I hit another plateau *right* at 250, which was frustrating because I was actually really excited to break it. Milestones are fun and encouraging and I don't mind embracing them even if they are a little arbitrary. However, as you can see from the updated graph. I seemed stuck for a number of days before it finally dropped today down to 248 and some change. I am excited to be past 250, but I had a bad carb day today (wedding with a few too many allowances for beer, cake, etc), and I'm afraid I'm going to be back up over it when the dust settles. Still, it's all about the long-term progress, so a slip up here and there isn't a big deal as long as things keep going down overall.
I spoke with my sister-in-law at the wedding about it some today, who said she could tell I lost weight. She lost a bunch of weight a while back too and she said she did it using low carb too (actually using Atkins, but I'm not a big fan of Atkins). Still, it's always good to hear other success stories to help convince myself that I'm not crazy for doing this.
I'm closing in on a total of 20 pounds lost over the last month and a half, nearly two thirds of my goal done already. It's possible I may be hitting my goal of 30 pounds in just the first couple months. Then when am I going to call this blog??
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
The Holy Grail
Okay this post is going to be long, but I want to explain my motivating for trying this low carb diet. It wasn't just flavor of the week or randomly chosen; it is based on the real successes of some friends of mine, and it's something I have been watching and biding my time to try for myself for quite a while now.
The scale this morning wasn't any lower, which was a little disappointing actually. I had been so used to seeing lower numbers that I was ready to break below 250. All in good time I suppose. It's ok too because I have another reason to be excited; it seems that other people in my office are getting excited about my sudden and relatively effortless weight loss. It's not difficult to see why.
If there's one thing you learn very quickly as a software developer, it's the fact that sitting still for 8+ hours every day and eating whatever garbage is within arms reach will make you fat very quickly. Almost every programmer I have worked with has come to the same realization at some point, which is often followed by half-hearted attempts to lose weight/exercise/eat better/be more active. Most efforts are only marginally successful at best, leading us to either give up, or for the more motivated among us, to establish some kind of long term work-out routine.
Exercise was never enjoyable to me. Okay that is being generous... I HATE working out. Hate hate hate. Probably the most fun I ever had exercising is when our office established a small daily racquetball league. Playing was fun, but even at its most enjoyable, it still required losing an hour or more of sleep, driving to the gym before work, packing an extra set of clothes, etc. After a while even the fun exercising became a chore, players would start showing up late or skipping completely (I was probably the worst about this), and then when our gym with the courts closed, we stopped the work-out group altogether. Non-fun workouts like weights and treadmill had an even lower success/consistency rate.
My group of co-workers were always trying some scheme to get us all motivated to work out. Even at our most valiant of efforts, which required 30 minutes of workout 7-days a week, we still seemed to only maintain our weight. Sure we became "healthier" overall, capable of ever more impressive physical feats, but none of us ever seemed to lose more than 5 or 10 pounds before we all gave up and gained it all back with interest. Somehow, exercise was never the weight loss answer for anybody not willing to make it their lifestyle.
So it stands to reason that when one of our coworkers suddenly starts losing 10, 20, 30 pounds (over the course of some months), we take notice. I can't think of anybody who lost anywhere near 30 pounds with a traditional "eat less" diet or a couple hours at the gym per week. When somebody can achieve long-term, non-temporary weight loss without completely giving up eating or sacrificing all free time in the gym, we see it as some kind of holy grail.
Then, out of the blue, my friend Rob seemingly found that holy grail.
He works at a major healthcare software developer, and one day they brought some nutritional expert doctors in for a talk. They were preaching the word of the Low Carb High Fat diet. He was suspicious but he decided to look into it further. He watch the movie "Fathead." He read some books like "Good Carbs Bad Carbs." Rob is an extremely analytic person, doggedly convicted to find absolute truth in all matters whenever possible (occasionally to a fault). After conducting his research and absorbing as much material on the subject that he could, he decided that enough rang true to give this Low Carb High Fat diet a chance.
He had always been a little heavier than me, even though he was a few inches shorter. He also started his desk job about a year earlier than me, but once I was hired our weight followed a similar trajectory; up. He had been part of my workout groups, we had gone through mostly the same struggles with trying to stay in shape, and we both always continued to gain. I don't know if he ever got above 250 pounds, but he was definitely close. Now, after doing low carb for over a year, he told me he fluctuates between 202 and 205. And he achieved this gradual but major drop with no exercise. Another friend of mine, Patrick, tried the same diet and lost 40 pounds over the course of a year the same way.
Whoa, big deal.
Losing 40-50 pounds, keeping it off, and maintaining that weight without exercise and eating a normal (albeit tweaked) diet? That's the holy grail right there. In fact, that's venturing into "too good to be true" territory.
In some sense, I guess it is a little "too good to be true." You still have to sacrifice. Giving up soda altogether is a big deal, and cutting out almost all sweets, dessert, and breads is a pretty tough pill to swallow. That's probably why it took me so long to jump on board. Willpower is one of my weak areas, and those small private battles against the ice cream in the fridge or the brownies at the picnic are very easy to lose. However at a certain point I have to accept some reality: I am either going to have to work out like a maniac, start eating better, or just keep getting fatter until I die.
I chose to listen to my friends and give their method a try. It's backed up by numerous studies, doesn't seem to have negative effects, and even has proven results with some of my personal friends. I was initially skeptical, not so much of the diet's effectiveness but of my ability to stick to it, but so far the results have exceeded my expectations. Also it's been a lot easier to make healthy choices than I expected, which I plan to write more about later.
If I can keep up with this thing long term, I might be the one weighing close to 200 pounds next year. It's possible that this blog goes from losing "30 in 30" to nearly double that, and that's what I'm excited about: real, permanent change.
The scale this morning wasn't any lower, which was a little disappointing actually. I had been so used to seeing lower numbers that I was ready to break below 250. All in good time I suppose. It's ok too because I have another reason to be excited; it seems that other people in my office are getting excited about my sudden and relatively effortless weight loss. It's not difficult to see why.
If there's one thing you learn very quickly as a software developer, it's the fact that sitting still for 8+ hours every day and eating whatever garbage is within arms reach will make you fat very quickly. Almost every programmer I have worked with has come to the same realization at some point, which is often followed by half-hearted attempts to lose weight/exercise/eat better/be more active. Most efforts are only marginally successful at best, leading us to either give up, or for the more motivated among us, to establish some kind of long term work-out routine.
Exercise was never enjoyable to me. Okay that is being generous... I HATE working out. Hate hate hate. Probably the most fun I ever had exercising is when our office established a small daily racquetball league. Playing was fun, but even at its most enjoyable, it still required losing an hour or more of sleep, driving to the gym before work, packing an extra set of clothes, etc. After a while even the fun exercising became a chore, players would start showing up late or skipping completely (I was probably the worst about this), and then when our gym with the courts closed, we stopped the work-out group altogether. Non-fun workouts like weights and treadmill had an even lower success/consistency rate.
My group of co-workers were always trying some scheme to get us all motivated to work out. Even at our most valiant of efforts, which required 30 minutes of workout 7-days a week, we still seemed to only maintain our weight. Sure we became "healthier" overall, capable of ever more impressive physical feats, but none of us ever seemed to lose more than 5 or 10 pounds before we all gave up and gained it all back with interest. Somehow, exercise was never the weight loss answer for anybody not willing to make it their lifestyle.
So it stands to reason that when one of our coworkers suddenly starts losing 10, 20, 30 pounds (over the course of some months), we take notice. I can't think of anybody who lost anywhere near 30 pounds with a traditional "eat less" diet or a couple hours at the gym per week. When somebody can achieve long-term, non-temporary weight loss without completely giving up eating or sacrificing all free time in the gym, we see it as some kind of holy grail.
Then, out of the blue, my friend Rob seemingly found that holy grail.
He works at a major healthcare software developer, and one day they brought some nutritional expert doctors in for a talk. They were preaching the word of the Low Carb High Fat diet. He was suspicious but he decided to look into it further. He watch the movie "Fathead." He read some books like "Good Carbs Bad Carbs." Rob is an extremely analytic person, doggedly convicted to find absolute truth in all matters whenever possible (occasionally to a fault). After conducting his research and absorbing as much material on the subject that he could, he decided that enough rang true to give this Low Carb High Fat diet a chance.
He had always been a little heavier than me, even though he was a few inches shorter. He also started his desk job about a year earlier than me, but once I was hired our weight followed a similar trajectory; up. He had been part of my workout groups, we had gone through mostly the same struggles with trying to stay in shape, and we both always continued to gain. I don't know if he ever got above 250 pounds, but he was definitely close. Now, after doing low carb for over a year, he told me he fluctuates between 202 and 205. And he achieved this gradual but major drop with no exercise. Another friend of mine, Patrick, tried the same diet and lost 40 pounds over the course of a year the same way.
Whoa, big deal.
Losing 40-50 pounds, keeping it off, and maintaining that weight without exercise and eating a normal (albeit tweaked) diet? That's the holy grail right there. In fact, that's venturing into "too good to be true" territory.
In some sense, I guess it is a little "too good to be true." You still have to sacrifice. Giving up soda altogether is a big deal, and cutting out almost all sweets, dessert, and breads is a pretty tough pill to swallow. That's probably why it took me so long to jump on board. Willpower is one of my weak areas, and those small private battles against the ice cream in the fridge or the brownies at the picnic are very easy to lose. However at a certain point I have to accept some reality: I am either going to have to work out like a maniac, start eating better, or just keep getting fatter until I die.
I chose to listen to my friends and give their method a try. It's backed up by numerous studies, doesn't seem to have negative effects, and even has proven results with some of my personal friends. I was initially skeptical, not so much of the diet's effectiveness but of my ability to stick to it, but so far the results have exceeded my expectations. Also it's been a lot easier to make healthy choices than I expected, which I plan to write more about later.
If I can keep up with this thing long term, I might be the one weighing close to 200 pounds next year. It's possible that this blog goes from losing "30 in 30" to nearly double that, and that's what I'm excited about: real, permanent change.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Encouraged
Monday marks the end of the first month of my experiment with eating low-carb, and while there have been some downsides, they haven't been so bad and so far they have been temporary. The good news is that my weight is still dropping steadily, and I'm down to 250 (give or take a pound or two daily fluctuation). That brings my grand total of weight loss to 15 or 16 pounds, and about 12-13 just since starting low-carb.
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I started weighing myself in February, but didn't really start dropping weight until March.
People have started to notice and tell me I look like I have lost weight, although I haven't personally noticed it. Or at least I haven't noticed it visually, probably because I am looking at myself every day. I *feel* like I have lost weight, which is hard thing to know for sure because it's possible that it's just in my head. It sounds strange to say, but I feel like my skin is... more loose somehow. There were times when I was eating everything and gaining weight that my skin would feel "tight." Maybe that is just my imagination, but when you are gaining weight, your skin has to stretch right? As evidenced by my many stretch marks. So it would make sense that when losing weight, your skin would loosen up I guess. Also my clothes are feeling a little loose, but again it could all be my imagination. At some point it has to be reality though, and with 15 pounds down, there's no reason I couldn't be noticing changes already.
So I mentioned the downsides, I should probably go into more detail. Last week I wasn't feeling super positive about the whole thing. I mentioned feeling fatigued, and that feeling actually got a little worse as last week progressed. I started having just a persistent mini-headache behind my eyes, like you get when you go to bed too late and have to wake up too early. I was feeling tired and achy and if those feelings had continued I probably would have given up trying this. I'm not sure if I was just getting used to a lower amount of caffeine than normal, if my blood sugar was adjusting, or if my was body going through ketosis, but it wasn't a great feeling. I was expecting having a hard time in the second week, but I figured by the third week I should have been mostly adjusted so I was caught off guard. Combined with a relative weight plateau at the same time, things weren't looking great for the future of low-carb living.
The good news is this week has been completely different. My energy levels are up, the nagging ache is gone, and my weight loss actually picked up. Overall I feel healthy and thinner than I have in a long time. Perhaps the most encouraging factor is that this diet feels sustainable to me. I don't feel like I am starving myself - I eat until I am full and still sometimes stuff myself. I eat good food that I like, and more of it in some cases (for example: skip the pancakes and go for double bacon). Not eating bread sucks, and skipping out on sodas and desserts in hard but it gets easier over time. I don't really miss soda at all, and I will still occasionally indulge in a sweet snack on special occasions. For example, tonight was a family dinner with out-of-town relatives. I picked low-carb options for dinner, but I joined in when everybody else ate ice cream. For an otherwise low-carb day, a 50-60 carb bowl of ice cream isn't going to do much damage when my daily total is still at or under 100. These kinds of compromises help make this diet more of a lifestyle that I could see myself sticking to for a long time.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
A New Low
I've been meaning to post something longer for a while now, but I keep getting sidetracked so quick updated tonight: yesterday the scale hit a new low of 253. I'm excited to see the weight still coming off after the whole "water weight" phase.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Changes
I haven't updated in a while because I have hit that first plateau after losing the "water weight." I won't try to say that it's not discouraging considering I lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks and haven't really lost much since, but I was expecting it. I have heard that once things level out, I should be looking to lose about 2-3 pounds per week.
One major change I have noticed is that I don't "crave" sweet foods anymore. For the first week or two, it was really difficult to turn down sodas at lunch and pastries/snacks throughout the day. Now when I see them, I don't really want them much at all. However, this seems to have carried over into all food. Nothing really appeals to me that much anymore, and I don't really have that "mmmm" feeling when I eat anything. It's really strange... it kind of seems to me how it would be for a smoker to quit smoking after they got over the addiction. They don't feel the "need' for nicotine anymore, but they do miss the relaxation of smoking at the end of long day. That's kind of how I feel about food now... I miss enjoying food as much as I used to. I miss stuffing my face with bread and ice cream until I was stuffed. I miss it, but I am at peace with not doing that anymore. I know full and well that this is why I weigh so much currently.
I'm still having trouble with snacks... I need something easy I can just grab and eat at night to be satisfied. Without it, I find myself doing little "cheats" throughout the day; a glass of juice here (about 30g carbs), a single cookie there (20g carbs or so). Peanut butter and celery works pretty well, but it's hard to keep enough celery for a frequent snack without going to the store every 2 days.
One major change I have noticed is that I don't "crave" sweet foods anymore. For the first week or two, it was really difficult to turn down sodas at lunch and pastries/snacks throughout the day. Now when I see them, I don't really want them much at all. However, this seems to have carried over into all food. Nothing really appeals to me that much anymore, and I don't really have that "mmmm" feeling when I eat anything. It's really strange... it kind of seems to me how it would be for a smoker to quit smoking after they got over the addiction. They don't feel the "need' for nicotine anymore, but they do miss the relaxation of smoking at the end of long day. That's kind of how I feel about food now... I miss enjoying food as much as I used to. I miss stuffing my face with bread and ice cream until I was stuffed. I miss it, but I am at peace with not doing that anymore. I know full and well that this is why I weigh so much currently.
I'm still having trouble with snacks... I need something easy I can just grab and eat at night to be satisfied. Without it, I find myself doing little "cheats" throughout the day; a glass of juice here (about 30g carbs), a single cookie there (20g carbs or so). Peanut butter and celery works pretty well, but it's hard to keep enough celery for a frequent snack without going to the store every 2 days.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Side Effects
I'm still losing weight... down to 255 today. I am looking forward to breaking the 244 mark because I can remember the last time I weighed less than that. Early May 2010, almost 3 years ago, a couple people in my office organized a "Biggest Loser" competition, and at the initial weigh-in I weighed 244 pounds. If I can get below that, it will be the first time ever that my weight has actually trended downward.
I am starting to notice some changes, but not necessarily all positive. I have been feeling noticeably fatigued the last 2 days, so I looked it up and it turns out to be fairly common when switching from a high-carb diet to a very low-carb one. Apparently there is a transition period in the first couple weeks where the body runs out of glucose and has to start producing more ketones. Supposedly once my blood glucose and ketone levels balance out, I should be back to feeling normal (or better). I'm curious to see if this is true.
I am starting to notice some changes, but not necessarily all positive. I have been feeling noticeably fatigued the last 2 days, so I looked it up and it turns out to be fairly common when switching from a high-carb diet to a very low-carb one. Apparently there is a transition period in the first couple weeks where the body runs out of glucose and has to start producing more ketones. Supposedly once my blood glucose and ketone levels balance out, I should be back to feeling normal (or better). I'm curious to see if this is true.
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