I am back!

I am starting my diet again. This time for good. I was actually considering waiting for the new year, but that would probably give me an excuse to eat like crazy during Christmas. I am therefore starting today. I might actually lose some weight by the end of the year.

What was I doing for the last year?

Well… I was getting fat I weigh 225 pounds now, which is what I was when I was starting the 30 day challenge.

In fairness I think I’ve simply overdone it. 10 pounds in 30 days is quite a lot. After that effort, it was really difficult to stick to a diet and I went back to my old eating habits. A year has gone and I have regained all 10 pounds.

Luckily I  did not gain more.

The plan

No splendid plans this time. I will simply lose weight. Slowly and for good. I will give you my weight updates only monthly, so that I am not to stressed about daily changes. If each month there is a little less on the scale, I will be happy.

I am starting today

I already went running today and threw away all the sweets. I will prepare a notepad tomorrow and will start counting calories once again.

Keep your fingers crossed!

I’ll keep you posted.

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Well I’m back

This week the change on the scale was not that significant – 1.7 pounds. This small drop, however, fills the jar and this week I passed the 10 pounds mark on my path to fitness and thinness. Overall I lost 10.1 pounds in 30 days – for me this is a fantastic result.

I also think that I lost much more fat than just 10 pounds, but gained a bit of muscle as well, because my looks changed significantly.

Details

This week was not as easy as the previous one. I had some really difficult moments and on Thursday I actually exceeded my calorie intake, and instead of usual 1900 – I ate almost 3000. I decided to treat that day as my re-feed day, so will not be doing one for the next week or so.

Because of huge workload and studies I slept definitely less than I should have. This threw me out of balance with the diet and I started to feel the cravings again. Luckily, I got some good sleep on Friday and yesterday so everything is back to normal J

Exercises

I have a good routine now. I run 3 days a week and do strength training 3 days a week, leaving one day completely free.

Running

I am doing the running programme about which I wrote the other day. I am currently on week 8 (the beginning was a bit below my capability). I also modified the programme a bit, because according to my plan I want to run for 41 minutes rather than 30. So now I run 13 minutes, walk for 2 minutes, run for 13 minutes, walk for 2, then I run 11 minutes and walk home.

Push ups

On the hundred push ups programme I am currently on week 2, day 2, right hand column. Yesterday I did not make it to squeeze out the last 17 and therefore will be repeating the ‘day’ tomorrow. That’s how I do it – if I cannot complete the particular stage, I repeat it every second day until I finally succeed. Then I move to the next day.

Crunches

I do belly crunches on the same days as push ups. As of now, I am able to do one set of 30 and then, after one minute, one set of 20. After that, any further attempts end with cramps of my abdominal muscles – painful and unpleasant. I will have to come up with a better routine for these – sort of like the one with push ups, which works really well. I didn’t find anything on the web though.

Back

I have a sitting job and because of that I used to experience back pains. Two weeks ago I added back exercises to my routine. For that I use a gym ball bought some time ago by my better half. She wanted to exercise

Anyway, now I found a good use for it – I lay on it on my belly, stick my legs under our bed and exercise back muscles by lifting my torso up, so that it gets in line with my legs. I can do around 20 now.

My back pains have vanished after 3 days of these exercises. I am kicking myself now for not trying that earlier.

Enough about exercises….

Pics

As said earlier, the amount of pounds I lost is nowhere near to the progress I’ve really made. You can see that my belly almost stopped sticking out. My old trousers are really lose now (I will have to do some shopping).

What is more, my arms start showing some muscle. I really pushed myself hard on the photo, but before the challenge, I would be nowhere near that.

Despite the improved looks I still have a good layer of fat on myself. It seems to be vanishing particularly quickly form my belly, but there is still quite a lot there, a lot on my lower back where the kidneys are and on the sides. My abs are not showing yet

To be honest though, if my muscles keep growing like that, I am not sure if I will be able to go to 176lbs as I planned, but I’m not changing my goal as yet.

Summary of the challenge

To summarise, I must say that the challenge went perfect. It gave me the initial motivation I needed and I think I should be able to continue by myself from now on. I will be posting updates and pics every two weeks now, so as not to bore you with them.

But keep visiting, I will be detailing my workout routine and will be posting some tips and tricks of weight loss I’ve learned till today.

Congratulations to all contestants

I also want to congratulate other participants of the challenge. You really did a great job and your progress kept me motivated throughout the month. Special congratulations to Jim, who lost 22 pounds during these 30 days. I hope he won’t mind if I link to his photos here.

Beyond the challenge

I hope we are all now loaded with positive energy, which will help us go even further, which will help us reach our ideal weights and stay like that for good.

For those of you who have blogs, I will be visiting to check. Those of you who do not, drop me comments or if you want, I can create a separate page for us on this blog, where I can post updates on your journey to thinness. Let me know.

Good luck to everyone!!!

Matt

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Weight loss challenge – FINISH – 10.1 pounds in 30 days

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Details

At this point I am now quite accustomed to my diet. I don’t feel cravings too often, and even when I do, they’re not that strong. Despite drinking a lot of water, I don’t need to run to the bathroom every couple of minutes.

Exercising routine of running 3 times a week works perfectly – not too much, not too little. I see substantial improvement in the level of my fitness. I don’t come back home tired and do not fall asleep straight after shower. I do strength exercises regularly now. I also started the one hundred push ups programme. The pace suggested there is too quick for me though, so I don’t think I’ll be able to hit a 100 in 6 weeks – I’m aiming for 12 or so.

Re-feed

My re-feed was ok, not to healthy though. I drank some wine on the Friday night party (I managed to avoid beer), ate a proper big dinner and had some sweets. Next time, I’ll organise something better.

Calories

I am keeping my calories below 1900. I won’t be posting the graph anymore, cause they all look the same. If I change anything, I’ll let you know.

What else… oh yes – I feel great!

I feel great

I am not sure if it’s the diet or the exercises, or maybe the combination, but this week I feel so great I can hardly believe it. There are so many positive effects, I’ll actually have to list them:

I have loads of energy and enthusiasm. Getting out of bed is much easier, and I started to like my walk in the morning through the streets of Dublin. Previously, I really just wanted to get to the office.

• My attitude at work is much more positive. I go through the day like a rocket. No problem is too difficult and no workload scares me now. It’s as if I had a volcano of energy within me. Sometimes when I walk, I feel urge to run. I can work and study (I am doing some exams soon) from dusk till dawn and then when I go to bed I don’t really feel that much tired.
• I handle stress much better. Previously stress at work would disarm me, it would impair my ability to think and come up with solutions. Now I don’t even get stressed that much. If difficulties arise, I face them and deal with them.
• I have almost laser-like focus. I can concentrate and stay that way for good couple of hours, what was unthinkable before – everything would distract me. Now I get more done in less time, which also probably reduces stress of which I talked above.
• I don’t need coffee. Until now, I had to have a big mug of strong coffee after lunch. Otherwise I’d risk falling asleep and banging my head against the desk. This week, however, I drank coffee only on Monday and then on Thursday, because I didn’t sleep too much the night before. On other days, I just had a glass or two of water. I don’t feel any decline in energy after lunch.

If any of you saw ‘Wolf’ with Jack Nicholson and the transformation which he goes through – becomes strong, confident, quick – that’s how I feel – as if a giant had awaken within me, or maybe as if a heavy load was taken off my shoulders and dense fog that clouded my mind was blown away. Whatever it is, it feels fantastic and I hope it’s not going to stop. I’ll be updating you on this.

And a thank you

I want to thank all of you who support me in my journey to thinness – it really means a lot to me and helps me through harder moments. So leave comments, ask questions, give me advice – knowing you’re there gives me motivation.

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Week 3 – I kick ass!!

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I must admit though, that after last week I expected much better results today. Anyway, I go down so at least that’s the right direction.

Detailed update

Calories

Nothing new here – I still eat around 1900 calories a day. On Sunday I was exceptionally hungry and had some fruits in the evening which took my calorie intake to 2020.

Cravings

Every once in a while I have substantial cravings for sugar. Even looking at cookies in shops makes my saliva flow. This does not happen every time. Today, for example, I was completely oblivious to the sales of cakes after the Halloween.

Anyway, so far I am hanging in there.

Re-feed

One of my friends is changing a job and on this occasion she is throwing a party to which I am invited. I live in Ireland, where these events usually take place in pubs and in pubs there is always beer. There is no chance I will be able to talk myself out of a pint or two. I decided that I will put my re-feed on hold until then. Otherwise, I’d end up with two re-feeds in one week. Beer has high Gi and will suit well enough as part of my re-feed meal. I will add some healthier food on top of that to give my body a more healthy break.

Exercising

I was running 3 times this week: Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Each time I run 3.1 miles within 41 minutes. I am getting much fitter now and do not come back home as tired as in the beginning. I think that in a week or two, I might actually be able to run for 40 minutes without breaks.

I started to focus more on resistance training. I do push ups and belly crunches every second day now. I usually do 3 series of push ups and after a while 3 series of crunches. I do not have any reasonable targets yet, so I simply try to do as much as I can.

Pics

Here are the pics. You will notice that the major reduction is in my belly. It looks as if I’d lost much more that 5 pounds. I think that the reason for this is shrinking of my stomach. At this point dinner and lunch, which are my two biggest dishes, totally fill me up.

I really feel great with my new look. My trousers are not that tight and I don’t feel that I’m carrying that heavy thing in front of me and already some of my friends noticed the improvement.

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30 day challenge – week 2 update

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The feeling I had today when I stepped on my scale was fantastic. I was really proud of myself. Actually, I still am   I can’t stop smiling when I’m writing this post. I am back on track to getting thin and fit, or better than that – I am on a highway!

Detailed update

Calories

As described in the post about energy deficit, I am staying on 65%-70% of my DCN. Throughout the week I kept my daily calories below 1900. Each day I tried to get as close to 1900 limit as possible without exceeding it. On the right you can see a detailed graph.

You may notice the dip on Thursday. This happened accidentally. I skipped a meal during the day and I completely forgot about it till late afternoon, when I found it in my bag. It was already close to midnight and I was getting ready to go to sleep, so I decided not to eat it – it would just stuff me up. I will try to avoid such situations in future. Going too low with calories has a negative impact on metabolism and impairs the weight loss process.

I had some cravings for food, especially in the beginning of the week. I was getting easily irritated and felt really hungry every once in a while. These sensations, however, were weaker each day and since Thursday or so I feel alright.

Exercising

I was running 3 times this week: Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Each time I run 3 miles within 40 minutes. The distance is good for me. In total it requires around 15 – 20 minutes of actual running, the rest is just quick walking. I am not too fit (yet) so this amount of cardio is sufficient to make me sweat.

Apart from running, I did some belly crunches and push ups – nothing spectacular. I will have to come up with a more coherent approach to anaerobic exercises, otherwise I will not build up muscles and my body will burn them instead of burning fat (I wrote about that, in the post about exercising on a diet, but didn’t really put it into action yet).

That’s the update. I feel really great and I am already getting ready to go through week two.

Any questions? If you want me to give you any other info about these updates, let me know.

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30 day challenge – update after week one

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I think that joining a challenge on such a renowned blog is a perfect way to build up motivation for initial phases of my diet and to make it through the first month of fat loss with success. My progress will now be followed not only by me but by thousands of readers of Leigh’s blog all over the world. I can’t let myself and them down. I can’t make excuses and can’t back down – this train is running and I am on it! I must admit – it is quite exciting!

One big meal challenge

The challenge is set up according to rules similar to those I laid for myself in the previous post about caloric deficit. Every participant is supposed to eat only around 65% to 70% of his daily calorie needs. For me that is 1900 calories per day.

To help us achieve the goal Leigh goes even further and suggests a concept she calls One Big Meal (OBM). I have never thought of that before but the idea makes a lot of sense. As Leigh points out, one of the problems with maintaining a good diet is the need to constantly monitor calories eaten during the day. To overcome that, we should simply cook one big meal in the morning or the day before. The meal should have calories equal to our daily caloric intakes. That ‘one meal’ is what we would be eating throughout the day. Do not get confused though – the idea is to cook everything at once, but it does not have to be just one single dish – you can maintain variety if you want and you can spread the eating over as many smaller meals during the day as you want.

I think that ‘One Big Meal’ approach might prove quite effective. As Leigh says, it makes control of calories much easier. But it does more than that – it also takes away many threats usually encountered when being on a diet. The psychological effect is the one I think is especially worth mentioning. OBM method puts you in a position, where it is very easy to assess whether a day was successful or not: If you ate only your one big meal – it was successful, if you went beyond it – it wasn’t. The border is clear and you break the rules with the first bite of something from outside ‘the meal’. If it is that easy to assess, you know you failed as soon as you did it, not in the evening when you total up all daily calories. That particular guilty cookie, drink or sandwich will not taste as good, when you know that it is the one that makes you fat and the one that stops you from fitting in your daily dose of calories – the one that kills your dreams…

Is it going to work in practice? – I will let you know.

Spread of meals during the day

Leigh does not specify how often should we eat and how frequently during the day, although she advocates a bit in favour of a one huge meal a day. I will not go for that and will do it in a more traditional way, which is having many small meals spread more or less evenly along the day. This method worked for me once before, so I am not going to change it. I noticed that when I eat a huge meal, I get hungry afterwards anyway. Smaller meals don’t stretch my stomach and it is then easier to fill it with something small. This way, I do not really feel hungry at all, and if I did – well, I’ll just wait for another meal which is probably only an hour or so away.

Variety of foods

I love variety in my diet. I don’t think I would feel good if I had to eat the same thing for a whole day. I really like fresh fruits for example, and I have to have meat on my plate practicaly every day. These two, however, do not go well in one meal for me. I have to eat fruits and meat separately and I want to eat both each day. To overcome that, but still stay in line with the rules of the challenge, I will be preparing a couple of different dishes every day – some with fruits, some with meat – and I will eat them separately.

I will be doing all the cooking in the morning before going to work. It will be easier not to eat during that than it would be if I cooked it in the afternoon. I am not that hungry in the morning.

So there I am, on my way to thinness and fitness. Thanks to Leigh, I have a really exciting start. I’ll keep you informed on my progress.

Thanks for all the good words so far

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Weight loss 30 day challenge starts

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What are calories?

Basically there are 2 different types of calories:

• Calories as measure of energy in physics
• Food Calories and measure of energy contained in food

We, of course, will focus on the second type. A definition of food calories found on Wikipedia states that:

• Food energy is the amount of energy in food that is available through digestion. The values for food energy are expressed in kilojoules (kJ) or food Calories (kcal).
• One food Calorie (1 kcal or 1,000 calories) is the amount of digestively available food energy (heat) that will raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree Celsius.
• One food Calorie is equal to approximately 4.1868 kJ
• One gram (g) of most proteins or carbohydrates has about 4kcal (17kJ)
• One gram of fat has approximately 9kcal (38kJ)
• One gram of pure alcohol (ethanol) – 7kcal (30kJ)

Calories measure the amount of energy which is available from digestion of particular food. Almost all grocery products have information about their energetic characteristics displayed on their packages. It is given in calories (kcal) or kilojoules (kJ) per 100 grams (g) of the food.

So there it is – that’s what calories are – a measure of energy. Going further, let’s see what does the organism do with the energy it receives from food.

Our bodies and energy

Our bodies need energy to live. Muscles use energy with each body movement, we need energy to breathe, our hearts need energy to pump blood, each of or our organs uses energy at every single moment in time. Even maintaining body temperature at a constant level requires significant amounts of energy.

As we already know, this energy comes from food. Our organisms, in many chemical processes, digest food, ‘extract’ energy contained in it, and use it to maintain our life functions. It all works perfectly as long as the amount of energy provided is equal to the amount of energy used. When the energy intake starts to exceed the amount required, the body has to do something with the excess which it doesn’t use. It stores it in specially designed for the purpose cells, which are commonly know as ‘fat cells’. These cells can grow exponentially to accommodate excess lipids (a scientific term for fats). When they grow, we get fat.

This excess energy is stored as a backup resource for times, when the body doesn’t receive energy supplies it requires. It then releases the collected energy and uses it to cover the deficit. When the fat cells release the energy, they are getting smaller – we are getting thinner.

We owe this design to the evolution. For thousands of years humankind suffered rather of scarceness of food than its excess. Our organisms, in order to help us survive, have learned to catch and store all available energy. It was never known, when the next meal is going to be so any storage was usually used quite quickly. This mechanism was evolving for thousands of years when humankind fought for survival in the wilderness, competing with nature and various predators. Today’s situation, where most of us have access to abundance of food is very new – just a blink of an eye for the evolution. Our bodies did not have time to adjust to it. Maybe someday humankind will adjust to the changed circumstances, but that will take hundreds of generations. We here, are stuck with what we’ve got:)

Anyway, coming back to the topic of this post…

Want to get thin – maintain an energy deficit

The conclusion from the above considerations is obvious: If we want to lose weight, we need to provide our bodies with amounts of calories, below their requirements. They will then start to burn energy stored in the fat cells, which in turn will reduce their sizes and… we will get thinner.

That’s so easy!!

The only thing we need to learn now is how much calories do our organism require?

Daily calorie needs (DCN)

Depending on age, sex and weight our bodies need various amounts of calories. For weight loss purposes, the best method is to calculate you daily caloric needs, which indicates approximate, average amount of calories your body uses every day. This is done in two steps:

1. Calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate)

Basal metabolic rate (also called a Resting Metabolic Rate) is an amount of calories your body uses to maintain your life functions. That would be the amount of calories you would burn every day if you stayed in bed for a whole day, not moved at all and also did not engage into any significant brain activity.

Wikipedia comes in handy to describe how to calculate the BMR. Below is the equation, which is supposed to be the most accurate:

BMR = (9.99 x W + 6.25 x H – 4.92 x A + S), where:

• W is weight in kilograms
• H is height in centimeters
• A is age in years
• S is sex – for male S equals +5 and for female S equals -161

If you are not into kilograms and centimeters or just want to make it easy for yourself, you can use an online calculator.

Using it, I can calculate my BMR as 2015.

Now to the second step.

2. Adjust your BMR according to your activity level

Most of us don’t stay in bed all day. We work, walk, talk and engage in various activities – all of which require additional energy. To reflect that, we have to adjust our BMRs. This is done by multiplying the BMR by a factor which depends on how active we are. And so:

• if you are not doing any sports and have a sitting job, you multiply the BMR by 1.2.
• if you do sports 2-3 times a week and have a sitting job, you can multiply it by 1.4.
• those who do sports 5 times a week and are generally pretty active, can use a 1.7 factor,
• and finally athletes should use a factor of 2.

I for example, as a person with a desk job, doing sports 2-3 times a week, will use a factor of 1.4. That means that every day, my organism uses about 2015 x 1.4 = 2821 calories. To lose weight I should eat meals, which have a cumulative total amount of calories lower that 2821. My organism will then use the energy which is stored in my fat and I will lose weight.

How much should we lower our caloric intakes to get thin?

There are many different views as to how much lower the caloric intake should be in relation to the daily caloric needs. Nutrition experts agree, however, that intake shouldn’t fall below 1000 calories a day. This could prove harmful to our bodies.

The best approach is to keep the caloric intake 30% – 35% below the daily calorie needs. It is sufficient to generate effects, but not serious enough to put your body at risk. My daily intake of calories will therefore be around 1900. That is the goal I am setting for myself:

I will keep my daily caloric intake at 1900.

If you want to lose weight you should calculate your daily calorie needs and adjust intake of calories accordingly. Remember also that as you lose weight, your DCN also lowers, so you have to also adjust caloric intake. If you do that, you will get thinner.

That is all. I will keep you updated on my progress.

Questions or doubts, any thoughts? – let me know or drop me a comment

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Energy deficit – the principle of fat loss

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My name is Matt and I got fat!

I was a sports lover since childhood. I’d probably run out of space here if I were to describe all the sports I’ve done over the years: I played football in high school and university, I trained rock climbing, kayaking, skating – I was a dedicated hockey player for a while, I trained martial arts for over 4 years, I cycled a lot, I am a PADI certified scuba diver and hold a licence of a sailor, and I’ve done many many other sports just for fun in my spare time.

Over the last couple of years, however, my life has changed significantly. After graduating from university I pursued a carrier in finance, which has led me over several companies into the job that I do now, here in Dublin. When I started working, my life changed completely. Living in hotels, eating late dinners in restaurants, working 10 or more hours per day and often on the weekends, I didn’t have time for sports. And I smoked. I gained weight, I knew that. I just didn’t know how much. Until that one day…

In Autumn 2007 I found a scale in a hotel bathroom. I stepped on it… and – 231.5 pounds! It struck me. I  am 6 feet tall, which gives a BMI index of 31.7 and means obesity. OBESITY! I knew I was overweight a bit – but obese?! Me, sports lover – 55 pounds overweight?! The worst thing was that I was still getting fatter. I gained that 55 pounds within just a couple of years and if that did not stop, I would have been 260 or maybe 380 by the time I was 30 years old. How would I look like by the time I was 40 – I didn’t dare to think.

That did it. There in the hotel room I decided to save my life.

The change

I knew that few succeed in losing weight and wanted to make it right the first time, so I prepared myself. I read many books, talked to nutrition experts and consulted a couple of doctors. In that process it turned out that I already had high blood pressure and an increased level of cholesterol – a perfect highway to a heart attack.

I started in January 2008.  I changed a job for a more settled one, went on a diet and begun exercising.

It went great in the beginning – I lost 25lbs in 3 months and I felt fantastic. I thought it will be quite easy to go another 30. In March, however, it stopped. My scale just wouldn’t move. I struggled to get back on track but somehow couldn’t. Then in May I started studying for accountancy exams and this completely took my attention off the weight loss for a couple of months. It is October now when I write this, I am back at 220lbs – not too perfect.

So I am starting again

I am starting again. This time equipped in all the knowledge and all the experience. Moreover, this time I’ll be running this blog to remind me daily of my commitment and to put pressure on myself by a public pledge that I will get thin and fit again.

You can follow my progress on the weight loss plan page. It will be updated weekly.

This time I am doing it – This time I will get thin and fit and I will stay that way PERMANENTLY.

If you want to support me in my struggle, leave comment.

Matt

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Hi, my name is Matt and I’m fat

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