13 Weeks: Week 11 — In Which We Consolidate Our Losses
Continuing Efforts
Besides the additions, I’ll be continuing my diet (ooh, that word) plan for another 13 weeks. It’s worked, what can I say? The short summary is 200g protein and 200g fat every day, with no more than 30g net (ie, total carbs minus fiber) carbs, and a daily food diary to track this. I made one more addition to this by buying a digital scale. I know, I said I wasn’t going to be one of those people that weighs everything, but the truth is that I’ve learned it’s hard to keep a good food diary without one: it’s hard to track things like the amount of meat in a serving or the quantity of kim chi I have with my eggs (it’s good, try it!)
The food diary is something that needs work. I’ve been using Lose It!; when I started I was pretty satisfied with it, but there have been some problems. First, I have been noticing that their nutrition information isn’t very reliable. I noticed this first when I looked at my day’s nutrition and saw that I’d had something like 3000 grams of carbs that day, and while I thought it was perhaps plausible that I’d overshot, I was pretty sure I hadn’t had ten pounds of carbs that day. I worked back through the day’s meals and discovered that the data they had for one variety of salami included something like 640g of carbs — more than 22 ounces — per one-ounce serving. Second, and more annoying to my OCD science-guy side, was that they had some system problems and application problems around the first of the year, which resulted in me losing all my data for January 1 (grr) and having to uninstall the iPod and Kindle apps; they were corrupting the data. The connection to Withings was also a problem, although that was in part me; I can’t resist weighing myself several times in a day, and when I connected to the Withings with Lose It!, that meant I was posting new weights several times a day, most of them being weight gains. (Now, this isn’t the way you’re supposed to use it, but it’s the way I use it.) Lose It! has been very responsive and their customer support folks were quick to apologize, but that couldn’t bring back my 1 January data; it was gone, and I didn’t realize there’d been a problem until long after I’d forgotten what I’d eaten that day. They gave me a year’s Premium membership to make up with me, but I still need to be confident in my tools.
I’m beginning to think about some new diet and exercise software; I’ll keep you up to date on what my thoughts are. I’m also interested in any suggestions.
Community
Here’s a word I hate, perhaps even more than “diet”. “Online community” and “social network” and all — I’m tired of them. But I have noticed two things with this experiment: first, I get a lot of support from my readers; and second, I’ve got a number of readers who say I’m inspiring them. So I’m going to start inviting people to make their own 13 (or 14 or whatever) week plans, and linking them. If enough people are interested, maybe I’ll make up a web site, although that sounds an awful lot like work.
In any case, though, I’m going to continue to report on my own plan, and looking forward to your responses. I think this is going to be an interesting next 13 weeks.
Looking forward to it!
I’m curious, Charlie, if you’d also heard of the “Eight Hour Diet” (your daily caloric intake takes place over eight hours, no more, rather than the eighteen per/day we “grazing” Americans seem to favor) While I know very little about it, it does appear to be based on some sound thinking. Or would this not work with someone who is pre/post/recovered Diabetic?
(I mention this not as a “different” diet regime to yours, but as an adjunct)
I haven’t heard of it, and yeah, my first intuition is that it would lead to an even worse “dawn effect”, where the blood sugar spikes in the early morning hours.
I’ve been looking at Tim Ferriss’s Four-Hour Body diet, which is sort of paleo with beans plus some cutting-edge ideas. It’s a bit kooky, but he does have one suggestion that sounds good to me across the board: have breakfast within an hour after waking and choose 40% of the calories from protein.
Charlie: Congratulations on hanging in with the plateau!
I’m at 161 this morning, down from 220some. That’s without significant increase in exercise, pretty much just a low carb diet, for most of it. It did take 18 months, with several plateaus along the way, but I’m getting close to being where I want to be.
I’m convinced that exercise isn’t needed to lose weight. It certainly will help get you stronger and increase endurance/fitness, but I’m unconvinced of it’s utility as a means of losing weight. The study Taubes cites, of the fat guys who got trained to run a marathon without modifying their diet and ended up, months later, being fat guys who could run a marathon was kind of enlightening. Not that you shouldn’t start working out regularly, but a decent diet will probably eventually get your weight generally where you want without it.
I’ve never really paid detailed attention to what I ate. No scale, no log, just basic guidelines. I did eventually stop the binging on cheese and nuts when I noticed my weight going the wrong way, but you really don’t have to kill yourself over whether you have 6 or 10 ounces of lettuce or whether you added one or two ounces of cheese to it. If it makes you happy to do it, then feel free, but you really don’t have to sweat it.
I did start running (using the couch to 5K software for iphone) but only once I had lost 40 or so pounds. Running initially kind of sucked, but it is OK now and I can run two miles at 9.5 minutes/per without a lot of difficult (even running just once a week due to cold weather and my feeling the cold a LOT more then when I weighted more) but I’m not a happy puppy when I finish at 3.5 miles.
Yeah, I’m really uncertain of what the right thing to do in terms of weighing a food diary might be — which is to say you probably have to look for what works for you. For me, I’m OCD enough that daily weighing makes more sense, but only with a long time weight log. Without it I’d get disgusted the first time I did one of these overnight spikes. Someone else might do better with weekly or even monthly weighings. Similarly, I’m more galled by the inaccuracy than anything else, which is why I’m going to start using the kitchen scale, but even then the available nutrition data is fuzzy — I just went through the exercise of trying to figure out what my home made chili comes out to, and discovered I couldn’t find consistent numbers for the meat, the chili molido, or the onions. The can of V8 juice at least was consistently the same. (The figure I get is about 160 kcal/cup and about 2g net carbs.)
The exercise isn’t primarily about the weight. Adding muscle and losing body fat will directly affect the biabetes because it bnoth adds new young virginal muscle cells that haven’t been soaked in sugar, and reduces the amount of stored fat that can be dumped and turned into glucose by the liver. Plus I’ll be prettier.
That should read “weighing AND food diary.”
I managed to lose nearly 20 pounds in about 30 days, when I went to Japan in October/November 2012. I basically ate Japanese-sized portions (including fried food and rice) but I also managed to be on my feet walking or climbing stairs (not every station has escalators/elevators over there) 5-7 hours a day. I wanted to see as much of Tokyo and Japan as I could in that time, so I was motivated to get out and moving, and the price of food (thanks to the crappy exchange rate) kept me from eating too much. This happened the last time I went for a month, back in ’07, I managed to lose about the same amount then, too. Unfortunately I had gained it back in the intervening 5 years, but since I got back on Thanksgiving I’ve manged to lose another 10 pounds. Currently in a plateau, but just going from 278 down to 250 has made a world of difference, plus all the walking I did got my wind back, I’ve taken stairs and ramps that had me winded at the top before, now I’m just a bit short and recover in a few seconds.
Keep working it, I’m shooting for a goal of 200 pounds by Christmas if not sooner.
I see where I’ve lost the 30 lbs: it was all from my neck.
LOL at that one because I lost about 30 pounds in a year about five years ago after I became concerned about my health, and you know the first place anybody else ever noticed it coming off? My face.
You’re obviously getting two cents worth of advice from dozens of people, but nonetheless I want to tell you something about exercise I’ve learned from experience. It’s regular, moderate exercise that you want. You’re not training for the Olympics, you’re not a professional athlete. Some moderate cardio every day is what you need — have you considered parking 10-20 blocks from your usual workplace (if you have a usual workplace) and walking there and back? Exercise and diet are both great things, but if I had to specify which one is more important for weight loss, it would have to be diet.
Charlie, congrats on your progress! But hey, next time smile a bit for your self portrait?
I’ve been eating low carb for about a year, lost 13 pounds in first 3 months. Had a slow down because the weight loss made me have heart palpitations, the doc said my thyroid meds were too high so we lowered the strength, and he said it would be harder for me to lose weight. I smiled, because I knew after adapting I would continue to lose, I’d found how much better I felt being off grains.
So, I’m almost 64, female, I’ve gone from size 14 pants to size 12, which are getting loose. I’m very close to purchasing some size 10 pants because I was able to put on some old jeans that are a snug 10, but I was comfortable and went with a friend for a cheeseburger! (I do allow myself the occasional sandwich when I haven’t planned well enough for lunch at work, maybe once every couple of weeks.). I’ve begun to wonder, can I make it to size 8?
I haven’t exercised except at night I sometimes put on my iPod shuffle and dance like a wild woman in my living room to great songs like Boston’s “Smokin’”. It’s fun! Now that it’s cooler outside I’m going to do some fast walking. But have fun with your exercize, and smile! You look great!
I *am* smiling.
Hi Charlie,
Here is a piece of possible advice you may or may not find useful.
There is a branch of alternative MDs out there who may be useful to you. Unfortunately, they don’t have a name. They are just MDs who focus on natural or near-natural treatments. They’ve been preaching low carb diets to their clients since at least the mid-90′s, so they are very experienced in these things.
They are also versed in treatments you may not find credible, such as IVs which remove heavy metals, vitamin and mineral regimes, and exercise. You can look one up in your area by going to http://www.acam.org and typing in your zip code.
When I lived in the Denver area, there was only one such Doctor that I knew of – Terry Grossman in Golden (303)233-4247. I used him a few times would recommend him, except that he is a little gruff. Who knows, you might have a lot in common -).
When I type in a Denver zip code now I get about 6 different MDs, so apparently they are getting more popular.
One warning, insurance doesn’t cover them, and they are typically expensive. They will want to spend 1 hour with you on your first visit going over all of their questions. That will cost around $250, plus they will want to run some tests which will be another $200 – $600 depending on the answers you give them. From my perspective, its hard to go back to a regular prescription writing doctor after getting to know one of these.
Good luck with everything. Its fun watching your progress.
James
I had my MI (myocardial infarction) at the gym at age 39 doing a very measured 2-3 miles/hr on a treadmill.
Please ensure that you have a thorough cardiac examination PRIOR to increasing the pace and rate of your exercise including being given a maximum number for heart rate / minute derived from a stress test that also measures oxygen consumption while exercising.
IMHO, walking (at least 20 miles / week as I was instructed in cardiac rehabilitation programs) is good exercise at any pace. Its the distance burns calories. Not the pace. Our Husky cross appreciates it too.
Now 55, I have outlived my father’s age at death by one year. GOOD LUCK!