Just Keep it Coming

Please tell me I am not the only one to suffer these.

Today I am a bottomless pit.

I just want to eat. And eat. And eat some more.

Luckily I am at work so food isn’t just sitting in front of me, but gees I hate when this happens.

It started last night after a particularly grueling Pilates workout. I was just wiped out for some reason. More often than not I notice that I somehow equate fatigue with the need to eat. But after having a wonderful FIILING dinner, I knew the floodgates had opened and all bets were off.

In retrospect probably just having seconds of dinner (ie: real food) would have been the wisest thing to do but no, no, no I started munching junk. Honestly the only thing that stopped me eating was the fact that I fell asleep. Last night’s BORING Olympic coverage did me in.

Usually a good night’s sleep (or a nap of any kind) is all it takes to break that binge cycle, but here I am the next day dreaming of Mexican food and or deep fried something or other.

I was fine til I had my morning yogurt. Then the switch was flipped.

Luckily I have a very healthy and sensible lunch. Fingers crossed that triggers something that tells my brain FULL NOW.

But who am I kidding? This has nothing to do with being full or not being full. I was full last night but that didn’t stop me from wanting to continue eating.

This too shall pass.

Until then, no buffet is safe.

I DO NOT Want to be There When the Turban Comes Off!

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Like the Beat Beat Beat of the Tom Tom

Age is just a number!

You are only as old as you feel!

You’re not getting older, you’re getting better!

Insert cliché on aging here.

On and on they go. The little phrases people use to try to feel better about getting older.

Sixty is the new forty!

I think that was invented by Joan Collins’ agent.

Aging bothers most, and doesn’t phase a few.

I’m one of those who just never really thinks about it. Until recently.

It is inescapable.

The pounding of the drum. The beating of the Tom-Tom.

You are old and getting older.

Over and over again.

I guess I ignored it for a while but now that I’ve heard it, it is hard to shut out.

I honestly don’t feel old.

Well I have all of the aches and pains and such that I suppose you end up getting with age. I certainly have the grey hair.

Inside I am still the same guy. Maybe a little wiser, but that’s about it.

But in a world that insists you be identified and labeled from the moment you enter it, I notice more and more the label of “old or “senior” (etc) is starting to get attached to me.

I seemed to have totally skipped “middle age”.

Now I am old.

Certain things are now expected of me. I am supposed to like certain things and doing things certain ways.

So how’d I go from being oblivious to all of this to hearing this one note serenade?

A few things.

A visit to my doctor told me that several health conditions I now have are very common and are all thanks to AGING.

“Your age plays a huge factor in your health”, the doctor told me with a slight grimace.

“Ack!:, I thought.

I’ve also recently been invited to join a nationally recognized organization consisting only of senior citizens. Ditto on the ACK!

And suddenly over the past few months, my skin has decided to take a great leap forward into the realm of old age.

ACK ACK A DACK!

All of this isn’t depressing me.

Yet.

But it is starting to peck at me. It was a situation I never even thought of but now it seems like it will be inescapable.

I think it really hit home last week when I was talking about diet and exercise with one of my peers. The thinking is that people of “my age” probably don’t need to focus so much on aerobic activity insomuch as they really need to focus on doing activities that will keep them flexible.

Hummina whoinna whaaaa?

Did someone just tell me I DON’T have to push myself to get into that freezing pool water 3 times a week and swim for an eternity?? I can simply do some stretching and go shopping?

My ears are now up and I’m listening!

LOL.

How could I not start to think that way?

And I’ll bet that is how many people feel.

I wasn’t old until society up and told me I was.

I still went swimming this weekend. Don’t think if I didn’t spend more than a little time hemming and hawing about whether I really need to or not.

I feel like I have passed from being a viable human being to one that simply needs to be managed and kept calm for the next few years, until….well….you know.

Of course I felt that way when I was really overweight too. I wasn’t really a person. I was just the fat guy. Fat guys don’t really count do they?

Now they are wanting me to be the old guy. God forbid the fat old guy.

I suppose I could look at the bright side of all of this. I could start testing the waters to see what I can get away with simply because I’m old.

I also need to start working on some new clichés on aging.

Something to do with wine or cheese I’m thinking but that may take a while.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

Never Assume

I had quite a few dieting assumptions when I started using my BodyBugg.

The biggest one, I think, was that I was cursed with the slowest metabolism in the world. Giving a life long struggle with weight control I was positive my base metabolism hovered somewhere along the 1000 calorie a day mark. If I was lucky it would be around 1200 calories a day.

If BodyBugg is to be believed, that theory has no basis in reality. It looks like even on my slow days my body is burning off about 2500 calories. On swimming days it is 800-1000 more. The depressing part of learning that is that my food choices still lead a lot to be desired. The weight isn’t exactly falling off of me. Maybe I can blame sleep eating?

Another assumption I had was that exercise sort of revved up your metabolism for a longish period of time. That just does not seem to be the case. In instances where the Bugg accurately records my activity and indicates increased caloric burn, it also shows how quickly that burn returns to pre-exercise levels as soon as I stop what I’m doing. It is all or nothing apparently for me.

Which brings me to another assumption shot to hell.

I knew the Bugg wanted to account for every second of my day but since it can’t get wet, it would not be accurately recording data when I was swimming, bathing, etc. Fine.

What I did not expect was for it to be very picky about what it considered exertion on my part when I was wearing it and at times totally ignore what I am sure was a significant calorie expenditure on my part.

The other day the weather was cool and breezy and it was really getting me into my “IT’S SHPRING!” mode. And if you read that and wonder what the heck I am talking about, go watch a few GREEN ACRES reruns (starring the late, great Eva Gabor) and you will understand.

So there I am all set for SHPRING and I set out to whip my meager plant collection into shape. I was out there for half the day. I could tell I was working some muscles that haven’t been used in a while….message to self: do more squatting….and I had I nice sweat going too. Later when I uploaded the Bugg data, I couldn’t wait to see the numbers. Four hours of hard work would mean a lot of calories gone, gone, gone. Wrong!

According to the Bugg I might as well have been sitting on the couch watching TV. It didn’t show any increased activity over that. What a bummer.

Well, maybe you imagined that you were working hard and the Bugg is showing you the sad true facts?

Pish Posh I say!

Muscles I didn’t even know I had were killing me the next day. And the day after that.

I don’t get that level of lactic acid build up sitting around watching GREEN ACRES reruns!

In that same vein, the Bugg often doesn’t acknowledge that I do Pilates either. Again I am working up a good sweat for 30+ minutes, but more often than not the Bugg doesn’t acknowledge it. I really didn’t think about it much until I saw my caloric burn was pretty much the same on days I did Pilates and days I didn’t work out at all. Ack! Not exactly motivational is it?

What the Bugg does seem to love is walking. It is always counting steps and my little calorie graph shows nice spikes when I walk to the store or some such. I’m guessing it would love running.

But I am starting to think I am going to take the Bugg off anytime I exercise. You can enter your activity manually for the times it is off your arm. That may be the only way I actually get credit for all of my activity.

So while it is a good little device and I am glad I am using it, I would say the Bugg’s exercise recognition technology leaves much to be desired.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it does it make a sound?

If I workout like a fiend and Bodybugg can’t even detect that I am working out, did I really work out?

Just another sweet mystery of life.

Liza’s Understudy

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Pure Sterling

When I got my MIO strapless heart rate monitor I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. It was waterproof and I could wear it while I swam. For the first time I could monitor my heart rate AND keep a running tab on my calorie burn.

After a few months I dropped it on my toe (OW!) and that was the end of MIO. The drop of a few feet onto my feet destroyed the watch. I was despondent until I remembered I got it in a BOGO offer at Amazon. I quickly found the other and was happy again. Then after one use, the second MIO died. What a piece of crap. I loved the technology but I really didn’t want to drop another $100 or so on a new watch that might just bite the dust like the other two.

I didn’t like it but I began to make do with a simple stop watch. Using MIO I had pressed myself to swim just over an hour to burn a little over 1000 calories with each workout. I loved that. I could still swim over an hour, but I wasn’t about to pause to find a pulse…count it out…and figure what my pulse rate was during a workout. I knew that my heart rate dropped precipitously as soon I stopped swimming so I knew I couldn’t get a good read no matter how good I was at finding a pulse and counting.

Here I am weeks later and I am amazed to be saying this; boy am I glad those MIOs broke! They were a great tool, but I think they were causing me to be a little insane with the pace I was setting for myself. As I look back through my blogs, I see that during the MIO tenure I was really struggling. I was in a lot of pain most of the time and really struggling with fatigue. MIO was a stern task master and it was doing me no favors.

Without MIO I am swimming more often and feeling better. I get in that pool and push myself when I can, but I also allow myself a little slack if something is hurting or if I am overly tired. I stay in that pool going back and forth for over an hour, but I allow my body to dictate the pace NOT MIO. It is working for me.

Also working for me is my Bodybugg. I just did my 2^nd weigh in body fat measurement and I really am happy with the results. In 2 weeks of wearing the Bugg I have lost about 3.5 lbs with a little over 2 pounds of that being body fat. This is a snail’s pace compared with the rapid weight loss I got while on Medifast but that is ok. This is real world dieting. No heavily restricted regimen here. Simply trying to eat well and exercise smartly.

Thanks to the Bugg I am allowing myself a much higher percentage of carbs in my diet and I am feeling all the better for it. I am also allowing myself a lot more time to recover between workouts yet I am still losing weight. Awesome! Heck, on the days when I swim I am burning about 3500 calories so that is really helping when I go a little overboard on my consumption.

Yes. I can’t say that I have been depriving myself of food so I imagine I could pick up the weight loss pace with a little more discipline, but right now this is working for me.

Talk about finding the silver lining.

On the Way to the Holy Stone of Clonrichert

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Who Knew?

One thing I was curious about, I am curious about no more!

Bodybugg has spoken and spoken well.

Exactly how many calories am I burning in a day anyway?

Survey says: DING DING DING DING

About 3000 calories give or take a few hundred.

Who knew?

I was sure the Bugg was going to tell me my meager metabolism burned about 1200 calories a day. At least then I would have ample room to whine about how unfair it is and how I have no choice but to be perpetually fat.

But 3000 a day I can work with.

Some days when I do nothing but go to work and come home it is a little less. On days when I swim for an hour it is a lot more. But it hovers around that 3000 mark which was the guestimate the Bugg had in the first place.

I also now know I burn more calories driving than not. I also know that for a few hours each night while I am sleeping my metabolism revs up for some reason. I also know that even after all of this time and work, I am still relatively blind to the amount of calories I am shoving into my pie hole.

When I think about it, it depresses the hell out of me.

I burn 3000 calories a day and yet I still manage to gain weight!

Ugh.

When I monitor everything I eat, I can get by on 1500 calories without too much trouble. But that is when I prepare everything I am consuming and know the caloric value of everything I eat. Then I can log my food and really stay on top of the game.

It is eating out or just buying prepared food that this starts to become a losing proposition for me. I guess about the amounts I should be eating and obviously do a piss poor job of it.

I think I am making the correct decisions but obviously I am wrong.

All of this negativity isn’t to say I had a bad first week with my Bugg. Au contrare!

I lost 1.2 pounds last week. I did wonderfully well at the beginning of the week logging everything and coming away with 1000+ calorie deficits for the first 4 days. Then came the “going out to eat” and everything went down hill from there theoretically ending with a 600 calorie a day deficit on average.

I have to remind myself that by Medifast standards losing 1.2 pounds is a “bad” week. In general weight loss circles I suppose that is pretty good. Any loss is good. But I’ll feel better about the whole thing when my clothes start fitting again.

Of interest to me is this loss comes when I have added many once missing carbs back into my diet.

If you’ve read anything here before, you know I kinda blame an overabundance of carbs on my weight problem. Severely restricting them on Medifast was a Godsend. I thought very low carb would be my lifestyle forever.

Well, yes and no.

I have been trying to understand how to fuel my body for the amount of activity I want to do, and I am thinking now that increased carb intake is the way to go.

The Bodybugg estimated that I should be consuming over 60% of my calories as carbs. At first I balked and dismissed it, but then I started thinking that perhaps that is what my body needs to endure, build, and recover. So I have cautiously allowed myself more carbs in the form of grains and cereals and I really think I feel a difference. I seem to recover more quickly from exercise with my new higher carb intake. It will take longer than a week to decide if it really does help and if I can really eat more carbs and not pack on the pounds.

Time and the Bugg will tell how this all plays out.

NO! NOT THAT!

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I’m Bugged!

Bodybugged that is!

I finally opened the box that has been sitting staring at me for these past weeks.

I charged the puppy up and have been wearing it since yesterday.

Getting used to this thing isn’t easy. I do kind of forget it is on, but also not. And the thought of wearing it for months on end is kind of irritating.

The website that you use to keep track of everything is pretty much a mess. It isn’t intuitive in the least and they have chosen it to be JAVA driven which makes for a lot of reloading, refreshing, and popup windows.

It took a while to set up my account and by then I just didn’t have the time or concentration necessary to then start learning the website.

I’m considering today, the first of the month to be day 1 of this thing.

This morning I figured out how to log food which I anticipate to be the most challenging thing of this whole journey. I got used to logging food while on the Medifast plan. That wasn’t too difficult as your diet was extremely restricted. With everything being on the table, I anticipate some hiccups in getting an accurate caloric intake reading.

Take today for instance. I have a chicken sandwich for lunch. I did not make the sandwich so I have no idea of the amount of chicken in there, nor do I know how much mayo or what kind of bread. I realize the answer to this problem is to know everything that goes into your mouth but real life dictates you will sometimes only be able to eat a mystery meal.

What I do like is that by asking me a lot of questions it was able to help me set up a goal that currently seems attainable to me. If I follow their guidelines theoretically I should be able to lose 10% body fat in two months with a combo of fat loss and muscle building. We shall see. I haven’t downloaded any info from the arm band yet since I just started wearing it so that goal may have to be changed once I actually get a glimpse of my metabolism’s activity level.

To help you along with your goals, the program will also present you with a daily menu plan based again on answers you have given.

Initially, the program wanted to present me with a meal plan that you include up to 65% carbs. That just struck me as way too high so I chose to manually select the lowest carb meals plans they have at 45% carb. Following those guidelines, the first meal plan offered to me was quirky at best. Among normal fare it suggested a cup of frozen yogurt for breakfast, 14 Keebler crackers for a snack (that’s a lot, no?), and for dinner 1.5 cups of white rice. That would be 3 servings of rice. And not even brown rice.

Maybe they start you off slow. I don’t know. I will find out as the Costco version of this thing came with a 12 month subscription so unless I get fed up and return it, I am in for the long haul.

After work and working out this afternoon I’ll download my first set of data.

I’ll let you know how it goes.