the next couple of weeks. I plan on working out five days a week for the next several weeks and staying strict on the diet during that time, too. I don’t know exactly what was up with the plateau I hit, but I’m past it now.

I have an expensive scale that we got a few years ago: the Tanita InnerScan – Body Composition Monitor. It tells me things like my Body Fat Percentage, my percentage of Water Weight, my Visceral Fat, Lean Body Mass (muscle and bone), DCI (daily calorie intake to maintain current weight), and more. Well, at least that’s what it’s supposed to tell me. Most days all it really tells me is how much I weigh, followed by “ERROR ERROR ERROR.” Now if I was an overly sensitive person I’d probably view that as something like the scale telling me, “272 lbs!!! Man, you are much too fat for me to figure out all those stats for you…what’s the point? Go have a rest, because you MUST be tired from carrying all that around.” But in reality I’m just a little annoyed that it doesn’t work for me.

Now don’t misunderstand me here. The scale works great…just not for me. Just..not..for..me. Everyone else? No problem. Me? “Error Error Error.” When we got the thing it was really irritating. I kept wondering, “why doesn’t it work for me??? Why just me?” So, we called Tanita and I spent a long time on the phone with them weighing myself…over and over and over and over. Sigh. No luck. They were stumped. They actually had to discuss it with Japan and then call me back. Finally they had me send them the scale so they could look it over…then Japan wanted it sent to them to look it over. They were all very nice about it and sent me another scale right away, but the whole thing was a bit silly. Their conclusion? I must drink a LOT of water. I mean WAY more than a regular person, so I’m probably carrying around a lot of water weight and the scale gives me errors on the readings because I fall too far outside the norms for it to work. Weird! But the funny thing is that they were right. I do drink a lot of water, and soda. I’m almost always drinking something. I have done that for decades.

I’ve experimented with it some, and occasionally I can get it to work. It never works in the morning, but if I make a conscious effort to cut down on how much I drink for a day or two then I can usually get it to work sometime in the afternoon or evening. Strangely I feel like I’ve won some sort of victory when I step on the thing, expecting to see “error error error,” and instead some numbers pop up. I almost shout every time it happens. “Hey, come quick…the scale’s telling me how fat I am! Woo hoo!” 🙂

So what’s the point to all this craziness? Losing “weight” in and of itself shouldn’t be my main goal. Losing FAT is what I need to be doing. That and gaining (or at worst just maintaining) muscle. Most people simply diet to lose weight and never realize how much muscle they are losing along with it. I refuse to have any part of that. My goals are fitness goals, not just some number of pounds I’m trying to get to on a scale. If I ended up losing 150 lbs on the scale, but didn’t know that say 20 lbs of that was muscle, I’d still be overweight without really understanding it. My net fat loss would actually be 130 lbs. If I started out needing to lose 150 lbs of fat I’d be patting my self on the back without realizing that I was actually still 20 lbs overweight. It’s actually a growing problem for many people, called “hidden obesity.” On the other hand, if the scale shows I’ve lost 130 lbs, but concurrently I’ve gained 20 lbs of muscle, I would have truly lost 150 lbs of fat. That’s much better weight loss even though it looks like I lost 20 less, and it’s a safe bet I’d be in tremendously better shape.

A few weeks ago, the last time I made the effort to get my scale to show me something other than errors, here’s where my numbers were:

Weight: 280
Body Fat: 41.9%
Lean Body Mass (LBM): 162.6 lbs.

My tentative goal right now is to get down to around 10% body fat, but I’ll adjust that goal the closer I get to it. I’ll regularly be watching my numbers to make sure my LBM continues to rise , or at the very least doesn’t fall. Those numbers mean that at my current amount of muscle, getting down to around 180 would get me to my goal.

So, if you’re on a weight loss regimen like me, don’t just cling to some arbitrary weight goal that you got off some BMI chart and assume it is where you should be. Figure out your body fat percentage and LBM by caliper testing, weighing in water, or using a scale that doesn’t say “error error error” all the time. Go to the doctor to find out, get a trainer to test you, or fnd some other way, but don’t be afraid to find out. Mainly, get that arbitrary end-weight out of your mind. Body composition is what really matters in the end.

And finally, one little note about scales like mine…they are a relatively inexpensive way to measure these things, but consequently that means they aren’t terribly accurate, since various factors can affect the numbers (such as the water consumption in my case). The best thing about them is that they can be used as a tool to measure YOUR relative progress, not to measure your “According to Hoyle” actual numbers. As I get closer to my goals I will almost certainly have myself tested somewhere so that I can get a highly accurate reading of my body composition. If I went by the scale alone I might be struggling to get down to 10% body fat without realizing that I passed it long ago, or the reverse. I might be congratulating myself for reaching my goal easily when in fact I’m not even close to it. As a tool for measuring relative progress they are great…just don’t plan on using their numbers as your source for bragging rights.

 277.6 lbs today. 5.4 lost since last week and 44 total. The big loss this week makes up for the Buca di Beppo and Pappasito’s inspired no-loss week I had last time…Yum! but I’m glad to be back on track. I took a few more pictures last night since it has been a couple of months and 29 lbs since I took the last ones. Not a huge difference yet, but quite noticeable to me. Here’s the before and after…the first ones at 306.4 lbs (15.2 lost) and the second ones from yesterday at 277.6 (44 lost):

Someday I’ll post the ones without the shirt. But for now I doubt anyone ones to see before and after pictures of a shirtless fat guy and slightly less fat shirtless fat guy. 🙂

I’ve lost over 6.2 lbs this week, with still one day to go before my official Wednesday Weigh-in! That’s incredible considering last week’s disappointing 1.6 lbs.  Surprisingly I lost 1.6 yesterday alone, which puts me at exactly 40 pounds lost since I started. I’m 3.4 lbs below where I need to be for my physical tomorrow, so no worries now. Even with a little fluctuation or scale difference I’d be amazed if the difference was THAT much. After my physical tomorrow I’ll be bumping my calories back up to the 2000 or so I was eating before…and we are going out for Italian on Thurday for our 15th Wedding Anniversary. Cause for a cheat if there ever was one.

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. 🙂

294.8 today. That’s 2.8 lbs this week and 26.8 total. Pretty good considering I had my first “cheat” day in a month. We had to take a small road trip Saturday, and while Louanne had a meeting, Nadia and I went to the Toy and Action Figure Museum and then to Braum’s for an ice cream cone. That was great fun. And afterwards we all had Arby’s for dinner on the way home.

Having a small cheat wasn’t a significant problem. It just means that I have to be that much more on my guard for a few days so that I don’t make a habit of it…because doing something once means it is significantly easier to do it a second time, and then before you know it you’re off the wagon (or eating it, as I said in my last post). I’m changing my lifestyle, so for now I have to be extra careful so that I don’t fall back into my old ways.

-Or- 

“How to Stay on the Wagon without Eating It”

 
-“I’m Mike and I’m a fatoholic.”

-“Hi, Mike!”

Maybe that’s the way many of us should introduce ourselves, because it just might increase the likelyhood that we could lose weight and finally keep it off. In my research about weight loss I’ve come across a staggering statistic multiple times. For those of us who need to lose weight, around 95-98% will not keep the weight off if we lose it. That means for every 100 of us tubbies out there, only about 2-5 will keep it off. If that’s true then why bother? Shouldn’t we then just cry “Doom!”, give up and go have a large double-chocolate shake instead? Maybe not. I think the key is figuring out how we can ensure that we end up being one of those 2-5 who succeed.

With those kinds of numbers against us I believe the solution is a radical change in one’s life. A completely different attitude about weight, nutrition, and exercise needs to be adopted. I’m dubbing the problem “fatoholism.” We need to approach our weight problem just like the alchoholic approaches his drinking problem. The recovering alchoholic quickly learns that he can’t drink in moderation, he must avoid bars, he must be careful about social gatherings where people drink, and so on. Eventually, after a long term of avoidance, he may begin to reintroduce some of those “risky” environmental temptations, but in any case he must still remain on his guard. And it is unlikely he will ever be able to drink in moderation for the rest of his life, because the chance of eventually falling back into excess is just too great. He must radically change his lifestyle and view of drinking, because if he doesn’t then he will almost certainly fall off the wagon. Similarly, if we don’t do the same we will end up eating that wagon, whether the alchoholics get off it or not. So they better get off it or watch their fingers and toes if they want to keep them.

We fatoholics must approach life like the recovering alchoholics if we want to be in the Two-to-five-percenters Club. Much like the drunk living in denial who says, “I need to cut back” or “I’ll only drink on special occasions” and quickly finds that he’s drinking more than ever, we fatties tell ourselves all kinds of similar things that never work. We say various things like we’ll eat less, skip desert, give up Cokes, use Splenda, eat low carbs, use Stevia, eat high carbs, give up processed foods, go to the gym, take acai berry, buy a bicycle, eat organic foods, and on and on and on. While many of those things may or may not have certain health or nutritional benefits, none of them are going to cause you to lose weight and keep it off. The facts of losing weight and maintaining that loss are simple; it isn’t a complex subject. You must eat less and exercise more…for the rest of your life. Regardless of how difficult this may be in practice, it is true nonetheless. It is an immutable fact that eating more calories than you burn causes you to gain weight and eating less calories than you burn causes you to lose it. That’s it. You don’t need 1000 diet books to explain that. You must admit you are a fatoholic and change…your…lifestyle. Nothing else will work.

Also like the alchoholic who has a physical addiction and cravings when he quits drinking, we have all kinds of physiological things that happen to us when we begin to lose weight. Normal processes kick in and our body tries to keep us at whatever weight we were at. We have to deal with lowering metababolism, hunger, cravings, and so on. These things add to the difficulty (thus the 95% who don’t succeed), but they aren’t insurmountable. We can succeed.

How? How can we succeed? Again, there is no magic forumula, super-food, or diet that will do it. None of those things will keep the weight off. You have to change your lifestyle, for the rest of your life. You have to find the thing that will help you do that. For me it is hiring a personal trainer to train me three times per week. I have determined that I will workout multiple times per week, every week, for the rest of my life. Even if that means I have to hire a personal trainer for the rest of my life to stick to that, that’s what I’ll do. For you it may be that, or Weight-watchers, or finding a motivated friend, running marathons, or something else you come up with on your own. But whatever it is, you must change your life. A “diet” implies a goal that can be reached and then the diet will end, in which case the weight gain then starts all over. Change your lifestyle. That is how the cycle ends.

You can do it.