Diet and Exercise

A New Workout

1. Step-Ups - with a dumbbell in each hand, arms straight down, step up onto a bench starting with the left foot, then step down with the left foot. 15 reps. 15 more reps starting with the right foot. 3 sets. (2x15 pounds)

2. Clean & Press - Using a deadlift pose, pick up the barbell and immediately clean it to the chest, then press it up military style. 3 sets. 15 reps. (40 pounds)

3. Lunges - with a dumbbell in each hand, do 3 sets of 15 reps leading with the left leg, keeping ankle in front of knee and not letting knee touch the ground. 3 more sets of 15 reps leading with the right leg. (2x10 pounds)

4. Bent Over Row - pick up a bar and while bent over - way over, with back straight and using an underhanded grip, row the bar clenching shoulder blades at end of each pull. 3 sets. 15 reps. (40 pounds)

5. Chest Press on Ball - using a ball as a bench, sit on ball and slide down until ball is under upper back and neck. Dumbell in each hand. 3 sets. 15 reps. (20 pounds)

6. Shoulder Press on Ball - again on the wobbly ball, sitting straight up, do 3 sets of 15 reps of Military Press. (20 pounds)

7. High Pulls - Using cable machine with cable at eye level and two stirrups attached to the carabiner; with arms horizontal, face the cable, grab the handles, and pull towards your face. Nice posterior delt exercise. 3 sets of 12 reps. (40 pounds)

8. Tricep (Hammer) Curls - Using cable machine and rope attachment, pull down. Forearms start horizontal, end vertical. 3 x 12. (40 pounds)

9. Bicep Curls - With rope using same cable machine and rope attachment, or with barbell. 3 x 12 curls. (40 pounds)

A. Reverse Crunch - Lie on bench and grab the top. Lift up legs (bent) finishing with shins roughly vertical and bit coming off the bench.

B. Back Extension on Ball - Lie face-down with sternum on ball. Feet against the wall. Arms crossed over chest. Round back so you are draped over ball. Now extend back until chest is off the ball.

C. Bosu Leg Raise - grab handles and lift legs until thighs are horizontal.

It's my first birthday

...marking one year of my lifestyle change

It's hard for me to believe now that just about two years ago, I was an overweight, pack-a-day chain-smoker. I had sleep apnea, a CPAP machine, and I took a variety of prescription drugs for my health-related ailments, like heartburn. Oh, I used to have killer heartburn. My wife actually endured a year of the head of our bed being elevated, because my heartburn would have me waking up at night gasping and choking. Often we'd just slide right off the bed in the middle of the night, due to the fact that I need plastic sheets and all, but that's another story...

And speaking of the middle of the night, my snoring used to be legendary. I have to laugh as I recall the night of my stag - 11 years ago. After a long night of terrifically heavy drinking, my buddies had previously had the presence of mind to rent a hotel room for us to crash in. And at around 3 or 4 in the morning we all did just that - crashed in the room. The next morning my soon-to-be best man and I woke up at roughly the same moment as I, both of us with crushing hangovers. He said to me, "Man, did you ever snore last night! If I was marrying you and had to listen to that, I think I would slit your throat!" And my snoring only got worse after that :-)

I also had high cholesterol. My number was eleven, which is just insane. My doctor put me on Lipitor and Crestor and told me that I would be on it for the rest of my life. That meant I would be enjoying drug side-effects for the rest of my life as well.

And though everything described above is no longer an issue for me now, remembering serves as a nice motivation for me to keep it up.

Oprah says turmeric is a superfood

but really, how much turmeric can you eat?

I work out at the gym alot. And I spend a fair amount of time between sets, standing still, trying not to stare at myself in the mirror, and more or less looking like an idiot. One thing I do to pass the time is to read the magazines lying around everywhere, but they are all... "lady-magazines," which actually isn't that bad. My favourites are More magazine (Celebrating Women Over 40) and Oprah! magazine. In fact, I like More magazine so much that I took out a subscription for Patti, and if I happen to read it from cover to cover after it arrives in the mailbox - well, that's neither here nor there...

Unsurprisingly, the VAST majority of articles in either of these magazines are by women and for women. But interestingly, the writers, editors, contributors, etc. all seem to be divorced as well! Not single mind-you, but "capital - B - divorced", and by that I mean they are divorced and they are bitter as hell about it. Also interestingly, when describing the fact that they are divorced, and they all do - it must be cathartic or something, the writers invariably objectify their marriage as a sentient thing separated from them, rather than treating it for what it is (sorry: WAS,) more of a condition...really...you know? I'll give you an example. The lady-writers will always make references to their "failed marriage" or they say "Back in 2000, when my marriage failed..." like it's the marriage that failed, instead of them (and remotely possible too I guess - the husband.)

It's true. It's right there in the magazines. Every single one. Pick one up yourself if you don't believe me. And it's obvious to me that some, if not all of these women, are in a pretty bad place. And I think they need my perspective on the issue. I think it's time for some Steph-kindness®...so here it is...

"Ladies, your marriage didn't fail, YOU failed your marriage. I guarantee you that you are at least 50% to blame for you destroying your marriage. Probably way more. And half of that 50% becomes obvious to me just by looking at the photo of you that accompanies your article. This is your vanity shot? This is the best that you and Photoshop can do together?! As for the other half - to use your own turn of phrase, when you still had a marriage, did you ever do anything to ensure that the poor thing succeeded? Or did you watch your marriage choke itself to death on the kitchen floor right next to the two footprint-shaped depressions in front of your fridge, just so it could be free of you?"

I say this mostly because of the most recent article I read in Oprah! (I didn't read it inside of Oprah - I just read it in her magazine...) Paige Williams is a good writer who, at 5'5" and 200+ pounds, hopes Bikram Yoga will turn her life around. This is how she describes her depression: The depression that had held me down for so long now dropped me into a well. My whole body ached. My hair fell out in the shower. For three months, I had a headache every day, often so painful that I'd lie with a cold cloth on my forehead, just trying not to throw up. Most nights, I went to bed with a heated terry-cloth beanbag around my neck like a boa, like I was 80. If I managed to sleep, I'd reflexively grind my teeth worse than ever. (It was an old problem: Years ago, when I was married, my then-husband woke me one night and said: "Are you eating candy ?") The husband probably got in big trouble for that candy crack.

And here's how she currently deals/dealt with her depression: Pie. Also Big Macs. Publicly, I ate properly if at all, but nighttime triggered a junk food free-for-all. Because I ate poorly and didn't exercise, I slept badly. Because I slept badly, I woke up harried and late, so I never had time for breakfast. By noon, as I caffeinated instead of hydrated and often skipped lunch, I was already thinking about what I'd eat that night. I wasn't a snacker; I was a volume eater. Food was all I looked forward to.

And of course, the inevitable reference: After my marriage failed a few years later...

What's my point? It's this: Ladies, take responsibility for your marriage. I'm a big, bad, stinky man and I take responsiblity for mine. Can't you do at least as well as me?

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Sugar may be bad, but High Fructose Corn Syrup is the devil!

Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose and lack of fiber appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.

It's a fascinating 90 minutes, but here is a link to the very best part at the 1 hour, 9 minutes, 46 seconds mark. Still, feel free to rewind and play from the beginning.

I love his comparison of sugar to alcohol (it's the same thing,) but one of his examples that really resonated with me is how he illustrates the importance of a fiber accompaniment when ingesting sugar: he uses the example of a teaspoon of sugar against an apple. Both contain the same amount of sugar but you can consume a whole hell of a lot more teaspoons of sugar, and much, much faster too, than you can apples. That's really simple and it makes sense to me.

And then there is a whole bunch of bad chemical stuff that happens in your body when you ingest sugar without the fiber along with it...but watch the video - he is a little more eloquent than me.

Lose weight by NOT dieting

Calorie-restricted diets are not the way to go.

It used to be thought that ulcers were caused by excess acid in the stomach. This excess acid would essentially burn holes in the stomach lining. In the past, ulcers were a chronic affliction and symptoms were treated with expensive prescription bismuth solutions like Maalox and Pepcid AC. The companies that made those very profitable products were understandably not impressed when an Australian scientist discovered that, in the vast majority of cases, ulcers are actually caused by a simple bacteria (h. pylori) and can be completely cured with a round of anti-biotics. If I remember correctly, the entire medical community, no doubt aided by the pharmas, jumped all over this poor guy who made the discovery. The guy must have endured some pretty intense vilification until public preception shifted...Now Maalox can be bought over the counter - like Tums. And ulcers have pretty much become a non-issue for most people.

Now consider cholesterol and the low-fat movement. Public perception is gradually shifting away from the idea that fat is bad, fat causes obesity, that saturated fats are somehow worse than polyunsaturated fats, and that dietary cholesterol really has any effect on blood cholesterol, or even that elevated blood cholesterol is reliable indicator of coronary heart disease. It's seem to me to be a pretty slow shift, but maybe that's only because I happen to be living through it. On a personal level, I have been able to unequivocally prove to myself that the reverse is true. In 2009, 60 pounds overweight and with a cholesterol level of nine, I spent 6 month eschewing polyunsaturated fats, eating very little monounsaturated fats, yet I drastically increased my intake of saturated fats. Among other things, I ate tons of red meat (I'm not a big chicken fan) and eggs, I enjoyed cold cuts often, and I would save my bacon fat and use it to fry up my veggies; all habits I still maintain. Lo and behold, I lost those 60 pounds and my cholesterol number dropped to 5.6, not that the number particularly means anything to me anyway. So, I can say I lost 60 pounds and got in shape with the Hoppe Hi-Fat Diet. (Send $$$ for details.)

With great humility I lay the previous two examples before you to simply to illustrate that just because wisdom may be conventional (conventional wisdom) doesn't mean that it's correct. People used to think that the earth was flat before they realized it was oblong... Now consider this - the point of this whole post. It is a popular misconception that weight-gain and obesity are caused by the simple formula of calories-in vs. calories out. Many people subcribe to the mistaken notion that if you are fat, you need only reduce your calories-in until you are thin. They say that the only reason fat people are fat is because they eat too much. Until recently, I believed this myself, but I've done the required and several minutes of Internet research it and have now come to a different conclusion. I'm going to tell you instead, that

it is possible to take in only starvation calories and stay fat.

That's right, I am saying that for some (and who knows? maybe most?) people, no amount of calorie restriction or dieting is going to change their weight. They will die of malnutrition before they lose weight. It's just not as simple as calories-in, calories-out. Check this guy Gary Taubes out, and if you have the time, especially check out the talk he gave at Dartmouth in 2009. He says everything far more eloquently than I ever could...

So, if that's the case, then what is the secret to losing weight? I'm not entirely sure; I know that the solution doesn't lie with just one simple change, but again drawing on personal experience, I suspect the answer lies with a combination of moderate calorie restriction, quality nutrition, active lifestyle, and good mental health. That's hardly revolutionary and it sounds easy enough, but in today's society what with the intense pressures and the sedentary habits and the ingenious marketing and advertising bombarding us daily, it's a lot tougher than it seems.

And if anybody has a copy of Good Calories, Bad Calories, could I borrow it?

20 Shocking Minutes

This Is Important!

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food  is a "must-see" presentation. You don't even have to watch it online - you can download it for later, read the transcript instead, or even read along to it. If you have children you owe it to yourself to set aside some time and watch this straight through, even if only to reassure yourself that your own kids are not part of the affected majority.

I realize I am starting to get all worried/ fanatical/evangelical about the child obesity epidemic. I think it's mainly because it's getting so uncomfortably close to home. My kids aren't obese - yet. But I am far from satisfied with either their current diet or their level of physical activity. Unfortunately, the solutions are not uncomplicated. It's not as simple as putting more vegetables in front of them and then pushing them out the door. Or is it?

I guess I should take some comfort in the fact that I have at least identified the issue before it's (hopefully) too late. I've got to figure this out.

I Recall...

Central Park in fall, how you tore your dress, what a mess, I confess...

Looking back at my childhood in the late 60's and early 70's, this was a time in which not I, not anyone in my family, not anyone I knew, and none of my schooolmates were at all overweight. You just didn't see very many hugely obese people anywhere. The grossly bloated and obese people you see so commonly today were a total rarity at that time. The cause of so much of today's obesity is only now fairly obvious to me; you have only to take a walk through your local grocery store, pay attention to the products at the fast food restaurants (can you find anything that isn't fried/breaded/carb loaded??), and look at the typical modern diet: grains grains grains at every meal, high carbs at every meal, loads of sugar and high fructose corn syrup (in virtually everything processed), yet little protein, few vegetables (french fries don't count as a vegetable!), not enough fat, and not enough fruit. We are overloading ourselves with pure junk food from morning to night, most of it almost totally deficient in nutrients. My diet growing up was not like this.

Growing up, my mother cooked meat and fairly minimal amounts of simple carbs such as potatoes or rice, but lots of vegetables and fruits. We rarely had pop (occasional treat only), and desserts such as cakes or pies were both homemade and infrequent. We didn't have snack foods such as chips, crackers, or cookies in the house therefore we couldn't munch on junk between meals. If we whined for a snack we'd get an apple. Or cheese. There were a lot fewer breakfast cereals, just Corn Flakes, Weet-A-Bix, Rice Krispies, etc., but they were consumed in small amounts and not so full of sugar and chemicals. (though I loved Cap'n Crunch; I think that my parents let me have it twice in ten years.) Take a good look at the cereal aisle of today's grocery store: dozens and dozens of cereals, (very heavily-marketed-to-children and very profitable by the way) most of them pure junk and chock full of sugar and chemicals. And now they are not only eaten for breakfast, they are also "anytime-of-day" snack foods.

So now at age 43, I can recall how I used to eat as a kid and teen, but my kids have never had the contrast and they think the foods they eat today are as it has always been and how it should be. They are nutritionally illiterate, and it is shameful that I am doing such a terrible job as a parent to educate them.

More Info:

Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach every child about food "The adults of the last four generations have blessed our children with the destiny of a shorter lifespan that their own parents."

All the Health Risks of Processed Foods -- In Just a Few Quick, Convenient Bites "...you'd want to make healthful foods widely available, inexpensive, and convenient, and unhealthful foods relatively less so. Instead, we've done the opposite..."

Obesity in America (thank dog Canada doesn't have a problem...) "Instead of eating a diet of pure, wholesome foods coming directly from the land, Americans eat a diet of packaged, processed, and refined foods."

The Science of Refined Food Addiction "Most of our food supply has been processed and refined to point that it has become more a drug and less a nutrient."

Whole vs. Processed Foods  "Refined foods are turning us into an overweight, sick people."

 

Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

After the Diet.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

So, I lasted until the morning of the 6th day. A couple of things conspired against me. The first was that I lost too much weight too fast. The second thing was Xmas parties and dinners. Man, I feasted two nights ago on the evening of Day 6 (after I had already shamefully quit the CSD...)

As expected, there was a bit of a rebound effect after going off the CSD. I am aware of it and am going to try to keep my weight around the 210 mark now. I appreicate the Cabbage Soup Diet's role in enabling me to permanently break through the 215 mark, a place I languished in for many weeks...

December 09 - 217.5 lbs. December 10 - 215.5 lbs. December 11 - 217 lbs. December 12 - 217.5 lbs. December 13 - 217 lbs. December 14 - 215.5 lbs.	Before the Diet
December 15 - 217 lbs. December 16 - 212 lbs. December 17 - 211 lbs. December 18 - 208.5 lbs. December 19 - 205.5 lbs. December 20 - 208.5 lbs.	Cabbage Soup Diet
December 21 - 210 lbs. December 22 - 209.5 lbs. December 23 - 211 lbs. December 24 - 211 lbs. December 25 - 210.5 lbs. December 26 - 210.5 lbs.	After the Diet

 

Cabbage Soup Diet - 5

Day 5.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

I should take a moment here to tell you a little bit about myself. I am a 6 foot 4 inch tall, super-handsome and über-masculine 43-year-old male. Seven months ago, I tipped the scales at 271 pounds - I decided that enough was enough, there was no use in denying it, for the first time in my life I would have to diet and exercise. I picked as my goal the weight I was at when I met my wife 11 years earlier - 232 pounds. I wanted to fit into my fancy and frilly powder-blue wedding tux one more time! So I went on the Cabbage Soup Diet in order to kick-start the whole process and I lost 9.5 pounds in 6 days. Encouraged by this, I continued with a sensible diet and some pretty frequent and intensive exercising until I hit my goal weight a little over 3 months later. I looked and felt great (and the tux was loose on me!) but I wanted to see if losing a few more pounds would be even better for me because according to my BMI, a guy my height should be no more than 204 pounds.

Over the next few months, using the same "secret" formula of sensible eating and moderate exercise, I continued to gently move down, stopping at 225 and again at 215, looking and feeling better and better each time. But I still had a little belly and 204 pounds was calling out to me: "Stephan! Steeeeppphannnn!" With effort, I ignored the call until last week. I had plateaued at 215, and could feel myself creeping upwards again. I didn't want to pull any further away from 204 now that I was so close, so I decided to do the Cabbage Soup Diet just one more time.

This morning I looked in the mirror and I think I'm actually getting a little gaunt! Awesome! My stomach is almost completely flat, I can't even push it out that far. To tell you the truth, 204 might just be a little low for me, but at least I know that fact now and I also have the luxury of putting back on a few pounds if necessary. Can't wait for the morning of day 8!

Yesterday I ate little, but I had lots of *ahem* liquids. I had one bowl of cabbage soup, five bananas, one and a half litres of skim milk, two black coffees, a bunch of water and tea, two beers, a Grand Marnier, a straight up shot of the best whiskey on the planet, and a Hoppe's Own Special 6oz Manhattan.

I am feeling a little weak, and I did have a couple of dizzy spells yesterday but nothing worrying. I worked out yesterday for the first time in a week and had a fantastic session. I'm also a little irritable but that happens even when I don't diet...

Today I can have between 10 and 20 ounces of beef (so for me that means - twenty ounces of beef,) 6 tomatoes, and the soup. The bloody soup.

December 15 - 217 lbs.
December 16 - 212 lbs.
December 17 - 211 lbs.
December 18 - 208.5 lbs.
December 19 - 205.5 lbs.

Oooh, that's getting a little scary. 12 pounds in 5 days? If I lose anything between today and tomorrow, I may just have to stop.

Cabbage Soup Diet - 4

Day Four.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

Yesterday (Day 3) was the hardest day yet. We're in a bit of a cold snap here and I didn't feel like putting my car through minus 15 degree starts to go to the store for fruit, so all I ended up eating for the entire day was some rutabaga/carrot mash, a little sweet potato, a big bowl of cold raw veg, a few apples, and one bowl of that evil soup. Plus tons of water and herbal tea...ummm if I had to guess, I'd say I drank about 3 litres of water and tea. My favourite tea is Country Peach Passion by Celestial Seasonings.

Oh and I ate one other thing. A while ago, my daughter was having a sleepover and I thought it would be funny to walk up to her in front of her friends and embarass her with a baby spoon and a jar of baby food and say something like: "OK, honey, it's time for your usual snack!" So I bought a jar of baby food and did the joke and Elle rolled her eyes at her like totally square dad (like totally L7 man!) and we had this baby food sitting around in the cupboard after that. So yesterday I spotted it while I was looking longingly through my food cupboards at all the food I cannot have. It was "Mixed Fruit" and I checked the ingredients and Yay! it actually had nothing but fruit in it! Apples, Pear, Apricot, and Pineapple. It was offically an "allowed" food today! And it turned out to be 100 calories, 4.5 ounces of pure heaven. I'm sure that's partially because I'm starving to death, but honestly I was blown away at how good it tasted. I found myself wondering how you could use this baby food in baking, I mean it tasted just like a fruit compote. It was very sweet, probably because the pineapple juice was concentrated...I think it only cost me 59 cents which makes it a better value than an actual apple...I could go on and on but now I am wondering how I can incorporate baby food into my new lifestyle and it will be all I can do not to buy 30 jars of this stuff when I go to the store today to buy bananas and milk...

Ok, so for today I can have up to 8 bananas, unlimited amounts of skim milk and unlimited cabbage soup which for me means exactly one bowl of cabbage soup. I love bananas and skim milk so it should be an interesting day.

This morning's scale reading exceeded my wildest expectations. It makes the lack of energy and the misery of yesterday totally worth it!

December 15 - 217 lbs.
December 16 - 212 lbs.
December 17 - 211 lbs.
December 18 - 208.5 lbs.

 

Cabbage Soup Diet - 3

Day Three.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

Yesterday was definitely tougher than Day 1. Eating vegetables for breakfast was not the greatest and I can't believe I am already sick of the soup. I only managed to choke down two bowls yesterday. But like I said before, it's mostly mind over matter and this morning's scale reading shows another pound lost. If I can just make it to 208 or 209 by the end of day six then I will consider the whole thing a complete success.

Today, I can have unlimited soup and unlimited vegetables but no potatoes, beans, peas, or corn. I can also have unlimited fruit except for bananas. Thank Sun for that. It means I can have a couple of apples for breakfast instead of sweet potatoes. I don't know why the order of what you eat from day to day is the way it is - I suspect that a lot of it has to do with the fact that people like to have rigid formulas to follow. The more inflexible the rules, the less likely people are to stray from them. Because I can't see any reason to force vegetables one day and fruit the next except for perhaps to "break the sweet tooth." I have an evil sweet tooth. I can take or leave chips and pretzels, but I have a hard time walking away from anything with sugar in it. When I was a kid I was putting white sugar on my Kraft Dinner when other kids were lathering on the ketchup (which is also almost pure sugar, but that's for another day...) I am ashamed to say that I STILL sometimes put sugar on my KD. So the first time I did the Cabbage Soup Diet I was surprised to notice my sweet tooth (and my starch tooth for that matter) kind of "fall out." Like I said before, I think the Cabbage Soup Diet is a great kick-start to a longer-term lifestyle change.

I also wonder: why so much cabbage? Maybe there is something special in cabbage beside whatever it is that gives you the explosive gas.

Me at work: Hey, everybody, I'm on the Cabbage Soup Diet!

Everybody else at work: Oh, we know...

December 15 - 217 lbs.
December 16 - 212 lbs.
December 17 - 211 lbs.

 

Cabbage Soup Diet - 2

Day Two.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

Today I start Day 2 of the Cabbage Soup Diet. I won't say that Day 1 was particularly difficult but it was no walk in the park either. Though I was "hungry" at times throughout the day yesterday, I feel that for North Americans hunger is more a state of mind than an actual physiological condition. Most have us have never experienced real hunger or else it's been so long that we've completely lost touch with what true hunger feels like. When I was hungry yesterday, I simply tried to put it out of my mind because hell, this whole thing lasts only 7 days anyway.

For a couple of reasons, I didn't eat all that much yesterday. Something like 4 or 5 apples, 4 clementines, a pear, and three big bowls of my cabbage soup, plus about 1.5 litres of water, 2 black coffees and maybe three herbal teas. One reason I didn't eat a lot was there's not a lot of fruit I felt like eating yesterday. Bananas are my favourite fruit but yesterday they were off limits. And I didn't feel like spending money on blueberries and raspberries so I just stuck with what we had in the house. The second reason I didn't eat a lot was that I guess I am still sick of cabbage soup from the first time I did this diet. I mean, this recipe (with the Lipton Soup) is FAR superior to the original recipe I ate in May, but just the smell of it this time around kind of killed my appetite. Whatever, I still choked down three bowls. It's all short-term pain for long-term gain.

So, this morning I got the scale and whoa! - 212 lbs.! A 5 pound drop in one day! Now, I am fully aware of the realities of this reading. There is no way I could have lost that much in 24 hours, but to paraphrase the Hacker's Diet: "the amount of solids passing through your body in a given day is positively dwarfed by the water that moves through - almost 12 pounds of water moves in and out of your body each day." That explains much of my daily variance in weight. That, and the fact that it turns out that the weight of a live human body is a notoriously difficult thing for a home scale to measure. Apparently, the fact that we move, wiggle, and sway while on the scale, coupled with the fact that the scale may not be on a level or rigid surface, means that on even a good home scale the weight readings can be off by as much as three pounds plus or minus. So all that said, I could have lost 2 pounds of water yesterday (due to my markedly reduced salt intake) plus there could have been a 3 pounds scale error. Whatever! 212 is still 212. That's a powerful motivator for me as I move into Day 2.

Today, I can have unlimited soup and unlimited vegetables including potatoes, but no beans, peas, or corn. No fruit. This will be an easier day for me than yesterday was because I like most vegetables. As you can see from the picture, today I plan on eating 1 to 3 bowls of the soup, plus I happen to have a carrot and rutabaga mash, some sweet potato, some raw celery and carrot and cauli and and broc, plus some barbecued eggplant. (I'm trying to stay on the complex side of the carbohydrates as much as possible.) Can't wait to see what scale reading tomorrow brings!

December 15 - 217 lbs.
December 16 - 212 lbs.

 

Cabbage Soup Diet - 1

Day One.

Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 1
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 2
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 3
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 4
Cabbage Soup Diet - Day 5
Cabbage Soup Diet - 6 (Last Day)
Cabbage Soup Diet - Post Diet

My ultimate weight goal is 204 lbs. which is the absolute most I can weigh and not have a BMI reading of "overweight", but despite my moderate intentions over the last couple of months, here I am today at 217 lbs. up from an all-time low of 213 lbs. from about a week ago. I know that the fluctuation is mostly water and salt, but I weigh myself every day and I can see that I'm definitely trending upwards. I was going to wait until spring before losing my last 10 pounds for good but I've got nothing going on these days, so I thought I'd just do the Cabbage Soup Diet again and knock the pounds off a little early. I say "again" because when I started dieting back in May, I led off with this very same 7-day diet. It was tough to follow but I considered it a great kick-start to my overall lifestyle change.

So, last night I chopped up an ungoldy amount of vegetables into a stock pot and made my soup. This time I chose the Lipton Onion Soup version of the soup, hoping it will be a little more palatable than the original recipe was, and now here I am on Day 1.

Today, I can have unlimited soup and unlimited fruit, but no bananas. I will also drink my usual two black coffees and a bunch of glasses of water. I am also going to continue taking my vitamin supplements, but I will skip the Vegegreens (because it's a total scam. I'm just finishing the container.) and skip the OJ...

And I'll post my weight each day for seven days here:

December 15 - 217 lbs.

 

Don't Watch This!

I warned you.

Schadenfreude!

So what. You're all thinking it.

 

This is from 344pounds.com, which is a guy who went from disgustingly obese to almost normal and now thinks that his experience is unique and that he's got some divine knowledge he's going to share with the world. I've got two inches and 20 years on him and I still weigh less than he does...though technically both of us are still sadly out of shape...

I mean, if he were some exceptional physical specimen then I could see the reason for all of the self-congratulation, but he isn't even average yet! And since when did being average become an accomplishment?

I use this site to remind me that though I've lost a lot of weight, I shouldn't let it go to my head because all I've done is get back into the physical shape I should have been in all along...

Muscle Tone

I weep for the future.

One of the sites I visit daily is the Shorpy Historic Photo Archive, which is nothing but hi-res old photos. I like to pick whatever is on offer that day, view it in original size and wonder what it must have been like to live back then. I can honestly stare at a photo for a half an hour, poring over every detail and just wondering...

One of my favourite photo genres are street scenes because there is just so much to see. You can see the people walking on the sidewalks, the fashions of the day, the storefronts, the cars, and sometimes even the sewage running along the gutters.

I also like pictures of employees, often shockingly young kids, standing outside of mills. Man, it is very moving looking at the hardened faces of children barely 6 years old!

Today's picture was of young guys in the water. Maybe a summer camp? What struck me was how lean and muscular all of the guys were. No obesity here. All had well-developed arms and legs. You can bet that in 1922 the diet was simple yet robust because processed crap hadn't been invented yet. These young guys are the picture of health. You can bet the water was clean too. (But I won't even begin to theorize why the big guy is tied up on the platform...)

I wonder if I went down to the local YMCA and snapped a similar picture, if after the police were done processing me and I got out of jail, how similar would the body types of the kids in my picture be to the kids in this one?

Daily Diet Update

...or "Hupdate" as they say in Quebec...

This morning I weighed in at a new low - 213.5 lbs. The last time I weighed this little there was still a Czechoslovakia, Kim Campbell was Prime Minister of Canada, and Whitney Houston was at the top of the charts. I was surprised to see I had dropped so low because I thought I was adhering to my "dietary maintenance mode." But a lot of water moved through me yesterday, maybe that is the reason. Still, this is a good opportunity to examine my daily diet by looking at what I ate and drank yesterday:

6AM: One scoop of VegeGreens (equivalent to 12 servings of vegetables!) in 6oz of Bolthouse "Green Goodness" juice. I'll tell you that juice is like a liquid version of the VegeGreens powder so I figure I'm getting a double-dose. It's super thick going down. Not a bad sensation, but not great either. Also two Progressives "Prostate Armour" multi-vitamins, and (now I've added) one Ginkgo-Biloba tablet, one teaspoon of Omega-3 fish oil; two black coffees.

8:00AM: 4 oz of "hi-fat" Astro Balkan style yogurt with a handful of dried raisins, another of craisins, some whole almonds, and a little brown sugar.

9:30AM: An apple, and an herbal tea (Apple-Mango I think.) A wedge of home-made pan-baked cornbread leftover from the weekend. I'm putting the recipe up here because man, it turned out pretty awesome.

12:00PM: A salad with Italian dressing, a container of fruit from the local grocery deli - strawberries and kiwi, a scoop of protein whey powder in 8oz. of water, plus another 500 ml of water, and three fig newtons. I find I need to be careful here and eat lunch slowly because I get full faster now and I find that if I eat too fast I get over-full and feel bloated for the rest of the day...Another Ginkgo-Biloba.

1:00PM: a container of fresh pineapple chunks I brought from home.

4:00PM: Got home feeling really hungry, and I think I see why now. It's because I missed my 2:30PM snack. So I ended up dangerously grazing - a few slices of genoa salami, a few dates, a handful wasabi peas, a beer. This type of eating and drinkng can quickly get out of hand, so I try to avoid it.

6:00PM: Patti made a terrific ground beef, rice, and cabbage thing. Out of respect for my need for a smaller dinner than lunch, she gave me a nice and small portion. I dumped some Tabasco on it and devoured it. It was so good, I had a hard time refusing seconds, but I will get to have it again today for lunch.. Yay! I also had a large glass of water. And one more Progressive multi-vitamin, two garlic pills, and a magnesium pill, and my third (and last for the day) Gingko-Biloba.

8:00PM: It was not a workout day today which was good because I was feeling slighlty worn out from working out. I had two herbal teas.

12:00AM: The dreaded insomnia. After lying in bed for an hour trying to fall asleep, I got up and made myself a chamomille tea. I swear, there is something to drinking chamomille if you can't sleep...I ended up fast asleep by 1AM.

I must have gotten up three times throughout the night to pee, which is part of aging I guess and also from my unusually high liquid intake for the day. I weighed myself at my usual time this morning around 5:30AM and came in at the aforementioned 213.5. Today, I will try to make sure to have something between 2:30PM and 3PM.

Satisfying Daily Dietary Needs

Wow, upon review I think my diet has gotten pretty darn good lately!

As you know, I am currently in "weight maintenance" mode, trying to hover around the 215 pound mark over the winter with plans to possibly drop another 5 pounds come spring when I can get the bicycle back out and the weight loss comes more easily.

For daily food intake, I find that it's more difficult to achieve balance when I am taking in almost a third less calories per day than I was historically. I have to be careful about my food selections because I have first hand experience as to what happen when you miss on some basic element of nutrition - hair loss, fatugue, depression are all consequences of ignoring my need for a well-balanced diet each and every day. At least watching my diet this closely means I can fall off the wagon on occasion (mostly by boozing it up with friends) without suffering any ill effects. Here's my daily diet regimen as of November 10th.

6AM: One scoop of VegeGreens (equivalent to 12 servings of vegetables!) in 8oz of orange juice; two Progressives "Prostate Armour" multi-vitamins with no iron and tons of B; one teaspoon of Omega-3 fish oil; one black coffee, plus one more black coffee with a teaspoon of Organic Cocoa Powder (brain stimluating)

8:30AM: 4 oz of "hi-fat" home-made yogurt with a handful of dried fruit and nuts. (I often alternate the yogurt with oatmeal, weetabix, raisin bran, etc. And often I substitute dal mix for fruit, and seeds for nuts - for variety.)

10:30AM: One scoop of protein whey powder in 8oz. of water (25 grams of protein) plus an apple.

12 Noon: A normal lunch entree, usually leftovers from the previous nights dinner. This is my biggest meal of the day. I try to keep the simple carbs down and ensure that all fats present are natural. I also try to make sure there is some vegetable present. Lunch is always accompanied with at least 500 ml of water, plus a couple of pieces of various fruit. And If I am going to satisfy my sweet tooth, I do it now.

2:30PM: Another scoop of protein whey powder in 8oz. of water.

5:30PM: A normal family dinner like pizza or meat- potato and veg, stew with bread, etc. I keep the portion size smaller than it was at lunch. I accompany the meal with lots of water. (> 500ml) I skip dessert. I take one more Progressive multi-vitamin.

8:00PM: If it is a workout day, I have a third scoop of protein whey powder in 8oz. of water immediately post-workout, otherwise I defer it until bedtime, but I often forget at bedtime. Workout day or not, I always have a decaffeinated herbal tea, but lately I have been trying green tea (matcha tea actually. It's supposed to be a brain stimulant but it's super expensive) and snack on a handful of wasabi peas, or dark chocolate or something else small - maybe 2oz. max.

This diet has come gradually to me over the last six months. Upon review, I've decided that I am hitting everything pretty well! If I remember to add a glass of water here and there, then I can't really see see any place for imrprovement. I think that with rare exceptions I have pretty well trained myself not to eat or even desire to eat outside of this plan. I can tell you with authority that I now have excellent energy levels in the morning, and am able to maintain them pretty well throughout the day.

I do remember what I donut tastes like though. I kind of miss them...

Protein Problems

It's tough getting the required amount of protein every day.

This is what I ate on September 28, 2009. Granted I'm new to this so many of my food choices weren't the best for upping my protein, but man! that's a lot of food! I felt really full and bloated all day. I don't know if I can keep up that kind of food volume for any period of time.

I read online somewhere that protein is so ubiquitous in the North American diet that there is no way the average person can have a protein deficit just by eating what they eat regularly.

That's just bull as far as I'm concerned.

I did not lose weight that rapidly...

...but rapidly enough that I started losing my hair!

Since May 12, I've lost 55 pounds. That's 138 days or just about 20 weeks. That works out to just 2.75 pounds per week. Hardly revolutionary. Seems like a nice rate of weight loss to me. If I go further and remove my first and last week of dieting from this equation (because I've always been bothered that the scale shows I lost 8.5 pounds in the first week - how is that even possible?) then I've gone from 263 to 223, which is 2.2 pounds per week. And I do believe that is the perfect healthy level of weight loss advocated by diet experts.

But I have noticed (and others have noticed too) that I have lost a lot of hair in the last 8 weeks. After panicking for a while, I investigated and discovered that I am not getting enought protein in my diet, especially since I am working out pretty intensively several times per week now. Related to this - I didn't realize it right away but in addition to the weight loss I have also been experiencing some muscle catabolism. I've been working out harder and actually losing muscle; my body is burning the muscle since I'm not getting anough protein. It's a vicious circle really because I responded to the muscle loss by working out even harder without adjusting my diet to cope. Other indicators of protein deficiency that I didn't see at the time but are plain to me now are that my knees suddenly started making crunchy sounds after a hard workout, as well as generalized fatigue all of the time. Plus I haven't made any real training gains in several weeks, especially with my push ups.

Initially, the cornerstone of my diet plan was that everything I eat was to be all natural. I wasn't going to take any supplements. But I have realized that this is simply impossible. The general consensus is that a person needs 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. So for me, I need greater than 200 grams of protein per day. Luckily, I have been tracking my calories eaten per day and I can see that I have been lucky if I eat 80 g of protein per day, despite the fact that I have doubled my intake of fish, sardines, and red meat.

So now I have added three scoops per day of whey protein to my diet (one of those scoops immediately post-workout,) as well as a big, fat, stinky, multivitamin three times per day, plus a teaspoon of Norwegian fish oil once per day. It's been only two days so far, but the difference has already been amazing! I'm already feeling such a boost in energy that I know I'm on the right track.

I'm really looking forward to the return of the lost hair too.

DIY Yogurt

Make your own yogurt at home in just 20 minutes

Lately, I've been making my own yogurt. Over the last couple of weeks I've made a couple of batches and I may just never go back to store bought yogurt ever again. Home-made yogurt tastes amazing, is fast and easy to make, and is really cheap! - less than a third of the cost of store bought yogurt.

Here is the equipment I use:

• Pot
• Measuring cup
• Candy thermometer
• 1 quart/liter mason jar plus cap and ring
• tea towel
• 2 rubber bands

Here are the ingredients:

• milk
• 2 tablespoons or so of yogurt from your last batch.

It goes without saying that everything should be clean. To me, clean is a relative term. Washed in soapy water is clean enough for me. I don't boil containers in advance or run them through the dishwasher. If a pot or jar has been washed and put away into the cupboard, then it's clean. Here's how I do it.   ...read more...

 

OK, here's the pomposity.

You didn't ask for it, so here it is...

How I lost more than 40 pounds in 15 weeks.

• I followed a fad diet - For the first 6 days, I followed the cabbage soup diet. Strictly. It was a great way to kick-start things and break my sweet-tooth/starch-tooth. (By day 6, I was pretty sick of cabbage though.)
• I calculated - 1 pound equals 3500 calories therefore to lose 2 pounds per week I needed to cut 1000 calories per day from my diet. Using the Interweb, I calculated how much a sedentary person my size needs for "maintenance" calories in a day, and from that deducted 1000 calories so I could achieve that magical 2lbs. of lost weight per week. Instead of eating again calories spent during exercise, I treated that as bonus weight loss.
• I ate no "processed foods" - nothing with "enriched" in the title. Almost no breads, and certainly no white bread, cookies, chips, pastries or baked treats. Nothing with "high-fructose" in the ingredient list. Nothing with aspartame. As little white sugar as possible.   ...read more...

 

Celebrate good times, come on!

(Let's celebrate)

Back in early May I weighed 271.5 lbs. For me, that's pretty heavy so I set a goal to lose 36.5 lbs. by Labour day. Getting down to 235 lbs. would bring me close to the weight I was when I started seeing Patti 10 years or so ago. Well, this morning I surpassed my goal when I weighed in at 233.5!

Rather than pompously detail all of the lifestyle changes I used to lose the weight, I thought I would take a moment instead to thank Patti, Pat, Vlad, my Dad, my kids, Dave, Sherry, and Alastair for being patient with me over the last three months as I bored them daily with the minutiae of my progresses (or lack thereof.)

To celebrate, Patti and I are going to go to a Chinese Buffet Restaurant on Friday where I will positively hurt myself. I will not stop eating until I have stretch marks. Then I will reset the goal and head for a final weight of 225 lbs. by Thanksgiving.