My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 8-20-2012

A.  This month’s report is much better news in several parts.

1.  My biggest news is that the local man, Bryan Wassom, who created an exercise desk using a recumbent bicycle lost 18 pounds in 9 months and lost enough inches from his waist he had to have his clothes redone to fit.

When I was so enthusiastic about the health and fatloss benefits when I contacted him, he offered to give me one to beta test here in my office day job.  (He had used it and found it workable in his home office but had not yet had someone in a regular office use one.)

So, I’ve used the recumbent bike exercise desk now for two weeks as of last Friday. 

The less good news is that it is much harder to work in my office than it was.  My office is a bit too small to be a good fit for the exercise desk.  And, it is so much more exercise to do than the floor exerciser I got that I can operate sitting in a normal chair that I’m only able to use it a bit over an hour a day instead of the five or six hours I’d expected to use it.  (That will get better though.)

2.  The results are already beginning to look very good however!

By adding the use of the exercise desk even for what I was able to manage at first and only for half the month, instead of measuring the same as last time, I lost half a pound.  But the really big success is that I lost about 3/8 inch from my waist and half an inch from my chest and hips.

This means that the actual fat lost may have been closer to one and a half pounds in 2 weeks.  It did NOT come from muscle at least.  And, for the first time, I lost a bit more from my waist than from the rest of me.

(I was able to maintain all my food cutbacks and controls too during the month.)

Projections don’t always work of course. 

But this does potentially project to a pound off on the scale and three fourths of an inch off my waist by next month by using the exercise desk for 4 weeks instead of two.  

And the projections from there suggest that by four months from now, I’ll have lost a total of 4 pounds on the scale and three inches from my waist!

Plus, that may be conservative if I can gradually boost my time each day to even two hours a day or more as Bryan, the creator of the product, did.  (By the end of the 9 months, he was able to ride it for about four hours a day or even more sometimes.)

3.  I also discovered a way to increase my strength and muscle building efforts, see my post last Thursday, 8-16 where I describe it.  So far, it’s working for me and will enable me I think to add a few pounds of muscle right away – even BEFORE I can get to the gym once a week to use heavier weights too.

If this keeps up, I may be able to lose another half inch to inch off my waist by four months from now.

If I manage both those, I’ll lose 4 inches off my waist to go with the 3 eighths of an inch since last month.

That could mean that by Christmas I could finally stop looking fat due to my fat belly.  It might even mean my reflux disease would stop and I’d get a decent drop in my slightly high blood pressure.

B.  Last month I asked myself:

But what more do I need to do to add muscle and lose fat enough to restart losing a pound or so each month on the scale until I lose the then 7 pounds I was over my goal weight and 10 to 20 pounds more fat than that too off my belly?

I now have two answers to that I’m already doing that look so far as if they are working well!

The four strategies I’d come up with by last month are these:

The most important two are the two that I believe will make the most difference.  I’ll describe those two first.  The third one may help but my main motivation for adding it is to see how well the Weight Watchers people teach what I already know.  The fourth one I’ll try but don’t now have high expectations for it.

1. Adding more muscle is already working better due to my new exercise at work and my new method for my strength training at home.

Then, I still plan to add, once I get a bit more control over my schedule, to go to the gym one night a week for access to heavier weights which may help, particularly with adding muscle to my legs.

(Using a light moderate weight for two thirds of the way down squats every other week and for deadlifts every week will likely add at least 10 pounds to my legs, buttocks, and lower back muscles.)  (Doing heavier bench press and lat pulldowns in a similar style every other week with the deadlifts may also help.)

One set a week of two normal speed repetitions and then five slow speed both up and down repetitions with a light moderate weight will likely avoid hernias and knee problems using a heavier weight might cause.  But if I build up to what I think I’m still capable of, I think it will do the job.

I can’t do the 335 pounds for reps in the full squat or the 415 pounds in the deadlift that I once did in my twenties.  But if I can build up to two thirds squats with 275 and deadlifts with 315 for such slow repetitions I may regain a good bit of the muscle mass I had then.

Tim Ferris found that doing such intense exercise takes a week to recover from.  But that also means I can be effective for muscle building going once a week.  That’s far more doable than going two or three evenings a week.

If I even add 5 pounds of muscle, that may well burn enough extra calories to lose 15 pounds of fat and 10 pounds on the scale. 

And, I think that is likely doable.  I just need to get myself into a position where I can add it also.

2.  I’m already pedaling my exercise bike at my desk at work while I write this.  (I was just hoping to do so eventually when I wrote my report for last month.)

At worst, by using this most of each workday, I’ll burn enough calories to remove something like 10 pounds of fat and add perhaps 3 pounds of muscle. In fact, the early results suggest that I’ll do that even just pedaling it part of the day at first!

If I do these two things well, the worst case is that I’ll reach my goal weight, lose 6 and a half pounds on the scale, and lose likely at least 3 inches from my waist.

The best case is that I’ll be more muscular than now but 14 pounds lighter and 7 pounds LESS than my goal weight and will have lost all 6 inches of excess fat from my waist.

3)  In addition, because it may help me lose a pound or two of fat, and it WILL help me know who best to refer to Weight Watchers to, I plan to join the Weight Watchers online program at some point.  (I know enough that if I could make a weekly in person meeting one evening a week, I’d use it for the one day a week strength training instead.  But I may be able to try the online version soon.)

4.  If and only if I’ve got these first 3 things successfully in place while continuing to do the things I already am doing, I plan to try the two supplements that I posted on recently that seem to help people lose belly fat. 

Taking them may help; and losing an extra inch or more off my waist would be great!  But since they are a bit pricey, I think their effectiveness may be minimal, and KNOW the first two things work and the third one might add some extra results, those 3 are my priority.

C.  I’ll keep up the efforts I’m already making. 

I have now lost about 18 and a half pounds since I was at my fattest and before my first fat loss effort and now 10 and a half pounds this time that I have kept off.

I firmly intend to keep that fat off!  So I will keep up the things I do to keep it off!

PS:  I’ve not yet found an at your desk exerciser I can use at my current work that would NOT require a different desk at all and that would cost a third or a fifth of what the recumbent bike plus desk costs.

So, since I’ve not been able to find what I need and eventually want, I may have to find a company to make it.  (I know a design that will work and recently found out it wasn’t patentable even when it first was put into volume use.)

The version that for sure would retrofit to existing desks and be smooth enough to ensure you could use it and work without using it distracting you from work, might well be patentable however.

In addition to its proven fat loss benefits, I found out that having such an exerciser at work would improve my memory and mental sharpness on the days I used it!  I posted that news several weeks ago.

The recumbent bike is clearly better for fat loss than the exerciser I have in mind; but far fewer people can use it.  And, once I have lost the fat, I hope this easier to use version that gives me back my desk space access will keep it off.

If not, I hope to have a bigger office and a personal assistant to do the things for me that are harder to do from the recumbent bike now.