The Officialish FOFC Weight Loss Dynasty

[Radii]

1/10: 323
2/10: 310.8
3/10: 306.4
4/10: 299.4
5/10: 292.2
5/17: 290.6
5/24: 292.4
5/31: 286.6


So my last weigh-in wasn't a complete anomaly. I had actually knocked myself out of ketosis by eating too many carbs somewhere and didn't realize it at first. But after 5 months on a super low carb diet its extremely easy to get back in, and once I did I dropped a pound a day for the rest of the week. So that's neat.


I'm the only one that's posted here for about 2 1/2 weeks now. How's everyone else doing? :)

[PilotMan]

As many times as I've started and stopped I'm not sure I'm allowed to post in here. Anyway, the last two days I've worked out and lifted more than I've done in probably 7 or 8 years. I was sore yesterday and today, wow, I haven't been this sore in what seems like forever. Every move hurts. Lol. Not sure if I should rest today or just push through and get it done.

My weight isn't good. It's not the highest it's ever been and lately I've been trending down, but my food choices aren't great.

[tarcone]

I need to drop 14 pounds. I thing I did about amonth ago was to change my lunch routine. I ate a sandwich, potato chips, an apple and water for lunch everyday. I took a salad for a week. With sugar free salad dressing, an apple and water. I lost 4 pounds in that week. Amazing. I didnt stick to it. But it was interesting how cutting the carbs out of my diet had such a big affect.
I need to get back to that.

[Alan T]

As many times as I've started and stopped I'm not sure I'm allowed to post in here. Anyway, the last two days I've worked out and lifted more than I've done in probably 7 or 8 years. I was sore yesterday and today, wow, I haven't been this sore in what seems like forever. Every move hurts. Lol. Not sure if I should rest today or just push through and get it done.

My weight isn't good. It's not the highest it's ever been and lately I've been trending down, but my food choices aren't great.


Give today a rest day. Your body needs the rest days to heal the muscles that you worked out and make them stronger. Overworking your muscles, especially when not used to it can lead to injury if you are not careful.

[Radii]

As many times as I've started and stopped I'm not sure I'm allowed to post in here.

I've started over in this thread publicly 5 or 6 times i'm sure, and that doesn't include every effort i've made half heartedly to lose weight. Welcome back!

[Kodos]

It's not how many times you get knocked down; it's how many times you get back up.

[FrogMan]

1/10: 323
2/10: 310.8
3/10: 306.4
4/10: 299.4
5/10: 292.2
5/17: 290.6
5/24: 292.4
5/31: 286.6


So my last weigh-in wasn't a complete anomaly. I had actually knocked myself out of ketosis by eating too many carbs somewhere and didn't realize it at first. But after 5 months on a super low carb diet its extremely easy to get back in, and once I did I dropped a pound a day for the rest of the week. So that's neat.


I hadn't visited this thread in a little while but this update made me smile. Very happy for you! That's what, 36 lbs dropped so far? How do you feel? I guess you must be beginning to feel the positive effect of the weight loss. 36 lbs is a lot of weight that your knees aren't supporting on every step anymore. Again, kudos to you!

FM

[FrogMan]

I need to drop 14 pounds. I thing I did about amonth ago was to change my lunch routine. I ate a sandwich, potato chips, an apple and water for lunch everyday. I took a salad for a week. With sugar free salad dressing, an apple and water. I lost 4 pounds in that week. Amazing. I didnt stick to it. But it was interesting how cutting the carbs out of my diet had such a big affect.
I need to get back to that.

Take it easy. The whole "getting back in shape/lose weight" thing is a marathon, not a sprint. Yeah, it's a running analogy but I was using it way before I started running, with many of my jarate students. I see people come in, sign up and they want to tear up the place the first couple of weeks. At first they want acces to all hours of clss, advanced or beginner and I have to slow them down some. Nobody got out of shape or overweight overnight. As sad as this sound, nobody gets in shape overnight. It might take time so give your body some rest, it'll thanks you in the long run...

FM

[PilotMan]

Well after some serious stretching and knowing that I was going to rest tomorrow I went ahead and gave it a go. It went better than I thought it would. Did my normal routine, but switched up a bunch of exercises and didn't overdo the weights. Sitting in the sauna for 10 minutes after was great. I have to take advantage of these nice hotel gyms. So much better than anything I have access to at home.

[Radii]

I hadn't visited this thread in a little while but this update made me smile. Very happy for you! That's what, 36 lbs dropped so far? How do you feel? I guess you must be beginning to feel the positive effect of the weight loss. 36 lbs is a lot of weight that your knees aren't supporting on every step anymore. Again, kudos to you!

Thanks. :)

I haven't been exercising at all for the past 6 weeks or so. I assume once I start making that a better habit I'll notice more. I noticed massive changes when I first changed my eating habits in January. When I'm eating poorly I'm eating tons of fast food. So there are obvious benefits when I stop doing that and start cooking more. There were also huge benefits to the switch to super low carb/keto for me that have remained throughout. Those changes kicked in in full force when I was around 310-315. Past that, I can't tell a difference. I know there is a difference, and I know its a big one, but to this point I'm unable to quantify any difference right now to 30 pounds ago.

Again, with exercise, which I know I need to get started seriously, the sooner the better, I know I'll feel it more. I'm not complaining, mind you, the differences I feel from eating better in general are amazing and totally life changing. But that did happen before any significant weight loss, and I have so far been unable to observe anything major since then. It'll come though :)

[PilotMan]

I have the exact same problem. I walk around at 6'4'", 290 and for me to drop to 270 really doesn't show at all. I think if I could get to 250 and replace some of this fat with muscle I might look the best I have in years. One day at a time.

[FrogMan]

Thanks. :)

Past that, I can't tell a difference. I know there is a difference, and I know its a big one, but to this point I'm unable to quantify any difference right now to 30 pounds ago.


It's not noticeable like that, but your body is already thanking you. I lost 40 lbs and when I hit 15 lbs, I also didn't really realize it until I picked up a box of stuff that I knew was exactly 15 lbs that's when it hit me, how much weight I was carrying every day.

Go pick up a couple weight plate that total 30 lbs and simply walk with them in your arms for maybe 15 minutes... that's what you were carrying on you that you are not carrying anymore. It's NOT nothing... :)

FM

[Radii]

I have the exact same problem. I walk around at 6'4'", 290 and for me to drop to 270 really doesn't show at all. I think if I could get to 250 and replace some of this fat with muscle I might look the best I have in years. One day at a time.

Oh I definitely look a bit different between 320 and 280, I'm not sharing them but I am taking the occasional progress pic and have a couple pictures of when I was 325 or so. My 4X shirts are a little too big now, 4X shorts fall off and can't be worn anymore, 2X shirts don't quite fit yet but they can be put on without ripping apart incredible hulk style :D

The stuff I was talking about in that post is more about feel, the desire to have more energy, being able to get the day started better instead of waking up feeling like crap, naturally having a higher activity level because it doesn't hurt to do basic things like bring in groceries or take a flight of stairs etc. That's where I noticed huge improvements initially on the diet change but really no difference due to the next 30 pounds after that thus far.

[Radii]

Go pick up a couple weight plate that total 30 lbs and simply walk with them in your arms for maybe 15 minutes... that's what you were carrying on you that you are not carrying anymore. It's NOT nothing... :)

Yeah, this is a very good point :) Its absolutely a huge difference thinking about it that way.

[hoopsguy]

Long time no post. I've been floating between 175-179 for most of the year and hoping that I'm able to break through that 175 pound threshold by the end of the month.

After a really lethargic first part of the year, I've gotten out running the last couple of months. About 40 miles/month for April and May, while running about 10-12 times per month. Got a couple of 5k runs in. Now that I've got a work assignment that is local and scheduled to run through the end of the year, I think the time is right to actually get a little more regular with my running schedule. I'm going to follow the Hal Hidgon intermediate 5k plan.

Hal Higdon Training Programs (http://www.halhigdon.com/training/50934/Intermediate-5K-Training)

Have the first week in the books (well, long run tomorrow) and just trying to ease into the idea of running 5x a week instead of 3x. I'm legitimately taking it easy on the "easy" runs rather than finding some sliver of a personal best to go after as a challenge for myself every run. Like, "hey, if I push myself at the end here I can get a top 3 400m time!" Which I think is fine to do from time to time, but if I'm upping my mileage then I don't want to end up gimping myself chasing after some largely meaningless accomplishment. Bigger picture in mind.

Beyond that, my wife and daughter are joining me in doing a 30 day ab challenge from Facebook. I was pretty confident that I would win this challenge, but they have both survived so far and today was the first day where I felt some suffering trying to do my reps. I'm quite sure someone will tap out next week, just hoping it isn't me.
30-day-abschallenge_zps6b51b597.png Photo by louisemcentee | Photobucket (http://s1278.photobucket.com/user/louisemcentee/media/30-day-abschallenge_zps6b51b597.png.html)

Beyond that, it would be good to finally kick the Coke habit. I usually stick to 1/day on weekends, but the workday routine gets me having 2/day. Zero would be a nice lifestyle change, along with packing a lunch instead of eating out every day. I think those are changes that I can/will integrate and hopefully see some results on the scale.

I'll look to record weekly numbers, at least for the summer, so Radii has some company in here. Would really like to see what I can do on a 5k this fall if I manage to shed 7-10 pounds ...

[Radii]

1/10: 323
2/10: 310.8
3/10: 306.4
4/10: 299.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8

I lost another 1.8 pounds last week. So 5 months in, 38 pounds down. The last 3 months in a row I've lost between 7-8 pounds. I can't really ask for more than that.

I had a 3 month checkup with the doctor today. A1C was 4.2, which probably as low as it can go. Essentially non-diabetic as long as I avoid carbs.

Testosterone is still a huge issue, my energy level is just bad, and my testosterone remains extremely low. We're increasing my dose back to what it was last year, and I go back in two months to see how that impacts my bloodwork. The long term goal is to see how my body responds once I'm at a normal body weight, and to hopefully not need anything.

We're not worrying about cholesterol right now, next time I go back we'll check it. Mine is high, but it should be coming down on this diet and with weight loss.

I did go for a walk 3 days last week, but that's not enough and exercise continues to be an issue. My ideal goal is to be walking daily for 20-40 minutes and to be doing strength training of some sort 3 days a week. I remain far from this goal.

Overall, great progress, but still things to work on :)

[BYU 14]

That's awesome Radii, almost 8 pounds a month, keep it up buddy!!!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7

Ran 5x this week, which is in line with the running training plan that I'm following. Kept up with the 30-day ab deal, although I'm not sure I'll hold up another week. Yesterday was very tough and if my wife was not still doing it I probably would have wussed out by now. Alcohol consumption was low this week; think I had 3 beers. Probably averaged 1.5 12oz Coke's per day, with the variance coming from lunch where I don't know what size is or track refills. But that is the area I want to attack in the coming week. Finally, had pretty good sleep this week. 9 hours last night and at least one other night during the week and I'm guessing only one day with less than 6 hours.

I haven't worked up a spreadsheet for my exercise, meals, Coke, alcohol yet like I did last time I was serious about weight loss. Perhaps I'll do so if I'm not below 175 next week.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
2/10: 310.8
3/10: 306.4
4/10: 299.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
6/17: 283.8

A bit of a slow week, even though technically the end result is another pound down. I got some exercise 3 of the last 7 days, which is better but still needs improvement. I also ate out 4 times in the last week, not something I want to make a habit, but not a huge deal as long as its not a trend.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6

Later weigh-in than normal since I was out of town on Saturday. Will be same deal next weekend. Kept up both the running and the ab challenge. I'll be trying to split up my abs and running rather than doing abs after running; hit wall really hard earlier in week when rationalizing "different muscle groups" and starting during my running cool down.

From a habits perspective, had more junk food than normal over the 10 days with Father's Day and then the wife buying a cake for dessert with our dinner this past weekend. Caffeine was down until the last weekend, when I binged. Was outside of my routine at home and was lax. Slightly better food choices, smaller portions especially over the past weekend.

Overall, decent result. I've had a tough time getting below 175, and this was the first day I've weighed in at that number in awhile. So I'm not sure to trust it or if it represents finally moving past some weird body threshold. Realistically, I know that if I sustain the level of exercise I'm at right now that I should see incremental progress. But I also have to make some dietary adjustments to get down to 165 and sustain it.

[Radii]

Seeing something below 175 sounds like a good start, even if its not quite permanently below yet!

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
6/17: 283.8
6/24: 281.4

Condensing the history some so that list doesn't get crazy long :) Very solid week this week, the fact that I can still have a 2 pound loss in a week almost 6 months in makes me happy.

3 days exercise this week again, better than 0, but still need to be doing a little more.

Officially over 40 pounds lost now.

[hoopsguy]

Nice work, Radii. Has been very consistent weight loss for you over the first half of the year.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9

Well, up a smidge. Once again, weigh-in day was the only day checking in under 175. The last two weeks I've had to move weigh-in day on account of being out of town, which has allowed it to fall the day after my 10k run. I'll be returning to Saturday next month.

On the fitness front, it has been a very strong month. I ran more than I've ever run before in a single month, posted my fastest 5k time and second fastest 10k time, and stayed with the ab challenge all the way to the end. Assuming I do my final workout that evening, which should be a lock ... didn't do 29 days to stop on the 30th.

I'm expecting to sustain that level of effort into July, but if I want to realize weight loss it seems pretty clear that I need to work on food choices and portion control. I think I've been cognizant of these areas over the past month, but not consistently making good choices. I'm a little disappointed to still be hovering around 175 at this point after running 20x last month and pounding out over 2,000 crunches but remain optimistic that I'll see results with a sustained commitment.

To-do this week:
1.) Buy something to take lunch to work in rather than eating out.
- Bringing lunch 15x this month is the goal, have to believe those will be better food choices across the board.
2.) No more than 1 Coke per day this week, none before lunch.
- Will be harder earlier in week; I don't do this much at home.
3.) Beer that I've got in house today (about 8) should sustain me through 4th of July weekend
- Without breaking out silly amounts of wine either :)

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
6/17: 283.8
6/24: 281.4
7/1: 280.0

Moving right along, I wore jeans for the first time in a few months over the weekend, and they were hilariously big, I need to buy new ones, but since I don't wear them often I'm going to wait until the fall I think. I've moved up 4 holes on the belt that I wear, so that's neat.

I ran out of testosterone last week and am still having issues with insurance in getting more. It didn't seem to have an immediate effect on weight loss, but I fear it will soon. I struggle already when I feel decent to build an exercise routine and increase my activity level, so the difficulty level on that has been seriously increased given how run down I feel and my energy level without the medicine.

[Ben E Lou]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
6/17: 283.8
6/24: 281.4
7/1: 280.0

Moving right along, I wore jeans for the first time in a few months over the weekend, and they were hilariously big, I need to buy new ones, but since I don't wear them often I'm going to wait until the fall I think. I've moved up 4 holes on the belt that I wear, so that's neat.

I ran out of testosterone last week and am still having issues with insurance in getting more. It didn't seem to have an immediate effect on weight loss, but I fear it will soon. I struggle already when I feel decent to build an exercise routine and increase my activity level, so the difficulty level on that has been seriously increased given how run down I feel and my energy level without the medicine.Way to keep chuckin'!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1

Weight up on weigh-in day, but overall this week was pretty positive. I was under 175 for the past four days in a row. Went as low as 173.2, which is a weight I haven't seen in months. Cut my coke consumption down to less than one/day, up to about 36 hours without the caffeine and think I'm on the way to breaking this habit (again.)

So what led to weight being up? The last two days have included some 4th of July eating. Although I've exercised more restraint than I would most of the time, there has still been more alcohol, more sweets, and some food choices I would not make at home.

Heading into next week, I've grabbed food for packing my own lunch instead of eating out. I'll also try to target getting seven hours of sleep per night and keeping up the exercise regimen. If I do those things, while dropping pop, then I expect to have a nice weigh-in next Saturday and reverse the upward trend of the last couple of posts.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/1: 280.0
7/10: 281.0

At my last weigh-in I was at 280.0. A couple days after that I was at 278.5. But I made a pretty big change over the last week that I'm hoping will stick. I joined a gym. I have the means to do everything i want at home, but I'm just not doing it. So I'm hoping that adding a bit of accountability by doing this will get me going properly. I've been three times so far and am going this evening again.

So anyway, I gained 5 pounds after my first day at the gym. Obviously I didn't eat 15,000 calories, so that's water weight. My understanding is when you first start strength training after being sedentary for a long time your body hangs on to a lot of extra water as part of the process to repair muscles that you haven't used in awhile. I'm not sure if I'll lose a ton overnight at some point as that water gets released, or if that's just a new baseline weight for me as long as I continue to work out seriously. I don't care either way.

Also, I'm increasing the amount of protein I eat to go along with the intent of being much more active, and am eating 100 calories more a day to aim for a more moderate calorie deficit (still about 20%, but I was notably above that before). So we'll see if that causes more randomness or if I go back to a straight downward trend.

I have an Omron scale that does body fat %, but I think there are some known inaccuracies with it, so i check it every so often but haven't relied on it much. When I started in January it would report me at 40% body fat. Right now it says 37.5% body fat. I would have no problem with weight loss slowing a bit if it meant that my body fat % dropped faster and I added muscle. I'm going to ask at the gym today if they have a set of calipers and someone who knows how to take measurements properly.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8

Guess the good news is the weight was down in what turned out to be a miserable week. Work hours were very high, sleep was very low, and I didn't get as much exercise as I normally do. On short sleep and long hours diet struggled and I made none of the positive changes I outlined for last week.

So I suppose the weight went down a smidge based almost entirely on what an outlier the Saturday weigh-in was last week relative to the overall progress of the previous week.

Anyway, just planning to roll over the behaviors I outlined last week to this week and see if I can get my Saturday weigh-in down a more meaningful amount for next week.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
7/17: 278.6

And We're back to a "normal" weight loss pattern for me after my 2nd week of going to the gym. With added activity I am seeing my weight bounce around more from day to day. I've been checking bodyfat % with my scale too and the average for me this week was 37.1%. I know these things aren't the most accurate but I'm hoping they are good enough to show a downward trend over time? One of the trainers at the gym is going to be taking measurements for me tomorrow as well, something I never do b/c I feel like I do it differently every time and just get frustrated at myself.

I'm enjoying the gym, I still have 2 more weeks of my introductory month where I get 3 classes per week there. The classes are small group (2-6 people depending on how many show up so far), two of them are a bit more cardio focused, moving through circuits of exercises that are timed, though some of the exercises are things like dumbbell overhead presses, or bodyweight squats while holding some extra weight. The third is more weight training focused, still bodyweight/TRX band type stuff, but less cardio involved. Both of them have a good bit of core work.

I still have to decide what to do after this introductory period. The consistency/schedule/accountability of it definitely makes it worth something, but cost is an issue. They have different levels of plans available, so its not an all or nothing thing.

[Radii]

Guess the good news is the weight was down in what turned out to be a miserable week. Work hours were very high, sleep was very low, and I didn't get as much exercise as I normally do. On short sleep and long hours diet struggled and I made none of the positive changes I outlined for last week.

Hanging even in a crappy week seems solid enough. I know if I'm not getting enough sleep for more than a couple days everything goes to hell quickly.

What's your goal weight? I assume dropping the sodas, even if its just a 1 a day habit, would be the best thing you can do to get there, but god knows I know how hard that is to do.

[hoopsguy]

Goal weight, for now is 165. I was there a couple of years ago driven mainly by kicking soda + portion control. I'm doing considerably more exercise now (predominantly running) so I think this should be pretty attainable.

I do remember last time at 165 being glad to realize the goal, but also feeling like a commitment to fitness would allow me to lose considerably more weight. At this point, I want to see how I feel about my weight/fitness/health at 165 and then make what I hope is an honest assessment about a good "goal weight 2.0" that should represent a final destination.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what kind of running times I can post at 165 compared to what I've done over the past year in the 175-180 range.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0

Weird week. Our daughter was staying with grandparents this week so I had a couple date nights with my wife and also had another work happy hour to host. Not a recipe for good eating. Coupled with scaling back on my mileage for running due to being cautious with a minor injury (have 5k and 10k next week) and my frustrating inability to walk away from Coke ... well, it could have been a lousy week.

However, I did a good job with portion control outside of those dinners. The weight today feels fairly consistent with the overall weights I've been seeing for the past three weeks if not necessarily on Saturday mornings.

Eating/alcohol should be normalized for next week. Exercise will probably be a little low in terms of mileage, but pushing for peak performance for the 5k (and 10k a week from today, but that will be after the 7/26 weigh-in) so I expect that to be good on that front as well. Would be great to finally break through the caffeine headaches that keep pushing me back for a coke/day, but I think emphasis this week will be more on healthy eating and sufficient sleep.

Edit: had a nice moment yesterday after our daughter returned home and asked me, "did you get skinnier while I was gone?" And I think that is happening, as I've moved a notch on the belt and am struggling to find the right fit on my running watch that I've used without ever thinking about this for the past year.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
7/17: 278.6
7/24: 279.8

So my expectation is for this to continue for at least another couple weeks, possibly longer. My daily weight is bouncing all over like crazy still, and I'm pretty sure its a change brought on by my efforts at the gym. I've decided that I'm going to go ahead and pay to continue with the training program I'm doing now. I am clearly getting a ton out of it and there is no way I would be able to push myself this hard on my own.

My sleep schedule has normalized a bit and I'm getting 8 hours sleep more frequently than I was before. I'm also finding myself capable of getting through the day without a nap a bit more frequently even without my testosterone prescription, which is great.

Last Friday we did measurements at the gym, I forgot to write them down myself, but I'll check them again after a month and see how I'm doing. My expectation is that my weight will bounce around some b/c of water retention but that I'll lose some inches. We shall see. As far as the fitness/strength stuff goes, next week is "testing week", all of the workouts will be measured in some fashion (don't know the exact details yet) with the idea of re-testing every 4-6 weeks to gauge improvement. As a numbers freak, that's very appealing to me.


As far as my eating habits go, I have started counting calories daily again, just to make sure that I am not allowing my calories to creep up. Yesterday I hit my calorie goal just right, but my macros were a little off, like 35g more protein than intended and a bit less fat than intended. Not a huge deal but if I'm gonna start counting calories again I will try to get that closer.

[Radii]

I think I will just track this here instead of starting a new thread. My first benchmark testing was done today at the gym. Next Wednesday and Friday will be other tests of some sort as well.

Initial results:

The first three were of the "how many can you do in a minute" variety

Pushups: 7 from knees, 9 more elevated (arms on bench instead of the floor)
Situps: 33 crunches (I did one situp, sort of, probably shouldn't have counted, I can't do a full situp yet)
60 degree TRX Band Rows: 23

Plank: held for 51 seconds, done from knees instead of toes
Half Mile Run: 7 minutes 31 seconds


I'M SO OUT OF SHAPE. But I'm sure this is way more than I could have done 3 weeks ago when I first signed up. And I'm looking forward to doing better next month. I have no idea what the other two testing sessions are going to be, but I like the idea. Obviously measuring progress is something that is very appealing to me.

[Kodos]

Keep plugging away! Persistence pays off.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0
7/26: 172.8

Longer write-up later this weekend. Up stupid early in order to run my first 10k race later this morning, after posting some pretty big improvements in my running performance during a 5k Thursday night. I'm posting some of the running stats since there is a health element to those as well (weight, average heart rate) along with some of my nerd run tracking content.

4/12 Cubs 5k Weight: 179.0 Time: 26:31 Cadence 80 Heart Rate 167 Suffer 94
5/3 Hanover Park Sprint to Spring 5k Weight: 176.9 Time: 23.04 (4.4 km) Cadence 159 Heart Rate 171 Suffer 90
5/22 Chase Corporate Challenge 5k Weight: 176.7 Time: 28:31 (5.5 km) Cadence 164 Heart Rate 166 Suffer 109
6/14 "Fast Run" 5k Weight: 175.4 Time: 24.34 (5.0 km) Cadence 165 Heart Rate 165 Suffer 83
7/24 Run for Gus 5k Weight: 173.8 Time: 22:54 (4.9 km) Cadence 166 Heart Rate 173 Suffer 94
7/26 BigTen 5k/10k Weight: 172.8 Time: ??? Cadence ??? Heart Rate ??? Suffer ???

[hoopsguy]

So last week was an odd one in terms of exercise. I did a couple of aggressive short-distance runs over the weekend, then rested Mon-Wed to get ready for my Thursday 5k. I've been training pretty aggressively - about 5x/week - for this one over the past couple of months and I wanted to give myself the best shot at a good time even if it meant a little less exercise. I was maybe moderately better about portion control over this time in hopes of not giving back weight, but there were no major efforts to eat healthier or anything along those lines.

After the race, which went better than I had hoped for, I gorged on Portillo's Italian Beef and a Cheese Fries at 9:30 PM. Some small part of me recoiled at the choices I was making, as I was unable to finish the meal. But the larger part of me felt that this was an entirely appropriate reward for the training I had done the last few months. And given that I lost another pound between Thursday morning and the weigh-in Saturday, I think my body agreed that Portillo's was a proper conclusion to 5k training.

For the upcoming week I'm anticipating another fairly light exercise week in terms of total miles run. I'll be revamping the exercise a bit for this month to incorporate some biking and try to get up to 6x/week, up one day. 4x running, 2x bike. Along with some kind of a push-up challenge, as I need to work with my daughter on these (she is 7) for her black belt testing next spring. However, for this week my wife is out of town which will limit my schedule flexibility a great deal. So I'll find 45 minutes where I can but resign myself to a semi-recovery week before hitting August hard.

I'm convinced I'll never cut out caffeine. Stuck on one/day, no real consistency on when the headaches start. Maybe next week when my wife is back and I have a chance to normalize my sleep schedule ... or just suck it up and play through headaches for a few days. But I'm very bad at breaking the habit in that fashion, based on past/failed efforts.

Now I need to find another run to put on the schedule for sometime in late August ... and hope that it isn't 85 degrees w/85% humidity at 7AM when that date arrives.

[Radii]

Day two of testing week at the gym today, "Endurance Test"

30 minutes on the clock, do the following:

Run 250m
15 pushups (knee pushups for this first set)
15 TRX Band Squats (a little easier than bodyweight)
15 bent over rows (15 lb dumbbells)
15 kettlebell swings (8 kg kettlebell)
15 push press (15 lb dumbbells)
100 jump ropes (my uncoordinated ass just gets to jump 100 times)

Then repeat in reverse (so back to push press, swings, rows, squats, pushups, and finish with another 250m run. Only have to do jump ropes once in the middle). For my second set of pushups I had to drop to a modified version using a bench for some elevation to make it easier.

When I finished there was 10:17 left on the clock, so it took me 19 minutes 43 seconds. There were 7 of us there and I was the slowest, but also the newest. The "advanced" groups do the same test format, but 500m run and 30 reps of each exercise I think.


One more testing day on Friday, I'm assuming that one will be the most strength focused.

And again, the point of these is to repeat them once a month as a way to measure progress. I forget if I've mentioned it or not, but my trial month is over but I really enjoy the training/classes they run and I don't think I could push myself as hard as these guys push me, so I went ahead and committed to a year of this.

One more update Friday, then I intend to consolidate these into one big monthly post, or just start my own thread or whatever :D

[JediKooter]

Well, back on the weight loss wagon again. After being unemployed for almost a year exactly, I ballooned up to 262 pounds (not much else to do when you can't find a job). Fattest I've ever been. At 6 American feet and being single...not a good combo when trying to find a lady friend.

Anyway, been on a 'diet' for the last month and have dropped from 262 to 249. I'm sure a good portion of that loss was water weight, but, still happy with the results regardless.

I am doing the Keto diet, which seems to be a bit of a hybrid of the Atkins and Paleo diet. I've completely cut all sugar, grains & starches, I have way more energy than normal and I'm sleeping much much better. So far so good, so I will continue to stick with it.

[Radii]

I am doing the Keto diet

Good to have you in here!

I've been on keto since January, all my weight loss this year has been on it, i've definitely noticed lots of benefits outside of just the weight loss as well.

[JediKooter]

Good to have you in here!

I've been on keto since January, all my weight loss this year has been on it, i've definitely noticed lots of benefits outside of just the weight loss as well.

Awesome! It's been easy for me because I never was a sweets person, my problem was portion sizes + lack of exercise. How have these last 7 months gone for you? Any issues with finding foods or anything like that?

I've been following the keto reddit (not sure if you have seen it) and a lot of my motivation comes from the progress pictures people post.

[Radii]

my problem was portion sizes + lack of exercise. How have these last 7 months gone for you?

I really fit into the standard keto concepts around insulin resistance and hunger and fat storage. Even eating healthy carbs I could never keep my appetite under control. On keto my blood sugar is always consistent, and I'm just almost never hungry and not limited by the need to eat which is just an amazing feeling as a diabetic. Feeling that steady and good all the time makes it really easy to stick to it and not cheat.

Any issues with finding foods or anything like that?

Not really. I'm not someone who cares a lot about variety though, so I eat the same breakfast with bacon and eggs every single day and never tire of it, etc. Same thing with rotating burgers/pork chops/chicken of some sort for dinner with some occasional fish or steak or roast mixed in.

The times I have gotten a little bored or wanted something new I've never had trouble finding an interesting recipe. Every so often someone will post on the keto subreddit with like a giant imgur album of all the awesome things they're eating, but most of the time I highly prefer "simple and repetitive" over "time consuming but unique"

Peanut Butter Cups - Keto-Style Fat Bombs FTW | screwed on straight (http://screwedonstraight.net/keto-diet-peanut-butter-cup-fat-bombs/)

That recipe fixes any sweet cravings I have. I don't get cravings much anymore at all, but I do like keeping those peanut butter cups around and having one a day as a little treat w/o carbs. I did experiment with some other desserts here and there, mainly cheesecake type stuff, but a lot of those recipes use things like sugar free jello for flavor that has a bit of an aftertaste that I don't like.


I've been following the keto reddit (not sure if you have seen it) and a lot of my motivation comes from the progress pictures people post.

Yep, I spend a fair bit of time there. I like helping the newbies there since I remember being a little overwhelmed and having a lot of simple questions at the start. The never-ending stream of progress posts is really great too. There's a bit of a cult-like atmosphere that bothers me at times, but those threads are easy enough to ignore :)


reddit.com/r/ketorecipes is also good if you're looking for new things to try.

[JediKooter]

I really fit into the standard keto concepts around insulin resistance and hunger and fat storage. Even eating healthy carbs I could never keep my appetite under control. On keto my blood sugar is always consistent, and I'm just almost never hungry and not limited by the need to eat which is just an amazing feeling as a diabetic. Feeling that steady and good all the time makes it really easy to stick to it and not cheat.

This for sure. The whole up and down thing would drive me nuts. There were times I would wake up in the morning feeling hungover and I haven't had a drink in weeks. That doesn't happen anymore.


Not really. I'm not someone who cares a lot about variety though

This is me as well. Last week for dinner was scrambled eggs and seasoned ground beef...all week and I loved it. I used heavy whipping cream for the scrambled eggs and man, it made sweet love to my taste buds.

Peanut Butter Cups - Keto-Style Fat Bombs FTW | screwed on straight (http://screwedonstraight.net/keto-diet-peanut-butter-cup-fat-bombs/)

I've been tempted to try these due to Reese's Peanutbutter Cups being one of my all time favorite sweet snacks.


Yep, I spend a fair bit of time there. I like helping the newbies there since I remember being a little overwhelmed and having a lot of simple questions at the start. The never-ending stream of progress posts is really great too. There's a bit of a cult-like atmosphere that bothers me at times, but those threads are easy enough to ignore :)

Nice! I have yet to post anything there, just mostly me trying to absorb everything on there. Ok, I'm glad you mentioned the cult-like atmosphere that seems to be an underlying theme. The conspiracy theory stuff really turns me off after some severe eye rolling on my part and people seem a bit too willing to jump on the 3:15 to Conspiracyville.

reddit.com/r/ketorecipes is also good if you're looking for new things to try.

I definitely peek at this a couple of times a week. Now if I can overcome the laziness on my part... :)

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
7/17: 278.6
7/24: 279.8
8/1: 279.4

Yup, still pretty stagnant. Gym 4 days this past week (the normal 3 training sessions + I went once on my own and did a newbie HIIT workout on an exercise bike for 20 minutes). I went out to eat one time too many, I do need to plan a little better for my evening gym classes, if there aren't leftovers ready to eat when I get home at 7pm-8pm I am going to end up getting chicken wings instead of cooking, which isn't the worst thing in the world but not something I want to do too regularly.

Still telling myself I'm going to wait a few more weeks to get measurements to see if I'm losing inches before I worry about the weight not moving. Even though I've had a number of people tell me up front that this might happen, its still hard not to get annoyed :)


Oh, and we didn't do the strength test thing today at the gym. Trainer suggested that since I'm brand new and still in my first month that we skip that one this month and start doing it next month. I think he's worried that I might see numbers I don't like and get discouraged. But I wasn't about to complain today, b/c I was the only person there. With the Friday sessions I'm paying for a 4 person class, so when I'm the only one there I am getting 1 on 1 training for $10. I'll take that every chance I can.




I've been tempted to try these due to Reese's Peanutbutter Cups being one of my all time favorite sweet snacks.

If you trust yourself not to pig out on them, I highly recommend it! They are the best tasting things I've found so far. If you can't resist and eat 3 or 4 at a time it can get out of hand quickly though.

[JediKooter]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
7/17: 278.6
7/24: 279.8
8/1: 279.4


44 pounds is pretty damn good. Weird how it has come to a crawl now though. Hopefully it will pick up again soon.


If you trust yourself not to pig out on them, I highly recommend it! They are the best tasting things I've found so far. If you can't resist and eat 3 or 4 at a time it can get out of hand quickly though.

I can trust myself, just need a nice cold tall glass of whole white milk to go along with them. :)

[Radii]

Weird how it has come to a crawl now though.

It stalled when I went from nearly 100% sedentary to signing up for a gym membership and beginning a program with a trainer 3 days a week. Apparently this is not uncommon and will obviously be way better for me in the long run :)

[JediKooter]

It stalled when I went from nearly 100% sedentary to signing up for a gym membership and beginning a program with a trainer 3 days a week. Apparently this is not uncommon and will obviously be way better for me in the long run :)

Ahhh ok. That is definitely a good trade off then. I'm waiting to get down to around 225-ish before trying to work out. Mostly due to my horrible knees and them having to hold up less weight by then.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0
7/26: 172.8
8/2: 171.6

Not 100% sure how much trust to put into weight this week. The scale that I've got has a nasty habit of "sticking" on the same weight for several days in a row. Which is hard for me to accept for 3-4 days, being at the same 1/10th of a pound. Anyway, I had one day this week where I got a unique weight; all of the others showed the same weight as the day before.

Not much new on the progress report. Overall exercise was down with my wife out of town for 3 days and limited flexibility to get out and run while watching my daughter. But I did get my runs in over the past weekend and latter part of this week. Including a new personal record for my 10k, which was exactly one second faster than a friend who ran with me. Good times :)

I've also decided that I'll add some biking to my running this month. I'll try to increase my running distance for a 3rd straight month (63/124/131 for last 3) while tacking on a few bike rides and maybe getting 50km exercise through that outlet. I need to find some kind of a push-up routine, both to have some upper-body exercise as well as help teach my daughter how to do them. I know about the 100 push-up challenge, but don't think I'll do that this month. Very willing to take suggestions from other readers if they have anything ... otherwise I'll either make my own or scour the Internet looking for something interesting later today.

Eating - portion control pretty good, pretty limited booze. Food choices themselves remain counter-productive and I'm still addicted to caffeine. I'll need to correct these issues over the long-term to sustain good health, but the motivation isn't there at the moment to make a meaningful course correction.

[Radii]

Including a new personal record for my 10k

Congrats, and congrats on seeing some progress, even if you're skeptical for now, hopefully its at least showing the right trend if not 100% accurate.

Food choices themselves remain counter-productive and I'm still addicted to caffeine

Hm, are you just drinking diet soda for the caffeine? For some reason I thought it was the sugary stuff. As long as its not impacting your sleep I'm not sure that's really all that big of a worry?

[hoopsguy]

Regular Coke, not diet. First one is when caffeine headaches start, second one (couple times a week) is straight weakness rather than anything else.

[Radii]

Regular Coke, not diet. First one is when caffeine headaches start, second one (couple times a week) is straight weakness rather than anything else.

Oh ok, then yeah, I agree, gotta beat that shit someday :) When I did it it was cold turkey, to me it really did feel like a full on addiction, more to the sugar than the caffeine I think, or maybe the combination of both. It was very all or nothing with me. I'd cut back a few times but that never worked and I'd cut them out for weeks or even months at a time but then if I had a single taste I was back on them full time.

But I know most people don't recommend that and recommend scaling back or weaning off or whatever. I dunno, I don't even have any reason why it worked this time (I think I'm up over 2 full years w/o soda now?) and it didn't so many other times. Its absurdly difficult.

[hoopsguy]

Past the 48 hour mark on no Coke at this point. Did not have any in the house this weekend. I weathered the headaches yesterday and did not have as many issues today. If I can break bad routines at the office tomorrow I should be in a pretty good spot to make a run at this.

I last cut out caffeine about 3 years ago and maintained it for about 8 months. Weaned off it at that time, getting down to 1/2 cans for the last week or so before stopping completely. So I know this is eminently doable, if not easy.

[JediKooter]

Alrighty, down to 245 this morning.

So far my progress has been this:
262 (Starting Weight)
259
254
249
245

It really felt like I had not lost anything between my last weigh in and today, so I'm happy with the result.

[Radii]

Past the 48 hour mark on no Coke at this point. Did not have any in the house this weekend. I weathered the headaches yesterday and did not have as many issues today. If I can break bad routines at the office tomorrow I should be in a pretty good spot to make a run at this.

Go go! Good luck making it through the work week :)

Alrighty, down to 245 this morning.

So far my progress has been this:
262 (Starting Weight)
259
254
249
245

It really felt like I had not lost anything between my last weigh in and today, so I'm happy with the result.

Very nice! I will keep my fingers crossed that you are one of the lucky ones that completely dodges the post induction stall that happens to a lot of people. Its so nice to see weight flying off early on like that.

[Alan T]

Past the 48 hour mark on no Coke at this point. Did not have any in the house this weekend. I weathered the headaches yesterday and did not have as many issues today. If I can break bad routines at the office tomorrow I should be in a pretty good spot to make a run at this.

I last cut out caffeine about 3 years ago and maintained it for about 8 months. Weaned off it at that time, getting down to 1/2 cans for the last week or so before stopping completely. So I know this is eminently doable, if not easy.


Good luck with this! Stopping drinking sodas was probably one of the best things I ended up doing for myself. It definitely was not easy though.

The bad news, at least for myself, it is still not easy. Even all this time later, every time I go out to eat, or am at the grocery store, i have little voices in my head that keep telling me how one soda won't hurt anything or is not a big deal.

It truly is an addiction, but one that you can beat. I wish the best for you in it!

[JediKooter]

Very nice! I will keep my fingers crossed that you are one of the lucky ones that completely dodges the post induction stall that happens to a lot of people. Its so nice to see weight flying off early on like that.

Thank you kind sir. Oh man, me too. I've read about people's stalls and hopefully if it does hit me, it won't be prolonged for too long. It's been a month and 4 days since starting, was hoping for 20 pounds, but, I'll take 17 at this stage in the game. On my last belt loop now and even that is not tight enough.


Good luck with this! Stopping drinking sodas was probably one of the best things I ended up doing for myself. It definitely was not easy though.

The bad news, at least for myself, it is still not easy. Even all this time later, every time I go out to eat, or am at the grocery store, i have little voices in my head that keep telling me how one soda won't hurt anything or is not a big deal.

It truly is an addiction, but one that you can beat. I wish the best for you in it!

What helped me (which I started almost 2 years ago mostly due to trying to cut out caffeine) was, my rule was to never buy sodas for the fridge at home. I could only have a soda when I was out somewhere and if there were no free refills, better pace yourself. It got to the point where I couldn't even finish a regular sized drink, unless it was mostly ice cubes in the cup.

I now drink Coke Zero, Sprite Zero or Diet Dr. Pepper, when I'm out somewhere. If the place I'm at has none of those, I drink water.

[hoopsguy]

4 days with no caffeine. Headaches still not letting up. I hate this habit, and also hate that headaches are lingering more than I remember then doing last time I quit.

Alan, I did give into the "one Coke" won't hurt me back when I had quit 3 years ago. Which turned into a couple a week, then one/day ... damn, sounds like smoking habit. Anyway, I realize that this is fairly low on horrible habits list if I'm drinking 1/day but it is just such a waste to do when I'm actually exercising regularly and having some (very modest) restraint in terms of food selection. So time to turn 4 days into a week, two weeks, etc ... just waiting for the headaches to break.

Anyway, thanks for encouragement. This forum has helped me have some level of accountability for the weight level commitments during the periods where I post, and I can definitely use that help.

[Radii]

4 days with no caffeine. Headaches still not letting up. I hate this habit, and also hate that headaches are lingering more than I remember then doing last time I quit.

Very nice! Keep it up, you know it'll get easier the longer you make it without giving in :)

[HarryLime]

Hoops! 4 days is a great start! keep it up, it is amazing how quickly the days can rack up and you will be talking about 4 weeks... 4 months.. etc :D Its not easy especially with those headaches, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! I cant even remember the last time i had a soda, and have absolutely no cravings for them whatsoever now! Stay strong!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0
7/26: 172.8
8/2: 171.6
8/9: 170.6

Feeling very good about this weigh-in. First, I was able to drop caffeine last week. I'm sitting at about 7 1/2 days (yes, still thinking half days at this point :) ) without giving in and having a Coke. Headaches seem to have faded into the background somewhere between the 5th/6th day. So major win there.

Also got really good sleep this week, which I don't think was directly related to the caffeine. More about letting myself go to sleep earlier at night, as I start training myself to do morning runs. I'm definitely a night person, but I'm trying to become more of a morning person. And with 5AM wake-ups for running, it isn't helping my weight loss to stay up until 11:30 or later. This week I fell asleep before 10PM a couple of nights and I think that helped out with the weight loss.

I have slacked on a couple of things that I meant to do for August from a fitness perspective. First, I never did find a push-up challenge that was interesting for me. I put in a half-hearted effort one day with Internet searches and couldn't find something that seemed appropriate for someone who can knock off a set of 20-30 pushups as a starting point. There were plenty of options for more aggressive challenges, and a couple that seemed geared towards someone who has never done a pushup in their life, but nothing that seemed like a good fit. Perish the thought that I should actually come up with my own program ... anyway, I've slacked on this front.

Additionally, I haven't done the biking that I wanted to do. Part of the "good sleep" I mentioned above was sleeping in later on Monday and Thursday of this week. Which meant that I was able to hold my running schedule, but not getting in any bike rides. That should definitely change next week. I'm certainly not dialed into biking the same way that I am running, but I do want to have some level of cross-training this month and biking was the plan. So I can't treat it as a second-class fitness citizen.

Final note - signed up for my next 5k race. I've got about 5 weeks to get ready for this one. I think having that carrot out there to train for contributed to a really good run yesterday on my interval runs, which are normally my most dreaded running workout. I'm definitely more motivated for running performance when I've got a race in sight, as opposed to just putting in the miles.

[Radii]

Congrats on the great week! Weight down and no caffeine, bravo.

I put in a half-hearted effort one day with Internet searches and couldn't find something that seemed appropriate for someone who can knock off a set of 20-30 pushups as a starting point.

For awhile when I was trying to get motivated to start exercising seriously I spent a lot of time reading reddit's bodyweightfitness sub, even though I ended up not doing that, I'm still pretty fascinated by it. For most areas of focus, there are long lists of progressions from a beginner exercise to something that would be pretty damn impressive.

training_guide - bodyweightfitness (http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/training_guide) <-- overall FAQ for full body work, including links to basic workouts and such.

basic_exercises - bodyweightfitness (http://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/basic_exercises#wiki_horizontal_pushing) <-- here's a specific progression with the end goal of being able to do 1 arm pushups. Looks like "Diamond Pushups" are next in line after the standard pushup as far as incrementally increasing difficulty, along with a suggestion for working your way from a regular pushup to a diamond pushup if its too hard at first.

[hoopsguy]

Thanks for links, Radii. I'll spend some time on them in a couple of days. Last night I was doing handstands in the backyard with my daughter. She is working on this for her karate. Anyway, first time I've tried that in pretty much forever, and while I surprised myself by being able to hold one for 1-2 seconds my right arm basically gave out and it feels like I sort of jammed my shoulder. So not going to be doing much in the way of bodyweight exercise for a couple of days until it feels like my shoulder is closer to normal.

#fortysucks

[Alan T]

Thanks for links, Radii. I'll spend some time on them in a couple of days. Last night I was doing handstands in the backyard with my daughter. She is working on this for her karate. Anyway, first time I've tried that in pretty much forever, and while I surprised myself by being able to hold one for 1-2 seconds my right arm basically gave out and it feels like I sort of jammed my shoulder. So not going to be doing much in the way of bodyweight exercise for a couple of days until it feels like my shoulder is closer to normal.

#fortysucks


I'm glad I'm not old yet! :)

#onlythirtynine ;)

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/1: 279.4
8/10: 277.2

Two pounds lost this week, and almost 4 on the month. Earlier in the week I actually saw 275.x once and 276.x three times, but I also ate like 4000 calories Friday, so yeah. All keto friendly, just a ton. I'm cautiously optimistic that my stall that began when I started working out is over and I'll start losing again every week.

In addition to my three classes w/ the trainers at the gym this week, I went for a run Sunday, Thursday used the elliptical for 40 minutes and Saturday used it for a full hour. I used my heart rate monitor when I went running and found that my heart rate is still in ridiculously bad shape. At what is basically a walking pace (3 mph) but in a jogging motion instead of walking my heart rate very quickly hits 150 and if I maintain that same pace after 20 minutes its creeping up on 170.

So I'm using the elliptical at the gym on a few off days to try to work on that. I'm going at whatever pace is needed to keep my heart rate between 135-145 for upwards of an hour. The equivalent of the "long, slow run" or whatever. The work with the trainers is all at a much faster pace and is definitely high intensity for me, so I'm assuming this lower intensity "get the heart rate up and keep it up for awhile" type of thing is best for me on off days, and something I want as part of trying to fix my overall fitness level.


This Friday at the gym we'll take measurements to see if I've lost any inches over the last month. I also see my doctor tomorrow to check cholesterol and testosterone. Its been about 2 months w/o testosterone prescription now, I'm curious to see if increasing my level of activity over the last 6 weeks has helped yet. I am certain it is still very low, but maybe slightly less low than the last time we checked it.

[hoopsguy]

I'm glad I'm not old yet! :)

#onlythirtynine ;)

Technically, 42 here ... should probably have read #wrongsideofforty or something like that. But I'm pretty sure I would not have suffered such silly minor maladies when I was younger.

[JediKooter]

Forty is the new 29.

[hoopsguy]

Forty is the new 29.

Even if my head were silly enough to believe that, my shoulder is reminding me of the lie.

In all seriousness, I could find myself in the best shape I've been in two decades if I keep up my commitments to running and mix in some cross-training throughout the remainder of the year. Which would be pretty great. I'm already five pounds below what I weighed when I got married, back when I actually was 29.

But in ways both large and small, 40 is not 29. Not the new 29, old 29, retired 29, poor mans 29, or any of that stuff.

[hoopsguy]

1/10: 323
...
8/10: 277.2


Closing in on 50 pounds for the year. Already lost 15% of your weight from the start of the year. I hope you are really proud of that progress.


I used my heart rate monitor when I went running and found that my heart rate is still in ridiculously bad shape. At what is basically a walking pace (3 mph) but in a jogging motion instead of walking my heart rate very quickly hits 150 and if I maintain that same pace after 20 minutes its creeping up on 170.

This is how I feel every time I look at one of FrogMan's runs. He talks about training runs where he keeps his heart rate at 115, and I realize that I start my runs at 130 and that 115 would represent a semi-fast walk for me sustained over a couple of blocks.

That said, it is fun seeing progress on this if you can control workout conditions and compare month-over-month. Treadmill/eliptical/whatever indoors is perfect for this and hopefully you are keeping track of this as another way to chart your performance improvement.


This Friday at the gym we'll take measurements to see if I've lost any inches over the last month. I also see my doctor tomorrow to check cholesterol and testosterone. Its been about 2 months w/o testosterone prescription now, I'm curious to see if increasing my level of activity over the last 6 weeks has helped yet. I am certain it is still very low, but maybe slightly less low than the last time we checked it.

Best of luck with the measurements, particularly as they relate to your prescriptions.

[Radii]

Closing in on 50 pounds for the year. Already lost 15% of your weight from the start of the year. I hope you are really proud of that progress.

I definitely am! I haven't gotten this far with weight loss in about 15 years. Somewhere between ages 23-26 is when i went over 300 pounds and never looked back (I'm 37)


This is how I feel every time I look at one of FrogMan's runs.

FrogMan is a machine, its amazing looking at his runs on Starva.


That said, it is fun seeing progress on this if you can control workout conditions and compare month-over-month.

The catalyst for me is really my "strength" heavy workouts at the gym. I get gassed so quickly, having to stop between reps/sets on numerous exercises not because I've worked a muscle group to exhaustion, but because I'm just completely physically exhausted. I want to do everything i can do without overworking/hurting myself to get past that ASAP.

I can tell its getting better, both at being able to work a little harder for longer, and in learning how to pace myself in the workouts we're given to do, and that is satisfying.

[JediKooter]

Even if my head were silly enough to believe that, my shoulder is reminding me of the lie.

In all seriousness, I could find myself in the best shape I've been in two decades if I keep up my commitments to running and mix in some cross-training throughout the remainder of the year. Which would be pretty great. I'm already five pounds below what I weighed when I got married, back when I actually was 29.

But in ways both large and small, 40 is not 29. Not the new 29, old 29, retired 29, poor mans 29, or any of that stuff.

:D

29 was only 11 years ago, not that long if you think about it. I'm quite fond of the Indiana Jones quote, "It's not the age, it's the mileage".

I peaked the 40 hill 3 years ago and mentally, I don't feel 43. Heck I still 'feel' like I'm in my 20s, until I actually exert myself physically. Which could be something as simple as standing up. My knees are shot (when I walk down stairs it sounds like someone is grinding pepper), my right shoulder is rickety, I'm going bald, I think my hearing is fading, and where in the world are these grey hairs coming from that aren't growing on the top of my head??

[JediKooter]

So this weeks progress:

**Woohoo!! Busted through the 20 pounds lost threshold!!**
262 (Starting Weight)
259
254
249
245
241


Still not doing any exercising, just continuing to follow the Keto diet, no alcohol and trying to get plenty of rest. I wake up at 5 in the morning for work and don't get home until about 4:30, so it's already been a long day by the time I get home. I try to eat around 5 or 6 now since it's hard enough for me to fall asleep even when I'm exhausted and I don't need food that I ate keeping me up late.

[Radii]

I got my bloodwork back.

Testosterone is normal, and is actually pretty much in the middle of the normal range. Its over twice as high as the last test I had done, even though I was on testosterone replacement at the time. That was about 25 pounds ago and I was getting no exercise then. I'm completely shocked by this result, I would have bet any amount of money it was still low.


My cholesterol results are mostly good news.

Total Cholesterol - 158 (normal <200, good!)
HDL - 33 (quite low, but improving. My HDL had been 27 for like 4 years in a row. This is the first time i've seen it improve ever)
Triglycerides - 88 (normal < 150). Keto knocks this one out of the park almost universally, and it has for me. 2 years ago this was 165)

Triglycerides/HDL ratio = 2.6 <-- this ratio seems like it is increasingly being seen as one of the most accurate predictors of cardiovascular events. 2 or less is good, 4 is high, 6 is scary dangerously high (official medical terminology). This ratio was very close to 6 for me a couple years ago, and was still 3.9 back in March.

My LDL-Particle count is high, but improving. This isn't in the standard cholesterol test but I've been reading a lot about this since I started keto and it seems to be one of the most important measures and my doctor was happy to indulge me when we discussed it earlier in the year. It was 1860 in March, 1730 now. Over 1600 is considered high, My doctor suggests that I should want to see this between 1000-1300 before getting off meds. 2000+ is the scary high number here.



tl;dr: Testosterone = Great! Cholesterol = improving, but needs more work.

[JediKooter]

I got my bloodwork back.

Testosterone is normal, and is actually pretty much in the middle of the normal range. Its over twice as high as the last test I had done, even though I was on testosterone replacement at the time. That was about 25 pounds ago and I was getting no exercise then. I'm completely shocked by this result, I would have bet any amount of money it was still low.


My cholesterol results are mostly good news.

Total Cholesterol - 158 (normal <200, good!)
HDL - 33 (quite low, but improving. My HDL had been 27 for like 4 years in a row. This is the first time i've seen it improve ever)
Triglycerides - 88 (normal < 150). Keto knocks this one out of the park almost universally, and it has for me. 2 years ago this was 165)

Triglycerides/HDL ratio = 2.6 <-- this ratio seems like it is increasingly being seen as one of the most accurate predictors of cardiovascular events. 2 or less is good, 4 is high, 6 is scary dangerously high (official medical terminology). This ratio was very close to 6 for me a couple years ago, and was still 3.9 back in March.

My LDL-Particle count is high, but improving. This isn't in the standard cholesterol test but I've been reading a lot about this since I started keto and it seems to be one of the most important measures and my doctor was happy to indulge me when we discussed it earlier in the year. It was 1860 in March, 1730 now. Over 1600 is considered high, My doctor suggests that I should want to see this between 1000-1300 before getting off meds. 2000+ is the scary high number here.



tl;dr: Testosterone = Great! Cholesterol = improving, but needs more work.

Very nice numbers Radii! Another reason I really wan to stick with Keto. I've never had high blood pressure, but, cholesterol tends to be on the high side.

Amazing what a 25 pound difference does.

[BYU 14]

Goals:
Weight: 190 (I am 6' tall and have an above average frame)
Body fat: 21-22 % (For a 50 year old man, fit/fair is 23-26%, slim/healthy is 20-23%)
I set the Lose it site goal for weight loss of 1.5 pounds a week, which puts me at my target weight on March 9th (my Birthday)

Monday December 16th
Weight: 208.0
Body Fat: 25.2%
Muscle Mass: 33.6%
(Scale also does bone density and water weight %, not concerned with those as much)

Friday February 28th
Weight: 189.2 (- 18.8)
Body Fat: 21.7%
Muscle Mass: 35.3%
Adjusted goal date: Met

8 months since I began and still holding steady, numbers of this morning

Thursday August 14th
Weight: 187.2 (- 20.8)
Body Fat: 21.4%
Muscle Mass: 35.0%

Happy with maintaining, a little bit of a loss on muscle mass, which is understandable since I have not done as much strength training lately, need to get back on that more as I want to get to 36%, which would get my body fat to under 21%, which is also desired, though I am still in the slim/healthy range there. using the Lose it app was so instrumental to this and it is now second nature and definitely keeps me on track.

[Alan T]

Nice job BYU!

[JediKooter]

Yes, very good job BYU!

[Radii]

Really impressive stuff BYU!

Out of curiosity, what are you using to measure body fat %?

[BYU 14]

Thanks guys, it is finally easy. Like I mentioned working out was never an issue, portion control, another story, finally have that down :)

Really impressive stuff BYU!

Out of curiosity, what are you using to measure body fat %?

We have a Vitagoods scale, measures body fat, muscle mass, bone density and water weight. Overstock has them for under 50 bucks

VitaGoods Digital Body Analyzer - VGP-3000 | Overstock™ Shopping - Big Discounts on Other Diagnostic Supplies (http://www.overstock.com/Health-Beauty/VitaGoods-Digital-Body-Analyzer-VGP-3000/9057250/product.html?cid=225772&fp=f&mr:referralID=b2d4419f-23e6-11e4-8303-001b2166c2c0)

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0
7/26: 172.8
8/2: 171.6
8/9: 170.6
8/16: 170.3

A little bummed not to be under 170 this week. I never did see the scale hit that mark on a morning weigh-in, but most of my post-weight checks were below that threshold. Oh well, hopefully see the number I'm shooting for next week.

I had a really good week of running. It inadvertently became a "speed training" week when I got a little lost on one of my easy runs. I do heartbeat-based runs for my easy runs, starting with a relatively low heart rate and going up 5 beats/minute each kilometer. Well, when that run turned into 2km longer than I intended it was much less an "easy" run :) In all seriousness, my best 5k time last year was just over 25 minutes and I've had three straight runs this week between 24:15 - 24:30 without any of them representing an aggressive racing pace. It is fun seeing progress like this ... hopefully I feel the same way next month when I take aim about 22:30 for my 5k time, which would slot me very close to 7 minute mile pace for the race.

I know the reason that the weight was up this week; too many big lunches. I had a couple vendor lunches and one with my manager. While I try to make reasonable choices in those situations, I know that I do not do as good a job as when I head out for a quick lunch on my own. I don't anticipate this being anything close to a recurring problem.

Still no biking and after gimping my shoulder last weekend no pushups either. Hoping to find time for a longer bike ride yet this weekend, along with a long run tomorrow AM, and we'll see if the shoulder is ready for some real exercise during the back half of this coming week.

[HarryLime]

keep up the good work guys.. you are an inspiration to those, like me, who are on the same journey, but have not shared in here!

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
8/17: 275.4

Measurements Friday at the gym: Chest down 1", Waist down 1 3/4", Hips down 1 1/4", thigh down 1/2". I forget the actual numbers, mid 40's or something for waist, I dunno.

I could tell noticeable progress at the gym this week too, as far as being able to finish my workouts with fewer instances of having to stop and catch my breath in the middle of a set. The cardio on off days is definitely helping in that regard. I can tell progress in what I'm able to do as well. Good stuff!

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
8/17: 275.4
8/24: 272.4

50 pounds! I am basically halfway to my initial goal, which I've set at 220.

I saw 273's for most of the week, so 272.4 today is a pretty big jump, I wouldn't be surprised if next week's number doesn't change much. Or maybe it keeps going and this is my reward for being patient and hardly losing anything for like 7 weeks.

I went to the gym only once by myself on top of the 3 training sessions this week, did the elliptical for a full hour with my heart rate in the 135-145 range. Noted improvement: It took a little more effort to initially get my heart rate above 135. For the first 15 minutes or so my pace was a little faster. After that it still wanted to do its thing and go above 150 and I had to go pretty damn slowly to keep it in this 135-145 range. Also getting the full hour in was pretty easy this time, compared to the couple times I did this the week before.

Its been a month since I did those two benchmark tests at the gym, so that's happening again this week. I expect I've improved in every area, I'm looking forward to it.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
6/23: 174.6
6/30: 174.9
7/5: 175.1
7/12: 174.8
7/19: 174.0
7/26: 172.8
8/2: 171.6
8/9: 170.6
8/16: 170.3
8/23: 172.6

I'm going with the idea that this is a bogus scale number, but I weighed twice before my run and got the same number both times. Of course, the scale spit out 167.0 after I was done with my 5 mile run, so I take both numbers with a large, large grain of salt.

That said, it wasn't a particularly good week in terms of weight management. Did a deep dish pizza early in the week, had some heavy storms in the morning that dashed two of my runs mid-week, and had multiple dinners out with customers. None of those are going to be the norm, but outside of the weather those are things that I can and should work to control a little better.

I'm expecting to get below 170 for next week. Period, end of story.

Radii, congrats on the 50 pound mark. Very cool to see that kind of numerical reward for your sustained efforts.

[Alan T]

Great job hitting the 50 pound loss mark Radii! You've been doing great, staying dedicated and putting in a wonderful consistent effort!

[JediKooter]

Hoopsguy: I've seen some weird stuff with my scale too. I weighed myself once before going to bed and then weighed myself again in the morning and there was a 9 pound difference. The morning weight was lighter.

Radii: 50 pounds! Nice! I can't wait to hit my 50 pound threshold. I finally broke into the 230s this weekend, but, still have a ways to go to 50.

[Radii]

Testing for this month is completed for me:

Endurance Test

-- So last month was their first month of doing this, and they decided they made the test too easy. Hate to agree with them, but it was. They wanted it so that not everyone would finish in the allotted time and it would be a challenge for everyone. Some people finished it in 11-12 minutes, and even I finished in under 20. Here's what it looked like this month:


500m run
20 pushups (knee, not quite full range of motion)
20 TRX Band Squats (a little easier than bodyweight)
20 bent over rows (8 kg kettlebells)
20 kettlebell swings (8 kg kettlebell)
20 push press (15 lb dumbbells)
100 jump ropes (my uncoordinated ass just gets to jump 100 times)
20 push press (15 lb dumbbells)
20 kettlebell swings (8 kg)
20 bent over rows (8 kg kettlebells)
20 TRX Band Squats
20 pushups (knees, not quite full range of motion)
500m run

For those that were paying attention last month, the runs were 250 meters, and every set was 15, not 20. so this is significantly harder. They set the clock at 25 minutes as well (instead of 30), and I couldn't finish in time, but I told the trainer I wanted to finish and to keep timing me.

My time is 28 minutes, 15 seconds.

So for this I don't have a direct comparison, but I know damn well this is not something I could have even finished a month ago. At best I would have walked everything instead of jogged.

Another judgement for improvement is that I finished just 15 seconds or so behind one woman that was there. Last month on the easier test she finished a good 3-4 minutes before me.

So the goal is to keep using the same weights until you get under 20 minutes. Once you get under 20 minutes, increase weight. We'll see where I'm at in another month.


Timed Test

The first three are of the "how many can you do in a minute" variety:

Pushups: 15 from knees, 7 more elevated (arms on bench instead of the floor) - Last month 7 knees/9 bench
Situps: 4 situps/28 crunches (last month 33 crunches)
60 degree TRX Band Rows: 21 (so I wrote down that I did 23 last month, but my trainer wrote down 17. Unsure who was right!

Plank: held for 81 seconds from knees (last month was 51 seconds)
Half Mile Run: 7 minutes 1 second (last month 7:31)


MASSIVE improvements everywhere, I'm really happy. Those 4 situps are monumentally hard for me, so being able to do any and still do some crunches is big. I doubled the number of pushups I can do from my knees, we won't be using the bench for the elevated pushups at all anymore.

Plank time went up 60%. I can actually hold a plank from my toes now, but not for very long, like 10 seconds. So trainer told me to go ahead and smash my time from knees this month, next month we'll start from toes and set a new baseline.

The run, well, I would bet my life that its not an actual half mile. But whatever, it was the same distance as last time and my time improved by 30 seconds.


All of this progress was expected based on how I did during the month of course, but I'm thrilled to see it measured anyway.

[corbes]

We've fallen off the exercise wagon over here and can no longer attribute the relatively pervasive grogginess to the sleep patterns of the kiddo, so we're going to go out on a limb here and say that having a gin and tonic or three nearly every night is not a positive thing. Sure the new job is stressful (in the invigorating sense of that word rather than the hide-under-the-desk sense of that word) but that is no excuse at all. The best periods of weight loss a few years ago involved months with no (or minimal--like one drink a month) alcohol and since then we've been steadily giving back the progress we made. So in the name of healthy living here is a renewed commitment to prioritize exercise over chemicals rather than the other way around.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1

8/2: 171.6
8/9: 170.6
8/16: 170.3
8/23: 172.6
8/30: 171.0

2nd week in a row where the worst weigh-in of the week has been Saturday AM, which is pretty disappointing. Finally pulled the trigger on a new scale last week, after literally years of complaining about the one we've had for 13 years ... remember the duration, as it was a wedding gift. This new one spits out some additional metrics that I'll post on monthly updates going forward in order to track progress.

I guess the best news about the past week is that I still got in a decent amount of exercise while ramping up work for a looming deadline. September 8th is a really big day for me, and I'll be working almost non-stop between now and then to make sure that the cutover goes well.

I've got 5k races the next two weekends (9/6, and 9/14) which should be enough to keep me on the roads. And my shoulder is close to feeling normal again, which means I'll start working on some kind of upper-body workout to supplement the running.

On food/diet front, I need to start drinking more water and less lemonade/Sprite/Root Beer (Barq's has caffeine! evil!) if I want to really maximize my health benefits from kicking the Coca-Cola habit. That seems like a pretty easy focus area for the next couple of weeks.

[hoopsguy]

Radii, congrats on finishing those workouts and seeing progress on pretty much every fitness metric.

corbes, I'm probably guilty of a little too much booze as well. I would guess I average about one drink/evening (more like 2-4 twice per week) which isn't horrible but likely acts as a drag on sustained weight loss. I just haven't found exercise vs booze to be an either/or activity. Certainly not if the workouts are happening early in the morning, unless the booze was particularly plentiful the night before.

[Radii]

2nd week in a row where the worst weigh-in of the week has been Saturday AM, which is pretty disappointing

That is pretty frustrating. With just a small amount to lose your room for error is tiny too, keep at it and keep improving small things here and there and you'll get there :)


On food/diet front, I need to start drinking more water and less lemonade/Sprite/Root Beer (Barq's has caffeine! evil!) if I want to really maximize my health benefits from kicking the Coca-Cola habit. That seems like a pretty easy focus area for the next couple of weeks.

I would not be surprised to see that if you were able to go an entire week drinking nothing but water (or at least, nothing with any calories), you would get below 170 immediately. Maybe I'm viewing that too personally based on my own history, but I have always felt that the calories I got from drinking soda, while really bad, was only a secondary problem. The real problem was the fact that drinking all that pure sugar fucked with my insulin levels and made my appetite much, much harder to control.


Keep working on it, and good luck on the races!

[Alan T]

I would not be surprised to see that if you were able to go an entire week drinking nothing but water (or at least, nothing with any calories), you would get below 170 immediately. Maybe I'm viewing that too personally based on my own history, but I have always felt that the calories I got from drinking soda, while really bad, was only a secondary problem. The real problem was the fact that drinking all that pure sugar fucked with my insulin levels and made my appetite much, much harder to control.


Keep working on it, and good luck on the races!

Yep, same here. Going to pure water helped me a ton with weight loss. Even going from diet soda -> Water was a noticeable difference.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
8/17: 275.4
8/24: 272.4
8/31: 272.4

One bad day, heh. All week I was in the low 271 and a couple days even at like 270.8. However yesterday:

-- I ate a half a bag of roasted macadamia nuts. I keep almonds in my room, I eat a serving for a snack many days. I don't eat more than that. Macadamia nuts are expensive so I never buy them, this week the grocery bill was a bit light so I decided to get some, they are SO GOOD. Yesterday I ate half a bag of them. Probably 1000 calories or so? Ok, lesson learned, I can't keep those on my room. I will eat all of them.

-- My sister wanted to go out and we tried a new wing place in town. I ordered 20. I was full after 10-12 of them, but I don't have this figured out yet. I think I've mentioned it elsewhere. I am successfully dieting by controlling how much food I put on my plate in advance. I still have ZERO ability to STOP eating food once its on my plate. So I ate all 20. Probably 1500 calories, maybe as many as 2000.

-- My sister wanted to finish marathoning the final season of Breaking Bad, we watched the last 7 episodes. I was up til 4am, something I used to do a lot but its very very rare these days.


So anyway, did good for 6 days, bad for 1. I'll do good again today and I fully expect my next weigh-in will be under 270.

Gym isn't staffed Monday b/c of labor day so one of my classes is cancelled, I'm intending to try the full bodyweight fitness beginner routine that I think I linked in here when someone else asked about pushups awhile back. I'm still pretty fascinated with some of the bodyweight progressions and some of the amazing things I've seen people able to do on reddit's bodyweightfitness sub. I've never done a pullup in my life. Not even in elementary school when they did those awful tests in PE classes once a semester. I want to get strong enough to do a pullup.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6

8/30: 171.0
9/7: 169.4

Additional stats, thanks to new scale:
19.8% body fat
61.3% total body water
38.7% muscle
6.8 % bone mass (seems very low from what I've read, 15% average?)
25 BMI (24.9 = normal, 25 = overweight)

I was on the wrong side of 170 yesterday, but in my rush to get to my race in time I did not have the opportunity to pull down all the stats that I wanted to capture for my first weigh in of each month. So I cheated a bit, I suppose. Although if I was 174 or something ridiculous like that today I would have reported it with the accompanying stats as well.

Last week had some pitfalls on the home front:
- wife brought home 12 pack of beer on Sunday
- wife baked cookies on Sunday

I asked her to remove the remaining 1/2 of the cookies on Sunday, but the damage was already done as I weighed in at 171.8 that morning. I took care of the beer myself ... a 12 pack is a little more than I usually drink over the course of a week, but not drastically out of line.

Exercise - was a taper week with the 5k race on Saturday. Had another personal record time, by a few seconds, so pleased with results. First race in my new shoes, although I've been training with them for over a month already.

Took some time reading the reddit page on body weight, but haven't nailed down a program/schedule yet. Realistically, that likely won't happen until next weekend. I'm working crazy, crazy hours right now and will have a mid-week roadtrip for a baseball game as my respite on Thursday. I'll get going on the fitness this coming weekend, along with another 5k on Sunday.

And now to get some sleep ... been a little short of that over the last week as well. Looking forward to normalizing my work schedule again to try and build on the running schedule I've established over the past six months. I'm starting to feel like I've hit a point of diminishing returns with the current exercise in terms of weight loss, so going to have to make some of the changes I talk about eventually ...

[Radii]

Congrats on getting under 170 hoopsguy!

[Alan T]

Last week had some pitfalls on the home front:
- wife brought home 12 pack of beer on Sunday
- wife baked cookies on Sunday

I asked her to remove the remaining 1/2 of the cookies on Sunday, but the damage was already done as I weighed in at 171.8 that morning.


Haha, my wife keeps doing stuff like this too. Last night she made a bunch of cinnamon rolls which is pretty much always my kryptonite.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8

So I didn't get under 270 like I said I thought I would last time but I did lose 1 1/2 pounds last week and ended up at 6 1/2 pounds on the month. I feel like I've been in the 270's FOREVER at this point and am ready to see 269.x on the scale.

Last week when I didn't lose any weight I blamed a 1 day blip where I ate a ton the day before. That was part of it but not all of it. I was also trying out Quest Bars, low carb protein bars. Tons of people on the keto subreddit love them, and they would have been perfect for me to eat about 90 minutes before going to the gym, so I gave them a try. I figured out earlier this week that they were spiking my blood sugar a bit (ie. My body was responding to them as if they had sugar in them). Some people respond to some artificial sweeteners like this, so I tossed the ones I hadn't eaten.

Did my 3 days at the gym last week, but nothing extra. That's ok, still way way better than what I was doing before, but I have felt a bit lazy the past couple weeks.

So next week is when I'll finally see some numbers in the 260s, right?!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6

8/30: 171.0
9/7: 169.4
9/13: 167.8

Weird week. I got less exercise than pretty much any week this summer, due to some early work hours, rain on days I wanted to run, and having a 5k scheduled for tomorrow. I'll have 10k for this week, when I've been averaging 30k/week for the last two months. I didn't add any new exercise this week, and I don't think I drank a ton of water.

About the only positive change was eating a little less food overall, even if the food choices themselves were questionable.

This is a head-scratcher for me, really. I'm telling myself that it is just a by-product of getting past a plateau weight and I guess I'll believe it. Each of the last four days has featured a small weight drop, so it isn't one weird weigh-in.

I'll take it :) At this point I'm down 11.2 pounds from my weigh-in on April 12th, when I had my first race of the year. Hoping to get to 15 pounds down by my final race of the year, with assumption that will be no later than Halloween.

[FrogMan]

Two years to this day, I stepped on my scale with the firm intention to change the "me" I had become. Despite the fact I was practicing martial arts regularly, my weight had balooned to 203 lbs. Nothing extreme on a 5'11" frame but still, I didn't like how I was...

I didn't do much special, simply decided to reduce my portions. Especially, no more "daddy garbage can" who would finish whatever was left in everybody's plate. I realized all I was feeding my body by simple habit without even thinking about it. I refused to call this a diet because I'd like to believe I really made a change for the better on that day of September 13th, 2012. Within six months, I had lost 35 lbs. I only started running in May of 2013 and since then, I lost another 7-8 lbs. Overall, that's 42-43 lbs lost or about 21% or my initial weight... I'm maintaining my weight at about 160-161 lbs nowadays and am in the best shape I've been in a long, long time. I weigh about the same I weighed when I met my wife some 22 years ago! I went from 36 waist jeans (that were even pretty tight!) to 32 waist jeans (that are now loose!!!), from XL (and even XXL) t-shirts to large and even medium t-shirts...

On the picture, the left one is from August 2012, the middle one is from January 2013 and the one on the right is from August 2014... I'm looking at it, blinking because I can't believe that's what I looked like only 2 years ago...

FM

[HarryLime]

congratulations frog! that is a fantastic transformation! You almost look like 2 different people from left to right!! Diets are doomed to fail, but lifestyle changes can last forever and are maintainable..

Keep up the great work, you have certainly inspired me to keep fighting the battle!

[Kodos]

Impressive! Especially the 2013 pounds part! ;)

[hoopsguy]

Yep, you've just killed it Frogman. Pretty impressive transformation and from following your running info it sure seems like you've got the foundation to sustain these changes for the long haul.

[FrogMan]

Impressive! Especially the 2013 pounds part! ;)

what can I say, I was carrying many years of bad habits around my midsection ;)

I edited it to say the correct 203 lbs :p

And thanks guys! Hoopsguy, this lifestyle change is being tested these last few weeks as I lowered my mileage a bit. Not burning as many calories on a daily basis but I'm still maintaining my weight and not seeing any big increase in trend weight...

FM

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
9/17: 268.4


I got out of the 280s for good on July 12th. I hit the 260's for the first time on September 13th. It only took me 5 weeks to get through the 290s and 5 weeks to get through the 280s so this just felt like forever, even though 10 pounds in two months is still pretty good.

I haven't complained about foot problems in awhile, last year I got really into running for awhile, overdid it and hurt my foot. The diagnosis is sesamoiditis, the ball of my right foot just feels generally sensitive all the time and if I do things that put pressure on that area it can start to hurt fairly significantly. The prescription for it was rest. Well, I did nothing from last November to July... and the pain came back instantly when I started going to the gym. I finally went back to my podiatrist, he added more cushion to the orthotic in my right foot and told me not to do any exercises that hurt for a month. So no running, limited jumping, no lunges or any other exercise that involves getting up on the ball of my foot. That's been going on for 2 1/2 weeks now, but its not helping. It still hurts from just general use. I'm going to wait until the full month is up, but the next step is a cortisone shot to try to get rid of the inflammation. I have a bad feeling this is a problem I'll have forever, since 8 months of laziness (ie rest) and dropping 50 pounds hasn't resolved it.

Anyway, things are going well overall, we'll see what's next for the foot in early October, and we'll see if I can get through the 260's a little quicker.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6

8/30: 171.0
9/7: 169.4
9/13: 167.8
9/20: 168.4

No major surprise. Not enough exercise after the Sunday run, a couple of evening poker games and a little too much booze. Correctable stuff, but realistically I need to start working on my fall/winter plans that involve less outdoor running and finding passion for some indoor activities.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
6/10: 284.8
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
9/17: 268.4
9/24: 267.2

Lots of bouncing around this week, though mostly around gym days. The morning after I go to the gym I'm up a pound or two, then back down the next day. That's been happening for awhile but seems a bit exaggerated this week.


Also, in foot news, I got a second opinion on the foot problems after doing some internet research and wondering if there were things my original podiatrist hadn't tried or had ignored. Seems the answer is no, the new doctor I saw today approved of everything that we've tried over the last year or so (off and on since I was inactive for parts of it), and he, too, said he really thought a cortisone shot was the proper next step, so I went ahead and got that done today.

He did explain things a little better though. He said that one of the sesamoid bones in my right foot is a bit "irregular looking", its not a huge problem or anything, but it does lead to a greater likelyhood of the type of inflammation I'm experiencing as I get older.

So with the cortisone shot there's a chance this one shot will just fix everything as long as I don't do anything stupid and overdo it (the shot will be enough to help get rid of the inflammation once and for all and the types of exercise I'm doing now is reasonable and shouldn't really cause it to come back). More likely though, it'll significantly reduce the pain and allow me to keep up my exercise program and there's always the hope that at a healthy weight these things are less of an issue.

Anyway, I'm good w/ what's been done now, if we start talking about needing shots more frequently I'll be more wary. Also, if this just doesn't work at all, then we may talk about wearing a boot for 3 weeks to completely immobilize it and see if that lets it heal completely.

[Subby]

I love this thread. Most of my favorite people at FOFC post in it and it is full of absolutely great successes. If it is okay I would like to use it as a low-stress place to keep track of my weight loss attempts. Basically I need a central place to keep everything (like a blog), where folks are reading (unlike a blog) and I can feel some accountability.

Basically I am fed up with whatever is going on with my eating. The exercise stuff I have down pretty good (for those that don't know, I bike commute between 20 and 30 miles roundtrip to work every day and will go for a long ride on the weekends). I have also started helping my wife get back in to running and am doing a run/walk thing with her three days a week.

So I am burning calories. Which is good, because I cannot stop eating. I get depressed when I think about how much weight I could have lost had I kept my eating under control (even a little). One time I tried a dynasty where I just came up with a list of bad habits and tried to avoid them every day. It wasn't even a weight loss dynasty but the negativity of it just kind of burned the whole thing down. It was hard to bring the anger every day. Usually I am just complacent.

Anyway, I decided to take like 10 good health habits and try and do them every day. Basically, when I go to bed every night, I will pull up this little checklist app on my phone (Paperless) and check off everything I have done, with the goal of getting a perfect score.

The list:

1. Out of bed by 5:30a
2. Exercise
3. Drink Bulletproof Coffee (no this is not a paid product placement)
4. Do not buy breakfast out
5. No soda
6. No candy
7. No ice cream
8. No baked goods (cookies, cakes, pie, donuts, brownies)
9. Drink 60 oz water.
10. Don't eat after 8pm.
11. Brush teeth twice, floss once.
12. In bed by 10pm

Basically I am trying to HEAVILY reduce my sugar intake and confine my eating to a shorter window. The bulletproof coffee thing is an experiment, but I have to admit I DO feel pretty great after drinking it. The soda thing I had completely licked for a long time but just recently started drinking Coke Classic(!) so, brakes applied.

The list is not perfect, no. Easy to slide in a large pizza. Easy to eat a gallon of strawberry greek yogurt. But the list is manageable.

Goal is to get down below 180 by Christmas.

9/24: 199.9

[Radii]

Happy to have you posting here Subby! That looks like a solid list. It seems like if you stick to that and don't deal in ridiculous technicalities like "eat whole pizza but finish before 8pm" you should do pretty well :D

So you are liking the bulletproof coffee thing? What do you put in yours? So many keto folks swear by it, but I've never been a coffee drinker at all so I've never tried it.

[Alan T]

Subby, I always enjoyed your posts previously and was sad when they stopped happening. One question I have about your list though..

60 oz of water a day seems pretty low to me for someone your weight, especially for someone with as much cardio as you are doing. I know that I drink far more than that every day.

[Subby]

So you are liking the bulletproof coffee thing? What do you put in yours? So many keto folks swear by it, but I've never been a coffee drinker at all so I've never tried it.
It's good. I put in 2 tbsp of kerrygold butter and a tbsp of MCT oil. I buy and roast my own green coffee beans, so I know the origin.

I really like black coffee, so this might be a step down, but from an energy standpoint, it is a ridiculously strong way to start the day. I have it by 6am and can usually hold off on eating until about 11am or so.

[Subby]

Subby, I always enjoyed your posts previously and was sad when they stopped happening. One question I have about your list though..

60 oz of water a day seems pretty low to me for someone your weight, especially for someone with as much cardio as you are doing. I know that I drink far more than that every day.
That's a good point. I just don't drink it unless I crave it - I can't stand stuffing it down when I'm not thirsty. I will drink a bunch on long rides, though.

[Subby]

Just got my cholesterol numbers back. Had never gotten it tested before but I am guessing I am lower than a few years ago.

Cholesterol: 193
HDL: 83
LDL: 102
Triglycerides: 42
VLDL: 8

Using this: Cholesterol HDL/LDL/Triglycerides Ratios Calculator (http://www.hughcalc.org/chol.php)

I got this:

Your Total Cholesterol of 193 is DESIRABLE
Your LDL of 102 is NEAR OPTIMAL
Your HDL of 83 is OPTIMAL
Your Triglyceride level of 42 is NORMAL

RATIOS:

Your Total Cholesterol/HDL ratio is: 2.33 - (preferably under 5.0, ideally under 3.5) IDEAL
Your HDL/LDL ratio is: 0.814 - (preferably over 0.3, ideally over 0.4) IDEAL
Your triglycerides/HDL ratio is: 0.482 - (preferably under 4, ideally under 2) IDEAL

ICE CREAM FOR DINNER!

[Radii]

Jesus Christ Subby. There is all kinds of controversy over the importance of many different cholesterol numbers amongst the keto crowd, but *everyone* agrees that trig/HDL ratio is hugely important and probably the best predictor of risk... that is immaculate, I'm in awe. Well done.

Mine was over 4 before I started dieting this year, I think its around 2.5-3 now, my HDL has always been low (probably b/c I'm an inactive piece of crap most of the time), if I could get mine anywhere close to that over the next couple years I'd be thrilled and amazed. Awesome!

[Subby]

Sweet! Thanks for that. :)

[Radii]

Testing again this week:

Endurance Test

500m run
20 pushups (knee, not quite full range of motion)
20 TRX Band Squats (a little easier than bodyweight)
20 bent over rows (8 kg kettlebells)
20 kettlebell swings (8 kg kettlebell)
20 push press (8 kg kettlebells)
100 jump ropes (my uncoordinated ass just gets to jump 100 times)
20 push press (8 kg kettlebells)
20 kettlebell swings (8 kg)
20 bent over rows (8 kg kettlebells)
20 TRX Band Squats
20 pushups (knees, not quite full range of motion)
500m run

Last month I completed this in 28 minutes, 15 seconds. This month's time, 23 minutes, 8 seconds. BAM. Over 20% improvement compared to last month. Having done it before, I paced myself better. Last month i ran too hard at the start and tired out. Also, I have gotten a lot stronger over the last month and can do a lot more weight than this if I'm doing lower reps with ease, which wasn't necessarily true last month. But clearly there's a lot of solid improvement in here too :)

The 500m run is NOT 500, their measuring is just way fucking off, but whatever, its the same distance as last month.The only thing I completely come apart doing are the push-ups. 40 pushups for me, even separated out like this, are just killer. By the end of the second round of pushups my shoulders no longer work. The last like 7 of them was done 1 at a time and burned like absolute hell. The rest of it if I pace myself, I'm good.

Obviously, I'm extremely happy to see progress!


I'm not sure they're going to continue doing this. Apparently of the 10-12 people I see with some regularity (and others who go to the morning sessions), only about 3 of us like this monthly testing. Which really sucks, because I love it. I have made sure to express to each of the trainers how much it helps to have this kind of measurement available monthly to help track my improvement, especially since the workouts every week change.

[digamma]

Nice work radii!!!

[hoopsguy]

Great work month-over-month, Radii. Very cool to see that kind of measureable improvement.

Subby, fancy running into you here as well as on Strava ... I know one of things that helps me focus on not eating the third slice of deep dish pizza is lamenting what a fat ass will do to my running times. I've got to believe you deal with some of those same struggles/internal monologues given how active you've been with biking over the past six months.

OK, onto the stats ... I believe I mentioned deep dish pizza above?

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6

8/30: 171.0
9/7: 169.4
9/13: 167.8
9/20: 168.4
9/27: 168.6

Had a bad weigh-in on 9/26, and got pretty upset about it. Because I had practiced pretty good habits most of the week, and felt liked I deserved a more equitable result. So I showed the scale that day at lunch, by deciding that a personal deep dish pizza was the best meal I could have the day before a weigh-in. Throw in a couple of extra beers that evening, and I was basically giving the finger to my weigh-in.

Except the scale still came down about 1.5 pounds the next day. So if I had just followed the routine I would likely have had pretty standard week-over-week weight loss. Despite still not committing to meaningful exercise outside of running.

Anyway, will take measurements next week at the start of the month to see if there was any improvement. A couple of pretty good running achievements took place over the last ten days, for what it is worth:
- reduced my 10k personal record time by about two minutes, now running that in <8 min/mile pace
- ran my first 1/2 marathon ever (previous best was 10mi), in just over 9min/mile pace

I'm likely going to sneak in one last 5k race next month and then a 15k the first weekend in November. That will make 10 races on the year for me, which seems like an appealing round number. But as the weather gets colder here, I had better buckle down and commit to some non-running fitness activities if I want to sustain my weight loss. Because my diet activities still aren't particularly good, beyond average portion control.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
9/17: 268.4
9/24: 267.2
10/1: 266.0

Had multiple days this week where I just ate too much, the 266.0 today was well below anything else I saw this week, so I won't be surprised if it bounces back up a bit the rest of the week. We shall see!

[Subby]

Nice job all!

9/24: 199.9
10/1: 197.5

Incremental loss and I am struggling not to eat sugar. Probably my biggest win right now is sleep. I am in bed by 10pm and that is making a huge difference for my energy level the next day. Not eating anything solid until 10:00am to 11:00 am is also doing an interesting number on my concentration. I think it's definitely good to close your eating window a little bit. No need to be eating for a 16 hour stretch every day.

The problem with working out a lot is that you feel justified to just eat anything. My ideal weight loss daily intake for calories is 1860 but if I commute to work, I can have another 1,000 calories or more on top of that, theoretically. Just have to steer myself away from ice cream and to something like almond butter. :)

[Radii]

Grats on the good start Subby!

Last test for the end of September was today:

Timed Test

The first three are of the "how many can you do in a minute" variety:

Pushups: 21 from knees (last month 15 knees/7 more elevated from bench)
Situps: 3 situps/31 crunches (last month 4 situps/28 crunches)
60 degree TRX Band Rows: 26 (last month 21)

Plank: 30 seconds from toes (last month I was just starting to try to progress from knees to toes)
Half Mile Run: 6 minutes 46 seconds (last month 7:01)

Everything but the situps improved decently, even the first situp hurts like hell. Disclaimer that the run isn't actually a half mile, but they call it that. Whatever, as long as its the same every time.


We also took measurements today. Everything was down a bit, Stomach was down like 1 1/2 inches. I forget the absolute numbers, since we do them before the workout and I don't have anything on me to write them down. I'm pretty sure waist is 45 1/4" and it was like 46 1/2" or 47" when I first started.


Last note is that I was able to do Wednesday's workout without any noticeable foot pain, and during the testing today my foot was fine, but it hurt a fair bit afterwards, certainly from the running. An hour later it feels ok though, so its not going to hurt all day. Definitely an improvement. The biggest test of that really will be the next time we try to do lunges, before the cortisone shot those hurt instantly and constantly, even without holding any extra weight.

[BYU 14]

Grats on the good start Subby!

Last test for the end of September was today:

Timed Test

The first three are of the "how many can you do in a minute" variety:

Pushups: 21 from knees (last month 15 knees/7 more elevated from bench)
Situps: 3 situps/31 crunches (last month 4 situps/28 crunches)
60 degree TRX Band Rows: 26 (last month 21)

Plank: 30 seconds from toes (last month I was just starting to try to progress from knees to toes)
Half Mile Run: 6 minutes 46 seconds (last month 7:01)

Everything but the situps improved decently, even the first situp hurts like hell. Disclaimer that the run isn't actually a half mile, but they call it that. Whatever, as long as its the same every time.


We also took measurements today. Everything was down a bit, Stomach was down like 1 1/2 inches. I forget the absolute numbers, since we do them before the workout and I don't have anything on me to write them down. I'm pretty sure waist is 45 1/4" and it was like 46 1/2" or 47" when I first started.


Last note is that I was able to do Wednesday's workout without any noticeable foot pain, and during the testing today my foot was fine, but it hurt a fair bit afterwards, certainly from the running. An hour later it feels ok though, so its not going to hurt all day. Definitely an improvement. The biggest test of that really will be the next time we try to do lunges, before the cortisone shot those hurt instantly and constantly, even without holding any extra weight.

Good stuff, progress is all that matters and you are doing so consistently throughout the journey.

Keep grinding buddy!!!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6
9/7: 169.4
10/4: 168.0 (down 0.6 compared to last week)

Additional stats, compared to last month:
19.6% body fat (19.8% previously)
61.5% total body water (61.3% previously)
38.8% muscle (38.7% previously)
6.6% bone mass (6.8% previously)
24.81 BMI (25% previously)

Modest progress month-over-month. I had hoped for a little better results this week. I was, by my low standards, pretty diligent on overall food intake and alcohol consumption was limited to a six pack of beer last weekend.

September highlights:
- new personal best 5k time
- new personal best 10k time (training run, not a race)
- ran first half marathon (training run, not a race)

I've got an early November 15k race on the books, so I expect to have pretty good motivation on the running front even as it is getting colder. One of my friends runs a decent amount of 10k and half marathons, and I would like to see if I can beat him in this race. I'm faster than him at 10k now, but expect he probably still has the edge on me at 15k today.

A couple of areas that I've got to work on for October:
1.) Drink more water: been lousy at this lately. Going to try and start measuring consumption here. Not going to worry about how much/little lemonade or root beer or whatever else, but want to get some kind of a baseline on how much water I'm drinking and start raising that consumption

2.) Healthier snacks: we had grapes in the house this week, something I enjoy but never purchase. Between grapes, carrots, celery, raisins, and pistachio nuts I think I can do better than the 100 calorie packs of Cheese-Its or Brownie Bites that I sometimes sneak from my kid.

3.) Start warming up to my treadmill: default running behavior should be outside, but winter is coming and I need to get comfortable with my workouts taking place on treadmill from time to time. I was a real wimp about this last winter, and I don't want to take 2 months to recover last years form again like I had to do in April/May of this year.

4.) Structure some kind of non-running exercise routine. Thinking some mix of upper-body and core, for 60-90 minutes a week, would be really good for me. I'll settle for 60/week over the remainder of this month. But first part is figuring out what I want to do and putting it into an Excel spreadsheet to measure going forward.

We'll see how good a job I do of holding myself accountable. I've found a good place with running this spring/summer and hope that I can mostly replicate those behaviors across other outlets over the next 4-6 months when outdoor running becomes more problematic.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
9/17: 268.4
9/24: 267.2
10/1: 266.0
10/10: 262.2


We'll see about that, there's a lot of things going on right now that may make a 4 pound loss in the last 10 days feel a bit off. I think I'm getting sick, feeling some flu type symptoms very slowly creeping on, gym Wednesday was awful and I didn't go today.

The other thing is that I'm trying an elimination diet as I got fed up a couple weeks ago with some digestive symptoms that I've had for the past couple years that won't seem to go away. I've been eating a bit less b/c I feel really really restricted right now. Unsure if the diet change is causing/contributing to me feeling under the weather or not. Its only been a week, and I have seem some people say that symptoms get worse before they get better when trying something like this... I have many different symptoms, and some have improved this week, and some have gotten worse. I'm pretty damn unhappy, but now that I've made it a week I'm committed to sticking it out for the full month, just so to see if I get results or not to get it over with.

Anyway, hooray for the weight number, boo to pretty much everything else right now!

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6
9/7: 169.4
10/4: 168.0
10/11: 168.2

All in all, I'll take it. Lot of evening work + evening events = bad sleep and a little less exercise than normal. On the efforts to track for October:
- water: was better for a couple of days, but fell off mid-week
- healthy snacks: going shopping this weekend to pick up a few. Overall, pretty good week of not eating bad snacks
- treadmill: none this week. Weather was between 35-40 with little wind, so was able to run outdoors
- exercise besides running: nothing, although with all the evenings consumed this week I would have struggled starting a program.

Upcoming week looks a little more sane, but I'm drifting into a heavier work period between now and Thanksgiving, so if I want to return to weeks with weight declining I need to tighten up my focus.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
10/17: 263.2


That seems more like it. I was a bit sick last week and lost 4 pounds in a week, very unusual for me. I'm still struggling through this elimination diet, still seeing some improvement in IBS like symptoms in the evening, but not drastic improvements.

Gym was horrible Monday and Wednesday, my energy level was still completely in the tank (but I didn't feel sick, so even that was an improvement over last week), but today was great. So hopefully that's a sign that things are back to normal again.

Two more weeks of elimination diet in store, then I'll see where I'm at.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6
9/7: 169.4
10/4: 168.0
10/11: 168.2
10/18: 168.0

Work/home schedule was brutal this week. Had hoped to still be in the 167-something range but no joy this morning. Expect to make some marginal gains next week if only by virtue of not having 80% of work nights requiring me to stay late.

Not tracking well on any of the metrics that I set earlier in the month. Still struggling to get any kind of routine similar to what I've found with running.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
10/17: 263.2
10/31: 265.5

This month has sucked! The elimination diet idea came crumbling down about 3 weeks in. The sad thing is that I was seeing an improvement, albeit a small one, with it. But I just didn't have the willpower to finish it out and slowly add foods back in. My symptoms at this point amount to inconvienance more than major disruption, I've used that to basicaly write off that experiment for now but will keep it in mind for later.

I was also sick for about 2 1/2 weeks this month. That sucked, and my appetite was way out of whack for much of it. I didn't feel like cooking, I ate out too much.

I cheated once. When I refer to cheating I'm speaking about keto/carb cheating. Was going to cook some burgers but the meat had gone bad, I got annoyed and ended up getting some fast food and saying "fuck it" and eating the bread, etc. First cheat with carbs in 10 months. The good news is that it was a one meal thing and I got right back on the horse. For me that's a pretty big accomplishment, I've been worried about that.

With being sick i have eaten out way more than I would want, not cooked as much, I skipped ~40% of the gym sessions I should have had. This week I went all three times though, and have felt better as the week has gone on.

Some of the extra weight i have now is likely water weight, some is probably legit from doing nothing and eating poorly due to feeling bad.


For now my focus is on getting back to normal and consistent, both with diet and gym habits. I've mostly done that since Monday, so I'm pretty much back on track now.

Semi-relevant to this: I posted in general discussion asking about standing desks, and I did use my birthday money to pull the trigger and order one. It'll probably be another week or two before I get it, but I'm looking forward to getting off my ass regularly throughout the day.

[hoopsguy]

6/14: 175.7
7/5: 175.1
8/2: 171.6
9/7: 169.4
10/4: 168.0

10/11: 168.2
10/18: 168.0
10/25: 168.8
11/1: 164.4

Additional stats, compared to last month:
18.8% body fat (19.6/19.8% previously)
62.1% total body water (61.5/61.3% previously)
39.2% muscle (38.8/38.7% previously)
6.8% bone mass (6.6/6.8% previously)
24.27 BMI (24.81/25% previously)

Last couple of weeks were odd. Previous week I saw my week in the 166 range up until my Friday morning weigh-in and spiked up to 168.8 for weigh-in. Tons of work, not getting regular exercise in, but diet overall pretty good.

This week, more of the same but the weigh dove down another couple of pounds from where it was mid-week and I didn't see any variance towards the end of the week despite having a mountain of Halloween candy lying around.

All of the gains over the last couple of weeks can be attributed to smaller meal sizes (home cooked meals more than dinners out) and not cheating with bad snacks between meals. Overall exercise amount was down relative to the last couple of months. I'm not sure when I'll get back to 5x/week exercising but it probably won't be this week knowing what commitments I've got to honor. In semi-related news, I'll be running my first 15k run ever on 11/9. It will also be my first time starting in the first corral, as my running times over the course of 2014 have slowly been moving me closer to the front of the line.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
8/10: 277.2
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
10/17: 263.2
10/31: 265.5
11/10: 262.8

So I've mostly recovered from the frustration that was October and seem to be in a decent place again. Hopefully I get under 260 for next month. I am planning on cheating on Thanksgiving, but that's just one day/meal. No leftovers allowed for anything with carbs.


Two other fairly big things:

1) I did order the standing desk I'd posted about, it arrived late last week, I've been using it for about 5 days and I like it. I have some serious posture issues and flexibility issues from sitting forever. The first time I stood up to work my lower back was burning like crazy after 20 minutes. Yesterday I stood up while playing a game for 35 minutes before I noticed. The last couple days I've stood up for an extra 2 to 2 1/2 hours each day in 20-30 minute stretches.



2) I got a cortisone shot in my foot about 6 weeks ago for my sesamoiditis issues, inflammation/pain in the ball of my foot. I got a pain free month out of it but its back now. Went back to the podiatrist yesterday and he said the most aggressive option is another cortisone shot + wearing a boot to stabilize/immobilize the area for awhile. No gym, wear the boot all the time except for sleeping/showering for 2 weeks, then go back to doing stuff but continue to wear it for a couple months whenever i can. So I'll start going back to the gym again, but will avoid the stuff that I know aggrivates it the most, lunges, jumping a lot since you're landing hard on your toes non stop, etc, and then wear it at all other times. Followup visit with the doctor in January and go from there. So for now I'm wearing this giant aircast boot thing that keeps my big toe from being able to move so hopefully it can heal for good.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
11/10: 262.8
11/21: 260.0

Weight is looking good! I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks now b/c of the boot on the foot. I honestly don't think the foot is improving, but I'm being patient and doing what I'm told.

Standing desk usage is going well, up to about 40% of my desk time standing. I'm hyperfocused on posture and all of this "undo the damage of a lifetime of sitting" stuff, with the help of a physical therapist by some kind of crazy luck, was sent to the therapist for some long standing, not improving urology issues, therapist thinks all my problems begin with sitting forever causing the muscles around my bladder and that whole area to shorten and weaken, so all this stuff I've been working on to try to improve general fitness is also very likely directly related to the worst of my medical problems too. But she also told me that she doesn't want me standing all the time either. Her ideal for my desk time would be a rotation of 15 minutes sitting on a stability ball, 30 minutes standing, 30 minutes sitting, rotate that around for awhile, and be hyperfocused on posture at all times to slowly correct all these things. Apparently it'll take months, but it'll be worth it. I'm pretty excited about it b/c all the stuff we've talked about are things I'd researched on my own but that I had no real focus about, just a general idea that I could improve upon a lot of things if I stood up more when I worked (and played, since the gaming habit isn't going anywhere).

One more week away from the gym, I can start back up in December. I'm looking forward to seeing numbers in the 250s.

[sabotai]

I don't have much of a choice, I have to get back on this and lose this weight. Last time I posted, I said I had gone from 217 to 225 and needed to get my ass back in gear. Well, long story short, I didn't. Well, I did, sorta. I got back down to 220, but then during the summer and continuing into the fall, I started eating ice cream, microwavable pizza, M&Ms... Every time I'd go food shopping (which was 2-3 days a week because I suck at planning my meals ahead, and because I was overeating in general and going through all the stuff I'd buy too fast), I grab some ice cream (Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie, more addicting than cigarettes and coffee combined), sometimes pizza...sometimes a bag of M&Ms...

A month ago, I was back up to 230 when I had a doctor's appointment to get my back and joints checked. No real solution there, just general over use, probably lifting and doing things incorrectly and my weight being an issue. Was told to stay away from running and lifting heavy weights for now, and any thing else that would put too much strain or impact on my joints. Exercise bike or elliptical for cardio, yoga, etc.

But, I also got blood tests done, seeing as it's been a very long time since I had a check up. I was honestly worried I'd be diabetic because I've always been overweight and my diet has been bad most of my adult life. Well, that came back fine as did everything else. Everything except my cholesterol. A few weeks ago when I got a call from the office, the woman told me that it was "a little" high. Turns out, that was "a little" bit of an understatement. 2 days ago I got the full results.

Total Cholesterol: 256
HDL: 45
VLDL: 59
LDL: 152
Triglycerides: 296

Using the site Subby linked to before

Your Total Cholesterol of 256 is HIGH RISK
Your LDL of 152 is BORDERLINE
Your HDL of 45 is NORMAL
Your Triglyceride level of 295 is HIGH RISK
RATIOS:

Your Total Cholesterol/HDL ratio is: 5.69 - (preferably under 5.0, ideally under 3.5) AT RISK
Your HDL/LDL ratio is: 0.296 - (preferably over 0.3, ideally over 0.4) AT RISK
Your triglycerides/HDL ratio is: 6.556 - (preferably under 4, ideally under 2) VERY HIGH RISK

Ouch.

The doctor told me to go back around April to have another blood test and if the numbers don't get moving, I'll have to go on cholesterol medication. And as far as I know, my family does not have a history of high cholesterol and/or heart disease.

So, yeah...no longer is losing weight and living a much healthier lifestyle something I simply want to do. I will probably maybe die soon if I don't.

Anyway, my weight the last few weeks

Nov. 30th: 229.80
Dec. 7th: 227.66 (-2.14)

And this week is looking like it'll be another 2 pounds lost.

[sabotai]

Nov. 30th: 229.80
Dec. 7th: 227.66 (-2.14)
Dec 14th: 224.89 (-2.77)

These numbers aren't going to add up right, most likely due to just the error margin in my scale's measurements, but according to my fat% and muscle%, I lost 2.31 pounds of body fat and 0.07 pounds of muscle. My visceral fat level has been at 14 every day so far.

Dec 7th Fat%: 33.37%
Dec 14th Fat%: 32.76% (-0.61%)

Dec 7th Muscle%: 31.54%
Dec 14th Muscle%: 31.90% (+0.36%)

[Radii]

Welcome sabotai! Good news on the fears about diabetes being unfounded, if you can hold that off it makes everything else easier to fix. Keep it up!

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
11/10: 262.8
11/21: 260.0
12/15: 260.2

I've been stuck for quite awhile, huh? I cheated twice around Thanksgiving, one meal thanksgiving night and then had a bit of a sugar blowout the Sunday after thanksgiving, I had some really bad cravings and didn't have any keto friendly snacks nearby and gave in. Just those two meals though. I gained about 7 pounds, though it wast mostly water weight from being out of ketosis and came back off quickly once I got back on track.

I'm back at the gym after wearing the boot/aircast for 3 weeks. I didn't slack on that at all, got back to it as soon as I was allowed to.

At the moment I remain crazy hyperfocused on this physical therapy I'm going through for bladder/pelvic floor problems. Its kind of hard to do the stuff I'm asked to do without obsessing over it though, since a lot of the instructions are just to be aware of things that are basically bad habits and to spend time a few times every day to work on them. Some of the work with posture improvement still feels physically exhausting and makes me weirdly hungry, even though I'm not burning a ton of calories working on it. I tend to allow myself to give in to that hunger, but I don't really think that's a bad thing right now as long as I stay low carb. With the PT we keep finding new problems as we go, which I suppose makes sense. We are trying to undo 20 years of being a 100% sedentary desk worker here, that's probably not supposed to be easy.

I want to get the weight down more but if its not happening effortlessly, I don't think I have it in me right now to work as hard as I am on the improvements I'm trying to make via physical therapy AND calorie count hardcore.

At the moment priority one is avoiding carbs, priority 2 is everything involving physical therapy, priority 3 is keeping the gym habit going strong since I just got back to that after a few weeks off, actual calorie counting would come 4th after all that. I do hope the PT gets easier soon though, and for the most part I am very pleased to have not gained any weight back at any point during the year. I will absolutely take slow and mostly steady with some occasional long term stalls -- but permanent -- weight loss over bouncing all over the place and gaining it all back the second things aren't perfect.

[Dodgerchick]

So my dad has high cholesterol and diabetes. My mom also has high cholesterol. I'm 40 years old and haven't seen the doctor in 10 years... yes that long. Mostly because I've felt fine, didn't think I needed to see a doctor. We have a Wellness Program at work which gives us discounts for seeing the doctor, dentist, eye doctor, etc. So with my family's medical history, the Wellness Program and me getting older have all been high motivators to finally see a doctor. Saw a doctor about a month ago and she asked how many lbs overweight I thought I was. "70-80?", I said. No. Apparently 100 lbs. I know I'm a big girl but dang, 100 lbs? That seems excessive. Now granted I'm really short. 5"1', so maybe there's some truth to that. I haven't been 100 lbs since I was in the 8th grade. I got some bloodwork done and I'm pre-diabetic. Everything else came back normal! I was pretty shocked, I thought for sure something would be "high risk", given my weight.

So anyway, ever since the visit, I've lost 9 lbs. and started running again. This is my last week of the C25K program.

I'll come back and post my bloodwork numbers. I don't understand any of them, but the doctor put a note that everything was normal, except sugar levels.

[Radii]

Good luck Dodgerchick, and congrats on the good start with 9 pounds dropped already! If you ever want to talk about blood sugar related issues with the pre-diabetic flag raised feel free to find me on facebook (or here, or whatever!).

Do post the bloodwork numbers, if for no other reason than it will be nice to see it side by side when you've lost a bunch of weight, even for some things that are currently in the normal range that could turn into "amazingly good" numbers after some progress.

[Radii]

1/10: 323
3/10: 306.4
5/10: 292.2
7/10: 281.0
9/10: 270.8
10/10: 262.2
11/10: 262.8
11/21: 260.0
12/15: 260.2
12/24: 257.8

Physical therapy still > anything else, but physical therapist asked me to do this full log of basically everything I do... sleep, all food, all drink, and all bathroom trips. That's fun let me tell you. Anyway, since I was doing all that already I figured I might as well start weighing everything and counting calories religously again too. I have changed my eating a bit too, eating earlier in the morning and eating a snack so that i'm eating a little more frequently. Those were PT suggestions for digestive issues, not necessarily for weight, but something has obviously triggered a bit of a spark here to get the scale moving again.

There will be lots of carb-loaded christmas stuff around for the next few days, I'm planning on sticking to keto though and skipping the gravy and dressing and desserts, especially now that I'm seeing some progress again. We'll see what happens when its actually in front of me.

[Radii]

Ending 2014 at 258. No carbs at Christmas or New Years for me. Christmas involved large amounts of turkey, a great mushroom rissoto made with cauliflower rice, and a low carb cheesecake.

That's all for now :) I'll make a bigger deal out of it on January 10th, official 1 year anniversary of this thing for me.

[Dodgerchick]

Radii, that's fantastic!!

[Dodgerchick]

dola,

I just realized I never put me weight on here.

09/28/2014 - 209.2
10/04/2014 - 205
10/20/2014 - 204
11/10/2014 - 202
11/22/2014 - 200
01/03/2014 - 197

Today I weighed in at 197. Finally under 200 YAY!!! I'm 52 lbs. away from my goal weight. Well, it's not really a goal weight, but when I get there, we'll see if it's a good weight for me. I weighed 145 when I graduated high school, and felt good. About 20 of those pounds were all boobs and booty, so let's say I was actually 125 hahaha :p ;)

Speaking of being active, I haven't done much for the past couple of weeks. I messed up my knee and not sure how. I may have overstretched it, but it seems to be getting back to normal. I will most likely pick up on week 7 of C25K instead of where I should be W8D2.

Good luck everyone!

[Radii]

Congrats on getting under 200!

[Dodgerchick]

Thanks :)

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255

So its officially 1 year since I started a ketogenic diet. My macros are currently set to eat 20g carbs/128g protein/158g fat a day, 2050 calories in total. When I started this a year and 68 pounds ago I was eating something like 2350 calories. I was eating at a much bigger caloric deficit then though. I did virtually zero exercise for the first 6 months. I joined a gym in the first week of July and have been going consistently 3 days a week except for a few weeks where foot problems required me to rest.

My main, unwavering goal throughout the year is to stick to the carb restriction. Everything else has been fluid and flexible. I can count the number of days I went over 20g net carbs in the last year on one hand. I've gone through periods where I weigh every single thing I put on my plate and religiously count calories on myfitnesspal. I've gone through periods where I estimate everything and log on myfitnesspal, and I've gone through months at a time where it just felt too tedious so I was careful about the carbs and ignored everything else and didn't log anything. I definitely lose the most consistently when I am logging everything, but its just not sustainable for me to do that all the time, I'd go crazy.

As far as health goes, things are much improved right now but there is still work to do. The biggest thing is that when eating low carb I basically get to live as though I were not diabetic. I am, and if I eat a bunch of carbs at any point my blood sugar will spike, but practically speaking this allows me perfect blood sugar control and hopefully I can put off the advancement of the myriad of complications from diabetes forever this way. My cholesterol was still not ideal the last time it was tested. Its improved greatly though. I get that tested again in February.

My initial goal for weight loss is set at 220 pounds. 68 down, 35 to go! I still have no idea at all how I may want to adjust that once I get there.


On current stuff, I'm starting to see some improvements in physical therapy, but its still a long process with no end in sight. I am only going once a week instead of twice now, which is nice. Some of the improvements aren't exactly functional yet, changes we can see doing specific tests during office visits, but limited symptom relief. I'm optimistic though, and I have seen some symptom improvement. A lot of the pelvic floor stuff is vague/subtle/small ups and downs. With the foot the PT working on that says she can see more mobility with the work she's been doing, and I have some work I'm doing at home to try to push that along. I dunno, its all very vague right now but with a clear, slow movement in the right direction.

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8

Moving right along. I did actually get below 253 a couple days but not quite ready to stay below it just yet. I've been a bit lazy and eating out a little too frequently. All good though, still dropping!

[sabotai]

Got lazy weighing myself over the holidays, and a bit lazy with food and exercise. Only dropped a few pounds the last 5 weeks or so.

Nov. 30th: 229.80
Dec. 7th: 227.66 (-2.14)
Dec 14th: 224.89 (-2.77)
Jan 18th: 222.71 (-2.18 / 5wk)

[BYU 14]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8

Moving right along. I did actually get below 253 a couple days but not quite ready to stay below it just yet. I've been a bit lazy and eating out a little too frequently. All good though, still dropping!

This is friggin awesome, 70 pounds in a year and still going. Congrats and kudos on your hard work!!!

[Dodgerchick]

Radii, that's fantastic!!

Sab, keep up the good work :)

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I used to weigh myself obsessively every morning. I don't anymore, now it's every 3-4 days or so. Weight is still the same, I think. 196 or so, not sure. I went to Zumba yesterday after a r e a l l y long drought. I'll be going to BodyCombat class tomorrow as well. There's this yoga/tai chi class at Gold's Gym that I'll be trying out, we'll see how that goes. I'm excited, as I've always wanted to try Tai Chi. A good instructor goes a long way, and for me, I don't like it when they talk so much. Just tell me how to do it and let me meditate on the position/move for a minute. That's all I want.

Do you guys have any go to recipes? I'd like to add some new recipes to our rotation.

Radii, I'm gonna make the buns recipe today.

[Radii]

I used to weigh myself obsessively every morning. I don't anymore, now it's every 3-4 days or so.

Seems like a personal preference thing. I feel better if I weigh daily, I see the ups and downs and I'm cool with it. If I weigh less frequently then I don't know if I'm looking at an anomaly or if I'm doing something wrong. I see lots of other people say they weigh once a week or even once a month and are much happier that way.



Radii, I'm gonna make the buns recipe today.


Awesome, let me know how it turns out!


For go to recipes, I can eat the same stuff over and over so I am probably no help. I rotate pork chops/chicken/burgers and occasionally mix in some fish or steak or whatever. My mom does make cauliflower rice (there's amushroom rissoto w/ cauliflower that I partciularly like). Its weird, b/c I hate cauliflower if its just steamed or whatever.

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8
1/24/15: 252.6

This has been a strange, awful week. Adjusting to a new medicine and getting hit extremely hard with side effects of massively increased/out of nowhere anxiety. The upside, if there is one, is that I've been diligent about going to the gym to try to wear myself out every day, so I have hit the gym 8 days straight now. Happy to see the weight drop below 253 as that's the "official" 70 pound mark, but have no idea what next week will be like if things don't change quick. We'll see what happens.

[Dodgerchick]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8
1/24/15: 252.6

This has been a strange, awful week. Adjusting to a new medicine and getting hit extremely hard with side effects of massively increased/out of nowhere anxiety. The upside, if there is one, is that I've been diligent about going to the gym to try to wear myself out every day, so I have hit the gym 8 days straight now. Happy to see the weight drop below 253 as that's the "official" 70 pound mark, but have no idea what next week will be like if things don't change quick. We'll see what happens.

:party:

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8
1/24/15: 252.6
2/12/15: 249.6

Didn't update the last couple weeks. I got off the prescription that was fucking with me so much that I mentioned in my last update, and feel like myself again. I had gained a bit, and anytime I significantly increase my exercise it seems like it stalls things, at least briefly. I'm trying to stick with the increased cardio in addition to my normal 3 days at the gym. Going 2 extra days for 30-45 minutes of medium intensity cardio (elliptical or treadmill depending on how the foot and knee are feeling that day) seems easy now, so it seems like 5 days a week of solid exercise is now closer to being a legit habit, since I am still mostly inactive outside the gym I am aiming to go pretty darn close to every day, but 5 days and trying to push for one or two more is another step up.


My physical therapist on Tuesday complimented me on my weight loss and said she could see a difference (and because I'm an oblivious moron who isn't exactly used to compliments yet, I didn't realize it and replied with "eh, I'm up a little lately" instead of "oh my god thank you". I rectified this with an e-mail once I realized!). A random dude at the gym on Wednesday asked how long I'd been going there. He said he started there in November and could tell I've lost weight since then. I recognize a lot of faces of people not in the class stuff that I do, mostly younger heavy weight folks who are regulars, so I've seen this guy around the general area doing his own thing frequently. To have someone who isn't in the classes with me, who isn't someone that I interact with at all, notice and go out of his way to say something nice felt really fucking good.

Today was the first day under 250. My initial goal remains 220, less than 30 pounds to go now!

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8
1/24/15: 252.6
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4

Things continue to move, but slowly, and that's ok. I have bounced above/below 250 for most of the month. Today was a new low though so I figured I'd cherry pick it and write it down.

Weight loss is just very far from my #1 focus right now. I'd love to rush to 220 and hit that first huge goal, and maybe at some point there will be another quick drop, but it seems unlikely right now. I skipped the gym yesterday, first time in 14 days. Most of those days are just moderate impact cardio, but whenever I up my activity level I have seen stalls. I am also supposed to be doing a 20 minute stretching routine given to me by PT twice a day (though in reality its happening once on most days right now), and am trying to re-focus on my posture work for PT, which means more standing and more time sitting on my stability ball. These things I continue to find have an unreasonable impact on my hunger at times.

Anyway, overall my health is slowly but surely improving and I am making a lot of positive changes. Too many at once to do them all anywhere close to perfectly, but I think I have most everything pointed generally the right way so I will get there :)

[Radii]

I'm curious to see how others are doing. It's gotten a bit lonely in here!

[sabotai]

I got out of the habit of weighing myself (which is why I haven't updated), the crappy weather has kept me from going to the gym and I haven't been as good with food as I should be. I've still lost a few pounds last month though, which was honestly a bit of a shock to me.

Weighed myself today and I'm at 219.8, 3 pounds lower than on Jan 18th.

[hoopsguy]

Well, 171.0 for my birthday (#43) weigh-in today. Down a pound from last week, when I had a race weigh-in at 172.2. So I'm up about 5-7 pounds from where I was at last fall.

Had a relatively sluggish January/February on the running front. Cold and snow kept me on the treadmill, and having a move (about 30 minutes away) was a bit of a distraction. But I've had a pretty good routine over the past couple of weeks, getting about 5 runs in per week between 30-45 minutes each.

I've got a pretty aggressive run schedule this year, with 14 races that I'm targeting between now and December 1st. Lot of running goals to hit, and at some point I might even broach out to some broader fitness goals. I've only been talking about that for 7-9 months now ...

[hoopsguy]

Also probably worth noting, I picked up a Fitbit for Christmas and that is keeping me more aware of my step counts, stair counts, and sleep patterns than I had been last year. I don't know that I'm doing a great job of acting on that information just yet, but I'm definitely more focused on step counts than I was when my tracking mechanism was an app on my phone.

[Radii]

Also probably worth noting, I picked up a Fitbit for Christmas and that is keeping me more aware of my step counts, stair counts, and sleep patterns than I had been last year. I don't know that I'm doing a great job of acting on that information just yet, but I'm definitely more focused on step counts than I was when my tracking mechanism was an app on my phone.

Are you aiming for 10k steps a day eventually (or do you get there already with the running you do?) I got a pedometer, simpler than fitbit, but haven't tried to incorporate it yet. I know that when I hit the elliptical at the gym I end up between 3000-4000 "strides" most times.

Is the sleep pattern thing on the fitbit working out for you in any way? I looked at getting one of those but I have a hard time falling asleep and have frequent wakes some nights lately, I got the feeling that the fitbit would really not register much of that and I didn't feel confident I'd get anything out of it.

[hoopsguy]

Steps - if I don't get exercise, it is rare for me to hit the 10k steps. I'm normally in the 5-7k range, depending on how much walking I do. If I have a day of bouncing between clients, I'm sometimes able to get 10k without hitting the treadmill.

The 3.4 mile run this morning was worth about 5k steps.

I've also got a couple of friends who have Fitbits who send me daily/weekly challenges from time to time. That nudges me a little bit more than I would over the course of a week/weekend, depending on the challenge duration.

Sleep - I'll see if I can post some stats from the last couple of weeks. I consider myself a pretty sound sleeper, so I'm not sure I've got the same concerns you do. But I'm still interested in tracking overall amount of sleep and having some measure of "restfulness" to correlate with my alertness when I wake up in the morning.

[Poli]

I picked up a fun calf strain last year that has kept me from running for about the past 8 months. I'm certain it's healed now, but I'm a wuss and haven't gone out to brave the cold yet. I've added a sizeable amount of weight during that time. I like cheeseburgers, fries, and cheese curds. It might be an addiction.

I have picked up a role in "Meet Me in St. Louis", where I'm dancing (Dancing!) with the ensemble. I'm also one of the bad dancers that dances with the leading lady...which is a role I was truly meant for. On rehearsal nights, I'm at about 8k steps when it's over.

We started Weight Watchers nearly a month ago and I'm down over 5 pounds. My wife is down much more than that.

I've thought about a fitbit or something along those lines, haven't pulled the trigger.

When the weather starts to change in my favor, I plan on getting out to run again as well.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6

Ran six straight days, but still not up to 75K in FitBit steps for the week. Little hard to swallow with just over 20 miles of running, but with my distances going up week-over-week I'll see those FitBit numbers grow as well.

Nice to get some outdoor running in this weekend. Did a 5 mile run, while babying my aching right ankle, in about 45 minutes. I'm hoping to shave about 5 minutes off that time 20 days from now during my first real (non-stairs) race of the year.
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[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6

Running numbers stayed pretty steady in terms of days and total miles, but had my biggest FitBit number with around 23k last Sunday. Weather was great this weekend, did a trail run across some very muddy hills, and spent several hours outdoor with the family that afternoon.

Health is 100% good, just looking to make some better eating choices this week as I'm angling towards the Shamrock Shuffle. I'll be disappointed if I'm not in the 160's for good on race day. Having some level of control over the two NCAA days will go a long ways towards making that weight this week.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2

Not a good trend/month, but there is at least one extenuating factor in the week-over-week weigh-in. Normally Sunday is my long run day, but this weekend I ended up going longer on Saturday and having to skip Sunday. The weigh-in after long runs usually is good for 0.5-1.5 pounds lighter than the previous day. That, coupled with some questionable NCAA-related eating on the back half of the week pulled me away from the sub-170 range.

Six days until my Shamrock Shuffle run. I've set a goal for 40 minutes for the 5 miles. Not sure how that will work out, as the area I'm living in has a lot more hills than the very flat Chicago roads. I've set sub-8 mile pace for 3 miles so far, but have yet to stretch that pace out over 5 on my training runs. Still rounding into shape, both from weight and cardio perspective. There will also be a TON of people at this race, which normally is not the best scenario for chasing after challenging times.

I had set three goals for my running this month, and I'll list a 4th goal that I had for weight:
- Run at least 110km. Currently at 98.
- At least 5 outdoor runs. Mission accomplished, have had warm weather.
- Run sub-40 for 5m run.
- Weight under 170 for 5m run. Was 172.2 on 2/22 for my "Hustle Up Hancock" race.

Next week is going to be terrible for working out. Between taper for run and a really aggressive work/home schedule, I'll be happy with finding two workouts during the week along with my run. Which means that diet needs to compensate a little bit to help me hit goal weight.

[Radii]

I've set a goal for 40 minutes for the 5 miles

Good luck!



My weight remains stagnant, usually a little under 250, but occasionally bumping back above it. I'm still doing 100 different things right now and find it very difficult to put a huge focus here. Staying low carb is easy, but cooking for myself instead of "screw it, lets get wings" and tracking how much I'm eating, not so easy at the moment. I remain mostly ok with this because I am doing so many different things right now, pretty soon though I think I need to have a week or two where I weigh/count everything, don't eat out any, at least make a push for 245 to see things move a little again :)

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2
3/30: 170.0

My scale is very determined not to give me a weight starting with "16."

Still, overall pretty happy with this weight after what ended up being a low exercise week. My evenings got high-jacked by family commitments and I was deliberately taking off a couple of days to rest for the Sunday race. So all in all, I only had 3 days of working out last week, which is 2-3 less than normal for me.

As far as the race, I smashed my 40:00 goal. Ended up at 37:44, and was left wondering at the end if I could have gotten down to a 7:30/mile pace (5 mile race) if I had started just a little bit stronger. That said, I'll take that kind of post-race regret every time :) It was very satisfying posting that kind of time after struggling a bit with my running performances, from a time perspective, the last few weeks. I moved at the end of January, and my new neighborhood has a lot of hills. So many hills, in fact, that I have yet to really map out a "flat" run for days where I want to simulate Chicago race conditions. So I knew that was impacting the times on my runs, but until yesterday I did not really have a benchmark to measure how much impact the hills had on my run times. Turns out, quite a bit ...

So, time to get my weight back into the 160s. At the beginning of the year I had set a goal of 160 for weight, which is a number I haven't seen since my freshman year of college. Which was 25 years ago. I'm not 100% sure that I'll want to hit that goal, but I do want to be putting in the right effort with exercise and diet to be in position to hit that weight if I can do so without looking and feeling unhealthy. So I've got to start putting together sustained months of weight loss rather than the fits-and-starts that have marked the first quarter of the year.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2
3/30: 170.0
4/6: 171.8

Well that was a disappointing weigh-in. It was a full pound heavier than at any time during the week. There was no long run like I do on most Sundays, but Saturday was pretty punishing instead. Still, I suppose that and having some Easter candy (nothing super excessive) may account for part of the number. The rest I'm calling a weird weigh-in until proven otherwise the next couple of days.

Realistically, I need to make some better attempts at diet changes for lunch and be a little more consistent on my breakfasts. This round of weight monitoring has yet to involve much in the way of portion control, relying almost exclusively on exercise. Exercise alone isn't going to get me down another 10-12 pounds this year. And if by some miracle that was to happen, I would not have high hopes for keeping that weight off.

Next race I'm angling for is a 10k in 13 days. I'm expecting to set a new personal record (PR) that day because my current time isn't terribly impressive, but after some light research on the course (pretty hilly) I may need to adjust my goal time up a bit from the current 48:00. Will probably figure that out next weekend after my final training run at distance, as the vast majority of my in-week runs are in the 3-4 mile range.

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
1/17/15: 253.8
1/24/15: 252.6
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4
4/8/15: 248.0

I fully admit I'm cherrypicking a new low here just to make a post, I haven't updated in awhile now. I've had some days where I really felt a strong urge to cheat, which hasn't happened in a long time. Remember that "cheating" for me means carbs, not calories. I ended up with a little "half cheat" during a binge day Sunday where I bought a ton of snack things, and for something sweet got a box of Atkins chocolate-coconut bars. For super low carbers, Atkins products are basically bullshit and to be avoided for most people. They use Malitol as a sweetener which has a really high glycemic index compared to every other sweetener out there (I prefer Erythritol/Stevia). Anyway, I ate the whole box (5 bars), knocked myself out of ketosis but b/c I've been keto-adapted for so very long now, and because even a shitty Atkins product is way better than buying some candy bars, I probably was back in ketosis by the end of Monday. I am still not cooking for myself nearly enough, something that I've been in a serious rut with for a few months now. Its silly because I know if I just do that I could very likely rush down to 240 and make some more progress.

On the exercise front, I got a cortisone shot in my knee yesterday. I've been walking with some regularity, 30-45 minute walks a few nights a week, but I've only been hitting the gym once a week for the slightly heavier training that I pay for, and just telling them that I can only do upper body work. The more cardio focused classes that I go to just feel impossible right now, there's more people at those, and some of the workouts I'd have to tell them that I can't do 50-75% of the exercises b/c of the knee, so I just haven't been going. Hopefully the shot does something, but I went through this last fall with my foot... different problem, so there's no reason the result needs to be the same, but my hopes aren't high that the cortisone shot will be anything more than a temporary boost. I did it though, because the next step is an MRI which will eat up most, if not all of my insurance deductible, so might as well try the cheap option first.

I'm glad I posted here today, I can see my progress from earlier in the year. Even though its been slow, I thought it had been 100% stagnant since last November or so... I forgot that I was still as high as 255 going into 2015. And, as always, a year ago I was still over 300, so I'm thrilled overall. But I've been talking about this stagnation for awhile now, and saying that its ok b/c the weight isn't going up, and that its ok because I have other major focuses in my life...that's all true, but I'm starting to feel like I need to make a shift to make this *the* big focus again.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2
3/30: 170.0
4/6: 171.8
4/13: 168.8

I had suggested that the weigh-in last Monday was an aberration, but then proceeded to have a day of eating everything including the kitchen sink and saw my number blow up to 174.0 on Tuesday. But from that point on, the weight dropped off quickly and I was below 170 again on Friday.

I've been having some issues with getting 5 days of running in per week for the last month. This is largely due to needing to re-arrange my schedule to work with my daughter on her karate. She tests for her black belt on 5/2, and the past 4-6 weeks have involved practice of some sort just about every evening. I've had some challenges with getting motivated to be on the treadmill 3x during the week, or else some kind of complicating event that has robbed me of one of the two days on the weekend. That trend continued this past week; March 9-15 was the last time I had 5 days of running. But the distance on the runs is moving upwards as I continue to prep for a half marathon this summer/fall. I'm over 20 miles/week now and should be in the 25 mile range in May.

10k coming up in 6 days. Will be dialing back the workouts mid-week to make sure I'm well rested for that day. I'll have a few friends running that race with me, and I'm hoping to stay close to a friend who was about 4-4.5 minutes faster than me over 10k last July.

[Radii]

Its awesome to see a number under 170 hoopsguy! Good luck on the 10k.

[hoopsguy]

Its awesome to see a number under 170 hoopsguy! Good luck on the 10k.

Thanks! I'll legitimately be excited if I can get under 165 and sustain that number. I've been under 170 a few times over the last five years, including late last year, but 165 has been a pretty hard number for me to sustain.

10k ... on the one hand, it is a check-point on the road to my first half marathon race. I've done these before, I'm comfortable with the distance, it isn't the primary objective. I care more about the half marathon times and my 5k times. But on the other hand, it is my first time racing against a buddy who has blitzed me in runs the past couple of years. I'm looking to beat him in at least one run this year, and I know I've been training harder than him on running/cardio so far. Ditto hills, as my new neighborhood has some while his neck of the woods has virtually none. So I'm hoping for some early bragging rights :)

[The Jackal]

I need to get back to lifting some weights, will have to invest in a kettle bell or dumbell or both sometime soon. Gotta rebuild that shoulder/neck strength.

Weight is still hovering between 187-190, had another weekend of traveling/picnic food. And today I've been making guiness braised lamb shanks .. so I'll be better starting tomorrow. :)

Looks like this was the last post I made about my weight (July 2011) - since then it went back up into the 205-210 range. Never back towards 220-225 which was my peak weight, but in the past 6 months or so I've really wanted to get back under 200, and more like 190 as my baseline weight.

Started the insanity max 30 workout a couple months ago, tomorrow's actually the last day. Combine that with playing hockey most Sundays and I'm on the right track.

Weighed in at 197 today, down from 205ish before I started insanity. And that's with the muscle I've been building, too. Good direction! Trying to eat right most of the time and cut down on alcohol, that definitely helps.

Not sure if insanity has been discussed in this forum, but I recommend it. It's a pretty intense program, but it's nice to be able to get through it quickly and boy is it a workout. I've never had this much upper body strength and you don't even use weights.

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4
4/8/15: 248.0
4/16/15: 246.2

No cherrypicking of numbers here, had a good week and things are definitely trending in the right direction again!

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2
3/30: 170.0
4/6: 171.8
4/13: 168.8
4/20: 169.6

No surprise on the weigh-in, as I ate a ton of food yesterday after the 10k race. Including deep dish pizza for dinner; it would have been almost impossible to maintain weight. I was at 169.0 for my race, after three days of no running prior to the race. All in all, no complaints at all about being up a bit compared to last week.

As for the race, I posted my best 10k time to date. I started in front of my friend and stayed in front of him for about 5 1/2 miles, but when he passed me I did not have enough in the tank to stay with him. 48:39 was about 25 seconds slower than him. Nice progress compared to last year, where he beat me by 5:29. I'm guessing the hills helped me relative to him, but they likely added about 90 seconds to my overall time. At the end of last year, as part of my 15k race, my estimated 10k time was 47:03.

So after getting the remaining pizza and beer out of the house, I'm looking forward to a good week of running including a 10 mile run on Sunday. I've got a 10 mile race in a little over a month, and I'm about halfway through my half marathon training plan. With some disciplined eating over the next 30 days, I think I can get my weight down around 165-166 for my Memorial Day weekend race.

Radii, keep up the progress! Despite feeling like you've been stagnant, you've lost about 2x as much weight as I have this year :)

Jackal, what kind of equipment do you need for the Insanity program? If no weights, are there items like a pull-up bar or other similar accessories?

[corbes]

1/10/14: 323
4/8/15: 248.0



awesome work radii!!

[corbes]

We've fallen off the exercise wagon over here . . . . alcohol . . . in the name of healthy living here is a renewed commitment to prioritize exercise over chemicals rather than the other way around.

GRUMBLE GRUMBLE SHAME RENEWING COMMITMENT AGAIN DAMMIT

[Radii]

GRUMBLE GRUMBLE SHAME RENEWING COMMITMENT AGAIN DAMMIT

Good luck! Keep posting, you got this :)




1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4
4/8/15: 248.0
4/16/15: 246.2
4/23/15: 246.2

Vrey up and down week here, I'll take an update where the weight is the same and be happy about it.

[corbes]

Aside from the issues referenced above, a real problem is that I tend towards VERY low blood sugar between 3pm and 6pm and eat far too many calories during that pre-dinner time period than are truly needed. If I could have dinner at 4pm I would be fine, but, not feasible. I need to focus on eating something during the pre-dinner blood-sugar low that addresses the glucose problem without adding unnecessary calories.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
3/9: 170.6
3/16: 170.6
3/23: 171.2
3/30: 170.0
4/6: 171.8
4/13: 168.8
4/20: 169.6
4/27: 1708.8

Oops. Despite having my heaviest week of running so far this year (about 25 miles) I saw my weight go up due to a bad weekend of eating. We hosted a party, which involved a lot of sweets around the house and too little discipline.

165-166 for Memorial Day race isn't impossible, but it is going to require some real discipline with eating. I should be poised for a good week, but the week of 5/4 involves a conference downtown and a lot of social events around that to challenge my food/alcohol decision making process.

Sunrise is now getting early enough to think about morning runs. I'm focusing this week on changing my bedtime routines so that I'm ready to make that transition come 5/1. I enjoy the morning runs enough to try and change my natural inclination towards being a night person.

[Alan T]

Sunrise is now getting early enough to think about morning runs. I'm focusing this week on changing my bedtime routines so that I'm ready to make that transition come 5/1. I enjoy the morning runs enough to try and change my natural inclination towards being a night person.

For me that was one of the biggest improvements that I made to being able to be more active. For decades (almost as long as I can remember it), I was going to sleep when I was exhausted, maybe 2-3am and then sleeping until I woke up. It just did not give my body enough regular sleep though.

Now, making sure to do things like go to bed earlier every night as part of a routine, not watching tv before bed, etc it has made it far easier for me to be able to exercise longer without running out of steam.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
...
4/6: 171.8
4/13: 168.8
4/20: 169.6
4/27: 1708.8

5/4: 166.8

So a big dip between weeks. And I only got two short runs in, with my total distance between runs dipping by something like 300% compared to the week leading up to the 4/27 weigh-in.

The secret? Stomach flu. Hit hard Thursday night, and it both cleaned me out and killed my appetite. Something tells me that is not a sustainable trick for losing another four pounds by next week or five pounds month-over-month ...

So, heading into May have a couple of thoughts:
1.) That 165-166 weight for my 5/23 race is entirely in my hands at this point.
2.) With my daughter having passed her black belt test on Saturday (freeing me up from nightly prep activities), I'm now going to have some more time on my hands. Hopefully a decent portion of this goes towards my fitness goals.
3.) Temp increases really hit me hard on run yesterday. I'm sure part of it was from lack of hydration, coming off being sick, etc but I'll need to make some adjustments to deal with higher temperatures during runs. Particularly the longer ones. Early morning runs mentioned last week have to start ASAP.

[hoopsguy]

3/2: 171.0
4/6: 171.8
...
5/4: 166.8
5/11: 168.6

Weight slid back up to a "new normal" as my appetite returned. Kept the weight low throughout the week, checking in at 167.2 on Friday morning. But a weekend getaway with the wife and too much dessert around Mother's Day nudged the weight up again despite getting a ton of exercise over the weekend.

I've started making the commitment to going to bed earlier, which has been good for my nightly sleep. Now need to translate that into the earlier wake-up calls and the "pitch black" outdoor runs over the next couple of weeks. Still have a hard time going out for a run when I know that it will be complete prior to dawn.

Also dipping the toe in the water on making healthier food choices. This will start with lunch, with things like foregoing chips but hopefully evolve into a few more greens and less red meats over time. Food journal starting today, although I'm not going to count calories just yet. But hopefully the act of recording foods will make me a smidge more accountable on the random Tuesday/Wednesday back-to-back burgers and Chipotle lunches.

[Radii]

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4
4/8/15: 248.0
4/16/15: 246.2
4/23/15: 246.2
7/8/15: 269.0

Time for some serious accountability. Over the last 6 weeks or so I started cheating once or twice over the weekend. Probably frustration w/ my weight loss slowing down/stalling out, I was still hanging around 250 and couldn't seem to stay below it.

The once a week cheating was ok, not good, but ok. I'd gain some water weight b/c that's how keto works, then a few days later drop most of it back, so I was bouncing between 250-257 or so but it was mostly water weight coming and going. Then in the last 2-3 weeks something snapped and I went crazy, binging pretty damn hard and eating a ton of shitty fast food, and SO MANY DOUGHNUTS. Holy shit the krispy kreme.


Anyway, with the weight creeping back up to almost 270, its time for a wakeup call and time to get fully back on track. I'm not sure how much of the gain right now is water weight and how much of it is fat. We shall see.

I've been craving sweet stuff non-stop, which again is how keto works. Keto kills cravings, but only if you're consistent with it. Keto fixes blood sugar, but eating a box of donuts kinda breaks that, so I've been having some issues with that too.

Anyway, back to weekly updates, I "started over" this morning, no more cheating allowed.

[digamma]

hang tough, Radii.

[Radii]

hang tough, Radii.

Thanks, I got this :)



1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
2/12/15: 249.6
3/2/15: 248.4
4/8/15: 248.0
4/16/15: 246.2
4/23/15: 246.2
7/8/15: 269.0
7/13/15: 262.8

Hasn't been quite a full week yet but I prefer Monday morning updates. That whoosh of 6.2 pounds in 5 days is water weight coming back off as I get back into ketosis. Its expected, it means I'm doing a good job of getting back into eating the way I want. It won't go that fast back to 250, sadly.

Now that I've been back on board with low carb for most of a week, I should do fine, at least for this week.

Next week may be a big challenge. I'm going to Atlanta next week for work, I'll be in the office 8 hours a day for the week, which is something I haven't done in about 5 years. There's an office luncheon one day, hopefully its not pizza or sandwiches or something. I'm not really worried about that. I'm more worried about being on a strict schedule even for a few days instead of doing everything at my own pace. Sugar is often what used to get me through shitty work days and having to wake up before 8am.

But that's next week, I should cruise through this week and lose a bit more hopefully :)

[rowech]

I haven't posted here in a long while but I've reached a level of frustration. I used to be around 310 pounds and got down to 230. I'm now back up to 255 and to be honest, I'm not really sure why. I've stayed pretty active, been eating the same, etc. I started insanity two weeks ago and have put on six pounds now. I'm baffled by this. I have two possible ideas on it and curious if anybody has any thoughts...

1. Can you eat too little on such a program? I generally have oatmeal for breakfast, workout after that, have a protein shake, have a sandwich for lunch with some pretzels and unsweetened tea. Might have some crackers or something along those lines at mid-afternoon. Might throw in a greek yogurt at some point. Dinner is usually chicken or pork grilled, some sort of pasta, and some sort of vegetable. I know there needs to be more fruits/vegetables in there. Can that be the issue or is it that I need more food? If I use their calorie calculator, I should be losing two pounds a week at 2500 calories in given my weight and I'm not at that level of intake.

2. I do have hypothyroid and my doctor struggles finding the right dosage. Is it possible the insanity workout is too hard for somebody who is hypothyroid?

[Radii]

My biggest weakness when trying for accountability with weight loss is that when I'm struggling, even in the slightest, I'm embarrassed about it and just stop posting. I know that's common, but I'd really like to do better about that. But, I've done that again, and even went so far as to wait until things have been going well for a full month before checking back in. Bleh!

So my last post I was at 262 in late July. I thought I was back on track, I had a trip to Atlanta for work coming up, and I fell back off the wagon the day before the trip, and didn't even bother to try while I was down there. When I got back home (early August), I did ok for a week, then went completely off track again for about 3 weeks.

Around August 20th, I weight 281. That scared me more than a little, that's over 30 pounds re-gained from my low point, and the rate that I was gaining was terrifying. Though, not surprising. I was eating pizza and burgers every meal and having 4-6 doughnuts a day.


Maybe seeing 280 was what I needed to wake my ass up. Note that I said the same thing a couple months ago when I hit 270. ;) But the fact that I have actually been eating the right way for a full month has me actually believing myself this time.

1/10/14: 323
1/10:15: 255
4/23/15: 246.2
7/8/15: 269.0
7/13/15: 262.8
8/20/15: 282
9/24/15: 270.4

[Radii]

I wanted to drop a fitness update in here as well. Despite the struggles w/ food, I never stopped going to the gym. But, at of 9/1 my year long contract for the classes I was taking ended, and I decided to change things up.

Strength

I've wanted to do a consistent strength training program for awhile now, the idea of it was just a little too much when I first joined the gym a year ago, so I went with the classes instead. I'm really glad I did, as it got me to stick with it. But now I'm off on my own. I paid for a 1 on 1 session with one of the trainers and went over form for all the major compound lifts in detail.

I'm doing a popular novice lifting program called (ironically given my low carb ways) Ice Cream Fitness. No idea on the name. It was the guy's youtube channel at the time I guess.

My very early progress: Ice Cream Fitness - Google Sheets (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iaZlb-9D4iqnsawjo9S6J7BVSOQrww8gRNvQM-Q-hGU/edit?usp=sharing)

I'm only 2 weeks into that, there are a lot of sets involved, but its early and I should progress easily for awhile still. There are simpler novice programs out there, but a lot of people like this one, and thanks to my work from home situation I can easily find the extra time to spend in the gym to do this. The idea is to increase the weight on most everything (especially the 5x5 compound lifts) every session. If you fail to complete an exercise 2 sessions in a row, drop the weight by 10% and start building back up. Most novice lifters can go quite awhile doing this before they need to find an intermediate program to progress to. We'll see how my progression goes since I'm not 20 years old and my overall fitness level is still decidedly below average.


Flexibility

I've been mildly obsessed with flexibility for awhile now, since physical therapy at the end of 2014. But I've been really inconsistent as far as doing anything about it. I've changed that as well.

I'm taking a "Yoga Basics" class once a week at a local yoga studio. It completely kicks my ass. My core is weak and my flexibility is bad. The 60 year old ladies in that class have a much easier time than I do with many things :P That's ok though. Undoing a lifetime of sitting doesn't happen overnight.

Also, reddit has a really great flxibility subreddit, they recommend the following Starting Stretching (http://phraktured.net/starting-stretching.html) routine for newbies like me. I'm doing it 3x a week at the gym after I lift, and trying to do it 1-2 days at home as well.

[Alan T]

My biggest weakness when trying for accountability with weight loss is that when I'm struggling, even in the slightest, I'm embarrassed about it and just stop posting. I know that's common, but I'd really like to do better about that. But, I've done that again, and even went so far as to wait until things have been going well for a full month before checking back in. Bleh!



Man, it is tough. Sometimes it is really tough. Especially if food is your "comfort" or first go to when stressed or upset or disappointed, it is so easy to get derailed.

Don't beat yourself up over it, many of us have done similar things.. it is super encouraging when you see good results and then post about them and get kudos.. but when you get the bad results, you want to just find a hole to hide in and just hope things turn around.

I personally think that you have done a great job so far, and very few of us had an easy time getting off the weight and keeping it off without any bumps in the road. Good job on getting the ship back on course, and remember we're your friends here even when you have a few weeks of poor eating habits.

[Radii]

I haven't updatded in awhile, I'm still at 270. Since my last update near the end of September, the good news is that I've been on keto way more than off, though I was off for a week at a time once in October and once in November. Currently, I've been solidly on keto for about 3 weeks now, except for Thanksgiving Day. I allowed myself dressing and gravy for Thanksgiving dinner, but only had turkey for leftovers, no turkey sandwiches/dressing/gravy.

With the strength training and yoga, as I found when I first started at the gym last year, a strong increase in activity drives my hunger levels INSANE and I find it extremely hard to eat at a caloric deficit, even on low carb where its so easy to feel full and to not need to eat as much/often for me. Though I'm sure the week full of sugar each month didn't help ;)

Anyway, the reason for the update here is yet another change in plans. I have an umbilical hernia, I've had it for about 7 years or more, apparently its rather common in very overweight folks. It doesn't hurt, but I've been way more aware of it with the huge amounts of abdominal pressure that come from squats/deadlifts, and all of the core work in yoga, so I went to my doctor to ask about it and we decided that it would be reasonable to go ahead and get it fixed now, but it was up to me, not 100% necessary right now.

I hit my out of pocket max for insurance this year thanks to all the stuff I was doing early in the year, so getting it done now will be free, so I'm getting it done now. Next Wednesday (Dec 16th), actually.

So after that surgery, no picking up anything at all for a week, then very very little for about a month, then start building back up to normal exercise. Recovery as far as going back to work will be easy though at least.

So that's what's up, for now!

[Radii]

Had my surgery today, all went well.

Its really sad how utterly shocked every medical professional is when they see someone who is able to successfully manage diabetes. I ended up explaining my diet to 3 different people today after questions that started:

"This says you are diabetic but you don't take any medicine or insulin... I don't understand?"

Its not that its so terribly hard to do necessarily, apparently its that so few people ever learn how to manage things well enough to get off diabetes meds once they get on them that it seemed a completely foreign idea and required a detailed explanation.

All hail bacon, I guess. I try really hard to not get preachy about keto/low carb because it can come across as "cult like" to many people, and its not "the way" to eat for everyone, BUT the fact that you can go to your doctor, be diagnosed as diabetic, go to classes to learn how to manage diabetes, and still come away from that thinking that carbohydrate restriction is a scary and evil thing or not even understanding that its in the arsenal of things to try... ugh :(

[hoopsguy]

Glad to hear surgery went well; best of luck with the recovery.

I'll likely have some kind of weight updates to ring in the new year. Right now I'm trying to establish some level of routine with running/exercise/diet that I think will be sustainable with long commute for work.

[BYU 14]

Good news on the surgery and great job on maintaining the diet.

[tarcone]

I went from 212 last February to 194, today.
All I did was change my eating habits. As in less food.
I didn't really do a lot more exercise.
It kind of worried me. I wasn't sure why I lost so much weight. I was thinking bad things. But I did gain a pound. So Im thinking Im ok. If I drop to 190, I will go to the doctor.

[NobodyHere]

I think I'll be jumping on this bandwagon. I'm currently 196ish lbs on a 5'3 frame.

[CU Tiger]

So apparently my last appearance in this thread was 2007...

What a strange 9 years it has been.

I've yo-yo'd my weight my entire adult life.
In 07 I was up to 298 then dropped down to 260 ish, maintained and slowly crept back up.

Then in November of 2011 I was back at 298 and I went fanatical.
I dropped all the way to 250 by March 2012 and bottomed out at 238 in July of '12. Then in October 12 my personal life went into upheaval and really stayed that way until January '14. It was one crisis after another, it nearly destroyed my marriage of 15 years, led to me re-entering the work force as an "employee" for the first time since I was 20. (that's a whole other book unto itself)...

Then in January of 2016 I looked at again the magic number on the scale 298... I have never weighed 300 lbs in my life and it is like a saving light everytime I approach it turns me away, each time with a blinding focus. Here we are again.

Over the years I have tried un-numerous exercise routines and diets. For me and my body a keto or virtually no carb based diet seems to be the only thing that has produced results. The up yo-yo-s havent been because the diet didnt work they have been because I didnt follow it. However diabetes has ravaged my family and I am determined not to be next. Keto will help in this regard as well.

Specifically the introduction of beer is my pitfall. This is compounded by the fact that I love beer. I have brewed my own beer for a number of years and even own a small stake in a brewery. Im not talking alcoholic stumbling drunk loving beer, Im talking has a separate fridge dedicated to beer in his basement. That fridge has over 60 different varieties of beer in it. Separately I have 2 keg coolers in my house. Both are currently empty. I rarely get drunk, cant remember the last time I did but I love beer and beer has calories and carbs a plenty. For now beer is banned. It will be re-incorporated at some point, how and when I am not yet sure. But for this to work it has to be on the shelf.

So let's get this on track. January was a month of travel for me. Miami for the Orange Bowl, Arizona for the National Championship game, then a week in Cancun for a work obligation. Diet wasn't going to work in those environments. SO I set my sights on Feb 1.

In preparation I affixed a hasp to the beer cooler and bought a master lock. I locked the cooler up and threw the keys into the dump with the packaging. When the time comes, the beer cooler is in my garage and I have a side grinder that will cut the lock. But not without 10 minutes of intentional actions instead of an absent minded slip while shooting pool.


Ive been strictly no/zero carb. Loading up on protein and hitting the (basement) gym for some free weights and recumbent bike. The gym is such a hard psychological thing for me. At one point I was a competition power lifter..now what was a warm up seems impossible to even move, not that I would attempt it. Even after a good hard workout I feel like a failure because I am using such little weight. But the endorphin rush seems to counteract much of that. So I am pushing on. Last week was especially tough as I felt arm soreness unlike anything I have ever felt before after a mild tricep workout. No joke it was a solid 4 days before I could reach my face to shave. I couldn't put a drink bottle/glass to my mouth for a full day. This getting old stuff sucks. But I have a bigger picture in mind. My heart health has to improve and I am determined to get there.

So enough back story:

Goals:
Weight. - It is so cliche that weight shouldnt be the primary goal but fitness instead should. Fine. But It gives me a target to shoot for. For now 245lbs is my goal. That isn't a final goal and I plan to reassess at that weight and determine where I want to go. Side note, I have a very unusual body structure. A BMI chart would tell you that I am at 44%. However using Calipers or water suspension scales (I've done both in the past 2 weeks) the numbers were 31 and 27 respectively. Still FAT, but a far ways from 40+. In short 185 is probably not attainable for me. Nor is it even a consideration at this point. 220lb is a dream weight. I havent weighed 220 since the 6th grade. Im crowding 40 now. But I dont want to get thre the wrong way I want a solid muscular, though not ripped composition.

Fitness - Ive never been able to run a 5k. I've tried a few times and failed for various reasons. (I once ripped off consecutive 6:30 miles and cramped so bad I couldnt walk the final one)..so that seems like a goal. But I am not one to leave well enough alone. 2 artificial knees means a marathon or even a half isn't a good idea. I love to swim and love to road bike, so I have my sights set on a sprint triathlon. Swim 500 Meters, Bike 12 miles then run a 5k. Right now I am eyeing the Lake Norman Tri (just north of Charlotte, NC about an hour and a half away from me for those unfamiliar with the area) scheduled for August 27th.

I will be monitoring my progress and (possibly) adjusting my target as we go. Right now I am doing 5 miles semi comfortably on the recumbent bike with no road or run work. The progress plan is to get the recumbent bike up to 25 miles while alternating in the couch to 5k plan. Once the recumbent hits the 25 mark I will transition to the road bike (I sold my previous one so this will be a new purchase). Once that 12 mile is comfortable we will begin combo training with the hope to have the bike and run component nailed down by early June. At which time water temps should allow me to begin adding in water work again. I do not have access to an indoor or heated pool. So this will be temperature dependent. I plan to keep the weight work throughout this so hopefully build mass and shed fat simultaneously.

Diet

For now its <20g carbs per day. (many less than 10) and lots of water.

Beyond that. Who knows.

I've rambled enough
For those that have read along, thanks. I appreciate all the support you care to offer. This is my e-journal to accompany my physical written one I am keeping.

Feb 1 - 298.
Feb 8 - 288.4
Feb 15 - 286.0

Little concerned at the dramatic slowdown but not real concerned.
1 the first week was a ton of water shed.
2 I only worked out 1 day last week after the extreme soreness. I've brought fast absorbing whey protein isolate into the equation starting with this morning's workout to help combat the soreness.


I'd really love to hear some thoughts/feedback on a couple things.

Keto sticks- Radii talks a lot about being on keto also. Ive done 3 long runs very successfully on ketogenic diets, I've never used the sticks. I know by feel when my body is in heavy furnace burn mode, but not as in tune with the marginal. Contemplating giving them a trial just to see what data they add. Can anyone offer any insight?

Fitbit - Strongly considering the fitbit and scale combo to make tracking easier. My biggest drawback right now, with my current electronic scale I can get on 3-4 times and get different weights. In fact I usually keep re-weighing until a I get a stabilized number which usually happens on weights 2&3, occasionally on 1&2 and rarely it takes up to 5&6. I attribute this to 2 factors. First my scale has a range of up to 300lbs and most instruments lose accuracy at the limits. Second, I have a size 14/15 foot. Any scale I have ever tried a fair quarter of my foot hangs off either the front or the back. Placement is key. Im not concerned about absolute accuracy here as much as repeatability I suppose. So the fitbit scale is it pretty accurate? anyone else noticed the multiple steps variance thing with other scales? Basically Im trying to avoid corrupt data if I am going to invest a couple hundred bucks in data I can obtain for free, I want to make sure it is as accurate as possible.

So...thoughts on those two?

Now back to burning.

[Radii]

Ive been strictly no/zero carb. Loading up on protein and hitting the (basement) gym for some free weights and recumbent bike.

Just wanted to comment here, it sounds like you've done this before with success but just to be sure :)

Keto is intended to be high fat. A healthy "balanced" diet and a keto diet usually have similar levels of protein in them. Some folks fail on keto because they replace all their carbs with lean chicken and the like, and that doesn't really work either.

Keto Calculator - Learn Your Macros on the Ketogenic Diet (http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/)

That's the best calc I know of for giving macro recommendations. Of course you also mentioned hitting the gym more, which means an increase in protein could be warranted, I just wanted to make sure that you weren't trying to do low carb AND low fat. Some folks do that and are miserable.



Feb 1 - 298.
Feb 8 - 288.4
Feb 15 - 286.0

Little concerned at the dramatic slowdown but not real concerned.

Good start! Also totally standard for keto. You can search for the acronym PISS on keto forums and you'll probably find lots of discussion. It stands for "Post Induction Stall Syndrome". Its not uncommon to drop tons of water weight the first week or two, along with a small amount of fat, and then to stop losing weight entirely for awhile. I stalled out for a solid 4 weeks after my initial loss. Most do not stall that long. I couldn't tell you the sceince behind it, its something to do with the body adjusting to burning fat for energy instead of burning sugar for energy. You can search forums for "keto adaptation" and probably find a ton more on that if you're interested. Keto adaptation can take about 2 months and during that time you'll probably find peak performance w/ weights and the bike to be a bit lower. Once fully adapted then its back to normal, or even better than before for many people (lots of weightlifters and endurance athletes who don't need to lose weight experiment with keto to improve performance). Its another common complaint that new folks have who are active.


Keto sticks- Radii talks a lot about being on keto also. Ive done 3 long runs very successfully on ketogenic diets, I've never used the sticks. I know by feel when my body is in heavy furnace burn mode, but not as in tune with the marginal. Contemplating giving them a trial just to see what data they add. Can anyone offer any insight?

If you've started keto before w/o using them, I'd probably say not to bother.

I've used them in the past when I first start on keto, or if I've been cheating and trying to get back on track, but they're not really that reliable or necessary. Ketostix only measure ketones excreted in urine. That can be helpful initially if you're not sure you're doing things right, as seeing the sticks get a little darker is a nice sign that something is happening, but for long term use they aren't that great. As your body gets used to the high fat diet and lack of carbs it gets more effecient, and there's less ketones in waste so ketostix measures can change and you're not really accurately measuring ketosis at that point.

There is a breath device called Ketonix that measures ketones in breath, and you can check blood ketones on a meter similar to checking your blood sugar. Both are considered more accurate than ketostix. The blood ketone test strips are like $2 each though, and fail at a higher rate than blood sugar test strips. Not worth it to me, some folks that go hardcore in tracking numbers do that though.


I've never used a fitbit, so no opinion there.

Good luck! I'll have to get back to posting here more as well :)

[Alf]

Long time lurker here, but since I got myself a droid phone, your post about this application made me try it. Let's see if I can get into a routine there and at least get "conscious" about what I eat.

I've been at 88-90kg for approx 10 years now (with a couple of years down to 85) while I am 183cm high. Since I resumed playing basketball a couple of years ago, I would be way better with some weight off.

Bumping this as the wife and I are trying to be on the same page regarding weight loss.

I have nearly hit the 95kg mark before Christmas (it scared me) so I decided to talk to Mrs Alf. As a result, we are entering a "dual" weight loss process. Hopefully, this will be helpful to have both of us doing it.

No fancy "more sports" than we usual do. We are going to focus on food first (and adjust portions). The hard part to start with is the "no cheese" for a while.

I have be tracking my weight with an app on my phone, so at least I am conscious of where I am regarding my weight. Let's see if it works any better this time.

FWIW

[CU Tiger]

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2

Had a decent week though I only made 4 workouts. 2 Bike sessions 2 weight sessions. Got the stationary bike up to 8 miles though on a very difficult setting resistance and program wise. Going to hit that same program again today and take it to 9 miles and then later in the week do a flat setting ride. My stationary has 1-15 resistance settings and this program does 20 seconds each at 5,7,9,11,13,15 repeat. Honestly 5 feels harder than my old road bike. So my plan is to try and hit 12 miles on a flat 7.

This is the point where the workout gets monotonous because it becomes a 40-50 minute affair of just peddling and listening to music. Mixing in some phone games to pass the time. I cant concentrate enough to Book On Tape or educational podcast while I ride, so its just tempo background music.

Anyway the reward is worth the boredom.


I've really been putting off the road work because 1- I hate to run and 2- I have fake knee and they have been known to flare up when I start a running regimen. I fear a flare up and sidetrack. At some point though if I am to hit this goal I have to start. So I'll add a walk jog in this week or it will be a failure for me.

Wish me luck

[corbes]

I want to experiment with keto, but I cook almost all my own food and haven't the foggiest how many calories are in anything. Anytime I've tried to calculate this, it feels like the website wants me to put in how many grams of rice I ate and all I can think is, you cannot be serious, I have no idea.

Is there a reasonable carb/fat website that people use?

[Radii]

I want to experiment with keto

Dude, talk to me in daychat, I can give you more info than you ever wanted to know :D I should be in there all day tomorrow/thursday. Or PM me here if you have 1000 questions, I am certain I can point you in the right direction as far as resources go.

I cook almost all my own food and haven't the foggiest how many calories are in anything. Anytime I've tried to calculate this, it feels like the website wants me to put in how many grams of rice I ate and all I can think is, you cannot be serious, I have no idea.

I did spend a couple months obsessively weighing everything out of curiosity, but you have a few options here. If you go strict keto (say, 25g carbs or less a day), you can try just counting carbs at the start and not worry at all about calories. That doesn't mean that calories don't matter. But after the first few weeks, most people on keto find that they just simply are not all that hungry, even someone like myself who has huge hunger spikes and diabetes and can eat 5000 calories a day and still feel hungry... when i'm on carbs. When I'm succeeding on keto I don't have to count anything, because fat is filling and my body's hunger cues work and I naturally eat a more appropriate amount of food without trying.

There are a lot of people on keto who never count calories and lose tons of weight. There are also folks who obsessively weigh their food forever.

You should probably obsessively count carbs for awhile, at least to get a general feel. If something like a salad dressing has 4g carbs/serving, and your goal is 25g carbs a day or less, the difference between 1 serving and 3 servings on a salad matters a ton. But the difference between something that you know has virtually no carbs, like a steak, or green veggies where all of the carbs are fiber, meh, no need to obsess there if you don't want. I really don't care if my steak is 8 oz or 16, but if I decide to put a little Thousand Island dressing on a burger (no bun!), the difference between 1 tablespoon and 2 of the dressing is important to me. Its a little counter intuitive at first (or maybe a lot), but after seeing how my body reacts to things I eat, it feels obvious.

Since you cook for yourself, start looking at everything you put in your food to get a general idea of how many carbs are in things even if you aren't ready to start tomorrow, just to see.


Is there a reasonable carb/fat website that people use?

As far as getting info on specific items, I use one of three ways:

1) myfitnesspal - easy starting point since many brands/labels are plugged in there
2) google - especially for generic items like fruits/nuts/veggies. "carbs in almonds" returns a nice generic nutrition label.
3) NDL/FNIC Food Composition Database Home Page (http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/) <-- USDA nutrition database. I don't end up here often, typically I end up here when I'm cooking a cut of meat and don't have a label for it. With myfitnesspal and sometimes even google looking into meat, its hard to get information I feel comfortable with. Are the numbers for cooked or pre-cooked weights, etc. USDA database seems the best for searching for exactly the type/cut of meat and making sure I get the info I want.


If you mean what types of ratios you might be trying to eat for yourself, instead of carb/fat/calorie counting in individual foods:

Keto Calculator - Learn Your Macros on the Ketogenic Diet (http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/)



Anyway, feel free to ask questions here, or PM me, or look for me in chat if you want more info :D

[corbes]

Many thanks radii, this is all extremely helpful. I have been trying to eyeball a keto diet but some back-of-the-napkin math using your links tells me I am typically consuming about 1,000% of my daily allotment for carbs and only about 60% for fat. <--insert appropriate emoji-thingy here, perhaps the one with startled, googly eyes.

[CU Tiger]

If you've never done keto before its a major shock to the system the first time.
But once you do, it's amazing how simple it is.
You can be sucked down the rabbit hole quickly into all sorts of tangents whether its blood lab values, body temp, etc. Lots of crazy stuff. Huge debates on whether calories even matter to a point.

I can say this, when I am burning hard I can waaay exceed what should be my RMR baseline and still lose or maintain. At some point your body simply cant process what you stuff in it and will quickly excrete it. But like he said you have to be TRYING to over eat.

One word of caution there. Drinks and supplements. I totally derailed myself before and almost forgot and did it again this week. Protein shakes are great and have a real place in my keto/workout profile. However it is very easy to down 4-500 calories in a chocolatey tasting shake and even absent carbs you then get into the whole gluconeogenesis conversation.

Not saying avoid them just be careful if you sue them.

[corbes]

How do I calculate the carbs in vegetables? Is it just total carbs minus fiber, or is it more complicated than that?

If it's just total carbs minus fiber, then 25 carbs a day isn't really feasible for someone who eats lots of vegetables?

[CU Tiger]

just carbs - fiber

Vegetables with the lone exception of green leafs arent really part of a large part of a keto diet.

[CU Tiger]

I'd love to see a few more folks jump in here and play along. This is really helping me feel accountable and I look forward to sharing my progress each week here and in my personal journal. So without further rambling:

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6

Last week was a real mixed bag for me. My diet was on the mark with no deviation. A small personal victory in that Thursday night I found myself at a work function with no healthy eating options and an open (free) bar - I went the entire night without snacking or a drink!

Workout, well that was another story. I hit the stationary bike last Monday, put off the free weights for a day do to a time crunch. Never got back in the gym nor did I do my road work I was so focused on getting in. So exercise was a failure last week.

Its rewarding to see a drop on the scale even with a less than ideal workout week. Have to step it up this week. Already hit the gym today and feeling good about motivation for the rest of the week. I hit 9 miles last week on the recumbent bike on the previously mentioned aggressive profile. Bumped it up to 11 miles today. Felt good and managed a higher avg speed than at any point since Ive been tracking (17.468)<- I dont put a lot of faith in that number as I know first hand it doesnt translate to ground speed but its a good comparison to previous workouts on the same equipment.

Almost feels like cheating to "workout" for 35 minutes while playing madden mobile on a phone and listening to Pantera but whatever works.

Also a quick reflection. 1 month in I am 16 pounds down. Still not feeling lighter/better yet, nor am I seeing it in the mirror. But Ive got a long way to go. If I can have another -15 month I will be to a weight I can fight at.

Well that's it for this week. Come join me on the race down.


Oh almost forgot for any others reading along. The wife picked up some unsweetened coconut milk made by Silk. It's just ok by itself. Nothing special. But it does awesome in a protein shake and makes it much more filling. Plus I think its helping get some otherwise hard to ingest electrolytes.

[Alf]

Well done !

[Subby]

I love this thread. Most of my favorite people at FOFC post in it and it is full of absolutely great successes. If it is okay I would like to use it as a low-stress place to keep track of my weight loss attempts. Basically I need a central place to keep everything (like a blog), where folks are reading (unlike a blog) and I can feel some accountability.

Basically I am fed up with whatever is going on with my eating. The exercise stuff I have down pretty good (for those that don't know, I bike commute between 20 and 30 miles roundtrip to work every day and will go for a long ride on the weekends). I have also started helping my wife get back in to running and am doing a run/walk thing with her three days a week.

So I am burning calories. Which is good, because I cannot stop eating. I get depressed when I think about how much weight I could have lost had I kept my eating under control (even a little). One time I tried a dynasty where I just came up with a list of bad habits and tried to avoid them every day. It wasn't even a weight loss dynasty but the negativity of it just kind of burned the whole thing down. It was hard to bring the anger every day. Usually I am just complacent.

Anyway, I decided to take like 10 good health habits and try and do them every day. Basically, when I go to bed every night, I will pull up this little checklist app on my phone (Paperless) and check off everything I have done, with the goal of getting a perfect score.

The list:

1. Out of bed by 5:30a
2. Exercise
3. Drink Bulletproof Coffee (no this is not a paid product placement)
4. Do not buy breakfast out
5. No soda
6. No candy
7. No ice cream
8. No baked goods (cookies, cakes, pie, donuts, brownies)
9. Drink 60 oz water.
10. Don't eat after 8pm.
11. Brush teeth twice, floss once.
12. In bed by 10pm

Basically I am trying to HEAVILY reduce my sugar intake and confine my eating to a shorter window. The bulletproof coffee thing is an experiment, but I have to admit I DO feel pretty great after drinking it. The soda thing I had completely licked for a long time but just recently started drinking Coke Classic(!) so, brakes applied.

The list is not perfect, no. Easy to slide in a large pizza. Easy to eat a gallon of strawberry greek yogurt. But the list is manageable.

Goal is to get down below 180 by Christmas.

9/24: 199.9
Hahahaha. Fuck that list. Soon thereafter (that was mid 2014) I went off the grid and ballooned back up to 215 which was my weight on January 1st 2015. I spent all of last year battling what I ate. And losing. Sure, I biked a lot (6500 miles) but I just waffled around the low 200s, not so great since I am shrinking (was 5-10+ at my peak, probably 5'9 now). So I got on the scale this morning and weighed in at 1...69 (nice).

How did I do it?

Eating - not much has changed, but three things really ramped up the weight loss, which has been about 25 pounds since the new year.

1. I gave up ice cream for Lent (I am a notorious destroyer of ice cream).
2. I *usually* eat a low carb breakfast of three eggs, 2 meats (sausage or bacon) and 1 slice of cheese and I don't eat it until between 9 and 10 am.
3. I doubled the amount of exercise I do - I have biked a LOT so far this year. In fact, today I hit 3,000 miles for the year.

So in the morning my body doesn't have to burn through the pint of ice cream from the night before while I ride 30 miles before work. The riding does give my body the opportunity to use whatever carbs remain in my system and then when that store is depleted goes on to burning fat for fuel. Basically, my body is turning into a ruthless fat-burning machine. Pretty simple, really.

My basal metabolic rate and my ride home (15 miles, sometimes more) takes care of whatever I eat during the day. Sleep knocks out most of what I ate for dinner.

I want to get down to about 160 and start running races again. We'll see.

Anyway, after years of fighting and obsessing over my eating habits I feel like I'm in a good place - not for everyone (or anyone?) probably, but this is what works for me. Basically eat whatever I want, because fuck it, I'll burn it off later.

[corbes]

Great work Subby!

[Radii]

UGH I'm so embarrassed to have to make this update, Subby gave me a bit of a nudge last week and reminded me that I needed to post, thanks for that :). I have still been one week on/one week off as far as the dieting goes, but when I'm off I'm WAY OFF and eating just massive amounts of food, leading to very steady continued weight gain. I have actually gotten back up to 300 pounds so I've gained back half of the weight I lost over the last couple years. This is all after having hernia surgery in December where the doctor told me that if I gain weight post surgery I will greatly increase the chances of the surgery not working and of a new hernia developing. Since then I've gained 25 pounds, so... yeah.

Keto is still the answer for me. And I did it for 19 months straight with only one single cheat (on Thanksgiving 2014). For whatever reason over the last 7 months or so now I just can't seem to get back in the groove.

3/13/16: 306.0


So the plan is to try again (although I'm doing that constantly anyway, so that's nothing new). The differences this time is that I'm going to post here on a daily basis in an attempt for some accountability, with a couple key changes/focuses to try to get things moving the right way again.

I will check in daily and have four main things that I wlll be noting on a daily basis:

1. Did I eat low carb yesterday? This is obviously the big one. I am changing up how I eat just a little compared to all of my other attempts to get back on track. When I was in a groove on keto I *really* enjoyed intermittent fasting, eating two big meals and not really snacking any, basically eating a breakfast around noon and a dinner around 7pm and that was it. I've been trying to force that kind of thing too much when starting over, and I think its messing me up. I can't do that when I'm still getting cravings and that sort of thing. So I'm going to make more of an effort to eat a snack, if not a normal lunch, between breakfast and dinner just to keep myself from going too long w/o eating and inviting cravings... at least for the first month.

2. How much exercise did I get yesterday? I had to stop everything I was doing when I had surgery and it turns out that I love being a complete sedentary slug so I have kinda just kept doing nothing. I am not sure what I will do long term as far as weight training or anything, but I do want to get back into yoga ASAP. Right now I cannot do it. With the extra abdominal pressure I feel from the added weight (and I can definitely feel it, and it is worrying me a lot), I can't do things like Planks or many other yoga poses without feeling a huge amount of pressure on my stomach where i had surgery. So for now I my exercise plan is 100% walking, just to get moving again. Yoga and some other bodyweight exercises I will experiment with once I get back down to 270'ish.

3. What time did I fall asleep last night, and how long did I sleep? The shitty thing about this is that outside of my eating habits, things are going GREAT for me right now. I'm working more right now than I have in years, and I'm currently a contractor and am hourly. But needing to spend a lot more time working pushes my hobbies later in the evening and I get selfish (and obsessive) and play too late and get into a cycle where I'm just not sleeping enough. Last week during the work week I don't think I got more than 6 hours sleep any one night. Not enough sleep = more impacted by hunger and cravings, and I feel weaker as far as giving in to cravings. Proper sleep is such a huge key to everything. I am a night owl and that won't change, but I also work from home and don't have to get up terribly early most days. 1:30 - 9:30 is an ideal sleep schedule for me. Don't expect to see that any time soon.

4. Current weight. Duh. I like to weigh in daily. Especially early on when I will get to drop water weight as I get into ketosis.



So for Saturday:

Did I eat Low Carb? God no. DONUTS TASTE GOOD. NO MORE DONUTS.
How much exercise did I get yesterday? None
Sleep? Slept from 4:30am-11am
Weight: 306.0 this morning

It can only get better from there.

I plan to check in daily for at least 3 weeks. If I can honestly get back on track and get into a good state again with keto where I lose my cravings and start feeling comfortable with everything again then I can drop back to the normal weekly updates.

[Radii]

Edited yesterday's starting weight, I have a withings scale that talks to my phone, it tells me the number I listed yesterday was actuall from a couple days ago.

Sunday stuff:

Did I eat low carb? Yes
Exercise? No
Sleep? 3am-9:30am <-- after staying up past 4 both weekend nights, moving towards something reasonable. This sadly is going to be pretty hard to fix.
Monday Morning Weight: 306.2 this morning. That's fine, expecting it to take a few days before anything moves.

[Radii]

Monday:

Low Carb: Yep!
Exercise: 20 minutes after work, whee
Sleep: 6 1/2 hours, still need more.
Tuesday Morning Weight: 307.1 lol (whatever, day to day fluctuactions don't matter, we'll care about this number on sunday or monday or whatever, should see a nice drop in a couple days)

[Radii]

Tuesday:

Low Carb: Check.
Exercise: None
Sleep: 6 hours 45 minutes... creeping up to something resembling a good number
Wednesday Morning Weight: 304.9

[digamma]

Keep it up, radii.

[Radii]

Wednesday:

Low Carb: Nope. Very long morning, lots of meetings and testing for an upcoming release, couldn't eat anything til 3pm or so, ended up giving in to the cravings that generates. Did ok for dinner though. HOPEFULLY the fact that I am having to admit this here will keep me from now eating poorly for the next 5 days in a row ;)
Exercise: 20 minutes
Sleep: 7 hours but woke up a bunch, don't feel great. Still, better!
Thursday Morning Weight: 305.4

[CU Tiger]

Keep it up, Radii.

Im sill here as well haven't been posting.
Eating right but workout has been non-existent.

[CU Tiger]

Been lazy on doing the updates here and in working out ./..maybe thats a trend. Lets try to kick both bad habits.

On the positive I have still kept my diet in check though I did have a couple drinks 2x last week. Kept it to bourbon instead of beer though for the reduced carbs and cals. Somehow it just sounds wrong, Im drinking hard liquor cause its healthy.
2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6
3/7 -278.4
3/14 - 278.2
3/21 - 277.6

Obviously without the workouts the weight loss has slowed, though not completely stopped.

HEY DUMBASS workout and you lose weight. No thanks rather sit and be a slob. Grrr I hate myself sometimes. TO be fair work and family life has been crazy hectic but that is an excuse. Lets plan to get back on the bike a couple days this week.

[Radii]

Gonna start posting again tomorrow morning, I got off track for a couple days at the end of last week, but 4 of the last 5 days have been good ones. While I'm still getting back on track, a couple bad days can easily cancel out a week of good though, we'll see where we are tomorrow.

[Groundhog]

Good stuff Radii.

I jumped up to around 216 lbs over Christmas a year ago, and have struggled to get back down to my ideal weight, which is about 194. Doesn't sound like a lot, but my knees are ruined from 20+ years of basketball, and every pound helps. I cut out drinking for a month while also getting off one train station earlier each morning/afternoon to add about an extra 45 mins of walking per day.

Haven't really changed my diet much, just been trying to cut out snacking during the day. I'm at 207 now, but with no sport for the next 2 weeks and a 4-day work holiday, I see that nudging upwards again. I find now that I'm 34, the ole '2 games of basketball a week, and then eat/drink what I want' regime doesn't work anymore. :)

[Radii]

Weight is 305.2 this morning, picking up where I left off last week. Saturday/Sunday, and Tuesday/Wednesday were good low carb days. Monday was not. The goal is still to get fully back in the swing of eating low carb for a period of 2-3 weeks or so without any slip-ups to really start feeling the benefits again and hopefully it'll be smooth sailing from there.

[Radii]

304.9 this morning, still on track w/ the carbs. We're not doing anything for Easter so slipping up over the weekend isn't a concern.

[Izulde]

Reminds I need to weigh myself this afternoon. Anyway, I've been over 200 a few times in the last handful of years, and by cutting out soda almost 100% (the rare splurge here and there), I was able to drop down to about 185.

But I still felt very much skinny-fat, and so in January I started a diet and exercise regime with someone training me. The results haven't been entirely perfect - I *hate* eating and I'm supposed to eat four smaller meals a day - and the workouts are supposed to be 3x-5x times a week, but sometimes 2x a week (guy's not charging me).

And yet, I dropped to 176 within a couple months. Was up to 177 a few weeks ago, but that could be muscle pound, as I feel myself getting much stronger than what I was when I started.

We'll see what today brings.

[Comey]

I have posted in here about my trials and tribulations. Long story shot, I lost 105-120 pounds four years ago...280-160, then steady at 175, with fluctuations up to 185-190 based on weight training and injuries.

Back in August, I suffered a displaced vertebrae at the base of my spine. It laid me up for a week, then stunted most of my activity for a few months. The relationship I knew was bad for me was going from bad to worse, and I was stress-eating on the weekends, wondering why I was at the woman's place..but there all the same.

Now, I didn't gain too much weight...but I gained some of that bloated spare tire back. It wasn't noticeable to others, but definitely so to me. And those of you who have gone through this know that Fat Me was pointing at that and yelling, "Dude, WTF!"

So, we broke up in December, right after the doctors finally found the displaced vertebrae (workers comp is a pain). I had, by then, mostly figured out what I can and can't do, and was slowly rounding myself back into form. It turns out the breakup was a wonderful catalyst, as it freed me to get back to my own form. I started hitting my core again hard, and started lifting more regularly...not for gain, but for tone. I sacrificed much of my baseball season last year because of her, and I had given it up. Now, at 36, even though I'm not really supposed to be pitching...I'm going to give it another go.

I write all of that to write this: I decided what would happen if I cut out unnecessary carbs. I love Whole Foods' tortilla chips, pizza, etc...and while I regulate with moderation well enough, I decided I'd just go without. My only real vice is a salad in a taco shell bowl once in awhile, and peanut butter on graham crackers. I've still been hitting my crunches (500-1000 a day), planks, and weights regularly.

The result is I'm sitting around 175-179, depending on the day and what I've done...but I'm leaner and way, way more tone than I've ever been. It is simply astounding to me.

I recommend that anyone who is even mildly curious about this give it a whirl. It doesn't take all that much...just a bit of shifting of what you eat, and some lessening of cravings with the carbs. Your back will thank you.

[Subby]

Radii - is there any way you can trade an hour of computer time every night for an hour walking up a treadmill incline? You definitely need at least an hour of exercise per day to get this shit going. Not like heart-pounding, heavy breathing stuff, just a good solid hour of fat burning.

[heybrad]

So I'm terrible at this but I'm back and I'm a mess. My diabetic numbers are terrible. I feel about as bad as I've felt in a long time. But I feel motivated at least right now. Having read through this a number of times, I'm going to steal a bit from how Radii was tracking but reporting a few simple things as follows:

1. Did I eat right today? I started yesterday on a keto diet. This diet always seems to be the most sustainable for me.

2. Did I exercise today? For a goof I busted out the bike yesterday and went for a ride. I signed up on Strava since I see there are a bunch on here using it (not too mention it's own thread). I head out for my ride and as I'm heading home I needed a quick breather. I bust out my phone to see how far I'd gone and apparently I forgot to hit the record button. I hit record for the remainder home which shows I rode for 7 minutes. Yay!

3. Did I take all of my medications today? This probably seems dumb to most. Why wouldn't someone take the meds their supposed to take on a daily basis. Good question. I take insulin and a couple of other things. I hate the needles but when I take it, it solves a lot of sleep problems (like not peeing every 20 minutes throughout the night).

I started Saturday at 281. This morning I was 279. I don't expect that result daily. My goal is simply to get healthier, feel better and drop some weight in the process. I'd really just be happy to continually report in here because that would show that I'm at least trying. Between work and school I often lose focus on things like this. Hopefully not this time.

[heybrad]

4/17 - 277

1. I ate great yesterday. I came in under my calorie budget and had no cravings or struggles.
2. I did another quick ride on my bike which to be honest I'm kind of disgusted at how little I seem to be able to do. The goal is to do a little more every day.
3. I took all of my meds except for my dinner insulin. I need to set a reminder on my phone because that's the one I forget to take the most.

It's early and I know the results are skewed in the beginning, but I feel good about this.

[Subby]

Brad - best steps are the simple ones and it sounds like you are doing a good job keeping it uncomplicated.

There are going to be shitty times where you go off the deep end, but the most important part is to stay the course. The only good piece of advice that charlatan Dr. Oz gave was about falling off the wagon. He said to think about it like driving somewhere - if you make a wrong turn you don't keep heading in the wrong direction - you just turn around and get headed in the right direction again. It happens, we're human. Don't let a wrong turn beat you.

[CU Tiger]

Been a while since I updated.
Still keeping the diet in check, life has taken some funny turns. Time is more limited than usual and workouts have been non existent.

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6
3/7 -278.4
3/14 - 278.2
3/21 - 277.6
3/28 - 274.8
4/4 - 275.2
4/11 - 274.4
4/18 - 272.2

Not really sure what happened around the first of April. Really didnt break diet. I tend to think that 3/28 measurement was a mis-weigh or other such anomaly.

Really need to make a workout happen this week.

[Alf]

Close to 30 pounds loss is already an accomplishment. Well done.

[heybrad]

4/18 - I weighed in at 275.3 this morning so I continue with the solid start (down 5.7lbs).

1. Again, I ate great yesterday. I came just under my calorie allowance and all foods were on the approved list.
2. I got out for another short bike ride. I'm told I'll get better at this over time. I certainly hope so.
3. Same thing... I took all meds outside of my dinner insulin.

Along with the good early returns of some weight loss I had another benefit of taking my meds and the exercise last night. I slept through the entire night. When a diabetics numbers are out of control, that just doesn't happen. I feel refreshed today.

[heybrad]

4/19 - 276 - I expect minor fluctuations with daily weigh ins. I'm not even sure if I should be weighing every day. I should just write off a minor change like that but I know it's down to...

1. I really didn't eat great yesterday. I guess the silver lining is that I didn't eat anything off of the approved list. I just ate too much of it. I went about 400 calories over my budget.
2. No exercise as I decided when I got home it needed to be homework day.
3. I didn't take my dinner insulin again. My issue is that when I got home from work I feel like a zombie and I'm ready to stuff my face. I took all other meds though and didn't have any nightly issues (aside from having to wake my son up at 4:30 am to take him to seminary).

Now the real challenge starts as I travel the rest of the week and then my brother and his partner come to town. I'm going to have to be vigilant on food and find time for exercise.

[Alf]

I do weigh in everyday. For me, that's the reality-check. Even though long term variation is the only important thing.

[CU Tiger]

I used to weigh in everyday. I found that I altered my patterns too much based on fluctuations. At 270+ the difference between a +1 and a -1 is insignificant and in fact most home scales are approaching their margin of error at that range. So Id have a good day, drink a bunch of water and eat a salad, gain a pound and convince myself the lettuce did it (or more accurately that restaurant's dressing) did it and avoid the place for 6 months.

Now I weigh weekly. 7 days is enough to develop a trend I feel.

But this is all about mentality and everyone is different there isnt a right or wrong answer.

[NobodyHere]

I think I'll be jumping on this bandwagon. I'm currently 196ish lbs on a 5'3 frame.

That quote was from December but now I really am jumping on the wagon.

4-16: 198.7 (35.2 BMI, 44 waist)
4-22: 196.0

I've mainly started walking 1-1.5 miles every other day. I'm horribly out of shape at the moment but I'm hoping to bump that up to two miles of running. I use Wii Fit U to keep track of my weight since I tend to cheat when recording something off of a scale. I'll probably see if there are any good exercises it can provide on my non walk/run days.

I'm also trying to avoid binge eating and high carb snacks. Late night nachos are a huge weakness of mine. I've also been trying to eat breakfast more often.

[NobodyHere]

dola

My goal weight right now is about 150 lbs.

[heybrad]

4/25 update:

I'm thankful to still be at 275 this morning. My brother and his fiancee were in town so we've been sight seeing and hitting restaurants. I wasn't great in any category just because we had so much going on but my weight has managed to stay steady. I leave to travel again for the week tomorrow but food wise, should be on my own (no company dinners or anything.

Over the last 4 to 5 days:
1. Food - So so
2. Exercise - pretty non existent outside of walking all around DC
3. Meds - Off and on

[CU Tiger]

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6
3/7 -278.4
3/14 - 278.2
3/21 - 277.6
3/28 - 274.8
4/4 - 275.2
4/11 - 274.4
4/18 - 272.2
4/26 - 269.8 <- I missed my Monday weigh in and did it this AM instead.

Still not doing enough "gym orkout" been trying to spend more time outside or on my feet in general. But nothing substantial.

[NobodyHere]

4-29: 194.6

My weight is going in the right direction, but I feel I've been eating too much and too unhealthy. I also gotta bump up that exercise.

[heybrad]

Starting Point: 281
5/2: 273.8

I was traveling all of last week. Good eating was on and off as is typical of when I travel. It didn't help that since I was in California, I had this ginormous carnitas burrito. You can't get good Mexican in Virginia. I shouldn't be eating Mexican anyways. With the travel, exercise was non existent and meds were off and on. I was actually surprised the weigh in this morning was down 1.2 lbs. I'm scheduled to travel the next 2 weeks with even more on the horizon. I need to focus on a plan to be good even on the road. Overall though, for two weeks, the results are positive.

[CU Tiger]

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6
3/7 -278.4
3/14 - 278.2
3/21 - 277.6
3/28 - 274.8
4/4 - 275.2
4/11 - 274.4
4/18 - 272.2
4/26 - 269.8 <- I missed my Monday weigh in and did it this AM instead.
5/3 - 271.2


So a tick up over last week still 1 down from 2 weeks ago. Progress I suppose

[NobodyHere]

5-6: 195.1

The combination of cinco de mayo the nfl draft and my birthday really killed it for me in the eating/snacking department.

[CU Tiger]

2/1 - 298.
2/8 - 288.4
2/15 - 286.0
2/22 - 284.2
2/29 - 281.6
3/7 -278.4
3/14 - 278.2
3/21 - 277.6
3/28 - 274.8
4/4 - 275.2
4/11 - 274.4
4/18 - 272.2
4/26 - 269.8 <- I missed my Monday weigh in and did it this AM instead.
5/3 - 271.2
5/10 - 269.0


Interesting to me as I expected this to be a bad weigh in. I ate too much last week in terms of volume though not in terms of composition. Still very few carbs, though I did have my first, albeit small, cheat meal on Sunday. We took my wife out to this local Italian place she loves and I couldnt resist eating half of a Manicotti shell.

Still struggling to get in the gym at all. Still struggling to get on my bike.

Its becoming a bit of a depression based weight loss, I am losing by eating not by working and have to assume some muscle wasting is included in those totals which just bums me out more.

[NobodyHere]

4-16: 198.7 (35.2 BMI, 44 waist)
4-22: 196.0
4-29: 194.6
5-6: 195.1
5-13: 192.8

I'm surprised but happy it went down. I had a very large meal plus leftovers on mother's day. Also I've been depressed all week about life in general. However I have started walking 2 miles in one session. It's been nearly a month now and I've lost 6 lbs so I guess that isn't too shabby.

[Comey]

Over the weekend, I celebrated FATIVERSARY IV: STILL LEAN. Four years ago, I completed my initial weight loss goal of an ex-girlfriend. That is, 105 pounds. I ended up losing 120, because I gained the metabolism of a high school sophomore through running and biking a lot. I went from 280 to 175, then 160, and back to 175.

Four years later, I sat at 179 (now 176), though I have more lean muscle because of the kind of workouts I am doing. I eat well, and more importantly, live well. It took finding the right blend of exercise and eating habits, but also equally discipline and general outlook. There were some rough nights during my lifestyle change. Sometimes, even now, I have moments. I have a displaced vertebrae in my back, suffered last August. That will never change, unless I get surgery (no). I've had to adjust through that. I've dealt with depression, anxiety, hardships, and doing it all while living far away from any family.

It has been hard. But also rewarding.

I write this to anyone who feels as though they may not succeed. See this through. Don't view the forest. Look at each tree. Each one is a goal, and attainable. To me, if you look at the end goal only, it can feel overwhelming. If you take it one step at a time, you may find yourself gaining more and more traction.

Keep fighting the good fight, all. You're succeeding by doing, and giving a damn.

(This isn't me at my worst; those pictures don't exist, as I got rid of them. Now, I wish I hadn't, but hindsight...the left is 2011, right as I started; the right were taken within the last two months.)


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a151/jcomey/13064527_10154251404279445_8266881184198332194_o_zpsf8qiuztp.jpg

[Alf]

So what you say is that Basketball >> baseball in terms of weight control :D

Congrats ! And to the rest of us reading or posint in that thread : keep up guys, We can do it !

[NobodyHere]

4-16: 198.7 (35.2 BMI, 44 waist)
4-22: 196.0
4-29: 194.6
5-6: 195.1
5-13: 192.8
5-20: 188.8

I should be happy about the weight but I'm terribly depressed at the moment.

[NobodyHere]

5-27: 188.8 (again)

I wasn't feeling all that well this week and my dieting and eating habits slipped. I didn't start walking/running again until today. Hopefully Memorial Day didn't inflate my weight.

[NobodyHere]

6-3: 192.2

I'm not very good at this weight loss thing. My weight shot up after Memorial Day probably due to a combination of brisket and beer. My sleep has been erratic and too long as well. On the positive side my fast food intake has dropped and my drinking is down as well. I've also started walking/jogging my 2.5 miles again and on the off days I started using EA's NFL Training Camp (http://www.operationsports.com/reviews/581/ea-sports-active-nfl-training-camp/). That thing really works you! Or at least it does for someone of my fitness level.

[NobodyHere]

6-10: 189.4

Better than last week but still not my low point. My jogging is getting better but it is getting hotter outside. 95 degrees right now, ugh.

[NobodyHere]

6-18:186.4

Woohoo! a new low!

[PilotMan]

Guys, I'm at this again. I've been a big pile of fail for a few years now. Post 40 isn't making things any easier. I tried to start getting back into working out about 2 months ago. It's been very slow going, but it was very hard to get started again.

Two weeks ago I got the Nerd Fitness Academy signup done (along with NF Yoga, (before the prices went up)) and I've been working through the quests there.

I took measurements a couple of weeks ago, along with my weight. I'm probably a couple more weeks from the next measurements. Things didn't seem like they were doing much of anything, but the last 2 weeks I've been focusing on my eating better and coupled with the NFA workouts I can feel the ball rolling in the right direction now.

I think I've dropped about 5 pounds total, but my strength and flexibility have improved noticeably and the clothing is fitting just a little bit differently.

I'll give more of my specifics later on.

[PilotMan]

Did my one month measurements today. I was nervous, but I really wanted to see some changes.



Overall, I gained an inch in my bicep (+6.7%), lost .5 in on my waist (-1%), lost 1.25 in on my hips (-2.4%), lost 1 in on my calf (-5.5%) Weight went from 297 to 291.6 (-1.8%) .



They seem like little changes. Ultimately, I'd like to hit a goal of a 10 inch spread between my chest and waist. Right now, I'm at 0 with them both being 49.


A little home drama today has sent me in search of carbs to deal with the stress. I need to stay focused, I was hoping for better results, but then again, I've never done full measurements before either.