Posts tagged fat loss
Diet Results and Fat Loss Update
Aug 6th
“Life is always walking up to us and saying, “Come on in, the living’s fine,” and what do we do? Back off and take its picture.” ~Russell Baker
I have had a problem with my weight since I became a non-smoker in May of 1999. Before that, my weight would fluctuate up and down and was relatively easy to control. I’d get heavier slowly if I stopped exercising and I would lose weight quickly by adding exercise back into my life. I really didn’t need to pay much attention to what I ate or how much of it. Once I became a non-smoker, everything changed!
I began to rapidly gain weight and nothing that I did seemed to make a difference. I exercised, I dieted, I fasted – nothing stopped the weight gain. Within 12 months, I had gained 95 pounds. My waist went from a relatively trim 36 inches to a whopping 46 inches. I competely lost my ability to run or jog; I was just too heavy and it hurt my knees. It was fairly common for me, when I was a smoker, to go out and run 4 miles in 35 minutes or so, and then light up a cigarette as soon as I finished running. I played tennis at a good competitive level in the smoking days and I was proud of the fact that I could beat almost everyone that I played while smoking – literally holding a cigarette in my off hand while I was returning serve.
I became desperate to make a change. I thought many times of becoming a smoker again even though I was committed to being a non-smoker. Smoking violated almost everything that I believed was true about health and it particularly violated what I was speaking about – success and the ability to change. In those smoking days, I had to carefully plan all of my seminars so that I had time, every hour, to smoke a cigarette, brush my teeth and get back on stage -all without the audience noticing. I felt like a liar. This wasn’t what really kept me from going back to smoking though. What kept me from going back was a promise that I had made.
A Promise That I Wouldn’t Break
In the last months of my smoking addiction, I was splitting my tiime between San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia. I was dating a great gal that lived in the Bay Area and we were talking about getting engaged to be married. She had a cold that wouldn’t go away and after numerous visits with doctors, we got the horrible news that she had advanced agressive breast cancer. Talk about life changing news, everything changed as we tried to overcome this disease. I am still humbled and inspired by the courage and efforts of my friend Becki as she lived with this and did her best to recover.
Next Time
Sorry to leave on such a note, but my time is gone for today. I have coaching and consulting starting in just a few minutes. Next time I’ll finish the story, talk about what wonders NLP did for my cancer riddled friend, and talk about what is finally working for me in regaining my health and optimal bodyweight.
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.” ~John Burroughs
Protein Fasting Results
Jun 23rd
“Commit to be fit”. ~Author Unknown
So I did complete my 3 day protein only fast. I ended up losing 7 pounds of bodyweight in those 3 days. My energy was pretty good during those days – I was able to walk and workout and function at a fairly high level. Today was my first heavy workout since I returned to more normal eating. I will be curious to see how sore I am tomorrow. In the past, when I would water fast, I would be quite sore after my initial workouts. I expect to see some different results with this protein fast. The really intriguing question will be anwered over the next week: What did protein fasting do to my set-point? Or to say it another way: how much of that 7 pounds do I keep off in the next week?
Stay tuned for more adventures in returning to optimal bodyweight!
Bye for now…Jack
“A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise”. ~A.A. Milne
Fasting and the Next Step
Jun 17th
“The best of all medicines is resting and fasting” ~ Benjamin Franklin
I am going to fast for the next 3 days. This will be a little different than the fasts that I have done before – my longest water only fast was 24 days – for this fast I will be exercising and taking vitamins and consuming protein – only protein. I am not going to be eating any carbohydrates. I am not going to be eating any fats – with the exception of the fats that I am going to supplement thru flax seed oil and fish oil. I am only going to be consuming protein. How much protein? Well, for this short experiment, I am going to consume approximately 180 grams of protein per day. This works out to about 1 gram of protein for each pound of what I would like my lean body mass to be.
So, why am I doing this? I am doing this because I am ready for the next step in returning to my ideal weight. I’ve made great progress this year. I am wearing clothes smaller in size than I have been able to wear in nearly 7 years. Still, I have a long way to go and I am anxious to get there.
So, why a protein fast? I want to see how well I feel while protein fasting and I also want to see how it affects my set-point. I think that water fasting has a natural tendency to raise my set-point…the natural weight that my body tries to maintain. I want to see if exercise and protein fasting will achieve a similar result in quick weight loss without raising my set-point.
I have water fasted before and experienced great results. Water fasting is a wonderful way to heal yourself from serious injury. Water fasting is however very challenging mentally and ultimately, the weight that you lose comes back. I’m going to see how protein fasting works instead…just for three days! Stay tuned and see what happens. I will be blogging and tweeting about this daily.
Till next time…Jack
“Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon”. ~Doug Larson
And the Winner is…
Feb 9th
“You can be anything you want to be, if only you believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” ~Napoleon Hill
Atkins. I have decided that I am going to use the Atkins Low-Carbohydrate diet as my mine dietary tool for getting back in shape. I used this diet successfully the last time that I got into decent shape and it worked well for me – with one glaring exception – previously I had a strong tendency for gout attacks while using this diet. I think I have this worked out now with the addition of some different supplementation.
For those of you familiar with Atkins, I will stay at the induction level of carbohydrate consumption until I am nearly at my ideal bodyweight of 195 pounds. Should this occasionally become too challenging, for example when I am on vacation with my family, then I will follow the Carbohydrate Addicts Diet. This is the diet from the Heller’s and is one of the few other diets that Dr, Atkins also felt had validity. I have also used the diet in the past. For me, I did not lose weight at any significant rate while following this diet, but I also never gained any weight – for me this is a good thing.
I am not choosing Atkins at random. I have tried many diets in the past. I have tried being a vegetarian. I managed this for 3 months and was enjoying it in some ways – until I developed an allergic reaction to soy and soy-containing products. I was using soy as my main source of protein and my body had eventually had enough and told me this in spectacular and unforgettable ways. No more vegetarianism for this boy.
I have tried the South Beach Diet. This is another one that allowed me to comfortably maintain my weight but did very little for helping me to lose weight. It is something that I can use once I get back in shape to stay that way.
I have tried calorie counting and all of it’s variations. I am not a good calorie counter – in fact it drives me crazy. When I can afford a professional chef that works for me and my family, then I will consider this one again and the chef can count the calories!
I will talk more about Atkins and low-carbohydrate dieting in future entries, probably once per week or so. I expect it to work very well indeed – as long as I do my part and keep my carb consumption under 20 grams.
Till next time…Jack
I book-ended this entry with quotes from Hill and Carnegie. Can any of you tell me the connection – there is more than one!
“Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.” ~Andrew Carnegie
Your Plan for Success
Feb 2nd
“The first wealth is health”. ~Emerson
This is the year! After so many years of being out of shape, this is the year that I return to fitness. This is a big statement – a big goal. I have been out of shape, in varying degrees of terrible, ever since I quite smoking more than ten years ago. So how am I going to do this? What am I going to do to give myself the best possible chance of success with this goal? Excellent questions.
In fact, these questions are so excellent, that I am going to devote the next few blog entries to developing my plan for success right in front of your eyes. This will allow you to see all of the elements that I use to create a nearly unstoppable plan for succeeding at any goal – not just weight loss. You will get all of the steps that I use with my clients – without spending any money.
Let me start by restating my goal for health in 2009: I will return to my optimal bodyweight before the end of 2009. So, that is a fairly clear goal, but not quite explicit enough. Whenever possible, you should put a very measurable number on your goals. When I say very measurable, I mean a goal that clearly states ‘what by when”. So, let me restate my goal: I will return to 195 pounds of bodyweight by the morning of December 31st, 2009. Now that is a clear goal and gives my brain really simple things to remember.
Is this a reasonable goal? What will I do to achieve this? Why have I failed in the past? What exactly will I do differently this time? Wow! More great questions. Come back next time and we will continue the process of building a virtually unstoppable “Plan For Success”.
Till next time…Jack
“They claim red meat is bad for you. But I never saw a sick-looking tiger”. ~Chi Chi Rodriguez
Jogging Dreams
Jan 26th
“The greatest wealth is health.” ~Virgil
Jogging has been on my mind lately. Even though it is quite cold and icy here in Iowa and I am still far from being able to jog without needing a team of paramedics following closely behind, I keep thinking of jogging. I believe this to be a very good sign.
I was an athlete in high school and college. I played on the tennis team, the volleyball team (briefly) and the football team in high school. In college, I just played on the tennis team and was also a very active outdoorsman. I was also a cigarette smoker – a very consistent two packs per day. I can remember being so proud of my ability to jog four miles in under thirty minutes and then immediately lighting up a cigarette. I also found pleasure in beating others in tennis while smoking – literally holding a cigarette in my hand while I played.
Where and when I grew up, smoking was not discouraged like it is now. It was a badge of manhood and I gladly took it on. As the years progressed, and I learned more about the dangers of smoking, I decided that I needed to quit. Wow, was I in for a surprise – I was now a genuine drug addict! I had been smoking since I was in my teens and in the twenty or so years of almost exactly two packs per day, my body had really come to depend on nicotine (and the complete smoking ritual). I’m not going to talk in this entry about the epic steps that I took to become a nonsmoker. I’ll talk about that some other time – it is an interesting story. I will share that I added ninety five pounds of bodyweight in the four months after I became a nonsmoker. That’s right – in the four months after I finally quit smoking for good, my bodyweight went from one hundred and ninety five pounds to two hundred and ninety pounds. Wow! My waist went from thirty three inches to forty six inches. Wow again! I literally could no longer recognize myself in the mirror and I certainly did not need to worry about tennis or jogging at two hundred and ninety five pounds!
Well, more than ten years have passed now. I am still a nonsmoker and intend to remain one. Sadly, I still am carrying around those ninety five pounds from more than ten years ago (plus a few more!). It is more than time for this to change!
I will make it back to my ideal bodyweight in the coming year. After what I went thru to become a nonsmoker, I know that I can do anything once I set my mind to it – and my mind is very set indeed. Over the coming months you can follow here my adventures in returning to health and you can bet that jogging and tennis will be part of the process. I dream about them both everyday.
Till next time…Jack
“The difference between a jogger and a runner is an entry blank.” ~George Sheehan