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The Power Of Commitment June 22, 2006

Wow, who would have guessed what a difference a “kick in the pants” would make?

On Sunday I resolved to get tough on my diet and try to get my weekly weight loss moving again. I stated that I wanted to lose 0.5 kg this week, and 1 kg next week. As it turns out, I’ve already met this week’s target, and it’s only Thursday!

My daily weight measurements for the past three days have been 91.5, 91.0 and 91.0 kg (previously they had been for a while around 92.5 or 93.0 kg), so the moving average weight loss still has some room to drop before it catches up. This should give me the momentum to reach my target next week as well, and potentially far exceed it if I keep doing what I’m doing. Fantastic!

So what have I been doing? Not a lot, really. I think what was preventing me from losing much weight over the last few weeks was that I was straying from the ‘default’ eating habits I’ve installed over the last 6 months. I’ve been bringing leftover meals to work for lunch, instead of eating my normal healthier lunch. I’ve been having slightly larger meals at night than normal. My wife has baked a few cakes and muffins in recent weeks, and I’ve been bringing them to work as snacks. I also bought lunch at work (mmm, Chinese!) a few times instead of bringing my own.

All I’ve done this week is to go back to my normal habits. I’ve been bringing my normal lower-calorie lunches to work every day again, I’ve reduced the size of my evening meals, and I bring healthy snacks to work instead of cake and muffins. It really wasn’t much effort at all, but it seems to have made a huge impact.

I don’t have much further to go before my BMI reaches 25 (it’s currently 27.6), at which point I’ll officially no longer be overweight. My medium term goal is to try to reach that point before my birthday, August 15. Time will tell!

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.

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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.

When To Weigh Yourself May 5, 2006

Bathroom Scales

Your body weight probably fluctuates more than you realise throughout the day. Mine can vary by up to 4 kg (9 lbs) over a single day, depending upon factors like:

So when is the best time of day to weigh yourself in order to track your weight loss progress?

I like to weigh myself every morning before breakfast, for a number of reasons:

How about you? What time of day do you weigh yourself, and why?

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Steve Pavlina On Exercise March 31, 2006

Steve Pavlina has just written a brief article about Varying Your Exercise Routine to keep it interesting. It sounds like he’s got a fantastic gym near where he lives – but then I guess you’d expect a town like Las Vegas to have at least one “Wow!” option.

If you’ve been thinking of starting up an exercise plan, or changing your current one, you might find the motivation you need in Steve’s 30 Day Trial approach. That’s the technique I used to get started, and it worked great for me. The basic idea is to just commit to the new routine for 30 days. At the end of that time you’re free to keep it, change it or dump it, depending on how it’s working out for you. Anybody can handle the discomfort for just one month.

Also check out the article on Progressive Training, a longer article that applies to training yourself for improved performance both in the physical sense and in other areas of your life.

PhysicsDiet.com Weight Tracking Graphs March 30, 2006

You might have noticed from my weekly weigh-in graphs that I’ve been using PhysicsDiet.com to track my weight. It’s free, it’s very easy to enter your daily data, and it produces pretty graphs that you can copy into your own web site. Sign up now!

Oh, and if you’re worried about entering all your data into a web site that might disappear one day, don’t. You can download all your data as a .csv file and load it into a spreadsheet program like Excel. Nice.

While you’re there, have a browse through the PhysicsDiet.com Forums. It’s a little bit quiet there at the moment, but I posted an introduction to me and am hoping to stir some more people out of the woodwork. It’d be great to share tips and resources with other people who are also trying to lose weight, and maybe provide a bit of moral support for each other as well.

Australia’s Biggest Loser February 17, 2006

Although I’m not a rabid fan, I’ve been watching some of the Australia’s Biggest Loser TV show lately. I caught the first weigh-in on Friday night, and was amazed. Several people lost over 8 kg (22 lbs) in that first week, and one guy lost 15.5 kg (34 lbs)!

I found those high losses amazing. Surely much of that is just purging the rubbish out of your system, and maybe some fluid loss etc. There might also be a bit of gamesmanship between the initial weigh-in and the first weigh-in – things like eating and drinking heaps before the first weigh-in, and then going into the second weigh-in a bit dehydrated and on an empty stomach. I don’t expect they’ll get anywhere near those results week-over-week from now on, though.

Still, good on them. They’re doing something about their problems, and are much better off at the end of the week than they were at the start.

Here I am struggling to lose 1 kg per week! I’ve lost about 6 kg over two months, and most of these people did that in a week.

Sure, I only exercise for half an hour, maybe 5 or 6 days per week. I watch what I eat, but I’m not fanatical about counting calories or anything. Plus those guys are starting from a much higher baseline, and have a lot more excess weight to lose. But it’s intriguing to wonder what you’d be capable of losing during a few weeks of strict diet and all-day exercise.

It’s certainly inspiration to exercise a bit harder, and a bit longer, and a bit more often, to see what may transpire.

Tightening The Belt February 3, 2006

I noticed a cool thing this morning – I need to tighten my belt up to the next hole! That means I’ve lost about an inch from my waist, which feels great. I can see by the wear marks on the belt that the two holes above the one I’m now on are quite well-worn, whereas the one I’m on now probably hasn’t been used before.

As I said a few days ago, these little things are great to keep track of, and really help you notice the progress you’re making.

There are only two tighter holes left on my belt, so I’ve now set myself the goal of needing to buy a new belt in April. That’s about an inch off my waist per month, which is probably fairly achievable.

It’s Nice To Be Noticed February 1, 2006

Today was the first day that someone at work commented to me that they thought I’d lost some weight. They didn’t know I’d been dieting or exercising, but they thought I looked different and remarked that I look “healthier or something”.

These little incidents are worth noting, maybe in some kind of weight loss journal or blog or something. They give you a little boost of motivation to keep going, and reading back through them at a later date will make you feel good and help you to realise just how far you’ve come.

30 Days January 11, 2006

Today marks 30 days since December 12, the day I started getting up early to exercise. I made a deal with myself then that I was going to stick with this for 30 days, and then I could make a decision to either continue for another 30 days or quit.

I’m going to continue.

30 days is a good time frame to judge this kind of change in your habits. A week or two is too short – the routine hasn’t had a chance to take hold yet, and you can’t really judge what effect it’ll have on your life. Longer than 30 days seems like an eternity, and it’s harder to commit yourself.

I think that’s why so many New Years Resolutions fail – people ‘commit’ to making a change with no timeframe in mind, so it doesn’t feel like they’re working towards an achievable goal. Within a week or two, the change starts to feel like a drag, with no end in sight, and they don’t seem to be getting any benefit from it. They miss a day or two, and then never seem to really get back on the horse. Within a month, the resolution is broken and they’ve reverted back to their old ways.

I know I’ve done that!

If you commit to a change for 30 days, it’s going to feel achievable. It’s only a month out of your life, so if it doesn’t bring you the benefits you want you haven’t really lost anything. You can put other stuff on hold for 30 days while you work on this one change, without feeling like your whole life is being turned upside down. If the change is uncomfortable, you have an end in sight so you’re more likely to be able to stick it out instead of just quitting.

Steve Pavlina has written a great article on this idea of committing to change for just 30 days at a time: 30 Days To Success.

Now seems like a good time to review what’s happened over the last 30 days for me.

Weight

My weight this morning was 106 kg (234 lbs), so I’ve lost about 3 kg (6.6 lbs) since starting to walk in the mornings. It’s a little bit noticeable – I’ve gone down to the next hole on my belt, and someone at work asked if I was losing weight because my face looked thinner – but not huge. I think maybe part of the weight loss has been offset by muscles putting on weight and getting into shape. So this month has probably been more one of weight redistrubtion, rather than one of weight loss. If that’s true, hopefully I’ll lose even more weight next month.

Still, 3 kg lost over the Christmas gorging period is not bad! Many more people put weight on than lose weight during this time of year.

Fitness

This is the area I’m most pleased with over the past 30 days. I used to sometimes be slightly out of breath just climbing the stairs at work or walking up my driveway, but now those things are no problem at all. For the first 2 or 3 weeks of walking, I’d come home with quite sore and tired legs. Now my muscles seem to be accustomed to the exercise, and they can handle it fine. I can run much further than I could at the start of all this, and I have more energy during the rest of the day as well.

Sleep

Despite getting up half an hour earlier than I used to, I feel more alert during the day. I sleep better during the night, too.

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