PhysicsDiet.com

I felt much better after my 10am meal and drinking a diet coke. I think I was just tired this morning.

I had a great lower body workout tonight. This seems to be the week I'm getting my weights and exercise form dialed in.

I have especially struggled to get my form and weight right on leg curls. At first I was using too much weight and I was cheating way too much. Then I was too far up on the bench and I wasn't able to really isolate my hamstrings. Tonight everything fell in to place and I'm really feeling it.

I can't wait to do my cardio workout first thing in the morning.

Last night my wife and I went shopping. We stayed out longer than I expected so I missed my 5-6pm meal. At about 7pm we stopped at a coffee shop. I had a 12oz sugar free latte with skim milk. I'm not sure how much milk it had but I'll assume it was about a cup which I now know is about 80 calories. But I couldn't remember that last night

Before we left the mall I almost bought a Cliff bar at the sporting goods store. I could tell that my blood sugar was low but since I wasn't sure how many calories the coffee had I decided to wait until we got home to eat.

I used to drink Diet Coke as my primary beverage from the time I got up to the time I went to bed. Last week I cut way back and started drinking more water. I went to bed around 11:30pm. But then I woke up at about 1:30am. Drinking coffee that late was probably a mistake too. I finally fell back to sleep around 3:30am so I got about 3 more hours of sleep.

This morning I felt like crap. I ate my breakfast about 2 hours ago and I feel a little better. But I still feel drained. I'm drinking a diet coke now and I plan to eat a few more calories than usual for lunch.

Tonight is my lower body workout. I'm going to see how I feel during and after my workout. If I run out of energy I may have to increase my daily calorie intake to 1600 calories per day.

For the past month or so I felt better than I have in years. One thing is for sure, I won't feel like crap every day just to double my rate of fat loss.

I had a great upper body workout last night. I finally got the weights right for most of the exercises. I was still about 5 pounds too heavy on the bicep curls. And I still need some lighter dumbbells for the hammer curls.

I've struggled with my upper body workout since I started Body-for-Life (BFL). I think part of the problem was that I've never had much upper body strength and it took a while gain the strength and endurance to handle a full workout. But I also had to stumble along trying to find the right weights for each exercise. That is part of the process. But I'm glad I'm through that stage.

Weight Loss

I skipped a week of progress reports so I'll cover two weeks this time.

Two weeks ago I lost 1.59 pounds total. I gained 0.34 pounds of lean body mass and lost 1.93 pounds of fat.

Last week I lost 1.13 pounds total. I gained 0.07 pounds of lean body mass and lost 1.2 pounds of fat.

More Diet Changes

It's been 3 weeks since I started Body-for-Life. I feel better than I have in years. I think it is a combination of eating more protein, strength training, and eating 6 times a day.

But I want to pick up the pace of my weight loss again. I'm going to continue eating balanced meals, but I'm going to reduce the number of calories I'm eating. I'm shooting for 6 200 calorie meals a day.

My goal is to lose another 20-30 pounds of fat in the next 2 months while minimizing the amount of lean body mass I lose.

If I continue doing what I've done for the last 3 weeks I'd lose about 12 pounds of fat in 8 weeks. I want to double my fat loss to 3 pounds per week. That is about the rate I lost body fat the first 3 months of my diet. But I was also losing about 2 pounds of lean body mass per week. This time I want to maintain as much lean body mass as possible. I think the combination of eating adequate protein and strength training will let me do that. We shall see.

Here is my current 30 day weight chart and body fat chart:

Last Week

Last week I changed my diet to the Eating for Life (EFL) diet. I also quit doing 1 hour of aerobics every day. Instead I am doing 20 minutes of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) every other day as described in Body for Life (BFL). I following the BFL weight training program instead of doing calisthenics.

I lost a total of 2.78 pounds last week. 1.61 pounds of that was fat. The rest was a loss of fat free mass. The fat loss of 1.61 pounds is similar to the amount of fat I lost the previous week. I'm not sure why I lost so much more fat free mass last week compared to the previous week. I did do only 2 days of strength training last week. The week before I did calisthenics every day. This week, so far, my fat free mass loss is much lower than it was last week, so I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about it.

Last Month

In February I lost a total of 8.48 pounds. 7.49 pounds of that was fat. I also lost 0.99 pounds of fat free mass. I lost a lot less total weight in February than I lost in January. But I reduced the amount of fat free mass loss from 8.6 pounds lost in January to 0.99 pounds lost in February. That's why I started doing calisthenics in the first place so I'm very please with my February results.

So far I've lost a total of 68.44 pounds since I started my diet last November.

Here are my February charts:

Since my eating choices have been rather ‘nonproductive’ the past three days, I decided that it would be helpful to stop obsessing about that, and start thinking about the good things I’m doing for myself and create a positive framework for my journey. [Skinny Daily Post]

It's true, no matter what behavior you are trying to change. Focus on the negative and you will always be able to justify returning to your old behavior.

If you are trying to stop smoking you have two choice. You can obsess about how much you miss smoking, or you can focus on how happy you are that you finally quit.

Want to stop overeating? Don't focus on how much you wish you could eat more. Or how much you miss your favorite foods. Focus on how good it feels not to be stuffed all the time. And how good it feels to have more control of your life. Or whatever it is about not overeating that turns you on.

For me it was easy to quit smoking. It was fairly easy to quit overeating. But starting an exercise routine was a different story.

Last spring I wanted to start weight lifting. I decided I would workout from 6am to 7am every morning. At first it was almost impossible to get out of bed and go down to the basement to workout. I'd had this experience every other time I ever tried to start an exercise routine, so I wasn't surprised.

I started to pay attention to what I was thinking about in the morning right after I woke up. I noticed that I woke up dreading my workout. I'd think about how sore I was going to be the next day. Or how tired I was going to be right after the workout. I would lay in bed forever just full of dread. And for the first two weeks about half the time I would talk myself out of my workout.

A few months before that I'd listened to a bunch of self-help audio books from Audible. I decided to apply some the tips that I'd heard. Every night before I went to bed I'd think about how much was looking forward to my workout. I thought about all the reasons I wanted to workout in the first place. I focused on the things I liked about working out, like the endorphin rush, the feeling of blood rushing through my veins, the extra energy I'd have all through the morning even if I was tired. I didn't make anything up. I truly enjoyed these aspects of exercise. I decided I would focus on the positive and see if it made a difference.

Sure enough. I started waking up excited about my workout. I'd pop out of bed and throw my clothes on. I'd bounce down to the basement and do my workout. I even got to the point where I missed my workout on the weekend. Sometimes I'd even throw in a workout on Saturday or Sunday because I just could wait until Monday to feel the rush.

Here are two self-help books that I highly recommend:

In fact, I think it is time for me to re-listen to both those books. There are still a lot of areas in my life that I tend to focus on the negative first. I know because my wife reminds me at least once a week

I meant to post this earlier this week but my hard drive crashed in my Tablet PC and I got distracted trying to salvage some data from it.

Last week I lost 0.61 pounds last week. My average weight went from 260.28 to 259.67. My average body fat % went from 28.93 to 28.49. I gained 0.71 pounds of fat free mass and lost 1.32 pounds of fat.

I had one day last week where my daily wait went above my average weight. That's only the second time that has happened since I started my diet. I didn't worry too much though because on that day I also had to tighten my belt another notch. That confirmed what I already knew from my body fat monitor, I was still losing fat.

Here are my weight chart and body fat chart since the beginning of February. As you can see, this week things are changing a bit.

This week is a transition week. I'm getting ready to start following the exercise plan in Body for Life. I also plan to incorporate some of the nutrition recommendations from Body for Life. I'm adding more protein to my diet and I'm going to try to eat 6 meals a day again. I'm also going to add a free day to my week.

Holly Allen first read The Hacker's Diet in January of 2001. She's been tracking her weight off and on since then and all of her weight logs are available online.

I highly recommend her blog, Operation Active. It is a great source of information and inspiration.

Before I get to that, however, I want to highlight what I feel is the really important aspect of this journey. Namely, that my interest in, and enjoyment of, vegetables came about from a sort of palate-shift that I went through once I started eating fewer calories and began focusing on healthier habits. Its not so much that I discovered secret new ways to prepare vegetables that somehow made them more enticing. Its more that I began realizing that candy and snacks were not providing me with satisfaction or energy I need.

[Skinny Daily Post]

I know exactly what Jonathan is talking about. I now crave vegetables and fresh fruit the way I used to crave bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes.

I like some frozen vegetables. But I don't like frozen broccoli. I hate the way they chop up the entire bunch of broccoli, stalk and all. So I buy fresh broccoli. It is really easy to clean and cut.

I usually cut up two bunches all at once and put it in a Tupperware container. It keeps in the fridge all week. Then I can eat it raw with some dip or dressing. Or I can steam it and have fresh steamed broccoli with dinner.