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I actually don't know what number film this is, as I can't remember exactly how many times I've made a serious attempt to lose weight, or what even counts since there were a couple I started without fully committing and fell off within the first month or less. I know it's at least the fourth, in that I can remember three individual successful attempts that all just ended abruptly when something in my life changed and I was unable to maintain discipline.
So three weeks ago I embarked on whatever number this is, let's call it VII because, sure, that's close enough. Not like anyone saw the last three in the theatre anyway.
I was inspired by Rob Donoghue who had been posting daily about his foray through a book called The Beck Diet Solution which turns out not really to be so much about dieting as it is about behavioral management. The author of the book is a psychologist, not a nutritionist, and the book is primarily there to teach Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a fancy way of saying it gives you tools to use to change your behavior. This of course assumes that you have identified the behavior you want to change, and that you want to change this behavior.
After he'd gotten through a couple of weeks of the book, which is organized into a six week plan of daily topics, I was intrigued. I bought the book, slapped it on my kindle, and started reading. And what the hell, I said, let's do this.
Since it's actually diet agnostic, the book tells you to pick two diets: One you think you can do, and another one you can fall back to if the first one doesn't work out. It gives you an egress without just falling off the plan.
I picked one that had actually worked for me before until I stopped paying attention to it, which was to basically just reduce my stomach size and try to consciously pay attention to when I'm full. But that one failed when I stopped paying attention to it, so I wanted something a bit more rigorous to help keep it in my head, what I had to do, and help me keep track of what I've been doing.
Enter MyFitnessPal, which is an app on the iphone as well as a website. It calculates a daily caloric limit for you, based on how much you want to lose (and this is editable if you want to do something different), and gives you a way to easily log what you eat and your exercise. Where it really shines is its database. It includes an app to scan UPC codes, so you can easily scan items and look up their nutritional value. It can suck in recipes off of websites and calculate the approximate caloric value of a serving. It can calculate the caloric value of exercise (though in the forums people say it overestimates these numbers).
It also integrates seamlessly with Apple HealthKit as well as FitBit.
We already have a FitBit Aria scale. This means that weigh ins are effortless; I weigh myself, it records that weight on the fitbit site, and then MFP sucks that data in. Bam, I have instant graphs of my weight. one thing I'd love here would be more graphing tools. I'd like to be able to get a moving average, and some graph R values and what not to try to normalize the results, knowing that any individual result is +/- 3 pounds off my real weight, roughly, but with enough data points that real weight can be calculated easily enough.
Still, it's got good features. It has good sharing, so people I'm friends with can see what I've been eating, what my exercise has been, and it'll let people know when I've lost weight (though it doesn't broadcast the actual number, just the amount lost). It's also been startling how the *easiest* way to reduce calories has been not to reduce the expected things, but to reduce the starches from my meals. I can't eliminate them entirely, I don't think, I need them to feel like a meal is complete. But I can reduce them to a few bites and still have decently generous portions of protein and vegetables to go with it.
To go with this, I started picking back up on the walking regimen. Walking is great for me for multiple reasons, not just the weight loss; I need to walk for my back. It keeps the muscles strong, and it also is the only way that liquid gets into or out of the herniated disc, because discs are basically an isolated system in the body with no actual incoming or outgoing flow. But that pumping motion is really good for them. Plus it keeps the muscles in the area stronger.
To help with this, we bought a treadmill. Though I have to compete with Charlotte for that. We told her she could watch as many videos as she wants while walking on it, or for every mile she walks without videos she can have a treasure box trip (We have a box full of little reward goodies that she can go into when she does something we approve of). So far she's doing 2-4 miles per day on it. This is REALLY good for her, and I guess that means if she's using it I'll just walk the old fashioned way. Except when it's hot. Then she's going to HAVE to share.
Also, we pulled out the Wii Fit, and the Wii Fit U has some nice features. It also makes annoying noises at you if you're fat, and it artifically enfattens your Mii, which I find bitchy and I suspect will negatively impact me on days when I'm feeling emotionally unwilling to face that. Yes, Mr. Wii Fit, I'm fat, but you're supposed to be a tool to help me fix that, and wagging your finger at me right when I'm trying to do something about it is counterproductive.
Fuck fat shamers, anyway.
So far, as of today, day 1 of week 4, I'm down 11.4 pounds -- though I'm think I'm on the -3 part of that weight cycle so really it's probably about 8.5 pounds. I get a lot of calorie credit from my exercise, thanks to my abundance of weight, so I have finished some days 1,000 or more calories under target, because I've gotten THAT much exercise.
I'm not really committing to weekly blogging about this, but I am commenting on this here and there regularly over on Google+, because that's where the inspiration came from and Rob cheers me on every post, along with Gretchen and Leeann and a couple of other folks.
I am, however, committing to the following things:
So there, blather blather. Potential updates in the future, or not, but friend me on MFP and/or fitbit and you can follow my progress there too, as well as shorter, quippier updates on my google plus page. I know, it's G+. It's got some uses, though.
So three weeks ago I embarked on whatever number this is, let's call it VII because, sure, that's close enough. Not like anyone saw the last three in the theatre anyway.
I was inspired by Rob Donoghue who had been posting daily about his foray through a book called The Beck Diet Solution which turns out not really to be so much about dieting as it is about behavioral management. The author of the book is a psychologist, not a nutritionist, and the book is primarily there to teach Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is a fancy way of saying it gives you tools to use to change your behavior. This of course assumes that you have identified the behavior you want to change, and that you want to change this behavior.
After he'd gotten through a couple of weeks of the book, which is organized into a six week plan of daily topics, I was intrigued. I bought the book, slapped it on my kindle, and started reading. And what the hell, I said, let's do this.
Since it's actually diet agnostic, the book tells you to pick two diets: One you think you can do, and another one you can fall back to if the first one doesn't work out. It gives you an egress without just falling off the plan.
I picked one that had actually worked for me before until I stopped paying attention to it, which was to basically just reduce my stomach size and try to consciously pay attention to when I'm full. But that one failed when I stopped paying attention to it, so I wanted something a bit more rigorous to help keep it in my head, what I had to do, and help me keep track of what I've been doing.
Enter MyFitnessPal, which is an app on the iphone as well as a website. It calculates a daily caloric limit for you, based on how much you want to lose (and this is editable if you want to do something different), and gives you a way to easily log what you eat and your exercise. Where it really shines is its database. It includes an app to scan UPC codes, so you can easily scan items and look up their nutritional value. It can suck in recipes off of websites and calculate the approximate caloric value of a serving. It can calculate the caloric value of exercise (though in the forums people say it overestimates these numbers).
It also integrates seamlessly with Apple HealthKit as well as FitBit.
We already have a FitBit Aria scale. This means that weigh ins are effortless; I weigh myself, it records that weight on the fitbit site, and then MFP sucks that data in. Bam, I have instant graphs of my weight. one thing I'd love here would be more graphing tools. I'd like to be able to get a moving average, and some graph R values and what not to try to normalize the results, knowing that any individual result is +/- 3 pounds off my real weight, roughly, but with enough data points that real weight can be calculated easily enough.
Still, it's got good features. It has good sharing, so people I'm friends with can see what I've been eating, what my exercise has been, and it'll let people know when I've lost weight (though it doesn't broadcast the actual number, just the amount lost). It's also been startling how the *easiest* way to reduce calories has been not to reduce the expected things, but to reduce the starches from my meals. I can't eliminate them entirely, I don't think, I need them to feel like a meal is complete. But I can reduce them to a few bites and still have decently generous portions of protein and vegetables to go with it.
To go with this, I started picking back up on the walking regimen. Walking is great for me for multiple reasons, not just the weight loss; I need to walk for my back. It keeps the muscles strong, and it also is the only way that liquid gets into or out of the herniated disc, because discs are basically an isolated system in the body with no actual incoming or outgoing flow. But that pumping motion is really good for them. Plus it keeps the muscles in the area stronger.
To help with this, we bought a treadmill. Though I have to compete with Charlotte for that. We told her she could watch as many videos as she wants while walking on it, or for every mile she walks without videos she can have a treasure box trip (We have a box full of little reward goodies that she can go into when she does something we approve of). So far she's doing 2-4 miles per day on it. This is REALLY good for her, and I guess that means if she's using it I'll just walk the old fashioned way. Except when it's hot. Then she's going to HAVE to share.
Also, we pulled out the Wii Fit, and the Wii Fit U has some nice features. It also makes annoying noises at you if you're fat, and it artifically enfattens your Mii, which I find bitchy and I suspect will negatively impact me on days when I'm feeling emotionally unwilling to face that. Yes, Mr. Wii Fit, I'm fat, but you're supposed to be a tool to help me fix that, and wagging your finger at me right when I'm trying to do something about it is counterproductive.
Fuck fat shamers, anyway.
So far, as of today, day 1 of week 4, I'm down 11.4 pounds -- though I'm think I'm on the -3 part of that weight cycle so really it's probably about 8.5 pounds. I get a lot of calorie credit from my exercise, thanks to my abundance of weight, so I have finished some days 1,000 or more calories under target, because I've gotten THAT much exercise.
I'm not really committing to weekly blogging about this, but I am commenting on this here and there regularly over on Google+, because that's where the inspiration came from and Rob cheers me on every post, along with Gretchen and Leeann and a couple of other folks.
I am, however, committing to the following things:
- I will log everything I eat, and everything caloric I drink, at least throughout the rest of 2015 and hopefully beyond.
- I am cutting out artificial sweeteners as much as possible. The only place this really affects me these days is my morning coffee, as I've already gotten largely away from sodas. But it's taking some getting used to, as I've always preferred my coffee sweetened.
- I will get 70,000 steps per week per my fitbit. Using a weekly goal allows me to take a day off here or there, especially since 12K and 15K haven't been that much trouble given how much I want to walk.
- In addition I will work out at least 3 times per week, and by workout I mean either a walk of no less than 3 miles or 30-45 minutes on the WiiFit.
- I will enjoy my food; I will only restrict the quantity, not the quality. I will eat a healthy variety of foods that I like.
- If I fall off plan, I will continue recording, and I will try to use CBT techniques to get myself back on the plan.
So there, blather blather. Potential updates in the future, or not, but friend me on MFP and/or fitbit and you can follow my progress there too, as well as shorter, quippier updates on my google plus page. I know, it's G+. It's got some uses, though.
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no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 04:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 05:12 pm (UTC)(And maybe it'll rub off on me again and I'll get re-inspired to apply myself more rigorously again. Hee.)
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 05:26 pm (UTC)Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 10:47 pm (UTC)Using calorie restriction to reduce weight--as you yourself have noted in this post--doesn't work. Scientific studies have shown that humans can reduce their weight for six months or so, but then it starts coming back. By two years, most people are more or less back where they started. If you're curious, I can share references with you.
There is no confirmed method for losing more than a few pounds long-term. If there were, the medical community would be embracing it, and Weight Watchers and the rest of that industry would be out of business.
I always feel like I'm on the wrong side of a discussion with an anti-vaxxer when I point this out... but I'd suggest focusing on exercise. Some studies show that fat people who exercise, don't smoke, eat their veggies, and drink reasonably are just as healthy as their non-fat friends. I ride an exercise bicycle 45 minutes a day, with huge emotional and medically measurable benefits.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 10:55 pm (UTC)There really is very little to discuss when you immediately open with a comparison to anti-vaxxers. I'm not sure why you'd write something in this manner to someone who is nominally a friend.
Thanks for crapping over my choice.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:09 pm (UTC)Really, I'm very supportive about the exercise. It's a great thing to do for yourself, in all sorts of ways.
I just don't like to see my friends go through a lot of unnecessary discomfort. Part of having friends--or, at least, people we think well of, since you and I don't interact all that much--is caring for their health and well-being, and letting them know when they're planning to spend a huge effort on something that doesn't match the way reality seems to work. I'd say the same thing to a friend who declared that they were going to buckle down, buck the system, and not vaccinate their kids... and I'd probably get a similar reaction. Hence the comparison.
I don't know how else to support someone who's announcing your kind of plans. I wish I did.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:19 pm (UTC)How about this:
Did you know that I have an odd pocket in my stomach? This pocket is something that is likely formed from a lifetime of overeating. This pocket, when fully stretched out, makes it more difficult for me than it should be to tell when I'm full.
Did you know that I experience more discomfort from the exercise than I experience from the calorie restriction?
Did you catch the part where I'm focusing on knowing when I'm hungry versus when I have a desire to eat? See, I've learned over the years that they're two very different things, but I respond to them the same way, and part of this exercise is to retrain how I respond to them.
I've read a number of articles (yes I DO read, hi, welcome to the internet) about the pros and cons of dieting and why weight comes back and ultimately, it's really damned hard to nail this stuff down. Anybody who says they've got it all figured out is full of shit. And that's true of you when you tell me what I'm doing is wrong, unless you've got evidence what what I'm doing is nutritionally unsound. And since you're not reading my meal plans on myfitnesspal, you don't have enough evidence to say that.
Or how about this: I'm a giant bloated fat dude who's trying to do something about it, and I feel shit upon because you're judgy-judgy. You've got a preconceived notion about diets. That's fine. I do too.
I've looked at things like paleo, low carb, south beach, general nutrition advice, specific nutrition advice. In particular I love the real study that came to the conclusion that chocolate helps weight loss, which just went to prove that our current methods of vetting studies is crap.
So don't come in here and tell me you've got it all figured out and compare me to a group of people that are bringing back diseases that should be exctinct. At BEST what's going to happen is that I'll lose some weight, fall of the plan and gain it all back.
And you know what happens if I do the same with exercise and then stop exercising? I'll probably gain it all back.
I really, really don't understand how you would expect anyone to take what you said as anything other than judgmental and insulting.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:29 pm (UTC)Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:22 pm (UTC)I've read numerous articles stating that, though helpfully not one of them has any idea what else to do. Seriously.
I am mad, no, furious, turning-red-in-the-face angry that you start off the discussion with an ad hominem FOR NO FUCKING REASON.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:33 pm (UTC)*I* *feel* like that. Not that the other person is one. I feel that way because I point out the current state of the actual scientific research, and I get yelled at.
I apologize for phrasing this in a way that you reasonably took to mean that I thought you were as evil as an anti-vaxxer. My very huge bad. You're correct; you're nothing like that. Not evil at all. Hugely bad phrasing on my part. Anti-vaxxers are a direct threat to the people around them; you're not.
The only thing I've read that people *do* know helps with health is exercise. If that's hard for you, then all the more credit to you for going there.
Re: Well...
Date: 2015-06-18 11:42 pm (UTC)Exercise alone isn't going to take 120 pounds off of my frame.
Diet alone isn't going to keep 120 pounds off of my frame.
These are two things I feel pretty confident of.
The two of them together should, if I can train myself to overeat less, allow me to take the weight off and have a fighting chance of keeping it off.
I realize I don't talk about the stomach thing at all, but it's an issue. I can eat far more food than I really ought to be able to. I have, in the past (and actually, successfully done so now) shrunk my stomach back down to a normal size.
If I train myself to listen to my body and stop eating when I'm actually full, I don't need to 'diet'. But I lose track after awhile, when something happens and I'm in a bad mood. I'm trying to give myself tools to track that better, over the long term.
A calorie deficit is needed to lose weight; you have to burn more calories than you take in. Now, some diets allow you to simply not use calories you take in. Exercise causes you to burn a lot more calories and hopefully this is more than you take in.
But to really, really lose weight, it requires both.
Keeping it off requires the maintenance phase to not be dropped. To not assume "Ok, I'm at a healthy weight, I can stop paying attention." Particularly not when there are physical issues that can get in the way. If I can calculate, reasonably, the difference in calorie burn and calorie intake, I can maintain a healthy weight in the long term.
And I did say I commit to eating whatever I want, but to prefer healthy things, and to reduce the quantities. That wasn't JUST about dieting to lose weight; that was about training myself to eat the correct amount of food for my body.
My general assumption is that the diet will take the weight off, and the exercise and a bit of cognitive training will keep it off.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 02:38 am (UTC)Or, other than the book mentioned for the behavioral therapy approach, do you have a recommendation for good source material?
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 02:54 am (UTC)Honestly I don't know if I'm full at the end of eating very well. After doing this for 3 weeks, though, the feeling of fullness is coming on a LOT faster than it used to, which is a sign that my stomach is shrinking back to a normal level.
If, in fact, I'm still hungry after 20 minutes, I go for more. I'm going light on the starches because they're just less satisfying. Protein + veggie + a little bit of starchy food sort of hits that midwestern sweet spot I have for what a meal should be. I find the protein portions pretty satisfying.
This works a little less well on one plate dishes, like a chicken and rice pilaf or a full fledged pasta dish. But I can always just add the weight of all of it together and hope it's about right.
So there's it's this at work: 1) Start with a reasonable portion, 2) make an effort to eat slowly, 3) 20 minutes (minimum) for seconds.
Another piece of advice from Beck is, after a meal, ask yourself if you could go for a brisk walk. If the answer is no, you likely have eaten to much. Like before, I can't answer this question at the end of the meal, but I can 20 minutes later.
Another exercise Beck suggests to help with this is to get a notepad and take a note of how your stomach feels throughout the day. In the morning, in the afternoon, right before a meal, partway through the meal, at the end of the meal, 20 minutes after a meal, 60 minutes after a meal. That's a lot of work, so I haven't done it specifically, but I did it mentally just to try and gauge. It gives a baseline to compare to.
I don't have any other resources in particular on this. A lot of what I have on this comes through past experimentation, random articles I've read on the web which are all 'take with a grain of salt' type of things, and the memory of my last successful diet. (That one, btw, wasn't so much a diet as it was a "I had the flu and my stomach shrunk after 3 days of not eating. Let's try not to stretch it back out." That worked for a good 3-4 months, but I need something to keep me focused or I'll start slacking and then *bam* it's all stretched out again.
To that end, the logging is really really valuable for me. It can quickly show me how far away I am from the baseline I've established. The calories are valuable but the real value is simply that it shows me raw quantities, even if I don't know the calorie value exactly.
Of course, I'm 3 weeks in. How well will this stick on 3 months? 3 years? Time will tell. I'm terrible about losing focus and moving on. All I can do is try behavioral tricks to try and maintain focus as time goes on. We will see where that goes.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 02:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 09:05 pm (UTC)I just got a fitbit to track my movement, and to encourage me to not sit around like a lump. I think it is helping. Sort of. But it works better on vacation than off. :)
no subject
Date: 2015-06-21 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 04:07 am (UTC)I'm finding it very hard to keep under 30% fat, though; it's so caloricly dense that I keep going over. But I'm not sweating that too much, either, and mostly am just being mindful of it for informational purposes. I'm also finding it difficult to get up to 35% protein. And I eat what I thought is a pretty protein-heavy diet.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 06:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-22 02:33 pm (UTC)I want to throw in some strength training, but that's for a later time. My wii fit workout includes some minor strength training but nothing really serious, but I also haven't done that since I got the treadmill. It's faster to just set the treadmill for an incline and do a more intense uphill walk for the same amount of time I'd do wii fit, and i get a more strenuous workout.
But then I also don't get some of the strength training the wii fit gives, but i don't really need the wii fit for that either.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-25 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-25 05:38 pm (UTC)I *have* to be able to share shopping lists with Lynette, because which one of us goes shopping is nearly random at this point (it's usually both of us but at any given time one or the other of us might be busy so one will go solo). Right now she keeps the main shopping list in ListOmni but the app is feeling pretty archaic, so I am kind of on the hunt for a better list organizer.
When I do meal plans, I put them in a google calendar, which is shared so that she can easily see what's coming up (also when I'm going into the office a lot, I can put reminders to set out something from the freezer and either one of us can do it).
I haven't actually done that much lately. I really need to, as there's a fair bit of stuff from our meat CSA sitting in the freezer that isn't going to get used without planning for it, and I've lost track of what it is.
Keeping up with the freezer inventory is a hard problem.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-28 10:00 am (UTC)The ability to swap recipes between accounts would be very nice, though.
I hear you on the freezer inventory issue. Ours is overstuffed and things have a tendency to get lost for a while.