6 Month Progress - 80lbs down - Partial Success

I still haven't hit my goal yet, but 80lbs in 6 months is still a milestone, and a good logical spot to post a progress success story.

So, like many of you I started out originally on MFP without too much of a foundation of knowledge in health and nutrition. I started out with just cutting calories and just eating salads. I wasn't all that happy honestly just doing that, so I decided to start educating myself on health and nutrition. Ultimately I took up health and nutrition as a hobby and it no longer really became as much work to me since it was now a hobby.

I started this change and self improvement obviously for many reasons. A lot of the reasoning has to do with just the warning signs I was seeing in myself. Before I started I was taking about 5 tums and a zantac before bed every single night or I would wake up in the middle of the night choking on stomach acid from acid reflux/GERD. I was having random pains in my gut area (in different areas so probably organ problems, dunno) and if they didn't stop happening I'm sure I would have had to go in to the doctor and start getting test after test and probably end up on a lot of medications which wouldn't have solved the problem, only mask it. I have a 4 year old daughter that I was honestly not sure if I was going to even be able to live long enough to watch her grow up. I just got married to my now wife and thought it was completely unfair to her that I give her a marriage to a guy who will probably make her a widow due to probably dieing early to a heartattack or something, and the list could go on. I want to be able to live a long and happy life watching my children grow up and I hope to be around for potential grandchildren from any son I have. (Daughters aren't allowed to date, so no grandchildren there....... haha ok ok kidding!) I also just found out a few weeks ago that my wife is pregnant, so I have another child to make sure I'm around for! ^.^ On top of just being around for my family I also want to be a good influence on my children to start, and maintain a healthy lifestyle for the rest of their lives so they don't need to go through the same issues I've gone through.

Here are some numbers for the people who are numbers people. I've had lab work done, and kept track of my body fat % and the like.

June Today Total lost
Body Fat: Starting - 38.4% Current - 20.3% Lost - 18.1%

Cholesterol
Date: 02/10/2012 07/03/2013 11/27/2013
Overall Cholesterol: 177 141 148 <200 mg/dl
HDL: 31 32 37 > or = 40 mg/dl
LDL: 107 87 93 <130 mg/dl
VLDL: 38 22 17
Ratio: 5.6 4.4 3.9 < or = 5.0

Triglycerides: 02/10/2012 07/03/2013 11/27/2013
191 109 87


This is rather embarrassing, the photos I'm about to be posting. But this is important for me to do because it's part of my goal of no longer hiding from my problems and to get it out in the open.

I was too embarrassed at the beginning to take shirtless photos so the first before picture is with an undershirt of mine.


These shirtless are about 1 month in and 20lbs down from that first before pic.






This one is at 3 months wearing the same shirt as the very first pic.


As of today.






This pic is important because the shirt I'm wearing was a goal shirt I bought back in 2006. It's now loose on me. ^.^


For anyone who is wondering what I've been doing. I'm not following any one specific type of diet. I refuse to do that because I want to enjoy my time eating food. I love food, and refuse to cut anything out 100% that I enjoy. I've just gone ahead and decided to study health and nutrition, and get a better understanding of the biochemistry of how the body processes food and then do my own research and pick apart various diets, advice, and information online to make it fit my lifestyle and what I want to accomplish. I also have been utilizing my doctor and nutritionist to verify what I'm doing and my caloric goals. My doctor and nutritionist haven't necessarily put me on any specific diet, and they don't honestly have a lot to add onto what I've done on my own, but they at least verify what things I'm doing right and what could use some minor tweaking.

I've tended to avoid an excess and/or large amount of carbs as a general rule. I'm not going to stop myself from eating any carbs, and I typically have around 80-150 carbs a day. From my own experimentation on hunger, and what my nutritionist and doctor recommend I've found that a day too high in carbs (generally over 150g or so) I tend to be more hungry more frequently, and run into fatigue and mood swing issues. It's ironic because I brought this up to my nutritionist today, and she got me a little chart that she gives out to people when she tries to explain how carbs can affect things.

If you want me to compare what I do to a diet, I think the one that I most closely follow is the Paleo diet, except I still eat some carbs. Primarily though I focus on high fat, and high protein to keep me satisfied longer to help augment my intermittent fasting I do. I can usually now go around 16-24 hours without even being hungry.



Does this mean I'm saying you should never eat carbs? That all carbs are evil? Here's a few links to some of my recent days from my diary over the past couple weeks to help prove I don't always avoid carbs.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/beckerkra?date=2013-12-02

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/beckerkra?date=2013-11-28

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/beckerkra?date=2013-11-25


Other things I do. I intermittent fast, I use a nutri-bullet to make myself a micro-nutrient dense smoothies. I drink a TON of water, and unsweetened Green Tea is my flavored drink of choice.

Resources for information:
Green Tea
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=146

Specific information that intrigued me from the Green Tea is this:
"Promotes Fat Loss

Green tea not only promotes fat loss, but specifically, the loss of visceral fat—fat that accumulates in the tissues lining the abdominal cavity and surrounding the intestines (viscera) and internal organs. Unlike fat deposits on the hips and thighs (which result in the so-called "pear" body shape), visceral fat (which produces the "apple" body shape) is highly associated with increased risk for metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.

Green tea contains three major components that promote fat loss: catechins, caffeine and theanine. Studies suggest that green tea compounds promote fat loss by inhibiting both gastric and pancreatic lipase, the enzymes that digest triglycerides, and fatty acid synthetase, the enzyme responsible for synthesizing fatty acids into the form in which they can be stored in the body's adipose (fat) cells.

In a study published in the January 2004 issue of In Vivo in which mice were fed diets containing 2% green tea powder for 16 weeks, visceral fat decreased by 76.8% in those receiving green tea compared to the control group. Green tea also decreased blood levels of triglycerides (the chemical form in which most fats exist in the body).

A human study, published in the January 2005 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, confirms green tea's ability to not only reduce body fat, but damage to LDL cholesterol as well. After 12 weeks of drinking just one bottle of green tea each day, 38 normal-to-overweight men in Tokyo had a significantly lower body weight, BMI, waist circumference, body fat mass and amount of subcutaneous fat compared to men given a bottle of oolong tea each day.

After a 2 week diet run-in period, the men were divided into two groups, one of which drank a bottle of green tea containing 690 mg of catechins, while the other group drank a bottle of oolong tea containing 22 mg catechins. Not only did the men drinking green tea lose weight and fat, but the amount of their LDL cholesterol damaged by free radicals also dropped significantly. Since atherosclerotic plaques develop when cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is damaged or oxidized, green tea's ability to prevent these oxidation reactions may explain some of its protective effects against cardiovascular diseases. "

Intermittent Fasting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1fiGJxkFWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNTTY2zyrw

Since I'm somewhat following the Paleo style diet, I figured it might be useful to provide a video that goes into the bio-chemistry side of why a high protein, high fat diet will benefit better than high carb to help curb hunger and helps with my intermittent fasting. Although this video goes into a lot of what people consider Bro-Science, and it very geared toward guys, so I recommend just skipping straight to about 1 hour in and watching from there to go straight into the bio-chemistry. I'm blessed in that my wife is a microbiologist and so she was able to confirm this information for me to be true according to her knowledge as well. Again, I don't strictly follow any specific type of diet, but this video will explain why I do high protein/fat better than I can explain it myself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdJFbjWHEU


I'd like to put out a special thanks to all of my current MFP friends. You're all awesome, and I know I'm not very good at commenting on people's diary and things of the like, but yet you guys still comment on mine. You've all been awesome and helped me reach the success I have so far!