2019 Weight Loss Group

[Guest]

I've gone ahead and changed "WK1" etc. to actual dates.  This is intended to be the Saturday "Week Ending" date.

I also copied the weekly summation formula over to the neighboring columns.  This will need to be copied over as the weeks go by.  I didn't feel the need to copy it over to the end of the sheet.

Edited January 20, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

So, I was relating to a friend why I chose my target weight between 160 and 165. 

I had met someone a while back who was of similar height and overall bone structure who seemed to have the ideal body shape (IMO).  Nice triangular torso.  Well muscled, but like a soccer player or baseball player rather than a football player or boxer. 

I asked him how much he weighed.  155.  I figured that he's a bit younger than I.  And this was many years ago.  So, with age as a consideration, I figured if I'm 5 to 10 lbs over that, I'll be satisfied.

My friend responded,"I think that being out of shape because of age is just an excuse.  Age and health is really a matter of your state of mind.  So, if you think you can't get to 155, then you're limiting yourself."

I thought about that for a second or two and responded,"You're right, I am limiting myself.  But in my defense, I'm a weak man."

[zil]

11 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I've gone ahead and changed "WK1" etc. to actual dates.  This is intended to be the Saturday "Week Ending" date.

I also copied the weekly summation formula over to the neighboring columns.  This will need to be copied over as the weeks go by.  I didn't feel the need to copy it over to the end of the sheet.

I copied the formula to all columns - you can mouse over the box at the lower right corner of the first cell, then click and drag over to the end of the row, let go and it will replicate the formula, updating column letters for you.

 

[SpiritDragon]

So with the results entered into the spreadsheet so far, we have a group total loss of 24 pounds in the last three weeks. This is pretty awesome. 

[SilentOne]

On 1/15/2019 at 10:03 AM, SpiritDragon said:

You can see that in the study group the more weight that was lost the more diabetes reversed.

I think my goal for this year will be to reverse my (Type 1) diabetes by bringing down my weight below where it was when I was diagnosed at age 5. I'm sure it will work out wonderfully.

[Midwest LDS]

I'm down my first 10 pounds. Still have 79 to go, but not a bad first 2 weeks.

[beefche]

I am only going to weigh in every other week. I allow that dang scale too much control over my inner thoughts and emotions. And weight loss isn't SOLELY about a number on the scale. These Non Scale Victories (NSV) are ways to focus on other benefits of weight loss/healthier living. So, some NSV for me this week: my jeans aren't as snug; I actually wore boots (to the knee boots that I can easily zip over my calves); I went out to eat and had a yummy burger but special ordered it to be healthier for me. Yay!

[beefche]

1 hour ago, Midwest LDS said:

I'm down my first 10 pounds. Still have 79 to go, but not a bad first 2 weeks.

Yay! Great job! One day at a time!

[Midwest LDS]

24 minutes ago, beefche said:

Yay! Great job! One day at a time!

Thanks! And you're right, it's a bunch of little steps with weight loss that leads to success.

[SpiritDragon]

8 hours ago, SilentOne said:

I think my goal for this year will be to reverse my (Type 1) diabetes by bringing down my weight below where it was when I was diagnosed at age 5. I'm sure it will work out wonderfully.

That's a wonderful goal! However, it is important to understand the distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. True type 1 diabetes is caused when the pancreas cannot produce insulin and therefore it is required or the condition will cause wasting away and and a horribly slow and painful death. Essentially, even if you eat enough you'll starve to death because without insulin to get the nutrients into the cells you don't get nourished. It's apparently not uncommon to have only a partial or funcional type 1 diabetes where the pancreas can produce and distribute insulin, but not enough to keep up with demands. If you are in this latter category of type 1 diabetes there is hope that a well structured diet that is controlled for calories and doesn't spike blood sugar levels may get you to the point you don't require additional insulin by keeping your sugar levels slow and steady enough that your body can keep pace. If you have true type 1 diabetes, then you'll need to continue to take insulin for life, or at least until something better is discovered.

It's type 2 diabetes that is reversible with lifestyle because it is caused by eating too much in general, too much of the wrong things, and not exercising enough. This creates a state where the cells don't respond to the action of insulin called insulin resistance and taking additional insulin actually leads into a vicious cycle of more weight gain and more insulin resistance. It seems most people I've met recently are prescribed metformin these days to try to control blood sugar with insulin resistant diabetes. 

So I don't want to take anything away from your goal, but with you mentioning type 1, I wanted to ensure you are aware that diet and exercise can still help lessen the need for insulin and so you will be able to lower the number of units you require, but you may not be able to get off insulin entirely - especially in a case of a pancreas that cannot make ANY insulin, where your body will still require injections to function properly.

I don't want this to dash your hopes, because you may indeed be able to get to the point you don't need injections, but again only if your pancreas is making some insulin, just not enough to keep up with your current lifestyle needs.

[unixknight]

Well, this weekend was a complete failcluster. 

At a staff meeting at work on Friday, they ordered pizza.  I limited my intake, but still felt gross.  Then on Friday night I got home from work to discover that... we were having pizza.  Again, I limited what I ate but there was a soda in there.

Saturday I did ok... a couple small sausage patties and eggs for breakfast, a home cooked turkey burger for lunch and tuna casserole for dinner.  I nursed a 20oz Pepsi all day (didn't finish it.)  Then... there was the Burger King bacon cheeseburger combo.  The only positive thing I can say about it is that the soda was a small.

Yesterday I did the same breakfast as Saturday but with the addition of a small bunch of grapes and some toast.  Lunch was a tuna sammich and some popcorn.  Dinner was a turkey/bacon/cheese sammich with has browns and... a soda.

So... back to a zero soda approach.  I expect my weight will have  gone up on my Wednesday weigh-in.  *sigh*

[NeuroTypical]

Confession is good for the soul, Unix.  Weight loss is not like alcholism or infidelity, in that you can still have a healthy successful program even with the occasional slip up.

[zil]

7 minutes ago, unixknight said:

*sigh*

When I was trying to make my habit of trudging, it was very frustrating / discouraging in the beginning when I would fail to meet my goal, but eventually, I decided the failures didn't matter, only the successes did.  I wasn't doing something temporarily, I was making a change that I would have to maintain for the rest of my life.  So I decided not to beat myself up over the failures, but just to keep trying / starting over.  I kept track (marking the days I did and didn't do it - which I'm positive helped), but started reminding myself that my goal wasn't to trudge every day, but rather to set a habit of trudging every day, and that it takes a long time to set a habit.

Eventually I found the time of day that worked best and shifted my schedule to accommodate, and eventually reached the point where my habit was set.  I still miss a day sometimes, but it's no longer a big deal because I know I'll pick it up again tomorrow, because it's a habit.  It took at least a year to form that habit.  (I could go back and look at the logs to see, but I'm sure it was at least a year.)  When the habit was set (and some during, but it wasn't my focus), I started tweaking what I did while "doing my habit" (sped up the treadmill, increased the duration, added some arm exercises).

Other people could have done it faster, would have set other goals and met them, blah blah blah.  Hooray for them.  I did (and still do) what I figured would work for me without risking something so difficult that I would quit altogether, and I'm content with my progress (mostly).

I recommend you take a similar view - you are changing habits.  That's hard.  It takes a long time.  You're going to fail sometimes.  Oh well.  It's not the end of the world.  Just start again.  In the beginning, the days you do the old habit may outnumber the days you do the new habit, but eventually, the balance will start to tip, and as long as you keep trying, it will tip, and the new habit will outnumber the old habit, eventually by a lot, until the new habit becomes the norm.

[person0]

Tip of the day:

Taking cold showers requires your body to burn additional calories to warm itself back up.

[SpiritDragon]

4 hours ago, person0 said:

Tip of the day:

Taking cold showers requires your body to burn additional calories to warm itself back up.

It's even cooler than that - you actually activate increased brown adipose tissue to kick up metabolic activity and improve fat mobilization. It's possibly even more beneficial to keep the heat down to around 18 degrees Celsius (approx 65 F) through the winter and where a tee shirt.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3593105/

But if you prefer not to freeze yourself in the shower or spend your day almost shivering, you can also activate brown fat with food:

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/brown-fat-losing-weight-through-thermogenesis/

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/boosting-brown-fat-through-diet/

[NeuroTypical]

I'm doing well.  Down 9 lbs as of this AM.  Today is cheat day.  Probably around 3500 calories or so, I'll spare everyone the list of decadent yums.     Ahhh.  Once every week or so, the rest of the time I'm good.  This is me losing weight.  

 

[Guest]

I forgot to weigh myself this morning.  But I believe I may have been at a pretty low number.

I have started working longer hours at work.  This motivated me to go to lunch.  The place we went provides LARGE portions.  I ate it.  When I came home, my wife had made a wonderful dinner.  I ate it.  Both were large meals.  I've also drunk a LOT of water today.

When I weighed myself immediately after dinner, I had only gained 2.5 lbs since my weigh in yesterday morning.

We'll see what happens tomorrow morning.

I'm still doing the eggs for breakfast thing.  But I'm skipping it for lunch because I need to get out of the office for a while in the middle of the day.  I think I'll have to make it Subway and only do a 6" instead of the usual footlong.

[SpiritDragon]

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'm doing well.  Down 9 lbs as of this AM.  Today is cheat day.  Probably around 3500 calories or so, I'll spare everyone the list of decadent yums.     Ahhh.  Once every week or so, the rest of the time I'm good.  This is me losing weight.  

 

How is the Leonine hair coming Emperor?

[SpiritDragon]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I forgot to weigh myself this morning.  But I believe I may have been at a pretty low number.

I have started working longer hours at work.  This motivated me to go to lunch.  The place we went provides LARGE portions.  I ate it.  When I came home, my wife had made a wonderful dinner.  I ate it.  Both were large meals.  I've also drunk a LOT of water today.

When I weighed myself immediately after dinner, I had only gained 2.5 lbs since my weigh in yesterday morning.

We'll see what happens tomorrow morning.

I'm still doing the eggs for breakfast thing.  But I'm skipping it for lunch because I need to get out of the office for a while in the middle of the day.  I think I'll have to make it Subway and only do a 6" instead of the usual footlong.

I apologize, I don't remember if you set any particular behavior goals you can shoot for on a weekly or daily basis? Are eggs for breakfast part of that? You certainly don't have to, but you might find it helps to track individual habits in the tracking spreadsheet on the tab with your name.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

I apologize, I don't remember if you set any particular behavior goals you can shoot for on a weekly or daily basis? Are eggs for breakfast part of that? You certainly don't have to, but you might find it helps to track individual habits in the tracking spreadsheet on the tab with your name.

The selected behaviors were:

• Eggs for breakfast and lunch + regular sized meal for dinner.
• No sugar and limited carbs for breakfast (if any).
• Abdominal exercises each day.
• Physical labor each day at an aerobic level.

I'm still doing the breakfast eggs.  But eggs for lunch is going by the wayside because of long hours at work motivating me to get out of the office.

So far, I'm still doing all the others.

[unixknight]

I've observed something during my recent soda intakes.  I'd noticed it before, but with having so little soda lately it's become much more obvious.

Drinking soda makes me feel very uncomfortably full.  I'm not talking about the gas, because burping doesn't help.  If I eat a hamburger and drink water, I feel comfortably full.  If I eat a hamburger and drink a soda, I feel very uncomfortably full and bloated.  Again, burping doesn't make it go away.  

Knowing that actually helps resist the temptation a little.

[Guest]

I'll make another mention about soda.  The Sugar.

I used to think that fats were the biggest culprit in weight gain.  And we didn't really need to worry about sugar. But one of my early jobs out of school, I had a co-worker who was a tall skinny guy.  He mentioned that he used to be noticeably overweight.  We didn't believe him.  He showed us his driver's license photo.  Yup.  Pretty obese.

He determined it was his soda intake because he worked at an office that had free soda.  And he drank like 12 sodas a day.  That's about a full day's worth of calories in one eating habit.

He started drinking diet soda only.  He lost it all.  I can't remember how fast he said.  But it was pretty fast to lose over 100 lbs.  I have a vague recollection of the period being one or two years.

[anatess2]

55 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I'll make another mention about soda.  The Sugar.

I used to think that fats were the biggest culprit in weight gain.  And we didn't really need to worry about sugar. But one of my early jobs out of school, I had a co-worker who was a tall skinny guy.  He mentioned that he used to be noticeably overweight.  We didn't believe him.  He showed us his driver's license photo.  Yup.  Pretty obese.

He determined it was his soda intake because he worked at an office that had free soda.  And he drank like 12 sodas a day.  That's about a full day's worth of calories in one eating habit.

He started drinking diet soda only.  He lost it all.  I can't remember how fast he said.  But it was pretty fast to lose over 100 lbs.  I have a vague recollection of the period being one or two years.

In addition, not all sugars are made the same.

So, for the sweet tooth people, you can pretty much make any veggie smoothie taste like candy by just adding one banana.  Ok, ok... that spinach-bitter is hard to overcome but a banana... or grapes in that smoothie helps the medicine go down.

[Guest]

For some inspiration, read about this couple.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Lexi+and+Danny+Reed&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

[NeuroTypical]

Here's my next podcast:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/how-to-lose-weight-keep-it-off/