Topic: Time to hit the "reset"

[keetedw]

I've been yo-yo-ing in my weight for the last decade or so (it's been a slow "-yo").  Since my daughter has started playing soccer, I've been having a great time playing with her, but the fatness is preventing me from getting involved as much as I want.

In other words, I want to lose weight for a variety of reasons, but the kiddo and the fact that I want to play soccer are big contributors.

So I'm starting this thread to help keep me accountable.  To help keep me accountable, I've challenged 3 of my fat friends to lose weight before our annual poker tournament (date not determined - typically mid/late summer) with $50 each on the line!

I'm obviously going to use methods used in the 4-Hour Body book I bought (and purchased a hard back edition so I can make notes and bookmark easier).

The winner will be the greatest percentage lost in "Total Inches" (6 measurements - both biceps, belly, waist and both legs mid-way between hip and thigh) and will walk away with the full $200

The bet will be from this Saturday, 12/18/10 and end at the tournament.  I'll post my measurements and progress as well as thoughts, ideas, diet changes, eureka moments, what worked, what didn't, whining, bragging and whatever else I can think of.   

I'd love any assistance I can get from motivation AND keeping me accountable.

My promise to you guys is this: 
When I win, half of my winnings will be donated to DaddyPlace.com

The other half will be used to register me with a local soccer team (whomever that may be).

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[Big daddy Eis]

sounds like a great plan. Let me know if you need any extra encouragement or anything.  When you say % in total inches lost, what happens if someone replaces the "fat" with muscle?  COuld end up with the similar measurements.

[z_randy]

Keet you can count on me!

[keetedw]

sounds like a great plan. Let me know if you need any extra encouragement or anything.  When you say % in total inches lost, what happens if someone replaces the "fat" with muscle?  COuld end up with the similar measurements.

That was the primary reason I refused to accept measurements from a scale.  I considered using fat percentage using calipers, but it'd have to be the same calipers for all the tests and making sure they're measured the same way every time would be difficult...too many variables.

The arms and legs certainly could drop then rise again, but I think it'd be tough for the belly and waist measurements to do the same.  Seriously, if I replace this belly entirely with muscle, I'll just crush them at the tournament and take their money!

If we disagree, we'll end up just taking a vote at the tournament.  We have plenty of "before" photos to use as reference and we'll all be good sports about it.


I'm pretty excited to start, though.

[Big daddy Eis]

outstanding, good luck with it!

[jmack]

keep a food diary...

what worked for me was this simple rule: eat less calories, do more cardio (elevated heart rate for a minimum of 40 minutes)

i've gone from 210 - 176 with no diet, just a change in lifestyle

good luck!

[keetedw]

Thanks J

At it's core, that's basically what I intend to do.  Simple changes with big impact.  I'll experiment and adjust as time goes on as I do want to increase muscle mass and overall strength (not a lot, though.  I want to run for endurance, not sprint).

I don't know if I'll keep a food diary per se...too much maintenance to write everything down.  Pretty easy to snap a photo with my camera phone, though (same idea, I know), and just as easy to store in an online album that's dated to give me a quick overview of "doing better" or "oop, time to adjust".

A few ideas, long way to go.

[BobChase]

I do want to increase muscle mass and overall strength (not a lot, though.  I want to run for endurance, not sprint).

Sprinting will build muscle and burn fat as it promotes the natural release of human growth hormone. It will also build endurance.

1 x per week do 100m (all-out) sprint repeats and work up to doing 10 of them. The workout won't take more than 10 minutes.

Long slow distances will burn fat AND muscle making you weaker. To illustrate my point, compare the physiques of sprinters vs. marathoners.

Google "paleo diet", and check this site every day: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Good luck Keet. Keep a positive attitude and on those bad days I'm sure we'll all help keep you honest. You can ROCK this.

[Keith]

I'm pulling for you Keet.  I'm not much into weightloss ( but I have been thinking about starting), but if you did encouragement, I'm here for you!

[Frobozz]

Good luck!

[keetedw]

So, I've been reading the 4-hour body over and over, taking notes, getting ideas together for how I'm going to get this done.  I did take my measurements and, sad as they are, the "before" pictures are even more horrifying (I'll spare you all).

182.75"

Clearly I have some work ahead of me.

I've got a shopping list mostly together of foods to pick up, vitamins/supplements to pick up. 

My focus to start is going to be changes in the diet.  Finding good meals I can prepare in advance and/or prepare quickly.  I'll be following the slow-carb diet mentioned in Tim's book.  Breakfast is going to be the toughest to start.  Over the years I've trained my body not to eat it, so I'm typically not hungry 'till 3-5 hours after I wake up.  Not good.  But I'll force down food and who knows, once I get in the habit, it may be easier to wake up because my body will be expecting food first thing.

Here's where the semi-OCD has kicked in.

I've created a spreadsheet to track weight loss (not important, but ok for a general indicator of progress) and TI loss through the weeks.  I'll be taking these measurements weekly, Friday, before breakfast and before my cheat day).  I've also created a form to track my fluid intake for each day while I'm doing this.  I'm contemplating other forms to help capture data as well (most likely around the workouts once I have an idea of what I want to do there and how that will progress).

My idea is this:  The more data I have at hand, the easier it will be for me to locate those variables that may be slowing and/or preventing the fat loss.  If I can track a slow in progress, then see any correlating data (say, I started drinking grapefruit juice that week), I can correct that variable.  If that doesn't work, I can eliminate them one by one until I find the culprit.

I'll be starting very light exercise the first couple/few weeks with the t-bar I made, the treadmill and some other light effort stuff.  My focus to start is to just get used to the new diet so it becomes habit.  I know if I try to do too much I'll get frustrated and have a higher potential to quit or stumble.

[keetedw]

In reference to the last post...I love Google Docs.

The form I created to track fluid intake is automatically loaded to a spreadsheet for me.

Form:


Data:


From that data, I can easily graph the results (not necessary for the fluid tracking, just more "just in case" data).

[Big daddy Eis]

great job Keet.  It looks like you have a plan coming together.  I like how you are taking Tim's advice in his book and writing stuff down and logging it.  It is the only way to track your progress and will give you more motivation.

I also like the documents you have created.  I never personally messed with google docs.  They look great.

[keetedw]

First week under my belt and there is definite progress.  I'm down 6.4 lbs and roughly 4 inches.

The week wasn't too bad overall.  I had to get creative with a couple meals in order to ensure I was adhering to the diet, but overall it was rather simple.  Meat, beans and veggies are rather flexible.  The workouts have been slow starting, though I expected that.  And the sudden influx of pill taking has been a bit to adjust to.  Just not used to scheduling and taking multiple pills multiple times a day.  I've reduced the risk of forgetting by not taking the noon pills.  At this early stage, I don't think there's potential for negative impact to my weight loss.

I do expect the weight loss to taper to 2-4 pounds a week, but I think the first few will be rather large jumps.  It was like this when I did the atkins a few years ago as well.  I think the key this time will be to just maintain the "stop being so dumb when you eat" when my focus shifts from weight loss to muscle gain (and other).

The cheat day (eat as much of anything you want) I've found really does have two effects.  The first is to spike blood glucose levels (this has been mentioned a number of places, just part of the "body confusion") and the second is how I felt like utter crap that night and part of the next day.  I seriously didn't want to look at another fried food and am trying to figure out how I can do cheat days without feeling THAT miserable from the food.  I understand the psychological impact of recognizing how bad food like that makes me feel, but man...that was rough.

So, it's working.  It's not difficult to maintain, and surprisingly, I'm starting to see my list of "to-do" growing from just "join soccer team" to running events.  I'll be keeping in touch with my doc to see what my body is capable of.  My knees have been somewhat rough for a number of years (baseball, rollerblading and snowboarding have taken their toll).

[Big daddy Eis]

congrats Keet.  That is great progress.  I am sure that you will see similar results from week to week.. You are well on the way to your goal.  If you do not mind me asking, what pills are you taking?  Keep up the great work.