Back in the saddle... again

So, here we go again! It's taken me weeks, but I've finally gone from half-hearted "every other meal" good diet choices, to actually hitting the gym every day (sundays off) and eating well consistantly.

Before, when I first started this blog, I did what I seem to do alot - I overplan and overthink. Now, by just doing a little bit at a time, I'm doing much more for my health then when I tried to go ahead full force.

Remember those charts I made to track my weight loss? They were really fun to make (geek) and I loved seeing my progress graphically. BUT it didn't help keep me on track, it just served as a reminder about how short lived all that shit was. But, unlike all those charts and weekly progress reports I live on to shrink another day! Perhaps I'll track progress and make charts every few months instead.. yes I'm a lazy geek.

I'm going to take a much more zen approach to the weight loss thing.. I'll remain active and eat what I know is good for me.

Speaking of which, I had a terrific salad today!! The star of my wonderous creation were some of my roommates olives I found in the fridge (sorry Mike, I'll buy some more). Very tasty.

For exercise I've been doing some very careful resistance training (because of my back injury, I can't do anything that exerts pressure on my spine) and also some swimming. I love being in the water again! I don't have to deal with being self concious, since I swim on my lunch break which occurs at around 3am since I work nights. One of these days I'll just not give a shit about what people think of my body and just do what I want!


Theres a good subject for another blog, the whole body image thing.. what would YOU do if self-image was irrelevant?

Oh and as a last minute thought. The back is feeling awesome from the swimming and the sit-ups and such... yay for my back.

And now, your moment of Zen.....
<~~~ I stole this picture from someone I don't know and put my junk on it. I'm so bad...

Week 4 Progress Report

Starting weight: 300.6

Current weight: 288

Total shrinkage: 12.6 lbs


It's that time again! It's been a very interesting week. I fell off the bandwagon pretty hard for two days. I ate not only once outside of my normal low-carb diet, but TWICE. Twice in a row. On Wednesday and Thursday. I made the very large mistake that often leads me to stray - I didn't eat during the day. I could use all of the normal excuses: "I was busy and didn't have the time," etc. but I won't.

I try to avoid the feelings of shame associated with cheating - shame and embarrassment is captured quite effectively in a vid I posted previously. I can't think of a worse feeling than what that lady must have been experiencing.

Instead, I'll talk about what I should have done differently to prevent this from happening. The big thing for me is time, so I shorten the time it takes to prepare meals. For instance, in preparation for the upcoming week I'm buying a big bag full of chicken breasts from Costco. They're great - I can cook 6 in the same time I cook one, so I cook a few days in advance. I very tired of eggs, so instead of the normal breakfast fare I have a diced up chicken breast with some raw veggies. The first thing I should do every single morning is get some food in my mouth - more is better, but I absolutely must eat breakfast. It sets me up for a moderate day, and makes me less hungry at night.

Something else I consider my golden arrow of preparing ahead of time is low carb cheesecake. Getting some fats in the tummy first thing in the morning is key to appetite control - what better way to do it is have a slice of cheesecake for breakfast? Sounds weird I know, but nothing is easier than grabbing a slice and getting ready to go. You can eat it one handed when chilled (my recipe is more firm than some) as opposed to something like eggs or my diced chicken breast option. One handed is good if you're collecting items for work, although I'd suggest to finish before getting in the car.

I'm not too worried about the extra weight I'm carrying. What is normal for me, is that when I slip two things happen: I immediately stop losing, and gain back a few pounds of water weight. I can't be sure that my extra weight this week isn't actually fat since I don't trust the BMI/hydration results from my scale.

The other thing that happens is that a few days after being careful once again, I end up being almost as light as I should have been if I had never fallen off the bandwagon. Now, if I were to forsake my dieting for an entire week, I certainly would gain back the fat I lost PLUS the 8 lbs or so of water weight I seem to carry when I eat unhealthily.

So, for next week I predict to be 8 lbs lighter than this weeks final weight in.

Lets see how close my estimate is. Think I can be 280 in a week?

I plan on using a special jump start technique that goes beyond what I've already written about - tune in tomorrow for more details!

Week 3 Progress Report: Slow but Steady

Starting weight: 300.6

Current weight: 286.8

Total shrinkage: 13.8 lbs


Week three has arrived, and I overshot my weekly goal by just a tad - 2.6 instead of 2.4. I'm not going to cry over that. As I hoped, the weight loss slowed to a more reasonable pace. Perhaps I should start tracking caloric and carb intake, it would be interesting to see what happens if I change things up for a week or so. I didn't try to reinvent the wheel yet, I just added a few more carbs in the form of a larger salad each day. Also, I added it one particular day in the form of pizza.

Yeah, it's true - I ate a piece of pizza. Interesting thing happened - I still kept losing weight, but my hydration levels/BMI changed dramatically for 48 hours according to my "broken" scale. I'm thinking that it's not as much broken as its just pissing me off. Check out my post about the stupid scale.

When I'm dehydrated, my scale gives me a depressing BMI. Basically, it's all over the place. Every two months I'll be creating a chart like the one above tracking BMI and hydration as its reported by my scale. Stupid or not, I think I may just have to take the numbers as they are given then sort it all out in the end.

Good news! I'm moving, most likely, to a place with a pool. I need to strengthen my core, and swimming is a great low impact way to do that. A few months ago I ruptured a disk, and since then exercise has been boring and only effective for healing my back. Sure that's vital, but I want to be able to lift again. Weight loss is so easy with lifting! Plus, I really enjoy the workout.

An added bonus to swimming in my condition is that the pressure on my damaged back is greatly reduced when in the water. A bonus on top of that is the heat in the pool will improve circulation and help reduce swelling in the long run, which causes the nerve pain I experience in my leg from two other disks that are bulging out. If I treat my back before a swim with some good stretching and an ice down, that heat afterwards will feel great. My therapist will also be thrilled.

Thanks for tuning in this week for my third progress report! Time to get back to life - I'm going out to breakfast today, I found a great place downtown. I'll write about it on my return.

Week Two Progress Report - Charting and Predicting Progress

After two weeks of charting my weight, I have enough data to give some idea of how fast I may be approaching my goal.

In the chart to the left, the light blue bars represent actual loss. The dark line represents a trend, calculated using the equation you see at the top right. I chose this equation based simply on gut feeling rather than any special knowledge I have of this sort of thing. The resulting line simply looked like it may represent the diminishing returns of losing weight over a period of time. It's hard to tell by looking at this particular graph why the trend looked appropriate. Here is what helped me make the decision:



Notice in this 6 month forecast there is a bit of a curve to the trendline. It does seem steep - six months is too short of a time period to lose this much weight. I'm thinking this only because LAST time I lost that fast, I packed half of it back on!






So, I'd like to get to goal as close as possible to my 52nd progress report. It divides up to just about 2.4 lbs a week on average. I'm currently averaging 5.6 lbs a week. This average will fall, mostly because I lost water weight in the first few days. Notice the erratic numbers in the first graph?

So, 11.2 lbs lost in the first month. My chart tells me I'll lose another 11 lbs or so. Think I'll prove it right or wrong? Only time will tell. If the equation is good, then with more data I get closer to making a decent prediction!

Stay tuned...

Week 1 Progress Report - New scale = teh suck

7.2* lbs lost, but other data I fear is invalid.

I'd like to toss my new scale through the window. It seemed consistent the first few days, but on the 4th day of weighing myself it couldn't seem to make up it's mind pertaining to my BMI. At one point it told me I dropped a whole **10 points off of my BMI. That would be like 50 lbs or so which is utterly impossible in a week. So, until I figure out a new way of keeping track, I'll use the old fashioned method.

I started this week at 300.6 lbs, and now I'm at 293.4. I think the lbs measurement is accurate, because it gives me the same exact result every time I step on the scale (during my weigh in time, that is). As I said before, I'm afraid that this is the only accurate measurement. As soon as I am able, I'll get some ketone test strips so I can start tracking my ketone levels. Also, I'll be getting regular blood work done starting in a few weeks so I'll be keeping track of cholesterol levels as well. It's looking like Week 3 or 4 I'll have more data to share.

EDIT*edited to reflect actual starting weight - I originally reported my start weight as 303 lbs. This is incorrect, in a way - that was what my scale read the day before I started my tracking spreadsheet, so I now consider it invalid. Real loss for the first week is as reflected in the above post.

EDIT** It seems to be that I was particulary well hydrated that day - when I am well hydrated, my BMI tends to read lower. I'll post on this later, as I better understand the science behind that sort of thing.