PhysicsDiet.com

I just finished reading Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain. It is a great read. It looks like a lot of the Amazon reviewers expected a how-to manual. That is not what this book is. It simply presents the growing evidence that our brains remain remarkably plastic throughout our entire lives.

For example, it discusses a technique used to treat dyslexia in children called Fast ForWord. I think similar techniques would also work to help adults learn new languages.

For people looking for a how-to manual I highly recommend Jack Kornfield's The Inner Art of Meditation. I listened to it a while back and it was the first time meditation made sense to me.

Last night at Barnes & Noble I came across another book about neuroplasticity. The Brain That Changes Itself provides examples of the brain rewiring itself to overcome injury or abnormality. My local library just got a copy in so I plan on reading it next.

If you are wondering what any of this has to do with weight loss, read this excellent article: Know Your Hunger.

Update: There is an interview with Sharon Begley on NPR about her book. There is an interview with Norman Doidge about his book (in Real Audio unfortunately) too.

It's been two weeks since I figured out that my poor posture was causing some or all of my leg pain.

At first I focused on my pelvis. I concentrated on tipping my pelvis up and back by arching my lower back. After a day my left heel and Achilles tendon felt much better. The top of my left leg - what I used to call my hip - also felt much better. But my lower back started aching a little and my left hip joint started aching.

At first I ignored the new ache in my hip. But after a couple of days of shopping with my wife I began to notice that I was still sort of wobbling on my hip while I walked. So I started to concentrate on fixing that too. I also relaxed my back a bit because I found that it didn't take much to tilt my pelvis to the correct position.

It's been a few days since I made the latest changes and I feel like a new person. My legs are now pain free.

Now when I walk I focus on a few key points. First I make sure I'm standing up straight like my mom always told me to. I pull my stomach in, pull my shoulders back, and push my chest out. Then I make sure my pelvis is in a neutral position. I try to keep my pelvis still while I walk. I imagine my legs are pendulums hanging from my pelvis and I try make sure they swing back a forth inline with the direction I'm traveling.

I used to stand and walk with my lower back flat and my pelvis pushed forward. This would cause my legs to bow out slightly. When I walked I could feel my left hip sort of roll. Instead of swinging from back and forth from the hip my legs sort of twisted around. Also at some point, probably a reaction to my Achilles pain, I started favoring my right leg. This caused me to rock on my hips to try and keep most of my weight on my right leg. My whole pelvis was like a seesaw. Teetering from right to left. This wasn't a real exaggerated motion, but it was apparently enough to cause me a lot of trouble. When I noticed I was doing this I stopped and the remaining pain in my left hip is now gone.

It is amazing how much I used to take my walk for granted. And it is amazing how much time I've spent thinking about this stuff this week. I was surprised at how difficult it was for me to break some of these bad habits. But now that I know what was causing my pain I know it won't take me long to change my habits and fix the problem permanently.

Yesterday I went for my first pain-free run in over 10 years. I plan to run again tonight. It looks like I'll be able to do my first triathlon next year. In fact I may shoot for the longer Half-Ironman distance Pigman Long Course Triathlon next August.

In April I tried to start running. But I had to quit when my "hip pain" and Achilles tendon started bothering me.

A couple of weeks ago I tried to run again. I felt great for the first five minutes or so. I felt much lighter on my feet and I felt like my form was better at first. But then I started to get tired and my form changed. Halfway through the 20 run/walk my hip started bothering me. I finished the second half just walking because I wanted to minimize the damage.

My initial plan was to start out slow and run just one day per week if my body could handle it. The next day my hip was sore, but nothing too terrible. We went hiking that day. The following day my hip was bothering me even more. This continued for most of the next week. It would get better after a couple of days but if we did any walking during the day the ache returned. After a week of this I knew I wouldn't be running again.

This was very frustrating because I really want to start running this fall. I started to pay attention to how I felt while I walk. Last night I noticed that if I contract my lower back muscles and tilt my pelvis back a bit my entire gait feels much more relaxed and natural. I noticed this as we were just getting our grocery shopping started. I decided to focus on this and try to keep pelvis tilted the entire time we were shopping. Sure enough it seemed to make a difference.

Now I'm consciously trying to change my posture. The muscles in my lower back are tender because they aren't used to working this much, but so far I think this might solve some of my troubles. Who knows, maybe my funky gait is what caused my Achilles tendon trouble too.

This is great because I now have some hope that I'll be able to start running soon. I'll report back after I have some time to see if this eliminates my hip pain[1].

[1] Actually it isn't my hip that hurts. Hip problems are felt in the groin. I did feel some pain in my hip in April, but when I say hip pain here what I'm talking about is pain on the outside of my upper thigh.

A while back Madasi posted about his inconsistent scale:

I get up one morning, weigh myself and see 319.9 lbs. "Wow!" I think, "I broke 320!". But, knowing my scale a little to well, I take another reading, and see 328 lbs. I take about 7 more readings before finally getting a rough consensus around 325.6 lbs. That's way too much variance between readings for my comfort.

Yesterday he posted about his new scale:

So, this is all really nice, except that my nice, shiny, accurate, new scale also tells me I don't weigh 277lbs any more, but actually something more like 310lbs. I've been posting my progress over at PhysicsDiet.com, and had actually started getting excited because I was only a pound or two away from making the biggest losers chart.

The way he handles this setback is inspirational and it is worth reading his entire post for that alone. But it also illustrates how important it is to get a good scale. Especially if you are over 300 pounds.

For several years I did not know how much I weighed simply because I did not have a scale that could handle more than 300 pounds. When I finally went to the doctor last summer for a severe sinus infection I learned the horrible truth. That simple act help snap me out of years of denial.

If you have any doubts about the accuracy of your scale go to the doctor, or a gym, and use their scale. Compare the results to your scale. If your scale is within a few pounds and it is fairly consistent you should be ok. But if there is a significant difference you owe it to yourself to invest in a decent scale. There are many on the market now that handle more than 300 pounds. Wattly recommends the Tanita HD372. I have a Health-o-Meter HAP200KD-41 Professional Dial Scale. It probably isn't as accurate or consistent as the Tanita. But it works well enough for me.

Ttfg talks about eating out.

This is probably a first for me. We had Chinese takeaway for dinner a few nights ago, and I didn’t gorge myself. I had one nice-sized plateful, and didn’t go back for seconds. It turns out, you don’t actually starve to death during the night if you do this.

I know what he means. It is amazing how much you adapt. When we used to go eat Chinese I'd order a large entre + an egg roll and eat all of it. I was always miserable afterwards, but I'd eat it all anyway. My wife would order a large and eat half and take half home.

Now we both order smalls and we rarely eat it all. Some times we take leftovers home but a lot of the time we just leave them. We spend a lot less money. But more importantly we actually enjoy the meal a lot more.

Portions have gotten so big that a lot of times we just share a meal. Panera Bread has a new California Mission Chicken Salad. It is wonderful. But it is plenty of food for both of us. Especially when you consider that it comes with a side and we usually get the French or Whole Wheat Baguette. It is amazing that we can go have a cup of coffee, salad, and use the free Wi-Fi for just a little more than $10. We used to spend $50 or more when we'd go out to eat by ourselves.

Even more amazing is that we'd rather go for an hour long bike ride than going out to eat. The money we're saving by not going out to eat should pay for our bikes before the year is up. In fact it will probably pay for them in the first 6 months.

As of this morning I've officially lost 100 pounds in 8 1/2 months.

But another PhysicsDiet.com beat me to the 100 pound mark by several months. jm3000 lost 100 pounds in about 4 1/2 months.

I don't have a final goal weight in mind so I'm not sure what my next major weight milestone will be. I will probably drop below 200 pounds before I'm done. But for now I'm focused on getting my Body Fat below 15%. Once I do that I'll reevaluate where I am then I'll decide if I want to shoot for 10% Body Fat.

Lately I haven't been tracking the calories I'm consuming or the calories I'm burning from exercise. I've been using a combination of portion counting and weighing some foods. But I don't track the details anymore.

I spent several months doing different experiments trying to figure out whether I could optimize my diet by eating different ratios of macronutrients or varying the types of foods I ate. But in the end I found that it mostly doesn't matter what I eat as long as prefer healthier foods over non-healthy foods and control my calorie balance.

The key factors for me are:

• Eat 5-6 small meals a day
  This is a critical component of my success. At first I didn't think it mattered. But when I experimented with some of the ideas from Body for Life I learned that eating 6 small meals a day is the best way to control my appetite and my emotions. I'm much more even tempered now. And I'm never hungry now as long as I eat at least 1500 calories per day. I usually eat around 2000 calories per day though.
• Regular vigorous exercise
  For a long time I thought eating 6 small meals a day was the key to my improved mood. But recently I went about 2 weeks without doing much exercise. I've been under a lot of stress recently and I got a bit depressed. After one particularly bad weekend I jumped on my stationary bike for an hour. That's when I realized that I have to exercise to be happy. Without exercise I get much more stressed and I let little things bother me much more than they should. Exercise is the best way for me to deal with stress and relax. Exercise also helps me lose weight, but not as much as you'd think. Controlling your calorie intake is much more important if your goal is to lose weight. But exercise is critical to your health. You can't be healthy without exercise even if you control your weight. And now I know that I can't be happy without exercise.

On Monday my average weight loss topped 90 pounds. But my average BMI was still just over 30. Yesterday my average BMI dropped to 29.9. That means I'm officially "Overweight". Yeah!

My goal is to get my Body Fat % between 10 - 15%. I'm not too worried about what my weight will be when that happens. I suspect it will stabilize close to 200. That means my BMI probably won't drop below 24.9 so I will probably remain Overweight. But I won't be overfat, so I'm not worried

Getting my BMI below 30 is a major milestone that I've been looking forward to. The next major milestone is topping 100 pounds lost. That should happen within the next month. I can't wait.

160 Calories

That is the number of excess calories that I had to eat per day to gain 124 pounds.

When I learned that a pound fat contains about 3,500 calories I realized I could calculate the number of calories per day I had to overeat to gain weight. I just needed two reference dates where I knew what my weight was.

On 5/25/1998 my weight was somewhere around 200 pounds. I know that because that is my third daughters birthday. The spring before she was born I lost about 60 pounds on the Atkins diet.

On 10/28/2005 my weight was 324 pounds. I know that because that is when I permanently changed my lifestyle and started losing weight again.

In 2,713 days I gained 124 pounds. That is just an average of course. Some times I gained weight faster. Some times my weight even stabilized for a period of time. And at the beginning of 2005 it even dropped a few pounds. But that doesn't matter. The simple fact is that over a period of 2,713 days I became 124 heavier.

I gained 0.0457 pound per day. That is just 20.7 grams. To put that in perspective, a AA battery weighs 25 grams.

Now I know how many pounds per day I gained. Since I know how many calories are in a pound of fat I can calculate the number of excess calories I ate per day to gain 124 pounds.

A single serving, or 1/2 cup, of vanilla ice cream contains about 150 calories. When I realized that I only had to reduce the number of calories I was eating by 1 small bowl of ice cream per day I knew I'd never be fat again.