Health update - March 2021

Been a hot minute since my last update! To those of you that reached out to check on my progress, I am very appreciative and touched that you take the time out of your day to think of me. It's encouraging to my soul. ♥️

Since my last update in January, things have been pretty a-ok. I've been seeing a therapist since that time and while I don't feel that I've come to any sort of dazzling revelation, I keep scheduling appointments at the end of every session. I think part of what I'm latching onto is the accountability of talking to someone. I pay this person $100+ a month to listen to me give progress reports of my mood and feelings, and my physical health obviously plays a big role in that. Maybe I would do just as well with one of those gambling apps where you put down some money to accomplish some task and if you fail, they don't give it back?

Exercise

As you can see from the picture here, I've gotten into working out a little since the end last week of January. 95% of the time, this is riding the stationary bike in my building's gym, but sometimes I'll go for a long walk up and down the parking garages' surrounding my house (it's been cold though!). It's light exercise by any standard; very low impact, and I usually stop soon after my exercise ring closes; about 30 minutes. In that time, the bike says I travelled 6-8 miles, depending on my pace.

The biggest break was the week of February 15, where Texas had the snow-pocalypse that cut power to millions of people and dozens died of exposure, indoors. While I won't go into the politics of it all, needless to say that week was weird. My partner and I went to my parents house on Monday night and were there most of the week. My parents don't have a gym and I didn't want to go trek in the snow just for a workout so I stayed inside.

I can't say that the workouts are providing a lot of physical benefit. My weight hasn't dropped drastically (as will be evident soon) but I cannot definitely say there is no benefit at all. This past week I've been working out later in the evening, around 10-11pm, and largely have been motivated to that thanks to the support from some colleagues at work. A few of us have Apple Watches and getting the notification that someone closed all of their rings for the day is a surprisingly effective motivator. The fact that I am responding to that pressure in a positive way is probably a good thing. I can easily think of times past when I would have laughed at those notifications and went back to watching TV and eating an entire bag of Doritos (...now I want Doritos...).

As the weather begins to warm up here in Texas, I want to try taking my rides outdoors as I have acquired an actual bicycle from a friend. I'm interested to see how that goes over the next few months.

Diet

My diet has been generally the same as before and I've done a decent job of sticking to my targeted macros. In the past two weeks, I've fallen back into my Wingstop habit, which is not sustainable calorically or financially, but the dopamine hit has been undeniable at times.

My go-to dinner has become a large salad with 4-5oz of greens, an ounce or two of goat cheese, fresh strawberries, and a handful of nuts with some sort of low carb dressing. I pair that with some protein, usually chicken of some variety, about 6-10 oz if I had to guess. Chicken thighs are my favorite though.

When I do get Wingstop, I've now transitioned to only ordering chicken (without my usual large side of fries). That alone is a reduction of close to 1000 calories and 100 carbs when y0u factor in the ranch dipping sauce. If I have the ingredients available at home, I will first make a salad like I described above, eat that, then eat the wings. The greens soak up a lot of the grease and upsets my stomach less, while also helping me feel fuller. I noticed this last night as I finished eating around 8:30pm and didn't feel compelled to eat more the rest of the night.

At 10pm, I noticed the time and thought I wanted to get a snack, but managed to talk myself into drinking a big glass of water instead. My usual after dinner snack can be 500-800 calories of roasted nuts so great calorie savings there.

I still have a weakness for snacks, which I tend to eat after dinner but I think I'm doing better. For instance, I've started eating fresh strawberries as a snack which is surprisingly less bad than I originally thought. A pound contains 150 calories and 22g of carbs with about 8g of fiber. Those aren't keto macros, but I can often feel stuffed after finishing a container. Satiety is my biggest goal when eating so that's fine by me.

I'm still taken with how my tastebuds have changed in reaction to my decreased sugar intake. The strawberries now taste so sweet to me, it makes one part of my brain think that there's no way they're healthy, but they are! A few weeks ago I got a craving for a shake from a fast-food joint and it was insanely sweet. I still drank it, but I honestly haven't had the craving since and writing about it now, I am unfazed.

If I had to rate my diet since the last entry to this series, I'd probably give it a solid 7/10. Not perfect, but not a total failure either. C+

Weight Loss

The graph tells most of the story, but I'll elaborate. I'm not sure if I put numbers out there, but then end of 2020 was rough. As you can see, I gained 20 pounds in about 2-3 months, despite intermittent fasting 16+ hours a day during that entire time.

Since January, I've been back to my 5 meals a week eating schedule and making progress in a positive direction. At the end of January, I purchased a new bathroom scale which has been encouraging and like I mentioned earlier, I'm now also working out every day. My body fat percentage has decreased by about 4% in that time, which feels good to me. I'm currently just under 38% body fat, which is still a lot, but it's miles better than the high 40s I was rocking in 2018.

February was basically flat in terms of weight loss for the entire month, with some ups around when the storm hit. Considering one night that week I ate an entire large pizza by myself, probably not the worst outcome! March has been better, though we're only 6 days in.

Tonight is my dad's birthday and we're going to an all-you-can-eat steakhouse and I've already resigned myself to indulging on some mashed potatoes and likely a full pound of meat, but honestly, it's probably not that big of a deal. This month, I'd like to try and focus on mindfulness when it comes to snacking as that's where I believe the bulk of my hindering calories come from. The roasted nuts especially.

If I can get under 250 by the end of the month without immediately fluctuating above that number in April, I'll be really happy I think. That's 1 pound a week which should be totally doable and sustainable. If I can keep that up for a year, I'll be entering 1-derland in time for Summer 2022. That's exciting!

I think I mentioned this before but I'll say it again because I'm thinking about it. Winter 2020 was huge bummer for me because I had done so well in 2019. I bought new clothes that I was excited to wear, especially the following winter, that I ended up not being able to wear comfortably at all without risking damaging them. That fucking sucked. If I have one goal for 2021, it's to be able to wear my new coat comfortably all through next winter. No bulging buttons or getting too hot that I need to take it off after less than 5 minutes indoors.

Final Thoughts

Thank you to everyone who has supported me over the past few months. Thank you to my wife who doesn't complain when I suggest Wingstop every time a discussion about dinner comes up. Thank you to my parents have been supportive of my lifestyle changes and don't pressure me to eat when I don't want to. I know there are a lot of people out there who have differing views on fasting for weight loss, and my thoughts are with them as we all navigate this rocky journey to better health together.

If you want to chat about how your life is going, food related or not, hit me up on Twitter. My DMs are open. Talkin' to new people online is really fun for me and I've been told I'm an excellent sounding board.

✌️

Photo by Dovile Ramoskaite on Unsplash