August 30th

August 30th

Diet Compliance:Another celebratory goodbye dinner. As with previous, I fasted through the day and made this a one meal day. Too bad that one meal was chinese all-you-can-eat. As best as I can figure, I ate ~2400 calories, but holy crap, I feel FULL. I shudder at what the scale might say tomorrow.

Exercise Compliance: Got my 10k steps in, and really, with some heavy lifting relating to a move, I probably exercised far more than that (which is good, because, Chinese buffet).

Measurements Weight: -.2
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment: I know the scale is a liar when dealing with daily weigh ins, but it is a little frustrating to have closed in on -4 lbs lots total in two weeks (a good rate), and now be back to just -2 pounds lost on day 12 of 14. I know that can change quickly when the body dumps a lot of water, but still annoying, especially since I'm about to go on a big road trip and it's always good to leave for those feeling good about yourself.

I have a big challenge ahead, and one of the primary reasons why I started this blog for extra accountability. Tomorrow (or later today really), I begin a cross country trek to start a new job. The temptation to just "let it rip" will be ever present. And as you can tell by following this blog, I've deviated a bit from my initial plan *even in the course of preparing for this trip,* even if those deviations are minor and I'm still creating substantial calorie deficits each day.

I suspect sometimes it'll be easier, other times harder. Easy: probably day one; I'll be on the road myself, driving until I reach some lonely motel somewhere on the road. It'll be just me with no celebratory anything. I'll probably just grab a small fast food dinner (the 6pm fast breaker) and buy a protein bar or something at a gas station for the end of eating window meal (I'll have a ton of whey protein with me for when I get settled).

It'll get harder once I start dealing with people. Men and women just enjoy socializing with food, and this will be... pretty much how Every. Single. New. Person. Will. Great. Me. House I'm crashing at on day 3? FOOD (we'll prepare X for you!). House I'm staying in for the next few months? Big time foodies that want to "show me the best the area has to offer." First day on the new job? Of course, they are treating me to lunch (which is awkward since I don't eat lunch- I'll probably eat a light one to not look weird, and hope that they don't all get lunch together and bro out).

On the plus side, the whirlwind of activity should (at first anyway) allow me to get my 10k steps in easily, I hope (stay tuned for how I manage that while driving all day).

Stats:

Occasionally I'd like to share some statistics, courtesy of the fitbit app.

Calorie burn per day estimate, 30 day rolling average: 3007 cals. This is great since this is really only based on my improved efforts the last 12 days. It has approached even such lows as 2600 cals before, so this is a big improvement! I know it's a fake number based on averages (duh) but it is still a fun number to push up, up, and up.

Calorie Consumption average since start of plan: Fitbit has gotten chintsy in its stats and removed the 30 day rolling average for calories. Thanks for nothing guys. But here is some quick math on my cals per day since I started (so 12 days): 2068 calories. Not bad, can do better certainly as my best, most ideal target is 1500-1800, although this target is based on being very sedentary, so if I end up averaging this for months on end, I'll be successful indeed. 

August 29th

August 29th

Diet Compliance: Finally a sub 2000 calorie day, just under 2000 cals.

Exercise Compliance: Fell just a bit short, at something like 9k steps, but not by a lot. Did my leg exercises.

Measurements Weight: -.2.8
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment: Just two more morning weigh ins until I have a long multi day car trip. I'll have a scale and tape measure with me, but I'm not sure I'm going to bother with the scale in the hotel.

August 28th

August 28th

Diet Compliance: Another higher calorie day for the same reason as the last two days: celebratory "going away" events. But fortunately not as bad: ~2300 cals. Hoping on Monday I am back to my usual plan.

Exercise Compliance: I wanted 12k steps (was feeling ambitious) but got just about 11,300 steps. Still great :)

Measurements Weight: -.2.8
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment: On the weight front, I'm still on pace to attain a 2 pounds per week rate of loss, as I'm only a few days into week two and I'm almost at 3 pounds lost. Good going me!

August 27th

August 27th
 

Diet Compliance: Today was my highest calorie day since I started this blog. 2600 cals, which isn't a disaster, but definitely high. The high number was the result of a date with my wife, which included dinner. Like yesterday, the plan was to only eat that dinner and nothing else, but dangit if the ol' hungries didn't hit about six hours later (I would have had a much better day if I was able to resist the hunger monster at midnight- this is why my usual plan works so much better: I have that "baked in," with the protein shake then. It's harder to do when you allow yourself a higher calorie initial meal at 6pm. As a reminder, my plan is intermittent fasting with a window for eating from 6pm-12am).

See comments for more excuses, er, explanation.

Exercise Compliance: 10k steps attained again.Thank goodness.

Measurements Weight: -.2
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment:Back to -2 lbs lost this morning, which was not alarming nor a surprise. Re: high cals, in theory 2600 cals should actually be fine for long term weight loss, if I'm actually doing 10k steps. If you trust the calculators out there, I ate 2600 cals while burning 3250, a difference of -650 cals.

Let's extrapolate that. -650 x 7 days = -4550. This is well above the required -3500 calories required to lose one pound. So if I ate deep dish pizza to the tune of 2600 calories per day (or insert other food), and walked those 10k steps, well, gosh, I'd be fine and dandy.

Except I know from personal experience that this doesn't work. Well, ok, yes, it does work, in as much as thermodynamics is inescapable. However, what doesn't work about it are a bunch of factors:

1. The burn rate of 3250 is based on an estimate and may not reflect my actual burn. It could be off significantly, and if it is, it would surely be off downwards.

2. From a psychology standpoint, it's never worked for me to sort of just skim the absolute bare minimum in terms of calorie restriction. Like most fallible people, I'm prone to the ol' "whatever the limit is, fudge it by X amount." So if I made my target something like 2100-2600 cals, knowing that I would probably be losing more than 1 pound per week, I can assure you that a blog post like this would be talking about hitting 2800, 2900, or 3000 calories on a "bad" day like this. "Oh, it's ok, I still am -250 calories in the hole!" I would say.

3. Finally, another big assumption: am I using a bomb calorimeter at home? Haha, nope. In other words, I "think" I've eaten 2600 calories because I am at the mercy of other people who did this work. Who the heck knows how accurate various restaurant and nutrition package labels really are? Restaurant food in particular is tricky because preparation will vary. So in other words, you don't want to be getting too close to your daily calorie burn because maybe that 400 calorie side of rice is really 700. You just don't know.

All this is just a long winded way of saying: this was OK for a special date night with the wife, but should not be a daily occurrence. But one more thing I know won't work either: "cheating" because I feel bad about the high calorie count, and "dumping some calories onto the next day." OMG DO NOT DO THIS. It'll cause days and days of cheating like this, and finally a calorie blowout. Nope, just accept that today was not optimal, and start fresh. Always. Start. Fresh.

August 26th

August 26th

Diet Compliance: Today was a higher calorie day, hitting 2200. This was expected, as I actually fasted all day until 8:30, in which I went out for a MASSIVE hibachi dinner from a great friend (a going away treat as it were). A little higher than I want day to day but still totally fine.

Exercise Compliance: 10k steps easily attained today, thanks to the kiddo (that same one that was hard to get to sleep the night before..) wanting to walk ALL OVER THE NEIGHBORHOOD. It heartens me to see my efforts at fitness causing her to want to walk and explore more also.
Chest day also.

Measurements Weight: -.3.8
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment: Another chunk of weight fell off this morning, so making good progress for 8 days! I do expect a temporary water weight gain based on eating an enormous, 2200 calorie carbohydrate based meal tonight when I weigh in tomorrow, but I'll be fine with it: it's the only food I ate today, and I'm on plan. That's the point of the whole thing, right?

August 25th

Diet Compliance: Yep, 1800 cals again today.

Exercise Compliance: Got only 8k steps today, 2k short of the goal and the first time I've truly been short since I've started. The reason was that my daughter had a bedtime meltdown (parents can surely relate what can happen with bedtimes), so even though I had gotten enough steps to easily meet the goal by midnight, 10:30-12 was spent trying to get a kiddo to sleep.

It was a rough night :(

Measurements Weight: -.1.8
Measurements Chest:  -.5"
Measurements Waist: -.5"

Comment: My weight held at the current -1.8 lbs from the starting weight, which was expected (since I'm writing this late, a spoiler: a big chunk goes away the next day!). Better still is making some headway on my measurements!

August 24th

Diet Compliance: Yep, 1800 cals again today.

Exercise Compliance: Yep, 10k steps (keeping the streak alive!) and it was "back" day.

Measurements Weight: -.1.8
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--

Comment: Tomorrow is a big day, as it is the first measurement check since I started. One week isn't a ton of time so I'm not expecting a lot, but still. As you can see, my weight has started going down again after the initial water weight loss/regain cycle. This makes sense: if this -1.8 loss holds into tomorrow, it'll be one week, and wouldn't you know it: according to the calorie deficit, I should pretty much be......... losing two pounds or so.

August 23rd

August 23rd

Got rid of the "log for" line as it was stupidly redundant. 
 
Diet Compliance:Yes, and kept it in a much better target of 1800 calories. Realtalk: The main reason my calories crept up from 1700, 1800, 2000, 2300 etc. is that I had been felling prey to the ol' bugaboo of waking up at 4 or 5am and feeling like I HAD TO EAT SOMETHING. I was justifying it by saying it wasn't much (and it wasn't), but it was enough to make hitting my targets harder. More importantly, it was *off plan* and not compliant: I want to enjoy one of the fruits of intermittent fasting, which is better hormonal response. You don't get that when you basically allow yourself a small breakfast (reminder: my fast is supposed to be from bedtime until 6pm, with a 6 hour eating window).

Exercise Compliance:Yes, 10k steps as usual. This could be one of the longest stretches I've ever had where I've hit 10k steps (ok, ok, I had one day at ~9700!) each day. Hope to keep it up. Even though I'm not using weights for my resistance training, I must have done my body weight based leg exercises like a boss because I'm rather sore!

Measurements Weight: -.4
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--

Comment:Yep, water weight loss now completely gone, as expected, so I'm not worried. But I am ready for the next real drop to begin. When I lose weight, it basically comes in chunks- I hold at a certain weight for awhile (sometimes a long while), but then BAM, 3 or 4 pounds come off. ECM would tell me to weigh and measure every three weeks, but I'm a stubborn idiot so I'll just continue to buttress myself psychologically for the disappointing holding patterns!

Also, I'll measure my waist and chest on Thursday, the 25th. I plan to do this once a week.

ONE MORE DAY OF SOY PROTEIN!

August 22nd

August 22nd

Log For: August 22nd

Diet Compliance: Yes, but ended up a bit north of my calorie target. Due to my wife's amazing, crack like butter chicken, my initial fast breaking meal was much larger than usual, and this led to me landing around 2200 calories for the day. This should still be *plenty* considering I'm doing 10k steps and supposedly burn 3300 calories, but I'm skeptical of this, so this isn't a number I want often.

Exercise Compliance:Yes, 10k steps and legs workout.

Measurements Weight: -2.6
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--

Comment: This is why trainer and master of mockery ECM chides me anytime I get into a "weigh myself every day" routine. But I'm not too bummed yet. I'm still in that 99% compliance zone with large calorie deficits, so I know this is just the water weight rebound thing.

August 21

August 21th

Log For: August 21th

Diet Compliance: Yes, with challenges (see comment)

Exercise Compliance: Nope, 9700 steps, 300 short of 10k (I know, a piddling difference, but honesty is the best policy on this blog.

Measurements Weight: -3.6 (1+ lb from the day before)
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--

Comment:

Re: diet compliance, today was a challenging day but I met the challenge well. Basically I woke up early, at 5am, which was probably child related (but I can't remember). One of my superpowers, as it were, is that if I wakeup at a weird time, I'm usually ravenously hungry. Like, "eat my own arm off hungry." Yet, weirdly, if I wake up at a normal time, I'm not hungry at all.

On the plus side, I didn't go nuts and it wasn't a binge. But it meant that I had to be very careful today to stay within striking distance of my calorie targets (minimum 1500, max 2000 but ideally 1800 most days). Typically I end my intermittent fast at around 6pm by eating a 1000ish calorie meal, and then finish the day (as close to bedtime as I can, to stave off night hunger, ugh!) with a protein shake that is usually 400-600 calories.

Today I had to eat a mere 600 calorie meal, in order to keep myself within the norms I've set. Fortunately, mission accomplished. I even did a big hunger no-no for me- took a nap. Much like waking up at odd times, taking a nap (one where I actually fall asleep, not just a rest) causes me to wakeup with a lot of hunger. Well, I took said nap, and woke up very hungry, but unlike in the morning I resisted said hunger. Phew, close one! With my end of day protein shake I ended up just slightly north of 1900 calories, within the target.

Exercise went fine, as running errands and doing housework naturally got me to 8300 steps at about 9pm. No problem, except I forgot to get those other steps in, so I had to do some mad stepping at 11:47... and fell just about 300 steps short by the time midnight hit. Certainly, 300 steps is hardly worth mentioning, but, again, HONESTY!

I was also not surprised to find a small amount of water weight rebound this morning. Perfectly expected as this very early stage of the game.

August 20th

Log For: August 20th

Diet Compliance: Yep!

Exercise Compliance:Yep! (10k steps and chest workout)

Measurements Weight: -4.6
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--

Comment:

So a big chunk of water weight flew off, always nice. Of course I know it is temp and soon the grind will truly begin. Did a much better job spreading out the 10k steps throughout the day.

Live look-in at my water weight going away.

August 19th

Log For: August 19th

Diet Compliance: Nailed it!

Exercise Compliance: Nailed it! (steps)

Measurements Weight: -2
Measurements Chest:--
Measurements Waist:--


Comment:Had to cram in 5k of my 10k steps at 11pm, due to getting a late start on the day. But I made it, and got through almost all of disc 1 of the Cowboy Bebop blu ray. Some initial water weight shed which is nice.

August 18th

Log For: August 18th

Diet Compliance: Nailed it!

Exercise Compliance: Nailed it! (steps and back workout)

Measurements Weight: --*
Measurements Chest:--*
Measurements Waist:--*

*I'm not giving you the real numbers, no sir! But I'll note changes. The "--" is obviously the baseline I'm starting from.  I won't be doing these measurements every single day, obviously.

Comment: Almost done with that awful tasting soy protein I bought to be a cheapskate a month or so ago, huzzah! Getting my steps in means I'm watching Cowboy Bebop again, so there's that.

Intro, Or, The Excuse Post

So last year has been chaotic with lots of changes and things that basically made me go stretches of time with poor eating and workout discipline.

In short: time to get serious and get consistent.

However, lack of accountability makes it easy to backslide. The purpose of this blog is for a few family and friends to relentlessly mock/prod/cajole/encourage (but mostly those first few things), particularly if they see an absence of posts.

The way this works is simple:

Each day I write a super short log entry:
Did I eat on plan?
If not, how bad did I deviate?
Did I exercise on plan?
If not, how bad did I deviate?

I might write more, but the point of this is NOT to write an actual touchy feel weight loss blog- it's just reports, so certain friends and family can see what I'm doing and not doing, on a day to day basis.

I will also report measurements and weight, but in "coded" format because holy crap I'm not putting that out there in public.

The Plan (Diet):

Intermittent fasting, with six hour window starting at 6pm. Since I'm VERY capable is eating an ENORMOUS amount in that six hours, the format this will take is: one meal at 6 or after, and a protein shake/bar at the very end.

The Plan (Exercise):

Resistance workout every other day: legs, then back, then chest, repeat.
Every day: 10k steps.

The Goal:

-10 lbs by birthday (October)

-25 lbs by Christmas.

The Challenge:

I'm starting a new job, requiring a cross country move, and I'll be switching living arrangements fairly often over the course of the next 6 months. Normally this would be an excuse to not do well, which, seeing as 2016 has been a not so great year for me fitness wise, simply can't happen.

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