My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 10-21-2013

Did lose back the 2 pounds I gained the month before; and the news on future progress is still promising.

This is another mixed review report. (The slightly better news this month is in Part I.)

And, the likely results soon are still promising.  (Why is listed below in Part II.)

Part I:

The slightly good news first: 

I lost back the two pounds I gained the month before.  I even ate well -- though still within the strategies I continue to use that lost me the 30 pounds to start with.

I’m now 2 pounds below my goal weight. 

So, on the scale, I could gain 2 pounds of muscle without losing any fat and still be at my goal weight.

I also lost back between a fourth of an inch and half an inch on my waist!

THIS is the key measure for me.  I’m at my goal WEIGHT.  Now I need to remove the remaining excess fat!

Losing back that 2 pounds and the fourth of an inch from my waist may mean the slight gains in muscle I’m likely getting may be finally working on removing the minimum of 4 more inches of excess fat I need and want to lose from my waist for health protection and to look somewhat better. 

Based on the lack of what the bodybuilders call high definition and the small visible rolls of fat on my belly and “love handles” and hips and the equal amount of excess visceral fat likely inside my belly, I think I do have that much fat to lose. 

AND, if I eat mostly as I do now and gain even 10 of the 20 to 25 pounds of muscle I’d like to gain, I believe I can and will lose that fat.

I’d very much like to lose four more inches besides that first four from my waist for a total of 8 more inches and even more health benefits.  But at my age and overall sedentary life now, that may be too much to ask even after adding a good bit of muscle. 

(I suspect my stomach and intestines have been too stretched out to decrease that much even after losing the excess fat and gaining the muscle I plan to gain.  I’d love to be wrong about that though!)

Since my chest and hips have maintained their slight gains and only my waist got smaller that suggests the small increases of strength I’m beginning to get are adding muscle. 

I will fight to avoid gaining back any more weight; but at this point my main focus will be to add muscle.

(I think when I cut back even with the two a day partial fasting, I was doing enough already that I got a bit of famine response on appetite.  So, as long as I don’t gain back more, I think it may pay me to focus most on adding muscle at this point.)

I also need to boost my metabolism to the extent I can do so. 

a) Adding muscle and the exercises I’m doing do help with that already.

b) There is a supplement available in Scandinavia that may boost metabolism enough to make a difference that I hope to make generally available and use myself.

The study on it found it does this better than the much less effective ones like green tea extract and eating some hotter peppers; and it may be possible it would help.)

c)  It may be possible to wear a chilled vest around my belly and lower back during the weekday for at least an hour a day.  (I believe there may be a temperature that won’t distract me from my work that I can put up with for that long.  It would be high enough I’d not get too cold but cool enough to burn extra calories.)

The great news is that doing this also changes some of your white fat to brown fat that burns more energy all day long.

Part II.  The good news!:  Why the likely results soon are better!

Next I list why I’ve NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle as I need to do to force the loss of my remaining belly fat.

So, why is the future looking so great all of a sudden?  It’s because just last month, I tried something that solved both of those two problems!  And, I can keep doing them!

1.  The two reasons why I’d NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle despite knowing the effective way to do so:

In my at home super slow strength training, I’d been held back by struggling with some issues from a left shoulder injury. 

This injury has prevented me from getting stronger on the exercises that use my left shoulder.  Worse, it kept me from making further progress on several of the exercises where I DID get stronger.

Unlike my right shoulder which healed, my left shoulder seemed to keep getting re-injured.

THAT is finally getting better. 

The corrective exercises the physical therapist gave me work. 

By doing those exercises to strengthen my shoulders and mostly discontinuing the injurious style of jump rope I was doing, my left shoulder is finally no longer always slightly injured and is gradually recovering and getting stronger too.

This physical therapist was dramatically more competent and effective that the one I saw years ago

a) I was throwing my whole arms through the motion on my jump rope sessions on every repetition. 

You have to do that a bit to start the jump rope at first each time.  BUT, you can minimize it a bit and then use a wrist snap to keep it going mostly after that.  THAT removes 90% or more from the high impact forces on my shoulders!

The bad news is that I’m still relearning this new form and am still terrible at it. 

 I have gotten slightly better at it.  The best news is that doing my jump rope sessions no longer re-injures my left shoulder.

But my progress on the new form is still not quite there.  I’m seeing the physical therapist this week to see if I can get a bit of coaching to speed my progress on it.

b)  I’d been doing all my exercises for which I use my shoulders with a shoulders hunched bad posture.  That was causing them to work twice as hard at an angle they were not designed to do well.

So, she said to make a special effort to lift my chest as I did these exercises.  AND, she gave me two corrective exercises to increase my strength and control over how well I can hold my shoulders in the OK position.

That is still a work in progress.  And it will take some time to get better at it.  It’s a matter of gradually getting stronger over several months

The regular exercises that did pain my left shoulder a lot and my right shoulder some, ARE now much less hard on my shoulders.

The new form she suggested works; and my left shoulder is finally and definitely better.

Now that these exercises no longer re-injure me when I do them, my muscles now WILL heal and gradually allow me to get my strength back, get stronger, and add more muscle mass!

2.   Secondly, most of the muscle I lost since I was younger I lost in my legs and buttocks and lower back. 

But to add that muscle I’d need more space and MUCH more weight to do the needed exercises at home. 

I’d also need a leg press machine or a rack with a setting to keep the weight from going down to the floor. And, when I’m working to the level where I can’t do a complete last repetition, one of those two ways of making that safe are critical.

So I’ve been making no or very limited progress on the exercises I do for my upper body at home and making too little for my legs and buttocks and lower back to add the muscle I need.

So, despite my willingness to work hard and the potential I can tell is really there to add the muscle I need, it had NOT been happening.

However, I AM now doing just that set of exercises at The Perfect Workout once a week; and I’m making steady progress at adding weight each week!

In addition, I’ve gotten a good bit stronger on the calf exercises I’ve been doing at home.

And, there’s more!

Even before my recent progress with my shoulder, I found that I WAS able to do their chest press on their machine without my shoulder holding me back!

Now that I also can hold my shoulders in a better position and they will get stronger, I will now gain the chest muscle mass and arm muscle mass I’ve wanted.

And, they also have machines to exercise the big muscles in my upper back.  And I’m getting stronger and adding weight on those exercises too.

So, I now have a real shot at adding enough muscle to force fat loss from my waist!  Finally!

3.  The other interesting news is that their scale measured me as having 8% body fat and having about 40 pounds of muscle.

So if I can add 20 pounds more, my calorie burn from my muscles has the potential to go up by 50%!!

THAT will keep me lean for sure!

Since my arms and shoulders and legs look like I have 11 to 17 % fat; and my belly looks as if I am at least 20% fat, their body fat percentage is WAY low!  Their number looks to be half or less of the real number!

But to the extent I am a bit more lean than I thought, it may mean that I’ll have to try something like liposuction to cut enough more from my belly.

However, I think it’s just off in my case.  Based on comparing my appearance with people who DO have 8% body fat; I think my overall fat is still closer to 20% at best.

So for now, working very hard to get fifty percent stronger or more and adding that 20 pounds of muscle is my goal.

AFTER I do that and get my body fat measured by a more accurate device; then I’ll think again about adding laser liposuction or something similar such as the cold belly wrap around if I still need to do so.

But based on the experience of other people and how they look after adding the muscle, I think and still hope that may not be needed. 

5.  There is one more piece of good news potentially that I literally began just since I measured and weighed myself last Saturday morning.

Instead of taking a small amount of PGX fiber supplement when I wake hungry in the middle of the night instead of eating the once or twice a month when I otherwise would have eaten something, Saturday night and last night I did it both days because my reflux was giving me heartburn at night. 

My thought was to give the acid something to chew on besides me!  It worked!  And, I slept better because of it. 

Last night I really didn’t want to take the time for it; but I knew I’d feel rotten if I didn’t because it worked the night before.  So I did it and now realize I can continue to do it.

The surprise is that today is my first of my two partial fast days this week; and I’ve been less hungry than usual.

That may be a leading indicator to suggest I’ll eat a bit less extra between now and next month by continuing to take the PGX at night for stopping the heartburn.

If that does happen, I may lose a few pounds of fat by next month to go with the bit of added muscle.  And, if THAT happens, I may lose half an inch off my waist.

At this point, I think this will be a one-time event if it does happen.  But since I really need to continue the night time PGX to sleep better, if it that bit of fat loss does happen, it will be a permanent change.

We’ll see how I did with that next time.

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 9-23-2013

Almost a carbon copy of last month; but I gained less and the news on future progress is better too!

This is another of my not so great but mixed review reports. (That report is in Part I.)

But the likely results soon are GREAT!  (Why is listed below in Part II.)

Part I:

Bad news first: 

I gained back two more pounds.

Never happy with that; but I’m now back at my goal weight. 

So as long as I am careful enough to not gain back more, I’m still OK so far.

I did gain back a bit on my waist however.  THAT is FAR less OK!

In addition, I had my waist measure at The Perfect Workout and had it as 40 inches exactly.  Yikes!  My measurements aren’t that inaccurate; however, that’s a minimum of 2 inches too big for good health and still 5 to 6 inches larger than my goal.

OK  news:

I did gain an inch on my chest and about half an inch on my hips; and THAT may have included some muscle. 

I will fight to avoid gaining back any more weight; but at this point my main focus will be to add muscle.

(I think when I cut back even with the two a day partial fasting, I was doing enough already that I got a bit of famine response on appetite.  So as long as I don’t gain back more, I think it may pay me to focus most on adding muscle at this point.

I also need to boost my metabolism to the extent I can do so.  Adding muscle and the exercises I’m doing do help with that already.)

Part II.  The good news!:  Why the likely results soon are GREAT!

Next I list why I’ve NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle as I need to do to force the loss of my remaining belly fat.

So, why is the future looking so great all of a sudden?  It’s because just last month, I tried something that solved both of those two problems!  And, I can keep doing it!

1.  The two reasons why I’ve NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle despite knowing the effective way to do so:

In my at home super slow strength training, I’ve been held back by struggling with some issues from a left shoulder injury. 

This injury has prevented me from getting stronger on the exercises that use my left shoulder.  Worse, it has kept me from making further progress on several of the exercises where I DID get stronger.

Unlike my right shoulder which healed, my left shoulder seems to keep getting re-injured.

THAT is now coming to a screeching halt!!

I asked my doctor about it and she referred me for physical therapy.

My previous experience with trying Physical Therapy was simply  dreadful.  But in hopes I might learn something this time to stop re-injuring my shoulder and get corrective exercises I went just in case to the first appointment.

MUCH BETTER!  The woman Physical Therapist immediately found out the two things I’d been doing that kept injuring my left shoulder and bothering my right shoulder a bit too.

a)  I was throwing my whole arms through the motion on my jump rope sessions on every repetition.  You have to do that a bit to start the jump rope at first each time.  BUT, you can minimize it a bit and then use a wrist snap to keep it going mostly after that.  THAT removes 90% or more from the high impact forces on my shoulders!

The bad news is that I’m still relearning this new form and am terrible at it.  So my amount of exercise is down from what I want.

But the good news is MUCH better.  I AM getting better at it!  And the best news is that doing my jump rope sessions no longer re-injures my shoulder.

b)  I’d been doing all my exercises for which I use my shoulders with a shoulders hunched bad posture.  That was causing them to work twice as hard at an angle they were not designed to do well.

So, she said to make a special effort to lift my chest as I did these exercises.  AND, she gave me two corrective exercises to increase my strength and control over how well I can hold my shoulders in the OK position.

That is still a work in progress.  And it will take some time to get better at it.

BUT, the exercises ARE less hard on my shoulders.

Now that they no longer re-injure me when I do them, my muscles now WILL heal and gradually allow me to get my strength back, get stronger, and add more muscle mass!

2.   Secondly, most of the muscle I lost since I was younger I lost in my legs and buttocks and lower back. 

But to add that muscle I’d need more space and MUCH more weight to do the needed exercises at home. 

I’d also need a leg press machine or a rack with a setting to keep the weight from going down to the floor. And, when I’m working to the level where I can’t do a complete last repetition, one of those two ways of making that safe are critical.

So I’ve been making no or very limited progress on the exercises I do for my upper body at home and making too little for my legs and buttocks and lower back to add the muscle I need.

So, despite my willingness to work hard and the potential I can tell is really there to add the muscle I need, it had NOT been happening.

However, I AM now doing just that set of exercises at The Perfect Workout once a week; and I’m making steady progress at adding weight each week!

In addition, I’ve gotten a good bit stronger on the calf exercises I’ve been doing at home.

And, there’s more!

Even before my recent progress with my shoulder, I found that I WAS able to do their chest press on their machine without my shoulder holding me back!

Now that I also can hold my shoulders in a better position and they will get stronger, I will now gain the chest muscle mass and arm muscle mass I’ve wanted.

And, they also have machines to exercise the big muscles in my upper back.  And I’m getting stronger and adding weight on those exercises too.

So, I now have a real shot at adding enough muscle to force fat loss from my waist!  Finally!

3.  The other interesting news is that their scale measured me as having 8% body fat and having about 40 pounds of muscle.

So if I can add 20 pounds more, my calorie burn from my muscles has the potential to go up by 50%!!

THAT will keep me lean for sure!

Since my arms and shoulders and legs look like I have 11 to 17 % fat; and my belly looks as if I am at least 20% fat, their body fat percentage is WAY low!

But to the extent I am a bit more lean than I thought, it may mean that I’ll have to try something like liposuction to cut enough more from my belly.

However, I think it’s just off in my case.  Based on comparing my appearance with people who DO have 8% body fat; I think my overall fat is still closer to 20% at best.

So for now, working very hard to get fifty percent stronger or more and adding that 20 pounds of muscle is my goal.

AFTER I do that and get my body fat measured by a more accurate device; then I’ll think again about adding laser liposuction or something similar if I still need to do so.

But based on the experience of other people and how they look after adding the muscle, I think that may not be needed.  

My monthly fatloss progress report....

Today's Post:  Monday, 8-19-2013

This is another of my not so great but mixed review reports. (That report is in Part I.)

But the likely results soon are GREAT!  (Why is listed below in Part II.)

Part I:

Bad news first: 

Instead of staying the same or going up just a pound or so, I gained back the four pounds I lost the previous month and another half pound more.

But the real damage was the 3 pounds I gained just last week!  The weeks before that I was staying steady and was just a pound or so more than last time.

The OK news: 

a) Last week when I gained the 3 pounds there were two temporary reasons for it. 

When I overeat sweet treats, I gain immediately.  I did that just after I measured last time on Saturday.  I’ve done far worse. 

The main culprit was that I ate extra paleo bread and Irish butter many times during the week.

Turns out this is just like when I overate almond butter.  The food itself was health OK AND low glycemic.  But while that makes having SOME a few times a month or a little a few times a week OK, it has WAY too many calories to do overdo it most days of every week – or even one week! 

I found if almond butter was in the house, its taste to me was too good to be safe to have in the house.  And once I stopped buying it, I lost back the five pounds I gained from overeating it.

So, I’ve already stopped the Paleo bread and butter as a several times a week treat! I’ve had none since and will simply not eat it again more than once or twice a month.

That means that I’ll likely lose back the 3 pounds from last week at least by next time.

b)  On the scale, I’m still 4 pounds under my goal weight. So my main need for taking fat off my belly and me all over is to force it with muscle gain.  AND, I’ve still kept off 5 and a half pounds of the 10 pounds I lost from the intermittent partial fasting!

c) Some of the 4 and a half pounds WAS muscle!  I did NOT gain back any inches on my waist!!

Part II.  The good news!:  Why the likely results soon are GREAT!

Next I list why I’ve NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle as I need to do to force the loss of my remaining belly fat.

So, why is the future looking so great all of a sudden?  It’s because just last week, I tried something that solved both of those two problems!  And, I can keep doing it!

1.  The two reasons why I’ve NOT been able to add quite a bit more muscle despite knowing the effective way to do so:

a) In my at home super slow strength training, I’ve been held back by struggling with some issues from a left shoulder injury. 

This injury has prevented me from getting stronger on the exercises that use my left shoulder.  Worse, it has kept me from making further progress on several of the exercises where I DID get stronger.

Unlike my right shoulder which healed, my left shoulder seems to keep getting re-injured.

Worst of all, this left shoulder injury has kept me from sleeping well enough for the injury to heal. 

b) Secondly, most of the muscle I lost since I was younger I lost in my legs and buttocks and lower back. 

But to add that muscle I’d need more space and MUCH more weight to do the needed exercises at home. 

I’d also need a leg press machine or a rack with a setting to keep the weight from going down to the floor. And, when I’m working to the level where I can’t do a complete last repetition, one of those two ways of making that safe are critical.

So I’ve been making no or very limited progress on the exercises I do for my upper body at home and making too little for my legs and buttocks and lower back to add the muscle I need.

So, despite my willingness to work hard and the potential I can tell is really there to add the muscle I need, it has NOT happened!

2.  Just last week, I tried something that solved both of those two problems!  And, I can keep doing it!

a)  It occurred to me that I could try the leg press machine at The Perfect Workout where my wife goes since her referral would make the trial session free, then if it seemed to work OK, I could go to a gym that had a leg press machine once a week.

a)  Did it work out well?  It worked wonderfully well!  No chance of injury AND I could feel during the exercise and after I went home that doing it regularly clearly CAN add the pounds of lower body muscle I need to force the loss of my belly fat!

But the fabulous news is even better!

b) On their other machines for arms and chest, I was able to exert full effort for potentially the full effect I need WITHOUT putting ANY load on my injured shoulder.

THAT means I don’t have to wait to add strength and muscle in my arms and chest, I can do it NOW!

Best of all,  I can just stop doing ANY exercise for my left shoulder AND that much higher level of testosterone release and growth hormone release from all the exercises I CAN now do will cause my left shoulder to heal finally!

Then, a few weeks after my shoulder does heal, my arms will be so much stronger, it will be easy to build back the strength in that shoulder!

Just those two things show the potential to gain the muscle I need to add some weight to get back to my goal weight yet cut several inches from my waist and pounds fat off my belly and all the rest of me!

c)  But there were two very important extras too!

In the same way I’ve not had the equipment at home to work my muscles in my legs and buttocks and lower back, I’ve not had the equipment to fully exercise my upper back!

They DO have those machines!

And, their Nautilus machines also work the muscles exercised a bit more fully than the dumbbells I use at home without having to waste some of the effort controlling the weight.

I have had to rework my schedule to work around the new once a week workout I’ll be doing at The Perfect Workout.  But I’ve done it and believe the changes I’ve made will work.

So from now on, I’ll be continuing to weigh on the scale to catch things that will add fat or that help lose it -- as happened last month.  And, of course, I’ll keep doing all the things that have helped me lose 36 pounds of fat since my high point!

But I’ll focus most on watching my waist measurement for losses of a quarter inch or more a month.

And, though the fat losses will hide increases in muscle in my chest and hips for a few months, I fully expect to see increases in those measures from added muscle after that!