Lose 20 pounds in one month (2nd Experiment)
1 What will you do? |
My first experiment was to lose 20 lbs in one month which may be a bit aggressive. During my first attempt I lose 13 lbs which was good considering 2 major holidays and lots of parties happened during this time.
Note: I consulted a doctor and am working with a trainer during this process. Do not attempt something like this without consulting experts as my plan may not work for you.
Goal: I will attempt to loose 20 pounds in the next month using a 3 prong approach:
1) Reduced calorie intake/food tracking (vai fitbit.com)
2) Weight and cardio work outs (tracked via fitbit.com)
3) Weekly weight/body fat % tracking (via Withings WiFi Scale)
Start date: Monday Jan 4th
Star weight: 208.7 lbs
Body fat % (estimate) 30%
Goal weight: 188
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2 How will you test your idea and measure success? |
A. Daily trakcing of food and exercise via fitbit.com
B. Weekly weigh ins with my new Withings Wifi Scale - this scale meansure weight and bodyfat and can share the results over hte web. (Twitter etc.) Will figure out the best way to link this up to my experiment and post results.
C. Periodic Strength tests to ensure i'm still gain ing strenght and not losing muscle. |
4 How will you enjoy the journey? |
Focusing on being present and enjoying every phase:
1) Enjoy the healthy, nourishing food each day
2) Relishing in the challenge of the workouts
3) Watching daily/weekly progress to my goal
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Comments & Observations
James Ledoux Week to date:
# workouts - 3 (1 basketball for 2 hours and 2 weight workouts
Weigh in: 206.7
Loss to date: 1.3 lbs
Comment: Weighed in post lunch and workout. Should set weigh in time for first thing AM 2-3 times per week.
Next weigh in on Monday.
Jan 07, 2010
Matthew Cornell Good stuff, James. Thanks especially for your disclaimer. We need to make it part of the sign-in process - Terms of Agreement, I suppose. If I can opine, I think losing the 13 pounds was great. :-)
If I understand correctly, 1 and 2 are actions, with tracking, and 3 is pure tracking. I think measurement is so important - for motivation and for the "awareness leads to action" small steps value. I.e., turning any or all of 1-3 to measurement only for a more passive approach might be something useful someone could try?
Have you looked at what the Weight Watchers folks do? I think they've given the topic a lot of thought.
I wonder: How are you acknowledging the overal ambitiousness of the experiment? As a supporter (and someone who lost 15 and have been able to keep it off!) I want to say I respect your effort. I think our minds and bodies are not programmed to deal with food abundance (and paucity of exercise). It's hard to fight the urge to eat that tasty fatty sugary stuff when we find it. Used to be it was rare, and therefore productivity to chow down. Good work!
Finally, I love your three enjoyment points. Keep us informed.
Jan 10, 2010
James Ledoux First week summary:
Weight loss - 2 lbs
# workouts - 4 ( 2 weights and 2 cardio)
Adjustment # 1 for next week - Daily calorie goal - 1600 (this is 500 less than my sedentary caloric requirements). This will mean that if I do nothing Ill lose 1 lbs during the week and any extra work will mean more weight loss.
Adjustment # 2 - Increase workouts to 3 weight and 3 cardio.
Reminder - This target was set for ME by my cardiologist. Do not drastically reduce your calories or increase your activity without consulting your health professionals. I'm merely sharing my plan and its results for entertainment purposes. :-)
Jan 13, 2010
James Ledoux Weight is fluctuating between 205-207 depending on hydration this week. Will need to review food logs and make sure i"m not overshooting my food goals. More posts to come soon.
Workouts this week:
Mon - weights 1 hour
Tue - Nothing
Wed - Weights
Thur - basketball ran 6 miles
Fri - nothing
Saturday - weights 40 minutes
Jan 16, 2010
Brock Tice You might want to try using the The Hacker's Diet ( https://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/HackDiet ) log to track your weight. It creates a trend line with a moving average to help smooth out fluctuations in water weight, etc. My wife's been using it for more than ten years, but I just finally came around myself.
Jan 18, 2010
James Ledoux Weighed in at 205.3.
My weight loss goals are not going according to plan but I may be replacing fat with muscle since i'm lifting heavy several times a week.
Getting body composition test this week.
Jan 19, 2010
James Ledoux Hey Brock thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.
Jan 19, 2010
James Ledoux Weighed in at 204.8 again.
The pace of my weight loss is much slower this 2nd time around. It may be that my large goal was too big for someone who has already experienced significant weight loss.
In any event, I'm going to KOKO and see where I ned up.
Cheers,
James
Jan 23, 2010
James Ledoux Weight - 203
Weight loss total - 5 lbs since start toal wiehgt.
Note: My body fat % has be steadily decreasing which I knew would happen but this may be "slowing" my total "weight loss. " For next experiment I'll need to do a full body fat composition test to account for this. My scale a 3.5% difference which would correspond to about 7 lbs of muscle gained.
Jan 29, 2010
James Ledoux Weigh in - 202.2
Feb 05, 2010