My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 12-17-2012

1.  This month’s report is a bit poor.

I gained two pounds on the scale and gained back the half an inch on my waist.

I am still over 2 pounds less than I was 7 months ago.  So, using the recumbent bike over the last month likely helped me gain less back.

In fact, given what happened in the last 4 weeks, the damage likely was far less than it would have been otherwise.

Before, on Thanksgiving, I did eat well though carefully and didn’t gain much. But for years, it was just that one day.

 This year though, we hosted Thanksgiving and wound up with leftovers too good to not have some of.  And, my wife baked pies and cakes all month too.

So, although the waist gain was irritating, the 2 pound scale gain was quite small compared to what I ate!  I did minimize it a bit.  But all of the food I did eat was extra – on top of my normal eating.  And, some of it had extra sugar or butter or even some refined grain flour.  (The pie crust and cake had only real and grass fed butter and no hydrogenated oils.  So that helped minimize the health damage.)

Clearly I have to do more to compensate each of the several months.

But I think that’s doable. 

(The holidays end in 8 or 9 days.  So I’ll be fighting less of a headwind of temptations from foods not that bad for health and that I really, really like.)

2.  My main effort during the next month will be to boost my minutes ridden each day at work on the recumbent bike. 

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been too lax at taking Every opportunity to use it and begin pedaling.

Today, I made a special effort to take 90% or more of the opportunities to do so.  So far today, it’s working.  I just need to sustain it.

I think I can soon sustain over 10 hours a week total each week and build up to over 15 hours a week by just being consistent every day in doing this.

That’s 2,000 to 3,000 calories a week.  I have been averaging a bit over 1600 calories a week.

So that added 800 to 900 calories a week has a shot at helping me lose a pound a month if I  succeed in doing it and keep doing it.

My goal is still to push past 3,000 calories a week. (2,000 + on the recumbent bike and 1,000 + in my at home exercises totaling 3,000 +) because the people who lost over 30 pounds and still are keeping it off average just a bit less than that, about 2950.  I need to average that much or more.

I’ve made it a week or two but need to average that or more week in and week out and do it almost every week.

3.  The other way I’m working to lose my belly fat is to build muscle.  And there I may have made some further progress. 

Although I’ve not yet added enough muscle to reduce my waist, my plan to build back to the using the slightly heavier dumbbells is working. 

I was able to do that last week with no extra pain all day after building back to it for 4 or 5 weeks after hurting my shoulders a bit.

I need to do more for my chest back and legs with heavier weight at the gym at least one day a week to really make progress.  Adding just a few pounds to these larger muscles will really help when I can get to it.  The extra growth hormone released will also help.

But what I can now do is back to working decently.

And, I’ve begun to plan the program I’ll have when I can take that time without harming my income.

I’m enthusiastic about how well I think it will work.

4.  I’ve found that when I get good results in my full monthly weigh in and measure session, it motivates me to keep doing what I have been. 

And, when I gain weight it motivates me to be more careful with how much I eat in the part of what I eat that varies.  It also motivates me to be sure to keep up the recumbent bike and at home exercises.

I finally decided to do just the easiest weigh in each Saturday morning in between my monthly full measurement sessions.

I already started that 3 weeks ago and think it may have helped me lose a pound from the middle of the month I might not have otherwise. 

Because it may give me a pound a month extra leverage to do, I plan to keep doing it.

Hopefully, it will help.

5.  I got access to some extra funds to try some of the promising fat loss supplements.

a) After trying Irvingia and Fucoxanthin for a month, I think they are likely not that effective beyond a placebo effect in some people.

The promise was that I’d lose from 4 to 8 pounds in that month.  Instead, I gained about the 2 pounds I should have gained. 

Had these two supplements worked as well as their PR, I’d have lost 2 to 6 pounds instead. 

Eating the actual wakame seaweed the Fucoxanthin comes from might work due to co-factors in the whole food and wakame being a nonstarchy and filling vegetable.  (I’ve actually found a restaurant that serves a good tasting wakame salad & eaten it several times.)

b) However, I got some news suggesting that green coffee bean extract may work.  So I’ll try that starting next week.  Even modest intake of sugars naturally in some foods causes insulin release; and insulin causes added fat deposits and less released fat.  The article I saw said that green coffee bean extract reduced that effect.

This means it may well help treat, prevent, or reverse insulin resistance too given a health OK diet.  For people with type 2 diabetes or near it that could be a good extra method to use.

If that less insulin released effect is real and the metabolism boost reported is real, I think taking green coffee bean extract may well help lose fat and prevent fat gain back.

So, I plan to try it starting a week from now.

(To be sure it doesn’t raise my blood pressure, I’ll take that each evening this week; and then do the same next week.)

c) Win or lose on the green coffee bean extract, next I plan to try a waist band found to cause fat loss specifically in the waist. Visible reductions of several inches were on their website.

Since I’ve lost from about 191 to 167 pounds overall on the scale but only a half inch or so on my waist, that sounds promising. 

It also sounded not possible without a believable triggering cause.

So I checked out their ingredients list. 

Much to my surprise, it actually might work and be safe to use!

(I want to try the green coffee bean extract first since it looks likely to work and be safe to use.

Clearly losing some of the 16 pounds overfat I am will help lose inches on my waist; and even the 6 pounds of that I am over my goal weight would help and possibly lose a full inch from my waist.)

What the waist band people have in their band product is a milder but ephedra like compound and two caffeine like compounds.  That combination does boost metabolism and has helped people lose fat.

But taking it by mouth overdrives your system and has caused some people harm. 

But this looks interesting.  Instead of flooding your whole body to remove fat from your waist (or for other people their thighs or hips or arms that are not a problem for me) this product only gets those ingredients where you have the extra fat you want to lose.

It may be an effective, less expensive, but safer way than liposuction to do this.

You overall get way less of these ingredients in your whole body; but the fat you want to leave gets the full dose.

(To be sure it doesn’t raise my blood pressure, I’ll take my blood pressure several evenings each week while I’m taking it..)

If my blood pressure stays the same or drops a bit and my waist measurement is two or more inches less, that would be interesting indeed.

And, it looks possible.

Just like the green coffee bean extract, whether it spikes my blood pressure or removes fat is an experimental question.

So over the next one to four months, I plan to try these two methods too.