Losing weight

Losing weight is simple. We make it complicated.*  Our emotions, lack of patience and lack of discipline make it more complex than it needs to be.  There are also differences in each person’s body that can make things complex. But the science is pretty simple. I have previously stated, I lost weight by counting calories.

Thermodynamics
WARNING!!WARNING!!SCIENCE ALERT, SCIENCE ALERT!!!! This Blog is about to get very nerdy and technical.  Proceed at your own risk.  Not really, I will do my best to make this as painless as possible.

What is a calorie? We talk about it all the time, but what is it? In order to discuss this a little further I would like to discuss the topic of thermodynamics.  Thermodynamics is the study of energy. Calories are a measuring unit of energy. In the same way you would measure distance in feet, we measure energy in calories. A single food calorie is the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature of one liter of water one degree Celsius. The human body requires and burns a lot of calories.  As a warm blooded animal we use a lot of energy just maintaining our body temperature.

The first law of thermodynamics is very simple. Energy cannot be created or destroyed it can only change forms.  One scientific definition of energy is the ability to do work. (there is no simple definition of energy. When you start talking about quantum mechanics is gets real complicated real fast so let’s just go with a simple explanation). Your body does different types of work. It moves muscles, lifts things, walks from point A to point B and maintains your body temperature. Your brain cells and nerves do work even when you are sleeping.  It’s all work and it all uses energy (Calories). The energy your body uses comes from the food you eat.

What’s the point of all this? The energy you eat (calories) does not just magically disappear because of the latest diet drug or herbal supplement. You either burn it off by working it off or it goes into storage (fat). If you eat more calories than you burn your body will store it as fat. If you burn more calories than you eat your body uses that storage.

Eat less, exercise more is the key. Of course things are always more complex. We also need moderation and common sense. From a calorie perspective women should not go below 1200 calories per day and men should not go below 1500. There are several reasons for this.

• There are many essential nutrients we will not be able to get if we eat less than 1200 calories. This could lead to short and long term illnesses.
• There is a risk you will slow down your metabolism
• You will lose too much lean tissue. When you lose a pound of weight, it is generally about 75% fat and 25% lean tissue. (It increases to 50:50 if you deprive your body too much).  Lean tissue is muscle and you don’t want to lose it because more lean tissue means a higher metabolism. It’s a big reason exercise is important. It increases metabolism in the short and long term and it keeps you healthy.  When you lose weight without exercise and then go back to your previous way of eating you will not only gain it all back but also gain more because your lean tissue is less which means the calories you burn will be less.
• Keep it balanced. Eat a good balance of carbs, fats and proteins. Any extreme is bad. Especially no/low carb diets since they seem to be all the rage. Debunking the low carb myths is too long to get into it here. (I will cover it in another Blog post)

The Next post will be how fast should I be losing weight

*Disclaimer – I understand there are medical conditions that can make losing weight complicated. But don’t assume you a have low metabolism because it is difficult to lose weight. It is difficult for everyone to lose weight. If you are not sure, see your doctor.  If you follow my advice and start not feeling well, see your doctor. It is a bad idea to assume anything about your health.

Name Change

After only one week I decided to change the name of the blog. I did not really care for the original name but I could not think of anything else.

I read recently in a nutrition book: “we should not worry so much about losing weight as we should about gaining health.”  It is better to put our emphasis on health gains rather than pounds lost. Losing weight is hard. It takes discipline, self-control and patience. I have started many times down the diet path only to fail. What is different now? I am, or at least my attitude is. And attitude is everything.  When I started, I wanted to lose weight but I also wanted to feel better.  After only one week of eating healthy I did feel better and that kept me going. There were times when I was discouraged because I wanted to lose weight faster. Every day I stayed with it because I liked the way I was starting to feel and I knew it takes time to lose weight.

There was an old saying: “At least you have your health.”  This was meant to encourage people with other problems and remind them of the blessing of good health.  Even when everything around you is great, if you are in poor health, you cannot enjoy the other things.  In some cases we have no control over health. We get the flu or a cold or worse. But good diet and exercise goes a long way in preventing disease, especially the more serious ones. We can tell ourselves we will eat this or not eat that so we will feel better tomorrow.

We make choices every day, every meal, every snack. We also make a choice to sit on our butts or go for a walk.  We need to focus on these choices. Eventually we will feel better and hopefully the weight will come off. Slow is actually better for weight loss.  Statistically a person who loses 10-20 pounds in six months is much more likely to keep it off then someone who loses 120 pounds in 6 months. We can’t always control weight fluctuations but we can control what we eat and how much we exercise. After we make several healthy choices in a row we do start to feel better.

Choices

Tonight was an interesting example of choices and good decisions we can make every day. I count calories so I know how much I should eat. For lunch, I had a low cal sandwich and some fruit. I also had some mixed nuts which I measured to be 34 grams (~200 calories), My wife texts me she has a pastry from 85 degrees and she saved me half.  I made the choice to not eat the nuts I packed in order to eat half a pastry.  I had eaten about 1000 calories by the time dinner hit. 

After a school event we were very hungry and went to Ruby's.  Before we changed our way of thinking, we would have gone to Ruby's and ordered a coke with several refills (~600-900 cal), Super burger and Fries (1200 calories), Given how hungry we were we may have gotten a shake (800 calories). We would have eaten almost 3000 calories in one meal. 

This time, I knew I had 1000 calories to eat. We were very hungry and both wanted french fries (typically a diet no-no but we were ok because we each knew how many calories we could eat and still reach our goal. To go with the fries we split veggie tacos. Our dinner calories breakdown was: 1/2 basket of Fries (300 calories, we did not eat the whole basket) 1 Veggie taco (270 cal). Patty was good but I had another 400-500 cal to eat. I got a bowl of clam chowder. We ate well, we got what we wanted and we were still on target because we planned ahead and made good decisions.

Changing the way I think.

The first thing I needed to do was change my way of thinking.  Initially my goal was to make it to my son’s high school graduation. That meant I had 3 months to be on this diet. After that I would kind of wing it and try to maintain. (I have since realized with this new path I have chosen, I can easily maintain my new weight the rest of my life)  I looked at every aspect of my diet and eliminated anything causing me to consume unnecessary calories.  I followed these rules:

The Don'ts - 

• No more soda or any sugar drinks. (I did not eliminate sugar from my diet, just sugar that had little to no nutrition value. I eat a lot of fruit and drink Orange Juice which some will say is a no-no).  This first one was easy. I would typically drink at least one soda per day. If I went to a restaurant I would drink 3 or 4 depending on the refills.
• No dessert for the first couple of months. I love to cook and I would make a dessert 2-3 times per week. For at least the first couple of months, No dessert. I have since started eating “sensible desserts” and been able to continue my weight loss. (More details on this in a separate post)
•  No snack food. I also would go to the vending machine at work and get Cheetos or potato chips. Or if I ate a sandwich at home I would have chips with it. ( I will have pretzels on occasion now but not at work)
• No extras – Another bad habit I had was eating bread with an already complete meal. I did not cut out all bread, just bread that was on top of everything else I was eating. I would also snack while making dinner, not good.
• No fast food – Enough said ( I have had Chic-Fil-A once in the last three months, I survived)

These were my negative rules for the first 2 weeks during which I lost 10 lbs. With the list of “Dont’s,” I also had some “Do’s”

The Do's -

• Drink lots of water – More on this in a later post as to how much. But water is essential to your body. Nothing replaces it. Tea, coffee, nothing. A good rule of thumb is 1 oz per kg of weight per day (1kg = 2.2 lb)
• Exercise – find what works for you. I have a stationary bike I use and do some resitance training on the Total Gym. I also walk and hike. My wife and used to spend hours in bed watching TV, now we make a point of walking 3-4 times per week and hiking on the weekends.
• Eat less (duh!) – Don’t eat as much as you think you need to eat.
• Be willing to throw food away – Growing up I was told, “clean my plate, there are starving people in China.”  I have no idea how finishing all the food on my plate would help anyone in China but I know now it was making me fat. This is still an area where I struggle, I feel guilty when I throw food away. Don’t feel guilty. Toss it before you can change your mind.
• It’s ok to be hungry when you go to bed. Don’t starve yourself but if you are going to be eating less calories than you use, your body is going want to eat more. It does not like using fat storage.

As I progressed in my diet I started calorie counting. As strange as it seems it made things easier. I knew exactly what I was putting into my body.

These are my guidelines; everyone needs to figure out what works for them and use common sense. If it is so restrictive you can’t follow it, then it won’t work. I also understand there are many factors in choosing the food we eat: convenience, cost, taste, allergies, ethnicity, etc.  It’s really all about making good choices or not allowing yourself to make the bad choice. Every meal, we choose what we will eat and how much we eat. Following these rules and planning meals ahead of time has helped me make good decisions.

In the beginning.

In the Beginning

I have lost 46 pounds in 3 months. My lovely wife has lost 23 pounds in 2.5 months.
I never had considered posting a Blog before but a lot of people have encouraged me to share how I got to where I am. When people see you lose weight they get encouraged to do the same. I generally do not like to talk about myself and Blogs seem to be mostly narcissistic ramblings. But if people read this and are encouraged or it gives them information that helps them then it is worth the effort I put in.  That being said, I will try to post recipes I used and general guidelines I follow to lose my weight.

My Background-
For those that do not know me, I am by trade a chemist. I manage an R&D group for a very large scientific instrument company. I am 47 years old, married, and have two almost grown sons. I am a born again Christian and an elder at a local church. I also am the worship leader at this church. I love science and enjoy talking about science and chemistry. I have also taught nutrition and cooking for high schoolers.  A lot of nutrition is chemistry, so my goal here is to inform and blend the science stuff with personal experience. I am not an expert on nutrition, some things might just be my opinion.

The Start -
On March 3rd, 2013 I decided enough was enough. I was 6’2” 260 lbs.  I had high blood pressure an was on medication.  I snored every night. Generally I did not feel good and had low energy. It was time to make a change. 20 years prior I had lost 30 lbs. by exercising more and eating less.  Since that time, I had gained 60 lbs.  I am not going to go into all my reasoning here because I plan to post some blogs that explain the science behind nutrition and energy more thoroughly in a separate post but I went with what worked before; I would eat less and exercise more.   Initially I stopped my “soda a day” habit and no longer ate dessert. No fast food or processed snack foods and I would limit portion sizes.  I was committed to riding a stationary bike for 1 hour 4-5 times per week. Within 2 weeks I had lost 10 lbs.

Teamwork helps -
Once my wife noticed the changes she decided she needed to get on this bandwagon also. She suggested we go for walks.  As a scientist I like to know all the details and data so I can form theory and develop guidelines and rules that work. I started using the App mapmywalk so I could calculate the distance of our walks. It also tells you the calories you burn. I noticed that you could also log in the food you ate. After a week of using this I switched to Calorie Count. Patty uses myfitnesspal.com.  As soon as I hit my target I will try myfitnesspal and give a detailed analysis of both. I’m sure both are good and Calorie count works for me.   Patty will also be posting on this Blog some of her thought from time to time.

So people ask, “How did you lose your weight?”  I ate less and exercised more. I measured the amount of food I ate and use the App Calorie count to verify I was eating less than what I was burning. Obviously there is more detail and that is the point of this Blog.

In the future I plan to go into more detail and create short posts because none of us have time to read a 10 page post on thermodynamics.  I do plan on posting subjects such as:
• Favorite recipes and calories per serving
• What is a serving size?
• Can I have dessert?
• Thermodynamics (this is not a joke I want to explain as simply as I can the science behind energy, diet, and nutrition)
• Biochemistry
• Vitamins and minerals
• How much weight should I lose?
• Why there is no quick easy way to lose weight.