Forks Over Knives (Or, the Western diet vs. a plant-based diet)

[Ksyrup]

Damn Subby, are we almost the same person?

Tomorrow I turn 53. About 5 years ago, I hit just over 200 pounds and started losing. Did pretty well, got down to mid-160s. And I started running consistently, at least 4-6 times a week. I evened out in about the mid-170s, but got complacent and thought I could out-run my bad eating habits. I hit 187 at the end of 2023 and decided I needed to do something. So I started intermittent fasting. I rarely eat after 6pm, but I also rarely eat before 1pm. It's been an amazing revelation.

I originally planned to get down to about 170, so I was looking to lose about 15-20 pounds. But the weight just kept coming off. I got into the mid-160s, then under 160, then 155 - which is a weight I've only hit once since high school - and I'm now at 150. My waste size went from about 36 to 30. I'm in the process of buying my 3rd set of clothes this summer.

I never thought in my wildest dreams I could weigh this little. I'm training for a half marathon in October (I ran one in the November after I turned 50 three years ago). IF has made it so easy to eat healthy but also allow myself to indulge a little without going overboard. And when I've gone on vacation, stopped IF, and gained several pounds, I've easily lost whatever I gained within 2-3 weeks.

[RainMaker]

Are you guys counting your calories? Curious what you try to stay around. I never know for sure what a good amount is but usually try to stick to 2000 when cutting.

[Ksyrup]

Nope. Never. The only thing I do to track my intermittent fasting is a note on my phone where I record the times when I start eating and end eating every day. And really, I don't need to do it anymore, but I do it because it's part of a successful routine and it keeps it top of mind when I force myself to record the times.

[Brian Swartz]

Calories are a person-to-person thing. For me, I've found that if eat healthy, I'm never going to eat so much that it's a problem. My issue at least is always eating crap and then lying to myself about how much crap I've actually eaten. And then I remember 'oh ... yeah there was that thing ... and that other meal ... and ... wow you've lapsed back into sucking at this'.

Well done to KSyrup and Subby. I'm earlier into my latest run at being healthier, so I don't have a victory story to tell yet.

Originally Posted by Subby

let's face it, I'm a 53 year-old man and if it hasn't happened yet, it is never going to happen.

Nah, it's still very possible. People have made permanent changes at that age or older.

[Ksyrup]

I swear I'm not a Subby Stalker (sounds like a 90s alt-rock band) but Fridays are my official weigh-in days and this morning I weighed in at... 149. This after having 2 pieces of cake yesterday. The office bought me a cake and we all had a small piece, then I brought the rest home and had a rather large slice at 6pm. Rest of the day, though, all I ate was a large salad with shrimp, banana, grapes and orange for lunch, a couple small items from our company's afternoon 'tea time' spread (finger sandwiches and a mini pot pie), then for dinner at 5:15 we had leftovers so I made a toasted sub sandwich (way better than anything I could get at a place like WaWa's ) and a bowl of homemade cole slaw.

Today we're going to a steakhouse for dinner with more cake, but I've also got a 70 minute run during lunch.

[flere-imsaho]

Great work, guys - so proud of both of you!

[Ksyrup]

So fast-forward about 3.5 weeks since my laast posts, and I'm now down to about 145. I decided to implement Phase 3 of my IF plan - expanding my eating window in hopes of allowing myself more time to eat more food so I can stop losing weight. Now, instead of pushing off lunch as long as I can and usually eating at 1pm at earliest and sometimes closer to 2pm or even later, I'm making myself eat between noon and 12:30. I'm also allowing myself to push dinner a bit later or have a small snack after dinner before I shut it down. So from a 4-5 hour window, I'm hoping to push it out to 5.5-7 hours.

The issue really isn't starving myself - and I'm not hungry at all - it's more that my running/workout routine is so aggressive right now. This past week, I ran 43.5 miles. Turns out it's pretty easy to lose weight that way.

My wife has not been unsupportive, but she definitely doesn't understand or like this lifestyle, keeps telling me she hopes I'm not getting anorexic, and commenting that she can see bones on me she's never seen. Which...yeah, that's how it works when you've shed so much fat. I don't know how accurate my scale is, but it's saying I'm at 11% body fat. When I started in January, I was at 26% (again, at the mercy of the scale's accuracy).

I did make one faux pas with her that I was intentionally trying to avoid, but she found out my exact weight on Friday. I'd been hiding it from her ever since I hit the 150s. She saw the number on my phone app after I did my official Friday morning weigh-in. She was horrified/pissed that I weigh about 1 pound more than her. I knew that would be the reaction, and I get it, but (a) she's recovering from hip surgery as part of a larger years-long battle with multiple injuries that have kept her from consistently exercising, and (b) she was never athletic to begin with, so she not only has current physical issues but she really would never be interested in getting herself this fit, even if healthy.

Anyway, this probably crosses over into the fitness/Peloton thread, but depending on how my HM goes in mid-October, I'm seriously looking at signing up for a marathon in 2025. Preferably something local and no later than June, as I have no interest in running in heat and/or humidity. Either that, or pushing it off until fall of 2025. We'll see.

[Kodos]

That’s impressive! I’m trying this make a push at losing weight in a similar manner. I’ve noticed that people who aren’t trying to get more fit can almost get offended when you change your patterns to try to do better. I started going to bed between 10-10:30 pm instead of 11:15ish to allow me to get up and work out in the morning. My family reacted like I’m insane.

[cuervo72]

I would...look very odd at 145, I think. When I got to about 180 while doing the low-carb thing around '06 my wife even was like "yeah, that's probably enough."

Of course after I stopped doing the low-carb diet -- which took me from 235 to 180 -- I started putting the weight back on. That was in 2012. A steady climb got me to the shock point at the doctor this February -- 274. I knew I was too heavy, but YIKES. Also my BP, which had always been in the normal range, was in a definite danger zone. Time to do something.

So far that hasn't been much -- mostly cutting out most of the pizza, eating fewer snacks and deserts, and cooking more beans in the Instant Pot. And walking. Started out small, but now I'm at the point on weekends where I figure "ah, let's just wander around" and I've logged a couple of walks in the 7-8 mile range. Putting the weight on was a slow process, I'm content to have taking it off be a gradual one too. I was at 253 on the home scale the other day, so moving in the right direction.

[Kodos]

Gradual is good. Nice work, cuervo!

[cuervo72]

Thanks! I just have to make sure I stick with the walking part once it starts to get colder and the days get shorter. My weekday walks I prefer to take after work, which will be increasingly difficult with the shortening days. Getting my butt out of bed earlier to do it before work may be difficult.

[Ksyrup]

I don't think I've been 145 since maybe beginning of high school or earlier. It does look odd - but only because I haven't been there before (least amount of weight my wife has ever seen me at is probably upper 150s 20 years ago). I'm much, much leaner. I actually have the outlines of a "1-pack" - I don't expect a 6-pack but I've definitely got the outer edges of abs on both sides. That's never happened, even when I was younger and had gotten into the 160s or 170s (which is where most of my previous efforts to slim down had concluded).

But yeah, I don't need to lose any more weight, and maybe gaining a bit is where I will eventually settle. I guess we'll see. I'm most concerned with the next several months - my HM is mid-October, which unfortunately is 2 weeks before Halloween, the unofficial start of Holiday Eating Season. I plan to be extra-vigilant during that time while still allowing myself to indulge a bit. That's one of the reasons I'm thinking about adding a spring marathon goal, to keep myself focused.

One thing that's helped so far is that by restricting my eating window, while I'm consciously eating better, I'm also not cutting out anything. We've had multiple birthdays, 2 long vacations, pizza, hamburgers, big steak dinners, fried chicken, etc., and still I've lost weight and reduced my body fat. When I've gained, it's come right off within a couple of weeks. So it's working really well, but at this point, almost too well.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Kodos

I’ve noticed that people who aren’t trying to get more fit can almost get offended when you change your patterns to try to do better. I started going to bed between 10-10:30 pm instead of 11:15ish to allow me to get up and work out in the morning. My family reacted like I’m insane.

I think that varies based on the people. Those around me basically shrug about such things. Neighbors have been anywhere from indifferent to courteous to openly supportive about my morning walks.

[GrantDawg]

I tried the Tik Tok trend of making a dense bean salad for meal prep yesterday. Had some for lunch, and it is pretty good. I didn't put any meat in, just kidney and cannellini beans and a bunch of veggies.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

[Ksyrup]

Ha, I just made my first bean salad but I'm not on TikTok. 3 bean salad with veggies and a homemade dressing. I decided to try a bean salad because I've been making a lot of slaw and didn't want to get sick of it. I found a recipe for a slaw dressing using Greek yogurt as a base and then I've been buying a bag of pre-packaged broccolini slaw and a bag of different kinds of pre-packaged slaw and mixing them together. It's been great but I decided to try a bean salad for something different.

[cuervo72]

Ohh, there was a place around the corner from where my son is living now that had a terrific German bean salad:

Krüg Corner Pub by People’s – People Brew

(Easier to paste the link rather than copy/type ingredients on the phone)

Hope they reopen sometime.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I would...look very odd at 145, I think.

I wouldn't look like much of anything at that weight, I'd be glazed over and consistently unconscious.

[Ksyrup]

The power of Google eavesdropping on my conversations - I was recommended an article about thr viral TikTok dense bean salad recipes this morning. Mine is a Greek salad with feta and olives among other vegetables.

[Subby]

Very cool to read all of this.

I basically took the second half of August and beginning of September off - lots of vacations and birthdays, nagging hip injury, etc.. But now I am back and it's nice to have the framework of something that works. I.F. is very easy to get back into, so I am again eating after 10am (usually later) and before (usually much before) 8pm. No sweets, wine once per week, and that's pretty much it.

Here is my current daily eating rotation:

Breakfast: Toasted Bagel with two fried eggs, slice of cheddar cheese, jalapenos. Metric fuckton of coffee.

Lunch: Perfect Bar

Snack 1: Apple

Snack 2: Clif Bar

Dinner: One big serving of whatever we are having

As the weight starts coming off again I will probably add a protein shake after my runs of 6+ miles, but everything above is around 2k calories (my daily burn of exercise plus basal metabolic rate is around 2600 calories).

I think I mentioned earlier that I qualified for the 2025 Boston Marathon, and registration opened yesterday. The cost to run is $250, ok not great, but three nights in a hotel downtown is basically $2,000. I've stayed in Cambridge the other two times I've run it and decided I am not doing it again unless I can stay somewhere close to the finish. So probably not running it next year and will just qualify down the road when I'm not paying for college+.

So long story short, like Ksyrup I am looking for a spring marathon. Goal is to get down to 140s weight wise (back in the 160s for now) and win my age group.

[Ksyrup]

I'm just looking to survive, lol!

So I weighed 144.5 on Friday, ate pretty well all weekend and Monday, but ran about 30 miles Friday - Monday. So I stepped on the scale this morning and ... 143.1.

I think I'm going to have to seriously up my calorie intake game.

[Brian Swartz]

Thinking about a marathon would be hazardous to my health I think. I'd probably pull several muscles/ligaments/tendons in the process of imagining locomoting that far at once.

[Ksyrup]

99% of my runs are on a treadmill. But as I did 3 years ago, with a HM coming up, I'm doing 4-6 outdoor runs to get used to being outside. I don't race much, but I know the first rule of racing is - don't do something for the first time on race day.

Anyway, the weather was beautiful this weekend so I decided to run 10K around my neighborhood on Saturday, at recovery pace (since Sunday was a near-2 hour run on the treadmill), purposely trying to keep my heart rate at around 77% of max (which studies have shown is the threshold you should do about 80% of your training at). And to my surprise, it was a piece of cake. I ran an average 9:40 mile with an average HR for the entire run of 130. I hardly made it to light breathing, and most of the time I had to consciously force myself to slow down to get my HR below the threshold. I did push it a couple of times and especially at the end, just to feel good about finishing strong.

Now, 10K is a long, LONG way from 42K, but I was thinking I would shoot for a marathon pace of 10 minutes/mile, and I felt pretty pumped about being able to run 10K under that pace and it hardly fazing me. So that really got me thinking I could actually do a marathon shooting for under a 4:30 total time, maybe an outside goal of 4 hours if I prepped well enough. My issue is living in central KY and the rolling hills. Ideally, I'd like something flat-ish for a first marathon. That might mean travelling a few hours, I don't know.

First things first... the HM in about 4 weeks.