Day 35 (425-9) How Am I Doing Vs My Plan?

When I started this blog back in 2010 I developed an 8 point plan as a guide to help me on my journey.  These 8 items still hold true for me today and I wanted to go through them to see what kind of job I'm doing following them..

1. Monitor caloric and nutritional intake. Eat three meals a day along with healthy snacks within my daily calorie plan and protein, carb and fat ratio (PCF Ratio).
2. No diet soda or processed foods.
3. Drink lots of water.
4. Exercise 15 minutes per day. Be more active overall.
5. Weigh in weekly (with spot checks throughout the week).
6. Report progress, thoughts, etc on this blog.
7. Seek out tools to help me reach my goal weight of 220 lbs.
8. Reach for support from family, friends and bloggers before I reach for a doughnut

I have to say that for the past 35 days I've been doing great on all of them... except for #4.   I have not turned in a good effort on #4 at all.  Every few days I take a short walk but I definitely have not exercised for 15 minutes daily.

My plan was to buy a recumbent bike but I haven't been able to find one that is rated for my weight capacity.  A sad but true fact.   Really the only main exercise I can do at this point is walking.  It's not easy because usually after about 5 minutes of walking my lower back starts to hurt.  I grind through it but it's certainly not a pleasant experience.

When I go to the store or to a ball game I park my car further away to force more walking time to and from.  I found a great iPhone app that is a GPS Pedometer which tracks your steps, distance and walk time... Pretty cool.

The difficulty is avoiding the rationalizations that cause me to sit on the couch or at my desk rather than walk and move. Its so easy not to do things.  What I mean is.. it's easy to not go for a walk or to not update my blog daily.  I can't be lazy about this anymore.  I have to come up with a reason every day to walk.  I'll have to take #4 a day at a time and as I shed the pounds it will become easier to exercise.  But.. I have to put in the time now to get there.

Good choice, Self honesty

ETL

Day 25 (428-6) What Worked Then Should Work Now

Honestly, I've been weighing myself each morning and I've noticed that my weight is stuck at 428.   I went back to 2010 posts in this blog and re-read a few posts. I found this one along with a comment from a fellow life style changer...  I think Seth had it right and what he wrote goes along with with Derek has been trying to get across to me.   1900 per day and a good calorie burn in  exercise/movement is what it's going to take to burn fat... no mucle.   It takes the combination of the two.  I'm very glad I have this blog...

ETL

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March 13, 2010 Weigh In: 411 lbs, Lost 1 lbs

I often tell my boys that baseball is a thinking man's game. Well losing weight is a thinking person's game as well. For the past two weeks I subjected myself to a little experiment with the goal of figuring out just what my metabolic rate really is.

MyNetDiary's software computes my BMR at 3180. WebMD and other web based calculators confirm this number to be about right for my age, height, weight and level of daily activity. I've been very meticulous in recording EVERTHING I eat since I started this journey on 1/6/10. My average per day for the past two weeks has been 1945 calories which means I should be burning 1235 per day, 1 pound every 3 days...RIGHT? So I should have lost about 4 pounds, RIGHT? Well, during the past 14 days I've lost only 1 pound. Why are the numbers off? I've come up with two reasons:

First, I have not been exercising. If I move my ass I will burn calories. It's that simple and I take total responsibility for not following through on this goal. The weather is getting warmer. I will be coaching two baseball teams soon. My activiy level will increase. All good things. But I also need to get into a routine of daily activity. I will work on this.

Second, the BMR calculators are wrong in my case. I have a slower metabolic rate than the average 411 pound, 49 year old, 6 foot man. I have to believe that based on my two week experiment my actual BMR is more like 2000. To prove this I went back in the records (thanks MyNetDiary) and looked at my caloric intake for those weeks when I was shedding pounds a month or so ago. My average intake was 1500 calories per day. Hmmm.. Well numbers don't lie!

Conclusions:

BMR calculation software may not be right for everyone as a measuring stick. My BMR is actually around 2000. A 1500 calories intake per day should allow me to burn around 500 calories each day (with activity, more). Which is about 1 pound a week. If I have a day where I go 1600 or even 1700 that will be just fine. But 1700 is the absolute ceiling for me.

I need to get myself in the habit of being active. I will burn more calories and lose more weight when I do this.

The big positive is that I am eating good foods and have not gained any weight back. Trust me, I don't take these two accomplishments for granted. However, I now understand the rate my body burns calories and I will do my best to use this knowledge to achieve my goal.

COMMENT FROM SETH:

SethMarch 13, 2010 10:47 PM

In my studying...and we've all done our own form of studying...for a male, cutting your calories that low at a long period of time would only put your body into starvation. In starvation mode - calories are burned mainly from muscle and not fat. Before you cut it that low this is what I would do:

1. Keep it between 1900-2000 cal/day.

2. Hit a calorie burn of 400-500 each day.

3. Up the water intake to 90 ounces +

4. Get your fiber from fruits and vegetables -- lots of these. suggested amount is 25-35g per day. The more fiber you take in -- the more *stuff* you are putting out. It will clean you out.

5. cut sodium.

These are just a few things I would do before I cut so drastically. You have to have teh calories coming in to keep that metabolism.

Also, use the online tools only as tools to benefit your weight loss and not the primary decision maker.

Keep up the good work. A one pound loss is a loss - even if we don't like the amount...it's one hard fought pound