Archive for June 2018
I mentioned this during my last weigh in and wanted to go into a little more detail about it now. In dieting we tend to get caught up in taking care of the physical aspects of it. Calories in versus calories out. Exercising regularly. Eating healthy. Sleeping well. All these things are great, and you should be mindful of them, but you should be more mindful of being mindful.
The whole point of getting in shape, for me anyway, is to live a better life. And that’s generally how people view the journey. When I get into shape my life will be so much better. When I hit my weight goal things will be so much better. Once I’ve got those amazing six pack abs my life with the ladies will be so much better. Everything is a future event where somewhere down the road when a certain criteria has been met, I’ll be happy. This is a terrible way to live a life. Why wait to be happy, do it now.
Dr. Eric Berg (https://www.youtube.com/user/drericberg123) has said many a time that the problem with our mindset when it comes to losing weight is we feel we have to lose weight to become healthy. He puts it the other way around. He says get healthy so that your body loses the weight naturally. He is a proponent of the ketogenic diet and I highly recommend following him on YouTube.
I think that when it comes to happiness we make the same mistake. We assume we’ll be happy when all these positive things have happened to us. Which is a never ending pursuit. It always puts happiness down the road somewhere. So we need to begin turning our view around on that. Become happy to get the positive things to happen in your life. Adopt a positive mindset and positive things will begin to appear in your life. Whether you believe it’s the Law of Attraction, cause and effect, or you see what you want to see in life, it really doesn’t matter. If you maintain a happy disposition and your life becomes better, who cares about the specifics of how.
Speaking of how, how do you become happier. The simple, and very stoic, answer is you can’t control situations, but you can control how you react to them. So starting today, when you feel sad or angry or bummed, stop and think to yourself “How would things be different right now if I chose to be happy?” I think that happiness is a “muscle” like the rest of your muscles. The more you work at contemplating happiness the stronger your happiness muscle gets. And just like when your real muscles get stronger you can more easily handle heavy loads, as your happiness muscle gets stronger you can handle heavier emotional loads. I’m not suggesting this is a quick and easy fix or that you’ll have results overnight. Far from it. Just like it takes a long while to pack on solid muscle, it’ll take time focusing on happiness to build that level of emotional resilience where you’re just happy all the time. It’ll be a long journey but when you arrive you’ll see the trip was worth it.
This is going to be a shorter post. As expected my weight did go up since last Wednesday was my day off from keto. What wasn’t expected was how little it went up. Just .4 lbs. Between being really consistent about exercise and mindful about the rest of my eating for the week I was able to limit the effects of the one day off. Because the weight gain was so little none of the percentages changed from last week to this week so I won’t run the numbers like I usually do. Hopefully next month I’ll have progressed far enough that the one day off from keto won’t result in any regain of weight, and the month after that it’ll only result in a brief slow down of my weight loss.
Which brings me to another important thing I’ve learned this week. Being positive and making decisions that positively impact your mood and your life. I’ve made a lot of progress since the beginning of the year with my body, but not as much with my mind. Sure I’m generally more positive and feel better about myself, but I haven’t really devoted as much time to being more of a positive individual on the inside. I want to try and keep the posts related to specific topics so I won’t go too far into this here, but I will elaborate in a separate post. I just wanted to say that while it’s important to work on your body, I’ve realized that what’s on the inside is just as important. A lump of coal in shiny Xmas wrapping paper with ribbons and bows is still just a lump of coal. If you’re going to the trouble of creating a fantastic “vehicle” for yourself, make yourself a driver worthy of it. Take care until next week.
Just wanted to send off a blog about my new spending practices. One thing I noticed after I posted the original blog is that I hadn’t taken into account subscriptions to things like Netflix, Curiosity Stream, and language apps I use. I gave it a little thought and I came to this decision. We all need entertainment and education. The measure of whether I would keep it or not is whether or not I actually use it. Netflix I use regularly enough that it’s a keeper. But I noticed that there were things like iTunes Match I was paying for that I can’t even remember the last time I actually used it. And with iTunes Match I had the added silliness of paying for Apple Music, which I do use, which duplicates the very features of iTunes Match is use. You’re welcome, btw, Mr. Cook.
So I went down the list of things I subscribe to and put them in two lists. Subscriptions I’ve used in the last month, and obviously ones I haven’t. Anything I was using I feel good about keeping but I’ll keep an eye on my usage. Does the benefit justify the cost. Column 2 was way easier to deal with. Some of the subscriptions I got when I had good intentions and then never used. So I’m out hundreds of dollars on some of these things with nothing to show. Those, of course, I got rid of immediately. On the list there were a few that I hadn’t used but knew I should, like wanting to improve my mind by learning languages. Those I kept but with the caveat that once their usage goes down again they’re gone.
The final step in regards to keeping the subscription was the frequency at which I paid them. A number of them I got on the monthly subscription because I wanted to test them out before I committed. But since I never tested them out I had wasted a lot of money I could have been saving by getting the yearly subscription. So if I kept the app/subscription it was changed to the longest offering, which offered the best price.
The overall final step in this audit was changing how they were paid. I have three credit cards. They are all reward cards, one is for Apple, the other an airline, and the newest is Amazon. I do a lot of business on Amazon so this card pays for itself. I have let the Apple and airline card sneak up on how much I have on them. This also costs a lot in interest I could be spending on me (or saving if I were being smarter). So now all recurring payments and spending go on the Amazon card and that’s getting paid off at the end of the month so I don’t drown in interest. I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t making progress on my Apple card as I always pay more then the minimum and it was the recurring stuff that was getting me behind my back.
Now that things are better organized lets see how this affects my bottom line.
Very happy with today’s weigh in. My weight as of this morning’s weigh in is 293.6 lbs. That’s down 3.4 lbs from last week. My body fat percentage went from 41.1% to 40.5%. That translates to 122.1 lbs of fat down to 118.9 lbs of fat. That means only 3.2 lbs difference in body fat so I had to lose some muscle or water weight. Well last week, according to the scale I had 75.74 lbs of muscle. This week I have 75.75 lbs of muscle so it’s a small amount of .01 lbs but it is an increase. The scale shows I went from 45.4% water to 45.8% water. I’m not sure exactly how it figures out how much water weight I’m holding but this is the percent of my body weight attributed to water, which would include the water in my muscle mass. Going by that my water weight last week was 134.84 lbs and this week it’s 134.47 lbs, a difference of -0.37 lbs. Add the muscle gain with the water loss and it’s a difference of -0.36 lbs. So I’m guessing that there’s a gain somewhere else that the scale doesn’t track or doesn’t show up in the app data. So not happy I’m a little more dehydrated then last week but overall a big plus in the right areas.
For exercise this week I held steady. Closed the move ring on 6 days and the exercise ring on 4 days. So no progress, but no back tracking either.
Speaking of tracking, I did do a little better this week with nutrition tracking. Still not back to the 100% tracking I used to do when I first started but I am moving in the right direction. Plus I’m doing better about reading labels again as opposed to making assumptions about how keto things are based on memory.
So still room for improvement overall. I could be closing the exercise rings every day, which would pretty well result in closing the move ring every day. And I could do better about tracking. Not going to kick myself too hard though because the tale of the scale was pretty good. So see you again next week, and thank you to all the new viewers. There was a spike in views this week and I greatly appreciate you stopping by. Take care.
So another area I’ve been working on improving in my life are my finances. I’ve read a number of books on the subject but the one that resonated the most with me was Cait Flanders “The Year of Less”. I already reviewed the book before so I won’t do it again here. I’ll just give the overall gist which is she describes how she drastically reduced her spending habits for a year and how it went. If you’d like to get a copy for yourself to check it out, here is an Amazon Affiliate link to it (just click on the pic):
I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a similar thing but that’s all I’ve done. Now I’m ready to commit. So I will share the rules for me as she did with her rules on her blog. They’re pretty similar to hers. The one difference is I’m running my experiment to the end of the year.
The first rule is I can buy any food I want but it has to be something I’ll eat in the next week, with the exception of the Ketolent keto shakes as you have to buy it in month supplies. This one is pretty straight forward. I have a bad habit of buying a lot of food and not getting around to eating it before it expires. This wastes a lot of money, and just karma wise isn’t good as I’m wasting food others would gladly take to survive on. If I buy something and have to throw it away because it expired I have to share with you on here what it was.
The next rule is I can’t buy a supplement unless I need it. And need is defined as a supplement that fixes a deficiency in me that isn’t being taken care of by food. What this pretty much means is I’m only getting electrolytes and multivitamins. No more BCAAs or extras to “support” mitochondrial function. I take a lot of supplements that I just can’t prove I need, many of which are very pricey.
Next is no toys, video games, collector’s items, or the like. These are all wants not needs which drain money and eventually collect dust.
As for clothes, I am going to use the same rule she did. The amount of clothes I own will stay constant. So if I buy something it has to be because I’m getting rid of another piece of clothing. Also, it has to be a necessary buy. So as I lose weight and can’t fit into my old clothes I can buy replacements, but I have to throw the old clothes out. But I can’t just buy something because I like it, even if I’m willing to throw something away to maintain the balance.
Also, same as her, I’m leaving a cut out for gifts, toiletries, car repairs, or medicine. But I’ll require myself to be frugal in those purchases. Buy things on sale where I can, use generic brands instead of pricier name brands, and give gifts such that I’m not overspending to look good with my gift purchase.
The two final exceptions I’m allowing myself are as follows. First, I use an Amazon credit cards that gets me points I can later use to buy things on Amazon. This doesn’t amount to increased spending as I naturally will get the points from the acceptable purchases. The caveat is I have to have enough points to purchase the item, no “making up the difference” because I’m close enough. Second, I can’t possibly know in advance everything that might happen between now and the end of the year. So if an unforeseen event comes up that could possibly be a violation of the rules but I view it as a necessary exception I can make the purchase. The catch is I have to come on here and explain my rationale. If after explaining my rationale you guys think I was actually rationalizing I will accept whatever penance you feel I owe to make up for it. I don’t foresee myself making use of this one, but figured as a just in case I’ll include it.
So that’s the game plan to see how much improvement I can make between now and the end of the year. Come January 1st I will re-evaluate the rules and if they’re working I’ll continue but if not I’ll make changes to make them better. I’ll also give progress reports on how it’s going. That’s it for now. I’ll touch base with you soon on how it’s going. Take care.
Time for the weekly weigh in. This week I dropped 1 lb, taking me down to 297 lbs. My body fat dropped from 41.4% to 41.1%. That means I went from 123.4 lbs of fat to 122.1 lbs. So I actually lost 1.3 lbs. Using the muscle mass percentage the scale gives I had 75.4 lbs last week and 75.7 this week so the .3 lbs extra was a gain in muscle, or gainz if you use Instagram a lot.
Personally I’m ok with my weight loss clocking in a little slower due to muscle gains. It’s only a matter of time before those gains start to add up and begin accelerating the fat loss.
For the exercise update I’m glad to state that it’s only gotten better. I hit the 30 minute exercise goal on my Apple Watch 5 of the 7 days last week. Met my Move goal 6 of the 7 days, and got my Stand goal every day. So on 5 of the 7 days I closed all 3 rings. So very happy with that progress. On a side note I have noticed that my heart rate as I exercise is starting to go down. Good from a getting healthy perspective, but not so good on an achieving the move goal perspective. If my heart rate is naturally lower more often I may look into dropping the daily move goal to adjust for the greater efficiency.
Still struggling with the meal logging. I think my biggest catch is that I just don’t measure everything I eat as religiously as I did when I first started because I just focus on the macro ratios as opposed to the sum total. I’ve cut back on the protein a bit as I’ve learned in my keto studies that more research is showing how muscle sparing keto is, thus lowering the actual need for proteins.
My final addition is a decision I made regarding supplements. I’m still going to take a multivitamin. I’m still on the fence on the PQQ and CoQ10 I take for mitochondrial support but will probably stop taking them. And I’m definitely giving up on the rest as I run out of them. Which is mainly the exogenous ketones and the BCAA powders. I’m doing this for two reasons. 1st, and most obvious, is to save a little cash. And by a little I mean a lot. Both of them are pricey unless you buy the cheap no name brands, and then you’re probably just wasting money anyway. 2nd, I’m just not sure I need them anymore and am taking them more out of habit. As I mentioned earlier, more and more research is showing the keto is muscle sparing, so that gets rid of the original reason I took the BCAAs. And the ketones, well at this point in the ball game I’m getting blood ketone readings well into the ketosis range, even on days I don’t take them. So why supplement with a product I’m already producing enough of naturally.
And I started using the Ketolent Keto Shake from Keto and Co a bit ago. If you’d like to try it here is an Amazon Affiliate link:
I view this more as food then supplement, just packaged in an easy to use design. I get a 400 calorie meal with most of that coming from fat in an easy to make shake. The link takes you to their product where you can decide if you want the whole starter kit or just the ingredients. Basically the difference is you get a nice Ketolent embossed Blender Bottle to make the shake in with the starter kit. Also, it defaults to chocolate but I much prefer the vanilla. For one you can flavor it yourself with cinnamon or pumpkin spice or whatever you prefer. Doesn’t work as well with chocolate. Plus I’ve found the vanilla just mixes way easier. I’ll keep taking this because it’s good at keeping my macros right, and frankly it’s just delicous.
So that’s this weeks update. I’m intending to do another post tomorrow on another self improvement plan I’ll be starting soon. I want to keep the keto updates separate from these other ones even if they are all on my same blog post. Take care and see you at next week’s weigh in.
So I’ve been on the ketogenic diet since January 1st. When I first started I decided to do a two day “fast” to try and switch into ketosis faster. I put fast in quotation marks because it wasn’t a total fast. To prime me for burning fat as fuel while still getting some calories in so I didn’t feel like I was starving I decided that I would abstain from everything but bulletproof coffees. So I had the caffeine from coffee plus MCT oil and Kerrygold butter to help power me through. That did make the transition easier but it wasn’t a long term strategy for success. So on day three I started eating a ketogenic diet. Over the course of the next week or so I fully transitioned over to being keto adapted. And that meant slowly losing my cravings for sugars and simple carbs. Although it got easier as I went along it still required a lot of discipline at first. And even though I’m months into the diet and my body is happy to go along in a ketogenic state, I still occasionally get cravings. So what keeps me from stopping off at a fast food joint on the drive home from work. It’s the same discipline I used while I transitioned into ketosis.
One of the things that help create that discipline was certainly desire. I was ready and really wanted to take the weight off this time. And belief. I truly believed that I had found the right diet that would get me the results I wanted. I just had to stick with it. Finally, there was Jocko Willink.
Jocko is an ex Navy Seal who’s all about discipline. I found his book “Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual” on Amazon while searching for books on discipline. The cover image just drew me in. It’s a simple design. All black with the title in white typewriter lettering with a gray image of Jocko in the lower right corner. I had been also reading about Minimalism at the time and this book cover seemed to scream minimalist to me. So I purchased it and downloaded it to my Kindle.
I started reading the book, but it was more like listening to it. The book reads like a good friend sitting down with you to explain the concept of discipline to you. It’s a one sided conversation of course, but why would you want to interrupt your Navy Seal pal when he’s explaining discipline to you. They’re like the experts in discipline. Nobody is getting in to that group without having discipline oozing out their pores.
The book is divided into two parts, Thoughts and Actions, and then finishes up with some advice on nutrition and taking care of your body. Thoughts is about having the discipline mindset. And if you don’t have the discipline mindset, how you go about getting one. Actions are the works you have to perform to develop discipline. Then comes the section I liked the most because I hadn’t expected it, the nutrition guidance. Now he refers to it as Paleo, but he still is a proponent of a high fat, moderate protein, and low card lifestyle. He doesn’t get into percentages so it may be more paleo then keto, but it certainly follows a keto mindset. It makes being disciplined and staying in ketosis easier when an ex Navy Seal is pushing it as a good game plan. The final section covering taking care of your body is the icing on the cake with some workouts at the end for the cherry.
I highly recommend this book for anyone starting a ketogenic diet or anyone just looking to keep to a tighter path in life. Jocko preaches discipline and I think his book delivers it. If you’re interested in getting a copy of the book for yourself, here is an Amazon affiliate link for the Kindle edition. It is also available as a hard cover for those people who still like having the book in hand. Just click on the pic below.
So it’s time for the monthly update and it’s a good one. I weighed in at 298 lbs so I lost 2.2 lbs from last week and 6.8 lbs in the last month. I think that’s a respectable number. This brings my total weight loss to 54.6 lbs since January 1st, so just over 10 lbs a month if you average it out. Now I realize that 6.8 lbs is under the 10 lb average but it’s better then last month at 4.6 lbs and just under the month before at 7 lbs. So my progress is picking back up.
Body fat percentage wise I’m down to 41.4%, so .4 percentage points under last week and 1.3 percentage points for the month. I am, however, a whopping 10.6 percentage points down from January 1st. Pretty proud of losing double digit body fat percentage.
At the beginning of this journey I was carrying 183.4 lbs of body fat. That’s a whole other person. Currently I’m holding 123.4 lbs of body fat, which could be another person albeit a smaller one. The big thing is the difference between the two is 60 lbs but the scale only shows 54.6 lbs dropped. So 5.4 lbs was added between hydration or muscle mass, both of which are good for me.
The end of this month will mark the “halfway” point of the year. As of this last weigh in I’ve reached 44% of my goal, or 8.8% of my goal averaged over the 5 months. If that average holds I’ll be over the 50% mark at the halfway point of the year and that means I could actually reach my fitness goal before the years up. I took 47 years and some change putting all this weigh on. The thought of getting to a healthy weight in one year just blows my mind. Doing it under a year seems almost inconceivable, but apparently possible.
Before I sign off, a little accountability. I am doing great on my exercise goals. I’m not closing the exercise circle on my Apple Watch every day, but I am exercising every morning to start my day off right. Last week I only had one day where I didn’t reach my move goal. And I had over 10 exercise sessions for the week. So we’re good there. I am, however, still struggling when it comes to logging food. I know I should but it’s tedious and I allow myself to make excuses for not doing so. It’s a goal I’m working on but not one I’ll beat myself up about because I am making good progress overall, even if it’s not ideal progress.
That’s it for this week/month. I’ll add the pics below for one when I was near my heaviest in 2013 (green shirt), the “beginning” pick for 2018 (The Flash), last month’s pics (red outfit), and of course this months (black outfit). Have a great day and see you soon.
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