I'm currently on hour 59 of a 72 hour fast. I can either eat today at 5 pm or I can choose to keep going for another 24 hours or so. It's a hard decision. There's so many factors at play. I have food in the fridge that needs to be cooked before it goes bad. This excuse is common for me because I buy food and then decide to go on an extended fast. I have to change that because it's becoming something that I rationalize every time I want to do a long fast. I have hamburger and pork loin. I have lots of rice to go with it. I have the best chicken salad in the world in the refrigerator.
All the food aside, there's good reasons to keep going with my fast as well. I'm currently at the lowest weight I've been in about 18 months. After my divorce finalized in January of 2018, I lost a lot of weight due to depression. I was down to 213 at one point last year. Then, after I worked through that, I quit smoking and gained about 45 pounds. I was up to 257 when I started changing my eating habits in May 2019. That was four months ago. I'm currently at 215. I've lost over 40 pounds over the last four months by using low carb and intermittent fasting. The IF is where most of my time has been spent.
Most of my intermittent fasting has been in the form of 20:4 fasting, which is twenty hours of fasting followed by a four hour eating window. That works great for me to lose about a pound per week, which doesn't sound like much, but it will add up over time. I sprinkle in the occasional extended fast. That is when I really push my weight down to new levels. So basically, I use 20:4 or 18:6 to maintain my current level and then I use a 30+ hour fast to push my weight down a bit more at a time.
This works out great for me because I get to see the results pretty quickly and then step back for a bit to gear up for the next long fast. Long fasts are difficult mentally. It's hard to convince yourself or have the will power to not eat for so long when food is right there ready to eat. In evolutionary terms, our bodies are build to find food. For thousands of years that was what we spent most of our time doing. We looked for food and ate when we were lucky enough to find it. In our modern society, we have a ready available store open 24/7 which we can buy whatever we want to eat. It's a huge convenience, but it's completely against everything evolution has programmed into us.
That's why fasting is something I can totally get behind. It's our natural way of living. It's not natural for us to have food available 24/7 packaged up nice and neat the way that it is. It's not natural and that's why modern society is filled with obese people. It's great to live like kings, but it's killing us.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Sunday, August 25, 2019
One Year Anniversary as a Non-smoker
Today (Aug 18 2019) marks one year as a non-smoker. That's one thing I don't miss. I quit smoking with the help of Chantix. I don't normally like a prescription solution to my problems, but that's one that I knew would work. I quit smoking in 2008 by using Chantix. It is a goofy drug that has weird side-effects, but I can attest that it works for quitting.
I took Chantix for two weeks. I quit smoking at the beginning of the second week. I've been quit for a whole year. To celebrate, I have caught some sort of chest cold which is making it difficult to breath. I'm doing an extended fast to see if that will help me get rid of the cold. This is just an experiment for my own knowledge. It's definitely not scientific, but it'll be interesting at least. I will report back about that in a few days.
I took Chantix for two weeks. I quit smoking at the beginning of the second week. I've been quit for a whole year. To celebrate, I have caught some sort of chest cold which is making it difficult to breath. I'm doing an extended fast to see if that will help me get rid of the cold. This is just an experiment for my own knowledge. It's definitely not scientific, but it'll be interesting at least. I will report back about that in a few days.
Saturday, August 17, 2019
Extended Fasts
For me, intermittent fasting works pretty well, and this isn't an anti-IF post. For most days IF or OMAD is what I do. Some days I feel like I have to go longer though. When that happens I do my normal 20 hour fast and then keep going until I can't go any more. Admittedly the longest I've went doing this was 42 hours. I typically set my goals much higher and then fall short. Today for example, I've set my goal for 110 hours. It's currently Sunday morning, and my fasting goal ends on Wednesday.
Going for more than two days without eating just seems ridiculous to me. On a 36 hour fast, you literally just skip one full day of eating and wait a bit on the third day before you eat. For instance, if you start your fast on Friday evening at 8pm. You don't eat Saturday. You can eat next at 8am on Sunday. This is the exact scenario for my 42 hour fast. I had started my fast on Friday evening and didn't eat until Sunday afternoon.
I feel like doing a longer fast once a week is good for escalating my fat loss and dealing with slow metabolism. I have locked myself into a routine where I don't fast a couple days per week, do one extended fast, and the rest of the time I'm doing 20/4. Perhaps I would have better results with 20/4 all the time, but it seems like my metabolism grinds to a halt when I'm doing that.
The takeaway from all of this is that I have reduced my calorie intake on a weekly basis and though I see an uptick in weight regularly, I'm still on a steady decrease of fat and I'm keeping my lean mass level.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Things I've Learned over the Last Three Months About Fat/Weight Loss, Eating, and Exercise
Two days ago, I reached a small milestone in my trek to change my body and health. I've officially been on this journey for 3 months or 1/4th of a year. I've lost 30 pounds, 25 pounds of fat and 5 pounds of lean. I'm not happy about the 5 pounds of lean, but I'm chalking it up as collateral damage. The first three weeks were spent doing 0-carbs. The rest of the time, I've been intermittent fasting and watching my carb intake. I also increased my exercise and activity level quite a bit, and I've been gradually increasing the intensity of my exercise along the way.
I started out just walking. Now I do interval training on my treadmill which kicks my ass quite a bit, but really gets the heart going. My current workout would have killed me 3 months ago, so I feel very positive about that. I wish my weight loss was moving along a little faster, mainly because I want to increase my exercise faster than my body can accept it. For instance, I do a 36 minute treadmill workout where I run for 30 seconds, then walk for 30 seconds, back and forth the entire time. So I get 18 minutes of running and 18 minutes of walking. It kills my shins, but my ankles and knees are handling it okay at least. If I were 20 pounds lighter, I could do more and it wouldn't hurt my legs so much.
So what have I learned in the last three months? The answer is "quite a bit about my body". I'm getting older (42 in October) and I wish I had been doing this 10 years ago. I would have been so much better off right now, if I had. Alas, I waited till mid-life before I decided to do something about my terrible body. So the first thing I've learned is that being healthy a year from now is a problem I have to deal with today. This is actually important to think about. People say things like this all the time, but seldom do others listen. You have to think, "what do I want my body to look like in two years?" and then work toward that. You have to create a mental image of what you want your body to look like, and then focus on that as you work toward it.
Now, your looks may not be your primary goal. Maybe it's more about health. "I want to run 5 miles without stopping." or "I want to be able to do a triathlon." You have to set your goal in the future. I wish I had thought about this more when I was 32. I wish 32 year old would have envisioned what he wanted to look like by the time he was 42. Oh well.
The second thing I've learned in the last three months is that there's a ton of experts that aren't really experts. There seems to be a huge amount of people specializing in nutrition and health that can't agree with each other on what is correct. I think this mainly has to do with anecdotal scenarios where everyone's body is different and we teach based on our own experience. Some people have huge success being vegetarian. Others have huge success doing keto. Some have success with paleo. Some exercise a lot, others don't. Some say exercising breaks a fast because it turns off ketosis. Others say exercise is effective during fasting. No one really seems to have 100% of it correct. It's like we all have to just stab at it with a knife and see what draws the most blood. I've literally spend the last 3 months experimenting with a lot of different things and haven't touched the surface of all the different things out there on the world wide web of information.
The third thing I've learned is that even when you think you have it figured out, you may have to change/adapt to accommodate a change in your own body. What worked for you at the beginning may not work for you a month later. I lost around 15 pounds in three weeks of no carbs, but most of that was the first two weeks and I plateaued for a week. I've been fasting for the rest of the time while my friend has been doing keto, we've lost the same amount of weight.
The fourth thing I've learned and I'll make this my final thing for this post... it's truly 80/20. It's 80% diet and 20% exercise. However, at the beginning, it should probably be more like 95% diet and 5% exercise. You have to concentrate on your diet way more than your exercise. I can go outside and burn 1000 calories running for an hour, but then I'm starving and have a hard time not raiding the fridge and eating 1200 calories to make up for it. You have to curve/change your eating habits tremendously before you can lose fat. The more fat you lose, the easier and more effective your exercising will be. The more you exercise, the more muscle you have, the more your body will burn calories. It's a cycle. It's the same cycle that got me fat, but in reverse. I got a sit-down job, I exercised less, I lost some lean muscle, my body stopped burning calories as efficiently, I ate things that gave me instant energy but made me crash (sugar), which also made me hungry more often, which made me eat more, which made me gain more weight, which made it harder to exercise, so on and so forth. I have to reverse this cycle. It's all about this cycle. It has two different directions. I have to make sure that I'm always pointed in the correct direction. The rest will fall into place.
I started out just walking. Now I do interval training on my treadmill which kicks my ass quite a bit, but really gets the heart going. My current workout would have killed me 3 months ago, so I feel very positive about that. I wish my weight loss was moving along a little faster, mainly because I want to increase my exercise faster than my body can accept it. For instance, I do a 36 minute treadmill workout where I run for 30 seconds, then walk for 30 seconds, back and forth the entire time. So I get 18 minutes of running and 18 minutes of walking. It kills my shins, but my ankles and knees are handling it okay at least. If I were 20 pounds lighter, I could do more and it wouldn't hurt my legs so much.
So what have I learned in the last three months? The answer is "quite a bit about my body". I'm getting older (42 in October) and I wish I had been doing this 10 years ago. I would have been so much better off right now, if I had. Alas, I waited till mid-life before I decided to do something about my terrible body. So the first thing I've learned is that being healthy a year from now is a problem I have to deal with today. This is actually important to think about. People say things like this all the time, but seldom do others listen. You have to think, "what do I want my body to look like in two years?" and then work toward that. You have to create a mental image of what you want your body to look like, and then focus on that as you work toward it.
Now, your looks may not be your primary goal. Maybe it's more about health. "I want to run 5 miles without stopping." or "I want to be able to do a triathlon." You have to set your goal in the future. I wish I had thought about this more when I was 32. I wish 32 year old would have envisioned what he wanted to look like by the time he was 42. Oh well.
The second thing I've learned in the last three months is that there's a ton of experts that aren't really experts. There seems to be a huge amount of people specializing in nutrition and health that can't agree with each other on what is correct. I think this mainly has to do with anecdotal scenarios where everyone's body is different and we teach based on our own experience. Some people have huge success being vegetarian. Others have huge success doing keto. Some have success with paleo. Some exercise a lot, others don't. Some say exercising breaks a fast because it turns off ketosis. Others say exercise is effective during fasting. No one really seems to have 100% of it correct. It's like we all have to just stab at it with a knife and see what draws the most blood. I've literally spend the last 3 months experimenting with a lot of different things and haven't touched the surface of all the different things out there on the world wide web of information.
The third thing I've learned is that even when you think you have it figured out, you may have to change/adapt to accommodate a change in your own body. What worked for you at the beginning may not work for you a month later. I lost around 15 pounds in three weeks of no carbs, but most of that was the first two weeks and I plateaued for a week. I've been fasting for the rest of the time while my friend has been doing keto, we've lost the same amount of weight.
The fourth thing I've learned and I'll make this my final thing for this post... it's truly 80/20. It's 80% diet and 20% exercise. However, at the beginning, it should probably be more like 95% diet and 5% exercise. You have to concentrate on your diet way more than your exercise. I can go outside and burn 1000 calories running for an hour, but then I'm starving and have a hard time not raiding the fridge and eating 1200 calories to make up for it. You have to curve/change your eating habits tremendously before you can lose fat. The more fat you lose, the easier and more effective your exercising will be. The more you exercise, the more muscle you have, the more your body will burn calories. It's a cycle. It's the same cycle that got me fat, but in reverse. I got a sit-down job, I exercised less, I lost some lean muscle, my body stopped burning calories as efficiently, I ate things that gave me instant energy but made me crash (sugar), which also made me hungry more often, which made me eat more, which made me gain more weight, which made it harder to exercise, so on and so forth. I have to reverse this cycle. It's all about this cycle. It has two different directions. I have to make sure that I'm always pointed in the correct direction. The rest will fall into place.
Weight Loss Plateaus
Plateaus are a very frustrating thing when losing weight. It's a struggle to get over those humps. I've hit a few along the way, but the current one seems to be the worse. I think it probably gets worse the further along you go. I've been paying close attention to my body and my eating routines trying to see how each affect my body anecdotally.
I've found that my metabolism slows down quite a bit from fasting. This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop fasting. I'm just thinking that I need to be aware of that and adjust my fasting routine to see if it can be improved. Earlier this week I did a 42 hour fast and my weight wasn't affected by it tremendously. I think over the next few days I'll see more results, but I'm trying to make a decision on how I approach the next few days in terms of fasts. Would it be more beneficial for me to eat and potentially increase my metabolism?
I'm not sure. I can say that I've noticed that some food increase my metabolism. Some of those foods were cut out of my diet due to high carb content. Perhaps carbs aren't terrible after all. Well, high fiber carbs aren't bad at least. I hate to use the term common sense but perhaps some of this "diet" stuff goes back to common sense. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but sugar all the time. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but meat all the time either. All of these fads seem to cut out something from your diet that you may need.
For instance, if I eat all veggies, I'm going to miss out on a ton of protein that I really need. So I'll keep eating meat. I've cut out all bread and rice because of their carb content, but there's plenty of asian cultures that live on rice as a primary source of nourishment and they don't suffer from near as much obesity. It all really goes back to the old idea of eating whatever you want, but not overdoing anything.
The plateaus may be good points to evaluate what we are doing and test new ideas. Plateaus also test our resolve. Losing weight/fat is already challenging enough. I check the scale every day and see that I'm up or down a pound or so. I chart it all and watch for trends. Plateaus make me want to try harder.
I've found that my metabolism slows down quite a bit from fasting. This doesn't mean that I'm going to stop fasting. I'm just thinking that I need to be aware of that and adjust my fasting routine to see if it can be improved. Earlier this week I did a 42 hour fast and my weight wasn't affected by it tremendously. I think over the next few days I'll see more results, but I'm trying to make a decision on how I approach the next few days in terms of fasts. Would it be more beneficial for me to eat and potentially increase my metabolism?
I'm not sure. I can say that I've noticed that some food increase my metabolism. Some of those foods were cut out of my diet due to high carb content. Perhaps carbs aren't terrible after all. Well, high fiber carbs aren't bad at least. I hate to use the term common sense but perhaps some of this "diet" stuff goes back to common sense. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but sugar all the time. It doesn't make sense to eat nothing but meat all the time either. All of these fads seem to cut out something from your diet that you may need.
For instance, if I eat all veggies, I'm going to miss out on a ton of protein that I really need. So I'll keep eating meat. I've cut out all bread and rice because of their carb content, but there's plenty of asian cultures that live on rice as a primary source of nourishment and they don't suffer from near as much obesity. It all really goes back to the old idea of eating whatever you want, but not overdoing anything.
The plateaus may be good points to evaluate what we are doing and test new ideas. Plateaus also test our resolve. Losing weight/fat is already challenging enough. I check the scale every day and see that I'm up or down a pound or so. I chart it all and watch for trends. Plateaus make me want to try harder.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Diet vs Lifestyle Change
There is debate among many people on what to call their change in eating habits. Some people look down on the word "diet" because they want to make their new eating habits permanent, and so, they call it a "lifestyle" change. This is all well and good, but no matter what you call it, you have to be committed to it.
I was wondering today on whether I've changed my lifestyle or if I will fall back to eating the way I was eating before May 12, 2019. Last week I went to Myrtle Beach to help my girlfriends daughter move for school. During those two days of traveling, I pretty much ate as I pleased. I ate more than I normally do. I ate foods that I have been avoiding for nearly three months. I gained about four pounds in two days.
Four pounds isn't a big deal for me, because my weight fluctuates that much on a normal day of eating these days. It's mostly food and water that my body hasn't digested or is storing. I wasn't worried about the four pounds. I lost it all back again in two days of intermittent fasting.
So, I was able to eat as I pleased for two days and reversed the damage within two days of getting back home. I think mostly I didn't eat much while I was gone. I just felt like I was eating more because I'm hyper-aware of my eating now. I pay attention to what I eat. I notice that I need to stop eating. I have changed my lifestyle. That doesn't mean that I always eat a certain way or that I stick to a plan perfectly. More importantly, I'm more aware of what I'm doing to my body and I know how to curve it before it gets carried away. I ate as much as I wanted for those two days, but it really wasn't more than I usually eat. I was just aware that I needed to eat less if I wanted to lose more weight.
I also stopped exercising during those two days away. In fact, I didn't do cardio till today. Add all of that with the lax in my fasting, and I would have gained weight if I'd continued for more time. We shouldn't worry about a lapse in our exercise or eating habits as long as we notice that we are having a lapse and have a plan in place to get back into it.
I knew that I would be going on this trip, and I knew that I would have trouble fasting on the same schedule I had been on for the previous couple of months. So, I didn't worry about it. Since I've been back, I have fasted every day for at least sixteen hours. Most days I've fasted twenty or more hours. I try to do more than twenty hours every day with up to two days off every week, but I really don't like to take two days off.
I hope to cut my calorie intake during my feeding window more over the coming days. Today, for instance, I had around 1200 calories during my eating window. Technically this is OMAD or One Meal A Day, but I'm still referring to it as IF or intermittent fasting. Some days I do OMAD, other days I will eat twice during my four hour eating window. Either way, I'm more interested in the length of the fast. I want longer and longer fasts. I'd like to do forty-eight hours in the coming days. My longest fast so far has been thirty-six hours.
Some people follow a low calorie feeding window when they fast, which consists of restrictive meal planning. I know this would be more effective for me to lose weight faster, but I prefer to reward myself with a somewhat liberal meal during my eating window. Since I'm looking forward to my meals already, I like to eat something that I will enjoy. I try to limit sugars. I worry about carbs, but I allow myself to have carbs and focus more on the fasting length.
The major "lifestyle change" that I've made since starting all of this on May 12 is that I've cut all cola/sugared soda from my diet. I used to drink a lot of Coke. I mean a lot. I have eliminated all Coke and all similar soda from my diet. I drinking sparkling water, coffee, spring water, and unsweet tea. Sometimes, when I'm out at a restaurant for my OMAD, I'll allow myself to have half sweet, half unsweet tea, but I always tell the waiter/waitress to make it mostly unsweet tea with a splash of sweet. I hate taking in calories from a drink now, but I love slightly sweet tea. I can't stand normal sweet tea though. It's always way too sweet.
I'm also coming up on my one year anniversary of quitting smoking. When I quit smoking, I weighed about 220 pounds. I was as low as 213 last year after my divorce. When I quit smoking, I gained a lot of weight. I hope to be back down to where I was last year when I quit by the 18th. That's a good goal.
After that I'll be shooting for < 200 pounds before my birthday on October 25. Then I'll be shooting for 170 by the end of the year. On December 12, I'll have been on this lifestyle change for seven months. If I lose ten pounds per month, I will have lost 70 pounds. I started at 256.7 pounds. So, I project that I'll be closer to 186 pounds on December 12. Then by the end of the year I may be able to get another five pounds off. So, I'm projecting more like 181 by the end of the year. Now, at some point it's going to get more and more difficult to lose weight. It's also going to be harder and harder to get my heart rate up during cardio. I can tell a huge difference just in the last three months. It used to be easy to get my heart rate up to 140. Now it takes more work.
I was wondering today on whether I've changed my lifestyle or if I will fall back to eating the way I was eating before May 12, 2019. Last week I went to Myrtle Beach to help my girlfriends daughter move for school. During those two days of traveling, I pretty much ate as I pleased. I ate more than I normally do. I ate foods that I have been avoiding for nearly three months. I gained about four pounds in two days.
Four pounds isn't a big deal for me, because my weight fluctuates that much on a normal day of eating these days. It's mostly food and water that my body hasn't digested or is storing. I wasn't worried about the four pounds. I lost it all back again in two days of intermittent fasting.
So, I was able to eat as I pleased for two days and reversed the damage within two days of getting back home. I think mostly I didn't eat much while I was gone. I just felt like I was eating more because I'm hyper-aware of my eating now. I pay attention to what I eat. I notice that I need to stop eating. I have changed my lifestyle. That doesn't mean that I always eat a certain way or that I stick to a plan perfectly. More importantly, I'm more aware of what I'm doing to my body and I know how to curve it before it gets carried away. I ate as much as I wanted for those two days, but it really wasn't more than I usually eat. I was just aware that I needed to eat less if I wanted to lose more weight.
I also stopped exercising during those two days away. In fact, I didn't do cardio till today. Add all of that with the lax in my fasting, and I would have gained weight if I'd continued for more time. We shouldn't worry about a lapse in our exercise or eating habits as long as we notice that we are having a lapse and have a plan in place to get back into it.
I knew that I would be going on this trip, and I knew that I would have trouble fasting on the same schedule I had been on for the previous couple of months. So, I didn't worry about it. Since I've been back, I have fasted every day for at least sixteen hours. Most days I've fasted twenty or more hours. I try to do more than twenty hours every day with up to two days off every week, but I really don't like to take two days off.
I hope to cut my calorie intake during my feeding window more over the coming days. Today, for instance, I had around 1200 calories during my eating window. Technically this is OMAD or One Meal A Day, but I'm still referring to it as IF or intermittent fasting. Some days I do OMAD, other days I will eat twice during my four hour eating window. Either way, I'm more interested in the length of the fast. I want longer and longer fasts. I'd like to do forty-eight hours in the coming days. My longest fast so far has been thirty-six hours.
Some people follow a low calorie feeding window when they fast, which consists of restrictive meal planning. I know this would be more effective for me to lose weight faster, but I prefer to reward myself with a somewhat liberal meal during my eating window. Since I'm looking forward to my meals already, I like to eat something that I will enjoy. I try to limit sugars. I worry about carbs, but I allow myself to have carbs and focus more on the fasting length.
The major "lifestyle change" that I've made since starting all of this on May 12 is that I've cut all cola/sugared soda from my diet. I used to drink a lot of Coke. I mean a lot. I have eliminated all Coke and all similar soda from my diet. I drinking sparkling water, coffee, spring water, and unsweet tea. Sometimes, when I'm out at a restaurant for my OMAD, I'll allow myself to have half sweet, half unsweet tea, but I always tell the waiter/waitress to make it mostly unsweet tea with a splash of sweet. I hate taking in calories from a drink now, but I love slightly sweet tea. I can't stand normal sweet tea though. It's always way too sweet.
I'm also coming up on my one year anniversary of quitting smoking. When I quit smoking, I weighed about 220 pounds. I was as low as 213 last year after my divorce. When I quit smoking, I gained a lot of weight. I hope to be back down to where I was last year when I quit by the 18th. That's a good goal.
After that I'll be shooting for < 200 pounds before my birthday on October 25. Then I'll be shooting for 170 by the end of the year. On December 12, I'll have been on this lifestyle change for seven months. If I lose ten pounds per month, I will have lost 70 pounds. I started at 256.7 pounds. So, I project that I'll be closer to 186 pounds on December 12. Then by the end of the year I may be able to get another five pounds off. So, I'm projecting more like 181 by the end of the year. Now, at some point it's going to get more and more difficult to lose weight. It's also going to be harder and harder to get my heart rate up during cardio. I can tell a huge difference just in the last three months. It used to be easy to get my heart rate up to 140. Now it takes more work.
Close to Three Months
I changed my diet/eating lifestyle on May 12, 2019. Since then, I've lost twenty-eight pounds. I am going to push two more pounds within the next six days. I will probably be even further along than that. For the last few weeks I've only lost small amounts. As with everyone, my bodyweight fluctuates. I watch these fluctuations and record the lower side of them as they occur.
While this isn't the most honest reporting of my weight, it seems to keep me heading in the right direction. So right now I'm at 229.9 pounds, but two days ago I was at my upper side of the fluctuation which was 234.5 pounds. This is a pretty big variance, but it's normal. That is the highest my weight will be over the next week. After this week, my upper weight will probably be more like 232, with a low end of 225 or so.
This seems to make me push myself to move down. If I was watching the upper number, I wouldn't be able to set new goals for the coming days. I wouldn't see the improvements over time. I track my weight via my Fitbit app. I have a sharp descending graph for my weight. So within a few days, I'll be at thirty pounds since I started this three months ago. That means that I'm losing about ten pounds every month, which is a very healthy weight loss. Most of that weight has been fat. I've retained most of my lean muscle mass. I've tracked that with my scale and Fitbit app. I've lost around five pounds of muscle. All the rest of the weight was fat. I'm very proud of these numbers.
While this isn't the most honest reporting of my weight, it seems to keep me heading in the right direction. So right now I'm at 229.9 pounds, but two days ago I was at my upper side of the fluctuation which was 234.5 pounds. This is a pretty big variance, but it's normal. That is the highest my weight will be over the next week. After this week, my upper weight will probably be more like 232, with a low end of 225 or so.
This seems to make me push myself to move down. If I was watching the upper number, I wouldn't be able to set new goals for the coming days. I wouldn't see the improvements over time. I track my weight via my Fitbit app. I have a sharp descending graph for my weight. So within a few days, I'll be at thirty pounds since I started this three months ago. That means that I'm losing about ten pounds every month, which is a very healthy weight loss. Most of that weight has been fat. I've retained most of my lean muscle mass. I've tracked that with my scale and Fitbit app. I've lost around five pounds of muscle. All the rest of the weight was fat. I'm very proud of these numbers.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
IF Groups on Social Media
I recently joined an intermediate fasting group on Facebook, and I'm actually quite surprised at the comments and posts I see on it. It seems like the IF noobs haven't researched anything about intermediate fasting at all, and the people who have been doing it a while are fed up with the new people. I can't really blame the veterans, but I expected the entire scene to be a little more supportive.
It's pretty interesting that many people claim that everyone else has no idea what they are doing. Some are completely clueless though, so it's frustrating from both sides. As someone who has researched it all quite a bit, along with doing private experimentation to determine how many diets and life styles affect my own body, I can say that most of the people on the group have bad opinions especially as it pertains to me.
There are some questions on the group that would have been better asked on Google. I mean I saw a new person as if protein drinks would be considered breaking the fast. Seriously? Of course it's breaking your fast. Protein drinks are full of protein, which your body and use to create glucose. If you are taking in protein, you are no longer fasting. It's that simple.
I saw one person ask if they could smoke while fasting, which could have simply been answered with a "sure why not", but most of the people on the board took the opportunity to trash the person for smoking. One lady even went so far as to say "if you can fast for 16 hours, you fan easy not smoke." Trust me, that's complete BS. I quit smoking last year and that was way more difficult than going 30 hours straight without food.
I'm just surprised at some of the hostility in a group of people who are all striving to do the same thing. It's not like they are in competition with each other. I suspect the problem is that everyone feels like they know a lot about the subject. I program for a living. There's a lot to computer science and programming in general. Fasting is pretty simple. Fasting + Keto is pretty simple. Changing your eating habits is simple. I don't know why so many people try to overcomplicate something so simple.
Losing weight isn't easy, but it's not complicated. It's just difficult to accomplish. It's still a simple process. There's no super secret thing that is hiding from everyone. You simple eat less than you burn. There's not a lot a more to it than that. Sure there's a lot of theory and physiological things we can discuss in detail that make the issue seem more complex, but we can make any subject way more complicated than it really is if we dive into the details. If you are going to fast, just fast. Why try to cheat at something as simple as fasting?
It's pretty interesting that many people claim that everyone else has no idea what they are doing. Some are completely clueless though, so it's frustrating from both sides. As someone who has researched it all quite a bit, along with doing private experimentation to determine how many diets and life styles affect my own body, I can say that most of the people on the group have bad opinions especially as it pertains to me.
There are some questions on the group that would have been better asked on Google. I mean I saw a new person as if protein drinks would be considered breaking the fast. Seriously? Of course it's breaking your fast. Protein drinks are full of protein, which your body and use to create glucose. If you are taking in protein, you are no longer fasting. It's that simple.
I saw one person ask if they could smoke while fasting, which could have simply been answered with a "sure why not", but most of the people on the board took the opportunity to trash the person for smoking. One lady even went so far as to say "if you can fast for 16 hours, you fan easy not smoke." Trust me, that's complete BS. I quit smoking last year and that was way more difficult than going 30 hours straight without food.
I'm just surprised at some of the hostility in a group of people who are all striving to do the same thing. It's not like they are in competition with each other. I suspect the problem is that everyone feels like they know a lot about the subject. I program for a living. There's a lot to computer science and programming in general. Fasting is pretty simple. Fasting + Keto is pretty simple. Changing your eating habits is simple. I don't know why so many people try to overcomplicate something so simple.
Losing weight isn't easy, but it's not complicated. It's just difficult to accomplish. It's still a simple process. There's no super secret thing that is hiding from everyone. You simple eat less than you burn. There's not a lot a more to it than that. Sure there's a lot of theory and physiological things we can discuss in detail that make the issue seem more complex, but we can make any subject way more complicated than it really is if we dive into the details. If you are going to fast, just fast. Why try to cheat at something as simple as fasting?
Saturday, July 6, 2019
The First Step to Healthy
In order to become more healthy, you usually have to do two things: lose weight and exercise. I recently watched a documentary called Fit and Back which showed a fitness instructor gaining weight for six months and then losing it again in the next six months. He knew how to lose weight. He knew his body pretty intimately. One huge problem I saw with his take on fitness was that he tried to apply what he used for himself to others who came from completely different physical backgrounds.
The difference is that he was losing his weight with the prior knowledge and ability to overcome weight training fatigue and the ability to limit his eating substantially more than someone who has been fat for ten to twenty years. There's a reason said person has been fat for a long time. There's a lot of it that is mental, and some of it that is physiological.
Having been overweight for a long time, I can say the hardest thing for me to overcome initially. I'll go into that more, but let's examine further what a person has to do in order to become more physically fit. In this scenario, the person starts out overweight. Weighing too much is a symptom of an underlying problem. Some may say that the problem is laziness. That could be somewhat true. I know plenty of overweight people who aren't mentally lazy. They just don't exercise enough physically. Lazy isn't exactly the answer.
So this fitness coach from the documentary was trying to coach these overweight people, and the first thing he did was to put them on weight training. Why the heck would anyone think this is a good idea? It was probably a good idea for him when he was trying to get back into shape because his body was used to physical activity, even though he hadn't been doing much of it for six months. His body was able to bounce back into a routine that he had been doing for a decade. Likewise, it's hard for an overweight person to bounce out of a routine that they've been doing for a decade.
Exercise, especially weight training causes a lot of muscle pain. Fitness experts and coaches thrive from muscle pain and love exercising. An overweight person has years of inflammation and typically doesn't like exercise. You could say that most people don't like exercise. However, people who are in great physical fitness tend to power through physical pain easier, especially muscle pain. They thrive from the endorphins released from exercise. A person who has been overweight and not exercising for an extended amount of time can't enjoy the endorphins because they are experiencing immediate pain in their muscles and joints.
So throwing an overweight person onto a weight training routine seems like a terrible idea. They will soon become unmotivated. In order to motivate an overweight person, they have to see results from the huge amount of effort that they have to put forth. If you put them on a 1500 calorie per day diet, they expect to lose weight. It's difficult for them to not eat at least 2500 calories probably, and here you are taking away almost half of their intake. Which leads me to this formula:
The difference is that he was losing his weight with the prior knowledge and ability to overcome weight training fatigue and the ability to limit his eating substantially more than someone who has been fat for ten to twenty years. There's a reason said person has been fat for a long time. There's a lot of it that is mental, and some of it that is physiological.
Having been overweight for a long time, I can say the hardest thing for me to overcome initially. I'll go into that more, but let's examine further what a person has to do in order to become more physically fit. In this scenario, the person starts out overweight. Weighing too much is a symptom of an underlying problem. Some may say that the problem is laziness. That could be somewhat true. I know plenty of overweight people who aren't mentally lazy. They just don't exercise enough physically. Lazy isn't exactly the answer.
So this fitness coach from the documentary was trying to coach these overweight people, and the first thing he did was to put them on weight training. Why the heck would anyone think this is a good idea? It was probably a good idea for him when he was trying to get back into shape because his body was used to physical activity, even though he hadn't been doing much of it for six months. His body was able to bounce back into a routine that he had been doing for a decade. Likewise, it's hard for an overweight person to bounce out of a routine that they've been doing for a decade.
Exercise, especially weight training causes a lot of muscle pain. Fitness experts and coaches thrive from muscle pain and love exercising. An overweight person has years of inflammation and typically doesn't like exercise. You could say that most people don't like exercise. However, people who are in great physical fitness tend to power through physical pain easier, especially muscle pain. They thrive from the endorphins released from exercise. A person who has been overweight and not exercising for an extended amount of time can't enjoy the endorphins because they are experiencing immediate pain in their muscles and joints.
So throwing an overweight person onto a weight training routine seems like a terrible idea. They will soon become unmotivated. In order to motivate an overweight person, they have to see results from the huge amount of effort that they have to put forth. If you put them on a 1500 calorie per day diet, they expect to lose weight. It's difficult for them to not eat at least 2500 calories probably, and here you are taking away almost half of their intake. Which leads me to this formula:
- In order to be healthier, you have to exercise and lose weight
- In order to exercise, you have to reduce your pain
- In order to reduce your pain, you have to reduce the problem that's causing your aching joints and muscles
- The primary cause of those issues is your extra body fat and possibly insulin resistance
- You have to reduce body fat and fix any insulin resistance FIRST or at least be well on your way before getting into intense exercise
That all being said, light walks should be incorporated from the beginning, and the duration of those walks should be increased over the first few weeks. Then, once the person is at a comfortable level with the walking, increase the pace and add inclines.
That is the extent of exercise an obese person should be doing at first. The impact of their own weight could actually injure them and cause them more problems than good. I'm going through all of this and I've hurt myself in the past because I was jogging too hard for my health. I have a left ankle that makes noise every other step as a result of this. Keep away from high intensity for someone who isn't used to exercising regularly. It's just a bad idea to introduce that too early. You have to decrease the body fat first.
So if reducing the body fat is the primary concern, how do we do that? By reducing calorie intake and improving what type of food we intake. Some people attempt to reduce calories without some good prior knowledge. We've all heard of the Atkins diet and that we should eat less carbs and more protein. Or at least that was my idea about it before I researched a few different diets. I think the underlying benefit to Keto, Atkins, etc is that by reducing or eliminating carbs, we reduce hunger. Pay attention to that, because it's the most important thing in any of these low-carb diets. Eating little to no carbs significantly reduces your hunger cravings.
It's the key to helping overweight people lose weight. If they can replace their carbs and sugars with other foods that they like, whatever that food may be, let them have as much as they want, because if they aren't eating carbs, they'll eventually require less and less of that food. That food may not be the best thing they could eat, but at least it's not making them more and more hungry.
I mean if you try to get an overweight person to cut calories, without paying attention to what calories they are eating, they will have at least some sugar and carbs in there. A single 12 oz cola may have 140 calories, which can be fit into a 1500/day calorie diet and still leaves you with 1360 calories for the day. So if I drink that soda, I'm not even wasting ten percent of my daily calories, but I'm significantly increasing how hungry I'm going to be tomorrow, which in turn makes it significantly harder for me to only eat 1500 calories tomorrow. So I think that the best first step for overweight people is to allow them to eat as many calories as they want, as long as they have 0 grams of carbs, and I'm actually more strict than a keto or Atkins diet when it comes to this. I'm not talking about net carbs. Eliminate carbs completely. Any cheating on this will make the person more hungry. More hunger pains makes it more difficult to continue with everything else that needs to occur.
Eating protein and fat, whenever you feel hungry, greatly reduces the hunger you will have later on. Eating any sugar or carbs significantly increases future hunger. So if you are having trouble counting calories and getting your calorie intake low enough, take a look at the types of foods you are getting your calories from. When you get hungry, don't eat carbs. Plain and simply this is the first step to becoming more healthy if you are an overweight person.
Fasting Plus Low Carb
As I sit here and write this post, I'm hungry, but it's bearable. I have been thinking about food for the last five hours. I'm currently on hour twenty-nine of what I hope to be a 48-hour fast. Will I make it? Probably, but it's rough at the moment.
I have been doing 23-1 or one-meal-a-day for a few weeks. This is the first real attempt I've made at a 48-hour fast. The last time I ate, I had a ribeye steak, collard greens, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. I've had about five grams of carbs in the last three days. I've lost about four pounds according to my fluctuating scale. It's hard to get a good accurate reading from a scale when you can get two readings four pounds apart just by moving slightly forward or backward on the scale. I'm confident that I'm at 231 though.
Add to all of this that I've burned nearly 7000 calories since I last ate, and it's easy to see that I should be at least two pounds lighter regardless. The low carbs for the last few days coupled with the extra long fast I'm attempting along with the large amounts of cardio I'm also doing, have led to a decent couple of days of weight loss. I feel slimmer and my skin feels tighter.
That being said, I can't wait until I get to eat again. I may cut the fast short to only forty hours. That would be like combining a twenty-four hour and a sixteen hour fast. My legs are sore from the extra jogging/walking. I'm hoping that I can have some self control when I break my fast. I'm sitting here thinking about all the things that I would like to eat.
I'd like to have some rice, but that will be high in carbs and I'm not sure that I want to gorge myself on carbs right after this fast. I half-way think that allowing myself to have a reward for going so long without eating would be a good way to reinforce the fasting behavior. I could be completely wrong. I don't have a coach through any of this and I'm having to supply my own will power. My main motivation right now is the desire to see my BMI drop below 29. I have good amount of weight to lose still before that happens, but it's a goal. I really don't know if BMI is a good indication of anything though. It doesn't really consider fat percentage and I'm really just trying to get my fat percentage down below 25%. That's a more healthy goal and the one I'm really interested in. Sure, I eventually want to go further than that, but that's my current goal. I'm only concerned with my BMI because I'm sick of being considered "obese".
I watched a documentary on Youtube last night. It was about a guy that went from fit to fat and then back. He was an underwear model and a fitness coach. He was doing it to show that it could be done and also so he'd have a better understanding of what some of his clients were going through losing their weight. It's one thing to gain eighty pounds in six months and then immediately losing it. It's another thing to be obese for a decade or more and try to retrain your mind. I don't think he had a good idea of how to help people. He needed a longer time in the obese zone I think. Also, he was putting them directly on weights. My goodness that can be overwhelming for someone who hasn't exercised in years. The muscle soreness on top of the already nagging brain that's wanting to eat, makes it very difficult to stay motivated.
I think first and foremost a person has to change their diet, but it has to be in a way that is easy to transition in steps. The first dietary changes should be toward a goal of eliminating sugar. That's difficult to do, but I think it has to be the primary concern of a trainer/fitness coach. You can't eliminate sugar and carbs instantly. You can't take someone who's drinking a sugary soda constantly throughout the day and tell them to stop that plus stop all other sugar they are consuming. It has to happen eventually, but they just won't have much success doing that cold turkey.
I quit smoking in 2008. I started back up in 2011. I quit again last year (2018). I can tell everyone reading this that quitting that habit was ten times harder for me than quitting sugar, but both are hard and I had help with smoking. I took Chantix which helped a lot with smoking. There's not a drug, at least none that I know of, that will make you not want sugar. I'm not sure why that hasn't been created, but it's definitely what we need to curve our obesity epidemic.
Sugar and carbs are such a major part of the American diet that it's difficult to cut them out completely. There's a lot of diets that revolve around low-carb, high-fat and/or high-protein. I don't think that the big concern should be "what do I eat since I'm not eating carbs?", I think it should be more along the line of "eat anything but carbs, where ever you can." Sugar and carbs drive hunger. It's SO hard to cut calories or fast when you are hungry. The first step should always be to remove as much of the hunger as possible, and that means to cut all sugar and carbs. That should be the primary goal of most diets. It's the only way to be successful. There's no way that I could go forty-eight hours without eating if I had just had a big bowl of ice cream and a slice of cake right before attempting it. In fact, I couldn't do a forty-eight hour fast if I'd had sugar in the previous 24 hours. Sugar and carbs DRIVE hunger because the insulin they cause your body to produce makes you hungry when it has processed the sugars you've given it. At least that's how it seems to me. If I have had any sugar, even if it was from a banana, my hunger is increased significantly.
If you want to lose weight or help someone else lose weight, the key to success, at least in my opinion, is to get sugar and carbs out of the system completely. It's very difficult to stop eating. It's hundreds of times more difficult if insulin spikes at all previous to that.
I have been doing 23-1 or one-meal-a-day for a few weeks. This is the first real attempt I've made at a 48-hour fast. The last time I ate, I had a ribeye steak, collard greens, brussel sprouts, and broccoli. I've had about five grams of carbs in the last three days. I've lost about four pounds according to my fluctuating scale. It's hard to get a good accurate reading from a scale when you can get two readings four pounds apart just by moving slightly forward or backward on the scale. I'm confident that I'm at 231 though.
Add to all of this that I've burned nearly 7000 calories since I last ate, and it's easy to see that I should be at least two pounds lighter regardless. The low carbs for the last few days coupled with the extra long fast I'm attempting along with the large amounts of cardio I'm also doing, have led to a decent couple of days of weight loss. I feel slimmer and my skin feels tighter.
That being said, I can't wait until I get to eat again. I may cut the fast short to only forty hours. That would be like combining a twenty-four hour and a sixteen hour fast. My legs are sore from the extra jogging/walking. I'm hoping that I can have some self control when I break my fast. I'm sitting here thinking about all the things that I would like to eat.
I'd like to have some rice, but that will be high in carbs and I'm not sure that I want to gorge myself on carbs right after this fast. I half-way think that allowing myself to have a reward for going so long without eating would be a good way to reinforce the fasting behavior. I could be completely wrong. I don't have a coach through any of this and I'm having to supply my own will power. My main motivation right now is the desire to see my BMI drop below 29. I have good amount of weight to lose still before that happens, but it's a goal. I really don't know if BMI is a good indication of anything though. It doesn't really consider fat percentage and I'm really just trying to get my fat percentage down below 25%. That's a more healthy goal and the one I'm really interested in. Sure, I eventually want to go further than that, but that's my current goal. I'm only concerned with my BMI because I'm sick of being considered "obese".
I watched a documentary on Youtube last night. It was about a guy that went from fit to fat and then back. He was an underwear model and a fitness coach. He was doing it to show that it could be done and also so he'd have a better understanding of what some of his clients were going through losing their weight. It's one thing to gain eighty pounds in six months and then immediately losing it. It's another thing to be obese for a decade or more and try to retrain your mind. I don't think he had a good idea of how to help people. He needed a longer time in the obese zone I think. Also, he was putting them directly on weights. My goodness that can be overwhelming for someone who hasn't exercised in years. The muscle soreness on top of the already nagging brain that's wanting to eat, makes it very difficult to stay motivated.
I think first and foremost a person has to change their diet, but it has to be in a way that is easy to transition in steps. The first dietary changes should be toward a goal of eliminating sugar. That's difficult to do, but I think it has to be the primary concern of a trainer/fitness coach. You can't eliminate sugar and carbs instantly. You can't take someone who's drinking a sugary soda constantly throughout the day and tell them to stop that plus stop all other sugar they are consuming. It has to happen eventually, but they just won't have much success doing that cold turkey.
I quit smoking in 2008. I started back up in 2011. I quit again last year (2018). I can tell everyone reading this that quitting that habit was ten times harder for me than quitting sugar, but both are hard and I had help with smoking. I took Chantix which helped a lot with smoking. There's not a drug, at least none that I know of, that will make you not want sugar. I'm not sure why that hasn't been created, but it's definitely what we need to curve our obesity epidemic.
Sugar and carbs are such a major part of the American diet that it's difficult to cut them out completely. There's a lot of diets that revolve around low-carb, high-fat and/or high-protein. I don't think that the big concern should be "what do I eat since I'm not eating carbs?", I think it should be more along the line of "eat anything but carbs, where ever you can." Sugar and carbs drive hunger. It's SO hard to cut calories or fast when you are hungry. The first step should always be to remove as much of the hunger as possible, and that means to cut all sugar and carbs. That should be the primary goal of most diets. It's the only way to be successful. There's no way that I could go forty-eight hours without eating if I had just had a big bowl of ice cream and a slice of cake right before attempting it. In fact, I couldn't do a forty-eight hour fast if I'd had sugar in the previous 24 hours. Sugar and carbs DRIVE hunger because the insulin they cause your body to produce makes you hungry when it has processed the sugars you've given it. At least that's how it seems to me. If I have had any sugar, even if it was from a banana, my hunger is increased significantly.
If you want to lose weight or help someone else lose weight, the key to success, at least in my opinion, is to get sugar and carbs out of the system completely. It's very difficult to stop eating. It's hundreds of times more difficult if insulin spikes at all previous to that.
Friday, July 5, 2019
Overcoming Weight Plateaus
I keep referring to what I'm doing as "losing weight", but I'm really trying to lose fat and become healthier. One of the downsides to this is that I'm increasing my muscle while I decrease fat which causes my scale to read as if I'm not having any success. The truth is that I'm getting much healthier, but I can't see it from looking at my weight alone.
I'm currently around 235 pounds, which is still about 65 pounds above my goal. Remember from previous posts that I started at 256, so I've lost 21 pounds of weight. However, I went from a completely sedentary lifestyle to doing about 2 hours of cardio every day in the form of walking, jogging, and hiking. My calf muscles are huge compared to two months ago when I started Keto.
I've read a lot of good things about exercising your legs. One thing that is mentioned frequently is that your legs have the ability to rebound from intense exercise. They'll get sore, but they'll quickly get over it. My ability to run has become increasingly easier over time. I've also noticed that I can run longer distances without my legs hurting.
When I started walking regularly, I noticed that my ability to exercise became easier fairly quickly. I was a smoker for a long time so it was common for me to get short of breath when I would walk up my driveway, since I live on a hill. I can easily walk without getting out of breath now. So running isn't necessarily and issue when it comes to running out of breath. The problem for me is that I have 235 pounds of mass on top of my feet and that is dangerous when it comes to ankle and knee injury.
So, I've been trying to take it a easy until I get more weight off. That's a double edged sword though, because as I walk/jog/hike, I increase my muscles mass which adds weight even thought I'm losing fat. So I've watched my weight hover for the last couple of weeks even though I'm doing things in my diet that should promote weight loss.
Another huge thing I've noticed is that any sugar or carbs at all have huge effects on my ability to lose weight. My extreme zero carb diet was working at taking off the weight, but adding even a smidgen of sugar or carbs can cause me to plateau. There's a lot of factors at play, but I'm trying to approach everything that I'm doing with the best scientific approach I can. By that I mean that when I can see that something isn't working, I have to adjust and try something else.
So far, my body responds best to zero carbs. I felt a huge difference when I was doing that. I think I approached intermittent fasting incorrectly. So, it wasn't as beneficial as I thought it would be, but again I think it was my fault. I was going for 20 hours without eating, but then I was eating some bread and drinking some sweet tea (half unsweet) and I would even allow myself to have a desert from time to time. This showed me one thing. Even one meal a day, under 2400 calories, would stop my weight loss if it had sugar in it. I didn't gain weight, but I didn't lose weight either.
Keep in mind that this is while I'm averaging 3200 calories burned daily. That being said, if I was completely doing CICO, then I should have a deficit of around 800 calories per day at least. Truth be told, my calorie deficit is probably more like 2000 most days. At that rate, given the 3500 calories = 1 pound estimate that many people talk about, I should be losing about four pounds per week. That hasn't happened. I've lost and kept off twenty-one pounds over the last fifty days. If I was doing pounds per week, I'd be closer to twenty-eight or thirty pounds lost.
Keep in mind that this is while I'm averaging 3200 calories burned daily. That being said, if I was completely doing CICO, then I should have a deficit of around 800 calories per day at least. Truth be told, my calorie deficit is probably more like 2000 most days. At that rate, given the 3500 calories = 1 pound estimate that many people talk about, I should be losing about four pounds per week. That hasn't happened. I've lost and kept off twenty-one pounds over the last fifty days. If I was doing pounds per week, I'd be closer to twenty-eight or thirty pounds lost.
My conclusion, based on those numbers, is that I've probably increased my muscle mass by at least five or six pounds over the last 50 days through exercise. This may be optimistic, but I think it is accurate. I'm a little anxious to get the weight off, but at the same time, I want to be healthy while I do it. I think that I'm doing it correctly. Before this post, I was a little disappointed at my twenty-one pounds lost, but now that I think about it, I may have lost four pounds per week of fat and gained one pound of muscle while I did it.
So now I need to calculate how long it will take me to get to my goal given those numbers. It's simple math. I have a net loss of three pounds per week. I have around 66 pounds left until my goal. I have twenty-two weeks left until I hit my goal. So, by Christmas I should be there. I should be be very close by my 42nd birthday coming up at the end of October.
That's a very conservative estimate. Knowing what I know now, I think I can speed things up quite a bit by doing a low/no carb diet along with a 23-1 fast every day. I'm currently doing this and I can tell it's going to be huge in terms of effectiveness.
I've also increased my exercise routine. I've stopped going for walks outside of the house so much. I need to do some more of those soon, but sometimes that's not easy to orchestrate. I've relegated myself to my treadmill. I've also increase the incline on my treadmill so that I can keep my heart rate high enough to be considered cardio. That's another factor in all of this, my heart rate. I've dropped my resting heart rate so much that it's becoming increasingly harder to keep it in the cardio range. It's still easy mind you, but my heart rate is actually getting into a more normal area so I have to try harder and harder all the time. It's a good thing, but worth noting.
I don't know what the best solution is for overcoming plateaus, but I can tell you what works for me. I step back and evaluate where I'm at, where I want to go, and what isn't working. I know, without a doubt, that sugar is a terrible thing for me still. I'm pretty sure that my body needs much longer than I thought to heal from insulin resistance. I think that any small amount of sugar, even if it's mixed with 24 hours of fasting, is enough to screw up the benefits of fasting, at least for me in my current state. I feel like that won't be the case later on when I've reach my goal weight and I'm no longer insulin resistant. However, right now, I think my main goal should be to defeat the insulin resistance, and the only way to do that is to lose most of this stored fat, increase my cardio fitness, and stay away from the sugars and carbs.
To be honest, it's extremely difficult to stay away from some sugars, namely fruits, because some of those foods have a lot of other positive effects. Blueberries, for instance, are real good for me, but I can't eat them because of their sugar content. Bananas are another good example. I'd love to be able to eat a banana or two for the potassium, but then I'd be breaking my no-sugar rule. Coconut also has a lot of potassium, but again contains more carbs and sugar than I'd like to have in my diet at the moment.
Perhaps I'm being paranoid when it comes to the sugars, but I can say without a doubt that I felt a significant change in my body back in may when I was doing no carbs and no sugars at all. I really need a better name for "no carbs and no sugars". There's probably already one out there, but I'm unaware of it. Leave a comment if you know of a better term.
While I'm on the subject of no carbs and no sugar, I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about "net carbs" like you'd see on a ketogenic diet. I'm talking about ZERO carbs and sugar. I focused on that for three weeks. It was actually pretty awesome. I lost about sixteen pounds during those three weeks. Much of it early on was water weight. Then I plateaued. So I switch from that strict no-carb diet to try intermittent fasting. Now I'm combining them (just started this two days ago in full force).
Sometimes when you hit a plateau, you just have to step back and take a break from your serious diet. You shouldn't fall off the wagon so-to-speak. You should still eat healthy and not gorge yourself, but you should step back and allow yourself to take a break from any super strict diet, especially if you are hitting weight plateaus. I took a few weeks to test new plans, but the whole time I was watching my sugar intake and my calories in general. I definitely didn't stop my diet and then eat 4000 calories in a single day. Well I may have hit 4000 calories in a single day, but I was doing it while fasting most of the day or while exercising enough to burn most of it off.
So now I need to calculate how long it will take me to get to my goal given those numbers. It's simple math. I have a net loss of three pounds per week. I have around 66 pounds left until my goal. I have twenty-two weeks left until I hit my goal. So, by Christmas I should be there. I should be be very close by my 42nd birthday coming up at the end of October.
That's a very conservative estimate. Knowing what I know now, I think I can speed things up quite a bit by doing a low/no carb diet along with a 23-1 fast every day. I'm currently doing this and I can tell it's going to be huge in terms of effectiveness.
I've also increased my exercise routine. I've stopped going for walks outside of the house so much. I need to do some more of those soon, but sometimes that's not easy to orchestrate. I've relegated myself to my treadmill. I've also increase the incline on my treadmill so that I can keep my heart rate high enough to be considered cardio. That's another factor in all of this, my heart rate. I've dropped my resting heart rate so much that it's becoming increasingly harder to keep it in the cardio range. It's still easy mind you, but my heart rate is actually getting into a more normal area so I have to try harder and harder all the time. It's a good thing, but worth noting.
I don't know what the best solution is for overcoming plateaus, but I can tell you what works for me. I step back and evaluate where I'm at, where I want to go, and what isn't working. I know, without a doubt, that sugar is a terrible thing for me still. I'm pretty sure that my body needs much longer than I thought to heal from insulin resistance. I think that any small amount of sugar, even if it's mixed with 24 hours of fasting, is enough to screw up the benefits of fasting, at least for me in my current state. I feel like that won't be the case later on when I've reach my goal weight and I'm no longer insulin resistant. However, right now, I think my main goal should be to defeat the insulin resistance, and the only way to do that is to lose most of this stored fat, increase my cardio fitness, and stay away from the sugars and carbs.
To be honest, it's extremely difficult to stay away from some sugars, namely fruits, because some of those foods have a lot of other positive effects. Blueberries, for instance, are real good for me, but I can't eat them because of their sugar content. Bananas are another good example. I'd love to be able to eat a banana or two for the potassium, but then I'd be breaking my no-sugar rule. Coconut also has a lot of potassium, but again contains more carbs and sugar than I'd like to have in my diet at the moment.
Perhaps I'm being paranoid when it comes to the sugars, but I can say without a doubt that I felt a significant change in my body back in may when I was doing no carbs and no sugars at all. I really need a better name for "no carbs and no sugars". There's probably already one out there, but I'm unaware of it. Leave a comment if you know of a better term.
While I'm on the subject of no carbs and no sugar, I'd like to point out that I'm not talking about "net carbs" like you'd see on a ketogenic diet. I'm talking about ZERO carbs and sugar. I focused on that for three weeks. It was actually pretty awesome. I lost about sixteen pounds during those three weeks. Much of it early on was water weight. Then I plateaued. So I switch from that strict no-carb diet to try intermittent fasting. Now I'm combining them (just started this two days ago in full force).
Sometimes when you hit a plateau, you just have to step back and take a break from your serious diet. You shouldn't fall off the wagon so-to-speak. You should still eat healthy and not gorge yourself, but you should step back and allow yourself to take a break from any super strict diet, especially if you are hitting weight plateaus. I took a few weeks to test new plans, but the whole time I was watching my sugar intake and my calories in general. I definitely didn't stop my diet and then eat 4000 calories in a single day. Well I may have hit 4000 calories in a single day, but I was doing it while fasting most of the day or while exercising enough to burn most of it off.
I think it's important to stick to your diet, but if I'm trying a dietary change and I'm not seeing the results I think I should see, I'll definitely step back and look at things again. I've been posting about this experience over the last couple of weeks, and my conclusion to break this current plateau is to continue my exercise (actually increasing it some) while fasting 23 hours per day and then when I do finally eat, I'm eating no carbs or sugar. That's my dietary plan for the next week. I want to be in the 220s by the end of next week. That could mean 229, but that's still in the 220s. I'm hoping to be more like 222 by the end of next week. We'll see if this plan works.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
My Fitbit Clock Face
Last year I bought a Fitbit Ionic. As soon as I got home I was reading some things about it and realized I could write my own clock face. Being a web developer and seeing that the Fitbit API uses Javascript, HTML, CSS, and SVG, it was a simple transition to create apps for it.
So I create the Y8Z Clock https://gallery.fitbit.com/details/32cd9150-c91c-4597-be83-2da68c447d55
It's nothing fancy, but it had everything that I wanted to see on my clock face. I created it for myself. I added it to the Fitbit app store. I didn't expect anyone to use it, but I've had many support emails about it.
I maintain it for free and because I use it. It has a few options that can be changed on the Fitbit clock face settings page. If you have a Fitbit, check it out. Leave comments here if you have any suggestions. Keep in mind that the development of new enhancements may take a while.
So I create the Y8Z Clock https://gallery.fitbit.com/details/32cd9150-c91c-4597-be83-2da68c447d55
It's nothing fancy, but it had everything that I wanted to see on my clock face. I created it for myself. I added it to the Fitbit app store. I didn't expect anyone to use it, but I've had many support emails about it.
I maintain it for free and because I use it. It has a few options that can be changed on the Fitbit clock face settings page. If you have a Fitbit, check it out. Leave comments here if you have any suggestions. Keep in mind that the development of new enhancements may take a while.
Water Intake
The other day I saw a cool new water bottle in Target. The price was kinda steep, but it may be worth it. It's called a Hidrate Spark. The gimmick with the Hidrate Spark is that it helps you track your water intake. You install their app. You calibrate the bottle. It uses two CR2023 batteries. It connects to your app via bluetooth, and it reports your water intake. It's pretty simple. You can connect the app to other fitness apps, like Fitbit. So I can easily track my water intake in my Fitbit app now. It cost $45. If you are wanting an easy way to track your water intake, it's definitely a good water bottle for that.
I have only been using it for two days. So far I've been lagging behind in my water intake. My goal is set to around 114 ounces. That is a lot of water to get down in a day.
Today, I was a little behind in steps, and I was running low on hours before midnight. We also had fireworks in town. I ended up getting in a twenty-three hours fast. I made my "feeding" window one hour today. After I ate, I gave myself about 20 minutes before I jumped on the treadmill. I had about thirty minutes before midnight to walk and get in as many steps as I could. I ended up getting around 8200. I kept going till around 2:00 am. My total was two hours and twenty minutes. It's 3:30 am and I have 13,500 steps already for the day. I'm going to get in another two hours this evening and shoot for 25,000 steps today.
I've never been an exerciser. I used to run a bit back in my twenties, but I hurt my left ankle and gave it up. I spent my latter twenties and all of my thirties gaining weight and being pretty inactive. I have a lot of stored energy. Well that's one way to put it anyway.
So, I'm working on getting my water intake up. I thought I was drinking a lot more, but this bottle is telling me different. Also, my first calibration of the bottle made it report the wrong amount of water. It was nearly triple the actual intake. So I had to recalibrate it. After that it seems to work perfectly.
I have only been using it for two days. So far I've been lagging behind in my water intake. My goal is set to around 114 ounces. That is a lot of water to get down in a day.
Today, I was a little behind in steps, and I was running low on hours before midnight. We also had fireworks in town. I ended up getting in a twenty-three hours fast. I made my "feeding" window one hour today. After I ate, I gave myself about 20 minutes before I jumped on the treadmill. I had about thirty minutes before midnight to walk and get in as many steps as I could. I ended up getting around 8200. I kept going till around 2:00 am. My total was two hours and twenty minutes. It's 3:30 am and I have 13,500 steps already for the day. I'm going to get in another two hours this evening and shoot for 25,000 steps today.
I've never been an exerciser. I used to run a bit back in my twenties, but I hurt my left ankle and gave it up. I spent my latter twenties and all of my thirties gaining weight and being pretty inactive. I have a lot of stored energy. Well that's one way to put it anyway.
So, I'm working on getting my water intake up. I thought I was drinking a lot more, but this bottle is telling me different. Also, my first calibration of the bottle made it report the wrong amount of water. It was nearly triple the actual intake. So I had to recalibrate it. After that it seems to work perfectly.
Thursday, June 27, 2019
Twenty Pounds Down
I weighed in this morning 20.2 pounds less than where I was on May 12th. Most of that weight was lost in the first two weeks of keto. I've been slowly losing the rest with fasting and time-restricted eating. I'm really focusing on the time-restricted eating, but I should also incorporate more Atkins/Keto concepts as well. I've allowed myself to have more sugar and carbs than I should. It has kept me from losing another ten pounds probably. I think I'm doing pretty good for the time being. I'm slowly losing fat and my endurance for exercise has increased.
Speaking of exercise, I've been doing a lot more of that lately, and it's more intensive exercise. I'm gradually building up to full on jogging. I try to walk fast and jog intermittently. I usually keep this up for about an hour and a half straight. My heart rate usually stays above 120. When I jog it's more like 160 or 180. I like to try to sustain a heart rate of 130 or more when I'm on the treadmill. When I walk or hike outside, I take a day pack and just enjoy nature. I still keep my heart rate up, but it's more about having a good walk than working myself hard.
Twenty pounds isn't a lot. Twenty-five pounds will be a 10% loss from where I was when I started. My goal is to get down to 165 or 170. I still have about seventy more pounds. If I'm going to do that before my birthday, I need to step it up. It may be time to start alternate day fasting. I'm going to do time-restricted eating for another week, and if I don't see significant loss by then, I'm going to switch to alternate day fasting for sure. That will be difficult, but I think I can do it.
If all else fails, I'll go back to a strict no carbs diet. That worked well for the first three weeks. I'm mainly concerned with my metabolic rate. I want to speed it along as much as possible. I worry that fasting will slow my metabolism. However, I've not given time-restricted eating much of a chance to impress me. I've only started doing it. I'm just extremely skeptical of its benefits. I especially don't think that it'll result in weight loss, or I should say "fat loss."
I suspect that I will not lose as much on it as I did on keto. The version of keto I was doing was extreme, and losing weight on it was inevitable. If all else fails, I'll go back to that. It's so strict that it seems unnecessary, and if I went with an actual keto diet, I'd have to track so many things, I'd just give up. For now, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
Time-restricted eating is a somewhat new concept that is based on circadian rhythms. The idea is that you only eat during a small window of time during the day. I'm going to spend the next few days reading some of the scientific studies on the subject and seeing what have been discovered.
Speaking of exercise, I've been doing a lot more of that lately, and it's more intensive exercise. I'm gradually building up to full on jogging. I try to walk fast and jog intermittently. I usually keep this up for about an hour and a half straight. My heart rate usually stays above 120. When I jog it's more like 160 or 180. I like to try to sustain a heart rate of 130 or more when I'm on the treadmill. When I walk or hike outside, I take a day pack and just enjoy nature. I still keep my heart rate up, but it's more about having a good walk than working myself hard.
Twenty pounds isn't a lot. Twenty-five pounds will be a 10% loss from where I was when I started. My goal is to get down to 165 or 170. I still have about seventy more pounds. If I'm going to do that before my birthday, I need to step it up. It may be time to start alternate day fasting. I'm going to do time-restricted eating for another week, and if I don't see significant loss by then, I'm going to switch to alternate day fasting for sure. That will be difficult, but I think I can do it.
If all else fails, I'll go back to a strict no carbs diet. That worked well for the first three weeks. I'm mainly concerned with my metabolic rate. I want to speed it along as much as possible. I worry that fasting will slow my metabolism. However, I've not given time-restricted eating much of a chance to impress me. I've only started doing it. I'm just extremely skeptical of its benefits. I especially don't think that it'll result in weight loss, or I should say "fat loss."
I suspect that I will not lose as much on it as I did on keto. The version of keto I was doing was extreme, and losing weight on it was inevitable. If all else fails, I'll go back to that. It's so strict that it seems unnecessary, and if I went with an actual keto diet, I'd have to track so many things, I'd just give up. For now, I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
Time-restricted eating is a somewhat new concept that is based on circadian rhythms. The idea is that you only eat during a small window of time during the day. I'm going to spend the next few days reading some of the scientific studies on the subject and seeing what have been discovered.
Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Current Weight Loss Goal and Plan of Attack
May 12, 2019 I weighed 256.7 pounds. This was the most I've ever weighed. Today I'm down to 239.0 pounds. I'm pushing my way to -20 pounds, but as insulin resistant as I am, it's very hard to take off weight. Yesterday, I walked five miles on a river hike and then in the evening I did another three and a half miles on the treadmill. I ran half a mile of that.
I've read that you produce more HGH if you have intermittent high-intensity exercise, so I've been running for a tenth of a mile, walking two tenths of a mile, running a tenth of a mile, etc during my treadmill exercise. This gives me an hour or so of cardio. I'm actually just amazed at this stage that I'm able to run that much without passing out.
I've noticed a significant increase in my ability to do activities, especially cardio. I don't feel that walking a couple miles per day helps a lot, but I don't think it hurt either. So I'm upping my goals. My current step goal for a day is 12,500. That's around five or six miles. If I do intermittent running during that, I can burn around 3500 calories per day easy. I'm trying to up that number to 5000 calories per day.
I'm currently eating once per day. I would also refer to this as a 20/4 fast. I go twenty hours without eating and then allow myself to eat in a four hour window. This is usually pretty easy for me to do, since I spent three weeks of no carbs or sugar. Those three weeks reset a lot of things in my system, and one of the biggest things is that it lowered my hunger nearly to none at all.
Usually, I will get hungry about two times during my twenty hour fast. Yesterday, I had my ruck sack loaded with low carb/sugar snacks, but I didn't eat any of them. I was hungry at one point on the hike, but I consciously stopped myself from indulging. So I was able to wait till 5 o'clock in the evening before I had anything to eat. I hadn't had anything since around 9 pm the previous day so I had my twenty hours with no food.
My one meal per day is currently not the healthiest choices. Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible. I typically avoid high carbs though I probably need to roll it back a bit. I'm not trying to get myself into ketosis at that point so I'm not worried about following a Keto diet during my one-meal-a-day.
Yesterday my favorite diner was serving broccoli casserole, which I love. They only serve it one day per week so I had two sides of that. I had chicken fingers with honey mustard. I had mac & cheese. I had a roll. I had collard greens. Finally, I had half/half sweet/unsweet tea. So the mac & cheese, roll, and the tea were not the best of choices, but I only get to eat once per day so I try to enjoy it.
At that point in the day, I'd already reached my step goal for the day. Around 9pm I decided to try to get another few miles, so I jumped on the treadmill and stayed on it for just over an hour. When I was finished my hunger pains were getting strong, so I allowed myself to have a banana.
Let me step back and make an excuse for myself here. I'm not in a rush to lose weight. I'm currently experimenting with a lot of different diet ideas. However, the three weeks I spent without carbs and sugar corrected a major problem I had with eating certain foods.
The three foods that I couldn't eat prior to those three weeks were mushrooms, avocado, and bananas. Those three foods used to hurt my stomach horribly. A Claritin taken about an hour prior to eating would help me avoid this pain in the past, but I didn't like to risk it. Basically, I'd be doubled over for about three hours feeling like I was getting kicked in the stomach.
I love bananas, avocados, and mushrooms. Realizing that I could eat them again thrilled me. So I take every opportunity to indulge in those foods as I can at the moment. Last Sunday, for example, I ate a lot of fried mushrooms during my one-meal-a-day.
Should I be eating them? Probably not. I should go back to no carbs/sugars for a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping that intermittent fasting will be a better solution. The only thing I'm really concentrating on right now is the calorie in and calorie out aspect. When I eat 2000 calories in a day, I want to make sure I'm burning at least double that. It's a slow and steady race that I'm running. I don't care if it takes me six months or a year to get down to 170 lbs. The goal is to get down there, not race to it. I'd rather increase my activity to get faster results.
I should reiterate that DIET is the key to fat loss and changing yourself physically. Exercise is about twenty percent of the recipe. Diet is every bit of eighty percent of it. You absolutely have to set goals for yourself. For me, one of my goals is to enjoy foods when I get a chance, and to consciously limit myself every chance I can.
I don't alway do the right thing. I'm not perfect. I'm striving for perfection on my diet. I'm definitely not hitting it, but that's okay. I may spend a whole week fasting soon and take care of a lot of my weight in one go. Who knows. I just know that I need to enjoy my new lifestyle the best I can. If having a banana because I can eat them again after a decade of not being able to is a bad thing, then I screwed up. I just think it's reasonable to have the banana. Do I need the fructose? Definitely not! However, four months ago I was drinking about 90 ounces of Coke per day and eating whatever I wanted and not exercising at all. So, I think I'm on the right track and it's best not to get discouraged.
I've read that you produce more HGH if you have intermittent high-intensity exercise, so I've been running for a tenth of a mile, walking two tenths of a mile, running a tenth of a mile, etc during my treadmill exercise. This gives me an hour or so of cardio. I'm actually just amazed at this stage that I'm able to run that much without passing out.
I've noticed a significant increase in my ability to do activities, especially cardio. I don't feel that walking a couple miles per day helps a lot, but I don't think it hurt either. So I'm upping my goals. My current step goal for a day is 12,500. That's around five or six miles. If I do intermittent running during that, I can burn around 3500 calories per day easy. I'm trying to up that number to 5000 calories per day.
I'm currently eating once per day. I would also refer to this as a 20/4 fast. I go twenty hours without eating and then allow myself to eat in a four hour window. This is usually pretty easy for me to do, since I spent three weeks of no carbs or sugar. Those three weeks reset a lot of things in my system, and one of the biggest things is that it lowered my hunger nearly to none at all.
Usually, I will get hungry about two times during my twenty hour fast. Yesterday, I had my ruck sack loaded with low carb/sugar snacks, but I didn't eat any of them. I was hungry at one point on the hike, but I consciously stopped myself from indulging. So I was able to wait till 5 o'clock in the evening before I had anything to eat. I hadn't had anything since around 9 pm the previous day so I had my twenty hours with no food.
My one meal per day is currently not the healthiest choices. Don't get me wrong, it's not terrible. I typically avoid high carbs though I probably need to roll it back a bit. I'm not trying to get myself into ketosis at that point so I'm not worried about following a Keto diet during my one-meal-a-day.
Yesterday my favorite diner was serving broccoli casserole, which I love. They only serve it one day per week so I had two sides of that. I had chicken fingers with honey mustard. I had mac & cheese. I had a roll. I had collard greens. Finally, I had half/half sweet/unsweet tea. So the mac & cheese, roll, and the tea were not the best of choices, but I only get to eat once per day so I try to enjoy it.
At that point in the day, I'd already reached my step goal for the day. Around 9pm I decided to try to get another few miles, so I jumped on the treadmill and stayed on it for just over an hour. When I was finished my hunger pains were getting strong, so I allowed myself to have a banana.
Let me step back and make an excuse for myself here. I'm not in a rush to lose weight. I'm currently experimenting with a lot of different diet ideas. However, the three weeks I spent without carbs and sugar corrected a major problem I had with eating certain foods.
The three foods that I couldn't eat prior to those three weeks were mushrooms, avocado, and bananas. Those three foods used to hurt my stomach horribly. A Claritin taken about an hour prior to eating would help me avoid this pain in the past, but I didn't like to risk it. Basically, I'd be doubled over for about three hours feeling like I was getting kicked in the stomach.
I love bananas, avocados, and mushrooms. Realizing that I could eat them again thrilled me. So I take every opportunity to indulge in those foods as I can at the moment. Last Sunday, for example, I ate a lot of fried mushrooms during my one-meal-a-day.
Should I be eating them? Probably not. I should go back to no carbs/sugars for a couple of weeks, but I'm hoping that intermittent fasting will be a better solution. The only thing I'm really concentrating on right now is the calorie in and calorie out aspect. When I eat 2000 calories in a day, I want to make sure I'm burning at least double that. It's a slow and steady race that I'm running. I don't care if it takes me six months or a year to get down to 170 lbs. The goal is to get down there, not race to it. I'd rather increase my activity to get faster results.
I should reiterate that DIET is the key to fat loss and changing yourself physically. Exercise is about twenty percent of the recipe. Diet is every bit of eighty percent of it. You absolutely have to set goals for yourself. For me, one of my goals is to enjoy foods when I get a chance, and to consciously limit myself every chance I can.
I don't alway do the right thing. I'm not perfect. I'm striving for perfection on my diet. I'm definitely not hitting it, but that's okay. I may spend a whole week fasting soon and take care of a lot of my weight in one go. Who knows. I just know that I need to enjoy my new lifestyle the best I can. If having a banana because I can eat them again after a decade of not being able to is a bad thing, then I screwed up. I just think it's reasonable to have the banana. Do I need the fructose? Definitely not! However, four months ago I was drinking about 90 ounces of Coke per day and eating whatever I wanted and not exercising at all. So, I think I'm on the right track and it's best not to get discouraged.
Monday, June 24, 2019
My Activity Level Changes
I made the decision to increase my activity level back about five months ago. I had been tracking a lot of my health stats for almost a year with my Fitbit Ionic. So, I was able to start with a good baseline.
I was also able to track how effective exercise is compared to diet and exercise combined. When I started my "healthier me" journey, I didn't want to change my diet. I honestly didn't feel like I was eating badly. I felt like I could fix myself more if I just started exercising.
At first my exercise wasn't that extreme. I just wanted to get over 10,000 steps per day. So, I started walking in parks and my treadmill. The only part of my diet that I changed was that I stopped drinking Cokes, which I was consuming at a rate of roughly 20 ounces per day. I changed over to all water with the occasional sweet tea or Coke.
Also, being from the south, most sodas are called "Coke" here as a generic term, but I'm literally referring to Coke as a brand. I don't like "diet" drinks because artificial sweeteners all affect me badly and I don't trust them. I preferred real cane sugar sodas but those are usually more expensive and I was almost to the point where I was physically addicted to Coke.
Even though I cut out soda and started walking regularly, I wasn't losing weight. I actually gained about five pounds over the course of three months doing this. Here's why I think this is the case. When you are overweight like I was (and still am), starting to exercise has the negative affect of adding to your hunger. Don't get me wrong, exercise is great for you no matter when you start doing it. However, if you start exercising before you change your diet, you will end up eating more. Your body burns more energy straight from your food, so you eat more.
It's as simple as that. If you want to seriously get benefits from exercise, you have to also change your diet. Making both of those changes at the same time seems way more beneficial to me. If nothing else, I would change my diet before I started exercise, if I was advising someone else about it. The dietary change can zap your energy at first, but it is a necessary change if you want to significantly change your health.
Furthermore, the diet change is important to get your body to burn the correct energy sources during exercise. I don't think that I've accomplished this yet, but with enough commitment in diet, I will be able to train my body to use stored body fat for energy. The positive thing I have going for me right now is that my food intake is way below my caloric usage. I'm burning close to 3800 calories per day on average. On days that I jog, I can get this number well over 4000. CICO works, but you have to really focus on CI in a way that doesn't feel like torture.
My biggest recommendation when it comes to "calories in" is to get carbs/sugar completely out of your diet for at least three weeks. Don't cheat. If you cheat just a little bit, you'll ruin the effect that you are trying to achieve. Don't try this if you are under a doctor's care or have known issues with your glucose levels. If you are taking medications for anything like this, don't listen to me. I'm talking about anyone who is traveling down the road toward type 2 diabetes.
Insulin resistance is real. I haven't went to the doctor and been diagnosed with it, but my Google MD chops show me that I've been insulin resistant for quite some time. My skin was developing dark patches around my neck. I kept gaining body fat. I felt hungry all the time. If you are in this situation, you should research insulin resistance and how to reverse it. It takes an extreme change in your diet to make it happen, but I'm confident that once I have that fixed, I'll have a lot less issues with my health.
I'm down nearly twenty pounds from when I started my journey. Today I'm going for a nine mile backcountry hike at dawn. I'm loading my day pack with about twenty pounds, including water and some emergency items. This means that I'll be carrying my start weight with me through the woods. I will probably burn 5000+ calories today and most of that will occur before noon. Then I'll come home and get at least eight hours of sedentary coding work done.
It's hard to fit a lot of activity like this into busy lifestyles. I will touch on this subject in future posts.
To Coffee or Not To Coffee
A year ago, I would wake up and have coffee and Coke. I would get my caffeine from a cold drink and a hot drink all at once. Mainly, I don't like super hot coffee. I let it cool for about fifteen minutes before I start drinking it. I'm not alone in thinking coffee is too hot. That's one of the main reasons most people I know drink their coffee with cream.
I prefer my coffee black, so I let it cool down instead of adding creamer to cool it down instantly. I know people who add a little cold water to their coffee as well, but I don't like to dilute it.
On a low carb/sugar diet, it's okay to have black coffee. You just can't add sugar or creamer to it. From what I've read, coffee, by itself, is a great way to give your metabolism a kick. Personally, since I started eating better, I have noticed that coffee doesn't affect me the same way it used to. Maybe I'm not drinking as much or maybe it is another of the changes that have occurred in my body.
Coffee used to mess with my stomach if I drank it on an empty stomach. It seemed to increase the intensity of my hunger. Since I've gotten rid of a lot of those hunger feelings, I don't notice this affect so much.
If you must add something to your coffee, I highly suggest MCT oil. It's pretty expensive but it is great on Keto and tastes great in coffee. I would describe it as making coffee smooth. A twenty or so ounce bottle of MCT oil runs about $20 in my area, but it only takes a tablespoon full or so in your coffee. MCT oil is a great source of fat calories in your Keto diet. Getting the fat percentage into your diet seems to be one of the biggest challenges to the Keto diet. Adding MCT oil to your coffee goes a long way at solving this problem.
I prefer my coffee black, so I let it cool down instead of adding creamer to cool it down instantly. I know people who add a little cold water to their coffee as well, but I don't like to dilute it.
On a low carb/sugar diet, it's okay to have black coffee. You just can't add sugar or creamer to it. From what I've read, coffee, by itself, is a great way to give your metabolism a kick. Personally, since I started eating better, I have noticed that coffee doesn't affect me the same way it used to. Maybe I'm not drinking as much or maybe it is another of the changes that have occurred in my body.
Coffee used to mess with my stomach if I drank it on an empty stomach. It seemed to increase the intensity of my hunger. Since I've gotten rid of a lot of those hunger feelings, I don't notice this affect so much.
If you must add something to your coffee, I highly suggest MCT oil. It's pretty expensive but it is great on Keto and tastes great in coffee. I would describe it as making coffee smooth. A twenty or so ounce bottle of MCT oil runs about $20 in my area, but it only takes a tablespoon full or so in your coffee. MCT oil is a great source of fat calories in your Keto diet. Getting the fat percentage into your diet seems to be one of the biggest challenges to the Keto diet. Adding MCT oil to your coffee goes a long way at solving this problem.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
The Hardest Foods to Quit on Keto and Atkins
Quitting carbs cold turkey is pretty difficult at first for many of us. We have been taught for a long time that we have to have carbs to have energy. I'm pretty sure that the eating suggestions we've had most of our life were wrong. We were told to avoid cholesterol and fats, but when I was growing up it wasn't normal to hear people bad-mouthing carbs. Sugar, on the other hand, has been universally bad-mouthed as long as I've been alive. However, sugar is much worse than we've been told.
We've all been told that sugar will rot your teeth and give you diabetes, but no one told me that sugar was physically as bad for your body as drinking alcohol. Drinking a glass of wine per day is fine. Drinking two bottles of wine per day is terrible. A few fruits in your diet may be good for you, but eating a whole chocolate cake along with ice cream, not so much. Cake and fruit both have sugar, but the amount you intake has a significant impact on your health.
Over the years I've developed insulin resistance. It's not surprising. Of the contributing factors which lead to insulin resistance, I was guilty of most: excess body weight, belly fat, lack of exercise, smoking and low amounts of sleep. All of those factors contributed to my insulin resistance. So if you are insulin resistant like me, you should immediately cut your carbs/sugar intake, and here are foods that you have to avoid completely:
- Sodas
- Breads
- Potatoes
- Anything with sugar, including sneaky things like ketchup and BBQ sauce.
- Beer
- Fruits
- Rice
There are many other foods that you can't eat when you are avoiding carbs. Carbs are in just about everything. There are some foods that are completely free of carbs. For example, pork rinds are all protein and fat. On a Keto diet you have to eat a lot more fat than you are probably used to consuming. Butter is all fat. Bacon is all protein and fat. Most cheeses are protein and fat. Cutting out the carbs gets easier after a few days, especially if you are snacking on protein and fat any time you get hungry. Eventually you stop being hungry.
For me, the driving force behind my hungry was my sugar/carb intake.
Hello, World! Rather, Hello to a Healthier Life!
It's been some time since I was actively blogging. I have spent a couple of years away from it entirely, due to personal issues. I'm coming back to it as a way to record some of the lifestyle changes I'm making. I hope that some these post will be an inspiration to others on their journey to a more healthy life.
I've made great improvements to my live over the last couple of years. Between the fall of 2016 and the fall of 2017, I was dealing with a turbulent relationship and the ending of my thirteen year marriage. I was left completely heartbroken and confused about a lot of things. At the beginning of 2018, my divorce finalized and I was extremely depressed. I wasn't eating much. I was smoking more than I'd ever smoked before (around two packs a day). I was sleeping four hours per day. My weight went from 240 down to 213, which normally would be a good thing, but was the result of not eating, smoking a lot, and pacing many hours per day in a stressed filled depression.
So even though I was down to 213 lbs, I didn't feel good or look good. Also, 213 is not a huge improvement. It's still about 50 lbs more than my ideal weight. Starting in the summer of 2018, I started to improve my life and health in steps. The first step was to quit drinking. Though I didn't drink a lot, it was still necessary to quit drinking beer in order for me to continue to the next stage. It's very easy for me to not drink. I have never had a problem with alcohol. I don't like to drink very much anyway. That was simple to quit.
The next step was to quit smoking. This was the hardest step of all. I quit smoking once before in 2008 and that lasted until 2011. So I had fully quit for three years not long ago. I started back because I lived with a spouse who also smoked, and she had no problem lighting one up around me. So eventually I couldn't stand it and had to light one up myself.
When I quit in 2008, I used the prescription medication Chantix. I had huge success with it back then and felt like I could use it again with similar success. The second time around, it was much more difficult. I'm not sure if they changed the amount of the actual drug in the prescription over the years, but it didn't seem to be near as potent. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. When I used it in 2008 to quit, I had a ton of side-effects, such as weird dreams and strange sensations in my head.
So in August of 2018, I started taking Chantix. Back in 2008, I had taken the medication for about two weeks, and that's all it took to quit. This time I had to take it for two months. Even then, it felt more like quitting cold turkey. I was almost not able to quit, but I did it. My last cigarette was on August 18, 2018.
I knew that quitting smoking would increase my appetite and weight. I was expecting that. I also used certain foods to curtail my cigarette cravings. At first it was chips. This wasn't a healthy choice of course, but I rationalized that it was better than smoking. Another thing that happened after I quit smoking was that I stopped walking so much. I had been going outside to smoke, and I would pace the entire time I was smoking. Sometimes this would be for an hour or so. That's a lot of walking. So when I quit smoking, I also inadvertently quit walking, which meant that I was burning way less calories.
I soon switched from chips to yogurt. I did this primarily in an attempt to fix some stomach issues I was experiencing. The yogurt helped the stomach issues, but added a ton of sugar and carbs to my diet. I gained weight fast.
By the beginning of 2019, I was over 240 pounds. The third and final food that I used to curtail my cigarette cravings was apples. The only reason I had for that was that they are better for me than yogurt somewhat and I was on an apple kick.
By May of 2019, I had reached 256.7 pounds. The heaviest I've ever weighed. Some people would love to get down to 256.7 pounds, but for me this was moving too close to 300. The sad thing is that I had increased my activity. I had been walking nearly every day for two months trying to slow or reverse the increase in weight, but the additional exercise didn't seem to have a profound effect on this weight gain. So on May 12, I started a 0 carb diet. I cut all sugar out of my diet along with all breads, potatoes, etc. Anything with a single carb, I would not touch. The first three days of doing this were rough. I had no energy. I was dead tired and slept a bunch. However, after that third day, I was full of energy.
I told people that I was on a Keto diet but that was only partially true. I wanted to get into ketosis, but I wasn't tracking my micros and macros. I wasn't tracking my ketone levels. I wasn't tracking anything but my weight. It dropped about ten pounds the first week. I continued this 0 carb diet for three weeks. Where most people measure their carbs by "net carbs", meaning they subtract things like grams of dietary fiber and grams of sugar alcohols, I was strictly measuring it as gross carbs. I wasn't eating any carbs. I wasn't using sweeteners or anything. If I was hungry, I'd have some pork rinds or avocado or a hamburger without the bun.
Going "no carb" was a revelation for me. I realized a few things about my body that I hadn't realized before. The main thing I realized was that sugars and carbs increase my appetite/hunger significantly. I should describe hunger a bit first. Before I started this "diet" my hunger was ferocious. When I got hungry, it literally felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself. It was a strong pain. What I didn't realize was that this huge amount of pain that I felt during hunger was a direct result of eating a lot of carbs/sugar. I suspect that it was more related to sugar than just carbs, but what I know for certain is that cutting out carbs and sugar completely, almost removed all hunger from my life. I found myself going most of the day without even getting hungry a little.
As long as I fed myself protein or fat when I felt a little hungry, I rarely would feel hungry. It changed my life. Just that one little change was enough to change my eating habits. I never ate what I considered a ton of sweets, but I suddenly was afraid of sweet foods. I didn't want to touch deserts or anything with sugar because I didn't want to start getting hungry like I used to. I tested this enough to know that it was the truth too.
After my three weeks of 'no carbs' I started what basically amounts to a OMAD (one meal a day) diet. I usually eat once a day and fast around 22 hours. This isn't always the case, and I've allowed myself to have some sweet things, but when I do I feel it the next day in hunger pains.
So it has been a month and 11 days since I started my new lifestyle. I walk more than I was before. I also incorporate as much jogging into my walks as I can. My family and I go on a lot of hikes and walks together. I've lost 20 pounds. Well, I was 237.3 pounds when I weighed in this morning. So that's technically 19.6 pounds. It's not a huge drop for 42 days, but it's still decent. I'm mainly focused on dropping fat and inches. I've definitely felt the difference in the way my clothes fit. I have also noticed stretch marks appearing around my love handle region. I feel a lot slimmer and my family tell me that I'm looking a lot slimmer.
Another significant change which has already occurred is my heart rate. Before I started this "diet" my resting heart rate was at a terrible 80 bpm average. It was as high at 87 some days prior to the diet change. I know this because I always wear my Fitbit Ionic. Over the last 42 days, my resting heart rate has dropped to around 64 bpm. That's significant. I can look down at my watch when I'm reading a book and my heart rate will be 50 at times. I've not seen a heart rate like that for at least a decade.
My goal weight is 165. I plan to start weight training and exercising a lot more in general after I get my weight below 200. I'm doing that because walking/jogging is hard on your feet and knees, especially if you are overweight. I know from experience that running too much when you are overweight can damage your joints and such. I have a left ankle that pops every other step due to an injury I had back in 2004 when I was jogging at just over 200 pounds. I would prefer to not jog until I'm down to 180, but I'm already jogging for 0.1 mile sprints during my walks. I do that mainly because I've read that intermittent high intensity exercise followed by low intensity exercise helps drive up HGH production, and I can use all of that I can get.
Tonight/This morning, I walked five miles. I did five sprints of 0.1 miles each, giving me one half of a mile jogged out of five miles. That's not bad for a 41 year old overweight guy who just quit smoking last year after smoking for over 20 years.
I have discovered a lot in the last two years that I wished I'd known when I was 21. It's actually quite ridiculous that I'm just now learning some of these lessons.
I've made great improvements to my live over the last couple of years. Between the fall of 2016 and the fall of 2017, I was dealing with a turbulent relationship and the ending of my thirteen year marriage. I was left completely heartbroken and confused about a lot of things. At the beginning of 2018, my divorce finalized and I was extremely depressed. I wasn't eating much. I was smoking more than I'd ever smoked before (around two packs a day). I was sleeping four hours per day. My weight went from 240 down to 213, which normally would be a good thing, but was the result of not eating, smoking a lot, and pacing many hours per day in a stressed filled depression.
So even though I was down to 213 lbs, I didn't feel good or look good. Also, 213 is not a huge improvement. It's still about 50 lbs more than my ideal weight. Starting in the summer of 2018, I started to improve my life and health in steps. The first step was to quit drinking. Though I didn't drink a lot, it was still necessary to quit drinking beer in order for me to continue to the next stage. It's very easy for me to not drink. I have never had a problem with alcohol. I don't like to drink very much anyway. That was simple to quit.
The next step was to quit smoking. This was the hardest step of all. I quit smoking once before in 2008 and that lasted until 2011. So I had fully quit for three years not long ago. I started back because I lived with a spouse who also smoked, and she had no problem lighting one up around me. So eventually I couldn't stand it and had to light one up myself.
When I quit in 2008, I used the prescription medication Chantix. I had huge success with it back then and felt like I could use it again with similar success. The second time around, it was much more difficult. I'm not sure if they changed the amount of the actual drug in the prescription over the years, but it didn't seem to be near as potent. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. When I used it in 2008 to quit, I had a ton of side-effects, such as weird dreams and strange sensations in my head.
So in August of 2018, I started taking Chantix. Back in 2008, I had taken the medication for about two weeks, and that's all it took to quit. This time I had to take it for two months. Even then, it felt more like quitting cold turkey. I was almost not able to quit, but I did it. My last cigarette was on August 18, 2018.
I knew that quitting smoking would increase my appetite and weight. I was expecting that. I also used certain foods to curtail my cigarette cravings. At first it was chips. This wasn't a healthy choice of course, but I rationalized that it was better than smoking. Another thing that happened after I quit smoking was that I stopped walking so much. I had been going outside to smoke, and I would pace the entire time I was smoking. Sometimes this would be for an hour or so. That's a lot of walking. So when I quit smoking, I also inadvertently quit walking, which meant that I was burning way less calories.
I soon switched from chips to yogurt. I did this primarily in an attempt to fix some stomach issues I was experiencing. The yogurt helped the stomach issues, but added a ton of sugar and carbs to my diet. I gained weight fast.
By the beginning of 2019, I was over 240 pounds. The third and final food that I used to curtail my cigarette cravings was apples. The only reason I had for that was that they are better for me than yogurt somewhat and I was on an apple kick.
By May of 2019, I had reached 256.7 pounds. The heaviest I've ever weighed. Some people would love to get down to 256.7 pounds, but for me this was moving too close to 300. The sad thing is that I had increased my activity. I had been walking nearly every day for two months trying to slow or reverse the increase in weight, but the additional exercise didn't seem to have a profound effect on this weight gain. So on May 12, I started a 0 carb diet. I cut all sugar out of my diet along with all breads, potatoes, etc. Anything with a single carb, I would not touch. The first three days of doing this were rough. I had no energy. I was dead tired and slept a bunch. However, after that third day, I was full of energy.
I told people that I was on a Keto diet but that was only partially true. I wanted to get into ketosis, but I wasn't tracking my micros and macros. I wasn't tracking my ketone levels. I wasn't tracking anything but my weight. It dropped about ten pounds the first week. I continued this 0 carb diet for three weeks. Where most people measure their carbs by "net carbs", meaning they subtract things like grams of dietary fiber and grams of sugar alcohols, I was strictly measuring it as gross carbs. I wasn't eating any carbs. I wasn't using sweeteners or anything. If I was hungry, I'd have some pork rinds or avocado or a hamburger without the bun.
Going "no carb" was a revelation for me. I realized a few things about my body that I hadn't realized before. The main thing I realized was that sugars and carbs increase my appetite/hunger significantly. I should describe hunger a bit first. Before I started this "diet" my hunger was ferocious. When I got hungry, it literally felt like my stomach was trying to eat itself. It was a strong pain. What I didn't realize was that this huge amount of pain that I felt during hunger was a direct result of eating a lot of carbs/sugar. I suspect that it was more related to sugar than just carbs, but what I know for certain is that cutting out carbs and sugar completely, almost removed all hunger from my life. I found myself going most of the day without even getting hungry a little.
As long as I fed myself protein or fat when I felt a little hungry, I rarely would feel hungry. It changed my life. Just that one little change was enough to change my eating habits. I never ate what I considered a ton of sweets, but I suddenly was afraid of sweet foods. I didn't want to touch deserts or anything with sugar because I didn't want to start getting hungry like I used to. I tested this enough to know that it was the truth too.
After my three weeks of 'no carbs' I started what basically amounts to a OMAD (one meal a day) diet. I usually eat once a day and fast around 22 hours. This isn't always the case, and I've allowed myself to have some sweet things, but when I do I feel it the next day in hunger pains.
So it has been a month and 11 days since I started my new lifestyle. I walk more than I was before. I also incorporate as much jogging into my walks as I can. My family and I go on a lot of hikes and walks together. I've lost 20 pounds. Well, I was 237.3 pounds when I weighed in this morning. So that's technically 19.6 pounds. It's not a huge drop for 42 days, but it's still decent. I'm mainly focused on dropping fat and inches. I've definitely felt the difference in the way my clothes fit. I have also noticed stretch marks appearing around my love handle region. I feel a lot slimmer and my family tell me that I'm looking a lot slimmer.
Another significant change which has already occurred is my heart rate. Before I started this "diet" my resting heart rate was at a terrible 80 bpm average. It was as high at 87 some days prior to the diet change. I know this because I always wear my Fitbit Ionic. Over the last 42 days, my resting heart rate has dropped to around 64 bpm. That's significant. I can look down at my watch when I'm reading a book and my heart rate will be 50 at times. I've not seen a heart rate like that for at least a decade.
My goal weight is 165. I plan to start weight training and exercising a lot more in general after I get my weight below 200. I'm doing that because walking/jogging is hard on your feet and knees, especially if you are overweight. I know from experience that running too much when you are overweight can damage your joints and such. I have a left ankle that pops every other step due to an injury I had back in 2004 when I was jogging at just over 200 pounds. I would prefer to not jog until I'm down to 180, but I'm already jogging for 0.1 mile sprints during my walks. I do that mainly because I've read that intermittent high intensity exercise followed by low intensity exercise helps drive up HGH production, and I can use all of that I can get.
Tonight/This morning, I walked five miles. I did five sprints of 0.1 miles each, giving me one half of a mile jogged out of five miles. That's not bad for a 41 year old overweight guy who just quit smoking last year after smoking for over 20 years.
I have discovered a lot in the last two years that I wished I'd known when I was 21. It's actually quite ridiculous that I'm just now learning some of these lessons.
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