Fine Tuning

It took me a 100 days, but I have finally realized that I can do something to help lose the elusive 1 pound every 3 days. Specifically, I have realized that to some extent I can manage both my daily calorie intake and my daily exercise to help ensure that I have a total calorie deficiency of 3500 calories over a 3 day period.

As mentioned earlier, I keep a table of calories consumed for various levels of activity (measured by step counts and miles walked) calculated at my actual weight, updated every 4 or 5 pounds or so.

At the moment, the table is as follows:

actual weight: 317
. . . . . . ......... calories, miles/wk, steps/day
sedentary: . ...... 3393,...... 0,....... 0
lite activity : . . . 3915,...... 5,..... 1618
lite "+": . . . . .... 4241,..... 10,..... 3237
moderate:........ 4567,.... 17.5,.... 5665
heavy exercise:.. ----,..... 27,..... 8740

Using this table and my actual daily calorie count, it's possible to calculate the daily calorie differential.
Here's what this looks like over the last 3 days:

day 1 - 6/27 -
steps: 7010
moderate calories: 4567
actual calories: 3235
differential: 1332

day 2 - 6/28 -
steps: 7000
moderate calories: 4567
actual calories: 3081
differential: 1486
cumulative differential: 2818

day 3 - 6/29 -
steps (so far): 3650
lite+ calories: 4241
actual calories*: 3030
differential*: 1211
cumulative differential*: 4029 over 3 days, good for one pound
*estimated

So, what's the point? Well, today for example, my left knee, the weakest part of my body, is the size of a football. It would be a really good idea not to walk on it anymore today, even though it doesn't hurt walking. Knowing that I will have a big enough calorie deficiency to lose my 1 pound/3 days (provided I stay on target today) helps me decide not to walk this afternoon but rather rest my knee.

In other words, knowing where I stand in regard to losing my target 1 pound/ 3 days allows me much more flexibility in deciding how much to exercise on any any given day, on whether to eat out or not, or have pizza, or just have a big, really low calorie salad. The way I see it, the more flexible I can make my food decisions, the less constrained I will feel about my "diet", and the more likely I will succeed.

Status Report - DOWN 29

Well, just in the unlikely event someone comes along and reads one of the previous posts, I thought I'd post current results. Today (6-27) is the 103 third day since my medical event, and I weighed 322 with clothes at the hospital emergency room (I weight myslef there because my scale simply assigns a random number between 320 and 325 every morning).

322 lbs with clothes is 317 in real weight. Either way, I have lost at least 29 pounds ("at least" because I don't know how much over 350 I weighed). My target is one pound every three days, or 34 lbs since day one - missed that. But 103 days is about 14.5 weeks, so I have lost 2 lbs a week and that is good. I also weighted 328 pounds in the doctor's office just two weeks ago, which means I have hit 3 pounds a week over the last two weeks - which is also not bad.

I assume my weekly loss rate has gone up mostly because I am now gaining muscle at a slower rate (I was pretty feeble in the beginning) - but also I continue to get a better handle on my calories, and end up more days 200 - 300 calories under, and I walk a lot more now - last week it was only 14 miles mostly due the the weather -but that is way under the average 18.3 miles/week of the previous month.

Well that's it = I just keep cranking along!

EXERCISE

My exercise used to consist of a 20 min walk(about 2.5 mph) nearly every day. In 2005 it got to the point I was winded at every hill (I walk in the moraine, and my basic walk has five steep hills 30 to 50 steps long - I think they are similar to 3 or 4 flights of stairs. Of course, even steep hills are easier than stairs because you don't have to lift your feet the full height of a stair.)

I decided that the reason I was winded was that I wasn't walking hard enough. So I made a pair of nordic walking sticks and got going fast enough to nearly faint at the top of every hill. Mercifully, I was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation in December, and I pitched the walking sticks, and toned down my quest for endurance. But my doctors made a mistake in blaming the afib for my shortness of breath - in retrospect, no matter what my heart problems may actually be, I think ther shortness of breath was due to the layers of fat around my lungs.

Anway, subsequent to being almost killed in the effort to restore my heart rhythm, I made the lose weight decision and also began to revamp my exercise - as with my diet, my exercise is a work in progress:

Since March 18th, my exercise program has developed as follows:

1) early in the morning I do some exercises: (Note: I try to do 20 minutes of exercise before walking in the morning, and a "significant" yard project for 25 minutes or so before walking in the evening in order to get my heart rhythm up and running before beginning the cardio (ie the walk). I walk in the morning before eating anything because you are supposed to burn more fat that way - I can only say I hope so.)

group one exercises include: dead lifts, touch toes, touch toes with weights (basically same as deadlifts but with less weight), hip bends, squats. I pick a couple from the group depending on the condition of my knees, back and feet (condition means level of pain).

group two includes 30 to 50 crunches, a half dozen (very feeble) pushups, and some RAF leg lift thing which I remember from school as being very difficult (what I do now is some sissy, easy version)

group three exercises are weight lifting;

each day I do one set of exercises using a pair of dumbells - I try to separate out the muscle groups to give each a rest, there are no scheduled off days for weights (every so often I don't get to it, but most days I do the one exercise). Every other day I try to do exercises that are "compound" in the sense that many muscle groups are worked. Early on I went for reps, but after some more reading I now go for weight, and as soon as I can do 10 reps, I push the weight up. I log everything. Actual exercises:

1) Military press (compound) my shoulders are very weak - I have been stymied here at 25# for a long time, but have finally gotten the reps up to 7-7-4. I switched to a lift a few times, and that seemed to help.
2)Tricepts (behind the head thing). This exercise makes me nervous lifting all that weight over my head so I don't know how high I can go - recently I have been using 35# for 10-10-10 reps.
3) Bench press (compound) Hardest part here is getting the weights in position, now doing 7-4-4 with 35#
4) Bicepts: curls with 29# 5-5-5
5) Back (compound) One hand rowing, 39# 7-7-5. When I get to 10 reps, then I will work two hand rowing until I get the 10 reps - that's usually just a day or so.

Anway, this morning thing takes a lot of space to write up, but just 15 to 20 minutes to do, after which, I immediately go into my morning walk. My walk has evolved quite a bit. First af all it has become twice a day whenever possible - at least 4 days a week. Secondly it has become two laps, and thirdly I have added a steep hill to each lap.It takes about 38 minutes, and when it reaches 35, I will add another hill - I can add hills forever because what I do is walk down on a switchback trail (to save my knees) and then back up the hill - sort of like adding a circle to the middle of the walk.

I have also purchased a pedometer and use it to convert my steps to miles, so that I can determine my exercise level as per the Nutrition.com.sg site. I log everything. I count only exercise steps: the morning and evening walks, mowing the lawn, and certain yard projects. For the last few weeks I have been well over the 19 miles/week for moderate exercise, but have been able to keep my calories at the lower "lite plus" level. I have absolutely no idea if this will make any difference in the weight loss process, but it sure makes me feel better mentally.

I am happy to see my laps getting faster and faster - and I now mow at "full speed" beihind my variable speed mower, and I can handle flights of stairs a lot better. Things aren't perfect: I still have moments of fatigue, and sudden shortness of breath, both of which are probably realted to my underlying heart failure. But the elimination of fat layers around my lungs has clearly helped (I have, as write, lost 25 pounds, clearly all visceral fat because I can't see it anywhere!) The limiting factor is the condition of my knees, feet and back - ice packs galore, especially on my feet - if I feel pain I quit for the session

Eight Steps on the Road to Reduction

A quick summary of the Eight Steps on my Road to Reduction. (A fuller discussion is here.)

1) I found out how much I weighed and how much I was eating to stay that weight.

2) I recognized that I could not control how much I ate on my own, and started a calorie log to provide a realtime, artifical method of telling me when I had eaten enough.

3) I started removing "bad" foods from my diet. I was NOT on a diet, I still ate pretty much the same things as I always ate, but at my own speed, I removed one unhealthy food after another. In due time, my cholesterol reached 155, my trigliceries 91, and I had no blockages in any artery. And, I managed to lose about 35 pounds and kept it off . Finally, during this period, I became aware of and interested in nutrition and healthy food.

4) I made the final committment to a healthier life: I devised a plan to control my calorie intake.

5) I found my target weight, and I determined the daily calories necessary to both reach and maintain that target weight.

6) {here's the diet!} I use my calorie log to limit my daily calorie intake to that determined in step 5. I can eat anyting I want, as long as I log it. If I go out, to a party , a restaurant, whatever, I carry a notebook and calculate my calories as best as I can when I get home. I measure everything, I leave nothing to my "eye" or my judgement.

7) I continually evaluate my exercise plan, and make sure that I maintain sufficient exercise for my calorie intake (EG, as I get faster on my walk, I increase the length of my walk in order to maintain the same duration; and I slowly increase the weights in my resistance exercises to reflect my increased ability).

8) I pay attention to the nutritional details of my diet. In particular I watch my fat intake. I make a real effort to exclude trans-fats (that means, for example, no commercially baked cakes etc) and to limit salt. I try to make sure I eat the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables. The net result is that although I can eat anything I want, there is a growing list of things I don't want to eat.

The whole plan is meant to be dynamic: to change as I learn more, to accomodate new ideas, to adapt to changes in my circumstances. There is no "maintenance" step in this plan because when I reach my target weight I will already be doing all the necessary things to maintain that weight.

Foods I Find Useful

I have found certain low calorie foods very useful in keeping my daily calories down and healthy; these include (in no particular order):

Bread: thank goodness for Country Kitchen "Light Wheat Bread". At only 35 calories a slice compared to about 100 calories for standard wheat bread, it is a winner. Naturally it has less calories manily because it is smaller, but it still manages to taste OK, and has protein and fiber, which most diet breads are sorely lacking. It has a small amount of high fructose corn syrup, but then again I have found only two brands of regular wheat bread that don't use the fructose.

Butter: Smart Balance wins hands down - I use the regular for cooking (at 80 calories per tablespoon, it beats canola or whatever oil at 120 calories), and I use the light for sandwiches, toast, etc (one teaspoon at 15 calories is all it takes for a slice). I think the stuff tastes OK, and no trans fats period (none of this per serving BS).

Eggs: I eat a lot of eggs, the cholesterol does not bother me (my cholesterol stays around 155). I eat Eggland or other omega-3 enhanced eggs because: 1) they have the omega-3, 2) they feed a vegetarian (non animal byproducts) feed, and 3) no antibiotics. The best advantage of these slightly pricier eggs is that the are only 70 calories each, rather than 78 for a regular egg.

Oatmeal / oat bran: I found a great recipe for "super" oatmeal: 1 serving oatmeal, 1/2 serving oat bran, 2 tablespoon dried milk, and 1 servings raisins. This is not a low calorie meal, I gave up the raisins (130 calories), and it is still at least 272 calories. But is is filling and provides about 4 grams of soluble fiber which helps with the fat, among other things.

Smart Beat Cheese: tastes terrible by itself, which is good because I used to eat American cheese slices by the pound. However, in a sandwich it tastes OK, and at 25 calories and zero fat, it provides some calcium without breaking the bank.

Bagels, yes bagels. I am a big bread eater and bagels provide my bread fix. At 165 calories, plus 30 calories for Smart Balance they are certainly a better deal than 150 calories for a small piece of specialty bread (plus the butter, or worse, oil).

Splenda (sucralose): this stuff is good - it sweetens my oatmeal and takes any low fat, low calorie salad dressing and turns it into something palatable - couldn't live without it!

Boca Veggie Burgers, along with Boca ground burger - are a staple in my diet. At 60-70 calories per serving and only 1 fat gram - they replace every meat from bacon to hamburger. The boca burger and canned salmon replace beeef and chicken in all recipes.

Fish - mostly canned (wild) salmon for recipes, and canned (wild) tuna-like salmon for salads sandwiches etc. We no longer eat canned tuna. Note that the tuna-like canned salmon has little omega-3. I also eat a fair number of sardines for the omega-3, but my wife refuses to indulge. We eat salmon at least twice a week.

Well, that's it for foods that I have found to help me meet my calorie count. Other than that it is just a lot of whole wheat pasta, brown rice (ok, parboiled brown rice which is all I can take), potatoes, and lots of veggies. Hardly any meat as my wife is a vegetarian, though I do have broiled chicken breast once in awhile, and a roasted steak every few weeks.

Oops, I should mention the pizza - to get away from my cooking we have veggie pizza about once a week. After extensive research I have come to the conclusion that allocating 300 calories per slice is a reasonable guess - slices are divided as follows: 4 for me for dinner, 2 for my wife for dinner and two for her lunch the next day. We do not have pizza on Friday or Saturday night because I eat the extra lunch slices - so much for self control.

Finally maybe I should mention alcohol. I was happily having one 4 oz glass of wine a day (sometimes maybe two) until I had my medical event. Now I am trying to wean myself off the wine - it does not help the weak heart, and it worsens the sleep apnea, which is suspected as being the cause of the weak heart. Once I lose the weight I will reevaluate the situation, but for now, I am down to one or two 4 ounce glasses a week.

HOW I LOSE WEIGHT

First off, I am not "on a diet". On the other hand, I continually reevaluate my diet.

The National Weight Control Registry keeps tabs on formerly obese people who have remained slim for at least a year, and from time to time does studies of the dietary habits of the registrants. One interesting discovery was that the desire to loose weight was frequently triggered by a "medical event", particularly in the case of men over 50. I had my medical event on March 14th, and on March 18th, I made the final adjustment to my diet.

I had a head start on the whole diet thing because, as I mentioned last time, I had long since given up almost all junk food. The only thing I "gave up" on March 18th was KFC biscuits and chicken strips. Not much sacrafice there, although I did love those strips.

What I did give up was calories. It was abundantly clear that it was about time to start counting calories. I could no longer ignore the simple idea that I gained weight, and kept it on, because I just plain ate too much, "healthy" food or not. So the question was: how many calories should I eat?

I turned to an old idea I had read long ago, and interestingly enough, have not been able to find again anywhere on the web. The idea was extremely simple: if you eat as many calories as is "normal" for a particular (ideal) weight, then eventually you will become that weight. (Probably the idea came from Parade - sounds a whole lot like that "everyone eats too much of one thing" idea.)

So step one was to go one of the many sites that determines your ideal weight based on your height - I kind of liked ask.com's "How to Assess your Body Weight", probably because they made it a bit more complicated and took frame size into account. The second step was to find out how many calories I should eat at the ideal weight. For that, I turned to Nutrition.com.sg. Note that ".sg" stands for Singapore - that's right, I use a Singaporian (??) site for all my calculations. [In general, I find the Australian, United Kingdom and this Singapore site much better than similar American sites - they are simply more direct and forthright with less advertising.] In any event, that's pretty much all I did for the final adjustment to my diet. It worked out like this:

Given my height (77") and frame (heavy) and age (60):

my ideal weight is 213 pounds (the range is 178 to 218)
the calories I should consume for
light exercise: 2933
"lite plus": 3030
moderate: 3422

I also keep similar information for my actual weight, recalcualted every two pounds or so:
actual weight: 323
sedentary activity: 3442
light activity: 3971
"lite plus": 4210
moderate: 4633

From day one I have written down every calorie I have eaten - if I go out, I spend a half an hour or so recreating the meal and trying to make an accurate log of what I had to eat. I target 3030 calories for "lite plus" activity (half way between light and moderate activity), and I don't mind much if I hit 3250 or so. I use the calorie levels at my current (actual) weight to try and set some (mental) limits - for example, I really never want to go over the sedentary calories for my current weight, and I like to make sure that I am targeting 1000 calories below the calories for "lite plus" activity at my actual weight. As I get closer to my target weight, these limits will no longer work, but for now they are fine.

As I write down my calories during the day, I adjust my meals depending on what I have eaten so far - dinner can be anything from a dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant to a baked potato with steamed cauliflower, depending on what calories I have left. I also log my exercise level, which is primarily walking, but includes some weight lifting etc.

The reason I liked Nurtition.com.sg is because they had a useful definition of light and moderate activity that I could apply to my life style: light activity consisted of walking 3.75 to 6.25 miles a week, while moderate activity consisted of walking 10.5 to 17.5 miles a week. For years prior to March 18th, I walked about 4 to 6 miles a week; over the last 3 months I have extended that to 16 to 19 miles a week (I include lawn mowing in that figure). I bought a pedometer to keep track of the actual milage - I don't count anything unless it has an exercise value, and I deduct about 1% from each reading, just to make sure the step count is honest (the pedometer I use is accurate to +/- 1%).

I expect that I will be eating these same 3030 calories for the rest of my life - first to reach 213, and then to stay there. I am trying to keep the exercise reasonable so that it may also be maintained for as long as possible - as I age and it has to be cut back, then so will my calories.

With the control of calories consumed, I feel I have now completed at least the dietary aspects of my Life Style Change. In my head I am already 213 pounds, it is disappointing everytime I look in the mirror and see that I am not. Yet.

How I Got TOO BIG

In high school I rowed crew and wrestled and my weight was fine. In collge I smoked and drank booze, my weight was less fine. Out on my own, I was always borderline obese at 275 (obese being 30% overweight). Then in 1989, at age 43, I quit smoking, and instantaneously became obese for real - in a matter of a few months my weight became unknowable because I was off the charts (all doctors' scales stop at 350). Once in awhile I would sneak on a feed scale and weigh myself; what also worked were those veterinarian scales made for both the dog and owner to get on. The memory is vague, but I recall that the last time I got on one of those, I thought I broke it - I weighed nearly 390 pounds. I told no one.

Redemption began in 1994 - my mother died, my wife quit my small business and went off to college, and somehow it came to my attention I needed to loose some weight. I had previously been on Akien's diet a couple of times, and while I lost weight, it always came right back when I just couldn't look at another steak. So I decided then and there - no more diets. I didn't know it at the time but what I began was the one and only, the dreaded, Life Style Change.

I got my first tip on how to actually loose weight from one of those little articles in Parade Magazine, the well know health magazine included in your Sunday paper. I remember clearly the author said "everyone eats too much of something, it could be bananas or whatever." The clear implication was: if you can just control that one thing, you can control your weight. Believe it or not, that one little idea became the corner stone of my diet for the next 10 years. I did not count calories, I did not follow diet plans, because everyone "knew" diets didn't work, and the weight would come right back. So "diet" for me became the gradual elimination of "bad foods" in my diet - in other words: Life Style Change.

The first thing to go was potato chips. At that in time, I did a lot of driving a couple of days a week. I couldn't get the car started without an open bag of potato chips (think "cell phone" in the current vernacular). When I didn't get thin without the chips, I let go of the chicken McNuggets (a "healthy" replacement for the chips). When I still didn't get thin, I decided that breakfast everyday at Burger King probably was the one thing I ate too much. And so it went month after month, year after year. Somehow, somewhere, my wife's vegetarianism rubbed off, and it got too messy to cook meat in the house. My weight stabilized at what I estimated to be 365 (from how hard the balance beam bounced off the restraint). The battle had been refined by 2004/2005, and I was fighting trans fats and high fructose corn syrup rather than McGriddles. But what I had undergone was the Life Style Change, in such a slow and unremarkable fashion that I didn't notice it and felt no pain.

Practically lost sight of in the course of the Life Style Change, was the fact I really wasn't loosing any weight. Disturbing messages began appearing the Wall Street Journal (another well known health journal) to the effect that "Americans spend too much time worrying about WHAT they eat and not enough about HOW MUCH they eat." The possibility that I was eating not just too much of one thing, but too much of everything, became an increasingly nagging thought.

It all came to a head in 2005. It became clear in the spring -when I began the usual yard work- that I had no endurance. By summer I couldn't get to the top of a hill without sucking air so hard I had to stop. And as noted in my profile, the cummulative effect of 16 years of obesity came crashing down between Dec 5, 2005 and March 14, 2006. But now begins the story of how I loose the weight.