Weight Loss VII: Week 23: Wait What Happened To Week 22?!
Let's do the timewarp again! It turns out, when I was looking through my history on this that I discovered I had doubled up Week 14 and so I've been off by a week ever since. Whoops. So like they did with the calendar when they switched to the Gregorian, we're going to skip a week. Like the spoon, there is no week 22.
Progress: Waistline down again, weight down but at a much slower pace than prior to the surgery, and the running program is going well. Current weight 263, loss 45 pounds.
So my weight was down to 262.3 on Monday (263.6 today, and 265 yesterday, yay normal fluctuations) so the weight is dropping. My current rate of loss is less than half what it was before the surgery, which is somewhat surprising to me. I don't feel like I'm going over my calorie budget by that much. And I'm running regularly, though I'm not always making my step goal in between. It's been a bit busy and there's been some colds and sniffles going on in there that have interfered.
Weighing in at 262, I do finally feel like the 270s are gone. Occasionally I weigh myself fully dressed and don't record it, just as a "see where I'm at" kind of thing, and because weights in doctor's offices are dressed, so I can kind of keep a personal comparison. I haven't weighed over 270 fully dressed in a couple of weeks. So that's good. But it's also got me eyeing the 250s. These are important numbers to me. When I first moved to California, I kinda ballooned in weight, going from 230 to 265 in a pretty short period of time, and 245 is where I was when I fell off Weight Watchers back in the beginning of 2006, so I'm anxious to be able to get through the next 20 pounds. Since I'm behind on my goals, I'm now shooting for 245 by New Year's Day, but unless the pace picks back up that's not going to happen. And because of the theory of muscle changes above, I'm not ready to say I need to make a change to hasten things back to previous pace, either.
Speaking of WW, on that program I lost a total of 45 pounds. With the 262 weigh in on Monday, that's officially 46 pounds lost, meaning this is now the most effective weight loss program I've been on. I've also been on it for approximately 5 and a half months, though there was a one month break in there due to the surgery, and that's about how long I lasted on that program. So that's an important achievement that I have completed.
The waistline continues to drop, though, so I have to assume the weight will follow. This week's measurement is 41.5". It may be falsely low, I was having trouble with consistency so I decided the best way was to cinch it tight which seemed to give me much more consistent measurements, but I think a real measurement would be a bit looser.
I may well still be gaining significant amounts of muscle from the workouts. That would totally offset some weight loss. As a male with a fair bit of testosterone, at least once I hit puberty, I've always gained muscle relatively quickly when I work at it. So that's currently the best explanation of what's going on. At some point any muscle gain I get should plateau. I don't know when that'll be; at that point I can hope that the weight loss will pick back up again.
This morning I ran a 3 minute interval and then a 22 minute continuous interval, and 6 of those minutes (the first 3 minutes and the last 3 minutes of the 22) I picked up the speed just a little bit as a test. I normally run at 5.5 mph on the treadmill, which is a fairly slow but comfortable enough pace. 6 is definitely a touch more intense, but I think I can work my way up to it.
On Friday I run a single 25 minute interval, and the rest of the way through the 5K program it's simply one long interval that is shorter on Mondays, a bit longer on Wednesdays, then longer again on Friday, ending with running an actual 5K. Of course, I'm not going to run an actual 5K, my goal isn't to do a race, it's just to train myself up to be more fit.
I'm thinking ahead to how to continue things once the 5K program is done. I looked at the 10K program and I don't think I'm going to be ready for that, and I don't want to injure myself again. I think my best bet is to work on doing the best 30 minute runs I can do 3 times a week for a couple of months, and work on sprinkling in some cross training 2 or 3 times a week. To that end I should probably figure out a light but effective core strengthening program that will complement running -- done right it can also help my back and knees out. The trick is picking something I can stick with. That means something with low startup costs, particularly in time. I don't want to leave the house. I do own a weight bench, which I could set up in the garage if we get it cleaned up a bit. Now that it's fall/winter, it won't be super hot outside so I could use that to do some leg presses and some arm workouts.
Either way, whatever I do there is a story for after our Disneyland trip, which is the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Going to hope it doesn't rain cats and dogs that week, but with my luck it probably will, and I won't be able to complain a whole lot because we need the rain that badly.
Progress: Waistline down again, weight down but at a much slower pace than prior to the surgery, and the running program is going well. Current weight 263, loss 45 pounds.
So my weight was down to 262.3 on Monday (263.6 today, and 265 yesterday, yay normal fluctuations) so the weight is dropping. My current rate of loss is less than half what it was before the surgery, which is somewhat surprising to me. I don't feel like I'm going over my calorie budget by that much. And I'm running regularly, though I'm not always making my step goal in between. It's been a bit busy and there's been some colds and sniffles going on in there that have interfered.
Weighing in at 262, I do finally feel like the 270s are gone. Occasionally I weigh myself fully dressed and don't record it, just as a "see where I'm at" kind of thing, and because weights in doctor's offices are dressed, so I can kind of keep a personal comparison. I haven't weighed over 270 fully dressed in a couple of weeks. So that's good. But it's also got me eyeing the 250s. These are important numbers to me. When I first moved to California, I kinda ballooned in weight, going from 230 to 265 in a pretty short period of time, and 245 is where I was when I fell off Weight Watchers back in the beginning of 2006, so I'm anxious to be able to get through the next 20 pounds. Since I'm behind on my goals, I'm now shooting for 245 by New Year's Day, but unless the pace picks back up that's not going to happen. And because of the theory of muscle changes above, I'm not ready to say I need to make a change to hasten things back to previous pace, either.
Speaking of WW, on that program I lost a total of 45 pounds. With the 262 weigh in on Monday, that's officially 46 pounds lost, meaning this is now the most effective weight loss program I've been on. I've also been on it for approximately 5 and a half months, though there was a one month break in there due to the surgery, and that's about how long I lasted on that program. So that's an important achievement that I have completed.
The waistline continues to drop, though, so I have to assume the weight will follow. This week's measurement is 41.5". It may be falsely low, I was having trouble with consistency so I decided the best way was to cinch it tight which seemed to give me much more consistent measurements, but I think a real measurement would be a bit looser.
I may well still be gaining significant amounts of muscle from the workouts. That would totally offset some weight loss. As a male with a fair bit of testosterone, at least once I hit puberty, I've always gained muscle relatively quickly when I work at it. So that's currently the best explanation of what's going on. At some point any muscle gain I get should plateau. I don't know when that'll be; at that point I can hope that the weight loss will pick back up again.
This morning I ran a 3 minute interval and then a 22 minute continuous interval, and 6 of those minutes (the first 3 minutes and the last 3 minutes of the 22) I picked up the speed just a little bit as a test. I normally run at 5.5 mph on the treadmill, which is a fairly slow but comfortable enough pace. 6 is definitely a touch more intense, but I think I can work my way up to it.
On Friday I run a single 25 minute interval, and the rest of the way through the 5K program it's simply one long interval that is shorter on Mondays, a bit longer on Wednesdays, then longer again on Friday, ending with running an actual 5K. Of course, I'm not going to run an actual 5K, my goal isn't to do a race, it's just to train myself up to be more fit.
I'm thinking ahead to how to continue things once the 5K program is done. I looked at the 10K program and I don't think I'm going to be ready for that, and I don't want to injure myself again. I think my best bet is to work on doing the best 30 minute runs I can do 3 times a week for a couple of months, and work on sprinkling in some cross training 2 or 3 times a week. To that end I should probably figure out a light but effective core strengthening program that will complement running -- done right it can also help my back and knees out. The trick is picking something I can stick with. That means something with low startup costs, particularly in time. I don't want to leave the house. I do own a weight bench, which I could set up in the garage if we get it cleaned up a bit. Now that it's fall/winter, it won't be super hot outside so I could use that to do some leg presses and some arm workouts.
Either way, whatever I do there is a story for after our Disneyland trip, which is the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Going to hope it doesn't rain cats and dogs that week, but with my luck it probably will, and I won't be able to complain a whole lot because we need the rain that badly.