I guess this is a yearly thing now! Anyway, here’s what you came for:
Screenshot
So if you’re keeping track, I’ve gone up about 3 pounds on average since last year, and this year we saw some interesting developments in terms of active months (e.g., summer, when I can be outside) and inactive (school year, when I don’t always have time for a lot of activity). However, given that I’m within 10 pounds of my weight 2 years ago (210), and way down from my highest weight of 420… I’d say I’m still a success.
This is a quick update, so I’ll give you a bit of a “what happened in 2024-25” roundup:
I have remained a consummate runner / jogger. I can actually complete Zone 2 runs now where my heart rate stays under control. Recently I set a new PR for 5K at 29:14 (Previous had been 29:17 in May, and 29:34 last year).
I haven’t been doing as much in terms of functional weight training or stretching. I want to get back to it and likely will once the winter months harsh my outdoor vibe. I do now practice balance while brushing my teeth – it’s a quick and easy way to get a minute on each foot each day.
I kept up most of my workout routine on trips this past year, which has been nice. My rest days are still mostly just travel days where I cannot workout, so I’m trying to figure out ways to get in rest days other times. I have noticed that just making sure I don’t jog/run on 2 consecutive days has really helped, so I mostly do run/jog then walk then run/jog. Perhaps some weights would be helpful to work in.
Oddly enough, I have established some cred for myself in the Exercise Science / Sports world. I taught PSY 393 Sport Psychology for the first time this year, I’ve got work published now with colleagues at Clemson University (I provided statistical analysis), and I’ll be on a panel in a few weeks talking about AI and Education at the Mississippi Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance conference. Mr. Boynar (See previous entry), would probably be shocked.
I’ve also stopped obsessively tracking my food intake (It didn’t actually do anything anymore), and I’ve mostly cycled off supplements / health foods / protein powders. Not that those weren’t helpful, they just didn’t do much to improve things. Always open to trying new things though.
So there you have it. I’m pretty happy in my body right now, a goal for the next year is to try to stop obsessing over weight. I think I’ve proven that I have a “range” right now of 213-222 or so, and if I stay in that range for the rest of my life, I could probably be pretty happy. Definitely excited to have the leg muscles I do so that my idea of a good time is a fun jog or run.
Hi all – it’s been awhile since I’ve updated everyone on my health journey, but today has been a good day in that regard, and it’s time for a wrap-up of the last 12 months.
First, addressing the title of this post: Still Not Fat Again. This might sound a little on-the-nose, but we know from data that somewhere around 90% of people who lose weight re-gain it. Every so often a well-meaning person (at least I assume they’re well-meaning) will come up to me and be amazed that I’ve kept 200 pounds off for over 3 years now. And sometimes they literally say things like “I’m surprised you haven’t put back on the weight”. So before I jump in any further, here’s a weight update in graphical form:
My last weight check-in with everyone was around 210, so I’m pretty fine with being within the 10 pounds of that weight for the past year. Aside from holidays where I bump up a bit (and vacations), I’d argue my weight is at a fine point, especially given the other changes I’ve made in 2024 that I’ll talk about below.
Anyway, with that aside, let’s recap where I’ve been and what I’ve been trying. Late 2023 and 2024 has been a year of “tinkering” so to speak.
November 2023: I had started going on some light jogs / runs in early 2023, and continued that until the weather got too cold for my liking last winter. My last run of the year was a 25-minute run on December 17, 2023 where I averaged a 10’01” mile, and 165 spm. Notably though, my heart stayed in Zone 5 most of the time, 18:09 of the 25 minutes. I wasn’t thrilled with that. My heart rate recovers quickly, but still, I didn’t want to always be maxing out. Around this time I also started logging food again, just to see if that would do much for me. Spoiler alert, it really didn’t, and I stopped logging again in August 2024.
In January, I decided to add some functional strength training to my workouts, so I started planking every day. Starting with 1 60-second plank, by the time I’m writing this, I tend to do a 5 minute planking routine every day, consisting of 2 50-second extended planks and 2 45-second regular planks, with 30 seconds or so rest between. I have noticed some changes to my arms and abs, which is encouraging. I was recently able to dead hang off a bar for 5-10 seconds, and could pull myself up slightly, whereas before I never could.
Throughout the spring, I kept doing the planks, and came up with some functional workouts I could use when the weather was too cold or rough to go out. I also continued to do some Apple Fitness+ workouts from time to time. I also got my Lumen up and running again and it basically told me that my metabolism was still flexible. I also started eating some of the products from Huel, including Daily Greens and some of the pre-made meals and protein powders. Their stuff is tasty, and I find it a good enough value for what it provides to me nutritionally.
I started running again in May 2024 and had lost a little bit of time, but not much. It was at this point that I also began to wonder if I needed a bit more formality in my running. Let me give you some background. My first experience with jogging or running came in 9th grade, when my physical education teacher, Mr. Boynar, would have all of the boys in the class jog every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. At the start of the semester, it would be for 8 minutes, and then every week he’d add a minute. This seemed fine, until you realize that in the middle of that semester, my third of the class had 6 weeks of swimming. So I basically was asked to jog for 6 weeks going from 8-14 minutes, then take 6 weeks off while I swam laps on Tuesdays & Thursdays, then come back and jog 20-26 minutes. Not exactly ideal, especially since Mr. Boynar’s method of teaching jogging was simply to tell you to go jog, and he didn’t care what speed you jogged at. He was in his 50s, and jogged with us, so at least he jogged the jog (as opposed to walking a walk), but never any guidance on what running or jogging was about.
So it’s probably no surprise that when I started to lose weight, I was intrigued by jogging and running (because hey – it requires very little special gear, and it gets you places, literally), but really had no knowledge of the sport. I figured, naively, that all you needed to do was get out and move fast. So that’s what I did in 2022, and 2023. Coming back to it in 2024, I thought “Maybe I should actually learn about this whole thing?”
So I downloaded Nike Run Club, and bought a pair of actual running shoes. I started doing the guided runs by Coach Bennett and others where they actually teach you how to run. I learned about different types of runs (speed runs, long runs, fartleks, recovery runs, tempo runs, tabatas, etc…) and some of the golden rules of running (e.g., give yourself an adequate warm-up, don’t go out too hot/fast, take active and passive rest days, etc…). And I found that not only was I liking the quicker exercise that runs/jogs were giving me, I was actually starting to like the whole process of running. I even ran while on vacation, as you can see below. You know it’s something you enjoy when you decide to do it while on a vacation where you regularly are walking 15-20,000 steps a day!
Anyway, once I had worked through the guided runs, I also started working on my steps per minute, realizing that I was overstriding just a little bit (my average SPM was 150-155), so I tweaked my playlist to tunes that would get me into the 160-180 range, and built my own training plan. Not sure what I’m training for, but at this point it’s just building the muscles and abilities.
All of this led to a new PR for my 5K time, just this morning, at 29:31. This is about 90 seconds down from my average 5K! In general, I’m pretty happy with this evolution of my “run” game.
In addition to the planks and the runs, I’ve also started working on flexibility, doing at least 5 minutes per day on stretching. My goals there are just to loosen up my muscles and tendons enough to somewhat resemble the movements the trainers are able to do in my app. Who knows if I’ll get there, I’m only a month in.
So there you have it, my journey over the past year. I continue to eat pretty much whatever I want, whenever I feel hungry. Future plans include thinking about other outdoorsy activities such as camping and hiking, and some day I may actually run a race of some kind, just haven’t decided where/when/why on that just yet.
So no, I’m not fat again, but I am evolving and changing with purpose.
Steve, Emersyn, and Me, Taken Early September 2023. My weight was 210 or so.
When we last left off, I’d completed the “weight loss” part of my journey, going from 415.6 pounds to my lowest, 189 or so. That was in June 2022 when I last updated everyone.
Since then, I’ve looked at what I want the rest of my life to look like. To stay around 190-195, I would basically have to keep most of the restrictions of my diet plan (e.g., macro balancing, lower carbs, etc…) and physical activity at a high level. Is that what I wanted? Not really. What I did want was:
To be able to eat whatever I wanted, in moderation, mostly whenever I wanted. After all, why lose a bunch of weight if you can’t enjoy the foods you formerly felt guilty over.
Related, I didn’t want to be “that guy” in any group of friends. Now it’s fine to have particular needs / tastes and to share them with your friends (e.g., “I try not to eat too much meat” or “I don’t like Brussel sprouts” and especially “I can’t eat that due to my allergies or immune system”). But I think we all know the “That Guy” – he or she is the person that you worry about because they seemingly have nothing they can eat. You try to support them, you try to do everything you can, but ultimately it can totally stress a host out to have them around. Plus it’s not all that much fun to be “that guy” when you know you kinda sorta got yourself into that mess. Mr. “I can’t eat carbs because my body can’t process them anymore because I’ve been keto for too long”. Yeah, I didn’t want that for me.
I wanted to be able to engage in physical activities that required muscular strength and stamina. I bought my Rad Extend 5 power bike in April 2022, and I wanted to be able to bike around without pedal assist (The bike weighs 70 pounds, so it does require some effort!). I’d always thought about jogging and running as goals (At 190, I could jog for perhaps 10-15 minutes at barely faster than my walking pace – 14 minute mile or so). So have the muscles I need to do the jobs I want to do.
I wanted to get to a point I looked at my weight but it didn’t dictate how I felt about myself.
So this leads me to today, where my weight hovers around 210, and my body fat percentage is about 1% higher than it was in June 2022. And I can do this:
More or less I’m at a pretty happy place right now. All of the clothes I bought in 2022 at 190 still fit, which gives me an indication that I’m recomposing rather than gaining back the fat, and I feel great. I’ve accomplished 1-3 (as my colleagues who watch me chow down on Fried Chicken every Wednesday at lunch can attest), and am still struggling a little bit with #4 (It’s hard when you got used to being 190-200 and know you’re 20 pounds up, even if those 20 pounds are good pounds and not what you had). But more or less I’m in weight maintenance, training for whatever adventures I want to try next, and happy to share my journey as always!
What exactly is unhealthy? It probably definitely isn’t BMI (Body Mass Index). In this post I discuss a different number – FFMI (Fat Free Mass Index) and discuss if it should be the standard I judge my own journey on.
Recently I’ve started thinking about different metrics that are used to assess your level of health. Body Mass Index (BMI) is, and has been for around 200 years, a metric that many swear by. But just a quick Google Search for BMI Origins will reveal a very strange history of the measure, and plenty of people pointing out that at best it’s a crude measurement and at worst, it might be racist. Regardless of it’s origin, you can’t argue with the calculation: Divide weight (in kilograms) by height (in meters). When I was at my largest, my BMI was a whopping 53.30. Given that the standard cut offs are 25+ is overweight, 30+ is obese, and 40+ is morbidly obese, I was in pretty poor shape. As of this morning, my BMI is 24.85, just below the cut-off for overweight (My weight this morning was 193.6, and I am 6 ft, 2 inches tall).
So yeah, BMI tells you that you’re screwed. But is there another metric? Enter the Fat Free Mass Index, which has been around for around 20 years now with normed values for the Caucasian population. Whereas BMI does not tell you anything about someone’s body composition, FFMI does tell you what proportion of the body is made up of lean tissue (muscle) and bone, versus what is made up of fat. The equation is below:
FFMI = fat free mass [kg]/ (height [m])²
Looking at research, we find that higher FMI levels are better screening tools for illnesses, and for cognitive declines. In fact, a Google Scholar search of “ffmi vs. BMI” leads to a ton of papers that show FFMI is a better tool that BMI, or at the least, as good.
Turning to my own journey, one of the things I’ve discussed in the past is how people tend to look at me and say “Wow, you’ve lost so much weight, you must feel so much better“. And how, unfortunately, I can’t tell them I do. Don’t get me wrong – I feel great. I definitely enjoy physical activity more now (probably because I’ve done a lot of it) and I like the way I look and feel. But I don’t feel way better than I did. In April 2020, I bought a scale that did body fat analysis, and I’ve owned an Omron body fat analyzer since 2011. So I started looking at my old data to see what my FFMI was when I was 415 pounds. Now according to Schutz, Kyle, & Pichard, the 50% range for FFMI for a male caucasian is 18.9 for 18-34 year olds, and 19.2 for 35-54 year olds. Females are slightly lower, in the 15.4 to 15.9 range). 90th percentile is around 20.5 to 21.1. Using these norms, basically you want your FFMI to be above 20 for males, with low body fat (Under 20%), and above 16 for females, with low body fat (e.g., under 25%). (You can calculate your own by looking at this website).
As of today, my FFMI is 21.5, with 13.7% body fat at 193.6 pounds. By all metrics (FFMI, BMI, Body Fat %), I’m in excellent shape. At my heaviest, when I was 415.2 and had around 50% body fat, my FFMI would have been 26.71! So by 1 of the 3 metrics, I was actually healthy and in the extreme top range of FFMI scores.
So what do I take from all of this? To understand if someone is healthy, you want to focus on body fat percentage and FFMI. BMI is a trash metric that isn’t as good as Fat% and FFMI in any way, and in the worst way, it’s down right racist. Sadly there is no one magical number you’ll ever find for someone – weight, BMI, FFMI, Body Fat %, or anything else. But the next time someone tells you that you’re overweight or obese, ask them what criteria they’re using. If it’s just BMI, then perhaps remind them that Athletes don’t depend on BMI alone because if they did, Usain Bolt would be just under “overweight” at a BMI of 24.5, as would many other olympians!
A small update in my Weight Loss Journey, Formerly Fat.
I’m a sucker for a good deal, so when I looked at our Faculty/Staff Meal plan at Delta State and did the math, I realized I could solve a few problems with one solution. The first was figuring out what to eat for lunch most days, which I figured was a decision fatigue situation I could avoid just like Jobs, Branson, & Zuck do with clothes. The second was it would get me out of my office for a short walk most days, and the third was that the price was actually cheaper (if you used all the meals) than packing my lunch would likely be. The only problem might have been that our cafeteria is All You Care To Eat.
On Friday, August 13, 2021, I weighed 196.4 pounds when I woke up. As you’ll probably recall from my posts thus far, this was approximately 218 pounds lighter than I was for most of my adult life. However as I settled into my “school year” existence, I wondered how I would handle the challenges of normal eating. Over the past year I’ve talked about my questions regarding “How do I Stop” losing weight, and “How do I determine if I’m hungry?”. In the former post, I talk about “The New Life Changes (e.g., Maintenance)” which I’ll update you all on later in this post.
But returning to the question at hand: Is it a good idea for a formerly fat person to willingly go to a place with limitless tasty food 100 days over the course of 9 months? My conclusion… probably not. Would I do it again… probably. Confused, well here’s my observations:
I have a long history of enjoying AYCE wing nights, never ending pasta bowls, shrimp fests, and anything else that provided limitless food – even chips at a Mexican restaurant. I think my record on wings was around 40 in my prime. After each one of those experiences, I felt anywhere from “normal” to “horrible”. Never felt great.
But I kept going because when you weigh 415 pounds, you worry a lot about being full. As I mentioned, it took about 50-75 minutes for my brain to register I was full, so most of the time after a normal sized meal, my brain would start freaking out that I was still hungry. Buffets solved that problem because my brain was really sure it was full after I ate that 40th chicken wing.
I also like a lot of different kinds of foods, so a buffet restaurant allowed me to pick up a little bit of everything. And if you were to look at my plates at those places, you’d see that while I had favorites, I was more likely to grab 1-2 pieces of everything versus 50 pieces of one thing.
My hope was that by forcing myself to eat 100 times at the same place, I would alleviate the FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) anxiety I might have over the third bullet point. If I wanted to try something, but was full today, I could try it tomorrow (or next week, or whenever it rotated back around). This largely was successful.
As you can see from the graph above, my average weight did tick up slightly over the school year… by 2 pounds or so. This is probably not too surprising, as I’m more active in the summer. Oh, and let’s not forget those wonderful pitfalls of holiday eating and overeating when you’re cooped up indoors. According to one study by Cornell, the average American gains 1.3 pounds over the holidays and it takes 5 months to work it back off (Although Brian Wansink was a co-author on this one, so take it with a grain of salt). So did I gain weight in a meaningful way after 100 days of all-you-can-eat lunch? No, but it is easy to think of all the times I could have just “not cared” my way into careless eating. I did feel like I had to maintain a certain level of vigilance which could be mildly distracting.
Turning away from the discussion of buffets, I wanted to update everyone not only on my weight but also “The New Life Changes” that I discussed in January. Here’s where I am with them:
Stop tracking everything I eat: I stopped tracking on Easter Sunday, after gradually becoming less and less diligent about it. In 4 days I’ll celebrate 4 years using MyFitnessPal daily (actually about 11 years since I first downloaded it), and my plan is to uninstall it. It was an essential element but not something I want to keep doing my entire life. I can always add it back in if I ever need to.
Continue to use some tracking devices: Still using my Oura ring and Apple Watch. Also still using the Bello app, but that’s mostly habit – I don’t think it gives me any meaningful information (and it can vary wildly day to day depending on if I place it exactly right on my stomach). Haven’t used the Apollo band in months. If I were starting out today, I would probably have just bought the Oura & Apple Watch, and not bothered with Bello or Apollo. Lumen was very useful to me before it died.
Log my weight daily: Still working on logging just once a day. My eventual goal would be weekly. I’m a data nerd, so It is tempting to see fluctuations during the day, but not the most mentally healthy. I don’t think I’m quite addicted though, since I don’t experience any anxiety when I can’t weigh myself when traveling (Although I am always curious about the result when I get home).
Keep an active voice in my head while eating: Yes, 100% this is true. And 90% of the time it’s helping me make good choices. Sometimes it justifies bad eating, sometimes it’s too puritanical, but most of the time it’s just right. It’s what has helped me not feel the need to log everything.
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: I don’t worry about a starburst or a fun sized candy bar. I only eat 1, and it does help tide me over until the next meal. Maybe that’s what they’re for?!?
Walking and Exercising Daily: Still mostly doing this. I skip maybe one day a month, but most days I’m out for a walk, a bike ride, or both!
So, here I sit with my weight in the 193 – 198 range that I was still in during the previous 9 months, and hopefully I’ve now set a new “set point” (for those that ascribe to that theory). Hopefully if you’re struggling with weight loss seeing my journey is helping you see that there are good days and bad days (see graph above, especially during the cold weather months), that you can still enjoy holidays, all you can eat buffets, and little treats, and that it is possible to keep the weight off (at least I have thus far!). Be well, reach out for support as you need it, and enjoy life.
A small update in my Weight Loss Journey, Formerly Fat.
A little over a year ago, Karey discovered these Kind Energy Peanut Butter Bars, which she got in a sample pack. We liked them, so we ordered a pack of 12 from Amazon. Amazon, being Amazon, sent us 72 instead of 12. And we’re still eating them down (We have about 5 left, and you’d be surprised but they’re still pretty tasty past their “Best Buy” date). Anyway, I just ate one. Because I think I’m hungry. By the time I finish with this post, I will hopefully know if I was or not.
Am I Hungry?
If you’re asking yourself “How do you not know if you’re hungry?”, then you probably have a normally functioning metabolism and body. Turns out a lot of people don’t know their own hunger cues anymore, according to this article from MSU Extension, which actually lists your hunger cues:
“Empty stomach
Stomach growling
Headache
Light-headed feeling
Grumpiness
Lack of energy
Shakiness/weakness”
The article then goes on to talk about how lots of things can cause you to be disconnected from your true hunger cues – and it’s not just that “people eat when they’re bored” – they bring up good points about how stress can cause you to alter your food schedule, and so can being busy. It is true – some people do get so distracted with work that they forget to eat. We tend to applaud those folks as workaholics and we degrade the “boredom eaters” as having no self control when both of them have exactly the same problem: They don’t know when when they’re hungry! Interesting how society praises one of them and not the other, right?
Anyway, for a long time when I was really fat, my eating schedule was hardly what others expected. As I’ve noted in the past, people have a misconception that fat people eat all the freaking time, but many do not. I was fat because when I did eat, I was capable of eating a tremendous amount of food. We’re talking entire entrée, appetizer, and dessert at a chain restaurant. My favorite times of year were Olive Garden’s Never Ending Pasta Bowl and Red Lobster’s Shrimp Fest because I could sample all of the varieties of pasta and/or shrimp. I had the capacity.
And when you have the capacity, you also don’t care about regular food schedules. For most of my life, I didn’t eat breakfast regularly. I’d skip it – I wasn’t really hungry when I woke up. In fact, if it were up to me, I probably would have eaten at exactly 2 times during the day: 10-11 AM and 4-6 PM. Snacking was pretty rare for me, maybe 2-3 times per month I’d grab something between meals. Of course since my capacity was large, I could easily put away 3,500 calories or so as a snack. I was fat not because I ate all the time, it was because when I ate… I really ate.
Go Big or Go Home, Right?
Back to the present day, my habits have changed slightly. I still don’t get hungry when I first wake up – it takes about an hour before I want to eat. This works well since my morning routine typically has me exercising at the start, doing some reading, and then eating later on. I eat lunch and dinner, but generally less food at each than when I was heavy. I more or less have 2 “schedules” of food – weekdays (7:30 AM, 11:30 AM, 5:30 PM), and Weekends (9-10 AM, 3-4 PM, and a late supper). My highest calorie meals tend to be my mid-day meals, although that can be swapped with my third meal. Snacks do happen, typically on weekends (since I go to bed later – I don’t tend to eat 2-3 hours before bed). My body is pretty well trained to expect food at these times. I also don’t deny myself little treats between meals if the opportunity presents itself (e.g., cake at a mid-afternoon celebration, donuts in the break room at 10 AM), especially since I went on maintenance mode.
So… how do I know I’m hungry? Good question – I eat regularly enough that it’s pretty rare that I’m absolutely famished by the time a meal rolls around. But I do notice a few things. And they aren’t any of the list I quoted above.
Stomach growling? My stomach makes all kinds of weird noises here and there, usually after I finish eating or am digesting. What’s a growl without a lion or tiger anyway?
Headache? I get 1-2 headaches per year. I’m very fortunate in that regard.
Light-headed feeling? I have some signs of Athletic Heart Syndrome thanks for my daily cardio, so the only time I get light headed is when I stand up suddenly after resting.
Grumpiness is one I can’t really judge (although I probably do display it) – after all, no one thinks they’re grumpy most of the time they are.
Lack of Energy? I’m not on the verge of starvation here.
And finally, Shakiness/Weakness? Nope.
Stomach Growling? Maybe you have a lion in there. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
But, undoubtedly, I do have signs of hunger that I’m starting to notice. Remember how I mentioned I just ate one of those Kind bars earlier? That was around 45 minutes ago. And I feel quite different now than I did an hour ago. Here are my signs of hunger as I’ve noted them:
Inability to think about anything other than food. For example, yesterday I didn’t eat until 10:15 after waking at 6:30… and I couldn’t stop thinking about the food I was going to eat for a solid hour beforehand.
Feeling of uneasiness / blah feeling. Yesterday I felt really “off” until I ate in the morning.
Heightened sensitivity to everything (which does make me grumpy – the room is too cold, the people are too loud, the lights are too dim). Yesterday, at one point, I wrote in my daily log “I am so cold and hungry”. Thankfully I ate 20 minutes later!
When I get one or more of those, and it’s been 2-4 hours since I last ate, I have started to put 2 and 2 together. And I eat something. And I feel better. Physically. Psychologically I’m still working through some stuff related to food that complicates matters. Allow me to explain (you’ve made it this far, you’re allowing me a lot already). Here are a few facts:
When I was fat, I prided myself on not snacking. After all, the stereotype of the fat snacker was something I was actively trying to avoid feeding into.
When I was fat, my body didn’t signal to me that I was full until 50-75 minutes after I finished eating. This is much longer than you normally see in weight loss advice columns (e.g., “If you want to lose weight, wait 10 minutes after you eat and see if you’re still hungry” – yeah… I always was). This led to me associating large portions with satiety. Why eat something as small as one energy bar? Even now I have to actively tell myself that I will be full when I finish the portion I’ve taken. And very rarely am I wrong (If I am, I take a little more).
When I was fat, and still today, I associate food with celebration and enjoyment. This is pretty common – think about all of the celebratory events in your life – food is always present. So the idea of having a small snack alone in my office instead of going out with friends, or seeing my wife at home, or socializing in some way around food seemed like a waste. After all, if I was going to eat, I was going to enjoy it, right?
Today I’m hyper sensitive to calorie counts and macros given my last 2 years. This is great if you want a walking dictionary of food facts and I’m around, but not so great when dialog goes through my head.
Let me explain this to you in terms of the dialog that entered my brain right before I ate that Kind bar that got me thinking about this blog post. In fact, it’s probably why this blog post exists.
11:25 AM: “Hmm… what should I do for lunch? I planned X… but do I want Y? Z? What are my friends doing?” 11:30 AM: “Lunch is going to be so good… normally if I eat alone I’m eating right now… but I still haven’t decided on what to do. I brought some lunch I could eat alone. Or I could go home and eat leftovers. I’ll wait to see what others are doing!” 11:32 AM: “Why isn’t anyone texting me back. I’m kinda feeling off. Maybe I should just eat by myself? Or those leftovers at home – half a meal from the Mexican place last night – that would be a good amount of food. But then I’d need to eat fewer calories at dinner, and I’d wanted to have a higher calorie dinner tonight… and if I eat a snack now…. that’s 250 calories that I can’t have at dinner or lunch! Why is food so hard?!?” 11:34 AM: “I’ll distract myself. I just got an email from King Arthur. Maybe I should buy some baking mixes online…. but those prices are too high….but the food is good… wait a minute, why am I thinking about food again?!?” 11:35 AM: “I’m an idiot – I should just eat one of those Kind bars in my bag”
See what happened there? Lots of debate that ultimately led me eating the kind bar. And ya know what happened in the last hour since then?
I felt better within 10 minutes.
I ended up working on a few projects when I didn’t hear back from anyone.
I wrote this blog post, and drank some Coke Zero.
At 12:35 PM all I’ve eaten was that one Kind bar. I’ll probably have some more lunch after I finish this post.
Feeling Better After Eating… Who Would Have Thought?
So in sum, over the last year, my struggle hasn’t been so much avoiding large meals (e.g., “retro-eating”), it’s been:
figuring out when to eat between meals or when to start a meal earlier than my “usual” times.
not feeling guilty over a snack when I’m obviously telling myself I need one.
getting comfortable with being a “grazer” on some days.
getting used to the idea that I should always have some healthy snacks in my backpack in case I need them.
These are all big changes to me, and probably everyday life to the rest of you. But in the event you’re reading this and going “So when I feel blah and everything bugs me, I might just be hungry?!?”, I hope this helps you. And if you’ve been thin your entire life and wondered how those around you who were heavy thought, maybe this helped you too. Be well and stay warm,
Jon (Today’s Weight: 195.2 lb, 220 lb lower than where I started!)
This is yet another update in my weight loss story. The landing page, Formerly Fat, has all of my previous entries. Check it out and read in order to catch up!
It’s been awhile since I last updated everyone on my weight loss journey, which I started in 2011, re-started in 2018, and then kicked into high gear in 2020-2021. When I last updated you, I had gotten to around 210 pounds, plateaued, then went into loss mode again. For the past 4 months, since around early September, I’ve been in the 193-198 range. My BMI is right around 25 (So I’m “normal” weight), my fat percentage is around 13.5%, and I feel pretty good. Long walks, HIIT workouts, Yoga, Pilates, and more are all things that I can do without issue, and I don’t feel hungry that much – in fact, I’d say I don’t really deny myself anything. With the holidays behind us, I’ve also experienced the slightly higher weights associated with eating, drinking, and being merry, and the subsequent return to a lower weight as life has returned to normal. So I think it’s time to transition to the scariest part of this journey… maintenance.
A Life of Vigilance
Losing weight isn’t easy because, as many can attest, it requires you to change (as I often joke), 7-8 major things in your life. Here’s a list of my ‘changes’:
Tracking everything I ate, including the macronutrients, in order to try to balance them out.
Religiously using tracking apps for everything from food to body fat to relaxation to metabolism (See my journey to learn more about Aura, Oura, Lumen, Bello, and Apollo).
Logging my weight twice daily, morning and night.
Paying attention to weight fluctionations (mostly out of curiosity).
Telling myself that I’ve eaten enough food (Because my stomach still lags about 10 minutes behind my eyes – much better than the 75 minutes when I started!)
Cutting out all the “little” things (e.g., a few piece of candy, a donut with my coffee at a social gathering, etc…). Little things do add up.
Walking daily / exercising daily.
Holding myself accountable – reminding myself that I can control my weight.
Simply put, 1-8 is kinda exhausting after you’ve done it for almost 600 days, as I have. While some of it is useful in the long term (e.g., #4, #7), some of it can be pretty joy-depriving after awhile. And what’s the point in losing a ton of weight if you also lose joy?
The Case of the Sunday Donut
Let me illustrate my dilemma: Sunday mornings after church, there is a fellowship hour with coffee and donuts. For the first 8 weeks we did this, I had just coffee. Let’s analyze that decision in a series of facts:
I tend to eat around 1800-2000 calories a day (TDEE tells me my maintenance calories are nearly 2400 a day).
Donuts are tasty.
Do I eat the donut or just drink the coffee? If you think this has an obvious answer, you haven’t lost a ton of weight by policing yourself.
The case to eat the donut: It’s 10:15 AM, I haven’t eaten yet, I won’t eat again for another hour, and coffee and donuts are a match made in heaven. Plus I’m in a church, so that ‘made in heaven’ thing might be literal.
The case not to eat the donut: I would rather spend the calories on something else. Donuts are unhealthy. I am a healthy person. In my prime of 415 pounds, I’d easily eat 3-4 donuts at a time. Maybe 1 donut is a gateway donut back?
So for 8 weeks, no donut. Then I realized a few things more:
While Old Jon could eat 3-4 donuts without a problem, New Jon would probably feel physically sick if he did that.
New Jon doesn’t really want to eat 3-4 donuts.
One donut once a week would account for 0.09% of my caloric intake for that week.
I enjoy fresh donuts – they’re one of my favorite foods.
So I started eating a donut. And I’ve enjoyed it over the past few weeks. And my weight has not changed.
This example seems a bit strange, but I assure you, if you’ve spent months policing yourself, you find yourself having strange realizations like this. For so long, the answer to “Should I Eat that?” was a resounding “NO YOU FATA**, YOU SHOULDN’T”. Then it turned into a “Maybe… as long as you cross check it 3 times with your food journal”. Now it’s “Umm…. maybe?!?” In other words, it’s hard to lighten up on yourself.
The New Life Changes (e.g., Maintenance)
Over the next 6-12 months, my plan is to transition away from the hyper vigilance of weight loss mode to the normal vigilance of “staying healthy” mode. I’ve actually started doing this since mid-October (when I first started writing this life update). This is not reverting to the absolute lack of vigilance of “Jon doesn’t care about his weight” mode that I lived in for 35 years.
Gradually stop tracking everything I eat. This is for 2 reasons: First, it takes a lot of time and effort and has very little reward associated if I don’t actually want to eat more. Second, there is evidence it can be linked to the development of an eating disorder. And while I don’t have some of the personality markers listed in that article, still seems like something I don’t want to do the rest of my life. Progress: 25% (I’m still tracking most of what I eat).
Continue to use some of the tracking devices. My Lumen recently died (After faithful service for over a year, out of warranty so I would have had to pay for a replacement), so I will not be using it. The Bello is still debatable on it’s usefulness. Same goes for the Apollo band. I do enjoy the Oura ring and my Apple Watch, however, so I suspect I’ll still use those. And my Arboleaf Scale makes things very easy as it synchronizes to my health tracking apps. Basically if I can track it and I enjoy using it, I’ll continue using it. If not, I’ll phase it out or stop using it all together. Progress: 50% – No more lumen (since it’s dead), and I’ve stopped wearing my Apple Watch at night when I don’t need the alarm because the Oura does all the sleep tracking I need. Still using the Bello (not sure if it’s useful or not) and bring out the Apollo band every once in awhile.
Log my weight daily, perhaps in the evening as well. Watching fluctuations is useful but it gets less useful when it becomes an obsession. I don’t need to know how quickly I lose weight during the day – I know it’s not a very useful metric and varies wildly depending on a ton of factors. Watching it closely did give me some insight, but not to the point that I think there is more I can learn. Progress: 20% – It’s still so tempting to wonder how I’m doing mid-day on weight, even if it’s a pretty meaningless number. While traveling I weighed myself daily if a scale was available, but I didn’t go out of my way to find one. So I count that as progress!
I’ll still keep an active voice in my head while eating – but it’s much more of a conversation in terms of what I want to experience. A good example is my decision at the school cafeteria daily regarding dessert. If the dessert looks really good, or is something they don’t often have, or is one of my favorites, then I go for it. If the dessert is something they have every day (e.g., cookies), then I usually just grab a piece of fruit or nothing at all. Progress: 80% – I’d say I’m much more mindful now and also much more allowing of things that I really want versus a uniform “yes” or “no” to all food.
One can’t cut out all the little things. 2 20-calorie starbursts are not going to make me go back up to 415 pounds. But they sometimes make a repetitive afternoon a little more relaxing. The trick is, along with #4, to be mindful. Of course, mindfulness is always useful regardless of the thought. Progress: See #4!
Walking and exercising daily: Daily exercise is great – but there are some days I just don’t feel like it. So if once or twice a week I don’t want to do my exercise routine, or I want to do something less intense, I’ve been going with that over the last few weeks. My Oura ring actually tells me when my body is up for a challenge, so I may start listening to that a bit more. Progress: 50% – I still feel the urge to go out and exercise daily, and I’m working on figuring out when that’s my body wanting the exercise and when it’s my mind feeling obligated to exercise. On recent travels I skipped 1 daily walk out of 10 days on the road. The other 9 walks were mostly enjoyable despite the temperatures associated. I did get some gorgeous photos, such as this one:
So there you have it – I’m moving to maintenance. Goals for 2022 include maintaining my current weight, perhaps dropping to the 190-195 range (instead of 193-198, purely because it would be nice to never be near 200 again), and maybe working on some strength training in my arms and core. But honestly this would all just be icing on top of the 0-calorie metaphorical cake.
If you ask around the internet about rest days, you find a debate between the “be active every day” crowd and those who insist that your body needs recovery time. And honestly, the answer is somewhat in the middle. If you’re doing something that requires regeneration, such as strength training to build muscle, than yes, a rest day is critical to give your muscles time to heal. If you’re power walking, which is one of my main forms of workout (e.g., walking at a pace of a 13:30 mile, or about 5.5 MPH), you will find there are mornings your legs are on fire from last night’s walk. And if you walk outside, like I do, you also have the weather to contend with. Hard to go for a long walk or run when it’s pouring out (Although I have been the crazy guy out there in light rain with an umbrella walking!)
Sometimes walking in the rain and snow is pretty, though.
However you feel about rest days, one thing that’s very clear is that Apple doesn’t give you any days off if you’re a fan of the mantra “Close Your Rings”. Heck, it wasn’t even until last year that they gave us the option to change the amount of exercise minutes and stand hours (It was previously set to a hard 30 minutes and 12 hours, respectively). Plenty have complained that this is unrealistic – why should your 400+ day move streak end because of circumstances outside of your control. What circumstances, oh…
You get sick
Your family is sick and you have to care for them.
Your Apple Watch dies temporarily or permanently.
You decide to go on a technology-free retreat.
Plenty of reasons you might not be able to log your move calories, your exercise minutes, or your stand hours. Should you just let the streak die? No!
Well, perhaps Yes – you see this all gets into how you measure your own success. Unless you’re competing with another, the majority of the time you’re using your rings as a way to be honest with yourself. Closing them gives you a sense of accomplishment, earning badges gives you small boosts of dopamine that say “I’m doing stuff…”. And failing to close them can make you discouraged if it was due to circumstances not related to your fitness. I’ve certainly had friends joke “If you workout and your watch doesn’t record it, what was the point?!?” – And for some of us, psychologically, there is a grain of truth there. So should you let a streak die? Here’s my simple rule:
If you view your streaks as part of a life change that you want to affirm to yourself regularly – if you’ve assigned substantial meaning to them, then you should keep the streak going even if you didn’t technically do the work on a given day due to things you couldn’t control. After all, your intention was still there.
If you view your streaks as simply metrics on what you’re doing, in the way that you might view any other number without emotional connection, then just let them die.
I’m assuming if you’ve made it this far, you fall into the “Save my Streak” category, so I’m going to use the rest of this post to tell you how to do that without having to install any special software. Turns out there is a way to preserve your streaks without much effort.
The Obligatory “Why I Figured This Out” portion of the Recipe
So I know you just want to know how to do it, so skip this unless you know me personally and are curious. Anyway, as of today, here are my streaks:
As of August 6, 2021
As you can see, I have been working out a lot over the past year. As I mentioned in Part 3 of my weight loss story, I really wanted to make it to 365 days. Which I did. Then I kept going. But at some point the streak that I set each day became further affirmation of my changing body and mind, and I really wanted to keep it. So much that I changed my move goal from 810 calories to 480, my workout goal from 30 minutes to 10, and my stand hours remained at 12. Now here’s the kicker – I’ve never needed to “use” these lower levels, on average – over the past 90 days, my average Move is 880 calories, and my average exercise minutes is at 72 minutes. With the exception of a few days of driving for summer trips, I don’t need to use the lower goals to maintain the streak.
This got me thinking: What if there were a way I could return to my actual goals, but still have the security of being able to persist in my streaks even if my watch dies (like it tried to do the other day), or in an emergency I can’t work out. And maybe, just maybe, it would be useful if I wanted to give myself a “day off”, but more on that later.
Then I realized – Apple lets you do this already, all you need to know is where to look.
How Do I Fill My Rings Manually?
It’s easy – follow these steps:
Open the Apple Health app on your iPhone.
Go to Browse and type “Workouts” in the search.
Open the Workouts data, and choose “Add Data” at the upper right.
Enter whatever activity type you like (while not completely accurate, a rest day could be “Preparation and Recovery”, or just use “Other”)
Enter the calories burned, These will increase your red move ring.
Enter a start and end time, These will be counted toward your exercise ring.
Hit “Add”
And there you have it – You should see the Apple Activity app on your watch update as well as on your phone. You’ve essentially done exactly what your phone would have done if you’d worked out, but you entered it in manually. Yes, the iPhone will flag this as “Entered by user”, but it will still count it.
When Should You Use This Power?
Again, this question is largely up to you. But one thing that I have thought a lot about lately is “rest days” – as in, days when either my Oura ring outright tells me to rest…
The Oura Ring telling me to “Pay Attention” in Readiness
Or on special occasions – a holiday or a day I feel I’ve earned a break. I’ve considered having 10-15 days per year that I could “use” (Sort of the equivalent of workout “paid time off”) as I like. I haven’t decided yet on if I will do this, or how I would track it, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
In fact, I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of this “nonsense” (Which I put in quotes because sometimes the realist in me calls my mind out and says “Dude, this stuff doesn’t really matter – health is for you, who cares if a stupid smart device confirms what you already know!”). Are streaks meaningful? Do you care about a sleeve of virtual medals? If so, why? If not, why not? And will you “cheat” or stay honest in your streaks?
Yesterday at our first in person orientation since 2019, I reminded a group of students that they paid tuition money to us to buy access to professors. Basically, come talk to us, listen to what we are telling you, because you’re paying for it. This means that what I know, as an experimental psychologist / tech geek / author is worth something monetarily. After all, that’s why I get paid.
Me, walking to work on Monday, June 7, 2021. Weight: 207.4
And yet, the information I have that people want to know the most is summed up by a colleague this morning who stopped me and said “Dr. Westfall, you lost a lot of weight, how did you do it?”. After telling him what I’d done (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 coming soon…), I reflected on the fact that the most valuable piece of information I apparently have – way more valuable than how to clicker train your cat – is how to lose half your body weight in 3 years. Maybe I should write my own diet / exercise / be less fat book 🤔
This is the third in a series of posts about my fitness journey. If youhaven’t read them, here are links to parts 1 and 2.
The past few months have been ones of revelation, plateau, and reaching goals. I found out I was an athlete, my body decided it was happy in a spot, it moved around a bit more, and now I’m looking at my progress over the past 3 years. Also along the way I’ve had some people ask me a bit more about what I eat, so in this post I’m giving away my secrets of tasty foods that have helped me balance my macros.
Me at DSU’s Commencement. April 30, 2021, 212.2 pounds.
So to start, you might wonder how one finds out that they are an athlete. It started with noticing a toggle in my Arboleaf Scale app for “Athlete mode”. The description stated that it was ‘designed for people who were muscular, have been long engaging in intensive physical activities, or have been working out regularly’. When I got the scale, in April 2020, that did not describe me, except for perhaps the muscular part. In late May, 2020, I did start working out regularly, but even after several months, I still did not feel entitled to “flip that switch” so to speak. I wasn’t an athlete, I was a fat guy.
Around the end of April, however, I started to wonder again about that little toggle. I had read several articles that noted that BMI overestimated fat content of taller people (I’m 6’3’’) throughout the past year, but as someone who had an initial body fat reading of around 50%, I figured “How far could it be off?”, and didn’t care to use the “athlete” mode that would change the calculations based on a muscular physique. But the month of April 2021 got me thinking – mostly because the scale stopped moving.
For comparison, here was my trend line per week of weight from May 2020 to July 2021 (as of today): May 2020: Down 2.1 lb/week June 2020: Down 3.3l lb/week July 2020: Down 2.9 lb/week Aug 2020: Down 3.2 lb/week Sept 2020: Down 2.5 lb/week Oct 2020: Down 2.2 lb/week Nov 2020: Down 2.2 lb/week Dec 2020: Down 1.5 lb/week Jan 2021: Down 1.8 lb/week Feb 2021: Down 2.1 lb/week Mar 2021: Down 2.1 lb/week Apr 2021: Down 0.8 lb/week May 2021: Down 0.9 lb/week (And strangely, June 2021: 1.4 lb/week, July 1.2 lb/week… but more on that later)
So yeah… a bit of a dramatic difference in April & May with no change in my diet or exercise. What had changed? Well, obviously I would expect to lose less per week as I had less to lose. But to go from 2.1 lb to 0.8… that made me wonder if something else was going on. So I started looking into this “Athlete” mode stuff, and finally found a way to quantify it in the manual of my Omron Body Fat analyzer. It gave me a calculation for a “Fit Index”, which told me based upon my exercises, frequencies, and intensities, I was an Athlete. So on April 28 I flipped the switch. And while my BMI and Weight obviously didn’t change instantly, my body fat reading went from 21.9% to 15.2%. I started to wonder: Was my body telling me that I had reached a healthy weight? After all, 15% put me firmly in the Fitness category, and it certainly didn’t seem like my body wanted to lose anymore. I was 213.8 pounds, or just over 200 pounds down from my highest recorded weight in May 2018.
About a week after discovering I might be fit, I decided to transition into weight maintenance mode instead of loss. This mostly meant I allowed MyFitnessPal to factor my workout calories into my daily calorie allotment, I stopped rigorously following my Lumen’s daily advice (Might as well have some carbs again, in moderation), and decided that I’d eat snacks after dinner if the mood struck me. Since making that decision around May 1, my weight had stayed well within a 2 pound range, somewhere between 211-213 pounds most mornings, unless I had a late dinner or a lot of fluids the night before.
At the same time, I still kept doing my regular workouts, which have been not packing the same punch as when I started them – my body is well and truly adapted to walking 3 miles per day, and I do plan on switching up my workout regime after the summer completes. Why did I wait? Because I had a rather stupid goal: Make it 365 days of closing my Apple Fitness rings, with daily walks as my primary component since that’s where it all started. So without further adieu, feast your eyes on these image:
(Today = July 28, 2021)
Closing the Rings
So there you have it – I’ve come a pretty long way since May 29, 2018 at 415.2 pounds. Goals are good, but this one was probably particularly stupid – I didn’t give myself any rest days, which we know are essential to have here and there. So don’t be like me, set healthier goals than “never take a day off” (I will admit that after I made it year, I dropped my goals in Apple Health so that I wasn’t pushing myself unrealistically!).
And then, as I drafted up this post at the end of May, getting ready to publish around June 1, something strange happened. I started losing weight again. The plateau broke, and as I type this at the end of July, I weigh in each morning between 199-204. 8 week plateaus aren’t unheard of, but I never thought I’d experience one.
Me on Father’s Day with the shirt my kitten children, Coconut and Kinja gave me. My weight was 200.2 that morning. After a tasty coconut cream pie, brownies, and special meals, I did end up going up a few pounds for the next week! Still well within the 200-205 range, however.
So I’ll close this portion of the post by answering a question people have been asking: What is my end goal? Answer: I’m pretty much at it. Ideally I’d drop to somewhere between 190-195, but with a body fat percentage around 15%, a resting heart rate of 60 bpm, a Vo2 max around 41, and the ability to walk long distances (and even jog 20-30 minutes at a time), I feel pretty good.
But before I finish this post, I want to point out a few foods that have really helped me over the last year. This is mostly because I’ve told people about them, similar to how I mentioned my Lumen in the first post, and wanted to have a blog post I could point people to if they were interested as well. So here’s my “secret” food list, using affiliate links if possible.
Magic Spoon Cereal – Sometimes you want a bowl of cereal but you don’t want all the carbs. While these cereals are a bit more expensive (think $2.50 a serving), they are supremely tasty, and filled with a good amount of protein!
Bootylicious Muffins – And sometimes you want something that looks like cake. These are easy to make in the microwave and also very tasty!
Optimum Double Chocolate Whey Powder – You add this to a mug of unflavored coffee (e.g., McCafe works fine) and you blend, and bam = instant hot chocolate.
Whisps – Like cheese? Want cheese as chips? These are just toasted cheese, but make for excellent lunch options or snacks.
Highkey Keto Chocolate Chip Cookies – Excellent little cookies for when you have a sweet tooth but also don’t want to blow your carb count on a single cookie.
These 1, 2, 3 excellent Fiber One or Atkins bars. Again, great for lunches on the go.
Old Wisconsin Turkey Sausage Snack Sticks – When you need some protein and something that will keep you full, pair 2-3 of these with a stick or two of cheddar cheese.
Elite Donut – Donuts rock, these are tasty, especially the cinnamon sugar!
Hello Fresh meal boxes – An absolute godsend during the height of the pandemic. Karey & I would eat 3 meals a week, and go to the grocery store once per month for staples. I usually have some “free boxes” for them, so if you’d like one, reach out and I’ll see if I have a better code than my affiliate link.
What about specific meals?
Want a good lunch option? Can of chunk chicken breast warmed up in a pan with a little butter, cumin, paprika, and garlic powder, plus cheddar cheese to top. Basically you have a southwestern chicken bowl.
Another good lunch? Walmart (and others) sell flash frozen salmon and tilapia. Pop that in a convection oven for 7 minutes or so and you’ve got a healthy lunch you can spice however you like.
And if you are going to splurge, splurge on something really good – carbs go best in the morning, and ya know what pairs really nicely with good coffee (Blueberry Cinnamon Crumble is my favorite flavor, but Almond Amaretto, Sun Kissed, and Maple Cream are good as well): Chocolate Éclairs.
Yes, honestly flavored coffee (which I don’t have to put sugar or cream into) and bakery have been my go-to breakfast for the past few months. You can lose weight and enjoy food – don’t get suckered into the “100% clean” idea that everything you eat has to be meal prepped bland chicken and greens. If you make that your diet, you will jump off of it very quickly.
So there you have it – my secret food list. If you’re looking for a gift for me, pretty much anything on that list is a great option (Even the éclairs, just don’t be surprised if I save them for breakfast over 4 days!). And that about wraps up this post. As I type this I weigh 201 pounds, waking up this morning at 199. When will you hear from me next? Likely after a few more months of maintenance. I look forward to letting you know how I continue to tweak and maintain!
