My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 4-21-2014

This report is another mixed review.

Since last month, I still under extra stress AND just at the point my exercise program was seeing progress and I had just started adding new and proven information on how to get more sustainable fat loss from how I eat, I came down with a bad chest cold.

My estimated calories per week from exercise dropped from 2100 the week before to 800.  (I still did some exercise but canceled the heavy exercise session at the Perfect Workout; cut back the weight and reps on each set at home; cut back by something like 80% on my interval cardio sessions and skipped the extra effort Nordic Track session.  I also simply was too sick to put up with the stationary bike riding at my desk and did 200 calories there instead of 900.

The good news is that between the brief hit on my appetite from being sick and the small cut back from the new eating style, if I read the scale correctly I lost half a pound there.  But between the stress and the much reduced exercise, I gained half an inch on my waist.

Since I’d have been happier gaining a pound and losing the half inch that was irritating!

However, the new eating style has the best track record of anything I’ve ever seen for fat and weight loss.  For many reasons, I don’t want to go quite that extreme 7 days a week.  But by adopting it as much as I can most days and using it instead of a more fasting approach two days a week, I think even my initial efforts will get me at or below my goal weight sometime in the next two to four months.

Some time ago I met a man who had adopted a way of eating he found in Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, MD.

It does two things. 

1.  It’s a health and fatloss upgraded version of a vegan diet

It only allows a vegan diet without grains.  It’s mostly dark green and nonstarchy vegetables and beans and lentils with some whole fruit and starchier vegetables like carrots and sweet potatoes. 

Bill Clinton discovered it was effective for fat loss and heart protection and adopted it or something very like it and DID lose the weight he promised his daughter he would.

Between the surprising amount of protein in that much intake of dark green vegetables and the beans and lentils, it provides enough protein for health.

2.  He invented a ratio called the ANDI score to measure how much nutrition per calorie foods have.  Then he deleted everything that wasn’t high on that scale.

That ensures you get a LOT of food and tend to be less hungry than you might think but slash your calories eaten with a sword to very low levels.  And by eating this way and a variety of these foods, their very high nutrition prevents you from health harm.  In fact, you get MORE nutrition than most people by more than three to five times!

By making something like a third of their food come from such foods it’s common for people on a DASH or DASH II diet to lose 25 pounds in their first 3 months.

People who adopt this food style completely and totally stop everything else often lose 25 pound in their first month!

I’ve been at about 15% or a bit less and that is one of the reasons I lost the 30 pounds and have kept off 25.

Weston Price and his work studying earlier and traditional eating styles in people still using them AND with very good health and very little if any obesity, found that virtually all of them did eat animal foods and/or seafood.  This ensures they get many nutrients not in plant foods and that are essential to good health.

Most people know that vegans need to supplement with vitamin B12 to stay healthy.

Most would do well to supplement with iron and zinc.  Some who rely too much on grains and eat too little of the dark green vegetables and nuts, would do well to supplement with magnesium while slashing the grains and adding lots of dark green vegetables and some nuts.

But Weston Price found that there was another nutrient of almost greater importance than all of those put together that some animal protein and animal fat from naturally fed animals contains.  We now know it is important for strong bones and teeth and heart disease prevention.  Even better people who want to be vegan for sustainability or religious reasons can get it to now as a supplement.  It’s vitamin K2.

K2, it seems, directs calcium to go into your bones and not go to or even come out of your blood vessels!

Note that most of these peoples did eat Dr Furhman style the other 80% of the time!

In addition, in my own case, I want to be more muscular than I am now.  And instead of weighing 140 pounds to lose my last 24 pounds of excess fat, I’d prefer to also gain 21 pounds of muscle to weigh 161 pounds.

The protein intake needed to support the gains I want is about twice what is in a Dr Furhman eating plan.

But, so far, even with more effective strength training exercise and some increased in strength I likely have only gained a pound at best -- and my at my age only be able to add a couple more.

That means I should jump from about 15% his style to at least 75% if I want to lose my belly fat, my reflux, and my slightly high blood pressure.

Since I want those things enough if I cannot have them by adding muscle, I’d better move my diet from 15% his style to 75%.

I won’t look the way I want.  But I won’t be as weak as I’ll look!  I’ll be faster.  And I’ll get great leverage on stopping my few health problems and living longer.

If the information is accurate and I can make that change that well, I should lose at least 9 pounds and maybe as much more as 18.  The average of those is about 147 less than I weight in high school.  And  losing 9 pounds would about put me at my high school weight.

So that’s next on my to do list.

I posted last time on my muscle adding efforts and cardio upgrades -- and on getting a Vitamix to help me get to the 75%.

This time, the cold de-railed my strength training and cardio upgrades. And it will be a bit before I can get a Vitamix.

So I decided to leave them out for today’s report.

Those exercise upgrades were working better and improving; and I will work until I have and use a Vitamix.

So those topics will be back.