Category Archives: Life

My top-ten foods last year

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image Using LoseIt! as a food diary is great, because it has some really nifty reports to show you based on the data you’ve recorded.  One of these reports is the favorite foods, you can set the duration for various intervals, but since this is a post near the first of the year, it’s best to do a last year retrospective. [Besides the past four weeks show too many chocolate chip cookies, which my two week long plateau also attests too.]

So what can I glean from this report.  The first is, I’m not very inventive when it comes to breakfast, the next 10 entries after the top-ten have five types of cereal, as a whole cereal is my number two favorite food, usually served with a cup of milk (because let’s face it water on cereal is just wrong!)

Second I’m not afraid of the dairy: milk, yogurt and cheese are good snack choices, fairly low calorie with the right mix of carbs and fats with a good dose of protein.  Eggs also show my preference for the breakfast foods, also with the number 10 entry of bacon, and what’s not to like about bacon. 

We eat a lot of mexican style dishes so the tortilla chips are not a surprise. Also when I don’t eat cereal peanut butter on a bagel thin is a good start to to the day.  So while I could beat myself up and say, “Yo! Jon, toss in a few veggies dude.”  I’m not going to, this chart actually shows a change in the past year of actually eating breakfast instead of skipping it, and having a nice dose of coffee (not tracked in lose it, though maybe I should) for breakfast.

I’d like to in the next year replace the soft white bread with a good whole wheat variety.  I’d like to have some sort of vegetable make it into the top ten snack foods over time (carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes).  There lies the rub, with variety comes less numbers in the total charts, so I’m sure I’ve upped my veggie portions this year, but they don’t show up because of variety.  Which is good, I guess.

So, gentle reader, this shows that a person can lose weight eating a sensible amount of the same foods you normally eat.  Now, get to logging and see what foods are in your top ten.

Water Stability

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So time for another blog post, and like normal it’s about my journey and stuff I’m figuring out by looking at the data I’m collecting and seeing if I can notice any trends.  The first chart is my weight tracking for the month of December, nice and steady loss that is right on track to lose 4 pounds in the month of December.  The red line is the trend line that keeps me sane, weights below that line is a good, on track, signal.  The steady drop in the blue line is projected weights, that I’ve added to help project my plan.

The interesting peak in the weigh loss measurements is the December 6th upward spike.  Remember back in November I had another spike and determined that I was dehydrated and drank lots of water to try and normalize it.  I figured the Dec 6th spike was similar and sought out a way to try and normalize my hydration.  I found an iPhone app called Water that will calculate how many ounces of water based on my weight an other environmental options and then keeps track of how many ounces I drink as I log each glass of water.

That seems wacky, obsessive compulsive, I know, but it was and is something I need to track.  Since then, I’ve drank at least 150 ounces of water a day, sometimes a bit more, but I’ve hit the goal each day. So what is the result?  Well one is the spikes have gotten less severe in my daily weight fluctuations, and other one is evident in this next chart.

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What this chart shows is data from my daily weigh-ins.  My fancy-dancy scale uses a low-voltage charge in my bare heels to measure resistance, and coupled with the body weight measurement it calculates body fat percentage, water percentage, and bone mass.  What I find interesting in this chart is how the body fat and water percentages have normalize without being so spikey as to appear random.  My theory is that a steady hydration rate has normalized my “chemistry” to maintain near the same resistance to the scale over time. 

Some subjective comments on my journey to stay hydrated is that the first week or so I always felt thirsty, even as I drastically increased my fluid intake my thirst was always high.  Second my nasal cavities dried out something fierce, I still us a Bi-Pap to help my sleep apnea (something that I hope will go away as I continue to lose weight…) so I increased the vaporization to help moisturize my nasal passages, but during the day they would feel dry also, even while drinking more.

What I drank is worth recording, I drank mostly water, with usually a cup or two of coffee during work days.  My coffee intake actually went down, as I was concentrating on drinking water.  I don’t drink much soda, or even tea.

So that’s my post for this week.  I’d write more, but I’m going to go swimming in the water, and ride the water slides that I can now legally ride, because I’m now under 300 pounds.

I’m gonna celebrate, dammit!

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Because 42 pounds lost was my goal, and I did it!image

That said, 42 was my initial goal, I’m not done yet!  And with all I’ve learned about that blasted trend line I’ve gotta keep up the momentum to have that trend weight get under the 300 mark (still will happen this month, so long as I keep drinking water!)

So while I wait for the trend to catch up to the scale, I’m considering my next steps, I have a wacky idea in mind, that should be a fun way to mix it up a bit in the next few months.  So stay tuned.

Meanwhile, a small soliloquy on why 42 pounds was my goal (despite the 43 stated in the above picture, I didn’t want to use a three-digit number starting with a 3 as a goal.).

I turned 42 last December.  I read Douglas Adams’ Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when I was in college, so I understand the significance of the number 42 being the ulitmate answer to life, the universe and everything. [Aside: the question being what is 6*9 merely a distraction, this universe’s question shall remain a mystery, see here).

In January my favorite television show LOST started it’s final season (something that should be blatantly obvious to my two readers, but I write to a larger audience!), which I progressed through in a state of joy and sadness.  At The End, I realized I needed something other than television (though I still love me some TV!) to be important in my life.  About the same time as LOST’s finale, my lovely and HAWT wife started on Weight Watchers, she asked me gently to do it with her, because trying to plan meals alone on the system was hard.  So I started Weight Watchers, and then after my free period expired, I started using LoseIt! Both of these programs give you a goal weight, which is a stumper.  All I really new back then was I didn’t want to be as heavy as I was, but as far as a discrete number… clueless.  So I fell back on the LOST numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.  I chose the biggest, because with my initial weigh-in that would put me under 300 pounds.  No I’m looking at all the progress and trying to find a next big number… but I get ahead of myself, stay tuned!

Sometime after I started on controlling my calorie intake. [Aside: that sentence is a laborious way of avoiding the word “diet” – for which I want to avoid because so far I haven’t eliminated any food sources, just how much of the calories I ingest.] I also wanted to increase my calorie outtake.  So I started the Couch to 5K program, which gently guides a couch potato like I was into a somewhat steady runner.  I pegged a date to run a 5k in September, and was committed to getting that done.  I ran my first 5k in 42 (and a bit more) minutes.

See there is that number again.  42. I love the number 42!  The next jean waist size in my cross-hairs? You guessed it 42! (from a 48 mind you…)

So with hitting the 42 pounds gone, I’m gonna celebrate!

Now, where did I put my celery?

LoseIt! has gone social!

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image LoseIt! started out as a Food Journal iPhone application.  The benefit of the application for iPhone OS is that it’s always with you, you can enter you meals as you eat them, or look up choices for many convenient restaurants while you’re waiting in line.  The application has been upgraded a few times and is what I use for my food journal and exercise log.

A few months back LoseIt upgraded their website so that users can enter their food and exercise entries through the website, and it has been a wonderful add-on to the iDevice based method of keeping track of things.  Good charting and reports on the web site (see my past posts for screen caps of the reports) helps geeks like me to number crunch and over-analyze as much as they want.

Yesterday, LoseIt! added a Social Networking layer to their website, which is going to be awesome!.  In the past LoseIt! could automatically post your progress to Twitter and Facebook, but there wasn’t really a good way to connect to other LoseIt-ers unless you knew their email address.  With this new social networking layer, it’s much easier to connect to people that are somewhere in their own journey.

image Once you’ve added friend’s you can change your privacy settings to decide how much you want to share with others, either LoseIt! friends, LoseIt! members or anybody that browses the site.  It has a wall-like Activity list where you can see how your friends are progressing, and even write on your own Activity list to record your thoughts for a day.  Commenting on activities is also enabled so you can motivate and encourage your friends.

The accounts are linked to the LoseIt! forums as well, so there is a way to discuss tips, techniques, recipes, exercise programs.  The forums also make or a good way to discover more friends that are interested in similar things.

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Also to add to the encouragement factor you can earn badges, which are also shown on your profile.  Badges are earned or regularly logging your information, making friends, exercising and notable weight-loss milestones.  What a fun way to document your challenges, and successes.

If you are interested in losing a few pounds, or a lot of pounds (as is my case).  I’d encourage you to check it out, and join up (even if you don’t have an iDevice).  For me and my journey, the discipline of daily logging has been crucial to my successes.  It’s easy to get LOST in the day to day minutiae of logging calories and weight, and lose focus of the longer view.  I’ve continually averaged about a pound lost a week for over 8 months, and that’s something to celebrate.  These new features at the LoseIt! site have helped me to re-recognize my achievements, and realize that I’m making a difference in my life, and the years yet to come.

A fountain of water… springing… down?

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Alternate title: I didn’t realize I was thirsty…

Alternative Alternate title: Even when filled with living water, I still need to drink dihydrogen monoxide.

Although I’ve snarked before on the dangers of DHMO, the truth is two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom is the most important element to those that are living (plant AND animal).  [Sidebar: arsenic? really? ]  After my frustrations of the last week of Novemeber, I immediately enacted my plan of not over eating and drinking MOAR WATER!  The downside to this strategy, without being too detailed to my gentile readers, is that I am now taking lots of breaks during the day.

But that’s the only downside, everything else is upside. Well upside in the downwards direction. Gravity is confusing, when you’re losing weight.  But I digress.  A couple of pictures. help to tell the story of where I’m going with this:

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That double upwards spike had me seriously stressing. Through all that time I was taking a good food log, and getting in exercise, the day before the first spike I had a 4 mile run (then ate pizza. *facepalm*)  In this time I’ve also added weight routines on off run days, which might be the culprit for some of the weight gain. The old adage muscle weighs more than fat, while technically incorrect, muscle is denser than fat and adding more muscle mass is better for my metabolism, but it’s impossible to put on 6 pounds of muscle (or fat) in a week.  The problem was/is water retention.  The cure, oddly, Drink MOAR water.

SpongeBob Narrator voice: THREE DAYS LATER:

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Woo, thank you Sir Newton for inventing that gravity thing. Although gravity has nothing to do with the above chart, the increase in water intake (and, oddly, urine outtake) has reversed that scary trend in just four days.  People, if you’re breathing, drink water!  Especially when the heater starts working, and dries everything out… (Note: for further research weight loss bubbles as a result of colder temperatures?)

The other part of my last post, was the long dissertation on trend lines, and confusing math.  Let my break it down, The daily weigh-in numbers can act as either anchors or buoy to the trend line.  A weigh-in number below the current trend will drag it down, how much depends on how ‘heavy’ the weight (the more below the line, the “heavier” it is) and will pull the imagetrend line down. Similarly, a weigh-in number above the line acts as a buoy and lifts the trend up.  So in this chart, blue dots are the daily weigh-in numbers, and the red dots are the daily trend numbers.  Remember all that stressing about the fluctuating numbers on the scale each morning?  Well the trend numbers help with that. (I started using the trend after the scary spike!) If my numbers fluctuate a little up but stay below the trend, that’s good still on track.  If they spike above the trend line, then I’ll need to re-evaluate and make sure all the checklist (exercise, food log, water intake) items are in order.  A bit of freedom.

So, don’t freak out, I’m not stopping this journey train because of some wacky number.  I’m feeling too good about myself, and enjoying myself too much to get too grumpy. I’m just geeking out on the numbers, because that’s what I do. Also, I recognize looking at last post’s money chart, that I was due for a little plateau.  All signals are in the green, Houston.  Let’s light this candle.

Houston We Have A Problem

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Alternative title: What’s to keep me from tossing this whole diet thing in the rubbish bin?

Alternative alternative title: Sanity please?!

image So November, what happened between us, we started out so promising (after that mean old Halloween time) then we blew up at the end.  Was I bragging too much?  Did my obsession with trying to get to my goal a bit too obsessive?  Obviously something went wrong, the daily weigh-ins might have been too confusing, frustrating, obsessive.  I don’t want to be too negative on you, November, after all I am now fitting comfortably in size 44 pants (down 4 inches!), and I played Thanksgiving Football without injury, and that Thanksgiving picture looks mighty fine!

But like when astronauts calling in from troubled missions to Houston in mid flight, I need to make some adjustments and course corrections.  I need to keep this bus driving downhill, so with the encouragement of a job well done so far, lets keep our eyes on the prize and set some goals.

The first is: Stop eating too much! Looking at the charts, my calories again have bubbled up over 2500.  I need to keep them right at that mark, even on my hard exercising days when I think it’s an excuse to indulge, I’m cheating myself on the longer term.

The second is: Start drinking. Drinking water I mean, jeesh internet, I’m not a lush!  I need to drink enough each day, and then a little more.  I think I was attacked by a bit of dehydration near the end of the month, be it from too much pepperoni (see my facebook photo album), allergies, or just not drinking enough.  So I need to drink 5-6 of my 20 ounce water bottle a day (so says About.com)

Finally, I need to chill out on the celebration/pity parties after each morning weigh-in.  I need a plan, something to make me realize that while the numbers fluctuate, they are going in the right direction.  Enter some things I found in The Hacker’s Diet from a link in the LoseIt.com forums.

In the chapter “Signal and Noise” the book talks about moving averages and trends.  Which is something I understand fairly well, especially when looking at data (like weight data) that fluctuates regularly.  But the numbers I record in LoseIt.com don’t automatically smooth, there is some smoothing in the longer term charts (3 months and above) but that doesn’t really help in the 4 weeks curve that just shows raw data, nor the weekly view that shows 7 days of data.  The timing of when the week starts can be troublesome too, if it hits on a peak or a valley you can totally get the wrong message.

So, anyways, back to smoothing, and trend lines.  I made myself a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet using the data exported from the 1 year Weight Trend chart at LoseIt.com.  Now the first 3 months are my starting weight, so I removed them, the next 7 months are weekly measures, that have some value in the long term, but what I’m really interested in is the last 30 or so days of daily measurements.  From the Hacker’s Diet I used the formula for a “exponentially smoothed moving average with 10% smoothing” which is basically yesterday’s trend subtracted by today’s weight multiplied by one tenth then adding that result back to yesterday’s trend to get today’s trend. (or the excel formula =(-(Cn-Bn-1)*0.1)+Cn where weights are in column B and trends are in column C.

image When graphed you get a chart like above, the left side of that chart shows my weight and trend measurements for the month of November.  The right side of the chart is my projection or weight loss based on losing 0.30 pounds per day, or a little over 2 pounds for the month of December. Realistically, what I want is to have a strong majority of blue data points below the red data points for the rest of the year.  If I do that, I’ll make my goal of getting below 300 pounds (by the TREND line) before the annual lifting of the sparkling cider plastic glass.  Which would totally rock.

And so as to not end on a downer, I extended that trend-line to the data for my entire journey, and I’ve been here before, and the direction has always been in the correct direction.  Click more for the money chart.

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Sometimes I do eat – Food Porn and I’ve lost almost 40 pounds

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imageThe nanny-like Center for Science in the Public Interest has disclosed this years Xtreme Eating 2010 list.  This year they’ve aimed there laser-like sensationalistic dietary probes at the following fine dining institues:

  • Five Guys Burger and Fries
  • Cheesecake Factory
  • California Pizza Factory
  • P. F. Chang’s
  • Outback Steakhouse
  • Chevy’s Tex Mex
  • Bob Evan’s

With the surprising shocker that these houses of hash have menu items that are full of calorie laden entrees.  I’m shocked, shocked… actually, I’m not… and really, CSPI you are a bunch of amateur hacks! Have you never seen an episode of Man versus Food, or Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives?  Them there shows can really show you how to stack on the calories!

Now, if you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve been on a weight-loss journey for the past 8 months (and probably for another 8 months, and possibly even beyond that!) and while staying within my calorie goals have managed to dine rather successfully at the aforementioned eating establishments (and others too!).

Five Guys isn’t too bad, hold the cheese, share the small fries with my son, and I’m out the door with about 900 calories (not to say that pre-diet I would scarf down 2000 calories with hardly batting an eye).  Logging my calories has opened my eyes to what I used to eat, and I’m much happier keeping within the boundaries of my calorie counting way.

I will say I don’t like eating at Cheesecake Factory because they don’t publish nutritional information either on their website, or in their menus.  To earn my business, restaurants should provide nutritional information in an easy to understand manner.  The Lose It! application has a good selection of Restaurants that do provide their menus nutritional information publically.  Which Five Guys Burgers and Fries does, even though they top the list of the CSPI’s bad boy’s of food, I’m not thinking a lot of people go to Five Guys for their lighter fare.  It’s a hamburger joint for cripes sake. 

The key, in my journey, is to know what I’m going to eat, and even plan my restaurant visit before I get there, knowing that I might eat a lighter lunch, or add a few more minutes at the gym to keep on track.  And sometimes, the more rare the better, it’s okay to let loose and get a belt-buster, and then get back on track the next day.  No guilt, steady progress, keep moving.

Motivation through number crunching…

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Daily Weight Measurements - Last 4 weeks

The last time we spoke, I said I was going to start an experiment of daily weight measurements.  The chart to the right show the results of that experiment.  I wish I could attach a comment of my thoughts at the moment my blurry morning eyes register the blue glow of each mornings revelation.  I’m fairly certain that it would reflect a rollercoaster of emotions followed by some exhortations like: stick with the plan, weight fluctuates, stupid scale, shouldn’t have had that Halloween candy – jerk, etc.  Still you can see the regression the whole counting calories while exercising thing actually works.

Not that I ever intellectually doubted the calculus of calories in – calories out = change in weight.  Emotionally though, I think I’ve been in the SKEPTIC category for many of the past years.  But that roller-coaster curve is hard to deal with day in and day out.  Especially the day after Halloween uptick, followed by the only two-day plateau (actually, I was unable to weigh-in that day as I was out of town, it could’ve been worse!)

Still I want a little more feedback, a better understanding of the trends. I know it’s an up and down thing, and as much as I’d like weight loss journey to be a steady slide to the bottom, ending with a asymptotic slope continually approaching my ideal weight, I know that won’t be the case.  So how can I find motivation in my daily journey of weighing in, counting calories, and compiling daily mile posts.  Back to Excel and the numbers that make up that curve.

duration lbs per day lbs per week
last 4 wks 0.20 1.45
last 3 mos 0.13 0.93
last 6 mos 0.12 0.85
from start 0.16 1.15

LoseIt.com has a great little feature that lets you download the data that goes into displaying that chart.  So let’s do a little linear regression or rough averaging, or what not.  So what I did was take the most current weight, and subtract it from the least current for each time period. I then averaged that for the number of days in the time period to get lbs per day.  I simply multiplied that number by seven to get lbs per week.

So while my numbers aren’t exactly in The Biggest Loser territory, they are at least consistent, and I’m encouraged that since I’ve started my daily weigh-in experiment, I’ve beaten my historical average by a comfortable margin (even WITH Halloween! ha! take that spiritual realm!).  I’m also glad to see that from the beginning of my journey, I’ve averaged a little over a pound per week in shedding the pounds.  I’m hoping to meet my initial goal of 299 by the end of the month, then put a stake in the ground for the next goal.  Hitting the goal before Thanksgiving is my prime directive at the moment, don’t want to delay that goal into the Christmas season, or heaven’s forbid the new year!

Putting the best chart… after the fold

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Trends … Trends … Trends

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Alternative title, garbage in – garbage out.  Or — Hey lookie, I think this might need to be adjusted.

Using LoseIt.com the over the last three months has enabled me to start spotting trends.  In my last diet number geek post, I lamented that might weight loss had hit a plateau and while still losing I wasn’t losing as quickly as I had.  I had changed systems from WeightWatchers to LoseIt, and had gone astray. The next three charts (from loseit.com) makes my point.

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