Weightloss has always been my biggest challenge. I have struggled to lose and maintain weightloss. I have recently let myself go so today I am picking up the pieces again and developing a plan.
I have tried lots of things along the way with varying levels of success.
I have learned a few things along the way:
low carb works for me. Intermittent fasting too.
I love to eat with other people and lose willpower when I am sharing a meal
Gotta chose between muscle gain and weight loss
I am not big on running on a treadmill. I like swimming and yoga. I like weight lifting.
I like group workouts and being challenged physically.
I have hurt my wrist too much. I need to stay away from exercises that could hurt it more.
Have to focus on developing healthy eating habits. Eating slower until satisfied. Eating more vegetables. Drinking more water.
introduce fasting and food quality control goalsā¦ as well as goal to limit eating out.
develop healthy habits to eat slower, eat more vegetables and drink more water.
look into setting up some hikes
Some consideration:
I will likely be WFH a lot more over the next few months. That has proven good for my diet but bad for my activity level.
I need to take care of my wrist and ensure I donāt use it again as a convenient excuse to stop working out.
I need a maintenance plan. Thatās why I need to focus on developing those healthy habits.
I might be relocating for a new job in a few months. That might throw a wrench into my progress as I accommodate those changes. I need a transition plan for that and might have to lower the intensity during that.
Besides beeminding weight, @bee and I have a heuristic that weāve both found helpful for vacations or other times when itās awkward to not be able to partake in social eating. We refer to it as āOnly eat when eaten toā.
Itās like a random intermittent fasting schedule determined by social circumstances. You make a pact that you wonāt seek out any food on your own or do any snacking and then when thereās a group meal or someone shows up with brownies or something you can go nuts.
Wishing you well. This is hard. Please be kind to yourself, especially when you derail/drop off. Which you probably will from time to time. Because this is hard. Be kind and come back.
From The Growth Equation:
Stay on the path. These are the tenets you want to embody, the ways in which you wish to live your life. Let them serve as your guideposts.
Fall off the path. Mess up. Because you are a human.
Get back on the path. Do not judge yourself too harshly, but learn from your mistakes. Go to the place you fell off and start walking again.
signed up for gym. worked out three times this week including yoga and running. Will increase rate to 4 times per week.
I am still ramping up my workouts. Started small. First 10 minutes then 30 minutes on treadmill. My goal is to maintain at least 30 minutes on treadmill at 149 BPM (Maffatone method to optimize aerobic capacity).
Deleted journaling goal mentioned before. I have a rule of thumb to keep number of Beeminder goals at one time to 10. Otherwise, I lose track of goals and I get overwhelmed. This goal seemed like it could be supplanted by a todoist-based goal that I have.
Why Keto? I am starting out with Keto-based approach because itās simple flexible and familiar to me. Itās not sustainable though. I have been thinking about a more holistic approach to quality but I want some results quickly and need some time to some tracking first.
Whatās next? If all goes well over next week, I will add more tracking for quality and portion size.
I restarted weightloss goal because I needed more time and a better baseline, increasing my starting weight by 1kg.
In order to stay below 10 goals and in the spirit of focusing on process rather than goals, I have decided to drop the weightloss beeminder goal. I would rather focus on the tools to get there (fasting, keto, workoutā¦) rather than on trying to hit a weekly goal. Of course, I will still track my progress on the Google sheet. I will add a projections line to compare to and make sure I try to stay on the path.
Numbers are starting to trend down. I have gotten in the habit of things somewhat now.
I got a subscription to Down Dog which I have been trying for the past month. Itās a great way to get a home Yoga workout in and the app offers an impressive experience. I am a fan.
Not making any more changes to my program. Will try to get an inbody test tomorrow to get somewhat of a baseline. I do feel the need to be stricter with my diet and portions. But I have had success with lazy keto before and itās an easy way to get started.
So to summarize, my system so far is:
daily affirmations written down 15x every day (I have always been skeptical about this but I have had success recently so I might as well own up to doing it) (has beeminder goal)
Workout. Includes Yoga (app), Swimming and Running (treadmill at gym). (has beeminder goal)
Lazy Keto (6x times per week) (has beeminder goal)
Intermittent fasting (6x times per week) (has beeminder goal)
Tracking weight and measurements progress on weekly basis (tracked by Google Sheets)
Weekly update - this one is a little late this week. Just got a new laptop and settling into a new routine
Had a free day last week because there was a cake I was forced to eat.
Have a hike planned for next saturday.
Tightening my rules. Daily-keto is now 6.75 per week. Essentially it will take me 4 committed weeks to get a free day. Which is more important for Keto.
Been slowly ramping up my workouts, increasing difficulty. I could not get my HR monitor to work so will rely on a smartwatch instead that I have in a drawer somewhere.
I need stricter rules around what to eat and portions. I have not settled on an approach yet.
Hereās a list of some of my habits / ways of thinking from my own weight loss experience (many/most/all of which I got in some way from other people). Maybe you find some ideas in there you can apply in your own situation:
Also: I really recommend John Walkerās book āThe New Hackerās Dietā and his practise of using a weight moving average chart (The Hacker's Diet). Along with many others he makes the point that exercise is a great thing but rarely a big factor in weight loss. Habits and ways of thinking about it on the other handā¦ Iām quite sure without many good ideas I got from other people I would have failed, because I wouldnāt have known how to make it easier to stick to.
Fun fact: Mark tried to hire me twenty years ago; I turned him down three times. Definitely a āsliding doorsā moment for me, as he went on to found more startups before becoming a VC. If theyād tried to sell me on the business challenge rather than the technical challenge, I mightāve joined them on that journey!
thanks @philip for information. I will checkout the hackerās diet.
I agree that working out is not critical to losing weight. I just found it to be a corner stone habit for me. If I am working out, I am eating better, sleeping better and earlier, less likely to smoke, more activeā¦
I renamed both fasting and keto goalsā¦ clarified requirements https://www.beeminder.com/mutdmour/fasting-strict and https://www.beeminder.com/mutdmour/keto-strict with updated fine print.
I donāt think I have entered ketosis yet. But I have stuck mostly well to exercise and eating low-carb, with some exceptions. And seem to losing kgs and cms.
Today I went on a hike. After I allowed myself to eat carbs because I was out and eating with others. I have mentioned before that this is a weakness of mine, that I tend to lose control when eating with others. I am not sure how to open this up without opening up a loophole. Keto is not a forgiving diet on āfree daysā. Consistency is key. So I think I have to treat this as a failure in order to harden my resolve next time.
I am getting lazier about writing these updates. Usually because thereās not much to share.
Renaming goals and rewriting rules did not change my original behaviors. I ended up getting lax again with both.
I am starting to learn that lax is good. Less burn out, more sustainable and less binges. And I am making progress. I can get tougher when it gets tougher to drop kgs.
I hit the first milestone of hitting 90kgs. I am going to introduce eat-slower goal in order to work on maintenance.
