Like a lot of you one of my goals this year is to improve my general health. Exercise can only do so much so with a little help from my friends I’m trying to drop some weight by paying attention to what I eat. Four of us weighed in on January 3rd and will compare again in about 17 weeks on May 1st. The “winner” with the most percentage weight loss will take the prize and admiration of the group. Though the truth is we all expect to benefit by simply participating. Our start points were as follows: Mr. A 280 lbs, Mr. D 219 lbs, Mr. M 214 lbs and me 218 lbs.
We are all business owners/professionals and are well into our middle age. We all four travel for work and pleasure and have the strain of road meals and restaurants to worry about. Each of us is physically active and perhaps better-than-average recreational athletes… back in the day.
The contest was announced before the holidays so, at least in my case, I had a very guilt-free season of parties and dinners. This year over-indulging didn’t matter, and perhaps was a slight positive for the competition if I added a little to my starting weight total. So the answer to “would you like another helping?” was …absolutely! And why not add some chocolates to the top of that gravy… I added about 8 pounds in two weeks.
My mental accounting is that I weigh about 200 lbs but if that were true then I would weigh less than that at some point during the year and it has been more than five years since I have seen a number that starts with 1. Calories have never been a consideration; traditionally I have eaten for taste and enjoyment. At home we eat well, generally avoiding processed foods and preparing from scratch where possible. My wife is very good about the quality of our food and we eat mostly organic, but my weakness appears to be quantity; I am perhaps living to eat rather than eating to live.
Where to begin? I am an analyst so I started with some research. “Diet”, “Calories” are very attractive search titles and my browser provided an endless array of web sites that wanted to solve my problems by selling me something. There are also very good discussions from credible sources about reasonable approaches to eating. I needed to understand the variables to separate what matters from the noise of the commerce of food. I found several, but one in particular that helped me put it all together;
http://web.mit.edu/athletics/sportsmedicine/wcrwtloss.html
To lose weight for a significant period you need to restrict calories in a sensible manner. The quality of the food is important since it provides the essential nutrients for health but if you don’t burn more fuel than you are taking in then there is no progress. Right-sizing the calories and getting the ratio of protein to carbohydrates and fat is the total package.
I also needed to be aware of what I eat. The free app Calorie Counter by Arawella Corporation seems to have this covered off. I am able to track my net caloric intake as well as the composition of the calories. I also found that I could enter my current position and my May 1st weight goal and a daily total calorie target was provided. In my case I am trying to get to 180 pounds in 17 weeks. Apparently if I consume 1900 net calories per day I will get there. Furthermore, total caloric intake is offset by exercise. In my case a half hour walk at a reasonable pace equates to about 100 calories, whereas 30 minutes of weight training offsets 250 calories. I like using an app to track because it provides constant feedback on the food and exercise choices I am making. It seems to me that eventually the choices will be automatic and I will not need the software though it is fun to use and does all the math for me.
My wife also discovered that one of the tech reporters she follows on Twitter, Mike Wendland, has decided to lose weight and embrace healthy life choices and he is tracking his progress on social media – on his blog, twitter, Facebook etc. She purchased his book and is following his updates on twitter as he seems to be doing much the same type of regime as me. His website has a lot of good information. http://superhealthyme.com/
The goals are ambitious and calorie counting will only get me so far. Exercise and building up muscle mass will be essential if I am to sustain weight loss for the full period. In addition, if my more muscular body is burning more calories the likelihood of maintaining a healthier size is greatly improved.
To date after 5 days I have lost my chocolate – gravy and extra wine weight and am tipping the scales at 211. So far so good, but this is more like a marathon than a sprint and there is a long way to go.
For the next 16 weeks I expect to write about our (my) progress and welcome any comments. I encourage you to consider joining us and doing this for yourself. If you do jump on board for the ride please let me know.
Patrick
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