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.