Weighback Machine

a milestone

2006-08-11T10:41:00.000-06:00

Finally under 240. 239 to be exact. 17 pounds gone in 13 weeks. At least 27 more to go.

Setting the goal is difficult. At first I had the ambitious goal of 201. After talking with a personal trainer, that adjusted upward to 212. Now that I'm over 1/3 of the way to 212, that seems like it might not be enough weight loss. I haven't been 212 since some time in 1990 or 1991, so it's hard to say if that's an appropriate goal or not. Perhaps the trainer simply thought I would end up wanting lots more upper-body muscle.

Notable - I lost two pounds on a week where I overate on three consecutive days thanks to a colleague's gift of oatmeal cookies - the one sweet I simply cannot resist.

Onward.

As we enter August

2006-08-07T14:50:00.000-06:00

and near three months of SLD, I'm down to 241 - total of 15 lbs lost.

Odd thought - when I started, I was nearly 10% above the weight on my drivers license. My goal is nearly 10% below the drivers license weight.

a setback

2006-07-28T16:24:00.000-06:00

Not entirely unexpected.

Business trip in a locale with abundant tempting food and drink, no chance to work out, odd schedule and some minor injuries preventing much exercise. Up 2 pounds to 244. Back into the breach.

Appearances can be deceiving

2006-07-22T09:34:00.000-06:00

Weighed in on Thursday at 242 again. Sounds like no change from last week, right?

Not so fast.

This week I made the mistake of weighing after my Sunday trip to the gym. Came in at 240. I used that as an excuse to go berserk on Monday at a charity function where I ate way too much junk food. After Tuesday's workout I weighed in at 245 again. Yikes.

Valuable lessons:
1. Shouldn't weigh in too often lest I get overconfident;
2. Shouldn't get overconfident and cut loose like I did Monday;
3. Shouldn't get discouraged, as there is still real progress being made, even in the face of momentary setbacks.

This week will be my biggest challenge yet as I have a four-day conference out of town that will prevent me from any gym trips, challenge my ELOO routine and present plentiful options for excess food and drink. Since I don't sleep as well when away from my better half, I'll try the middle-of-the-night ELOO.

Another week

2006-07-14T05:42:00.000-06:00

and another pound shed. Not moving as fast as some, but those who lose weight faster are doing things that would be quite unpleasant. The added bonus is that the method that's worked so far should help me to maintain the weight loss once I get where I ought to be. Besides, fourteen pounds in 9 weeks ain't chopped liver.

Hooya!

2006-07-07T11:32:00.000-06:00

Another week, another two pounds. I'm now at 243. Thirteen pounds in eight weeks so far, but the best part is the lack of any sense of deprivation.

Dinners I had in the past week include:

- 1/2 Roast Duck with couscous, vegetables, appetizers and 3 glasses of good wine;
- grilled steak with salad, garlic bread and drinks; and
- 2 pcs barbecued chicken with rice, garlic bread, corn-on-the-cob, pie and wine and cheese.

(I had dinners the other four nights too, but listing everything gets redundant.)

The SLD is definitely working as advertised. The way it works for me is that I use considerable restraint in what I eat and drink between about 10 pm and about 6 pm, aided by intake of ELOO. During the afternoon/evening window, though, I really do eat and drink as much as I want of whatever I want.

Hope others have the same degree of success that I have, or even more.

Weekly update

2006-06-30T05:43:00.000-06:00

After seven weeks, I'm down to 245. For those keeping score at home, that's three pounds in the past week with a big assist to the gym. Then again, I wouldn't have joined the gym had I not first started SLD. Worked out on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Have a few more sessions with a trainer. Found out that (as of Sunday) I have 38% body fat - nearly all on my torso. Apparently my goal of 201 is probably too low of a weight for my build, so the goal's been adjusted to 212. Now I'm 1/4 of the way there!

After six weeks,

2006-06-22T18:19:00.000-06:00

I've lost another pound and am down to 248. While not up to the speeds of many others, I'm still over a pound a week. The recent beastly hot weather has curtailed much of my usual exercise, but that should change soon too.

Disapointment

2006-06-16T08:49:00.000-06:00

No loss this week. I may have to start doing things I don't want to so I can lose more weight, like abstain from alcohol one or two nights a week. Grrrr.

5/11 256 lbs
5/18 254 lbs
5/25 254 lbs
6/1 250 lbs
6/8 249 lbs
6/15 249 lbs

So we'll see how the next week goes.

Week four

2006-06-09T05:54:00.000-06:00

5/11 256 lbs
5/18 254 lbs
5/25 254 lbs
6/1 250 lbs
6/8 249 lbs

One pound loss on a week where I overdid it twice as to big dinners. I can live with that!

Bonus!

2006-06-02T12:43:00.000-06:00

The idea of refraining from experiencing flavor for one or two intervals during the waking day is a central tenet to the Shangri-La Diet. It’s probably one of the things that will keep several people away from trying it – such as my wife who refuses to limit intake of diet sodas and chewing gum.

While the “flavor fast” in general seems quite useful and I enjoy the weight loss, I hadn’t expected that SLD would give me an easy out to my long-standing diet soda habit. I used to drink at least half a gallon of diet soda a day. Now I haven’t had a diet soda in over two weeks and I don’t miss them at all. Water is the main substitute, with occasional unsweetened iced tea or lemonade. It seems to me that avoiding those flavors helps in appetite reduction.

Week three

2006-06-02T06:09:00.000-06:00

5/11 256 lbs
5/18 254 lbs
5/25 254 lbs
6/1 250 lbs

Averaging 2 pounds per week without doing anything difficult. Wahoo!

Two weeks down

2006-05-25T18:40:00.000-06:00

5/11 256 lbs
5/18 254 lbs
5/25 254 lbs

I guess that little vacation did me in a bit. At least there wasn't a gain and better results will follow for next week!

The second week

2006-05-23T11:44:00.000-06:00

We were out of town for an event with my wife’s extended family from Friday afternoon through yesterday evening. I took a half-pint or so of ELOO (in what looked like a smaller version of a bicyclist’s water bottle – I found it at Target), but only got to use it on Saturday morning as schedules weren’t cooperative.

Noticed that I was somewhat hungrier than I’d been during the week-plus of SLD, but not as hungry as pre-SLD days. Other than on Saturday night, I ate pretty healthy food.

Used the BMI calculator to help in setting a preliminary goal. Have settled on 201 pounds, which would be a 55 pound reduction from my starting weight.

Back to SLD in earnest today. It will be interesting to see what this Thursday’s weigh-in brings.

One week down

2006-05-18T18:35:00.000-06:00

and two pounds gone.

5/11 256
5/18 254

Suspense is building . . . .

2006-05-18T13:55:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I'll be taking my first weekly progress weigh-in. Last Thursday (the first day of SLD), I weighed 256 pounds. This Thursday, and subsequent Thursdays, I'll be weighing in to check on progress. I'm confident that I've lost some weight given the looseness of a belt.

The other topic of suspense has to do with a four-day trip out of state. It will be interesting to see how the disruption to my new routine may impact my progress - hoping it won't be too much.

Perspective Shift

2006-05-16T09:06:00.000-06:00

One of the things about SLD that makes it effective is the new perspective it brings to the task at hand.

Most diets point out “empty calories” and say “Thou Shalt Not!”

Our society doesn’t do well with any sort of “Thou Shalt Not”, even (perhaps especially) when the command is something that’s for our own good if it doesn’t make us feel good right away. Contrarily, our society revels in “breaking a longstanding taboo”.

SLD takes advantage of this situation by suggesting that we break the taboo around certain so-called empty calories. In the SLD context, though, calling these calories empty is a misnomer.

If you’re like me, you have a good understanding as to how appetizers got their name. Eating them can actually enhance your appetite. The oil and sugar-water used in SLD – when used in conjunction with the flavor fast – are the opposite: de-appetizers. De-appetizers aren’t empty calories, but rather are super-filled calories that fuel the weight loss process.

Yesterday I had about 2/3 of customary breakfast and lunch, about 1/4 customary snacking and about 80% customary dinner. After dinner I felt like I couldn't move. Time munches on, but I'm not!

First Weekend

2006-05-15T08:49:00.000-06:00

The first weekend went pretty well, especially as a learning experience.

Friday dinner was an old favorite with a new twist and I ate a good deal less than I normally would have – after a pretty minimal calorie intake during the day.

For many years it’s seemed that my need for sleep was in inverse proportion to my caloric intake, so I figured I might sleep a lot over the weekend. Not so! I woke up after reasonable amounts of sleep (7.5 – 8 hours) feeling fine.

Saturday my wife fixed a big breakfast – I ate about 2/3 what I normally would have and was quite full. Later in the morning I tried cool sugar water (dissolve sugar in hot tap water in a coffee cup, stir two ice cubes in very rapidly then pour into a drinking glass of cool water so as to avoid risking cracking a glass) – it was a reasonably refreshing thing to have during breaks from yard work. Lunch and dinner were each between ½ and 2/3 my usual size for each and I had only one little snack. I only did the flavor fast during the morning as I was nursing a big diet coke during the afternoon. Saturday it seemed that some familiar foods seemed to have stronger and richer flavors.

Sunday I had the usual cup of coffee on rising and, just 45 minutes later, a shot of ELOO. That carried me through to brunch out with friends about four hours later. The 2/3 pattern reasserted itself. I didn’t take any sugar or oil Sunday afternoon. By late Sunday afternoon I found I was getting a good deal hungrier – after two days of half measures on SLD. I snacked a bit and again had about 2/3 of a usual dinner. Monday morning I was hungry before breakfast, which is unusual for me. I had a bowl of berries instead of the usual. I took a shot of ELOO at my first opportunity Monday morning.

Takeaways:

 Doing only one daily flavor fast (including ingestion of sugar or ELOO) produced reduced results after two days. However doing only one flavor fast for one day didn’t seem to hamper the effectiveness either on that day or the subsequent day.

 Most meals are leveling out around 2/3 the size they were before and snacking is down more than that. Overall caloric intake is down by about 50%.

 It works to wait only 45 minutes from finishing morning coffee before having ELOO if I haven’t had anything to eat with the coffee.

 Fatigue does not appear to be an issue.

 I haven’t felt deprived so I haven’t been grouchy. This is significant. Back in college, roommates asked me to quit smoking. Two days in they asked me to start again as I was unbearable absent the nicotine.

I’ve decided that I’ll weigh myself once a week, on Thursday afternoon when I get home from work (since that’s the time I took my starting weight on 5/11).

Bad news and good news

2006-05-12T16:33:00.000-06:00

Found a reliable scale. My beginning weight really is 256. (Since I hadn't weighed myself since about November, I really wasn't sure. I had hoped the home scale was horribly wrong. No such luck.) I never thought I'd get to an eighth of a ton. Well, not since I was 9 y/o and dreaming of eventually growing up to be an NFL fullback at 6'6" 250#. Fell short three inches on the height anyway.

Good news is that I've had one dose of ELOO and some breakfast (under 500 calories in total for sure) today, it's now 1630, I'm getting ready for the second dose and the drive home and I'm not hungry, even in the least. A little tired, but it's been a wearing day of work.

There will be evening and morning, another day.

Day One

2006-05-12T10:13:00.000-06:00

I had my regular breakfast at home, then drank sugar water (16 g of sugar to about 16 oz of water) in lieu of black coffee at the office. Got through the morning without snacking. What startled me is that I didn’t really want to snack on anything.

At lunch I got a grilled chicken sandwich. It came with fries and some fruit. I was full after eating the fruit, barely 2/3 of the sandwich and only a few of the fries. Absent-mindedly took two Hershey miniatures as an afternoon snack, but didn’t desire more. Usually if I eat Hershey miniatures, I’m good for at least 9 of them.

(I know, too much ditto food. Baby steps.)

Before driving home I drank an ounce of ELOO, with a big water chaser. Drinking oil was easier than I had expected. Got home and, surprise: no compulsion to snack. Then I remembered that I ought to get a starting weight. The home scale registered 256. Yikes! Went out to dinner where my wife and I shared one appetizer and one smallish entrée. I couldn’t finish all the food. I don’t think we’ve had that small of a dinner out in our 17 years together. (Also spent only $30 at a restaurant where we usually are good for over $50.)

Background

2006-05-12T10:04:00.000-06:00

I’m a man in my early 40s. I stand about 6’3”.

During the mid to late 80s, my weight fluctuated from 170 to 190. In the early 90s, I got up to about 220, where I stayed for quite a while. In 1996 I had to quit smoking and my weight has steadily increased. In late 2005 I weighed 240. I knew I gained some weight in early ’06, but I didn’t pay much attention to how much.

Snacking is a big problem for me. If I start to snack, it’s rare for me to stop. This is especially true if I am frustrated or depressed about something. Since I’ve been depressed for most of the past few months, it’s no surprise that I was taking in between 4500 and 5000 calories a day. I exercise more than most men my age, but I’d have to exercise nonstop to burn that off!

During the week of April 30 I read a few posts on Instapundit about the Shangri-La Diet. On 5/6 I ordered the book. On 5/10 it arrived and I read it. I decided that May 11 would be the first day for me to try it. I noted that, for me, I would have to forego snacking during at least four hours of the day, which itself would help somewhat. My wife decided to try it too, but only using sugar water and not oil as the thought of drinking oil disgusted her.