Week #3
Posted by Trixter on January 15, 2006
Puzzling measurements today:
- 228 pounds
- 31.5% body fat
- Blood Pressure 139/81
My body fat percentage stayed the same, yet I lost three pounds. This can mean two things:
- Scale variance/inaccuracy, which I’m okay with, or
- I’m losing muscle instead of body fat, which I am not okay with.
Hopefully next week will show a better trend. Week-to-week measurements are still a bit too fine for my tastes, given that my weight fluctuates +/- 3 pounds every day anyway.
Oldskooler Ramblings 
Will Chose said
Hey Trixter, I love your oldskool website. I can remember reading the demo newsletter when I was in college in the mid 90’s. Anyway I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been where you’re at with respect to dieting – when I graduated I weighed about 228 pounds. The way I did it was similar to you – I cut my daily calorie intake to 1500/day. There used to be a really good website (gone now, I think) where you could enter the nutrition information off the food labels, and enter everything you eat during the day and it would calculate your calories and main vitamin intakes. You might want to consider setting up something similar for yourself.
Anyhow I ended up getting back to 188 and I’ve pretty much stayed there for the last 4 years. One thing I wanted to point out is that it is hell for a while, but gradually your stomach “shrinks” (for want of a better term) and you will find that you get full much quicker, and that you become more sensitive to that feeling of fullness. I just wanted to let you know that it does get easier over time. I still could stand to lose another 15 pounds but there’s another fact, the weight comes off quickly in the beginning but the last few pounds are the hardest. I also found that I lost some muscle so exercise is pretty essential once the weight loss starts to slow down. You will find though that towards the end, if you’re exercising, that some of the weight slowdown is a result of putting on more muscle while losing fat at the same time.
When you do get to exercising, keep a log of what exercises you did and how many/length of time you did them. I found this to be a good motivator, and could see my stamina increase as I gradually increased the length of time on machines such as the cross-trainer.
Another tip, although perhaps it was easier living by myself, was to just not buy snacks. I would want them but it was too much of a hassle to run out for them, so I would go without. It’s tough. Popcorn is good, if you like garlic try putting paprika and garlic on it. Also parmesan cheese like you would sprinkle on your pasta is not all that fattening and is pretty good with garlic.
Anyhow I just wanted to offer some encouragement to you man, stick with it. You’ll definitely be glad you did! I hope you can find part of my experience useful to you. I’m sure everyone is rooting for you. Good luck to you.
Trixter said
Very much appreciated, thank you! The “stomach shrinking” comment is very encouraging, as there are some days where I am always hungry and think it will never end.