Setting Myself Up for Progress

So, here we go.  It's been forever.  I've been working on losing weight seriously again for awhile, but I figured it would be best to put down what I'm doing, so I can track progress and find out what works.

After looking at several sources for my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate, how many calories my body burns at rest for the day), I'm estimated at approximately 2200.  My plan is to consume about 1700 calories a day.  If I don't do anything, I should lose 1 pound a week.

On top of that, I'm walking about 5 miles each day (Approximately 500 calories), and walking stairs for about 30 minutes of my day (Every hour I walk up 6 flights of stairs, approximately 30 calories, so about 270 calories).  This should be an extra 770 calories burned a day, ignoring whatever else I do during the day.  On top of my simple deficit, that's almost 1 pound every 3 days.

I've been struggling to get my food and proportions down so that I can abide by this deficit.  In order to do this, I'm eating carrots and half a pepper when I get to work.  This tides me over until about 9 o'clock, where I'll eat a breakfast sandwich (~400 calories).  This will tide me over until 12-1, where I will eat a sandwich, or small lunch item of no more than 350 calories.  A granola bar and carrots/vegetables and a piece of fruit brings me to about 250 calories around 4, before I go home.  All in all, about 1000 calories before I get home.  Between having a decent snack so late, I will have a smaller portion of dinner.  Still large, around 550 calories.  Then, about an hour before bed, round it out with a kale/blueberry smoothie, at about 150 calories.

Here's to starting the serious measurements about this.  I have no plans to do anything large for the next month or so, so I shouldn't have any excuses to fall off.

Starting weight 239.6.

EDIT: This will be a lower carb diet.  I'm trying to avoid big meals of pasta or lots of bread.

March 18, 2015

Weight: 226
BF%: Estimated 33.43% using following measurements
Waist narrowest - 41.2"
Waist @ Naval - 44"
Hip @ widest = 44"
Thigh @ widest - 25"
Biceps @ Widest - 16.2"
Forearm @ Widest - 12.25"
Wrist @ Narrowest - 6.76"
Diet:
Bagel Sandwich -

270+60+160+60+120+70
-740

March 12, 2015

Day 2 out of my running routine.  I'm doing the couch to 10k.  A 12 week program that will at least get me on my feet (pun intended) and off on a good foot (Also pun intended) for running the Tough Mudder.  I have 18 weeks from Saturday to be as ready as I can for it.  My training will consist of doing this Couch to 10k for the first 12 weeks.  These 12 weeks will also coincide with me participating in the Body Transformation Fitness Challenge on Reddit.  For the first 60 days, I'll be doing a combination of hitting the gym to run 3 times a week, and 3 other days, if I get off my butt, will be either more cardio in the form of Elliptical or rowing, or strength training.  I think I'll lean toward the latter.  Additionally, I'll be doing the Pushup Lunge Pullup challenge where on the first day, I do of each of those, and on the second day, two, etc.  After that, Kayla and I will really start strength training.  I just hope to keep up with my friends enough that they won't leave me behind.

Diet:
Breakfast Bagel -
270 + 60 + 70 + 80 + 35 + 50 + 120 = 685
Lunch Bagel -
270+ 60 + 80 + 35 + 75 + 180 = 700
So far = 1385 (195 less than normal).
Also, walked/jogged 1.7 miles ~ 170 calories
Dinner plans -
4oz chicken with sauce 280
Salad with Ranch and a few croutons ~ 120
Estimated 400
Total ~1785!

March 3, 2014

Diet:
Breakfast:
Bagel - 270
5xSalami - 150
2 x Ham - 50
1 x cheddar - 80
1xEgg - 70
1 x Provologne - 36
Cream cheese - 60
-716
Banana 105
English Muffin 120
Egg 70
1 x ham - 25
2x salami 60
1xcheddar 80
-460

Back

Not promising consistent posts yet... but just letting you know that after months of being inactive, i'm moving toward being active again.  I'm on day 2 of my workout regiment (Not a lot, I know, but the point is that I started again), and a couple weeks into my diet.  I'm the lightest I've been in about 1.5 months.

Long story short, six days a weeks, I'm either doing strength training or cardio.  As well as dieting, I'm hoping ot hit 210 by the beginning of April, so that I can be light enough, and fit enough, to enjoy skiing with my brother in law.

To those of you who may still be watching or have me on feed... I'm getting out of this funk.  If I can do it, you can as well.  <3

I'm Back

New job... less stress.  It's funny how much stress actually affects you.  I tried to tell myself that I was immune, but that didn't get me that far.  Regardless, I've moved and removed some sources of stress, so I'm going to try and lose weight again!

Long story short, I've gotten fatter over the past couple weeks.  I went from 210 to 225.  Not good.  I have a potbelly, and I'm not excited for it.  Luckily for me, there's dieting and exercise!  I'm going to outline my 3 phase plan, and how I'm going to invest myself in it.

To start, one of my biggest problems is becoming invested in one of my plans.  It's super easy to say I'm going to do something, but even harder to actually follow through and do the plan.  This is why I've come up with a gameplan, and how I'm going to coerce myself to follow through with it.  To begin with, I've start a 9-month plan, in 3 phases.  Each phase is 3 months long.  For each phase, every month, I'm going to take 50$ of my budgeted personal spending money, and put it into savings.  Then, after the phase, if I have hit my goals, I get that 150$ back, plus an additional 150$.  If I didn't, the 150$ just sits in savings.

If I complete a phase, then I can use that 300$ on WHATEVER I want.  Meaning... this first phase, I'm going to buy myself a new monitor.  This is my incentive!

Phase 1: Cutting.  I've gotten fat, no use trying to pretend I haven't.  So, to rectify this, I'm going to spend my first 3 months trying to lose 12-24 pounds of fat.  This will get me closer to my 200 pound mark, which I'm embarassed to say I've completely passed.  Here's how I'm going to do that:

Keto!  I've started this diet before, and am going to try it again.  Long story short, I'm going to  deprive myself of carbs, and force my body into enter a state called ketosis.  In this state, since I don't have the necessary glucose floating around in my blood stream to support brain/muscle functions, my body turns to the only alternative energy source it has, ketones.  In this state, it takes lipids(fats) and energy stored in fats, and turns it into an energy source that my brain (primarily) and body can use.  This pretty much means that any calories I intake through food that aren't easily broken down into a glucose based energy source, must go through a process that turns them into ketones.

I've tried this diet once before, and I did experience some nice weight loss.  The primary issues are the adaption process which I must undergo to adapt my body to get energy from a source that it's not normally used to getting it from, as well as the fact that carbohydrates are DELICIOUS, and I must resist them.

This will be my only long article on this.  I've started this journey, and will see where I end up after 3 months.  My goal is tied into physical activity, which is to be able to "job" a 5k within 30 minutes, as well as hopefully objectively say that my body fat percentage has dropped by at least 2%.  If I succeed in these requirements, I get my money and will proceed to phase 2.  This phase will be working on making my body anti-fragile.

For those of you reading this, I hope to inspire you to follow your dreams.  mine is to once again get to a state where I'm happy with my body.

Take care,
Kevin

Indefinite Hiatus

My apologies to everyone, but I'm going on an indefinite hiatus while I work on getting my life back in order.  There are many things I need to take care of.  I still have a desire to get this off the ground, and to get back to the roots.  I will wait until I can do that in a quality manner, and consistently, before starting up again.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck with me so far.  I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.