The Officialish FOFC Weight Loss Dynasty

[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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

Go go! Good luck making it through the work week

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Radii

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.

Originally Posted by Alan T

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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 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.

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

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 <-- overall FAQ for full body work, including links to basic workouts and such.

basic_exercises - bodyweightfitness <-- 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]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by Alan T

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]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

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]

Originally Posted by Radii

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.

Originally Posted by Radii

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.

Originally Posted by Radii

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]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

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]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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

Originally Posted by Radii

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

[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]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

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]

Originally Posted by Radii

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]

Originally Posted by hoopsguy

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!