Weight Loss and Exercise #5

I'm just saying if your only eating 1300 calories a day but burning 2000, eventually you will start losing. Calories in calories out is the most basic diet there is.

Not at all. I was just thinking, like not even ozempic loses weight that fast. And ozempic works on hormones, whereas welbutrin works on brain receptors.

I think back on some of my old diet plans, and i am appalled at them. My dr told me to "just eat vegetables". Right - and an hour later youre hungry again, just like the joke about Chinese food. It's really hard.

My first goal in selecting my diet now is two-fold -
no heartburn and no constipation. Then its, how is
my morning blood sugar. Those things can be measured immediately or the next day, but weight change takes about a month to show a real loss (or gain). If you want to weigh yourself every day, they advise you to still only evaluate the total change after a month.

Okay, but thats still one week to lose 1 lb (3500 calories).

If you have the money, you can get a wearable continuous glucose monitor (CGM), wear it for several months, and learn how your specific body reacts to specific foods, drinks, combos of food and drink, exercise, sleep, and the rest. That is far more advanced than calories in, calories out. It is just pricey. But you can optimize based on the data. Can be eye-opening.

If you eat too little, your metabolism will slow down as the body thinks you are risking famine and tries to preserve precious resources. You will be burning fewer calories at rest. I do not think your wearable tracker accurately reports on what you burn at rest. Eating too little is a very common cause for the weight loss plateau.

The technology with which wearables report on stress is not well developed. Take it with a grain of salt. If this has never before but started happening, yes, it could be that something is really happening in your life and triggering a stress response but can also be a glitch. Most likely you are overreacting and there are no causes for concern, but just in case, why don't you go to your GP and ask for the blood panels to check on your heart? Even if your risk is low, it is still a good idea to get bloodwork done at your age as this will establish your baseline, like a benchmark.

I think you are so preoccupied with the idea that you can lose weight fast that the preoccupation alone stresses you out. And if it stresses you out, it can spike your cortisol level which in turn can make it really difficult to lose weight. So most likely, for your own good, you need to relax about your weight and not monitor your calories in and calories out to the last little calorie. After all, you have been doing it for so long lately and it has not worked, so why not re-assess your strategy based on data?

Focus instead of finding ways to move that make you feel joy. You have your VR headset–does not it allow you to select from a wide variety of workouts? Surely there must be something that you simply love doing. and then, success will breed success, as one of my DBT group leaders a long time ago used to say.

Low intensity cardio training today followed by 75 mins of restorative yoga.

And I cycled on an upright bike at the gym! Normally I avoid upright Peloton bikes and only use the recumbent bike because I like to sit on the large cushion on the recumbent bike. The hard narrow Peloton seats make my sitz bones hurt. But it turned out that there is another brand of vertical upright bikes at the gym called Expresso and the seats are fairly wide and soft. I did just 1 mile. It took my 7 minutes 28 seconds. I do not have ambitious plans: I will continue doing just 1 mile every time I come to the gym for cardio, and will see if I can eventually cycle faster. After I feel comfortable enough, I will explore the bike. It has this huge screen and probably lots and lots of preprogrammed rides. What I really liked today was that 1 mile was not on a straight line: no, I was navigating a terrain and had to use the controls to turn left and right and sometimes rather abruptly. That was FUN!

Also did 33 mins on the recumbent elliptical with the chest press add-on and 18 mins on the rowing machine, covering 2000 meters. For the first time I connected the rowing machine to the app ErgData which will now track my workouts at the gym. In my apartment complex, the rowing machine is by the same manufacturer but really old, before Bluetooth connectivity, but I will manually add my workouts at home to the logbook in the app to keep it all in one place.

Yeah and cortisol goes straight to belly fat. Ive read somewhere. But you could sure prove it by me.

I was kinda heavy on soda today. I know what I need to do not to drink so much. I don't need to be reminded how bad it is for me. I get it.

Food wise I've been doing ok. I had an Atkins low carb meal for breakfast and I have an Uncrustable thawing for lunch. I had 10 dill pickle rice crisps for a snack. Dinner will be a TGIF hamburger slider.

I'm at 1,355 calories, 160 carbs, and 43 grams of protein. Which I know is pretty low in protein.

I have just listened to a podcast with a well known MD about thr three types of fat. Belly fat yes, cortisol goes straight there, definitely provable by me as well. The worst fat is liver fat.

The MD explained that acute stress leads to weight loss while chronic stress leads to weight gain.

I should find the podcast in my YouTube watch history and post here.

It is low on protein, but I get you: I love love love Uncrustable. That is why I steer clear of them in the frozen section at the grocery store.

For a few nights, my lowest nighttime HR has been much lower than usual at 60. Might it be that my body is already adapting favorably to cardio training? I sure did not expect changes so fast. Maybe these are outlier measurements. We will see how it goes.

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I now have a new pair of minimalist shoes specifically for Orangetheory fitness where they are narrow enough to use with the foot straps of their water rowers. My HOKAs were too wide. I do not plan on walking outside in the new shoes because I know that my feet are not ready for minimalism: they need that super supportive structure of the HOKAs.

I've been trying to find the new raspberry jam ones.

Arent Uncrustables for people who eat lunch away from home? Why wouldnt you just make your own pbnj? Really i thought they were for kids. i am officially old! In my day, we ate ONLY the crusts, and we liked it!

I don’t know what uncrustables are, maybe they haven’t been marketed here yet. But I do understand avoiding aisles in stores - I gave up crisps (chips?) this last few months and I will walk down that aisle but my eyes are straight ahead lol.

Marketing is so clever though.

I like that they are prepackaged and have the calories and nutrtion right on the bag. So what if I'm lazy. I can't finish a whole loaf of bread before it goes bad so I'm saving money.

My therapist doesn't care what I eat just as long as I'm eating. She approves of the Uncrustables

Ah, there we go. For me, a loaf of bread is gone in two days, 3 max. Sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. If im good, i will put some lettuce or arugula or guac in it. Im afraid i would be fatter if i were more mobile.

Uncrustables are very cleverly made. The uniform and moist texture of the soft bread is not something I can attain at home with a loaf. So for me, uncrustables unattainables

55 mins of personal training

Yo warm up, I did a flat mile on the Expresso upright stationary bike in under 6 mins and 1000 m on the tower in under 7 minutes.