The Weekly Male Stop (5/3/13 - 5/9/13)

KevinS62

Hey fellas,

Looks like we need to kick off a new week. Unfortunately I wasn't in the mood to start us off yesterday. I seem to have been in a rut. Call it a plateau if you want. Two weeks ago I posted a huge (unexpected) loss, but 4 of my last 5 weigh-in just haven't been as good as I wanted. The last five weeks: -0.2, -1.6, -4.8 +1.2, -0.4. :grumble:

I'm a bit frustrated, but not giving up. I'm in on the monthly challenge to exercise more this month and to record an 8 lb loss. I want to see 195 by the end of May.

SW - 247
CW - 202.6
GW - 180-ish

-Kevin

KevinS62

Of (positive) note: I have taken a few measurements over my 4 months in the program and have lost 10 inches of belly fat :bigsmile: :

1/7/13 - Waist 49.5, Chest 43, Neck 18, Bicep 16
5/4/13 - Waist 39, Chest 43, Neck 17, Bicep 15

I'll go out on a limb and say inches I lost at the neck and bicep was likely fat as well. However, I wouldn't mind seeing both go in the other direction, along with the chest. I need to start using the weights more.

cordianet

I've been up and down a bit as well lately, but I know why and was not concerned. As of this morning, I'm down to 224.4, my lowest weight in probably 10 years. Last week i was at 227, and the week before I was at 226. I was up last week, because I was retaining fluid due to a pretty hard week exercise-wise. That's pretty typical so I expected it. The cool thing is, my % body fat has dropped even faster than my weight, indicating I may be seeing some actual muscle gain.

That's one reason why, as I continue to lose, I'll be UPPING my calorie intake, instead of lowering it. To me, slow loss is perfectly fine, if I can keep or even gain some muscle mass. Based on my calculations, at one point, I had lost almost 7% of my muscle mass (when I was eating too little). Now that I'm eating more, I'm retaining my muscle mass and have even reversed the trend somewhat so that now I'm only down about 5% muscle mass overall. I'm hopeful that I can get that back over the next 6 months or so.

Enough on me... Kevin, personally, I really think you're eating too little. I'm only a little taller than you and I'm eating 2000 base calories before exercise. If you're concerned about a plateau, the best thing you could to is get your RMR tested so you KNOW how many calories you should be eating, instead of just guessing. I also highly recommend tracking your % body fat and % lean mass. The one thing I see all the time on here is people that are losing "weight", but a high percentage of that weight is muscle. I hope you agree, but that's the WRONG kind of weight to lose! The best way to avoid losing muscle mass is avoiding the large deficits and doing regular strength training.

daleweideman

Of (positive) note: I have taken a few measurements over my 4 months in the program and have lost 10 inches of belly fat :bigsmile: :

1/7/13 - Waist 49.5, Chest 43, Neck 18, Bicep 16
5/4/13 - Waist 39, Chest 43, Neck 17, Bicep 15

I'll go out on a limb and say inches I lost at the neck and bicep was likely fat as well. However, I wouldn't mind seeing both go in the other direction, along with the chest. I need to start using the weights more.

Sweet. I remember your old pic and you are looking so much "badder" now. Hang in there. I bet you'll hit that 195 and then, being in the "ones" will be a great accomplishment.

daleweideman

Challenging week -- after a good drop last week, I wanted to double-down, and really cut down on the food and turned up the exercise - but at mid-week I was up! (Didn't record that). Hung in there, and ended up the week .8 down. Hopefully that was a blip of a plateau.

I *have* to get under 245 this month. Will be tough, but I am going to keep up the working out and eating clean. Heading to Hawaii next month and I want to down at least 25 by the time I go.

The weather is better so we all should be getting out and staying active. Let's really crank it up this month!

SW: 265
CW: 252
GW: 199

dad040859

Some food for thought (low carb kind)...ten years ago when my knees were younger, I took up running 5K's as a kind of fun thing to do with my wife. We never worried about best times or anything like that, mostly we just enjoyed finishing. Once I finished a few, I got the bright idea to train for the Chicago Marathon. I joined a group running for a local charity, which included a pro trainer.

One of the best pieces of advice he gave us was a mental thing; yeah, it's 26.2 miles. If you (as a novice) start running a marathon thinking "How am I ever going to run 26.2 miles" you will struggle at best. His advice was simple - there is a mile marker for each mile along the route. When the gun sounds, your ONLY goal is to get to mile marker #1. Once there, your only goal is to get to mile marker #2, and so on...you won't run every mile in the same amount of time (believe me!), but that last .2 miles is very cool.

I think it's kind of the same here; yes, we all have a goal weight, but if we focus on that, we may tend to grow impatient with our progress. We get discouraged. Personally, I'm going at this week by week; I've had some good weeks (fast miles) and not-so-good weeks (slower miles). As long as I'm staying with the program, the finish line will eventually appear.

By the way, I finished the marathon in '03 and again in '04, and a half-marathon in '07. My knees eventually gave out, and I got lazy, yada, yada, yada - I'm in a different race now.

thadius65

Great progress guys!

I have completed week 2 of my attempt to maintain. First week I increased intake and didn't work out as much and I hit the mark - zero gain. This second week I stretched it a bit farther. Went to Pittsburgh all day Friday. Had many beers, ate "normal" and went to Pens playoff game. Then we drove from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg for an all day Beer and gourmet food festival. Hit both pretty hard. I did work out twice each day as well as all this week. Was somewhat concerned with the weekly weigh in today, but..... Down a pound!

It is great to see the drop in size with clothes (like Kevin). I just went through all my old stuff and bought some new. Leaving for Aruba Sunday and will be gone for two weeks. I went from XXL to some L shirts. From 44 shorts to some 36 and some 38. My dress shirts went from 18.5 down to 17. Feeling good and doing all I can to stay here.

Good luck to all over the next two weeks. I will most likely return home "in the hole" and need to have a few weeks of focus to recover the weight. But oh well, that is why they call it vacation!

Later,

Ted

AllanMisner

It really sucks not being able to work out. I'm trying to keep my calories down, but it looks like I'm going to have to cut back even further until I can start exercising again. I put on a pound this week without ever going over my planned calories. I'm guessing my actual resting metabolism is lower than I thought.

kobrien65

Great job, Ted! Working on my May goal of 100 miles on the bike, and dropping below 200lbs. 49 miles in and 5.8 lbs to go.

KingOfTheBurke

Gentlemen,

Nice to see folks working hard on here, setting goals and persevering even when it's not that easy. Nice to see I'm not the only one who's experienced the paradox of eating more and losing more. Extra nice to see a couple of other Harley guys :-)

I had a challenging couple of weeks diet-wise due to spending 10 days in Hawaii. I managed to run on the beach every other day, which was amazing. I ate lots of fruit and fish, but drank more than I needed to. It was all a push, and when I got home I weighed .2 pounds more than when I left. Hard to ***** about that.

I love this group. You guys keep me going more than you know.

Dan