Major Greenage

It's almost ridiculous. I've lost over a pound EACH of the past three
days. Before you go and accuse me of starving myself, here's my DGR
for yesterday:

• 10 am - Wheat bagel with eggs, cheese and bacon (est. 700 calories)
• 2:30 pm - Half of a tuna melt (rye, tuna, cheese, lettuce, lots of
  alfalfa sprouts), bag of chips, bottle of Mountain Dew (600 calories)
• 4:30 pm - Other half of tuna melt (250 calories)
• 8:30 pm - Can of chicken breast, two tablespoons of hummus, two
  teaspoons of olive oil (at least 300 calories)
• Other fluids - A few glasses of water, and a couple big glasses of
  pink lemonade Crystal Lite (20 calories)

TOTAL: 1600-1800 calories

And I wasn't hungry. Yes, it's true that I am keeping my calories very close to my Base Metabolic Rate, and possibly just under, and possibly losing a teeny bit of muscle in the process. But I'm sure the bulk of this is fat loss. I also know that when I start exercising regularly again, my weight will go up temporarily as my body adjusts, holds more water, builds some more muscle, etc. But for now this is pretty good! I'm back where I was a year ago!

Preparations

So. Weekly weight graph continues to go down, with a fairly predictable pattern:



As you can see, I eat what I want on the weekends, and cool it during the week (basically having a light dinner on most weekdays). My weight spikes on Sunday or Monday, but then it goes down, and each week my weight is lower and lower. With (currently) very little exercise, I'm losing 1/2 to 1 pound a week.

But that will all change very soon, my friends. I am about to blast off. Last week my Powerblocks arrived, and they are truly wonderful. But I need a bench to really make good use of them. So I've also ordered a weight bench, and a Bosu balance trainer, which is really wonderful for working a lot of stabilizing muscles you otherwise never use. Once everything is set up, I will take a picture of my nifty home gym and post it for the world to see. And I will, of course, use it, on a daily (or mostly daily) basis!

My friend Jeremy is also on a quest to lose weight (about the same amount of weight as I want to lose), and he is succeeding. So I want to congratulate him on his perseverance, and assure him that he will not be the only one sporting a fit and trim look this New Year's...

It's great to have a recumbent bike in my house

Having just upgraded to a place with central air, I recently traded my now unnecessary room air conditioner for a very necessary recumbent bike. It's not very fancy and it only uses magnetic resistance controlled by a knob (as opposed to the hydraulic-based computer-controlled bikes at the gym), but it gets the job done.

Tonight I did 30 minutes on the bike, getting my heart rate up to 182 at one point - up around 95% of my max! As you can see from the graph, I generally like to keep my pulse around 70% of max, but it's crucial for me to really push myself a couple times in a half-hour workout. I learned the importance of pushing hard during my Body for Life workouts, when I had to hit an intensity level of 9/10 for several minutes, and 10/10 for at least a minute, to achieve the best results and the longest afterburn (body burning calories after I get off the bike). Any time I get my pulse over 180, my energy levels go through the roof for days or weeks afterward. It's awesome.

I'm already feeling very energetic -- it's like a shot of caffeine but without the jitters!

Calories IN

Hi everyone! So, the darndest thing... I haven't gone to a gym and exercised since my last post. Yet I have lost several pounds since then. In fact, I'm down to below 210, which I haven't been at since late December. Before you start yelling that it's muscle loss from not lifting, let me deflect that criticism by saying that my pants are looser and I look much better! Go ahead, scroll down to the bottom of the page and marvel at my weight graph.

I'll wait.

So, how do I do it? Simple: Don't eat as much. We all know that Calories In < Calories Out is the key. I have really been focusing on the Calories In part of the equation. I have a light breakfast, usually consisting of a banana and maybe some granola. I have a big lunch that I spread out over the course of an hour or two, usually consisting of a big turkey or chicken sandwich and, yep, a little bag of chips and a soda. That keeps me full for the next several hours. When I get home, usually after 7, I will have a light dinner -- an "Eating Smart" healthy frozen dinner from Safeway, or a can of soup or something. If my roommates want to order delivery I will usually go in with them, but I don't pig out anymore. For instance, a few nights ago we split a thin crust pizza. The first night I had 3 pieces, and the next night I had 2 pieces.

And the scale continues to go down!

It's not hard. You just have to not pig out.

Calories In < Calories Out. Pretty simple.

I look forward to the boost when I start upping the Calories Out side of the equation by riding my bike to work!