W3 Started With A Failure

Sunday I failed.

I didn't get up to go to the gym because I planned to go with my wife while the kids were at my mom's. Kids didn't feel up to visiting mom, so wife didn't go to gym, so I procrastinated all day long and ended up not going either.

I told myself all day that I should go. Then as it got later, I told myself that I'd just walk around the block when the kids went to bed. I didn't do any of that. I sat and watched YouTube all day long.

Today, I snoozed once, but got up and got to the gym and did my 25 mins on the treadmill. So it's a partial victory, but better than a failure.

W2: D5 - My Shirt Doesn't Feel As Tight As It Used To

This morning, when my phone went off, I hit snooze, and fell back asleep for 8 minutes (what a weird arbitrary number that iPhones use for snooze).

Then, when it went off again, I immediately cursed myself for letting myself hit snooze.

The dark-side nearly won today.

Then I went and did my 25 minutes on the treadmill, and 10-15 min working biceps and triceps. I spent an extra 10 minutes at the gym to make up for my lapse in snooze discipline.

I noticed yesterday that the shirt I was wearing wasn't as tight across my belly as I'm used to. I don't know if the shirt was just stretched out, or if my clothing is starting to fit differently already...I want to say it's just a baggy shirt, but I want to hope that it's my body changing.

W2: D4 - Each Day is a Little Victory

It seems like week 2 is going to be my struggle week so far.

I had a big fight inside my head this morning. Last night I was feeling poorly when I went to bed - something like the beginning of a cold - and it was really hard for me to convince myself that I'm not sick.

But, the light-side (life changes for the better) won against the dark-side (procrastination and depression).

This time.

Each day I get to the gym, I'm counting as a little victory. Even though I only did 25 minutes of cardio, even though I walked at a slightly slower pace than yesterday, I'm still there, putting in the time, not letting my dark-side win.

Day 3 - A Trial of My Willpower

This morning almost beat me.

I almost hit the snooze button. I almost stayed in bed. I lay there thinking how much another 30 minutes of sleep would feel *so good*.

Then I swung my legs out of bed and sat up on the edge of it.

Then I forced myself to stand up, and get moving.

At the gym, at about minute 12 on the treadmill, I was thinking: 25 minutes is going to take *so long* but I put my head back down and kept on walking.

At 18 minutes I thought: I can start my cool down now, what's a few minutes less of that?

At 22 minutes I thought: why cool down for 5 whole minutes?

At 25:02 I hit stop in the treadmill and walked away to the cable machines to work biceps and triceps for a few minutes, victory in hand.

I beat my own demons, my own laziness, my own habits of procrastination and cheating myself.

Day 3, in the books.

First Gym Day

I made it to the gym for the first time in this new phase.

I've decided to go in the morning before work, with enough time to go home and shower and maybe eat before leaving to work. This is a challenge for me for a few reasons.

1 - I love to sleep
2 - I hit the snooze button about 50 times every morning
3 - I take a med that forces me to sleep for 8 hours which means
    3a - I have to go to bed early

So, I've decided that it's been 10 years since I got fat, and I'm tired of hating myself in the mirror and failing to do something about it.

It's time to get real. Time to fix my health. Time to get back under 200 lbs.

I walked for 15 minutes, and rode a recumbent bike for 10. I'll be working on getting both the time and intensity of those activities as I go forward. Also will be adding some basic strength training to the mix.

Distraction and Diets

For the last 2 nights I've been totally distracted getting my Twitch stream setup to work with 2 computers through an Elgato HD60. That sentence means something to probably 3% of people who will read this post.

Long story short - because I was fighting technology to bend it to my will, I didn't eat much at all. I had a half a chicken breast and some mini-pretzels with about 1 tbsp of ranch dressing last night, and that's all I had. For lunch, I had a bit of lettuce with mixed cheese and bleu cheese dressing. Maybe 3 oz total of food. And I wasn't hungry at all! I had to force myself to eat the pretzels at 9:30 or I was going to be out of my window and low on calories.

This morning, I woke up feeling shaky. Listening to my body, the way the experts tell you to, I went ahead and had a half-cup of fresh orange juice. That took care of the shakes, and the rest of my day has been great!

I'm 1 hour from feeding time, and I'll be partaking of another iceberg lettuce and bleu cheese lunch. I might throw in a small baggie of cheetos or something, just for the calories.

I'm really interested to see how things measure up on Saturday.

If you're curious about my streaming setup for Twitch, feel free to ask in comments below. I've been streaming for 2 years now, and I've gathered a lot of information about it (even though I usually have zero viewers). Check out my channel RabidMonkee and follow me on Twitter to know when I go live.

Time Keeps On Slipping Slipping

I noticed that my time is slipping.

I started this on 16:8, 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of feeding (2pm to 10pm so I can have dinner with the family).

Then I noticed that I'd stop eating around 9 instead of 10.

Today I looked at the clock and saw that it was 2:40, almost an hour past my start-eating time, and last night I again stopped at 9. So today was actually 18 hours of fasting.

I feel great!

I used to be able to eat an entire box of Mac-n-Cheese by myself. Last night I barely got through 3/5 of a box before I had to push it aside. I used to make sure I'd finish what I took, even if I was over full, but not last night. No interest.

So, I think it's...working!

Also, I know daily scale checks are damaging. I'm stopping that (got batteries for our scale). 2 days ago I was 290, this morning I was 286. From this point on, I'm only checking weekly on Saturdays with the rest of my measurements.

Quick Photo Post

Here's what I look like today:
290lbs - 5' 8" - 44 years old

First week of IF is done!

Not much to report so far.

Sunday my mom took the family out to dinner at Olive Garden to celebrate her paying off her mortgage. I had a couple of limoncello long-island drinks, and a  pile of pasta. I think the alcohol and sugar in the 2 drinks really hit me hard. I could feel my heart pounding hours later still.

My scale doesn't have batteries, and I don't have measurements of my body from before I started.

Something I'm going to do every Saturday is measure around my belly, and waist, each Saturday. Hopefully I'll see some changes in measurement.

Non-scale-victories are even more important that seeing that number move.

But, my ultimate goal is to get below 200lbs for the first time in 12 years.

Day 5 Complete

Day 5 was easy.

No, that's not true.

I still have to think about it all morning and remind myself not to go get some food. Part of the problem is that I'm in a lull at work.

The nature of our business means that we have a sort of feast/famine routine where we work like crazy for a few months, then we have a few weeks between sales pushes where we have a bit less to do. After working like crazy, those lulls feel like nothing is happening.

With no work to distract me, the time goes by at a crawl, and that gives me lots of time to think about the fact that I'm not eating.

Also, 10pm seems to come earlier each night...I think "oh, I'll go grab a snack before my fast starts again" and look at the clock and it's 11pm.

Again, my shirts are definitely starting to feel a bit less tight around my belly, but without a scale I don't know for certain if that's just water loss - I've been peeing a lot more during my fasts - or that I'm actually losing some size already. It would be incredible if it's already starting to change my body composition!


Around (the widest part of my belly)
57.5"

Waist
48"

IF: 003 done, 004 in progress

Last night was the end of fast period 3.

I was hungry for a bit, but carbonated water with lemon did a good job keeping me hydrated and fighting the empty stomach feelings.

I had some pizza for dinner with the kids, and it didn't taste the same, kind of weird and off tasting, but the rest of the family didn't seem to notice. I ended up just picking the pepperoni and cheese off and leaving most of the bread. It's almost like my body is telling me to get into the keto zone, even though that's not my goal right now.

So, diet aside, I want to talk about mental health and medications.

A year ago this spring, I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD), Bipolar disorder, and adult ADHD. I also have PTSD, but not related to my military service - it's from when I got mengeoencephalitis and ended up in the hospital for 9 days in December of 2014. I don't remember that Christmas, or most of that December, really. It's bizarre.

I take Seroquel (quetiapine) 300 mg, which levels out my bipolar swings. I have to take it at night because it forces me into an 8 hour sleep cycle (it's used off-label as a sleep medicine). It raises my heart rate and blood pressure while it's in my system. My resting heart rate went up an average of 10 bps, and my blood pressure is in the mild hypertensive zone now. I cut out iodized salt and only eat non-iodized, which lowered my BP significantly.

My psychiatrist just recently added Rexulti (brexpiprazole) 1mg to my regime because I was having depression. He is hoping the combination will keep me from feeling depressed and angry while not triggering a manic episode. After 4 days taking it, the wife told me today that she definitely feels like I seem happier.

The problem: 2 days in a row now I've gotten sudden nose bleeds when I strain or bend over to do something like tie my shoes. I got 2 yesterday - one when I stretched in bed, and another when I moved position on the couch last night. That last one lasted over 30 minutes and triggered a panic attack. I ended up taking a Xanax to both lower my BP and try to stop panicking (dudes aren't used to bleeding, and I'm a real baby about it). Eventually the combination of the Xanax, a ton of paper towels, and some Afrin, it finally quit.

I don't know if it's related to the Rexulti that we just added this week, or just because of the cold, dry weather...but I hope it stops soon.

Science-Based Six Pack

I got pulled in by an ad on Youtube before a video I was trying to watch.

It was by Thomas DeLauer and it was about his program Science Based Six Pack.

It appealed to me because it lets me eat the same things I eat, while just moderating my schedule of eating, and adding some core exercises.

I don't have anywhere near the $100 he wants for his program, so I'm just winging it based on the basics: 16 hours of fasting with 8 hours of feeding between. For my schedule, this works out to eating between 2pm and 10pm and fasting from 10pm until 2pm the next day.

I already do much of this, between sleeping and eating late lunches at work, so all I have to do is cut out snacks.

I don't really care about a six pack, I've never had that even when I only weighed 150 lbs in my 20s. I just want to get below 200lbs again.

So, this is day 1, January 8th, 2018.

Keto Day 22

I started #Keto again 22 days ago.

As of day 20, I was down 19 lbs to 273.

This weekend I had a little trouble hitting my macros and getting in my water, so I have sort of plateaued here for a minute. Getting back on schedule by having to get back to work, I should pick right back up again.

CW: 273
SW: 292
Lost: 19
GW: 180
Left: 93

Week 1, Day 2, Research Mode

Day 2 - research mode.

I've been looking at various keto recipe websites. I've been reading the FAQ on the Reddit r/keto. I've used the macro calculator to get an idea of where I should be.

1902 kcal Daily Calorie Intake
25 g Carbs (5%, 100 kcal)
125 g Protein (26%, 500 kcal)
145 g Fat (69%, 1302 kcal)

That's not sustainable for me yet. I'm still trying to figure out where the carbs are hidden in my daily routine - like in my non-dairy sugar-free creamer, and in Splenda that I used to sweeten my tea - and root it out.

Surprising to me, hamburger seems to be high in carbs. At least that's what MyFitnessPal says.

Onwards and hopefully downwards ( in weight ).

Week 1, Day 1, #Ketogenic Lifestyle Reboot

Today marks the first day of my ketogenic journey.

Almost 4 years ago, I embarked on changing my eating habits and adopted the ketogenic lifestyle. For 4 months, I was successful, and I lost 40 lbs. Then, the holidays hit, and my resolve dissolved.

Today, I'm rebooting.

I'm not under 20 grams, but I am under 50 for the day so far.

I don't plan on blogging each day, but I'll update at least once a week.

Current Weight: 285lbs
Goal Weight: 190lbs

Kickstarting a New Ketogenic Phase

Hello.
I'm a husband, a dad, and addicted to carbs.

A few years ago, I tried the ketogenic diet. In 4 months I lost almost 40 lbs.

Then, autumn hit, and my mom started baking, and my resolve was dissolved in a flurry of butter cookies. I told myself "We'll just do a modified keto diet, just a few carbs added back in for fun." That was 60 lbs ago.

Since then, I've had some drastic events happen in my life. I contracted meningeoencephalitis which hospitalized me for 9 days. It left me with PTSD and some other harder to define mental deficits. I also, in the course of figuring out how my brain had changed due to that sickness, learned that I am bipolar. Looking back into my past, I can see the peaks and valleys of my manic-depressive cycle,  and my illness triggered the disorder to get an order of magnitude worse.

I'm medicated now, using Seroquel each day, so the effects of my bipolar disorder are less drastic, but it's also not been helpful for my willpower, for whatever reason. I tried just dropping candy from my life, and made it 21 days before I had cake. Then I made it a further 20 days - I didn't lose any weight while off sugar, so I became very disillusioned with the process - before I just quit and went back to my old habits.

I'm currently on the upwards side of 285 lbs. This is the heaviest I've been in my life. I feel it, physically, every minute of the day.

I get winded just tying my shoes.
I can't play physical games with my kids because I get too tired, or my lumbar goes out of whack.
If the zombie apocalypse happens, I'm bait.

So, I'm researching, and I'm planning, two things I barely did last time. Lack of variety was my undoing last time, so I won't make that same mistake.

Something else I didn't do last time was secure the support of my family. I started a diet that wasn't suitable for my wife or kids. This time, I want to have family-friendly menu choices that only require minor adjustments for me, and are still yummy and nutritious for my kids.

After making some lists, some menu plans, and purchasing the right foods for our kitchen, it'll be off again, seeking ketosis.

Anxiety Attacks and Failed Willpower Throws

First things first: I failed my willpower throws all week last week. I ate sugar in mass quantities at work and at home. I did not go to the gym at all last week - which I justified each day with a challenging website build going on, and high stress levels over all.

Money was tight due to an attempted debit card sort of ID theft that threw stuff off, and poor planning, and a 2.5 week pay period because of how paydays fall compared to business days, etc. All told, we were scraping the bottoms of barrels we didn't ever want to touch.

Work was tough due to a new project requiring technical coding of stuff that I've never done before. Lots of Google and Stack Overflow searches there.

And, finally, my anxiety is getting the best of me during stressful times like this. It's causing insomnia and all of the subsets of issues that come with that. I'm averaging less than 5 hours of sleep per night, which is worrying me because lack of sleep is probably a prime contributor to the illness I got that caused this anxiety.

This morning I realized that the biggest knee-jello thoughts are when I think of the fact that I was feeling poorly, went to check into the hospital, and woke up 5 days later with no memory of anything in between those two events. The idea of feeling semi-ok, then waking up full of needles, catheters, and surrounded by family, and having only defeated the odds of dying by a narrow margin, terrifies me. I can't even watch shows that have hospital scenes without my legs feeling like pins-and-needles. (SPOILERS for watchers of "Wayward Pines": every time someone wakes up in the Wayward Pines hospital after an "accident" and I know it's centuries later, it just makes me feel like curling up in a ball somewhere).

I lost 5 days of my life to an illness. 5 days of my kids growing. 5 days of living with my wife. 5 days, just gone to the oblivion of heavy sedatives. But, more than that, I lost control of my mind and body, the only thing I can reliably count on most of the time. The idea that some of my brain might have changed, and I can't even tell, terrifies me every day.

It was only pneumonia and meningeal encephalitis. I survived, through medical science and caring hospital staff. I still have my facilities as far as I can tell, and I still have my family. But, now fear is a much larger component in my day-to-day life, and that's foreign to me.

I'm rambling, time to stop.

Tale Of The Tape

Potential for embarrassment: high.

These are my measurements. I'm not proud, I'm not happy. The only silver lining is that my arms are symmetrical, so at least I have that going for me.

Measurements & Body Composition
Girth & Circumference Measurements as of 6/15/15
·         Upper Arm – Bicep (left): 16.25”
·         Upper Arm – Bicep (right): 16.25”
·         Chest: 47.75”
·         Waist (arms at sides, feet together): 46.25”
·         Abdomen (across belly button): 51.5”
·         Hips/Buttocks (feet together): 48”
·         Thigh (left): 26”
·         Thigh (right): 25.75”

Body Mass/Composition Numbers as of 6/15/15 at 12:00 pm – no fasting
·         Weight: 268.4 lbs
·         Body Fat %: 39.7 (healthy range for your gender & age 11 – 22%)
·         Body Water %: 46.1 (Normal Range 50 – 65%)
·         Muscle Mass: 153.8 lbs
·         Physique Rating: 3 (High Fat % w/ High Muscle Mass Index)
·         Metabolic Age: 50
·         Bone Mass: 8.0 (Normal Range 8.1)
·         Visceral Fat: 22 (Healthy Range 1-12)

Basically, the most important numbers here are the body fat percentage and visceral fat rating. Visceral fat is the fat deep inside your body surrounding your organs (viscera, obvs). I've often wondered how I can have a large belly, but still feel strong abs just below a relatively shallow sub-dermal fat layer, and now I know.

The treatment is the same as it is for anyone who is obese: reduced calories; reduced refined starches; reduced saturated and poly fats and increased unsaturated; increased physical activity (cardio mostly, but also strength training).

The main difference is that I don't have to do a bunch of crunches and be disappointed that my belly isn't going away because tighter abs over the top of a bunch of visceral fat is still going to be a big belly.

As much as I hate cardio, it's going to have to become - almost literally - my bread and butter.

New Fitness Plan

For my new gym, I've taken a new path to fitness.

I plan to alternate cardio and strength training, with cardio taking the fore. Previously, I've been content to just strength train - mainly because I get so bored with cardio, and also because I've yet to find a form of cardio that doesn't cause me pain.

My current plan is to do cardio on Mon-Wed-Fri and strength on Tue-Thu, taking the weekends off.

Sundays are my new "Scale day" and I won't weigh myself during the week anymore.

Yesterday was my first cardio day, and I rode a regular upright exercise bike. The first thing I noticed was that it hurt my butt - like, a lot. I figured that this was because I'm not used to supporting all 260 pounds of me on a small portion of my inner ass cheeks. For the record, the discomfort never faded, I just got accustomed to it.

The next thing was that my feet started to hurt, which surprised me. The outer edge of both my feet started to ache, and I think this is because my form is bad. I have to ride somewhat bowlegged in order to get around my gut, which means that I'm putting uneven pressure on my feet, knees, ankles, and hips. Which lead to the 3rd thing I noticed, which happened around the 15-minute mark, my left hip started to ache like it needed to pop or something.

Overall, though, I did manage to ride for 25 minutes and hit my cardio range. I rode something like 4.5 miles, and the machine at one point said "Congrats! You just rode the equivalent of a 5K race" so, there's that. I broke a good sweat, though, so I felt like I accomplished my goal, and I pushed through the pain.

After cardio, I did some core strength work on my abs - my degenerative disc disease, ruptured and bulging discs can only be helped by making my core stronger. Years of being overweight (and an 8-year career pushing around hundreds of tons of cargo per year) have been stressful on my back, and my body shape causes me to carry all of my weight in my lumbar, which is bad. I'm trying to get real strength in my abs, while also strengthening the muscles that line my spine in order to carry that weight with muscle instead of bone and cartilage.

That's it for the time being. I'll post another update with my body measurements as soon as my gym manager sends them to me, in case anyone is curious.

New Era

A brand new Anytime Fitness has opened up shop in the adjoining parking lot to my work building.

I've been venturing over there and watching the construction all winter/spring, and chatting with the owners when I could. I really like their philosophy and the gym itself.

In case you're not familiar, Anytime Fitness gives you a personal key fob that lets you in the doors of the gym any time, day or night. They are staffed during daytime business hours, usually, they have fixed and flexible scheduled classes like TRX and Yoga. They have a meditation room. They have individual shower/dressing rooms (5 at this location, I think).

Pretty much anything I could want as a self-conscious wannabe gym rat with social anxiety.

They worked out a deal with my company where my company subsidizes part of our membership fee, and I pay a greatly reduced fee for access, get free fitness and body evaluations monthly, and 5 free classes per month. On top of that, I really like the owners and staff that I've met so far. It couldn't be a better scenario.

Yesterday I got my body evaluation. Tomorrow I'm having my fitness evaluation.

Body evaluation - no surprises: Obese BMI; high visceral fat; high body fat %; low hydration %. What was surprising was that I have symmetrical biceps, and my quads are only 1/4 inch different (favoring the left because my right knee is giving me lots of pain, I assume).

268.4 lbs. Still 10 pounds under my heaviest  2 years ago, but I want 69 pounds gone, I want to be below 200 lbs. At a reasonable-but-difficult 2 pounds per week average, giving me 8 lbs per month, it will take me 9 months to get to my goal weight.

July is month 1.