I started a journey, way back in 2010, to lose weight. I’d started on Weight Watchers, and enjoyed the app. Switched over to LoseIt! at some point to avoid the fees with the WW app. I’m not sure anymore what my weight was at the beginning of the journey, but along the way I kept logs in different places. According to one such record my starting weight was 342 pounds around April 2010. By December of that year I’d past the 300 pound mark and ended up with my lowest weight being 278 pounds around April of 2011.

Math: 342-278 = 64 pounds in 12 months.

What I remember was my plan. Log every food that I eat. Drink water regularly. Move some everyday. The journey was a regular trend with some plateaus. I started a Couch to 5k program along the way and about the same time as my lowest weight, I completed a 10k race. Other things I picked up along the way was a daily weigh-in and recording that number but only looking at how a daily weight related to a 10-day moving average trend. Anything below that trend was on track. Generally I was most always below trend. There is a post in history with stats on that.

But then slowly, things happened. Life happened. Lost a job, deaths, depression, all the things and losing weight wasn’t that important. I got a new job after a few months, and started trying again, kept my weight under 300 before just not caring anymore.

There are some disparate data points logged in my LoseIt! History (thanks for a 10 year history and a lifetime premium membership) that I can look back on.

April 2014: 340
April 2015: 355
April 2016: 365
— a short stint of a diet end of 2016 got me back to 246 by the end of the year
April 2017: 370
— a plateau here, no more data until I got my type-II diagnosis in September of 2020
Sept 2020: 394

Start the clock – that was a single weigh in at the doctor’s office fully clothed. I felt horrible, had a persistent cough (my reason for said Doctor visit), was given a shot and some pills to help clear my lungs. (This was six months after Covid-19 started things, and I had a cough all the way through). Came back to my doctor in two weeks for follow up and a physical. Type-II confirmed, blood-glucose fasting in the doctor office by blood stick was 400 mg/dl.

Time to become real. I devoured books from sources either my Dad had recommended (The Diabetes Solution by Richard Bernstein, The Diabetes Code by Dr. Fung) along with every book that Gary Taubes has written. Then came up with a plan on how to eat as someone that is basically allergic to sugar.

I didn’t go buy a bunch of cookbooks, I spun my own plan. More fat, less sugar, more protein, less simple carbs. Tracked macros not calories (though track one you get both – just be sure the labels are as accurate as can be). While I do want to be more active, I haven’t really started exercising. Each time I dipped my toes into losing weight after my initial success, it was exercise more than diet. Exercise led to injury, and off the wagon I fell. This time, I told myself, it would be in the kitchen I lose weight.

Starting Weight – 394 – Sept 15, 2020
Present Weight – 325 – July 13, 2021

Math:
10 months
394-325 = 69 pounds

Steady(ish) drop in weight, two little plateaus of a bout a week. The first in April (that six month window seems to be consistent in both journeys), where I let more white carbs back into my diet, stalled me out. Better choices, less bread, back to a steady drop. Another week, first of June, I stopped tracking, stopped weighing on vacation. When restarted after coming home, I’d “gained” five pounds that was erased in three days, and haven’t had a meaningful pause yet.

I hope to be 100 pounds down by the end of the year, but I don’t have a timeline. I’m eating what is best for me, making good choices, tracking my blood glucose daily (by sticks now, not CGM), looking at trends, and drinking water. Enjoying a bit of ice cream in the evening before I start my fast, then breaking it (not really) with a cup of bulletproof coffee when I rise in the morning. I follow a 16/8 Intermittent fasting to help regulate my insulin levels (the real point where you body starts metabolizing fat, versus storing fat is based on this unknown, but related to blood glucose, number.

Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace (Serenity Prayer – Reinhold Niebuhr)

Keeping up with an update to my journey. I had my three-month doctor visit a couple weeks back. I was very interested in seeing my blood panel results, including HbA1c, and other tests to compare to how very poor my numbers were back in October.

The doctor called me, and said my blood tests looked really really good.

Two reallys – I’m happy. Let’s dig into some numbers

The biggest change in what I’ve eaten over the last three months is cutting carbs drastically. This has had dramatic improvements in my blood glucose levels, with fasting (in the morning when I wake up) levels lower than 110 mg/dL and inching lower week by week.

Changing my diet has also resulted in less consumption, daily calories, and also a drop in weight (over 25lbs since September 15th). I’ve read some great books on diabetes specifically, and currently making my way through Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health by Gary Taubes. It’s a fascinating book, wish I would have read it ten years ago.

Speaking of ten years ago, as I wrote previously, my current diet is taking advantage of habits I learned (then discontinued) ten years ago in the middle of losing 60 pounds in a year (Apr 2010 – Apr 2011). I was trying to hack my diet using what I would now refer to as the standard dieting, lower calories. I never bought into a low-fat diet, but neither did I adhere to a low-carb diet 10 years ago. I was trying to hit more Zone Diet goals in macronutrient ratios (30-fat, 40-carb, 30-prot), but I wasn’t trying to be very precise.

Santa brought me some nifty new gadgets for Christmas which will totally support my running habit, though of late it’s been hard to call it a habit. 

First up, a new heart rate monitor (HRM) with a footpod to track cadence, and give the treadmill runs a bit more data to analyze.  The Garmin FR60 doesn’t have GPS, but I don’t really need all that horse-power.  My new job (I need to blog about that… someday) came with an in building gym and locker rooms with three treadmills, so I have a great facility to continue my drills, so at least until it warms up enough to run comfortably outside, I can use the treadmill and my FR60 to give me the data.  I’m still working out the kinks, but here’s an example of a run event Daily Mile by jon.stueve at Garmin Connect – Details.

Celebrated the one-third mark of my journey this past weekend.  I’ve lost 50 pounds, or roughly a small 2nd grader.  This past week was one of my best weeks on LoseIt! as far as consistency, with the month of January matching my best loss in a month, ten pounds.  The last time I lost 10 pounds in a month was my last month on Weight Watchers. 

In July I started using LoseIt! as my food journal, and continued to log my meals and stay under calories.  The biggest difference between WW and LoseIt! tactically is what Weight Watchers calls Weekly Points.  These are points above your daily point target that can be used as you see fit, use them on a splurge day, add a bit each day, or don’t use them at all and speed up your weight loss.  I tried to keep a weekly points balance most of the time which really helped me lose 25 pounds in the first 3 months on this journey.

With LoseIt! you have a daily budget of calories, not points, and there isn’t really a concept of a weekly buffer as far as extra calories you can consume, unless you exercise, then eat your activity calories.  This was a question that played on my mind through the summer and fall, how to handle the lack of the weekly points, and what to do with my activity calories.  Frankly I was busy with work and travel, and I was happy to just keep logging and get in my exercise goals.

When October came, I really wanted to figure out how to fine tune LoseIt! to allow me to meet my stated goals of losing 2 pounds per week.  You can see in my graph the slowing down that was frustrating me, I was thinking it was just a plateau, and tried just giving it time, I decided to really analyze what was working, and what wasn’t.  I started weighing in daily to get more data about how my weight fluctuates.  I started noticing a correlation between some up days and my caloric intake when I ate my activity calories my weight loss stalled.  In December I tried to not eat my exercise calories and had a really great first half of the month.  Mid-month I met my first goal of losing 42 pounds, and my first weigh-in under 300.  That was a relief, because I thought that goal was in reach but it always seemed to move, first by Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then by Christmas. 

I started planning the next phase of my journey, knowing that reachable goals would be easier than seeing a big 100 pounds on the graph, so I made a series of small goals that I’d set after I achieved the next goal.  The first was 4, then 8, then 15, 16, 23, 42.  Also known as the LOST numbers which added a bit of fun to the goal setting chore.  So far, I’ve met the 4 pounds and almost to the eight pound goal. 

The next adjustment I made was to reduce my daily calories in LoseIt! by 200 calories per day.  The reason I chose that number is because that is about what a light workout on the Wii or a circuit training at the gym would burn.  This limits my calories a little bit, but allows me to eat back some exercise calories for days that I have a long run, and still hit my goal of losing 2lb/day.  I’m only about 10 days into that experiment and had a really good week, so I’ll keep tracking and see how that works out long term.

With LoseIt! I enjoy there is enough data in the system that I can make an informed decision about what I want to do.  I’d recommend that people talk with their doctor if they have questions about how much they should eat. 

What tweaks have you made to your system to help you reach your goals?

and I’m gonna have a good time,on this the 43rd celebration of my parents greatest accomplishment.  (I kid, 4th greatest… )

Great way to wake up to some of the most stunningly beautiful people (of which my smokin’ hot wife is numero uno!) on facebook stopping by to write on my wall.  As well as a loyal twitter following of the best tweeps on earth!

I’ve had a great 42nd year, and so I should write some of the things I’ve accomplished, as well as some of the things I’ve avoided.  Here is it in bullet form!

• Did not weigh 400 pounds
• Did weigh under 300 pounds and should continue to weigh less as my 43rd year elapses
• Watched all of LOST, again.
• Did not watch all of Desperate Housewives.
• walked a mile numerous times.
• walked a 5k
• ran a 5k and made it in 42 minutes.
• Celebrated 17 years of marriage to the love of my life in a swanky hotel in Frisco.
• Got a massage treatment with my wife.
• Watched a Los Angeles Dodger game at Dodger Stadium
• Didn’t watch the Dodgers win a game in Dodger Stadium *shakes fist at the Phillies*
• Celebrated my children’s 11th, 14th, 8th and 16th birthdays
• Disagreed with millions of other parents over who’s children are the bestest! (mine are, duh!)
• Continued as editor-in-chief of LOSTblog.com
• Obsessed over my quest to lose weight on various web-sites and excel spreadsheets.
• Obsessed over my iPhone and have a bit of an app addiction (step one, admitted I have a problem)
• Celebrated one year in recovery for my hurts, habits and hangups at Chase Oaks Celebrate Recovery.
• Continued to be blessed by leading and teaching Sunday School each Sunday at Prairie Creek Baptist Church
• Blessed to have many awesome online and offline friends, and doubly blessed to have some in both camps.
• Didn’t get downsized.
• Didn’t get supersized.
• Celebrated 10 years of continuous employment with my current employer, eclipsing the previous record held by the U.S. Navy.
• Didn’t vote in the mid-term election (because I was out of town, and forgot to early vote… off to the gulag for me!)
• Pleased with the result of said election.

Thanks for hanging with me, during the pressure packed year of being The Answer.  I promise to be wrong more often in my 43rd year, and plan on remaining a loser of the rest of the year.

Cheers!

Jon

WFTB – S5E12 – Dead is Dead

Namaste