Goodbye Calorie King, Hello Again FitDay

My free trial to the Calorie King food tracker software has expired. There were a number of features about it that I liked very much, particularly the user-friendly search function, and the ease of adding ‘recipes’ or whole meals. However, there were also a few aspects of the system that I was less happy with, and as I would have to pay $45 to continue to use it, and as Fit Day is available with an enormous amount of functionality in the free version, I will be switching back to Fit Day.

Unfortunately, all the data I entered in the last week is now out of my reach, so I can’t give you (or myself) the one-week averages for my nutrition this week. But it was looking pretty good as of yesterday. And this morning, my new official weigh day, I weighed in at 13 stone 13.8 and 42.8% body fat. I cracked 14 stone!!!! That’s down 2.8 pounds and 1% body fat in a week.

Just one cautionary note: as if often the case with my weekend readings, I spent much of yesterday sleeping. There are a number of good things about sleeping, it being my second (third?) favourite activity, but one that may be problematic for me on this programme is that when I am sleeping I generally can’t eat. Which is not to say that I don’t dream about eating when I am sleeping. But I’m pretty sure those calories don’t count. Once upon a time this would have been an added bonus, but while I am trying to up my calorie intake it may work against me. I didn’t work out my calorie intake for yesterday after losing my Calorie King data late afternoon, but at two meals and one snack, I’m pretty sure that there was a rather large deficit there. So much for maintenance levels. So we’ll just have to see what my weight and body fat readings do tomorrow after a normal day’s food. But for today, I weigh less than 14 stone. Yippee. Hubby better watch out, I’m catching up. I may be able to cross out my weight goal number 7 a little earlier than expected at this rate.

Going to switch weigh day to Mondays

Today is Sunday, which makes it my official weigh day. I did my weigh in this morning as always, but then I went back to bed and dreamed about body comps! When I woke up I couldn’t remember the right one. I did another measure at 11am out of curiosity and it was 14 stone exactly (woohoo!), but being several hours late, I can’t count it. Pretty sure it was over 14 stone at 8am though because I would have remembered if I’d hit that milestone.

As it happens, I have been following NROL4W for six days now, since last Monday. This involves three workouts a week and eating at maintenance calories with a 40/30/30 macro ratio. The eating is going great with an average 40/29/31 (C/P/F) in the first six days and despite the heavier lifting, both my weight and body fat have been coming down. Given that, I reckon it makes sense to switch official weigh day to Monday for a while and that will give me week by week results.

The workouts are also going well. The weights take around 20 to 25 minutes (with another 15 to 20 for the intervals), and it is nice to use some of my other equipment after doing TT and BFS for most of this year. I bought NROL4W a while back, as I was coming to the end of BFS, and that was when I upgraded my equipment to a new bench with squat rack and lat tower, and bought a bar and weight plates (and my SelectTech dumbbells). But then reading some of the posts on the NROL4W forum, I got a bit scared off because people were talking about bulking rather than fat loss. A few game women were planning on bulking first then slimming down, but I was at a point where I really wanted to cut the fat, so I did TT instead. TT is very home-workout friendly and mainly uses dumbbells and body weight exercises. So it’s nice to finally be putting my barbell and lat tower to good use, rather than having them simply cluttering up my home gym and providing additional objects for me to walk in to whilst trying to manoeuvre around the room.

The First Body Fat Solution Self Improvement Challenge September 2009

I belong to a forum for people who have read and followed the Body Fat Solution, a book by Tom Venuto aimed at the ‘normal’ person, i.e. people who struggle to stick to their goals and are unlikely to follow a strict programme like his Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. It is the non-rocket-science method of sensible diet and exercise, with a strong emphasis on the psychological barriers that we throw up preventing ourselves from moving forward.

Today we created the very first Body Fat Solution (BFS) challenge. We think it’s pretty cool, and you don’t have to have read the book to participate (although I would highly recommend it if you struggle with these things). You also don’t need to follow any particular diet or exercise plan – what you do is up to you. Like it says, it is a self improvement challenge – how you choose to do that is up to you. You simply need to visit and sign up to the BFS community website and then click on the forum tab and join the contest. Note, this is an UNOFFICIAL (i.e. no prize money) challenge started by some of us on the forum to provide a more structured system for working on our goals and providing each other with support.

Each challenge will run for one calendar month from the first of the month. The first one will begin September 1st.

To participate in the challenge you must:

1. Set yourself three SMART goals. For information on how to set SMART goals, click here. One goal must be a nutrition goal, one an exercise goal and one a lifestyle goal (could be anything, from flossing regularly to going to bed earlier, only phrased in line with SMART guidelines). There are no exceptions to this rule and only three goals maximum are allowed. You must post a reply to the forum stating what your three goals for the month are and how you will measure your success.
2. Goals must be tracked using a goal-tracking system, eg. Joe’s Goals, and at the end of the month, the person with the best track record overall wins. It can’t be a simple most-ticked-off-days as not all goals will be daily ones. The winner will be decided by a poll at the end.
3. If you aren’t happy with progress on a particular goal/habit, there is nothing from stopping you working on it again the next month or at a later time.

Simple.

So, these are my goals for the September challenge:

Nutrition: I will eat at least 120g protein per day, every day through September. I am inputting my nutrition into Calorie King (although may have to switch back to FitDay when my free trial runs out).

Exercise: I will get at least 90 mins exercise outside of my NROL4W resistance workouts and my intervals, of at least moderate intensity, each week. I keep track of my exercise both in Calorie King and on my blog (blubberbegone).

Lifestyle: I will practise meditation for 20 minutes three times a week. Although this one sounds easy, I struggle with this. I’m likely to find it the hardest of the three!

I will track all of these goals on Joe’s Goals and will provide an update each week with a link to my Joe’s Goals site.

Feel free to come and join us if you would like.

Stage 1 Workout B

Well, the title is kind of self-explanatory. Did the second workout from stage 1 of NROL4W this evening. I keep forgetting to rest for 60 seconds between exercises within the supersets as I’m used to doing supersets with no rest between. Ah well, I will no doubt get used to it. Least favourite exercise: lunges. Most favourite: wide grip lat pull down. Man, I love having a lat tower at home. After 12 weeks of TT, it’s nice to finally use it. Legs were like jelly afterwards (that’s after the lunges, obviously, not after the lat pulldowns, or that would be a worry!) Figured I’d have to do my intervals tomorrow. But I’ve rested a bit, had some dinner, rested some more and I think I might give them a go now before bed, even though it’s a little late. Weight was down again today. It’d be nice to finally crack 14 stone by weigh day on Sunday. Fingers crossed.

Protein powder, peanuts and painful pins

Got home from work today at 3.30 (training day). Was supposed to be playing badminton with hubby at 5. Had a headache so decided to get an hour’s sleep. Hah. Six (yes, six) hours later….

Oh dear. Due to lifting and other commitments, looks like I won’t be playing badminton this week then. Goal for this week: do all three NROL workouts and don’t worry too much about anything else.

Goal no. 2: stick to my calorie limits and aim for macronutrient ratios as close as possible to 40/30/30 for carbs/protein/fat.

Had one of the snacks recommended in the book today. Low-fat cottage cheese with a tablespoon of raisins. Sounds dull but it was actually quite nice. Also for the first time tried cereal with skim milk mixed with vanilla protein powder. Tasted sweet but not awful.

Eating today:

B’fast: 1 oz bran flakes, 3/4 skim milk, scoop vanilla whey protein, 50g blueberries.
Morning snack: hot chocolate (a bit sinusy), 150g LF cottage cheese, 1 tbsp raisins.
Lunch: 1C left over couscous salad (apples, celery, walnuts, blue cheese, chickpeas), 100g king prawns, dressing made with 1T fish oil, 1T balsamic vinegar, 1/2T honey. Pear.
Afternoon snack: Fell asleep and missed it.
Dinner: Chicken breast with satay sauce, 3/4C brown rice, sugar snap peas.
Evening snack: 1/2 oz almonds.

Had forgotten to add the satay sauce to my food diary and was coming up a bit short on calories, so had the almonds to make it up and got within one calorie of my goal. Then I remembered the sauce, putting me over by about 120 calories. My macronutrient ratio was 44/32/24 – not as good as yesterday but managing to keep up with my protein requirement, which is one area I think I slacked on while doing TT.

I won’t make a habit of cataloging what I eat as I think it gets a bit boring, but some of this stuff is quite new to me so thought I’d mention it.

NROL4W

Today I did my first weights workout in a couple of weeks, my first intervals workout in nearly as long, and counted calories for the first time in a very long time. All three were challenging, but the workouts only kicked my butt while I was doing them. The calorie counting and nutrient balancing drove me mad all day long.

First the workouts: Workout A of Phase 1 in New Rules of Lifting for Women. Least favourite exercise: a toss up between the step up and the prone jackknife, linked together in the same superset by some dastardly evil genius (aka Alwyn Cosgrove). At least it’s at the end. I think the step up wins it by a nose though. To prevent non-working leg assistance I had to switch to a step down style (a tip I picked up from the NROL4W forum), and still only barely managed to get horizontal on my working thigh. Most favourite exercise: barbell rows. Nice to be actually using my bar and heavy weights for something other than as an anchor for inverted body weight rows. Upped the speed of my hard intervals but only did four of them at a minute each (RPE 9-10). All in all, pretty happy with that. Plus, now I have that nice pump in my biceps that looks so good!

Nutrition, as I expected, was quite challenging. Despite eating over 700 calories for lunch (largely due to the presence of whole-fat mayo in the leftovers from Sunday’s pre-new-challenge pig-fest BBQ), I was still nearly 500 calories short of my goal after dinner. Had a late evening snack comprising a scoop of chocolate protein powder in a cup of skimmed milk plus a peach, which still left me short. So I added in some toasted almonds. This took me to 1965 calories but a really impressive 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat exactly. Figured it wasn’t going to get any better than that, and it was only around a 200 calorie deficit so called it a night. This is going to be tough.

Going the distance, then moving on

Well, I didn’t make it into the finals of the TT contest, but I’m just amazed I finished at all. I have started contests before (PN, Body for Life) and started numerous TT programmes before (the 4-week variety) and never finished any of them. Last year I had CBT for depression, and at the time I didn’t think it made much difference, but now I credit it with my new outlook and the success I have had this year, where the 20 previous years of trying to get into shape were just a catalogue of failed and forestalled fresh starts, one after another.

Anyhow, I am really proud that I went the distance, and am delighted with my new neck, single chin and cellulite-free thighs and bum. But I still have a long way to go and am itching for a bit of a change. So, the next six months (raising the bar a bit there) will see me following the seven stages of New Rules of Lifting for Women.

I’ll write more about this book over the coming months, but the first thing I am going to do is re-start lifting and journalling my food intake. I’ve had a couple of weeks off and am dying to get back to it. NROL4W recommends that for the first four weeks on the programme you eat at your maintenance calorie level due to the intensity of the workouts, and then begin tweaking after that based on your initial results. For me that will be 1861 calories on non-lifting days and 2171 when doing the resistance workouts. (Don’t laugh Rob, yes, I will be calorie counting. You should remember, I’m not against counting calories per se, just not as a way of life, or as a sensible first step for beginners.) And chances are, you are likely to pack on some lean poundage on the programme too. So you have been warned – weight may go up over the next few weeks. But hopefully, that BF% will be heading in the other direction.

Another milestone today. My blog got its 30,000th hit! Although I think my most popular post is the one I wrote about spaghetti squash. Oh well, not to look a gift horse in the mouth!

Post-contest splurge

Since the contest finished on Tuesday, my week has consisted of little exercise outside of work, fish and chips (not great), crispy aromatic peking duck (yummmmm), chocolate (disturbingly more-ish) and general all round piggery. And you know what? I’m gagging for a nice piece of fruit. I would like to have taken the opportunity to shop this weekend and start eating healthily and go back to exercising, but today is big BBQ day. I will make some healthier options, but can’t promise I won’t be swayed by the sticky BBQ ribs. Amazingly, so far this week, I have only gained half a pound – I think my body may be lagging a bit, not sure what’s hit it. I have no doubt that if I keep this up for much longer it isn’t going to be pretty.

Turbulence Training 5th Transformation Contest – Final Essay and Results

I have written quite a bit on the Turbulence Training forums and in my blog in the last twelve weeks about the changes in all aspects of my life that I am currently experiencing. I hope nobody minds if I include some of what I have written here. It has been a period of much reflection and I have learned a lot about myself in the process.

I am 41 but have been unhappy with my weight for nearly 30 years now. During that time I’ve learned to loathe myself whilst getting progressively fatter and fatter.

At the beginning of this year I made a decision. There is a history of heart disease, obesity, diabetes etc in my family. I was 40 years old, my blood pressure had just jumped into the hypertension range for the first time after being ‘normal’ for years, I was carrying around at least 6 stone (84 pounds) above my ideal weight, and I was a statistic waiting to happen.

I decided to make some changes, but I also made a decision that I would not make myself miserable over a number. My husband loves me and finds me attractive. I would learn to be a little easier on myself. I would not do ANY programme that did not let me lead a normal life. I didn’t want my life, and my practically every waking thought to be about food – did i have enough calories/points left? was it over 3 hours since my last meal? did this food have [insert banned food of choice] in it – was it allowed? was there enough protein in my snack? Did I have my cool box with my 24 meals in it for the day before I left the house in the morning? Had I earned my carbs? Etc Etc.

Instead, I try to eat more nutritious foods on a weekly basis. Increase my portions of fruit and, especially, vegetables. Drink more water. Choose whole grains. Pick lean organic meats and dairy. Avoid processed foods and words I can’t pronounce. I knew that I would lose weight more quickly by following one of the other programmes, but I’ve been there before only to end up back where I started, or worse. I made some good steady progress for the first three months and then I stalled a bit. About that time I got the email about the TT 5th Transformation Contest so I signed up. I registered with Fit Day and began logging what I ate – still not counting calories but being more aware of what I was eating, and I started off doing the TT for Female Strength programme. After four weeks, my push ups had gone from (10, 11, 12) to (23, 22, 20) and I had lost 4.8 pounds and 1.9% body fat. After another four weeks and finishing phase 2 of TT for Female Strength I had lost another 5.2 pounds and inches all over. My favourite trousers are now not only too big on me but such a different shape that they couldn’t even be altered to fit me properly. For my final four weeks I have been doing the TT Fat Loss Fusion Intermediate programme. I have seen gains in both strength and cardiovascular fitness over the last twelve weeks. In particular, my improvement on the treadmill has been mind boggling – I now warm up at the speed I used to do my ‘hard’ intervals at, and am running (as opposed to walking!) harder and further with each workout but recovering faster, and I am doing tougher and tougher workouts but feeling better after them than before. But the true gains have been in my daily life. I see improvements on almost a daily basis: from walking up the stairs without a second thought rather than frantically searching around for the elevator, to dancing at a festival without getting winded, to spending time with my husband being active (for example, we’ve started playing badminton every week), something we couldn’t do before because I wasn’t up to it. What TT has done for me has opened up my world. This week I am trying out martial arts classes in my area with a view to taking that up. Things I would not even have considered for myself before are now a possibility.

I will always have to be ‘careful’ about what I eat, and continue to workout, if I don’t want to revert to the blob I was at the start. But thanks to Turbulence Training I now realise that I can do that without giving up the things that make life worth living. I no longer have good days or bad days as defined by what I put in my mouth. They’re just days. A bad day is when a school collapses in an earthquake and 200 children are killed. My garlic bread consumption is just another day in my ongoing journey to be a better me. I have lost 26 pounds of weight and 4.8% body fat since the beginning of the year. I have eaten out with friends. I have drunk wine. I’ve even had the odd plate of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce. No doubt this has affected the rate at which I have lost weight – but I feel that doing it this way will be sustainable. By setting SMART goals and making it about my health rather than the number on the scale, I am seeing changes in my body, my energy levels, and most importantly, my self respect on practically a daily basis.

Having said that, during this contest I have crossed off three long-standing weight goals. I have dropped my first dress size in years, moved under 200 pounds, and lost over 10% of my starting weight. As a result I am now around 20% less likely to die, over 50% less likely to get diabetes, my blood pressure is back down and I have no doubt that my blood lipid profile is also significantly improved. And what is more, I am finally able to look forward to this likely extended life span with joy and anticipation.

For me, this contest was never about winning. I have used the time, and the amazing support on the forum to help change my life, rather than my body – to learn to become the person I want to be. In many ways, I have derived more strength from the support that I have been able to give others than from that I have received, and this has also had a life-changing impact on me: a new job in the weight management team of our local health service and a masters degree on the horizon. As a person who has struggled with weight and fitness for most of my life, I would not have had the confidence, or felt ‘worthy’ enough to stand up and help others in their own quest. I would like to thank Craig for providing the environment to make this possible, and all those of you who post on the forums for allowing me to share in your stories and your lives.

	Start	End (12 wks)	Change
Height	5′4 (1.64m)
Weight	210.6 lbs	197.7lbs	–12.9lbs
Body Fat	45.4%	43.4%	–2%
Waist	110cm	106.5	–3.5cm
Hips	129cm	125cm	–4cm
Left thigh	69.5cm	63.5cm	–6cm
Left knee	48cm	43cm	–5cm
Left calf	42cm	40cm	–2cm
Left bicep	41cm	38.5	–2.5cm