2019 Weight Loss Group


SpiritDragon
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24 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

AoM is just flat awesome.

This episode: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-275-doesnt-kill-us-science-cold-exposure/

led me to read the book they were plugging and it was incredibly illuminating.  Applying some of what I learned there has actually helped me with health and weight loss.  Like everything else, it's something that only works when you stick to it though and that's my Achilles' Heel.

Edited by unixknight
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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

No, I just aspire to be the AoM guy.  :)

Dang.  I hoped you were.  My boys practically worship him.

If I could say that I'm friends with the AoM guy, I'd be promoted to demigod in their eyes.

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45 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Down to 350.

I actually ran up the stairs this evening to chase my littlest to put her to bed (which made her giggle like a maniac).

That must mean my measurement was off last week.  Otherwise I lost 10 lbs since then!

That's really exciting. How is the water drinking going? How did exercise go this last week. Keep up the good work! If you're finding the behaviours you're working on to be too difficult we can always tweak them back to make them more attainable to ensure that you are building confidence through successful changes, even if they are small. If you feel ready to take on new challenges I'll be happy to give suggestions.

Congratulations on the super results this week!

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4 minutes ago, SpiritDragon said:

That's really exciting. How is the water drinking going? How did exercise go this last week. Keep up the good work! If you're finding the behaviours you're working on to be too difficult we can always tweak them back to make them more attainable to ensure that you are building confidence through successful changes, even if they are small. If you feel ready to take on new challenges I'll be happy to give suggestions.

Congratulations on the super results this week!

Thanks... Actually I've been keeping the water intake up, though I haven't measured it.  Also, I haven't been doing the exercises in a single burst, but have been getting out and walking more and going up and down the stairs more often in the evenings.    I feel more energetic so it doesn't seem like such a chore!

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1 minute ago, unixknight said:

Thanks... Actually I've been keeping the water intake up, though I haven't measured it.  Also, I haven't been doing the exercises in a single burst, but have been getting out and walking more and going up and down the stairs more often in the evenings.    I feel more energetic so it doesn't seem like such a chore!

That's excellent! I love that you're breaking up your exercise and that it's feeling easier. Breaking up exercise is a great way to get more without feeling completely drained. In fact, Stuart McGill, a leading authority on managing back pain likes to use walking in spurts shy of the amount that would aggravate pain symptoms throughout the day to build capacity to handle more without pain. It's really a simple concept, but it isn't necessarily how people think about building up exercise tolerance. It works well for those who get winded easily or get other pains such as grumpy knees and so on. Eventually, longer exercise blocks may be in order and will be tolerated well, but for now, it sounds like this is working well for you and I commend you setting a great example of discovering a method that is working for you!

Keep up the H2O :)

 

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I'm going to have to change my schedule.  Since I'm now going out to lunch, I'm basically eating twice as much as I would have otherwise. I've started gaining weight again.

So, I'm going to stop eating dinner like normal.  I'll do the egg thing for dinner.  So, I'll still have two small meals and one large meal.  I'm just changing the time of day for the large meal.

Now, the additional problem is that I find myself getting sleepy after a mid-day meal.  I was so much more alert when I just had eggs for lunch.  I'm going to have to experiment with quantities and spreading things out a bit.

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3 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I'm going to have to change my schedule.  Since I'm now going out to lunch, I'm basically eating twice as much as I would have otherwise. I've started gaining weight again.

So, I'm going to stop eating dinner like normal.  I'll do the egg thing for dinner.  So, I'll still have two small meals and one large meal.  I'm just changing the time of day for the large meal.

Now, the additional problem is that I find myself getting sleepy after a mid-day meal.  I was so much more alert when I just had eggs for lunch.  I'm going to have to experiment with quantities and spreading things out a bit.

This all sounds reasonable enough, but it also begs the question, if eating out for lunch is clearly leading to weight gain, why not simply change that? I'm not saying it's the right path for you, just asking the obvious question that stands out to me.

 

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21 minutes ago, SpiritDragon said:

This all sounds reasonable enough, but it also begs the question, if eating out for lunch is clearly leading to weight gain, why not simply change that? I'm not saying it's the right path for you, just asking the obvious question that stands out to me.

Well, I need something with the following criteria

  • Middle of the work day.
  • Get me out of the office for at least 30 min.
  • Interact with people.
  • Not be too physically strenuous.

Each of these qualities lends itself to the idea to the solution being lunch.  Do you have another option that satisfies these criteria?

Edited by Guest
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The eating out conundrum.  Yes.  Countless times have me showing up and then ordering just whatever.  It's like my motivation totally disappears under the weigh to me not wanting to make my ordering choices a topic of group conversation.   This behavior is the backbone of my "gaining it all back" phase.

Here are things I do:

- Made my diet a topic of conversation.  I can stroll boldly with a group and say out loud to them "ok, what can I order on this menu that won't totally kill my diet".  In my experience, once the resistance to breaching the topic is overcome, people will bend over backwards to help.  Some of them will be jealous that you're suddenly this powerhouse of motivation and healthy goals.
- Jimmy Johns - order your sandwich as a lettuce wrap.
- McDs - The good things are their side salad or their parfait.  The acceptable things are their various grilled chicken items.  Fries ruin it all.  
- Everywhere else - no really, fries ruin everything.  I'm shocked and offended that places will sell lettuce and stuff for seven bucks, but I can swallow my pride and eat one, and end up enjoying it.
- On Wednesdays I go to lunch with a guy, and our favorite is the BBQ joint with their loaded potatoes and their fried okra.  I will structure my day's diet around that place.  A 200 cal yogurt for breakfast, then my 1200 calorie social lunch that skips the sour cream, then my handful of carrots snack, then screaming into the void to keep me from breaking at dinnertime pouring energy into keeping up my discipline for dinner.  I can still meet my daily goal with that lunch, provided I am disciplined the rest of the day.

 

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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

The eating out conundrum.  Yes.  Countless times have me showing up and then ordering just whatever.  It's like my motivation totally disappears under the weigh to me not wanting to make my ordering choices a topic of group conversation.   This behavior is the backbone of my "gaining it all back" phase.

The WORST thing about eating out is that most places maximize profit by charging a premium for delicious, unhealthy crap.  Let's  face it - it's expensive to heat healthy.  Much more so than eating the usual carbohydrate and salt loaded offerings.  I can get 20 chicken nuggets at Burger King for $2.  That's right.  10 cents a nugget.  How much was that cobb salad at the deli?  Oh, right... At least $6.  Oh, you wanted some dressing in a cup on the side of that?  50 cents more.  

Oh, and let's not forget that market research and profit/cost analysis means the seasoning on those nuggets just happens to harmonize quite nicely with those Coca-Cola products.  Cheap nuggets and a 20 oz. cup of liquid candy.  The only good thing we can say about that is they usually pack in so much ice you're "lucky" to get 12oz of actual cola.  Want fries with that?  You know you do.  They're powdered with crack lots of salt.  Now you're thirstier.  Better upsize that cola or you're gonna be slurping melted ice and still wishing you had another.  

How much did you just spend?  Still probably less than that cobb salad cost with a bottle of water on the side.  Fills you up more, too.  G'head.  Buy the salad and try to hide the tears as you wish you could tear into something meatier, especially 2 hours after you're done with lunch and ready to eat again, knowing that you'd still feel full if you'd eaten the combo meal at BK.  Full and miserable and welcome to the 21st Century, where marketing is at the very peak of its power with all the data we give them by using the Internet and cell phones and watching YouTube and they know exactly where to hit us.

I work in a building right next to a shopping mall and a full fledged food court.  If I go out to  lunch it's a simple walk across a parking lot and directly into the food court entrance, the heart of the beast... and every time I do I hear a twisted version of "Be Our Guest" like some kind of nightmarish musical production...

 

 

Be our guest, be our guest, put away that chicken breast

here now you can have a burger while you fail your diet test

have some fries, have some wings, eat all kinds of nasty things

Even salads come with fat dressing so it's healthy with no strings!

We have beef, we have fish, not a single healthy dish

For when we get done with cooking it, it serves your craving's wish

Gaining weight?  Fill your plate! There's more space for what you ate

And be sure to leave room for dessert so try it do not wait....

 

Yeah... I could so this all day.  Remember that scene in the oooooold Raggedy Anne and Andy cartoon with the giant blob candy monster?  Yeah, that's how it feels to walk past the friggin' Cinnabon.  

I don't go to the mall for lunch anymore.  

If I do go out, I drive a couple miles to get pho.  It costs a bit more and is more hassle, but at least I can eat something without hating myself for it. 

Mostly for lunch I just have leftovers and sadness.

 

 

Edited by unixknight
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11 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Well, I need something with the following criteria

  • Middle of the work day.
  • Get me out of the office for at least 30 min.
  • Interact with people.
  • Not be too physically strenuous.

Each of these qualities lends itself to the idea to the solution being lunch.  Do you have another option that satisfies these criteria?

I'll see if I can come up with anything else. The first thing that popped into my head was to play pool, but that often requires going to a bar. I was fortunate to have a little pizza joint in my home town with a pool table. Fun interaction any time of day that's not too strenuous.

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Sadly, my weight loss has stagnated.  Despite a very substantial calorie deficit, as well as a small amount of exercise,  over the past week I have not even lost 1 lb.  This Saturday is going to be my first cheat day, so perhaps that will give me a boost.  Additionally, I plan to start a small amount of muscle building exercise to assist.  Fingers crossed!

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53 minutes ago, person0 said:

Sadly, my weight loss has stagnated.  Despite a very substantial calorie deficit, as well as a small amount of exercise,  over the past week I have not even lost 1 lb.  This Saturday is going to be my first cheat day, so perhaps that will give me a boost.  Additionally, I plan to start a small amount of muscle building exercise to assist.  Fingers crossed!

Good call, just remember that muscle tissue weighs more than fat tissue, so you may actually see a weight gain doing that, but it's okay because your waistline will still shrink.

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I think increased muscle mass has been a net positive for me, not just in being more fit, but also in helping with weight loss.

SpiritDragon can check my accuracy here, but I think I've been told that pound per pound, muscle at rest consumes calories at a greater rate than fat at rest.  So yes, initially if you are losing some fat and building some muscle you may not lose weight.  But when you are engaged in my favorite pastime of 'sitting there with a dumb look on your face', you end up burning more calories.  And that's a blessing.

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16 hours ago, SpiritDragon said:

I'll see if I can come up with anything else. The first thing that popped into my head was to play pool, but that often requires going to a bar. I was fortunate to have a little pizza joint in my home town with a pool table. Fun interaction any time of day that's not too strenuous.

River City was in Canada.  Who knew?

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6 hours ago, person0 said:

Sadly, my weight loss has stagnated.  Despite a very substantial calorie deficit, as well as a small amount of exercise,  over the past week I have not even lost 1 lb.  This Saturday is going to be my first cheat day, so perhaps that will give me a boost.  Additionally, I plan to start a small amount of muscle building exercise to assist.  Fingers crossed!

5 hours ago, unixknight said:

Good call, just remember that muscle tissue weighs more than fat tissue, so you may actually see a weight gain doing that, but it's okay because your waistline will still shrink.

4 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I think increased muscle mass has been a net positive for me, not just in being more fit, but also in helping with weight loss.

SpiritDragon can check my accuracy here, but I think I've been told that pound per pound, muscle at rest consumes calories at a greater rate than fat at rest.  So yes, initially if you are losing some fat and building some muscle you may not lose weight.  But when you are engaged in my favorite pastime of 'sitting there with a dumb look on your face', you end up burning more calories.  And that's a blessing.

 

 

@person0 I'm sorry to hear about the stagnation. Plateaus are common, but that doesn't make them fun to deal with and especially not when you're in a weight loss competition. The general rule for breaking through a plateau is to eat less and/or exercise more (I know it's original, it sounds like the same plan as always :) - which it is, but with the realization that the amount of activity and eating you are currently doing is energy neutral or close, so more needs to be done to create a negative energy balance). All of that being said, a one pound loss in a week is actually decent weight loss.

Adding strength training is an excellent idea for long term weight control and general health. In fact, grip strength positively correlates with longevity, so the stronger your grip the less likely you are to die any time soon. As far as your contest at the office goes, if they are measuring only weight loss, then strength training could actually up your weight (as Unixknight suggested) in the short term which may not benefit you for the contest - but I absolutely encourage you to do it after the contest. If you're just looking for something different than what you're currently doing a metabolic resistance circuit could be useful. Basically doing higher repetitions that aren't in the muscle growing range (15+) and short rest periods (less than 45 seconds) in a circuit style. This will mix things up so you're not just running, but should minimize muscle hypertrophy (growing bigger muscles) compared to more conventional resistance training that has more of a bodybuilding approach for growth.

Also, if you up your fruits and especially veggies you can help to displace higher calorie fair in your diet which will lead to a caloric drop while taking care of satiety. If you really struggle with the fruits and veggies a fibre supplement can also help you to feel full and assist weight loss, but fruits and veggies are far more nutritious and cost effective overall.

NeuroTypical is also correct that muscle is more metabolically active than fat. However, to justify this metabolic costs, muscle needs to be used frequently enough. The human body is extremely efficient at streamlining and will be more than happy to give a pink slip to the muscles that ask for CEO wages in energy, but then sit around and do nothing but look pretty. When muscles are pushed hard and the body is consistently stimulated to strengthen them, then their existence is justified. The best calorie burning at rest comes from Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption or EPOC often referred to as the afterburn effect. In a nut shell, the harder you work during a workout, the more anaerobic metabolism is dominant, and the more anaerobic metabolism is dominant the more the body needs to make up an oxygen debt incurred during exertion after the fact. More muscle, means more energy production during workouts which leads to greater demands on the system and therefore more intense afterburn with the possibility of longer lasting effects as well because there is more muscle tissue to recover.

As for wanting to sit around and let muscle burn fat, as long as a minimum effective dose of exercise is attained to maintain muscle mass, the so-called age-related decline in metabolism is attenuated by over 90%. In other word, keeping your muscles as you age can help you to keep the metabolism of your twenty year old self years longer than if you let your muscle atrophy. This is why resistance training is paramount to long-term weight management.

 

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1 hour ago, Lindy said:

Hey all! I tripped onto this page and have really enjoyed reading posts, and have actually came across some really good tips!

I'm glad you found us here, Lindy. Do you have any weight loss goals you would like help with? If not we still welcome support from anyone wanting to improve health through lifestyle modifications. For instance, @zil hasn't mentioned any particular weight loss goal but she is working on exercise and I am mostly just concerned with improving on certain habits myself which have slid a little since having children, but I really don't have much weight to lose. Doesn't stop us from checking in to encourage each other. We'd love to have you on board.

Any particular tips that stand out to you so far?

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On 1/24/2019 at 10:19 AM, unixknight said:

The WORST thing about eating out is that most places maximize profit by charging a premium for delicious, unhealthy crap.  Let's  face it - it's expensive to heat healthy.  Much more so than eating the usual carbohydrate and salt loaded offerings.  I can get 20 chicken nuggets at Burger King for $2.  That's right.  10 cents a nugget.  How much was that cobb salad at the deli?  Oh, right... At least $6.  Oh, you wanted some dressing in a cup on the side of that?  50 cents more.  

Oh, and let's not forget that market research and profit/cost analysis means the seasoning on those nuggets just happens to harmonize quite nicely with those Coca-Cola products.  Cheap nuggets and a 20 oz. cup of liquid candy.  The only good thing we can say about that is they usually pack in so much ice you're "lucky" to get 12oz of actual cola.  Want fries with that?  You know you do.  They're powdered with crack lots of salt.  Now you're thirstier.  Better upsize that cola or you're gonna be slurping melted ice and still wishing you had another.  

How much did you just spend?  Still probably less than that cobb salad cost with a bottle of water on the side.  Fills you up more, too.  G'head.  Buy the salad and try to hide the tears as you wish you could tear into something meatier, especially 2 hours after you're done with lunch and ready to eat again, knowing that you'd still feel full if you'd eaten the combo meal at BK.  Full and miserable and welcome to the 21st Century, where marketing is at the very peak of its power with all the data we give them by using the Internet and cell phones and watching YouTube and they know exactly where to hit us.

All good points about how our environment influences our food choices and how industry can exploit our environment to our detriment. The good news is we do have some power over our surroundings and how we interact with them as well.

On 1/24/2019 at 10:19 AM, unixknight said:

I work in a building right next to a shopping mall and a full fledged food court.  If I go out to  lunch it's a simple walk across a parking lot and directly into the food court entrance, the heart of the beast... and every time I do I hear a twisted version of "Be Our Guest" like some kind of nightmarish musical production...

 

 

Be our guest, be our guest, put away that chicken breast

here now you can have a burger while you fail your diet test

have some fries, have some wings, eat all kinds of nasty things

Even salads come with fat dressing so it's healthy with no strings!

We have beef, we have fish, not a single healthy dish

For when we get done with cooking it, it serves your craving's wish

Gaining weight?  Fill your plate! There's more space for what you ate

And be sure to leave room for dessert so try it do not wait....

 

Yeah... I could so this all day.  Remember that scene in the oooooold Raggedy Anne and Andy cartoon with the giant blob candy monster?  Yeah, that's how it feels to walk past the friggin' Cinnabon.  

That's pretty good - I don't suppose you wrote for Wierd Al? :)

On 1/24/2019 at 10:19 AM, unixknight said:

I don't go to the mall for lunch anymore.  

If I do go out, I drive a couple miles to get pho.  It costs a bit more and is more hassle, but at least I can eat something without hating myself for it. 

Mostly for lunch I just have leftovers and sadness.

I'm saddened by this bolded part. What are your favourite lunch items? Perhaps we can help you to recreate healthier versions that you can love not only for the falvour experience, but because you know you are looking after your body and seeing healthy changes.

Substitution #1 instead of Pepsi - Prune Juice (Mwahaha) I'm mostly kidding of course - prune juice is only an adequate substitute for Dr. Pepper :P and it still contains more calories than the drink of choice (Water), but it may assist with weight loss by getting your tummy churning or simply changing the flavour in your mouth breaking you out of your usual flavour associations.

In all seriousness though, I think we might be able to help you get some tasty alternatives to some of your favourites. The hope would be that even if your eating leftovers for lunch that they aren't being eaten with a side of sadness.

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On 1/24/2019 at 8:40 AM, Carborendum said:

Each of these qualities lends itself to the idea to the solution being lunch.  Do you have another option that satisfies these criteria?

Is a walking group an option? You could socialize about whatever while getting some physical activity, but not enough to break a sweat.

It might not fly at your workplace, but at my office, I've even done walking meetings where we take off and stroll the city to discuss various agenda items.

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