March Wrap Up, Into April

Ok! March is done, how did I do?

Goal: My goal was to lose 8 lbs. this month.

Result: I lost 9, so that was a success. More on how that happened in a bit.

Inches: My goal was simply "better," since losing actual inches is notoriously hard to predict*

Result: -1" from waist, just about the same on the chest.

TOTALS since starting the blog:

-17lbs. I had to check that a couple of times to make sure that was real. All of a sudden the numbers look not horrible!

-5" waist and chest. Nice. The inches are always so darned difficult to lose as opposed to weight, but it's coming along!

HOW and WHY:

So I started this month, as my previous post stated, attempting a low carb protocol. That did work for a bit as it usually does in the short term, but the same old problems of chronic hunger all the time kicked in (despite what you read, while low carb definitely helps with satiety, it isn't a cure all and you can definitely overeat this way).

As the month wound down, I began, inspired by my wife and my "nutritional advisor" to intermittently fast more. This started as a two day fast a couple of weeks ago, in which I had a big, mostly water weight based (but still exciting) weight loss. Far more important than the fickle short term loss, however, was how I felt: Once I decided I wasn't eating, I was sort of totally good with it. I find it utterly bizarre how much easier it is to eat nothing, while it is hard to just eat a little.

The next week I fasted again, Monday through Wednesday morning. This was the longest fast I've ever done (about 56 hours). I had an issue with "jitters" near the end, which I read can happen: when you enter a fasted state, your body goes through incredible hormonal shifts and you can get out of whack. My multivitamin did not have some minerals in it, plus I was probably consuming too much caffeine in this period. I went ahead and broke the fast, but again, I lose even more weight this time than the last. Nice!

However, after a weekend of pretty standard, non-pig out eating, I gained back virtually all the weight. Every last bit (this was just this past Monday!).

Additionally, I fasted Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday again, and lost... nothing.

Yep. I lost like 7 lbs the week before, gained it ALL BACK, and lost NOTHING AFTER THREE DAYS OF FASTING. WHAT. THE. HECK.

My "nutritional advisor" explained it well: basically what happens is that when you refeed after fasting a few days,  you probably do not completely fill up the glycogen reserves to the point where you are going to have a huge water weight loss after week one (in my case, week two- week one for me was a very brief, 20 hour fast). Ok, that makes sense, but if you haven't even filled your glycogen reserves up (the fuel your body stores for short term energy use during a fasting period- this lasts about a day or so if you aren't eating, then you switch to fats and a little bit of internal protein**), how could I have regained so much weight, and why am I holding on to it?

Well, a little bit of it is "your body hates you," but the full answer is, look: when refeeding, did you eat carbs at all? In my case, heck yes. Carbs are water sponges, you see, and so if you refeed and even eat the slightest amount of carbs, you are going to soak up all that water you are drinking and hold it.

So, again, TRUST THE PROCESS. I was feeling a little jittery on Wednesday night so I did allow myself a moderate meal, but I was back in fast land on Thursday and Friday (so basically I fasted Monday-Tuesday-Thursday-Friday this week), and finally, on Friday, 5lbs of water weight dropped off. And boy, I could tell: I was PISSING SO MUCH that day. It's amazing how long your body can force you to have a bad result on a scale, when you are actually burning fat internally. Then, this morning, another handful of pounds of water weight off. So now all that weight I regained is gone plus several more.

So for anyone attempting fasting I would tell them: beware these sorts of times when your body is a huge jerk and just holds on to a weight. Of course my nutritional advisor would tell me to just not use the scale at all, or at most once a month or something. I'm still checking regularly until my vacation to Japan (when all bets are off and I'm eating like a drunken pac man), but when I'm back, I may actually take this advice.

The most impressive thing to me was how relatively easy it was, most of the time, to just eat nothing. I went out with my family to a mall food court and I could just easily sit there and have an espresso and water while they ate and totally not care!

Also, while I REALLY DO NOT WANT TO BE A FASTING CULTIST (trust me, they are out there, and make silly claims on the regular), some purely anecdotal, unscientific observations from me:

1. I had a cold on Monday. It was totally and completely gone by Thursday. Shortest cold ever. Some theorize that fasting allows better immune response because your body isn't spending so much energy digesting things. That sounds like more "guys on the internet" talk, but hey, I had this result. So there is that!

2. When I was at the mall with my family, I felt unusually sharp mentally. I was able to corral my kids, quickly solve their minor issues with sharing, and in general be a much better dad, because I wasn't in this "hunger cloud" or a post big meal "food coma" state. I felt better driving: less likely to take a stupid wrong turn, more likely to actually plan ahead in terms of which lane to be, etc. Things I'm sure my wife appreciates!

April Goals:

Er, well, not regain all 17 lbs? Obviously I have a ten day vacation coming up, which in all honesty was a huge reason for this blog. I had personally hit an all time high in weight last year after traveling and didn't want to be at *another* all time high after that. Fortunately that is pretty much impossible to "achieve" now.

So I'll say my main goal is to not do what I usually do after a vacation: not take my eating seriously for weeks afterward, making a small temporary weight gain into a permanent "set point," a mistake I always make. So when that plane lands in America, and the jet lag is gone, I'll be excited to return to a fasting protocol of some sort. While some might suggest forty straight days, I think a regiment of 2 on, 1 off, 2 on, then the weekend of off, repeat, should work pretty well. We'll see. But I'm encouraged overall!





*One of the sucky things about losing weight is your body can and will be stupid about where that fat loss happens; it can be that sliver of fat on your forearm, on some bit that doesn't even seem fat, etc. Just gotta TRUST THE PROCESS as it all gets used eventually.

**Nope, I'm not terribly worried about muscle loss. In what studies exist, the proportion of fat to muscle lost is waaaaaaaay biased in favor of fat, and there is even some debate in some circles over what type of muscle you lose- some even postulate that the body prioritizes non-important "junk" protein you have sort of laying about. Even if that is just "dudes on the internet," the point is- getting the fat off is vastly more important for health, and you can build the muscle later.

March update

So halfway through March, how are we doing?

So far I've lost -3 lbs from where I started at the beginning of the month. My goal was -8 lbs, which was aggressive but I think it is still doable.

This puts me, btw, at -12 lbs lost since August. Finally getting some respectable numbers. I'm also finally shed the weight that 2016 put on me, which, hey, it's still just March 2017 ;)

I haven't measured recently so I can't report on that.

TACTICS:

So in general I've been trying to stay at or around 1200 calories. Looking at the log I keep, my pattern is to sort of do OK during the week, and do mediocre during the weekend.

So in order to ramp things up during the week (and inspired by my wife who is also doing this), I did fast for two days this week, which definitely helped boost things. Yes yes water weight blah blah, but it isn't all water. :p

I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do going forward; but I think intermittent fasting is going to help get me to my goals faster.

February done, onto March with some optimism

February is in the books. So how'd I do?

Weight loss goal: -6 lbs
Actual result: -3 lbs

So I had a really strong rally at the end (more on that later) to give a respectable result. Otherwise it was a tough month- again, more thoughts later. But, I'm not unhappy with the results overall, as things are moving in the right direction albeit slowly.

Total weight loss since start of blog (back in, holy crap, August): -8 lbs (actually, it could be -10 lbs, depending on when I counted my start weight...)

Measurement goal: "better"
Actual results: -2" both waist and chest. Nice!

Despite dropping a good amount of weight in January, I didn't lose any inches (just gained a little, which was bizarre). I made up for it this month, dropping several inches across the chest and waist.

Total measurement loss since August:

Chest: -4"
Waist: -4"

Comments on the month overall:

My average calorie intake for the month was just a bit over 2000 calories. Several months ago, I would have been impressed by this.

However, both anecdotal experience and research has led me to conclude that this was silly to think 2000 calories a day was a good, weight loss inducing number.

"My" real number is less than that. Much less.

As I have discussed before on this blog, the basal metabolic rate you can calculate on the internet uses a couple of different formulas, both guesswork. One had it at a ludicrously high amount, well over about 2300 calories. The other more conservative formula put it at closer to 2000.

Only when I tried getting my calories to 1500 per day did weight really begin to move.

However, as my daily calorie intake average would suggest, I struggled some to stay at this weight. This is mainly because of CARBOHYDRATES. Yep. Carbs and sugar.

I always "forget" this because I do not want to deal with the boredom of a ketogenic diet, but going keto has benefits that have always helped me, even if it is NOT a silver bullet/magic solution (it isn't: dieting still sucks and is still very very hard).

It's main benefit is satiety. Again: not a silver bullet. I still get hungry. But even if I am slightly less hungry slightly less often, that helps me win the "war with my mind" on a daily basis. The other benefit is despite irrational fears from dumb people, I have no doubt that it is a pretty darn healthy way of eating as well.

So near the end of the month I decided to do two things:

Cut ALL carbs and SUGAR. Total zero keto diet with the only carbs coming here and there from veggies like spinach and the like (so basically no more than 25 grams per day).

Daily calorie goal: 1200 cals.

1200 cals is the lowest I have ever set a calorie goal. Even last year, I would have thought this was entirely unnecessary for a man my size. However, as I've researched this, it seems clear that the daily amount of recommended intake is just wrong: it optimistically assumes a pretty efficient metabolism (which is true: people who don't struggle with weight can probably eat a bit more, period, and not gain it; whereas people who have had a big weight loss in their life end up needing to eat less to maintain that weight versus someone naturally at the same number on the scale).

This will be my goal going forward. I managed to east 1200, 1200, then 1400 calories at the end of this week. I allowed myself a bit more calories and carbs today (about 100 carbs, still "low carb" but no longer "ketogenic"), so I won't be surprised is a have a big *WATER WEIGHT* regain tomorrow (I won't be freaked out).

MARCH GOALS:

-8lbs loss (2 lbs per week)
Inches: "better"

With going keto and going as low as 1200 cals, I think I can do this. Don't get me wrong: it won't be easy, but the effects of ketosis and eating low carb cut down the appetite juuuuuuust enough that I can battle through the super tough spots. I don't always need to eat this way for the rest of my life (keto, that is); but for now, to get things moving, I'm happy to do it.

Last week in Feb...

The last week in Feb is coming!

My weekend was pretty good, as was the week in general. Kept my cals low with the exception of Friday, and that wasn't bad. As a consequence, my weight is moving down, but I'm still a good ways off from my goal for the month.

However, I haven't given up hope yet, because I tend to lose weight in big chunks, and I'm going in the right direction!

Feb. 18

So far my attempt to get back on track is going well.

I ended up the day at around 1650 cals. Just a smiiiiiiiidge higher, but basically on target.

Crunch time again

So last week was another one were I struggled a bit. I started well but began faltering on Thursday and totally crashed yesterday, Friday. So for the month, I've lost a measly .5 lbs with 2 weeks left (I count the week that goes into March).

Fortunately, I can still meet my goals or get close if I focus. Today is going well so far. Sometimes totally crashing diet wise after doing "ok" for awhile is sort of helpful.

Feb 12

I liked yesterday's "live blog" format, so let's do it again today, though it is already almost 5pm here.

Played in a the church band, and the kiddo begged for a lunch burger. I resisted the temptation to get one myself, but then proceeded to graze through the next 4-5 hours until I hit my calorie limit for the day. But, it IS 5pm already, so I ought to be able to make it!

4:40 pm - Time to start fasting. Should be hard until, I would guess, 8pm or so.