I’m at the point where even if I don’t feel like working out, I get up, put on my shoes and get to it. It helps to have created that workout space in my bedroom. It’s too convenient to make inconvenience an excuse.
Tomorrow, I’m doing something kind of weird. I’ve talked about how the fitness institute that runs my exercise group does DXA scans. They do something else that I am going to try. It’s a metabolism test. I am curious what it says. I am at this point where I am in a pretty good place with eating and exercising. Would I love to be 25-30 pounds lighter? Of course. I def could be more careful with what I’m eating, but if being really restrictive is what it would take to get to that weight, I think I’ll pass. My goal right now is to lose seven more pounds and re-evaluate. Anyway, just another data point along this journey. Has anyone done one of these?
Yesterday was a powerlifting day of 4x10 of back squats at 65% of my PR and then building up to a single heavy rep on the bench press. The HIIT was a 4 round 4 movement combo of the air bike, push presses, GHD sit-ups and 100’ single DB overhead lunges. That took about 25 minutes. And I finished with 3x10 of glute ham raises.
And I just finished my 5-mile run at the beach, the last portion was uphill. My zen time.
If all goes well (no work issues), then my DEXA scan is Thursday morning. I actually spoke with the 27-year old guy at the gym and told him that I’ve made an appointment and that he can do the same or not. I don’t really care. But I haven’t done a body fat test since well before the pandemic started. So, it’s really about time. My mentality as always is that I’ll be disappointed with the results, but it is what it is. It’s better to know than not know.
The test itself was easy. I was told not to eat, drink or exercise 12 hours before the 8 a.m. test. For this test, you sit in total darkness for five minutes with noise-canceling headphones while lying flat in a recliner to get you totally relaxed. Then you put a clip on your nose and breathe into a mask connected to a machine that you hold while in the dark for however long it takes to get a reading, usually between 5-10 minutes. I had an error the first time because the nose clip slipped off at 10 minutes. The second time it took about eight minutes. The next time took seven minutes. They do multiple tests to make sure they get a consistent reading. The readings have to be within 50 calories of each other. Mine wasn’t. So they took a third reading. Finally, we got two tests close to each other so they averaged those two.
The results? EXACTLY what I thought/kind of was hoping they’d be. My metabolism has slowed. I’m not happy my metabolism has slowed, but it does explain why my weight loss has ground to a halt.
I have been doing myfitnesspal for several years, hard core at first and now kind of as a check-in. I’ve lost 50 pounds. But for many months, I’ve been stuck at basically the same weight. Gained three pounds over the six weeks of the holidays, then it came back off, and I’m right back where I was in November. And August. And June. Now I know that it’s because my metabolism has slowed so the calories myfitnesspal was telling me to eat to lose weight were more like maintenance calories for me. The tests says that for my age, weight, height, level of activity, etc. and my metabolism I would need to eat the ridiculously low 1117 to lose a pound a week. But myfitnesspal was telling me to eat 1,340 to lose 1.5 pounds a week. Makes sense to me that I wasn’t losing, which is why I decided to do the test.
Anyway, I am going to eat 1,200/day for a while and see what happens. I’m guessing there will be some loss. Also, I learned that autoimmune diseases can affect your metabolism. I have a couple of those. Another step I can do to reduce inflammation is change my diet to get rid of some things – exchanging “bad” oils for better ones. Also looking at myfitnesspal, I see that I am right where I need to be for protein but low for carbs and high for fats.
So, it was time well spent. As I said above, this is another data point as I continue to address issues of health. Thanks for letting me share here! Everybody keep moving!
I keep meaning to say thanks for this! And how cool you were able to calculate it. I tell my very overweight coworkers - like 75-300 pounds overweight - just how little one needs to eat if you want to maintain your weight and don’t exercise. I tell them I’m probably around 1400 calories which is a guess for me. But based on your results I’m probably not far off. And I point out that is like one large value meal FOR THE DAY! Though with my exercise and stuff, I tend to be around 2200-2400 Sunday through Friday.
Yes, It seems as if there is not much margin for calories if one wants to lose weight. I know I have come back from a 10 mile run and am disappointed to see that I have burned way less than 2000 calories! It’s not easy.
I attempted a PR on the deadlift platform yesterday, but it felt SO HEAVY that I left it there. Disappointed, but maybe in a few weeks, I’ll try again.
My HIIT was 3 rounds of 4 minutes of work, 2 minutes of rest with a combination of light power cleans, pushups and GHD sit-ups.
And then with the treadmill STILL being down, I finished with 20-minutes on the Stairmaster. Seems like a waste of time for a 200+ calorie burn.
Still walking several days a week, even in the cold.
Riding my spin bike the days I don’t walk.
I’m starting to row again, on low level and for only 10 minutes. Hoping my shoulder will tolerate this better.
Well heavier people can eat more than lighter people for maintenance. But…. if they want to loose weight, then they need to reduce their calories (and keep calories reduced to avoid gaining the weight back).
For sure. I just use myself as an example. But, they can’t eat value meals for every work day breakfast & lunch, and either go out to eat or have a big dinner, plus snacks in between and all sugar sodas, not exercise and wonder why they are large. And then - the vocal one - goes to the doctor and told he needs to lose weight and goes on some weird diet that is super restrictive of various food groups, etc. and it lasts for 2-5 days and then gives up. And so on…
But in general, I keep my mouth shut, because they think that I believe you HAVE to run all the darn time to stay in shape. Nope. I run all the time because I want to run all of the time. I don’t think that’s the best way for someone in their situation to lose weight.
Thanks, that was interesting. I mistakenly thought the video at the top was the same as the story. Glad I went back to check. I can’t believe people in that study were only given 800 calories.
I sent the video to a friend who was just telling me that since she started her dryish January she’s dropped pounds. Maybe it’s not just the calories …
I can report since dropping my calories this week to 1,200, I have lost more than a pound!
I’m glad you posted that. I have a recollection from years ago, when a famous person (I think Oprah?) lost a lot of weight via exercise and very low calorie diet. But then her body was in an almost starvation mode, burning fewer calories.
I had a good week of workouts today. My runs are now creeping solidly into the old slow and easy day category. I’ll take it (for now).
Today I was glad I didn’t live further East and north. Forecast was for 1-3” of sleet and snow overnight followed by 20-30 mph winds in the morning. So I wasn’t expecting much of a run, if at all. Got up and the roads were black and temps hovering right at 32*. Winds were higher than I’d like, but not 30mph. Planned to run carefully since I wasn’t sure if the saturated roads had frozen over. They seemed ok for about 10 min. Then the temps must have dropped because they started getting slick. Some stretches were ok some not. But I managed and was glad to miss the 2-3 feet of snow and 70mph winds.
Workout was fun. It was a combo move. Row, partial deadlift, hand clean, reverse lunges, overhead press. Started with 1 rep and worked your way up the ladder to 10 - but each combo cycle is 1 rep. (don’t do 10 rows, 10 cleans, etc.) 30 sec rest after completing rounds 1-3, 60 sec after 4-6, 90 sec after 7-8 and 120 sec after 9.
Cold here in NoVA (temp 22 degrees, feels like 9 degrees) but not much snow. Today was the first day of the run club’s half marathon training program. I’m already training on my own and my race is before the club’s target race but I like running with others on long runs. Today was only 5 miles but a bunch of us got out there in the cold and ran it. Had to walk in some spots (due to ice), but glad I did it.
Oprah did some real weight swings back in the day. I don’t remember - has she even done much talking about her weight journey??? These days what I see of her she loves to garden and cook and practice wellness but seems to be more comfortable being in her plus size (hate that term) body.
I used to follow Oprah closely in the 80s or 90s. I haven’t in many many years though. But she ran a marathon in 4:29! I believe it was when she turned 40. That is quite good!
