A lesser Wednesday

This morning I weighed in at 193.6. Horay, I lost...less than a pound. To be honest, I totally blew my calories and carbs this weekened. Movies and dinner out and late night bowls of cereal.

I also stopped taking my supplements and boy did it show. Saturday night I weighed 199. I did a "yikes" face and decided I had to act. I had to get really tight Sunday-Tuesday on my diet. Moreover, I missed a work out last Thusday. I'm just glad to have lost any weight at all.

It's still my goal to get to ten percent body fat, and I've pretty much decided that my scale is screwed up. But I've been looking at photographs of guys with 10 percent body fat and I realize I have a long way to go. I'll let you decide :)

This week, I've also added in Creatine to further minimize lean tissue loss.

I'm going to try really hard to get under the 190's this week. No gym skips or late night bowls of cereal....except for tonight.

See you next week.

Dr. Chris

2nd Wednesday Weigh-in

I got on the scale this morning and it said. 194.4 and 42% body fat. After two weeks of losing 5-6lbs a week, I'm pretty happy. However, I'm quickly losing confidence in the body fat measurement. I suppose that it is possible that I am losing muscle and fat in equal ratios as I drop numbers, but I find that pretty hard to believe. Michael Ventrella on this season of Biggest Loser weighed over five hundred lbs and he had mid 50's % body fat.

My scale says I'm 42%?? I'm having trouble buying that. I may have to find another way to measure body fat.

Also, I performed a biomeridian last week because I wanted to know how I was doing. I performed a second biomeridian because I've had two episodes of falling asleep on the couch in a week.

Last night I had a mild headache and fell "asleep" on the couch for 3 1/2 hours last night before going to bed. I didn't even watch the Biggest Loser. When I woke up Conan O'brian was on. I had almost the same thing happen last Friday.

I've been restrictive on calories to be sure, but not like I have been when dieting in the past.

I remember my first attempt at weight loss in Chiropractic school. I got on atkins and dropped 17 lbs the first week. However, I'm not just interested in weight loss, or even fat loss per se, but I'm really interested in being healthy and lean.

So I'm eating my veggies, rice, fruit along with protein and fats. I'm not eating much in the way of breads. My wife made a cranberry scone cake last week and I've eaten probably two cuts off of it over several days. Really what i'm trying to avoid is "useless" carbs, foods that have been manufactured and processed until there is no life in them. Soda, snack foods, most bread.

I should tell you I've taken my favorite carb: "cereal" and turned it into a game. Every time I lose a new pound, I get to have cereal for post work out desert. Whoopie! Oh don't you wish you were having fun like me.

So obviously, I'm consuming fewer calories and my available energy is reduced. However, I also think that I'm detoxing. I look at my liver numbers in the Biomeridian and I see that I've been in the yellow two weeks in a row. Moreover, my immune system and my skin are also flaring up. So I think I'm going to have to start helping my liver process poisons faster.

I think I'm going to add a scoop of Ultra Clear into my diet in the morning to see if I can unload my liver from all the work it's doing. I'll be sure to post my pictures tonight.

Dr. Chris

I put new batteries in my scale and it still says 42% fat. So (shrug)...I don't know. I still have the same goal so....and it's clear in the mirror I have allot more to lose. On we go.

Dr. Chris

First Wednesday Weigh-in

I'll be honest, I've been weighing in almost every day, but until this morning I wasn't really sure that I was doing what I had intended to do.

Alas....as of first thing this morning. The scale read 199.8. But the scale says I'm now 42% body fat. I don't think that's right. I'm thinking maybe the batteries are going bad...or maybe this thing doesn't work right.

But the pounds numbers sound about right, as I stepped on a couple scales. So for now, let's assume and hope that my fancy new fat scale is not quite right and that' I haven't spontaneously gained another 10% body fat in a week.


So that's about 5-6 lbs in a week. I'm really happy with that, but I'll be frank, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull it off.

I'm 34 years old now. I've been told by people that the older you get the harder it is to lose the weight. So, even though I promised myself that I wasn't going to get crazy, I did cut back pretty hard.

So let me tell you what this week looked like.

Three really good nights at the gym. Jamie(that's my workout buddy)and I pushed really good intensity all three nights and had equally good cardio work outs.

Our workouts consist of 45 mins of diverse weight training and 15 mins of cardio. For cardio, we generally do 5 sets of 10-30 second sprints on the tread mill at 10 mph on an incline of 10-11 degrees then drop the speed down to 2.5 miles per hours and keep the elevation the same while recovering. In all it takes about 12-15 mins. It's brutal but I suck at jogging...so thats what we do.

Yesterday is a good example of how I've been eating. Two eggs for breakfast, 1 cup of my wife's homemade meatball soup. 1 serving protein powder/phytonutrient mix for afternoon snack. 2 chicken enchiladas with rice and beans for dinner. ++ Supplements

Some of you might think that I'm backwards loading my calorie intake, small breakfast, bigger lunch, huge dinner. That's probably true, but I'm staring with protein and that's what all those studies keep saying....breakfast must be protein or else!!!! So that's a start.

In fact, if you look at how I'm eating, you'll probably notice that every meal is high in protein. That's because I'm interested in loosing fat and not muscle.

I'll post tomorrow what that scale says with fresh batteries...hope it isn't worse?

Dr. Chris

The Choice has been made

10 percent? My ambitious attempt to break into the lean and mean numbers.
For the last three-four years, I’ve been going to the gym 3 times a week(with the occasional…I can’t work out tonight because I’m sad message texted to my workout buddy). During that time I’ve lost weight, gained muscle, and improved my cardiovascular fitness. I never really set out with any specific goals in mind for myself, I just knew that exercise has a way of improving everything in your life assuming you’re smart and don’t hurt yourself.
The only real goal I had for myself was to make sure my pants fit. Since college I’ve worn 34 waist pants. The reason for this is that I knew if I got bigger pants, I would get fatter. So no matter how fat I got, I would still squeeze into those 34’s…even until the point that it would be uncomfortable.
I haven’t had problems fitting into that size pants in years.
Until last week. I realized I was slowly but surely putting weight back on. Sure, it didn’t hurt to put on the pants, but it required all kinds of interesting tucks and stretches to make them feel comfortable. Bottom line, I was getting fat again.
Reason: Holiday candy.
About a month before Halloween my wife starts buying candy. She buys it on sale so we can give it to the trick-or-treaters, but that means there is candy in the house for almost a full month before it’s supposed to go to the intended consumer. Unavoidably, I end up raiding the candy stash prematurely and then end up cleaning up the candy left over.
After Halloween comes Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Right about this time of year, M&Ms releases their fabled holiday peppermint chocolate Christmas candy. My wife then buys said candy for “decorative purposes”. It’s funny how decorations turn into a fat gut.
All of this has caused me to refocus my attention with what is going on in my diet. So instead of just eliminating these threats, I’ve decided I’m going to set a goal for myself and let my patients and friends and whoever follow along. The goal: 10 percent body fat.
Do you know how long it’s going to take me to get to 10 percent? Me neither, but I’m going to shoot for a goal of 10-12 weeks. I have no idea if that is realistic or not, but I have a pretty good idea of just how long it takes me to lose weight.
Before I figure this out for sure I need to get some numbers down.
Weight:???
Body Fat:???
If you asked me to guess at how much I weight right now, I would have to guess in the high 190’s or low 200’s. If I had to guess just at a percentage of body fat….I would have to guess about 24-26% body fat.
How do I find out? First I think I should go buy a scale.
That’s right, I don’t have a scale at home. Why? Because I accept myself as I am.
Seriously, if you want to know how I view my body image watch the opening of American Dad. He leaps out of bed, his belly hanging over his underwear, yet he’s smiling and flexing his biceps in self admiration.
Ya, it’s a distorted, unrealistic body image but it’s also easier on my self esteem.
All the more reason to get a scale.
The Scale:
I went out and bought this scale at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It’s supposed to be good, by that I mean the check out girl at Bed, Bath, and Beyond said it was good.
If you don’t like the science behind that inquiry then I don’t blame you.
The gold standards for body fat measurement are body pod and Dexa scan. Let me tell you right now, I’m not going to get a dexa scan.
So, onto the numbers. Previously I guessed my body weight/body fat at high 190’s, low 200’s and my body fat at 24-26%. Let’s see what the scale had to say.
Uh oh.
Ok. So I got on the scale and it said 206. That’s not far from what I was guessing, but I was in for a shocker when I measured my body fat.
33%.
Yikes.
Ok. That’s higher than I last measured. Oh boy.

Dr. Chris