There have been a lot of signs of how well I've done on my diet, and some have been very obvious (such as losing 60 pounds). Others are a lot subtler though, and one I caught myself looking at was how much I've improved my running times. Last night I ran at 6.5 miles an hour for most of an hour, before picking up the speed a bit at the end. Two years ago, my first treadmill attempt last 10 minutes or so at 4 miles per hour. It's not just the distance/time that has improved, it's also been the speed. Those 2.5 mph don't seem like much, but they translate to quite a few calories, and quite a bit of work.
Food today: egg and cheese sandwich (300 calories), small burger with fries (1100 calories), steak and homemade fries (1100 calories), no snacks on the day. Exercise was an hour on the treadmill (1039 calories).
Daily Food Total: 2500
Exercise: 1039
Points Earned: 1539
Total Points Earned: 5821
Points to go: 44179
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Day 3 - Back to Kickboxing
So just a quick post about Thursday. I was so wiped after kickboxing that I pretty much crashed after getting home. Otherwise, nothing really major happened on the day. Fortunately the candy bowls have been empty at work for the last couple days, so my willpower hasn't been tested. I did manage to avoid any other snacking though while at work, which is nice to see.
Kickboxing was definitely tough though. While my basic cardio stamina is still reasonably high after the last six weeks, my ability to do repetitive punches and kicks clearly needs to get back into shape. We'll be seeing how that goes over the next few weeks.
Food today: egg and cheese for breakfast (300 calories), Subway 6-inch meatball sub for lunch (500 calories), snacks were an after work english muffin with peanut butter (300 calories), then dinner was penne, sauce and garlic toast (1000 calories). Exercise was a kickboxing class (500 calories)
Daily Food Total: 2100
Exercise: 500
Points Earned: 1400
Total Points Earned: 4282
Points to go: 45718
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Day 2 - The danger of leftover junk food
I think I've mentioned it before, but it's always dangerous to start a diet when you've still got junk food left in the house. I had half a bag of chips leftover from having friends over on Monday. After getting back from running though, I was craving a snack and happened to notice the bag of chips. Before long I was sitting on the couch, watching some Hulu and snacking on chips. I did cut it short of eating them all, but I still picked up a lot of extra, unnecessary calories because of it.
It's not the first time that's happened to me over the last six weeks, and I'm sure others have had a similar problem themselves. It ties a bit into the discussion of diet failure as well. A lot of times in the past I've ended saying, "Oh darn, I've pigged out too much today. Guess I'll start the diet tomorrow instead." Of course as everybody knows, when you think like that, tomorrow never actually comes. Instead, the next day you grab five Reese's Peanut Butter Cups out of the candy bowl at work, shrug and say, "Tomorrow's when I'm really going to start the diet."
So just like success and failure can't simply be a matter of how much weight you've lost or gained in comparison to an arbitrary reference, a diet can't fail just because you've pigged out on a day. This isn't to say it's okay to got to 5 Guys three times a week and still claim to be on the diet, but there's no point in losing hope just because you've given into a craving a time or two. The next time I go to the supermarket I'll pick up some healthy snacks, and I won't buy any more chips. The diet didn't fail today just because I ate some chips, but it will fail if I lose hope about what's going to happen "tomorrow."
Food today: egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast (300 calories), turkey sandwich for lunch (500 calories), granola bar, a hershey's kiss and some chips as snacks (600 calories), lasanga and garlic toast for dinner (1000 calories).
Exercise was a 3 mile run around Roger Willams Park (400 calories).
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/232168763
Daily Food Total: 2400
Exercise: 400
Points Earned: 1000
Total Points Earned: 2882
Points to go: 47118
It's not the first time that's happened to me over the last six weeks, and I'm sure others have had a similar problem themselves. It ties a bit into the discussion of diet failure as well. A lot of times in the past I've ended saying, "Oh darn, I've pigged out too much today. Guess I'll start the diet tomorrow instead." Of course as everybody knows, when you think like that, tomorrow never actually comes. Instead, the next day you grab five Reese's Peanut Butter Cups out of the candy bowl at work, shrug and say, "Tomorrow's when I'm really going to start the diet."
So just like success and failure can't simply be a matter of how much weight you've lost or gained in comparison to an arbitrary reference, a diet can't fail just because you've pigged out on a day. This isn't to say it's okay to got to 5 Guys three times a week and still claim to be on the diet, but there's no point in losing hope just because you've given into a craving a time or two. The next time I go to the supermarket I'll pick up some healthy snacks, and I won't buy any more chips. The diet didn't fail today just because I ate some chips, but it will fail if I lose hope about what's going to happen "tomorrow."
Food today: egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast (300 calories), turkey sandwich for lunch (500 calories), granola bar, a hershey's kiss and some chips as snacks (600 calories), lasanga and garlic toast for dinner (1000 calories).
Exercise was a 3 mile run around Roger Willams Park (400 calories).
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/232168763
Daily Food Total: 2400
Exercise: 400
Points Earned: 1000
Total Points Earned: 2882
Points to go: 47118
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Why does a diet fail? Day 1 of a new diet
So the question I've been asking myself for most of the last six weeks is "Why Does a Diet Fail?" Unfortunately there's not really any single, simple answer. Most importantly of course, before we can ask that question we have to determine what constitutes failure.
6 weeks ago my diet wasn't struggling, but it wasn't exactly succeeding either. I was maintaining my weight, and exercise plan, but I wasn't actually trying very hard either. Then I went on a three day vacation during which I couldn't post, and the entire process fell apart. So over the last 6 weeks I've eaten at 5 Guys multiple times, I've grabbed true fast food for dinner, bought pizzas, ate a lot of candy at work and generally ate junk food.
Some of the changes I've made over the past year did stick. Pasta used to mean a half pound of ground beef in the sauce and two plate-fulls of food. I've eaten a lot of pasta in this diet Interregnum but have kept it to what's become my current pasta dish (1 plate-full of penne and sauce). While I've skipped six weeks of kick-boxing, I've managed to at least keep running at least twice a week for most of it. Most importantly though is that my weight hasn't drastically changed in this time. As of this morning I was at 205.6 pounds. It's gone up from my personal best a bit, but it's still mostly within reason.
So have I failed? Not exactly, I've binged a bit in the last month and I've gotten careless about exercise, but I haven't seen any drastic changes in either behavior or weight gain as a result of it. In fact as Team Challenge training has picked up, I've actually been working towards a new personal best for my next half-marathon in December.
Failure can't just be falling off the specific plan of your diet. We're all going to do that eventually, it's inevitable. I like my diet, and I don't have any strong opposition to eating healthier but as any basic review of my last year's worth of posts will tell you, I have plenty of cravings for things that are "bad" for me. Failure needs to represent an inability to change behavior, or a return to older behaviors.
I structured my diet plan around cutting the amount of food I ate, and increasing my exercise, but I didn't drastically change the specifics of what I ate. One of the numerous articles on dieting I've read over the years pointed out that people who've used Jenny Craig or some of the other products that provide pre-prepared diet meals have had some of the highest "failure rates" of any diet plan. They defined failure as regaining the weight lost on a diet. By the same token Weight Watcher's had a significantly lower "failure rate" (though it should be noted that it's still very high by those standards).
One of the main points the article made was that one of the reasons for failure on the part of those who used the pre-packaged diet meals, was that they never actually learned how to eat better. I've seen it with one of my friends as well, who went on a medically prescribed diet, lost a great deal of weight and has promptly put it all back on. In his case, his doctor pretty much prescribed shakes for two meals out of the day, and then a small dinner. However once the diet ended, he just went back to his old eating habits because he hadn't learned how to eat what he liked in relation to a healthier lifestyle. Weight Watchers has had a higher level of success, because even though they provide pre-packaged foods, and other branded merchandise, they also train their members to think of foods in the context of their quirky point system. Even after a member leaves Weight Watchers, they're still looking at food in that context. With my diet I've changed the volume of food that I make. It doesn't help a ton out at restaurants, but I've managed to change my behavior at home and it's sticking.
So I haven't failed, even by the standards of regaining lost weight (I don't consider regaining 5-7 pounds a failure when I've lost 60 more, obviously). But the specific challenge failed. I didn't make it to a second 200K before coming off the diet. The biggest reason for that though is that it failed because it succeeded. When I started the first diet, it was a huge challenge and an even bigger accomplishment. When I started the second challenge, it was kind of old hat. Yeah it would have been nice to get down to 180 or something, but I knew I could complete it. So when it became a struggle to post, and dull to keep track of, it was really easy to quit.
So why am I restarting it? Mostly because I want to set my personal best in Vegas. To do that I want to also lose a bit more weight, since it would be easier to carry 190 pounds 13 miles rather than 205. The challenge and the blog gives me something to track my progress. So you'll probably see a few more posts about running in the next few weeks. I'm also not shooting for 200K this time. I'm just going to aim for 50K, and then get myself something small but rewarding, maybe a new game or something.
All in all, it's good to be back. Let's see if I can keep at it.
Food today: skipped breakfast due to a large dinner the night before, candy at work though accounted for probably 500 calories, lunch was a meatball sub and chips (750 calories), dinner was some lasagna and garlic toast (1000 calories). Exercise was an extra 2.5 mile bike ride, and a shorter lunchtime walk (100 calories), along with an hour on the treadmill mostly at 6.5 mph (1032 calories).
Daily Food Total: 2250
Exercise: 1132
Points Earned: 1882
Total Points Earned: 1882
Points to go: 48118
6 weeks ago my diet wasn't struggling, but it wasn't exactly succeeding either. I was maintaining my weight, and exercise plan, but I wasn't actually trying very hard either. Then I went on a three day vacation during which I couldn't post, and the entire process fell apart. So over the last 6 weeks I've eaten at 5 Guys multiple times, I've grabbed true fast food for dinner, bought pizzas, ate a lot of candy at work and generally ate junk food.
Some of the changes I've made over the past year did stick. Pasta used to mean a half pound of ground beef in the sauce and two plate-fulls of food. I've eaten a lot of pasta in this diet Interregnum but have kept it to what's become my current pasta dish (1 plate-full of penne and sauce). While I've skipped six weeks of kick-boxing, I've managed to at least keep running at least twice a week for most of it. Most importantly though is that my weight hasn't drastically changed in this time. As of this morning I was at 205.6 pounds. It's gone up from my personal best a bit, but it's still mostly within reason.
So have I failed? Not exactly, I've binged a bit in the last month and I've gotten careless about exercise, but I haven't seen any drastic changes in either behavior or weight gain as a result of it. In fact as Team Challenge training has picked up, I've actually been working towards a new personal best for my next half-marathon in December.
Failure can't just be falling off the specific plan of your diet. We're all going to do that eventually, it's inevitable. I like my diet, and I don't have any strong opposition to eating healthier but as any basic review of my last year's worth of posts will tell you, I have plenty of cravings for things that are "bad" for me. Failure needs to represent an inability to change behavior, or a return to older behaviors.
I structured my diet plan around cutting the amount of food I ate, and increasing my exercise, but I didn't drastically change the specifics of what I ate. One of the numerous articles on dieting I've read over the years pointed out that people who've used Jenny Craig or some of the other products that provide pre-prepared diet meals have had some of the highest "failure rates" of any diet plan. They defined failure as regaining the weight lost on a diet. By the same token Weight Watcher's had a significantly lower "failure rate" (though it should be noted that it's still very high by those standards).
One of the main points the article made was that one of the reasons for failure on the part of those who used the pre-packaged diet meals, was that they never actually learned how to eat better. I've seen it with one of my friends as well, who went on a medically prescribed diet, lost a great deal of weight and has promptly put it all back on. In his case, his doctor pretty much prescribed shakes for two meals out of the day, and then a small dinner. However once the diet ended, he just went back to his old eating habits because he hadn't learned how to eat what he liked in relation to a healthier lifestyle. Weight Watchers has had a higher level of success, because even though they provide pre-packaged foods, and other branded merchandise, they also train their members to think of foods in the context of their quirky point system. Even after a member leaves Weight Watchers, they're still looking at food in that context. With my diet I've changed the volume of food that I make. It doesn't help a ton out at restaurants, but I've managed to change my behavior at home and it's sticking.
So I haven't failed, even by the standards of regaining lost weight (I don't consider regaining 5-7 pounds a failure when I've lost 60 more, obviously). But the specific challenge failed. I didn't make it to a second 200K before coming off the diet. The biggest reason for that though is that it failed because it succeeded. When I started the first diet, it was a huge challenge and an even bigger accomplishment. When I started the second challenge, it was kind of old hat. Yeah it would have been nice to get down to 180 or something, but I knew I could complete it. So when it became a struggle to post, and dull to keep track of, it was really easy to quit.
So why am I restarting it? Mostly because I want to set my personal best in Vegas. To do that I want to also lose a bit more weight, since it would be easier to carry 190 pounds 13 miles rather than 205. The challenge and the blog gives me something to track my progress. So you'll probably see a few more posts about running in the next few weeks. I'm also not shooting for 200K this time. I'm just going to aim for 50K, and then get myself something small but rewarding, maybe a new game or something.
All in all, it's good to be back. Let's see if I can keep at it.
Food today: skipped breakfast due to a large dinner the night before, candy at work though accounted for probably 500 calories, lunch was a meatball sub and chips (750 calories), dinner was some lasagna and garlic toast (1000 calories). Exercise was an extra 2.5 mile bike ride, and a shorter lunchtime walk (100 calories), along with an hour on the treadmill mostly at 6.5 mph (1032 calories).
Daily Food Total: 2250
Exercise: 1132
Points Earned: 1882
Total Points Earned: 1882
Points to go: 48118
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