JHF's Losing Fat Log

[jhf]

Ok, so at my highest I was 254 pounds. I'm down to the low 240's now and it's time to get serious. I'm keeping this log to provide for a bit of accountability.

In the past I've jumped in with both feed and end up getting sick within a week and then end up getting side tracked and not following through. This time I devised a plan to ease me into it and build up a solid foundation before I push myself really hard.

Here's my plan.

Phase 1 - 8 weeks.

Cardio: Daily 30 minutes minimum @ 80% HR
Strength: I have 3 apps on my phone designed to get me up to 200 sit ups, 100 pushups, and 200 squats(body weight) in 8 weeks

Phase 2 - 1 cycle of p90x

Phase 3 - weight lifting

Other than cutting out fast food and soda, I won't worry about my diet until I start the p90x. As a family we eat pretty clean. There's plenty to work on but I want to keep things manageable in the beginning.

I've set some rewards for hitting certain goals.

- 100 miles in 30 days I'll get myself one of those fit bit trackers that incorporates a hr monitor
- at the end of p90x I'll buy a bench press and a power rack.

Wish me luck

Today I did 30 minutes @ 60% hr . I didn't feel like it did much at all. That's why i bumped my hr up to 80% in the future.
I did Week 2 Day 1 for situps-36/pushups-24/squats-32

Here are my before photos.

[harleyjess]

good luck , im in

[jhf]

good luck , im in

Thanks! I appreciate it.


Today:

30 min treadmill / 1.4 mi / 80%hr ~ 140bpm / 202 vertical feet

[NoCarbsNoSugar]

Good luck with your new log.

[jhf]

Good luck with your new log.

Thank you!

Today:

30 min treadmil / 1.0 mi / 80% hr ~144bpm / 530 vertical feet

Week 2 Day 2
pushups : 26
situps : 39
squats: 34

Added some before photos to the first post.

[jhf]

Today:


30 min treadmill / 1.4 mi / 80% hr ~144bpm / 506 vertical feet

My tread mill is brutal, the chest strap takes a bit to track the right bpm so it ramps up the incline and speed beyond what it would if it were tracking properly right away. So I was feeling it by the end. Solid improvement for the week though. Pretty happy about that.

4 days down a life time to go.

[jhf]

Day 5:

30 min treadmill / 1.6 mi / 80% hr ~144 bpm / 371 vertical feet

Week 2 Day 3
Push-ups: 30
Sit-ups: 44
Squats: 43

[Republics]

Good work! Subbed because I'm basically the same weight as you trying to lose aswell.

[scrossmaggard]

In for this! Best wishes!

[jhf]

Good work! Subbed because I'm basically the same weight as you trying to lose aswell.

Thanks! Hope we both get it right and crush it once and for all.

In for this! Best wishes!

Appreciate it!

Day 6 & 7 are rest days. Will update again on Tues. I think next week I'll go @ 60% HR on Sunday just to continue moving and take Mondays off.

[lukepeter]

Greetings jfh.

Its fantastic that you started a log and took your before pics, and that you have a structured plan.

One criticism - putting weight training off until the third phase will be counter productive - your lean body mass is basically like an investment - it writes energy cheques all day, every day, that your mouth gets to cash - by doing only cardio during your heaviest cut phase your body will adapt for that purpose and cannibalize your lean mass at an alarming rate. My philosophy has been that it is far easier to not eat 300kcal than it is to burn it off with cardio, you can get to a very effective deficit (considering your current body composition) without doing cardio for the point of energy burning (do HIIT for heart and lung health by all means). While you are cutting down body fat it is very important to lift weights so that your body prioritizes lean mass retention and fat loss over weight loss at any costs.

And protein... eat 2 to 2.2g of protein per kg of intended lean body mass (100g of chicken breast contains around 24g of protein etc.)

I am subbed for progress - while I wont wish you luck (it has nothing to do with this process at all) I will wish you strength and discipline

[jhf]

Greetings jfh.

Its fantastic that you started a log and took your before pics, and that you have a structured plan.

One criticism - putting weight training off until the third phase will be counter productive - your lean body mass is basically like an investment - it writes energy cheques all day, every day, that your mouth gets to cash - by doing only cardio during your heaviest cut phase your body will adapt for that purpose and cannibalize your lean mass at an alarming rate. My philosophy has been that it is far easier to not eat 300kcal than it is to burn it off with cardio, you can get to a very effective deficit (considering your current body composition) without doing cardio for the point of energy burning (do HIIT for heart and lung health by all means). While you are cutting down body fat it is very important to lift weights so that your body prioritizes lean mass retention and fat loss over weight loss at any costs.

And protein... eat 2 to 2.2g of protein per kg of intended lean body mass (100g of chicken breast contains around 24g of protein etc.)

I am subbed for progress - while I wont wish you luck (it has nothing to do with this process at all) I will wish you strength and discipline

Thanks for the encouragement and suggestions.

I structured it the way I did for a couple reasons. One of the main ones is that in the past when I've jumped in with both feet, I ended up getting sick which sidelined me. This time around I thought I'd try developing just a base level of fitness before I really started to push it.

I put off weightlifting until phase 3 because going to a gym just isn't feasible for me and if I told my wife I was going to buy a bench, barbells and power rack tomorrow she'd put the kabash on that. P90x has weight lifting as part of it's program and I have dumb bells so I thought that was a good choice for phase 2.

After 8 weeks of pushups/situps/squats and then 90 days of p90x I'll have proved to myself that this time it's for real and have a solid case for buying the gear for phase 3.

I put off worrying about the diet until phase 2 partly for the reasons you mentioned, partly because I don't want to overwhelm myself, and partly because it will be an adjustment for the family. Right now if I cut out the fast food and work on portion control I think it would do wonders.


So that's my rational. I know it's not perfect but I think it hits the right notes of compromise as far as my family life goes. I'm also not in any hurry. If I hit a pound a week I'll be where I want to be in a year from now weight wise. Apart from all the vanity reasons, my real motivation for doing this is A) I don't want to die and if I keep going my family history of heart disease is going to catch up to me and B) I love to hike but I need to be in better shape if I'm going to go hiking with my 3 year old while carrying my 1 year old.

The vanity reasons are pretty strong too though

Anyways, that was pretty long winded but I wanted to try and explain the rational behind my choices.

Thanks again!

[jhf]

A bit proud of myself today. Yesterday I took my boys to go visit grandma's for a few days. Normally that would mean I'd put off the workouts until I got back home, that is if I picked them back up. This time however; I kicked caution to the wind and worked out anyways. Little victories.

Day 8

Treadmill: 30 min

Week 3 Day 1

Pushups: 45
Sit-ups: 48
Squats: 51

[lukepeter]

With respect - going to a gym is almost always feasible, it just requires compromise and sacrifice. P90x is certainly better than nothing though - you are at least doing some resistance training Obviously my opinion in this regard is heavily polarized by my own experiences, and by my goals, but muscle is a whole lot harder to gain than fat is to lose, and its a whole lot easier to maintain what you have than to build it up again once atrophied.

Still following keep grinding.

[jhf]

With respect - going to a gym is almost always feasible, it just requires compromise and sacrifice. P90x is certainly better than nothing though - you are at least doing some resistance training Obviously my opinion in this regard is heavily polarized by my own experiences, and by my goals, but muscle is a whole lot harder to gain than fat is to lose, and its a whole lot easier to maintain what you have than to build it up again once atrophied.

Still following keep grinding.

I get what you're saying and appreciate the input.



Day 10

Tread Mill: 30 min / 80% HR ~ 144bpm / 1.6 mi / 378 vertical feet

W3 D2

Push-ups: 50
Sit-ups: 54
Squats: 58


Totally spaced on Day 9. No excuse, just didn't get it done.

The last two times I've done pushups I haven't been able to get through the last set without a couple breaks. It's getting hard but that's a good thing I think. Same for situps this time around, that last set was just ooof.

[jhf]

Got a little post catching up to do.

3/10 Missed the treadmill

3/11
Day 12
Treadmill 30 min / 1.7 mi / 80% hr / 378 ft

Day 13 3/12

W3D3

Situps: 58
Pushups:55
Squats:62

On the diet front i made a decision to give up butter. Might seem like a small thing but it should cut 700-1000 cal/week.

[jhf]

Day 15

Treadmill: 30 Min/ 1.5 mi / HR 80% / 610 ft

I'm going to go look for a tape measure. I have a feeling that will show changes before the scale does.

[jhf]

Day 16
Treadmill: 30 min / 1.5 mi / HR 60% / 3 ft

W4D1

Pushups:63
Squats:67

[lukepeter]

Seems like strength is progressing according to plan, how are things going on the diet and weight loss front?

You must be getting close to the 100 pushup mark now - Keep on logging...

[jhf]

So i didn't run off and disappear with my tail tucked between my legs.

First the kids got sick and we had a solid week + of sleepless nights, then my wife and I got it. It took me about a week after that to get back into things and I started back redoing my Week 5 routine of the pushups and squats.

This last Tues I was feeling great and had a really great workout in the morning. My wife went to go pick up some lunch and in the hour she was gone I was hit with uncontrollable full body shivers and vomiting. She came home to find me on the couch under a full down comforter.

She forced me (thank god) to the clinic where they ran labs and took xrays. The doc said I had a fever of 103 and was super constipated. He said the best thing to do was to go buy an enema and myralax and if I didn't feel better by Thursday to come back.

So we did that and I progressively got worse. We went back on Thursday and they had me take a ct scan. I was suppose to go home and wait for the Docs call after the scan but the tech said, "hey we have an empty room with a bed you can chill out in while you wait for the doc."

Ya, that wasn't a good sign. The doc called shortly later and gave me the news.

Diverticulitis with a small perforation....

They wheeled me over to the emergency room, admitted me to the hospital and that's where I've been.

Things were looking good with just the antibiotics and I had progressed from being allowed only iv fluids to actually having "meals" and my iv disconnected Sat night. Unfortunately, Sunday morning my labs went the other way. They reattached the iv and put me back on a diet of sips of water, ice chips and the occasional Popsicle.


So......... the exercise front has been shot for the foreseeable future but I'm on a forced daily caloric intake of 200-500 depending on how many popcicles I have ....

Anyways, it's a big wall of text but I've been stuck in this bed for nearly a week now and just needed a place to get it out.

It's damn frustrating and pretty terrifying how fast one can go from feeling great to being in a hospital bed.


I'll be curious to see how many pushups I can manage to do when I'm back on my feet.

[JSim83]

Oh, that sucks man. All I can say is I hope you get better soon!

[lukepeter]

Sorry for your troubles man.

I am sure you will be back up and running in short order and get stuck in again. I hope the healing process is swift.

[jhf]

Thanks guys.

I haven't updated in quite a while but that doesn't mean I've been slacking.

I was out of commission for a little over a month. It took about another month to get back to where I was. The whole ordeal made me realize I should actually start getting an annual checkup so I went in and got that done.

It wasn't horrible but the trends were all going in the wrong direction.

Blood Pressure bordering on hypertension
Cholesterol just skirting the upper limits of what's ok
etc

With my family history of heart disease my doc suggested I go and get a ct of my heart to check for calcium build up. They check 4 arteries on the heart. 3 of them came back at a 0 and one at a 76. You don't have to worry until those numbers are significantly higher but the nurse told me that being 40, I should have 0's across the board.

I don't know why that visit was the one that made a switch flip in my brain but it did and I haven't looked back since.

So now I'm eating "clean", paying attention to every calorie I eat and doing my best to get an even spread of carbs/fats/proteins.

I'm supplementing with protein shakes to try and get my protein up to 200/day. It was a little rough in the beginning. As a household we were never really heavy on the processed foods but we love our carbs. I've pretty much substituted salads for rice and it's working wonders.
Typical food intake looks like the following.

Breakfast
Oatmeal w/ chia seeds, flax seeds, strawberries and a peach

Snacks in between meals = one of the following
Protein Shakes + chia seeds
Nuts
Egg + Eggwhite scramble with veggies and cheese

Lunch & Dinner
Lean meat + salad

I limit the portion size if we go out for meals.

Doing that I've been keeping my calories around 2000/day +- 100 calories and have been losing close to 2 lb/week.

On the physical side. Up until now I've just been focusing on moving more and pushing myself either with intensity or duration. On a whim I tried running outside last week and managed to knock out 2 miles at about 11:30/mile which... I can't remember the last time I ran 2 miles. I'm pretty sure I could have knocked out even more but nature called and park bathrooms are pretty nasty....

So anyways it's going really well. I've lost a hole on my belt. I can't tell much looking in the mirror. I'm going to take another set of progress pics so hopefully I'll notice a change there.

The most important thing though is that my BP is back within healthy ranges. The last time I checked it was 120's/70's and my resting hr is around 51bpm

So ya that's where I'm at. I'll start updating this regularly since I made a commitment to myself to do that. I feel the best I have in years and I think it's 90% diet.

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and add in P90X to because I can do it at home. I'm going to swap out the cardio days with HIIT Cardio

When I get down to the 190's sometime next year I'll add calories and switch to heavy lifting.

TLDR Version:

Recovered from hospital stay
Dr visit Scared Me Straight
Got my diet in order - 2000cal 30/30/30ish macro split
Ramped up the daily cardio
Started losing 2 lb/week
BP down to healthy range
Time to kick it up a notch again
Feeling awesome!

[jhf]

I think for the time being I'm going to go back to situps/pushups/squats and throw in pullups. I just bought a bar and assist strap.

It's tough to figure out a regular time to lift any weights with a 1 year old who wakes up anywhere from 5am on. I don't feel comfortable swinging dumbells with him running around. With where I'm at I should be able to progress quite a ways with just the stuff above.

Food
2165 Calories today
Breakfast: Scrambled eggs and eggwhites with red pepper, green onion and a slice of cheese. Slice of whole grain toast with a little peanut butter.
Snack: Protein shake w/ chia seeds and skim milk + Carrots
Lunch: 4 oz lean hamburger + salad
Snack: Apple
Dinner: 2 brats, no bun + salad
Evening Snack: protein shake + chia seeds + skim milk
Went grocery shopping and stocked back up on chicken, fruit and veggies


Exercise
30 min HIIT video
12,000 steps
Brisk 1.5 mile walk before watching the kids at the park
1.5 miles on treadmill ~ 12 min pace

I need to back off the HIIT video's it's fn with my ankle.... i think it's plantar faciatis...I've had it on and off for the last 3 years and the jumping etc has really started to mess with it. I might have to wait until I lose more weight before doing that stuff. The treadmill and a good pair of shoes doesn't seem to mess with it.

Weight 233.8

[jhf]

Food
Breakfast - Oatmeal, applesauce, chia seeds, flax seeds, nectarine, strawberries

Grandma came to town today and took us out to lunch. I didn't do a very good job moderating myself. I figured it was about 1000 cals for the lunch. Rest of the day I just had a salad and 8 oz of lean steak.

Dinner - Sweet Kale Salad

Evening Snack: 8 oz lean steak

~2000 cals - carbs were too high due to the lunch

Exercise: 11000 steps, 1.2 miles on the treadmill

Weight: 231.4

[jhf]

9/14

Food

Lunch - kabobs: 1lb chicken, zuchini, red pepper : 1 cup skim milk : 1 apple

Dinner - Oatmeal + Strawberries + nectarine + chia seeds + flax seeds

Evening Snack - Fish oil, peanuts, chicken breast, salad

Calories: 1917
Fat 61g
Fiber 33.5g
carbs 128.4g
Protein 224.5g

Exercise:
Ran 2 miles @ 12.10 pace
Walked another 30 minutes
Total steps for the day 10888

Weight
229.8 lb
cheated a bit on this weigh in because it was after my run but I'll take seeing the 220's for the first time in a few years