Testing the new Amazon Associates blogger functionality

Amazon just released a widget which allows you to very simply place relevant links in your blog.  It's called the Amazon Product Finder.  I was just reading about Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Work week, so I will see if this works.  It seems like it did.  I just highlighted the text above, and pressed go on the Amazon associates widget to the right, and it came up with a product. 
The only downside was that it wasn't the book, it was an audio cd produced by someone else.
I'm going to try again and just say Four Hour Work week.  This time I got 28 results, but the first was an audio cd and the second and third had no image.  So not as yet impressed. 
I'm gonna try one more time.  4-hour work week.
This time I got the Audio CD.

I don't understand why the search is so crappy because when I did the search on amazon, I got the hardcover, newly released book. 








Let's see what else.  We just got a toy called 20-Q which is an automated 20 questions device.  This actually worked pretty well.  The game is pretty cool.  I thought of "bowling ball" and then the toy asked me 20 questions, and guessed it first try. 

Almost done with week 8 of 16

Good news this morning...although I have plateaud in the 183 range, my body fat % was 25.2 this morning, which is the first time it's been below 26. I did 8 miles with Sarah on Wed night (2 miles of warmup/cool down, and 16 x 1/4 mile "sprints" with 1/8 mile in between). We went about 1:46-1:57 for each of the quarters, which is just over 7 min pace to just under 8.
This weekend is 17 mile long run!

And then off to China for a week, so we'll see how running in the smog is.

heading out for 15

I am going to try a couple things different today...I only have one GU packet, so I won't be continuously refreshing my carbs, and I'm going to carry gatorade on my belt, rather than leave it on the car and drink every time I come around Greenlake (gonna try to run somewhere different today).  I have a feeling it won't go well.  On the other hand, it will teach my body to use fat instead of carbs to run...maybe.  We'll see how it goes.

1/4 mile sprints...you gotta love 'em

My running buddy Sarah was sick tonight, so I was flying solo for our interval training.  I went 14x1/4 mile sprints (7:45 pace-ish) with 1/8 mile walking in between.  Tack on a mile warm up and a mile warm down and it turned into 7.33 miles.  Average pace, 11min mile.  Funny that's about what I'm running the long runs at. 
I've put in 18 miles so far this week, including a (short) long run of 8.4mi on Sunday.  This Sunday is a 15 mile run, so next week should be coming up on 30 miles.  Cool, huh?

I'm still a bit over 180, so I've got 10-20 lbs to lose before the race, so hopefully that starts decreasing my time.

Good news and bad news

I hopped on the scale this morning and to my slight dismay I was up to 186, after running a half marathon this weekend. But then the body fat readout came on and I was at 26.1%, 90bps less than my best of 27.0% (100bps = 1%). So it may be that I added muscle from the running on the weekend. I expect that after a few more days, the incremental weight loss will again outdo the incremental weight gain from muscle and I'll start losing again.

In the category of "Ph.D's can be stupider than you might think" for the week. I'm trying to get over this cough, but I didn't want to miss another track workout. So Sarah came and got me, and we went and ran in the rain. Not only did we run in the rain, we did intervals, so there was sprinting followed by walking. By the time we were done, our shoes and socks were soaking wet, and I had mud caked all the way up my legs. I did convince her to reduce our cool down run to 2 laps, rather than a full mile. As it turns out, I am coughing less after the run in the rain than I was earlier today. Go figure.

Getting over the sickness

I haven't been writing for the last couple weeks...I caught a cold that turned into a cough and kept me from running and writing.  The good news is that I'm back in training now, I went 13.1 miles this Sunday, and a quick 5k this morning.  Over the two weeks where I wasn't running and I was not as strict on diet, I only gained about 1 lb, but it seems like I grew out of one of my smaller pairs of jeans.  So it looks like I lost muscle and gained fat. 
I hit a 2009 low of 184.2 a few weeks back, and now I'm around 185.  So 22 lbs down, and 15 more to go.  I expect that as the long runs increase, the weight will decrease.  Only about 12 weeks to the marathon.

Week 2 of training continued

I had a cold this week, so missed my Friday morning workout.  The good news is that I revived my Forerunner GPS and took it for three laps around Greenlake (9miles) today.  Unfortunately the lap database was full, so it lost part of the run, but I did the last three miles at 10:08, 10:04 and 10:15, which is significantly faster than what I had been running. 
The big conundrum is that I ran the whole run between 10 min miles all the way up to about 11:15.  The 4-hour marathon schedule says to do it between 10:40-11:10.  So I'm good there.  But my heart rate was in the 170s and 180s, which is higher than it's supposed to be for burning fat rather than carbs.  So what to do?  Keep the HR down in the 150s and go really, really slow?  or run at a comfortable pace with a higher heart rate. 

Week 2 -- wed night work out

Sarah said she'd kick my butt if I didn't update the blog in the next two days.  It's apparently been a week since my last update.  The lowlights -- I am still around 187 so no big weight loss over the past week.  The good news is that even with her at 95 lbs, I'm still less than 2xDanicas. 

I bought new running shoes this weekend -- the Brooks Defyance.  These are less "supportive," and certainly less clunky.  These are probably should have been using since I got my orthotics.  I ran 8.4, three laps around Greenlake.  Since my Garmin gave up, I used a regular old stopwatch.  I made it 8.4mi in just over 90 min, which I think is just under 11min/mi.  Not fast, but an improvement over last week. 

Tuesday morning, I went for a recovery run, including my usual run up Phinney Ridge.  I think I am getting better at the uphill. 

This evening, Sarah and I did a track workout.  The book we are using says to run 8x400m (1/4mi) at 2:05-2:15, so between 8-9min mile pace.  Sarah ran them all at about 7:15 pace.  At first I felt bad, because she kept beating me.  Then I realized I was following the 4 hour marathon plan, and she isn't.  So I don't feel so bad anymore. 

As for the weight, I've backed off the no-carb diet a little, as I know that as I get towards 10mi long runs, the body will need some carbs.  And as I told Laurie, once you're running 25+ miles/week, it's much easier to lose weight, even if you're not so careful with what's going in.  Although I am still staying away from rice, beer, french fries and other super carby stuff!

Lost some of the extra

I'm back down from 190 to 188, which isn't quite 187, where I was, but closer.  And my body fat was 27.3% which is about as low as it's been.  That's roughly 10% decrease in body fat in 3 months.  Not so bad.  Tonight is speed workouts at the track with Sarah, which replaces mid-week semi-long run.  Sounds like fun.

More weight, less fat (I hope)

So I went for a 5k run on Friday and a 7mi run on Sunday, and then did some cross training on the seated bike machine at the gym yesterday.  So after that, I'd think I'd be thinner.  But from last Friday to today I've gained almost 3.5 lbs.  So, either I've been eating a ton of food to make up for the calories I'm burning or I'm putting on muscle from all this dang ol' exercise.  Hopefully it's the latter.  I'm still fitting into my 34 jeans, so the wheels aren't coming off yet.  We'll see how this week goes...

My friend Danica now weighs 96.2 so it's getting tougher and tougher to get to 1.9 x Danica.  It will take a little while longer, but I will get there!

A little more weight, a little more running,

So yesterday I got up around 6 and found that I was at 187.0 (and 28.5% body fat), 0.2 lbs up from the day before.  I putzed around the house, read my email, watched Dollhouse on the Tivo and used the bathroom.  This took about 90 minutes and I re-weighed after that.  I had dropped 0.4 lbs from using the bathroom and respiring (I guess).  So I had a new 2009 record of 186.6, but the body fat was over 29%.

Don't ever do this!

Why not?  I got up this morning and was at 188.0.  So that's not much more than 187, but it's 1.4 lbs more than 186.6.  So don't give yourself artificial short term wins.  Because they always turn into artifical short term losses the next day or the day after. 

So I had a setback of 1.4 lbs.  What did I do?  Went for my scheduled 7mile Sunday run and then had a low carb lunch.  Had I been still at 186.6, what would I have done?  Went for my scheduled 7mile Sunday run and then had a low carb lunch.  Remember, manage the inputs! 

I do have one problem with the marathon training.  I was working off the Hal Higdon Novice 1 marathon training schedule, and it seemed pretty simple.  Add a little more mileage each week, culminating in a long Sunday run.  Then I found that there was a Novice 2 schedule, which has a little more mileage each week than the Novice 1.  And then my friend Sarah is following a schedule from "How to run a four hour marathon" or some such book.  She sent me the schedule, so I am now trying to rationalize three schedules.  This puts me in split brain mode which I don't like.  Sarah's schedule replaces the semi-long run in the middle of the week with track/speed workouts, but also has two short runs during the week and a long run on the weekend.  But it culminates in a 24 mile run in week 14 rather than the Hal Higdon program where we only ever do 20 until the race.  Arrgghh!  Too many choices suxxors. 

But wait...a new record low this morning

I got on the scale this morning and found out that I had lost another pound, so I'm down to 186.8. That's an even 20 lbs since I went to work for Diego! So what caused it? I was thinking about it while I was running this morning (after the weigh in). Possible causes:

Late aft snack, plus small dinner = less weight in the morn
A glass or two of wine = dehydration (I was about 29.5% body fat rather than my low of 28.5%, which sometimes indicates dehydration)
No running for a week = muscle loss = less weight

Each of these are short term corrections, so I expect that I may pop up a little bit.

In the end it doesn't really matter in the long run. If I keep managing the inputs -- run regularly and cut out the carbs -- good things will happen. That's why it's good to manage the inputs and just keep an eye on the outputs!

Also, I am wearing my new stylish jeans (size 34) to work today so we'll see if anyone notices.

New record low

This morning I hit 188.0 which is my 2009 record low...even after not running this week.  Of course, it may be that the leg muscles I built have just atrophied.  But I like to think that I'm sticking to the diet.  Anyway, it's new ground for this bout of weight loss.  My friend Alissa took me to Nordstrom's today and I got some Lucky jeans.  Apparently I am now hip when I wear them.  I don't understand why my faded jeans from The Gap don't count as hip, but she's an expert.  Also, I get to run again tomorrow morning.  5k is on the cards, and then a long run on Sunday.  Should help re-accelerate the weight loss plan.  Hopefully, I will have to exchange my 34 jeans for 32 pretty soon.
I am now in week 3 of the marathon plan, and let's hope tomorrow and Sunday go well.  I'm gonna do "track work" next Wednesday night with Sarah Burch, so hopefully I don't injure anything. 
My friend Beijing Laurie has evil friends in town from Seattle so I am sending positive vibes out to her to keep the faith and stay away from the carbies!~  Go Laurie!

Unfortunately not much to report this week

I've got a little injury so I'm off the running til Friday.  I lifted some weights yesterday in the office (I think Sarah thought I was crazy).  And did some situps and pushups for "strength training."  Friday I will be able to run again, and I think I go either 5 or 8mi this weekend.  Next week Sarah Burch and I are going to do interval training at the track to do something...build speed or endurance or stamina.  She's in charge of the wed night training plan.  I'll be in charge of a couple short early morning runs, and a long weekend run!

The outputs are going in the right direction

After two weeks of running, I'm down to 188.2 this morning, with body fat of 28.5%. Still in the Obese category, but down almost 10% in body fat. So I guess we know...diet and exercise together can lead to quick fat loss. :)
I am going to buy some new jeans this week to celebrate...and I mean new, from Nordstrom's, not new from the Goodwill. So I will have invested some serious dollars in the thinner me.

I was thinking the other day that people think that Running is an easy sport that doesn't need much equipment. So I made a list of all the equipment that I use...GPS watch, iPod, shoes, scale. Altogether it adds up to a nice little investment, especially when you need two or three pairs of shoes. Anyway, I made a list of the things that I have purchased for running, and stuck it in a nice little Amazon widget so if you want to get the same gear, all you have to do is click!

Manage the inputs! Measure the outputs.

I'm in week 2 of Hal Higdon's marathon training program and all is going well. I went 5.6 miles last Sunday, and 3 miles each a couple times this week. This morning I did 7 miles (11.2k), to get ahead of the long weekend run. I haven't lost a lot of weight in the last week -- I was still 190.4 this morning, but I've gone from around 30% body fat to 28.5%, which I take to mean that I'm putting on muscle at about the same rate I'm losing fat (I hope).
But this brings me to the title of this post. One of the thing I've learned at work is that the way to optimize your output metrics, you need to manage the inputs. At work, the outputs are profit and sales. On the diet/weight loss/health kick, the outputs are weight, body fat, and (if you measure it) waist size. One can measure these outputs, but in the end the way that you affect these metrics has nothing to do with them.
Fortunately, in weight loss there are only a couple inputs...Calories in and calories out. If I have the right strategy I don't need to change it if the outputs slow up for a week or so. When I'm trying to lose weight, I want to decrease my calories in -- this is done through cutting out sugar, and increase my calories out -- this is done via running. So even if my weight is not decreasing, I'm going to continue with the strategy. Low carb in, exercise out.

My friend Laurie has started a health program and she doesn't even have a scale! She just got focused on reducing food (and beer) in, and she's been running several mornings/week. And all of a sudden, she moved down a size in jeans...all without a scale.

So it's interesting that I obsessively watch the scale every day to see if I've made progress. And if I'm making progress I watch my carbs and exercise. If I'm not making progress, I watch my carbs and exercise. Funny, maybe I should get rid of my scale -- not! If something's worth doing, it's worth obsessing over, so I'm going to keep obsessing over my scale!

In other good news, my friend Melinda is coming in from Hawaii to run the Rock n Roll half marathon while I (hopefully) do the full. I'm still trying to get Laurie to come from Beijing as well. Should be a fun time!

I can't believe I got up!

I was up and at 'em at 6am, and hammered out 5k (sounds better than 3 miles) before the sun came up. Up Phinney Ridge, over to the zoo and back home. Felt great to get ahead of the day. It helped that I went to bed at 9pm last night. :)

So I am into week 2 of the training program. Only 17 more to go!

Week 2 day 1

Well, it seems like I'm on my way to running a marathon...one week down, four more months to go.  Yesterday I went and "cross-trained" by sitting on a bike and pedaling for a half an hour at the gym. I read an article about two women who were running buddies.  One of them moved from Santa Fe back to Maine, and they missed each other a bunch and called every time they ran.  It coulda been a tear jerker, but wasn't.  So I'm gonna sign up Beijing Laurie as my long distance running buddy (although you don't get a call in the middle of the night every time I run).  I lifted some weights after the run, which felt pretty good.

I got to bed abou 9 last night (yay!) and was up and at 'em at 6 with a three mile recovery run.  I went up phinney ridge around the top and then back home.  I'm gonna have to find a seattle based running buddy too.  I'm hanging around at 190 and 29.X% body fat, so I think I may have put on some muscle with all this exercise.  That's ok, even if it slows down the "Road to 170!"

Week 1? or just a run

A few months ago, I signed up for the Seattle Rock n Roll Marathon at the end of June.  At the time, I said "there will be plenty of time to train.  It's not til June."  This week I received the warmup jacket that I ordered at sign up time.  That reminded me that June is only around four months away.  I counted the weeks and determined it's 19 weeks til the marathon.  After consulting Hal Higdon't marathon training guide, I realized that means that I had to be on week 1 this week.  Week 1 includes 3x 3 mile runs, and a "long run" on the weekend of 6 miles.  So I went out this weekend and ran almost six miles (5.6).  It actually felt great.  I started the run at 12 min pace, and finished at 10:40 for the last .6 miles.  Not great, but a start at least.  I now have to figure out if I can stick with the four times a week running program.  It actually isn't that hard to run, but getting out of the house over to Greenlake is very tough!  So wish me luck to get going. 
As it turns out, if you're running 25, 30, 40 miles a week you can be much more lackadaisical about diet, and still maintain/lose weight. 

Also, the other good news of the weekend...I popped back above 190, but my body fat was below 30% (29.7) for the first time this year.  That is potentially an even better indicator of progress than weight, but also noisier so I haven't been tracking it as closely.  I think I started around 37% though, so significant progress.  I have to get to 20% to be "normal," or to 25% to just be "overweight."

So here's how to lose a pound

My buddy Larry once went on a diet where he would eat whatever he wanted to during the day, but nothing after 5 or 5:30. He lost a ton of weight (30-40 lbs). Everyone said it was BS, it doesn't matter in the long term when you eat calories, they all count. But you can't argue with results...

So yesterday, we bugged out of work a little early -- 4:30 -- and had a couple glasses of wine (1g carb each and dehydrating) and some "sliders" (little burgers, which I ate without the bun. We ate the sliders around 5, so that when I got home and had dinner near 7, all I had was a couple pieces of summer sausage. So between the wine dehydrating me and the early meal, I lost a pound since yesterday. Down to 189.4 which is a total 0f -17.4 lbs since I started.

I'm sure that tomorrow I will be higher, but it's good to break new ground every once in a while. And I'm into a new decade of weight.

Ice cream...I moderated

The family went out to mexican food last night for dinner. I had queso fundido (melted cheese) for dinner, and then my wife had promised the boy that we would go to ice cream place afterwards to celebrate my return from Europe. So we went to my favorite place, Cold Stone Creamery where they mix in toppings with the ice cream. Usually, I get a medium or a large with three mixins (chocolate chip cookie dough, marshmallows and caramel). Tonight I got a small (still with the mixins) and ended up throwing away the last third of it. I don't like to throw food away, but as my mom say "your body is not a garbage disposal." I was very proud of myself.

Lost weight in Europe!

I got back to my home scale yesterday for the first time in 10 days and I was down about two pounds from when I went to Europe...190.4...for a total of 16.4 lbs down total.  I watched what I ate, but I'm sure running four days out of ten didn't hurt.

Sunday in Lux!

I went another 5k today with my friend Raquel, while in Luxembourg.  This was a recovery after the 3 straight misses in the UK.  Also, I am down from 88kg when I got to Europe, to 87 this morning.  It may be measurement error, but if I'm 87kg when I get home, that will be 191.8 which is -15 lbs since I started at beginning of December!  A good start.  Another 15 and I'll start feeling good.  And then a few more after that to reach goal of 170.

London in January is wonderful

All the good running karma that I built in munich...three days in a row...I think I've lost here.  I have been so tired that I've been able to pretty much sleep in til 7  and am adjusting to the jet lag.  The streets are all slushy as well.  long story short, I've been lame in exercising.  I am going to luxembourg this weekend and would like to run 5 miles with my friend raquel one of the days.

I've been pretty good at sticking to the low carb here though...wine with dinner (instead of beer), last night I had a great appetizer of thinly sliced scotch beef with a shallot and something sauce...really great.  I should have had two of these rather than the steak for dinner.

I did fall off the wagon Wed night.  My friend Audrey (one of the locals) took me to a bar and put plates and plates of bar food in front of me, after I had eaten almost nothing all day.  So i had some hummus/pita and quesadilla.  But one fall won't kill you, and I'm back on the wagon now.  I am reading my friend laurie's blog about diet and exercising in beijing, and it's helping inspire me to keep on the wagon.

In a metric world

I am in the EU for the week, and had a few hours yesterday so I went for a 5k run in the park here in Germany. This morning, I woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep so I got in another 5k run. It really felt great, both times. another pleasant surprise was that I jumped on the scale, and I was only 87.2...I am less than one danica when I'm in Europe! Even if I convert back to English units, that's 191.8. Although you never know on different scales.

My friend Beijing Laurie just started a blog about her trek to lose some weight as well. Check it out at http://myfirstbloggoodluck.blogspot.com/

Good progress this week

This week I recovered from my trip to Asia and made good progress.  I am down to 192.2 (14.6 lbs from my start).  Unfortunately, I'm flying to europe for 10 days tomorrow.  So we'll see if I can keep the faith while I'm over there.  Fortunately, I don't have to wear a suit at all on this trip, so I'll have room in my bag for workout clothes.  I'll have a couple free evenings so hopefully I can do some slow jogging in or around the hotel in London and Munich.  I'm going to see a friend in Luxembourg while I'm there, so maybe we will do a multi-country run during the weekend.

Long week, and results of cheating

The last post I had was when I had weighed myself after working out (194.2)...so I had "cheated." Well, that lead me into two or three days of significantly higher weight, as much as 197.2. It was either karma which got me, or that I knew that I wouldn't be able to get back to 194.2 so I gave in for the evening and had an extra atkins bar or slim jim. It's a slippery slope when you lose focus.
Fortunately, I was able to right the ship and this morning was 193.8. It's the first time I had shown improvement in a week.
Among other good news, my friend Chris has lost 9 lbs and is almost back to her pre-kids weight (she wouldn't tell me what that is), and my friend Michelle lost 3 lbs (and that's a lot for someone her size). So it seems that the focused low-carb weight losing attitude is a bit contagious. It's good to see good things happen to people around you, and be able to relate them back to what you're doing!
We went to chris' house tonight and had a great low carb meal that her husband mike created...lamb and chicken on kabobs with onions and peppers, and a greek salad. But I still ate a bunch. I hope it didn't send me backwards. (Oh, and 3-4 glasses of wine).

I cheated just a little bit this morning

So I woke up at 6:oo this morning, and calculated that I had time to do something(!) before work. I could put my shoes on and run a few miles around my house, drive ten minutes to greenlake and run there, row on the rowing machine or go back to bed.

Fortunately, I didn't go back to bed. I put CSI on in the basement, and did 42:30 on the rowing machine (that's how long a one hour show is these days, sans commercials). So what's cheating about exercising?

I woke up and weighed 194.8 at 6:00, which was back to my lowest. After rowing, I was down to 194.2. So I'm going to count the post-rowing weight and that's the cheating. My body fat was 33.3, which means I was dehydrated, so I probably won't be so low tomorrow, but we'll see.

And btw, Grissom is leaving CSI. Very sad.

A nice walk in the park

Jen and I took a walk around Greenlake with the boys today.  Toby (who is a little OCD) counted 105 dogs, including one dog in a stroller, a dog wearing a sweater, and a dog sitting on a bench.  Anyway, 2.8 miles should be 100 calories or so.  I weighed myself this evening, and I was around 195.6, so hopefully I will have stumbled my way back to 194.8 in the morning, which is where I was when I left for Beijing last weekend.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's what it is.   I was just looking at the blog, and I'm very glad that I've put the graph at the top.  There's good and bad from day to day but over time it looks like I'm making progress.   I need to get turbo charged over the next couple weeks, because it's off to London, Paris, Munich and Luxembourg for a 10 day tour in February. 
I'm going to have to bring my shoes and shorts when we go to Europe, as I don't want to have to make up the weight again when I get home!

One other piece of weight-related news

My friend Danica has raised the bar...she now weighs 97 lbs, and so I'm once again above two Danicas! Hopefully I can catch up soon. It's a little bit unfair that I have to lose two pounds for every one she loses. on the other hand, I have much more opportunity to lose!

Good news

I checked the history, and the lowest I have been recently was 194.8. So I only lost 1 pound! I mean gained 1 pound! Not bad for a week long business dinner, carbs, and drinks.

And I got to see my friend laurie arnold while I was in Beijing. She was one of the first people I met at amazon, and I have run into her in various different cities/countries around the world over the past 10 years. So it was fun to see her when I was in Beijing!

Two steps back...in Beijing

Sorry I've been away, I had to go to China (Beijing) and we stopped off in Tokyo on the way back.  It was a fun trip, but I ate a little too much and fell off the low carb bandwagon a few times.  Dinner was lo carb -- peking duck, sauteed asparagus, beef with black bean sauce.  All relatively low carb, and I was able to get red wine with dinner (1g/glass) rather than beer.  But they brought subway sandwiches in for lunch, which was carby, and I did  get sucked into having a few beers throughout the week because it was simpler.  All in all I'm back up to 195.8 from 194.2, 1.6 lbs!  The good news is I'm like 30% body fat. 

I am hoping it means that all the walking we did in China and Tokyo actually put on some muscle, but I think that's overly optimistic.  Most likely the big dinners and the beer added the weight.  But I can probably make up the 1.6 lbs.  I'm going to Europe on 2/1, so I want to make some progress before then.

The good news is that my boss and the other person we traveled with (VP of finance, Jason) are apparently fitness nuts and they run/workout every morning.  So next trip I will bring workout clothes and join them.  All the hotels we stay/stayed at have an in house gym/treadmills.  

Off To China!

I'm off to Beijing this early morning, so we will see whether I can maintain my ascetic ways in this strange land.  Or will I be back on the rice by the time I return!

12 lbs and going strong!

I hit 194.8 this morning. I guess eating small dinners is the way to go. Last night I ate the cheese that Toby pulled off of his pizza, that's about it. :)

Another milestone!

I just ran into my friend Danica who is much smaller than I. She said she got on the scale this morning and weighed 98 lbs. So I have crossed another milestone...I'm down below two Danicas!

Just another quarter danica or so to go, and I'll be done with Phase 1 of the diet.

Down more!

The trip to the gym, along with a small dinner (a piece of cheese and some wine) paid off.  I'm down an additional 0.8 lbs to 195.2 this morning!

more progress

When I exercise, it seems like the next morning weight goes up, and then the following morning weight is back down...maybe this is because the increased muscle is burning more calories. Maybe not. I was 196.0 today, which is the best I've been during this adventure. I went over to the gym in the afternoon and put the machine on "cardio" which set my heart rate to 144 and walked quickly (2.5mph, with a little incline) for 35 minutes. The guy next to me was someone I work with, and he was going at 7+ mph. Oh well, apparently going slowly burns more fat, so that's what I'm doing. 207 calories. I got an atkins bar on the way back for afternoon snack
Then a couple glasses of wine after work and a 1oz string cheese a few minutes ago when I got home....I expect I'll be below 196 tomorrow. Good luck to me!

A good week and a good weekend

Three interesting and encouraging things happened this week.
The focus on weight loss can be contagious...
Earlier week I had lunch with a friend of mine and mentioned that I had lost 10 lbs on the Atkins diet.  We had lunch at McCormick's, the pub/restaurant in our building, and I had the blackened salmon ceasar salad -- 0 carbs if you don't eat the croutons.  I told her I either get that or the salmon omelette.  Again, no carbies.  And they are both awesome.  So that afternoon I ran into her in the hall.  And she told me that she was inspired and had ordered the South Beach Diet book and Amazon was shipping it (Prime).  She had challenged herself to lose 10 lbs.  Her husband told her that her ideal weight was 4 lbs less than what she weighed (really, that doesn't sound like a good thing).  Anyway, she doesn't need to lose weight.  But she's gonna try the south beach diet, which seems to be what people do when they want to do low carb but have a bad "unhealthy" perception about Atkins.  They are both low carb, but my experience with reading about South Beach is that it is much more complicated.  You eat a 1/2 oz of low fat yogure here, and some skim milk at another time...whatever, atkins is simple.  Anything that doesn't have carbs -- meat, cheese, eggs, vegetables.  Anyway, it is nice that other people think it's cool.  I'm cheering for you, Michelle!

Then this weekend, my friends Chris and Mike got back from their Xmas vacation at their parents/in-laws houses and decided they're going to lose some weight too.  We often have playdates because we both have four year olds, so this weekend we loaded up the kids and took them over to Greenlake, a local lake with a 2.8mile path around it.  We walked the whole thing.  When I was actually running, the trainer told me to keep my heart rate below 156 for optimal training.  And when I was at the gym, the fat burner thing said to keep it at 118.  To do that, I had to go 1.6 mph on the treadmill.  So I compromised, and it turned out walking briskly, I could keep my heart rate at 140-150.  this was about 18 min/mile, or a little over 3mph.  We did that and then all had low carb brunch at a local pub.  I had veggie omelet, and they had salads.  Yum.

This morning, I weight in expecting to be at a new low (below 196.4).  Unfortunately, I was a little above that.  About 196.8.  This was a little disappointing after the exercise, but I've noticed this sometimes happens after the exercise.  I think it's because you actually build muscle which adds weight.  And I've been doing crunches too.  Anyway, the good thing was I was at 30.7% body fat, about 5% down from where I started.  That was lowest I've seen, which adds to my theory about the muscle.  That is encouraging, but it would be nice to make progress on the weight as well.

Finally, I got my first comment, from someone I don't even know that has been reading along.  This was the high point of the weekend, so thank you!  It has encouraged me to make this long post.

I did a little pre-bedtime weigh-in tonight and I was below 198.  That's encouraging as I often lose 2 lbs overnight.  So maybe will have a new local minimum tomorrow!

Two steps forward, one step back

I did a good job of keeping it low carb yesterday -- new year's eve. But even so I ate too much. We went to a NYE party and I grazed on (beef) salami and pepper jack cheese, with a side of a couple of glasses of wine and some champagne. I was back up to 197.6 this morning. So I guess I got a one month jump on all the New Year's resolution dieters, but now I'm gonna have to buckle down to get the next 30 lbs.
I'm going to try to make it out to run a couple miles this afternoon. Low carb + running = twice as fast weight loss. I went to the gym the other day and put the treadmill on the "fat burner" mode. The fat burner mode tries to keep your heart rate at something like (220-your age)*0.65. I'm 38, so it was 182*0.65=118 beats per minute. Guess what, I didn't have to go very fast to get to 118 bpm. It was embarassingly slow -- 1.6mph, which is about a 37 minute mile. I could actually walk around the block and my heart rate would be higher than 118. But it's not much sense of accomplishment.
Why does the fat burner want me at 118? You will burn more calories at higher levels, but the higher your heart rate is, the more calories are burned from carbs. The lower the heart rate is, the more calories are burned from fat. I went in and had a study done at the physical therapist and they found (when I was running much more) that the crossover for me from burning fat to burning carbs is 156 bpm. So I could probably do more than 118 and be ok. The other thing to think about is that if you're on the atkins diet, you don't have any carbs to burn so maybe you can go higher with heart rate without burning carbs.

Anyway, there's a lot of people with lots of opinions, but one consistent message I've seen is it's better to run slower and for longer times, than to run shorter distances faster. This will help you burn more fat. It's tough if you are a macho guy to run 12-13 minute miles (or even 37 min miles), but that's probably the most effective weight loss strategy.

Also, the Seattle Rock n Roll marathon is coming up in June, and if I want to run I have to start training now! It will take at least six months to get in shape from the state of atrophy my body is in today.

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this.