Tag: Exercise

Second Entry

May 14, 2019

Hello,

As I said in my first post, I keep eating diaries which include estimates of the number of calories in everything I eat or drink. At the end of the day or the following morning, I add the day’s calorie consumption figure to a spreadsheet. Each row of the spreadsheet includes the date, my weight that day, the total number of calories consumed, the amount of time I spent doing cardio exercise, and the amount of time I spent doing strength training. I’m one of those people who find it helpful to know whether and how much they are up or down each day so I do weigh myself every day.

I set up the outline of the spreadsheet for the coming year in January so that afterwards all I have to do is fill in each day’s figures. It’s easier than it sounds if you are familiar with using spreadsheets such as Excel. You could create the same records by hand, of course; it would just take more time. I also have calculations built in at the end of each month which compute my average daily weight for the month, my average daily calorie consumption for the month, as well as some exercise statistics. Again, these are set up at the first of the year so that the calculations are done automatically as I fill in the daily data. I like to focus on monthly averages rather than the highly variable daily figures. I still obsess somewhat over daily amounts but having the running monthly average helps me keep it all in perspective.

As you can see, I’m the type of person who finds fairly detailed written records to be helpful. However, there’s more to it than that. Unfortunately, I am very good at deluding myself into thinking that I haven’t eaten too much or that I haven’t gained any weight if I don’t have a record of what happened. Having the written record also helps to keep me from getting overly discouraged. For example, if I’m feeling badly about not making good progress I can look back over the figures for recent weeks or months to remind myself that I’m doing pretty well.

At this point you might not be stunned to learn that I am a Certified Public Accountant and that I spent all but three of my 42 working years doing mostly tax, accounting, and other financial work while working as a paralegal at a large law firm.

See you next time.

First Entry

May 12, 2019

Hello,

This is my first post on my first blog so please bear with me.

I plan to write about weight loss. I’m not a medical professional.

I have gradually lost 70 pounds at an irregular pace over the past eight years and four months. I’m a 70 year old man and I weigh 195 pounds today. I’d like to lose additional weight but I don’t have a particular goal in mind .

I hope that writing here will help me to clarify my thinking and to remain focused on losing more weight. I also hope that others may feel that I’ve provided them with some useful perspective as I try to describe my experiences and state of mind along the way. I don’t plan to offer advice as such since I am speaking entirely from the point of view of my own weight loss history and I simply don’t consider myself qualified to offer specific suggestions.

The main reason I feel that doing this could be worthwhile is the fact that I’ve tried to get and keep my weight down since I was a teenager but have always failed until now. I’ve managed the getting it down part a few times over the years but the keeping it off part has always defeated me. This time, though, I’ve gone for years without quitting for longer than several months at a time or regaining more than a small fraction of what I’d already lost.

The one exception was a period during which I regained half of my previous loss in the form of water weight over a few weeks just prior to landing in the hospital with heart failure. I had lost 40 pounds by then but regained 20. With diuretic drugs I lost that 20 pounds of water weight during the week I was in the hospital and I’ve lost another 30 pounds over the last three years and eight months, getting me to my 70 pound net loss over the entire period of eight years and four months.

I am still on two diuretics and I have no idea how large a role they have played in my more recent weight loss.

I keep eating diaries with calorie counts which show that my daily calorie intake is down 25% relative to what it was when I started losing weight in early 2011. I also have no idea how accurate that 25% figure is since my calorie counts are estimates. I am very confident, however, that I eat a lot less now than I did then.

My appetite has slowly diminished and I don’t understand why. Perhaps my body has slowly adapted to my reduced intake. I’ve particularly noticed the reduced appetite during the last 10 or 11 months and my weight loss has been somewhat more rapid during that time.

I try to limit my eating to a 10 or 12 hour period each day.

I haven’t changed what I eat. My diet can probably be fairly described as a typical American diet with high fat, salt, and sugar intake and low fruit and veggie intake. I did quit drinking alcohol at my heart doctor’s suggestion.

I don’t smoke.

I exercise four to six times a week. I do two to four hours of cardio exercise on a stationary recumbent bike and 1.5 hours of strength training along with an hour of stretching during a typical week.

I didn’t intend to go on this long my first time out but I think that this gives you a pretty good first look at my basic picture.

See you next time.