Weekly Weigh-In 2006-05-28 May 28, 2006
- Current Weight: 94.18 kg (207.6 lbs)
- Change this week: -0.28 kg (-0.6 lbs)
- FFM: -0.04 kg (-0.09 lbs)
- Fat: -0.24 kg (-0.53 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 15.82 kg (34.9 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 5
I didn’t lose very much weight this week, but was interested to see that nearly all of what I lost was fat with very little fat-free mass lost. Great stuff!
There were a few distractions this week - two pizza parties with friends and two family dinners with the in-laws. Have you heard that before?! It seems like there are several distractions every week, so I’m glad that I’m maintaining at least some weight loss without sacrificing any lifestyle enjoyment. As long as the numbers keep heading in the right direction, I’m happy!
Weekly Weigh-In 2006-05-21 May 21, 2006
- Current Weight: 94.46 kg (208.2 lbs)
- Change this week: -0.63 kg (-1.4 lbs)
- FFM: -0.34 kg (-0.75 lbs)
- Fat: -0.29 kg (-0.64 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 15.54 kg (34.3 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 5
I was very happy to finally budge my daily weight measurements off the 94.5 kg mark towards the end of this week. Now I’ve just got to keep driving it down!
I got a few compliments this week on the weight I’ve lost. One was from a mate’s wife who I hadn’t seen since the start of the year. She was absolutely amazed - the weight I’ve lost is more than either of her children weigh. I’ve also started tucking my shirts into my pants again. That’s a big step for me!
I had a great run this morning, too. I ran 5 km (3 miles), only stopping to walk twice - both times for steep hills. I can’t remember my exact time, but it was under 28 minutes. I’m thinking of entering a 14 km event in mid-August, so I’m planning to build up my distance over the next month or two and make a call whether I’ll enter or not. My current thinking is to enter anyway, so that I can at least get some experience (I’ve never entered a fun run or race before!) and see how it all works. Then I can enter next year and know what I’m doing!
Fitness Obstacle: Feedback May 19, 2006
This post is part of the Fitness Obstacles series.
Any new form of exercise will be interesting for a while, as you master new skills and learn new techniques to perform it. Without some form of feedback, though, your exercise sessions begin to feel repetitive. You’re just going through the motions, repeating the same activities, and don’t feel like you’re making any progress. You begin to question the whole point of doing the exercise to begin with.
I find I need some kind of scoring system to measure my progress. Maybe it’s your personal best for lifting weights, your time to run 5 km (3 miles), your lap time for swimming, or the distance you can cycle in 30 minutes. Your body weight or measurements can be effective as a score, if you’re taking up exercise with weight loss or body shaping in mind. Whatever the scoring system, keeping track of your performance and seeing it improve is a very motivating thing.
The feedback problem is a longer-term version of the boredom problem.
For any single exercise session, boredom will hinder you getting started and can cause you to stop early. Over a longer term, a lack of feedback will cause your motivation to decline and your exercise routine to become stale and seem pointless.
When an activity is both boring and lacks feedback, you’ll dread it and have very little motivation for the next session. Boredom leads to skipping individual sessions, and lack of feedback or progress leads to dropping the whole routine.
Technorati Tags: fitness, health, exercise, feedback, exercise routine, workout, excuses
Daily Or Weekly Weigh-Ins? May 17, 2006
I’ve seen a lot of weight loss programs that recommend you only measure weight and body fat % weekly. From what I can tell, they do that because those figures can vary so much day to day (and even within the day), that people get discouraged by the fluctuations and find it hard to “stay the course”.
The theory is that if you only measure once per week, the cumulative effect of 7 days of weight loss should overshadow the day-to-day variances and you’ll see a drop in your weight. That’s more encouraging than the swinging “Yay! D’oh! D’oh! Yay! Yay! D’oh! …” reactions you get from daily measurement.
While the idea has some merit, I think there’s a much better way.
My weight measurements can vary by as much as 4 kg (9 lbs) over a single day, and my weight loss for a week is usually about 0.7 kg (1.5 lbs). So if one week’s measurement was slightly low (say because I was slightly dehydrated at the time) and the following week’s measurement was slightly high (because I’d recently had a drink, or hadn’t gone to the toilet for a while, or whatever) then I’d be left thinking I’d ‘wasted’ a whole week on diet and exercise only to gain weight. That’d be pretty discouraging! Similarly, if I’d gone off track I wouldn’t see the result until the end of the week, and I’d do several days worth of damage before getting any feedback.
See my article on When To Weigh Yourself for more information on daily fluctuations, and what time of day to weigh yourself.
By using the Hacker’s Diet averaging technique, each day’s measurement only affects your running average by 1/10th of that day’s variance. So it takes a few consecutive ‘bad’ days before your average starts to trend up. Now instead of hoping to make every day equal to or lower than your previous day’s measurement, you’re just aiming to have more days below your average than above it. If you can do that, the average keeps going down and you’re losing weight.
Daily measurements and a focus on keeping the average trending down is a much healthier mindset. It allows you a guilt-free day off every now and then, while still reminding you to do the right thing more often than not and giving you rapid feedback if your trend starts to change.
Technorati Tags: weight loss, weight, weight measurement, diet, dieting, motivation
Blog: Working Toward Health May 16, 2006
I just discovered, through the Biggest Losers list at PhysicsDiet.com, a brand new blog by user quotidianlight - Working Toward Health.
She’s only been using PhysicsDiet.com for a couple of days, and the blog only has one post on it so far (One Fat Vegetarian), but it’s a great one. It sounds like quotidianlight has had the exact same self-realisation I had back in December - nothing is going to change unless I take charge.
She describes a pattern of steady weight gain over a period of time, with several false starts and failed ‘diet kicks’ that just never seemed to stick for more than a short time. I had a very similar experience, and never seemed to be able to fit exercise and proper eating into my normal routine. Then one day I just woke up and decided that enough was enough. I could make all the excuses in the world, but the fact was that I was unfit, overweight, and not enjoying life to the full. If I didn’t make a change, who would?
So I started walking in the mornings. It was only something small, but it was progress in the right direction. Walking beats doing nothing. Gradually over the next few months, I started making other small changes to my lifestyle - cutting sugar out of my coffee, cutting snacks and biscuits, eating smaller meals, making healthier food choices, taking my children for walks, and I even graduated from walking to jogging.
Each of these changes I made using the 30 day trial technique. Although I only committed to each for 30 days at a time, I made sure I was making changes that could be incorporated into my lifestyle without major disruption. For example, something like visiting the local gym several times a week wasn’t going to work for me - it would turn my home life upside down. Getting up half an hour early to go for a walk was doable, though. Over time, each of these changes just became a part of my normal routine, so I’m able to stick with them for the longer term. I wasn’t on a ‘health kick’, I was slowly and gradually forming healthier daily habits.
I really resonate with quotidianlight:
I had done this several times but there was a huge difference, this time… I wasn’t punishing myself. Weight loss would not be punishment for bad behavior that I enforce on myself only to fail. This time weight loss would be one prong of several changes to modify my life and bring me in balance.
And the future is looking great, because now we’re in control of our own destiny:
I look forward to becoming a strong swimmer. I look forward to learning to run again. Somehow I will learn to balance exercise, eating and life.
Weekly Weigh-In 2006-05-14 May 14, 2006
- Current Weight: 95.09 kg (209.6 lbs)
- Change this week: -0.56 kg (-1.2 lbs)
- FFM: -0.24 kg (-0.5 lbs)
- Fat: -0.32 kg (-0.7 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 14.91 kg (32.9 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 6
My friend A has been running with me recently. He started off just coming along every 2nd or 3rd day, but lately the fitness bug has bitten him and he’s been coming every morning. I sent him stats from my GPS of all the runs he’s joined me on - in the past month, he’s managed to reduce his 3 km time from 24 minutes to 19 minutes! He’s still not able to run the whole 3 km without stopping, but he’s definitely getting fitter every week.
If you look at my weight loss graph above, I’ve been stuck on 94.5 kg for a long time. I think it’s partly because I’ve slackened off on my diet, having the occasional snack and taking larger portions of leftovers to work for lunch instead of my usual simple sandwich. I’m going to try to get those habits back under control this week, and see if I can’t get off the 94.5 kg mark.
PhysicsDiet.com has added more cool features this week. There’s a Biggest Losers scoreboard showing how all the users are going (those that elected to make their profiles public, anyway). I’m currently in 6th position, and all but 1 of those ahead of me are only 1 or 2 kg ahead. I’m feeling a bit of motivation to catch up to them! The leader by far is Matt, the guy who built PhysicsDiet.com - he’s lost a massive 38.7 kg (85 lbs)! Well done, Matt! Matt has also added the ability for users to list their blog or web site address, so you can get in touch or follow along with what others are doing.
My Fitness Obstacles series has been fairly well-received, with one more post to go (hopefully I’ll get that done in the next couple of days). While those articles sound a bit negative and “woe is me”, not really offering any help to readers, I needed to write them up as the basis for the next series of articles, Overcoming Fitness Obstacles. Once you understand what’s stopping you from exercising, you can start to work on those obstacles and find ways around them.
Fitness Obstacle: Laziness May 11, 2006
This post is part of the Fitness Obstacles series.
I guess everyone can relate to laziness :-).
Of course it’s easier to sit and watch TV for an hour than it is to get off the couch, get changed, go to the gym for a workout, come home, shower and get changed again, and sit back on the couch. That should be obvious to anyone.
There’s also the type of laziness where you slack off during your workout. You don’t lift as much weight as you should, you don’t run as fast or as far as you should, you take it easy instead of putting everything in. Basically, you’re putting in the hours but you’re not really extracting much benefit. Without someone to watch over me, I’m very prone to this one!
The problem is when you slack off for one day, you’re more likely to slack off on the following day as well. It becomes a habit, a way of life, and it’s hard to break out of on your own. For years now I’ve been going to start exercising ’someday soon’. There’s comfort in continuing to do what you’ve always done.
Exercising is all about pushing your body out of its comfort zone. By definition, that’s uncomfortable (duh!). Without effective motivation and self-discipline techniques, we just won’t do it.
The problem with laziness is that it pays off now, whereas hard work pays off later. It’s hard to fight that. This issue ties into my next article, on feedback.
Technorati Tags: fitness, health, exercise, laziness, exercise routine, workout, excuses
Body Fat Estimator May 10, 2006
With the improvements that are constantly being made to the Physics Diet weight loss tracking site, I wanted to estimate what my starting body fat % would have been. I only bought a body fat analyser recently, so I wasn’t taking measurements back then.
I know it’s only a rough guide, but I did find this cool Body Fat Estimator. It requires your weight and height in order to give an estimate, although if you happen to know your waist size it’ll be more accurate.
If, like me, you have no idea what your waist size was, you can get out your old belt and measure the distance from the buckle to the hole you used to use. If you’re not sure which hole that was, look for the one that’s had the most wear!
According to that calculation, my body fat percentage back at the start was 42.8%. So, my starting and current stats are:
| Weight (kg) | Body Fat % | Fat Free Mass (kg) | Fat Mass (kg) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting | 110.0 | 42.8 | 62.9 | 47.1 |
| Current | 95.4 | 32.9 | 64.0 | 31.4 |
As you can see, my fat free mass has increased slightly (I guess I’ve built a little muscle through increased exercise), and my fat mass has gone down significantly. Gotta be happy with that!
Fitness Obstacle: Guilt May 9, 2006
This post is part of the Fitness Obstacles series.
It might sound strange, but guilt is a problem for me in planning to start an exercise routine.
If I go out exercising in the afternoon or early evening, I leave my wife at home to look after the three children. I don’t like dumping that on her, especially since she’s run off her feet all day looking after them while I’m at work. My wife also has a part-time bookkeeping business to run and stuff of her own to get done.
Having less time with the kids in the early evening is not appealing, either. Like most modern parents, I feel guilty enough about how much “quality time” I get to spend with them during the week, and I’m not going to cut it back even further. I already work shifted hours so I can leave work at 4 pm to get a decent amount of time with them.
I already have a few regular evening activities, such as my camera club, which require a bit of flexibility from the rest of the family to accommodate. Starting an exercise routine on top of that feels like I’m stretching the friendship with my wife too far.
Like most husbands I know, I have a long list of chores and jobs I’m supposed be doing. If I go out exercising, I’m not getting those things done. Either they don’t get done (not an option!), my wife does them (also not much of an option!), or I do them later and don’t get time to do other things (see my article on Time). Whatever the result, I feel guilty.
I even feel guilty about the cost of exercise. I guess there’s no real cost involved in going for a walk, but most other forms of exercise are going to involve gym or pool fees, equipment, shoes or clothing, etc. Since my wife stopped full-time work to stay at home and raise our children, money has been a little tighter. While we’re still very comfortable, I don’t like taking more out of the budget than I really need to.
I guess the reason guilt is such a problem for me is that I’m looking for an exercise routine to incorporate into my lifestyle. This is not just a health kick that could be indulged for a couple of months and then forgotten about. The changes I want to make are going to be more or less permanent changes to my routine, so anything that affects the rest of my family needs to be sustainable over the long term.
Technorati Tags: fitness, health, exercise, guilt, exercise routine, workout, excuses
Weekly Weigh-In 2006-05-07 May 7, 2006
- Current Weight: 95.65 kg (210.9 lbs)
- Change this week: -0.74 kg (-1.6 lbs)
- FFM: -0.23 kg (-0.5 lbs)
- Fat: -0.51 kg (-1.1 lbs)
- Total lost to date: 14.35 kg (31.6 lbs)
- Number of days exercised: 4
Another solid week, right on my 0.7 kg weight loss average. This seems to be a comfortable rate for me to maintain given my current habits - going above it requires quite a bit of extra effort, and I know I’ve slacked off when I drop significantly below it.
I had one day this week where my weight went above my 10-day average line (the red on the graphs above). That’s OK, as it was the morning after a big Chinese dinner and I didn’t get to exercise that morning. It was just a random spike. The main thing is to have more points below the line, and thus to keep it trending downwards.
There have been a number of new features added to the Physics Diet web site this week. In particular, you can now access my public profile and see my progress in real time. If you’re looking for a convenient and very helpful way to track your weight loss, do check out that site.
I also started a series of posts on Fitness Obstacles this week. Check them out, and let me know if they relate to you. When that series is finished, I’ll be posting a follow-up series on overcoming those obstacles. Stay tuned!
older posts »