30 Day Health / Weight Update (Nov 2019)

On September 16, 2019, I switched from my 18 days of “juice / blend” fasting / diet to an Intermittent Time Fasting (ITF) “Diet / Lifestyle”.  My starting weight on 29 August, for the juice / blending fast was: 373lbs.  My starting weight for the ITF was: 356lbs.  My current weight (this morning) was: 338lbs.  Basically, I’ve lost 35lbs from the end of August and 18lbs from the start of the ITF.  There is need to mention one minor qualification: after the end of the juice / blend fast, I regained 11lbs the first week – which I’ve had to re-lose under ITF.
Calories Chart from last 30 days (Oct / Nov) of ITF
The observant among you may (again) notice in the above chart, I had four(4) days where my calories-in exceeded my calories-out…  Interestingly, this is the same number of “exceeds” as the prior (first) month.  Essentially it’s demonstrating that about every other “all-you-can-eat / anything-you-want” day, I blow my caloric allowance.  I’m on a three day cycle, so this means about once a week I lose it.
When I switched to the ITF, I also began using my FitBit (FB) to begin tracking my food and gauging my calories-in versus my calories-out.  I’m not sure why, but the FB has set my calories-out “objective” at 3,800.  The on-line BMR calculator I use said my initial BMR was roughly 2,370 calories.  At my current weight (338lbs), my BMR is 2,329 – about 40 fewer calories lower / less.  This means I have to burn an additional measure of 1,470 calories during my waking hours to reach the FB objective.  In any case, FB is showing my daily calories out for the last 30 days at 4,383.  By this reckoning, I am exceeding the FB calories by 583 per day.  Multiply this by 7 days in a week and we get 4,081 – which works out to about 1.25lbs per week of weight loss.
BMR on 16 Nov 2019 at 338lbs
Anyway, the top chart shows I still have a calorie deficit of about 1,300 calories per day.  That times seven(7) days is 9,100 calories.  Divided by 3,500 calories (1 pound of human body fat) equals to 2.6 pounds of loss per week.  My actual weight loss over the last eight weeks is 18lbs.  Divided by eight(8) is 2.25lbs per week.  This is roughly the same average weight loss per week as recorded at the end of four weeks.
The goal of my long-term weight loss is to drop 1.5 to 2 pounds per week.  In theory, this will prevent the two worst part of extreme weight loss: a permanent (and excessive) drop in BMR (which makes it easier to regain lost weight) and a large amount of floppy / saggy skin (pure vanity).  It looks like I’m continuing my promising start from the first month.  IF I can keep this up, I should be under 300lbs for my 65th birthday at the end of March 2020.
Equally important: how does it feel?  Today I am almost done with my second full week of “slogging” (VERY slow jogging).  I went from week one of 2 miles per day, to week two of 2.4 miles per day.  My goal is to get to 3.2 miles per day and then begin dropping the time (slowly).
I am still working on my secondary goals going forward: smoothing out the “calories-in” numbers and to eat more healthy on my one-meal-a-day / all-you-can-eat day.  I am still “abusing” the OMAD opportunity, but… during the last month, even though I was over my calories limit, I didn’t eat beyond feeling stuffed to the point of feeling sick on any of the four “overs”.  So, I am improving there, too.  Slowly, slowly…
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On This Day In:
2018	#PresidentBoneSpur
2017	My Staggering Confusion
	Zapped!!!
2016	And Bloggers?
2015	Ethical Energy
2014	Are You Likely To Defend It?
2013	Might As Well
2012	The Long And Short Of It
2011	Bravery

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One For Two

Well, I’m not sure what came over me, but today (this morning) I went out for my first “slog” (ssslllooowww jog) in ages.  Two(2) miles in 36m 57s.  Yeah, I know, pretty slow…  But, hey, I’m 64 years old and this is my first time hitting the pavement in ages (pretty much since last year and it is November).
And so it goes…
Are you a runner?  Did you run yesterday or today?  If the answer is “yes”, you are a runner.  And, it doesn’t matter how fast (or slow) you did it.  (No, tomorrow doesn’t count.  We ALL plan to run tomorrow!)
Oh, and just for chuckles, 22m 30s gets me 1 (single) point (out of 100 possible points) on the Army physical fitness 2-mile run test.  Only 14m 27s to go…  I guess first I’ve got to start “running” – and then maybe lose 20 years (LoL).
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On This Day In:
2018	The Worst
2017	#DonTheCon In The Oval Office
2016	Are You Like #AmnestyDon And Sarah Palin?
2015	Begin Today
2014	Look Again (At Life’s Illusions)
2013	None Knows
2012	Yet
2011	No End In Sight
2010	Back At It…

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I’m Still Looking

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training.  It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.
―  Socrates
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On This Day In:
2018	I Choose Love
	Courage Can Be Contagious
2017	Scary And Wonderful
2016	#AmnestyDon Hears The Polls
2015	Dare The Improbable
2014	All Together Now!
2013	This Road
2012	Profit
2011	God Is Personal
2010	Playoff Fever Gets the Best of Me…

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Things That Go Bump In The Night

Last night, as I was finishing brushing my teeth / getting ready for bed, my wife comes into the bathroom saying she’s banged her head and she’s bleeding.  She was holding her left hand behind her ear and I could see blood pulsing down the front of her nightgown and bathrobe from her throat.  I asked her to move her hand so I could see and, when she did so, there was a pulse of blood down her head, the back of her neck and onto her robe.  I grabbed some toilet paper and held it up against where I thought the blood was coming from, but it was coming from slightly higher up and the blood pumped between my fingers, down the back of my hand and to my wrist.  I grabbed a bigger wad of paper and pressed against the (slightly) higher location and it seemed to pause the flow.  I told her to press the paper firmly and I was going to get some sterile bandages from the first aid kit then take her to the ER.  As I started to the hallway, she shouted at me to just wet a face-cloth and she would use that.  I was almost to the kit when she yelled again, “Just get me a wet face-cloth!!”  Rather than argue, I came back down the hall, reached into the linen closet and grabbed a face-cloth.  We walked back into the bathroom and I wet the cloth in the sink and applied it while taking the bloody paper and throwing it in the bin.
To make a longer story shorter, we went to the ER (a five minute drive), and, after a four hour process (interview / CT / tetanus shot), my wife got four staples and a tetanus shot for her trouble…  (See image below.)
A four(4) staple OWIE…
So, what happened?  My wife went to sit in a “computer” chair (with wheels) and she didn’t see it had a backpack on it.  When she tried to sit, she slid straight off the front of the seat and the chair shot away (on the hardwood floor).  We believe she must have caught the edge of one of the wheel case struts and she got an “L” shaped laceration requiring the four staples.  Fortunately, the blood only made it look a LOT worse than it actually was.
We were home by 3:30am and she has been resting all day.  And, in one week, (on her birthday), she can have the staples removed!!  To paraphrase a famous movie line:  “I’m getting too old for this sh##!“
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On This Day In:
2018	I Must Be Truly Wise
2017	My Sensei
2016	The Worst Sin
2015	Rules Of Thumb
2014	A Prayer
	Orange October (IX) – Giants Lose Game 2 In Bullpen Collapse
2013	Complacent Reality
2012	Two-minute Sex
	Just Staring, Why?
2011	A World Of Difference

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30 Day Health / Weight Update

On September 16, 2019, I switched from my 18 days of “juice / blend” fasting / diet to an Intermittent Time Fasting (ITF) “Diet / Lifestyle”.  My starting weight on 29 August, for the juice / blending fast was: 373lbs.  My starting weight for the ITF was: 356lbs.  My current weight (this morning) was:  347lbs.  Basically, I’ve lost 26lbs from the end of August and 9lbs from the start of the ITF.  There is need to mention two minor qualifications.  1)  My initial weigh-ins for both starts (juice and ITF) were barefoot and with shorts on.  My weight this morning was with sweatpants and cross-training / “fake” leather shoes.  I would estimate the “extra” weight to be between 3-5lbs.  Having said this, I did not subtract this from the morning’s weight.  And, 2) after the end of the juice / blend fast, I regained 11lbs the first week – which I’ve had to re-lose under ITF.
Calories Chart from start of ITF
The observant among you may notice in the above chart, I had four(4) days where my calories-in exceeded my calories-out…
When I switched to the ITF, I also began using my FitBit (FB) to begin tracking my food and gauging my calories-in versus my calories-out.  I’m not sure why, but the FB has set my calories-out “objective” at 3,800.  The on-line BMR calculator I use says my BMR is roughly 2,400 calories.  This means I have to burn an additional measure of 1,400 calories during my waking hours to reach the FB objective.
BMR on 16 Oct 2019 at 347lbs
Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) is defined as 220 beats per minute (BPM) – your age (64).  This makes my MHR equal to 156bpm.  “Elevated” heart rate is defined as 70% of MHR.  In my case, that would be 109bpm.  According to my FB, my active time (i.e. “elevated heart rate”) per day is 71 minutes (on average).  I’m not sure how this level is met as I only walk my dog for 30 minutes per day and 45 minutes (maybe) 2 or 3 times per week.  My FB “step target” is 7,500 steps versus the 10,000 “normally” recommended.  I miss my step target about once every couple of weeks.  I can only imagine my AFib is raising my heart rate at various points during the day and this is being read as active time by the FitBit.
Anyway, the top chart shows I have a calorie deficit of about 1,300 calories per day.  That times seven(7) days is 9,100 calories.  Divided by 3,500 calories (1 pound of human body fat) equals to 2.6 pounds of loss per week.  My actual weight loss over the last four weeks is 9lbs.  Divided by four(4) is 2.25lbs per week.  (If we subtract the 3lbs for the shoes worn in this morning’s weigh-in, the result is 2.75lbs per week.   Just saying…)
The goal of my long-term weight loss is to drop 1.5 to 2 pounds per week.  In theory, this will prevent the two worst part of extreme weight loss:  a permanent drop in BMR (which makes it easier to regain lost weight) and a large amount of floppy / saggy skin (pure vanity, it just looks terrible).  It looks like I’m off to a promising start.  IF I can keep this up, I should be under 300lbs for my 65th birthday at the end of March 2020.
Equally important:  how does it feel?  Today I was able to get into my wife’s Toyota Corolla without having to put the seat back-rest almost flat and contort my body to get into her car!  So, yeah.  It feels pretty good.  🙂
My secondary goals going forward are to work towards smoothing out the “calories-in” numbers and to eat more healthy on my one-meal-a-day / all-you-can-eat day.  I won’t say I’m “abusing” the OMAD opportunity, but…  Okay.  Yeah, I am ABUSING it!!  And, I know better.  At least two of the days, I ate beyond feeling stuffed to the point of feeling sick.  So, yeah, I can do better there, too.  Slowly, slowly…
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On This Day In:
2018	One Of The Great Ones
2017	Mirror In The Oval Office
	True Courage
2016	What’s Your Excuse?
2015	Some Meaningful Resemblance
2014	Bloom
	Orange October (VII) – The Giants Win The Pennant!!
2013	Walking The Walk
2012	Legacy Of Star Trek (TOS)
2011	Tolerating The Intolerant
	Passionate Germs
2010	Giants Win Game 1 In Philly (4 to 3)!!

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Running History, But I Don’t Expect Many To Match It…

It has taken 65 years for a human being to make history in sport after Roger Bannister.  I can tell people that no human is limited.  I expect more people all over the world to run under two hours after today.
—  Eliud Kipchoge
Eliud Kipchoge (the 34-year-old Olympic champion from Kenya) ran a marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes, 40.2 seconds, becoming the first person in history to break two hours for 26.2 miles in a special running / marathon event in Vienna (at Vienna’s Prater-Hauptallee (main avenue)) on Saturday (12 October 2019) morning.
Roger Bannister – mentioned in the quote – was the (British) runner who became the first man to break the 4 minutes for a mile record in 1954 (May 6, 1954, in 3:59.4).  Multiple individuals were close to the record before Bannister broke it and over a thousand runners have since broken 4 minutes in the 60+ years since.  Bannister’s “world record” lasted barely six weeks before it was broken and two months after the initial sub-4, two runners in the same race (Bannister was one of them), broke sub-4.  A sub-4 minute mile is now considered “routine” for world-class middle-distance runners.
Kipchoge’s run does not qualify for the world record nor will it be “officially” recognized because it was not an “open” competition and because Kipchoge was preceded by a pace car (which provided a laser path guide).  In my humble opinion, neither of these factors are significant and we have witnessed one of the greatest feats in human athleticism.
The quote was taken from the web and is available from many sources.  This image was “snipped” off the news video at: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/eliud-kipchoge-runs-1-59-marathon-first-to-break-2-hours/ar-AAIFQjT?ocid=spartandhp.  I make no claim to ownership or rights to the quote, image or video.
I AM simply astounded at the achievement.  It staggered me to wake up and read about (and watch) history in the making!  I had been hoping for it (the record) to happen, but never “really” expected to see it in my own lifetime.  As expected, it could “only” happen under ideal conditions: cool temperatures, flat course, little or no wind and only at (or near) sea level.  The course had an elevation difference of less than eight(8) feet over it’s lap distance and (I gather) the location for the course was between 500 – 600 feet in elevation.
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On This Day In:
2018	25 Days Until The November Election
	Old And Young
2017	Universal Soul Sounds
2016	Not Rivals
2015	Dead Sure
2014	Are You Educated?
2013	For Myself
2012	And When I’m Gone…
2011	Complete Conviction

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A Dynamic And Adaptable System

[The following are two excerpts from an article I recently read on the benefits / effectiveness of increasing exercise on long-term weight loss.  I highly recommend clicking on the links to read the original article(s).  —  KMAB]
University of Alabama obesity researcher David Allison sums up the research this way:  Adding physical activity has a very modest effect on weight loss — “a lesser effect than you’d mathematically predict,” he said.
We’ve long thought of weight loss in simple “calories in, calories out” terms.  In a much-cited 1958 study, researcher Max Wishnofsky outlined a rule that many organizations — from the Mayo Clinic to Livestrong — still use to predict weight loss:  A pound of human fat represents about 3,500 calories; therefore, cutting 500 calories per day, through diet or physical activity, results in about a pound of weight loss per week.  Similarly, adding 500 calories a day results in a weight gain of about the same.
Today, researchers view this rule as overly simplistic.  They now think of human energy balance as “a dynamic and adaptable system,” as one study describes.  When you alter one component — cutting the number of calories you eat in a day to lose weight, doing more exercise than usual — this sets off a cascade of changes in the body that affect how many calories you use up and, in turn, your bodyweight.
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There are three main components to energy expenditure, (Alexxai) Kravitz explained: 1) basal metabolic rate, or the energy used for basic functioning when the body is at rest; 2) the energy used to break down food; and 3) the energy used in physical activity.
We have very little control over our basal metabolic rate, but it’s our biggest energy hog.  “It’s generally accepted that for most people, the basal metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure,” Kravitz said.  Digesting food accounts for about 10 percent.
That leaves only 10 to 30 percent for physical activity, of which exercise is only a subset.  (You can read more about this concept here and here.)
“It’s not nothing, but it’s not nearly equal to food intake — which accounts for 100 percent of the energy intake of the body,” Kravitz said. “This is why it’s not so surprising that exercise leads to [statistically] significant, but small, changes in weight.”
—  Julia Belluz and Javier Zarracina
From the article: “Why You Shouldn’t Exercise to Lose Weight, Explained With 60+ Studies“
The article appeared in (on): “www.vox.com“
I found the article at: https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-you-shouldn-t-exercise-to-lose-weight-explained-with-60-studies
The original article appears at: https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories
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On This Day In:
2018	Speak Your Mind
2017	And I Thought It Was Just Me Getting Old
2016	One For Whole
2015	A Good Present
2014	And Your Point Is?
2013	Our Never-Ending Task
	Furloughed
2012	More Mature Than I Thought
2011	Outlaw’s Music
	Can Do!

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