LEAN Team Tips

I would like to introduce you to Jim - our weight loss blogger! He will be letting us take a peak into his weight loss journey. Best of luck Jim! 3/4/2010

Today it started. Well, I guess it really started about week ago when I was offered the opportunity to work with nutritionist, Noreen Gallo. I'd had a nasty chest cold and was told that in order to get my Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) - which will serve as a baseline referencing caloric intake - I'd have to be able to breathe into a testing apparatus for 10 minutes without coughing. Anyhow, I'm better and Noreen came by this morning to administer the test.
In the interim between deciding to have a go with this and actually getting started, I did start to pay a little more attention to my diet -but definitely did seize on numerous opportunities to indulge before becoming accountable.
So, I'm accountable now ... and what an awakening it's been. I've snubbed my nose at any kind of eating/exercise discipline since ... wow, since I was in my early 20s. I'd always been active, and athletic and pretty lean and I even took a small bit of pride in how my body was still in good shape - in spite of my complete inattention to it.
To tell you the truth, it hasn't bothered me too much. I've had a good time in life so far not sweating the details and just eating and drinking what I felt like - with no thought to consequence. But, like anything that deviates from the optimal path, eventually it's going to catch up with you. And it has with me, and now I'm ready. In fact, I'm pretty excited.
From the RMR test with Noreen, I found out that for my weight (243lbs) and my height, 6'1", my RMR is around 2300 calories. This means that if I were to just sit on the couch all day with a clicker, I'd start losing weight if I ate less than that - and gain weight if I consumed more. That simple.
I'm tracking my dietary intake with CalorieKing - a really solid and intuitive calorie counter program for the Mac and PC . It makes it very easy to track calories, carbohydrate, fat, protein and fiber intake. The program has determined that for me to steadily and slowly lose weight, I need to max out at 1850 calories per day.
Today, on my first day of accountability, I went over the calorie budget by about 200 cals and I red-lined on fat intake as well. Rookie mistakes , I think, did me in. (Two roast beef sandwiches at lunch with half a plate of tortilla chips and then some Chinese chicken for dinner? You think?)
I'm logging my exercise separately in an excel spreadsheet - haven't started on any exercise routine yet but am pretty active with baseball and carpentry. Tonight, at informal High School baseball workouts, I caught close to 250 pitches . That's probably about 200 squat-thrusts over an hour and a half - and I worked up a really good sweat.
3/5 -
Used 765 cals out of my budget of 1085. Ate great too. Had a good breakfast (Mini-Wheats) - no lunch (woops) - and a baked potato, salad and cottage cheese for dinner. And, I snacked on a pack of Tastykake Tandy Takes and a bowl of popcorn.
Exercise - I'm helping my friend finish his basement exercise room - today we framed for about 6 hours and although I don't remember working up a sweat, we worked steady and hard.
3/6
Another good day with regard to caloric intake budget. Used 994 of my 1850 daily limit. A little surprised to find that I maxed out on fat at lunch. (Who knew a tuna sub with lettuce had so much?) A couple eggs and a small glass of OJ in the morning, the offending (but well worth it) tuna sub, a small bag of chips for lunch and a Coke Zero for lunch. A glass of OJ for dinner. (Woops? - but I really wasn't hungry). Framed my friend's basement pretty much all day. We worked hard and steady.
3/7
Today, I sat on my butt for no less than 8 hours evaluating Little Leaguers during our annual tryout. Then from there directly to the Windham Hitting Academy - where I pitched for two hours straight. Worked up a seriously good sweat.
For breakfast, I had a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (which my wife pointed out was really two bowls).
For lunch, the guys brought in pizzas - of which I had three pieces. With water. Dinner - I ate good food - and a lot of it (Baked potato, salad, cottage cheese, roast beef, and a ton of red grapes ... say, 25 or so?) and still came in right around budget for the day. Woohoo.
I couldn't have imagined even a couple years ago that paying attention to my diet would be enjoyable. It actually is - and I'm not going hungry at all.
It might be my imagination, but I'm telling you I'm feeling better already. And I have to say, what makes this even better is I'm not focusing on quick-fixes - my goals are longer term and sustainable. I've been big long enough - not in a huge hurry to dump it all at once.