My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 3-17-2014

This report is another mixed review.

Since last month, I was under more extra stress AND had a last minute birthday present I likely should have re-gifted or tossed after just one taste that I ate all of instead.   (It was a small bag of milk chocolate with almonds.)

So, I gained a second pound since two months ago and my waist went up about a quarter of an inch.

 Now I’m at FIVE and a half pounds over my goal weight.  And most of the 12 pounds I gained since I was 6 and a half pounds under my goal weight has been fat.  I can tell when I look in the mirror.  

So I do still need to add muscle and reduce fat enough to remove 12 to 20 pounds of fat.

(There is one other bit of good news.  While other men my age typically gain a pound or more each year, my efforts HAVE resulting in my weight this year being almost exactly the same as it was last year at this time.)

A.  The adding muscle section is next. 

More progress on the added muscle side is beginning to happen!  

(And, I have another plan to make more progress on the eating to lose fat side.

I'll cover my food upgrade plan after my good news on exercise.)

1.  My exercise program IS still getting better!  

I used the wrist weights to begin to force progress at home on my dumbbell exercises and it is working so far.  I've been able to work enough harder to make my muscles feel better exercised.  And, my ability with the 2 pound heavier dumbbells has managed to return to what I was able to do before without them.

So, I have gotten stronger.  And, I’ll soon be able to jump to the next heavier dumbbell.

After that, I can add the wrist weights to that dumbbell.

At that point I’ll be ready to get a new dumbbell 10 pounds heavier than the one I was using.  Neat!

Some sets on some sessions are better.  Often I’ll have a better set followed by a just OK set that day and a less good, “recovery” set the following week.

This is at home.

At my The Perfect Workout sessions, I am less able to increase the weight when I think it’s justified.  But I tend to beat my previous time or do just a bit less well so my down sessions are less severe to equal what I did before than what happens at home. 

It tends to vary where if I work really hard on a set and do better.  I tend to not do that well on the set following.  So in their case, it’s nice they vary the order of the exercises.

So, the likely results I’m headed for are more promising!  

After being stuck at 25 pound weights on my key dumbbell exercises for years, I'm now at 32 pounds on arms and about to go to 37 pounds on calves.  

I wrote that last month or the month before.  I’m now about to be able to go to 35 pounds for arms and could use a 40 pound dumbbell for calves.

Once I get to 52 pounds for arms and 62 pounds for calves and get that much stronger at my machine exercises at The Perfect Workout, I'll add at least 5 pounds of muscle.  And, I've read that will reduce my fat by 15 pounds.  That would begin to do it as I'd lose 10 pounds on the scale.  And, my waist will be at least an inch or two smaller.

Even adding 1 & a half pounds of muscle will lose 4 & a half pounds of fat and 3 pounds on the scale.  That will cut my waist by half  an inch to an inch I think.

2.  In addition, my shoulder exercises have worked well enough that my left shoulder is beginning to heal and my right shoulder is beginning to heal too.  Plus, I'm now finally beginning to make progress on my jump rope without making my shoulders worse.

RECENT NEWS:  My shoulders have been slowed by the minor injuries from my jump rope sessions.  One of the other trainers other than the one who trains me  at The Perfect Workout noted that I was not keeping my elbows in tight at my sides when I described and modeled my efforts  which helped cause excessive use of my shoulders in starting and doing the jumps. 

It DID help but mostly for my left shoulder which healed.  But I was still terrible at it and my right shoulder has continued to stay somewhat injured and weaker.

Plus I think I needed to do more interval cardio work. 

So until my right shoulder is better and I can get coaching and maybe a better jump rope, I’ve already started jumping without the rope for same amount of jumps and time.  That way I can add more time and burn more calories and get fitter without it messing up my right shoulder.

3.  I’ve also now used 35 pounds in one hand and 34 pounds in the other (both 2 lb wrist weight on that hand plus the 30 pound dumbbell in my at home superslow full squats.

That way the hard fight with holding the fifty pound dumbbell in front of me doesn’t keep me from using more weight that my legs are more than strong enough to lift.

The other way to use more weight at home is using a backpack for added dumbbells or plates.  I still plan to find a way to get to a gym once or twice a month.

I've still not had time to add the yoga sessions I'd hoped.  But I did at least make a starting effort last month.  

B.  My food results and upgrade plan:

1.  Last month I again followed Dr Perlmutter's advice and cut out 90 % of one fructose source and half of another.   I was mildly disappointed because I lost no weight.  But I did add a few grams a week of lentil and bean protein and ate well volume wise AND I did NOT gain weight beyond what I expected from my unfortunate indulgence and the stress I was under.

2.  I’m also still taking a cranberry extract with cold water every other day and only drinking cranberry juice every other day.  That will cut my calories from fructose by 280 calories a week.  That will help cut my weight by at least a quarter pound and maybe more.  (I’d already cut my juice calories in half by switching from grape juice at 160 calories a day to cranberry juice at 80 calories a day.)

3.  I had cut my usual wheat intake to once every two weeks as wheat germ with my oatmeal on every other Weds morning.  But I just read that a component of the wheat germ from hybrid wheat  specifically may cause inflammation and fattening. 

So, I have gone to zero wheat on a regular basis and tossed the remaining wheat germ. I now use the bottle the wheat germ came in and its refrigerator space for a second bottle of chilled water.

4.  Until I have more money to spend on them and a bit more time to implement them, my previous plan to add Wakame seaweed and my NEW plan to add several kinds of juiced vegetables made in one of the new MUCH quieter VitaMix blenders will be on hold.

However eating steel cut oats with a lower glycemic index than rolled oats or cooked quinoa with an even lower glycemic index instead of rolled oats.  Or eating those for 4 ounces and 2 ounces by volume or mushrooms may well help.

Adding Wakame will likely help even done only every other day.

And, drinking several kinds of VitaMix juices instead of chilled water is already proven to help with fat loss!

So when I can add those, it will help a LOT I think.

5.  Because the VitaMix makes eating more vegetables so much more doable it IS common for people who use them well to lose several pounds of fat from where they were before they began using a VitaMix -- and with no further effort needed!

They are that much easier to use for several reasons:

Instead of having to chow down a large plate of vegetables in 25 minutes, you can drink them all in 2 or 3 minutes without rushing. 

Instead of having a gritty juice or having a thin juice with none of the fiber as is true in regular blenders, the VitaMix produces a SMOOTH, easy to drink juice with all the fiber.  You do NOT need to trim off the fibrous parts first or filter them out to get a smooth and drinkable juice if you use the VitaMix.

AND, instead of losing the fiber and the nutrients in it and also having to clean up and toss the trimmings or filtered out fiber, you simply drink it.  This makes the VitaMix juice far more effective for fat loss.  It also often makes the nutrients more pre-digested and bioavailable.  And, it slashes downs the time it takes to use compared to a regular blender or juicer.

Best of all, instead of a ten minute job or more to disassemble, clean and rinse and dry, and re-assemble the blender or juicer with every use, with a VitaMix, you put in water and soap and run the VitaMix for just a few seconds and rinse the top twice in about 2 minutes and set aside to dry. 

So to use a VitaMix twice a day takes maybe four minutes most people can fit in to their lives instead of half an hour a day most people do NOT have.

For all these reasons VitaMix blenders were always a great product.  And people who once began using them well often have used them virtually every day for 10 years or more.

VitaMixes DID have a major drawback.

They were loud enough to sound like a lawn mower on steroids.

The incredible good news is that their new quietened version is so quiet you can talk easily while it’s running.

I plan to get one soon and use it daily!