Heavy Weight

Week 3 progress report

Here we are week 3! I made it through Thanksgiving without gaining an ounce! I managed to maintain my workout schedule and diet while on vacation with 26 members of my family. My plan of attack for maintaining my diet with this 4 day vacation included:

• Renting a house with fitness center access
• Bringing my core exercise equipment
• I built a food travel kit that included a travel scale, measuring cups, measuring spoons, lots of Tupperware a portable cooler that plugs into my car. So I could pre-package every meal.

Pre-planning was the key to diet/workout success for this vacation. I had all the tools I needed to keep my diet clean and workout schedule! I should be able to duplicate this formula for any future vacations with similar success.

The Thanksgiving feast was the only meal that deviated from my normal diet. I allowed my self a small portion of each item which by my calculations came out to about 1000 calories. I adjusted my diet for the rest of the day to allow for this meal. I missed my night cardio for the 3 nights I was there because the gym closed at 7.

I lost an amazing 6 pounds this week which bring my 21 day total loss to almost 13 pounds. I'm starting to believe I set my goal of 1.5 pounds a week to low. I'm still waiting for the weight loss to slow and normalize to 2-3 pounds per week but it's not showing any sign of slowing. The graph has moved my weight loss goal up to around January 20th. I'm still waiting for a normalization period where the graph will push out closer to March or April to reach my weight loss goal of 190. Not that I'm complaining it just defies what I know about weight loss.

Here are my usual weekly PDF's showing all of my stats for week 3.

Chart	Food Log
Menu	Graph

Week 2 progress report

Here we are week two and things are going great! I'm down nearly 7 pounds and I am well ahead of my goal of 233.8 I ended up hitting 230. I'm very settled into my new eating habits with no cravings. I believe the higher ratio of fat has really helped me feel satisfied and curb cravings. Exercise has been good. I logged around 20 workouts this week. Thats 14 times of cardio with 3 core workouts and fight training as well. Im watching carefully for any over-training symptoms since I'm working out a LOT.

Well lets get right into the numbers. You can see my progress in the PDF's below. As usual the first is the main log that contains all of my daily statistics summarized. The daily food log that shows every single calorie that goes into my body with the time. Along with this weeks revised menu that has some additional items I added over the week.

There is a new graph this week. This is a trend graph showing where and when I will reach my target weight. Right now the trend line is showing I will reach my target weight of 190 by around mid February. I believe this line will normalize out closer to April once we have another 30 days statistics.

Chart	Food Log
Menu	Graph

This week is Thanksgiving which form most Americans is a holiday of indulgence. I am going to do my best to maintain my diet while I'm on vacation with the family. I will be obviously deviate for the one turkey dinner, but I will resume the normal course after that one "splurge" meal. Wish me luck and see you soon ;)

Todays lunch

We are approaching two weeks. I have settled into my eating habits and counting every calorie. Using my scale and measuring cups is becoming second nature. I feel really good, I don't feel one bit deprived. I got a late start eating yesterday and I almost had to stuff myself to get all my calories in by the end of the day. Today I got started a little earlier so I didn't run into the same problems. Overall I'm feeling great and I'm seeing daily progress. Below is a picture of today's 3pm meal.

1/2 cup of cottage cheese, 28 grams of almonds, rice cake with 2 tablespoons of fat free strawberry cream cheese and a 28 gram strip of beef jerky.  Amazingly a very satisfying meal. It's not pizza but nothing great comes without sacrifice.

Week 1 progress report

I have compiled my first weeks progress and everything is looking good. I dropped 1.6 pounds for the week which is right on target. The first few days I was not exactly sure where my BMR was so I stuck around 1600-2000 calories until I had accurate information then bumped my calories up to 2350 per day. My ratios also changed mid week, I was not eating near enough fat so you can see it jumps up as well with a slight carb reduction. I also revised my diet to reduce the frozen food lean cuisine type dinners. I'm now eating more fresh food and vegetables, nuts etc.

My basic workout week consists of cardio 14 times per week, twice a day, 30 minutes to an hour each workout. Along with MMA fight training up to 3 days per week. Then Core training 3 days a week.

So over all, I'm working out 21 times per week. It seems like a lot but now that I'm in the rhythm 30 days into the workout schedule, it is becoming second nature.

I have converted my excel spreadsheets to PDF format so everyone can view my weekly progress. Here is my first week weight log along with my food log and menu. My daily weight log is fairly straight forward. The food log uses abbreviations that reference the food menu at the bottom of the PDF. For example: if you see LCPZ on the food log you can then refrence that to the food menu to a Lean Cuisine Pizza and the table will contain it's individual nutritional values.

Click here for my weekly weight log.

Click here for my weekly food log.

BMR test results

Well I had my BMR test on Thursday. They also did my VO2 Max. My RMR came out to 2144 calories per day. So basically it takes 2144 calories each day to keep me alive, this is the base amount of calories I need to survive. The V02 max test told me exactly where my optimal heart rate zone is to burn fat while exercising. My optimal fat burning zone is at 122 beats per minute. So I have pretty much been on target the last 30 days doing cardio at around 130 BPM.

After reviewing my stats and activity level we came up with the number 2350 as my optimal caloric intake each day for around 1.5 to 2 pounds of fat loss per week. And I will vary my cardio from optimal fat burning at 122 to interval training to raise my V02 max to increase my fat burning zone.

Tomorrow I will be posting my first weeks progress. And explain a little detail about my cardio/exercise routine.

BMR test!

I have scheduled my appointment to have my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) test at the Metabolic Institute for Thursday the ninth which happens to be my 28th birthday as well.  They are going to hook me up to a  gas analysis machine. Once I have the results of this test I will know my BMR number. Basically how many calories I use per day just to survive. Im assuming my BMR will be somewhere around 2500-3000. This will help me with my calorie cutting so I will know exactly how many calories to cut from my daily diet to reach my goals

Before the tests I have to fast for 12 hours and not do any anaerobic exercise for 24 hours.

Results on Thursday!

The beginning, of the blog at least.

Well here we are 7 days before my 28th birthday and I have been trying to achieve the same goal for the last 16 years. Feels like a long time now that I have done the calculation. Wait it is a long time. So while acheiving nearly every other goal I have set out to achieve both finaincially and personally I have still yet to achieve this one goal. I have come very close many times but seemed to have faultered with each attempt. What is this goal? Well the same goal that 300 million other people are struggling with. Fat loss.

This blog will illustrate my weight loss from beginning until end. I will document and post every aspect of my journey. Everything right down the calorie will be counted, logged, graphed and scrutinized. Lets jump right in we can get into the details of my psychosis and other neurosis as time passes.

• Current weight: 238
• Target weight: 190 (I need to lose 48 pounds)
• Age: 28
• Height 5'10.5"
• I will be posting progess pictures 1st day of each month.
• All progress will be logged in excel daily
• Diet will consist of calorie restriction and aerobic exercise to induce fat loss.
• Target loss rate will be 1.5 pounds per week minimum. (more is always welcome) ;)

1 Set of pictures - 238 Pounds - 11-04-2006