MikeIsLosingIt.com

I wasn’t able to get to my normal Wednesday Weigh-in post yesterday, so here it is a day late. Last week I had one of those weird weeks where my weight constantly fluctuated up and down as much as 1.5 lbs each day. I’d be down a pound one day, up a pound and a half the next, down a pound again…it was annoying. Consequently I lost only 1.6 lbs this week, which was much less than my goal, since I have to be down another few pounds to make my BMI requirement before my physical next Wednesday. I’m sure it has something to do with water retention and other factors, because between my diet and the heavy exercise, I know I didn’t just burn a pound and a half of fat last week. Case in point, this morning I was down another 1.2 lbs, which put me at 286.6. That’s still only 2.8 lbs in eight days, but it’s more encouraging and puts my goal within reach.

On an even more encouraging note, 286.6 puts me at exactly 35 lbs lost since I started. Woo hoo! As my trainer regularly says, “I’m seeing less and less of you every day.”

I bought a Polar FT80 Heart Rate Monitor the other day and used it for the first time today. I didn’t pay the outrageous price Polar sells it for ($350), but instead got it from Amazon.com for the much better (but still hefty) price of $260…but that’s without anything like GPS, a foot pod, etc. If you want that then you have to pay a lot extra.  I didn’t get any of those extras because I have absolutely no need for any of them, since I’m pretty confident that I’ll NEVER take up running, triathlons, or anything similar. I’ll be using it in the gym almost exclusively, so the built-in features will be sufficient.

I researched a lot of monitors, but finally settled on the FT80 because of its versatility, and primarily because of its strength training feature. It is the only monitor I found that includes that feature, which makes it perfect for those like me who divide their workouts between weight training and cardio. You can set the training mode to Strength Training and it will give you a graph that rises as your heart rate increases during a weight lifting set. After the set, the graph will begin to fall as your heart rate decreases. When it reaches a specific point predetermined by your max heart rate and zones, it will beep and tell you to start your next set. For me today it worked excellently. During a set my heart rate would get up to around 155-165 and then when it came down to about 125 the watch would tell me to start the next set.

The FT80 also has something called a STAR Training Program, which can be automatically generated for you by doing a “fitness test” (which unexpectedly is performed by lying down and doing nothing for five to ten minutes) and specifying what your training goal is: Improve Fitness or Maximize Fitness. I chose “Maximize” because I met that category’s prerequisites: to have been training for at least 10-12 weeks and have no problem training almost every day. The STAR training program generates four weekly goals for you. You have a specific amount of time you are to exercise in three heart rate zones, and how many calories you are to burn. For me the program set two hours in zone 1, three hours in zone 2, and forty-five minutes in zone 3. The calorie goal was set to 4700. It will automatically monitor the time you spend in each zone as you exercise and approximate the calories you burn. For example, I worked legs today and it said I did 11, 25, and 24 minutes in zones 1, 2, and 3 respectively, and I burned 918 calories. Pretty cool. Further, the program is updated automatically each week and sets new goals for you based on your progress, but of course I haven’t seen this first hand yet, since I just started using it.

The FT80 has a bunch of other features, including the ability to sync the data online, download specific strength training exercises to the watch, and other features that I’ll get to know over time. All isn’t perfect though…it does have one glaring problem. The contrast of the face is poor at best. It is still usable, but I find it strange that they continue to sell it that way. It should be MUCH brighter. And if you check out various reviews online they all agree, the contrast/brightness of the face is the one major weakness of an otherwise excellent product.

All in all, though, and am very satisfied with it so far, and I’m looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it.

289.4 today. That’s 5.4 lbs this week, and six days of it was with my daily calorie intake reduced to 1000. That’s 32.2 lbs total.

I have two more weeks to lose 9.4 before my physical, which I seem to be right on track for. In addition to reducing my calories, I’ve upped my cardio significantly. For the last two days, however, I’ve been really hungry in the afternoon and evening, and today during my workout I noticed my energy level down a bit, so I’ll probably up my calories by a couple of hundred to see if that knocks it out. Hopefully that will take care of the problems, and that small increase shouldn’t interfere with the weight loss enough to cause me to miss my goal. After the physical I’ll be upping it a few hundred more.

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.

297.6 today, so I broke the 300 barrier! That’s 2.4 lbs this week. I was hoping for 3-3.5, but I’m not disappointed in the least because it is likely I gained some muscle as well, considering the amount of weight-training I’m doing and the high protein diet I’m eating. It isn’t easy to gain a lot of muscle and lose fat at the same time, but the way things are structured in my regime some muscle gain is likely. So, my total weight loss now is 24 lbs.

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?