Greg's Weight Loss Blog

I’m not much of a rebel but today I did something naughty. I drew graffiti all over my neighborhood. Well don’t think for a second that I suddenly turned into a right brain artist overnight because I didn’t! I just simply had enough of the inconsistent distance measurements and estimating paces that could be off by 7-10 seconds per mile because of GPS and/or footpod discrepancies. So I went and bought a totally basic bike speedometer and some orange spray paint.

The speedometer is basic but it does everything I needed which is to measure distance accurately. I set it up initially so one revolution was 1 meter and set it in metric mode this way every 0.001 km was one revolution exactly. This way I could use it as a simple revolution counter. I rolled on my bike 50 revolutions then took a 100 ft tape measure and measured the distance. It was 329.5 ft. So I knew that each revolution of the wheel was actually 2.008 meter which is more accurate than the 2.030 meter the manual of the speedometer indicated for my wheel size. This method is actually very similar to the method that is used to certify running courses. Once I calibrated my speedometer I rode to the hardware store to pick up some bright orange paint.

With the paint in hand, helmet on head, speedometer calibrated and reset I took off from my house and marked every quarter mile on my running route. My route generally involves 1 mile running out then do a mile loop around another neighborhood then do a 0.5 mile out and 0.5 mile back leg and keep repeating the 1 mile loop and the 0.5 mile out and back until I rack up enough miles to finish off with the last mile to run home. The problem was that the 1 mile out segment wasn’t quite 1 mile and the loop was only 0.95 miles so I never knew just how much I had to lengthen my run on the 0.5 mile out and back segment to make up for the shortage.

Now I know since I measured everything out down to the thousandth of mile and my new route marking is just perfect. I can run any distance with 0.5 mile resolution from the house and get perfect mile splits. I already ran 3 miles on my new measured route tonight and ironically my footpod measured 2.998 miles with the calibration value loaded in it and my GPS measured 3.01 miles. I might have went a bit OCD and should have just used my trusty tools instead of spending an hour and a half in the scorching sun painting numbers on the road.

I forgot to put on sunscreen so my arms and neck are pretty burned right now and I rode a total of 11 miles for all the painting and verifying of the distances. I still think it was time well spent .

During my transformation I’ve been getting a lot of comments and a lot of questions. One of the most annoying one has been “So when are you going to be done with your diet?”. But nothing really tops the ultimate question that I get more times than I could care to count: “What’s your secret?”. This question is probably the most annoying of them all. Don’t misunderstand me, I love to get compliments and I certainly don’t mind questions and I’m eager to help anyone who’s in need of help with their transformation to a better and healthier life. But when I get this question, the most amazing thing usually happens. The person asking the question already knows the answer to it:

Eat Less Move More

There is no secret! It really comes down to one very simple thing: to lose weight you have to generate a caloric deficit. There are two ways of generating that caloric deficit.

1. Eat Less
   By reducing your caloric intake yet maintaining caloric demand your body will be in a caloric deficit and it will have to come up with the energy from some other source besides food. And most of us have plenty of storage to rely on. Our fat cells are excellent energy stores, they store about 3,500 calories of energy per lbs of body fat. So by eating less your body will start to burn off all the excess fat and slowly but surely your waistline will start to dwindle.
2. Move More
   The other way of generating a caloric deficit is by increasing the caloric demand of your body. Caloric demand of your body depends on age, sex, weight and activity level. The older you get the lower the caloric demand so the sooner you start the better off you are. It is pretty tough to change your sex, I’m not really sure it’s worth it, and the lower your weight the less energy you use so that really leaves us with one option to increase caloric demand which is increasing your activity level. Unless you quit your desk job and start loading trains or stocking warehouse shelves you really have no other option but start an exercise regime. It can be as little as 30 minutes of walking in the evenings after dinner or as much as a full fledged marathon training running 35+ miles a week. As long as you increase your activity level slowly but surely your waistline will start to dwindle.

And that’s all there is to it! As long as you do either one, or for optimal results both, you will lose weight. And the person who just asked the question while gets a bit disappointed that there was no secret involved, no pixie dust, no gastric bypass surgery, no magic drugs, no quick fix deep down inside they already knew that the only way to shed the fat and keep it off is by eating less and moving more.

I’ve been losing weight, mostly fat, for the last 7+ months and I feel like I’m in the home stretch. I have lost 70+ lbs and I think I only have another 10 lbs to go. But this last 10lbs seems to be the toughest to lose. Why’s that?

I see a lot of people are fighting to lose that “last 5-10 lbs” and quite honestly most people could probably stand to lose that last 5-10lbs whether they admit to it or not. Even at my half marathon race most guys I have talked to said “If I could only lose that 10 lbs my time would improve so much!”. Yet, for some reason, they’re stuck at their weight. They run a lot of miles I presume, it’s tough to run a half marathon without running a lot of miles and they still can’t shake that last 10 lbs. I think I know why it is so difficult to drop that final 10 lbs and to be able to tighten the belt one more notch.

1. Weight loss fatigue.
   I’ve been losing weight for over 7 months. It is a very tiring process even in light of all the progress I have made. Counting calories for days on, writing down every single item I consume, worry every time the family goes out for dinner what I would eat and wondering just how many days having a slice of birthday cake and a beer with the friends would set me back can be a full time job. And after a while you reach a point in your weight loss where you get tired of it and you say “screw it, I deserve that piece of cake” or “I’m not going to count calories today”. I know that I’m pretty tired of it all myself, I even quit calorie counting completely a week ago. But with getting more and more relaxed with the diet comes the other problem.
2. Diet Complacency
   When you do something long enough you begin to master it. When you’ve been dieting for so long you start to learn how many calories are in a large egg (70) how much calorie is in a cup of rice (about 200-220) and how big is a 4oz portion of chicken (about the size of a deck of cards). These things start to become second nature. You feel like you’re in the groove and you’re in full control. But then you start to justify some not so perfect choices and you start to eat some things you know you shouldn’t. You would know that eating that third tortilla (140 calories) is probably not a good idea and it does not really fit into your caloric budget but you do it anyway because “I’ve already ran 4 miles this morning and that burned 400 calories”. You will look at the loaf of bread at the Italian restaurant on a Saturday night and you will think “I’m going to run my 10 mile long run burning 1,000 calories, what’s the harm in eating 300 extra calories tonight? I’m just carb loading for tomorrow”. You start justifying diet choices and rationalizing excess calories that you wouldn’t eat had you still been calorie counting. Combined with the weight loss fatigue you feel downright entitled to that piece of brownie “I’ve been dieting this long, I deserve that brownie!”. So you end up eating a 100 calories here another 100 calories there and before you know it you just ate an extra 200-300 calories on top of your daily budget. And that is a big issue when you combine it with the third issue.
3. Change in Basal Metabolic Rate
   It is no secret that the bigger is someone the more calories it takes to support that body. There are equations that can estimate your basal metabolic rate (BMR) or resting metabolic rate (RMR). In the different calculators weight is one of the determining factors for BMR/RMR and it takes around 5 calories per lbs of body weight to maintain such weight. There are other factors involved, such as sex, age, height and how active a person is but weight is has an effect of about 5 calories per lbs of body weight. So if someone loses 10 lbs their basal metabolic rate would drop by 50 calories. Now 50 calories a day is not much. But I lost 70+ lbs which means my basal metabolic rate has dropped by over 350 calories. So if I started with a basal metabolic rate of 2,400 calories at 237 lbs now, at 165 lbs, my basal metabolic rate is down to almost 2,000 calories. So if I keep staying on my 1,800 calorie diet instead of generating a 600 calorie daily deficit, which would produce a nice 1.5 lbs weekly weight loss, I’m only generating a 200 calorie daily deficit even though I’m not doing anything different than I did at the beginning of my diet. If I would want to maintain the same rate of weight loss that I had at the beginning I would have to reduce my calories to about 1,400 calories a day. That is a huge difference!

So if you combine the fact that you’re only generating a 200 calorie deficit with an 1,800 calorie diet and that you’re complacency eating an excess 200 calories daily you can see how you can end up just maintaining your current weight and not losing any more even though, with the exception of the small indulgences, you are eating the same thing that you have been eating for the past 7 months. This can be a very depressing situation where you feel like you will never reach your goal and as if someone just keeps moving the finish line further and further. So what am I doing to make sure I don’t hit this plateau?

Nothing. I’m actually so close to my goal that I don’t care that I’m not getting there within the next two weeks. I’m taking a conscious break from my weight loss and I’m concentrating on other things. I’m focusing on my running goals and training while still eating healthy foods and making healthy choices. I’m paying attention to what I eat and I’m trying to maintain my weight without the daily drag of calorie counting. I’m hoping to be able to maintain my current weight and current physique without worrying about food. I’m trying to enjoy myself without getting fat again. And once I succeed in that I might concentrate on losing that last 10 lbs.

Today was the last day of my son’s soccer camp and for the past four days I’ve been eating lunch with him at various places. Monday we went to McDonald’s, a place where he’s only been about 3 times in his entire life. Tuesday I took him to my favorite lunch spot, a Thai restaurant where he had his very first Pad Thai and he liked it a lot. Wednesday we went to another favorite of mine, Chipotle, and he got a taste of their chicken quesadillas. For some reason today he said he wanted to eat Chick-fil-A. It was a really odd request as he’s only been to Chick-fil-A about as many times as he’s been to McDonald’s which is not many. I wasn’t even sure if he knew what Chick-fil-A was serving.

Since he told me about his lunch plan in the morning I had plenty of time to look up their nutrition information and calorie counts on the Chick-fil-A website. Since their menu is rather simple it was very easy to make my choices. I knew that i would not eat anything that was fried so that left me with their grilled chicken options which were two sandwiches, one with cheese and bacon and one without and two salads, one with fruits and one without.

I carefully weighed the calorie count and decided that I would have a salad for good filler and good volume and I would also eat a chicken sandwich for taste and some more carbs. The two salad options were Chargrilled & Fruit Salad or the Chargrilled Chicken Garden Salad. If you look on the nutrition page the fruit salad is 230 calories and boasts 17 grams of sugar while the plain chicken salad is a mere 180 calories and only 6 grams of sugar. So you would naturally say that the fruit salad is the worse choice and you would opt for the regular salad. But those extra 9 grams of sugar all come from healthy fruits such as strawberries, apple, grapes and mandarin oranges. So it’s a bunch of healthy stuff. And the story doesn’t end here.

What Chick-fil-A doesn’t make apparent at this point is that this calorie count does not include the dressing, croutons, sunflower seeds, granola or whatever else you might end up putting on the salad. The fruit salad comes with Harvest Nut Granola (60 calories per serving, 2 grams of fiber) while the garden salad comes with Butter Garlic Croutons (60 calories, no fiber) and Honey Roasted Sunflower Seeds (90 calories). So once you put all the add-ons onto the salads the fruit salad is sitting at 270 calories while the garden salad is up to 330 calories. So at this point the Fruit salad certainly looks like a better choice in terms of calories. but the story doesn’t end here.

We still have to add salad dressing to the equation. If you go with Ranch or Caesar dressing you just added another 160 calories to either of these two salads. If you opt for the Light Italian dressing you’re only adding 15 calories to your salad. The fruit salad comes with the Reduced Fat Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette which clocks in at 70 calories per serving, but you can certainly opt for something else. So if you get the Fruit salad as listed, with the balsamic viegarette,  it would be a total of 340 calories for the salad. If you ordered the garden salad with ranch it would be 490 calories while if you opt for the light Italian you’d be at 345 calories. At this point I have decided to go with the fruit salad and the balsamic vinaigrette for a total of 340 calories. But the story doesn’t end here.

For the sandwich I chose the Chargrilled Chicken Club, with bacon and cheese for 410 calories. But it’s only 410 calories if you skip the Honey Roasted BBQ Sauce packet that comes with it whether you want it or not. That small packet of BBQ sauce adds 60 calories to the sandwich if you choose to squeeze it on there. I decided ahead of time that I would not use the packet and only eat the sandwich. So I was ready to go in and eat 750 calories for my lunch which is not a terrible amount of calories if you’re eating 2,300 calories a day. It’s actually quite a healthy amount of calorie with decent macronutrient breakdown. But the story doesn’t end here.

Once I ordered my salad and sandwich, to my surprise, they not only gave me the salad, the sandwich, the BBQ packet, the salad dressing and the granola packet but they also threw in the sunflower seeds, which were clearly not listed as an ingredient on their website. They have clearly just “supersized” my lunch by adding another 90 calories to it with a mere 0.5 oz of sunflower seeds that most people would not even notice whether they ate it or not. But that wasn’t even the biggest surprise. The biggest surprise was the salad dressing. The size of the packet was something that could serve a family of four and the label clearly mentioned it. Serving size: 2 tbsp (37g), Servings Per Container: about 2.0. So Chick-fil-A just gave me an extra 70 calories worth of salad dressing which would be invisible to the casual observer. Had I opted for the 160 calories per serving (a serving of Ranch is only 30 grams vs. the 37 grams of the vinaigrette) Ranch Dressing I’d be in the hole for another 160 calories. So that 180 calorie garden salad can end up being a 650 calorie meal once you factor in the croutons, sunflower seeds and the two servings of Ranch dressing that you’ll receive whether you want it or not.

Don’t misunderstand me, I really like the fact that every addition is clearly labeled with calorie content and that Chick-fil-A lists all this on their website and the separate packets give you the option to have a 180 calorie salad or a 650 calorie salad but it’s a minefield and a danger zone for the casual observer. I’d also mention that they list no sandwich on their menu that would beat the 650 calorie salad monstrosity in calories, not even their most calorie dense Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich can top that with its measly 580 calories. And let’s not forget that while the Spicy Chicken Deluxe Sandwich contains an impressive 27 grams of fat, 8 of which are saturated and 9 grams of sugar that dream garden salad with double ranch (who could stop at half a packet I mean one packet is one serving, right?) dwarfs those numbers with a whopping 49 grams of fat, 9.5 of which are saturated, and 10 grams of sugar. And if you’d think that at least you’re getting some fiber if you go with the salad, think again as it’s only 1 gram more fiber vs. the Spicy Deluxe Sandwich with 5 grams vs. 4 grams.

I have enjoyed my lunch at Chick-fil-A today despite all the horrors that I have witnessed, but it just shows that if you’re serious about controlling your weight you have to be on the absolute lookout for yourself as everywhere you go things will try to sabotage your every move towards healthier eating.

Just for the record, I actually ended up eating the Fruit Salad with only 14 grams (less than half a serving) of the Berry Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing, I didn’t eat the granola nor the sunflower seeds and I had the Chargrilled Chicken Club Sandwich sans BBQ sauce for a total of 664 calories. As for my son? He was very happy with his two strips of fried chicken, waffle potato fries and Milk for a total of 650 calories. It’s kind of shocking to see that he ate as much as I did and this is the very reason why he’s only been there 3-4 times in his lifetime which is not much fewer than the times I happened to end up there.

If I were an alcoholic I’d tell you I had been sober for 194 days and you’d pat me on the back. Since I’m not an alcoholic, I don’t even like alcohol, I won’t say that. But since I had been a food addict and a terrible eater I can tell you that I had been eating clean foods and below my caloric expenditure level for 194 days. That is until today.

Today I had my first official cheat day. A day when I just said “screw it” and I ate whatever I felt like eating. I haven’t been completely depriving myself for the past 6+ months but I have certainly not been eating everything that I had ever craved. I’ve been very cautious about my food intake and I have results to show for it. So after 194 days I think I deserve a bit of a slack for my falter and going weak and having a cheat day. So what happened? Why the cheat day on an uneventful Friday in early May?

The day started out as usual. I had my morning breakfast which included my usual 3/4 cup of organic yogurt and a serving of Wheaties Fuel. I mix rolled oats, granola or Wheaties into the yogurt so my breakfast was nothing out of the ordinary. I followed up with 2.5 oz (70 grams) of raspberries and headed out to work. 372 calories, 10 grams of protein. So far so good.

At work I had a mid morning snack which was an energy bar. Again, this is what I usually do, nothing special. 170 calories, 9 grams of protein.

For lunch I have grabbed Chipotle. Chipotle is one of my frequent lunch places. They provide great food and very reasonable calories with awesome macronutrient content as long as you forego the cheese, sour cream, guacamole and the burrito and opt for a plain bowl with cilantro rice, black beans, fajita veggies, barbacoa, tomato and corn salsa. A really great lunch for 540 calories with a whopping 38 grams of protein. 38 grams of protein is not that much but it’s a lot when you compare it to other fast food alternatives and the amount of calories it comes out of. Again, I was doing pretty good so far.

My afternoon snacking went a bit out of hand. I was craving fruits as well as something salty. I went to the grocery store right after lunch and bought bananas. But once I was already there I bought some beef jerky, beef sticks, wheat thins and Triscuits as well as some other stuff. And since I had all this stuff in my office at work I could not resist and ate a large banana, a beef stick and one serving of wheat thins throughout the afternoon. 416 calories and 12 grams of protein.

If you had kept count I was up to 1498 calories for the day with 69 grams of protein so far. Not a bad position to be in. I still had 800 calories left over for dinner and I only needed about 50 grams of protein to go with it to meet my goal of 120 grams of protein for the day. Easily doable, I’ve done it many many times before. So what happened after I got off from work? Well, my wife had a corporate event…

My wife’s company throws some pretty nice parties for their employees and this time they invited their employees and their spouses to a nice suite at the Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie, a horse track. Me and my wife hardly get away from the kids so it was a special occasion for us that does not come around often. So we hired a sitter and we went to the race track. Once we got there and walked in the suite there were sandwiches, chips with dips and salsa, cheese platter with grapes and shrimp cocktails everywhere. They also had a full open bar which I did not utilize other than asking for club sodas at a steady pace. I chose not to eat any of these snack foods and waited as long as I could before I got in line at the buffet.

They had a really nice create your own pasta stir-fry station going where I asked the attendant to pour all the oil she just put in the skillet out and make mine with very little oil, if any, and go easy on the pasta and heavy on the veggies. I asked her to put every possible vegetable in there which consisted of broccoli, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, bell peppers, artichoke hearts, onions and garlic. I also opted for the marinara sauce instead of the Alfredo which is the one I would have opted for 6 months ago. After I ate my fantastic stir-fry I went back for more. This time I got a large plate and piled half of it with steamed squash and zucchini while loaded the other half with two slices of roasted turkey breast and two slices of prime rib. Again, I think I did pretty good and avoided the chicken covered in buttery and creamy sauces, the potatoes Au Gratin and the dinner rolls. This little dinner outing comes in at a respectable 926 calories with 69 grams of protein based on my calculations. The only bad part was the 47 grams of fats almost half of which was saturated. So if you add up all my calories so far for the day I’d be at 2,425 calories and 139 grams of protein which is actually a pretty good day. And this is where I should have stopped and called it quits. But I didn’t.

Instead I went back for dessert and ended up eating a slice of chocolate pie and a slice of Italian Cream cake. Yup, you’ve read it right. I actually had two pieces of cake for dessert. It was insane! I don’t know what had gotten into me but I just had to have it. And if this wasn’t enough I kept munching on potato chips and pieces of cheese throughout the rest of the evening while I kept betting on the wrong horses. All in all I estimate I had eaten close to 900 calories of dessert and junk throughout the evening and 60% of the calories came from the 56 grams of fat that I managed to stuff my face with. So my overall total calories for the day were estimated around 3,300 calories. Not exactly my maintenance intake of 2,300 calories. My overall game winnings were a net loss of $9 which is not too bad when you consider the entertainment value I had received for it.

If I could have a do-over I’d probably stop after dinner and maybe have a single piece of cake as an indulgence but I would certainly not gorge on the dessert and snacks like I did. I feel a bit bad about it but I do know that I haven’t had pie or cake for 6 months and I haven’t eaten this much food in one day for a really really long time and I certainly won’t repeat today’s actions any time soon. But on the other hand this experiment just showed me how easy it is to eat a ton of calories without even noticing it. I ate perfect, or close to it, throughout the entire day and I only blew it after dinner yet I still managed to eat 1,000 calories over my maintenance level. And believe me, I wasn’t even the biggest eater at this event. The only difference was that while 7 months ago I would not have thought for a second about all the food choices I made and I probably would have eaten potatoes and dinner rolls with butter bathed chicken instead of the steamed vegetables and roasted meat. This time every single choice was a conscious one even if it was a bad one. I knew full well what I was doing and what it would cost me in terms of calories even before I took the piece of cake and placed it on my plate. I was fully aware of the damage each potato chip was making in my diet and goal.

While I’m not entirely proud of or happy with the choices I had made tonight I’m still feeling pretty good. I also know that I’ll be running a 10 mile long run on Sunday which will burn more calories in an hour and a half than what I ate in excess the entire evening. So I’m still kind of glad that I had my first official cheat day, at least I know what it feels like. It’s not all that what it’s cracked up to be but I’m sure I’ll have a couple more of these in the coming years.

As I get leaner and more and more fit I get a lot of comments from people. People who know me, people who haven’t seen me in a long time and from folks that see me every day. These comments are mostly positive but as Carla showed today on her blog they can be rather negative at times too. Sunday I heard one that I just have to share because it totally made my day.

Sundays are my long run days. These are the days when I actually get in my car and drive 25 minutes to a trail instead of just walking out the front door and hitting the road. On shorter runs I tend to stick with the neighborhood streets but when the running plan calls for a 10 mile run I just can’t imagine running that on streets with no sidewalks in boring suburbia. So I drive down to the Trinity Trail, an awesome trail system in Fort  Worth, TX and go for it. Last Sunday’s recipe called for a 10 mile run. I got there bright and early and hit the trail by 7:30. I was done with my run before 9:00 and since I was already in town I figured I’d go to Central Market, an awesome grocery store with really good stuff, and buy some stuff.

I love Central Market. They have bulk cereal, granola and oatmeal that I like, they have a fantastic selection of breads including 100% whole wheat, a cheese selection that is unmatched around here, deli meats that are to die for and fresh produce and a butcher that are all hard to resist. It’s impossible to get out of the place for less than $100 and I usually have less than two bags to show for it. It’s a completely different shopping experience than Walmart.

So I went to Central Market right after my long run in my 2.5″ inseam split running shorts and technical t-shirt with sodium deposits sparkling all over my body and smelling pretty nasty probably, although I can’t really tell but my wife makes me take off my running clothes in the garage when I come home from an easy 3 mile run. I got the usual stuff, pears, some energy bars, some rolled oats for myself, fennel bulbs, bread, farmers cheese and salami and bologna for the family.

As I was waiting for the salami in the deli, an older guy asked me if I had been running this morning. I was contemplating telling him that I don’t run and what I was wearing was actually my grocery shopping outfit but instead I fessed up and told him that I ran 10 miles at 8:08 minute/mile pace. He said that sounds pretty good and he remembers those days when he could run that fast. Then I told him about my running aspirations and my goals and he looked me up and down and said “well, you’ve got the physique for it”.

That comment just totally made my day. Apparently I have the physique of an endurance athlete now at least according to an old runner at Central Market. I’ll take that opinion any day! I told him while laughing that he should have checked me out last October when I was closer to 240 lbs.

“So when are you going to be done with your diet?” I get this question quite often from friends, family and co-workers. And when I tell them that I have another 6-8 or maybe even 10 lbs to go they all act surprised or tell me that I’m fine as I am and I really should stop the weight loss right now. They consider me skinny now. They think I’m about to turn anorexic and fall on the other side of the spectrum of unhealthy. But I know that they are wrong. I think most people making these assessment of my fitness and body composition are wrong simply because of two reasons.

The firs reason is relativity. Relative to my old, 237 lbs size I look pretty darn skinny now. But that doesn’t mean that I’m skinny, it just means people around me are overweight. I’m currently weighing in around 171 lbs (77.5 kg). I remember when I was a sophomore in high school I just surpassed this weight for the first time and they started calling me fatty. They were making jokes about my weight and how I was growing bigger by the minute. I used to be a lean 135 lbs when I started high school and relative to that, 175 lbs was indeed fat and overweight. I remember my stepmother and the rest of my family telling me that I should really start watching my weight and stop eating all that food that I had been eating. And I barely weighed more than what I weight now at the very same height yet the perception was that I was getting overweight and out of control. Boy, were they right! But I paid little attention and kept on gaining weight until I have reached my all time high of around 245 lbs. So while I think I am getting close to my target I’m not quite there yet.

The other and probably more important relativity is my relative weight when compared to people around me. Compared to them I look pretty darn lean and skinny too. I think most people have no concept of what fit or skinny people look like nowadays. A bit of a gut hanging, 10-20 lbs extra here and there does not seem to be a big deal nowadays. And relative to obese people those folks who only carry an extra 20 lbs around all day every day are downright skinny. But it doesn’t mean that they are fit. They might be fitter than most people but I would not consider them fit. If you want to see fit people you have to go to a local 5K or 10K race and check out the top 10 male finishers coming in under 19 minutes for the 5K and 38 minutes for the 10K. Chances are, those folks are pretty fit. Your average office dweller who does nothing all day long is probably not fit at all even if they’re skinny.

And this is the other misconception or lack of concept in the general population. Most folks have no idea about the difference between body weight and body composition. Body weight is simply the amount of mass you carry around on your frame all day long. Body composition is the percentage of this body weight that would be considered bad weight, AKA fat. There are guys in my office who weigh 10-15 lbs less than I do yet have more body fat than I. There is also a guy in the office who weighs 30 lbs more than I do yet looks a heck of a lot better than I. Now, I’m not a fan of huge muscles. I really prefer a slimmer look for myself but you can be skinny and still fat. It’s called skinny-fat. You can weigh 160lbs with a normal BMI and I’d still consider you fat while others would consider you skinny. I can show you people at my office who weight less than I do yet they would not fit into a 31″ size pair of jeans, the very size I have been buying for the past month. I can also show you guys that are 10 lbs heavier than me and still fit into the size 31″ waist. So what’s the difference? The difference is in body fat percentage, or body composition.

OK, so what do I consider ideal body fat percentage? My goal is to get to single digit body fat percentage. I’m currently hovering around 13-14% at 171 lbs. It means I have 147 – 149 lbs of lean body mass, stuff that is not fat; muscles, bones, internal organs, ligaments and the like. It means to be at under 10% body fat I need to be around 163 to 166 lbs. That means I need to lose another 6 to 9 lbs of fat. So when people ask me if I’m done I usually tell them I have another 6-9 lbs to go which should take another 6 weeks or so. And why did I pick the sub 10% body fat as my target? Because 10% is the place where six-pack abs start showing up. So you could say that my ultimate goal is to have six-pack abs showing. And that, I would consider fit and done. So hang with me for another month and a half and watch me transform from lean and skinny to ripped and fit!

I’m sidelined. I can’t run. And it’s driving me insane! Last Friday I had a small medical procedure done that involved me deciding not wanting more children. I have two beautiful kids, a lovely wife and I’m very happy with my life as it is. So the bottom line is that because of my decision of not wanting more children I had to take some time off from running. I have been running a lot since I began running mid-January. I have logged 390 miles (627 km) in close to 58 hours. And I have enjoyed every minute of it. And now I can’t run.

The weekend felt really empty without my regular running. Sure, it was a busy weekend, my son had two soccer games, we went shopping on Saturday and attended a birthday on Sunday but with all the business it still felt incomplete without me running. Monday was another day when I would usually run but instead I met with a friend and had a beer and dinner. I have not had a beer in probably close to a year. I’m not much of a drinker, I don’t even like the taste of alcohol and if I drink a 6-pack in a year that’s a lot of beer for me. I’m also not a fan of any other liquor but I will drink Bailey’s on the rocks on occasion or my favorite sissy drink, mudslide. But I did a favor for the guy so he wanted to take me out for a beer and I went with it. So instead of my easy 3 mile recovery runs on Mondays I was sitting in a bar sipping an amber ale that I wasn’t all that crazy about but it gave me a good buzz as it was on an empty stomach at a much lighter weight and after a year of hiatus from alcohol in general. But if I had my choice of running versus beer I’d go for the running any day of the week.

I’m not supposed to run for a whole week which means I have another 3-4 days of sitting on the sideline. But based on how I feel I just might start running a bit sooner as it’s very hard to resist not to. Running is very addictive and I love the addiction!

While it doesn’t seem like it at times, I actually have other interests besides my body transformation and fat loss. I also take interest in personal finance and I frequently visit several personal finance blogs. One of these blogs is wisebread.com. Most of the stuff on their site is pretty basic stuff, I’m way passed the coupon clipping and credit card interest concerns. They have various staff writers and bloggers that try to eke out some profit from writing articles for them. The quality, style and content of the articles vary widely writer to writer so I know how to pick and choose the articles that are worth my time.

But today they had an article that had a very intriguing title and I knew where it was going the minute I read it: 15 Reasons Plus-Size Shopping Sucks. I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with what I was about to read but I was completely unprepared to what I really read, especially in the comments.

The article is a pretty basic rant type article, not unlike this one, it was written by a no-name guest writer that I have seldom seen before, he’s not one of the regular writers, I mean 4 entries in 6 months is not a whole lot. He complains about lack of decent clothes selection for “Plus-Size” folks. Some of his reasons aren’t economically sound at all and some are just plain wrong. I was going to respond to the original article in detail in the comments but by the time I have read to the end of the comments my blood was boiling.

Here is my beef with the original article.

The complaints seems to be that large clothing is “frumpy” and “dowdy” and look like tents. Well guess what? Large people need large clothes to cover all that body. And it’s not the clothes, it’s the people who wear them that are “frumpy” and “dowdy”. That is just the nature of the beast. I’m sorry but have you seen a hot looking Peterbuilt truck? Me neither! But I have seen plenty of sleek sport coupes that I’d love to keep in my garage.

The second complaint seems to be that stores are difficult and don’t support the plus size people and the message the stores send with their tight little mannequins is “just appalling” and people browsing the plus size section feel like they’re being judged. Apparently they’re not judged enough! Or certainly not enough to lay off the doughnuts! I wish there was more stigma attached to being obese in our society. It would have helped me stay fit and healthy. But apparently most people simply don’t give a flip about judgmental people or appaling store displays as they chow down the food court pretzels and Cinnabons.

The third complaint is just plain stupid and shows a clear ignorance about economics 101. He complains that bigger clothes cost more than smaller clothes. He says based on the same logic men’s clothes should cost more than women’s as they are bigger and take more material. The cost of the goods is set by supply and demand. When there is a limited supply of large clothes the price will be higher as there are fewer substitute goods that the fat guy can get their hands on if they think the 5XL shirt in one store is too expensive, chances are the other store does not even carry that size so they either buy it at a premium or walk shirtless, and heaven save us from the 5XL shirtless visual image of a naked guy! I actually feel bad about posting underwear pictures of my 2XL body. Women simply buy more clothes than men, the demand is higher and women are willing to pay more for their clothes hence the higher price. It has nothing, or very little to do with material cost. Perfumes cost about $3 to make and they sell for $50+. Why? Because that is what the market will bear. Golf clubs cost about the same to make regardless whether they’re the top of the line Nike for $1,000+ a set or the cheapest Wilson for $180. Price has nothing to do with raw material cost. It has to do with image, marketing and perceived value.

The story about how skinny teens are needed for the porn industry is just plain disgusting. If teens get the impression that it is OK to be fat we’re all doomed. It is NOT OK to be fat! You can try to justify it all day long, the bottom line remains, it is bad for you in the long haul to be fat. And that is what our children should receive as a signal and impression. Sure there is the other extreme with overly skinny models that portray unrealistic ideals but somehow I failed to hear the anorexia epidemic that is about to hit our 30+ generation or about the childhood anorexia epidemic that is causing alarms going off. All I hear is childhood obesity epidemic and the cost of obesity on our health care system.

So the story sucked and it was a waste of time for me to even read it. But what really got me going was the comments and how defensive people got with their comments when they were suggested to lose some weight. I have commented about 6 times on that article but most of my comments got deleted, somehow they were construed as personal attacks. They weren’t. They were simply pointing out the fallacies and the total idiocy of some of the people that commented. Two of my responses still remain as of now but I just have to quote some of the gems over here that I think are worthy of repeating.

One person wrote this:

Sure, losing weight is generally a good thing. But what about the people whose metabolisms are screwed up by the medication they need to stay healthy? What about those whose body types are naturally larger than whatever the general public has decided is the correct size? What about those who are physically incapable of weight-reducing exercise due to illness, injury, or medical problems? Not every plus-sized person is that size because they “choose” to be so.

This is a totally delusional proposition about the general public deciding on correct size. The general public is actually promoting obesity and it is getting widely accepted now. These people are obese by even these new social standards! The rest of the argument does not stand. Weight management can be attained strictly through diet without exercise. But it is impossible to attain it via exercise and no diet. So those poor sobs who can’t exercise due to illness, injury or medical problems can and should still lay off the nachos. Chances are if they got to a healthier weight they would have far fewer illnesses or medical problems to begin with. There is no such thing as a slow metabolism. It’s a myth. People just eat too much refined crap.

I loved this one:

I’m working on losing weight. HOWEVER….if we are supposed to work out and exercise to lose weight, where is the company that sells (at a reasonable price) workout gear for plus sized women. I’m fat and I get really hot and sweaty. Where is my underarmour? Where is my sports bra that actually holds it in without making me so hot I feel like I’m going to die.

This one just made me laugh and cry at the same time. These folks just don’t get it. There is no such thing because there is no demand for it. And you can’t make a company do it. They have to feel like there is a market for it, take their chances and try to sell it. The best part though is in the parenthesis: “at a reasonable price”. These people not only demand that companies make this stuff, they demand it to be reasonably priced. Talk about sense of entitlement! UnderArmour is anything but reasonably priced even for us, “skinny folks”.

For what it’s worth here is the Underarmour sizing chart:

I’m a 32/32 with a 39″ chest and a 15″ neck. I’m a Medium. They make Small through XXX-Large. I’m 177lbs and still overweight by any standard. They have one smaller size than me and 4 sizes larger than me. What does this tell you? This tells me that Underarmour tailors plenty for larger people. At 227lbs I was a 45″ waist, 17″ neck and 45″ chest. I would have fit into their XX-Large stuff. If you need anything larger than their XXX-Large you should not be exercising and concentrate on losing weight through diet first.

Another disillusioned person:

Do you realize some stores only go up to 12 or 14? The average size of the American woman is 14, so the average American woman is not finding clothes. And just because you’re a size 14 or 16 or whatever doesn’t mean you’re unhealthy. If you’re going to use clothing size to gauge health, well then everyone should be a size 0!

If the average size American woman was indeed a size 14 then stores would be full of size 14 clothes because there would be a large demand for such things. Clearly this commenter was a size 14 woman trying to justify her size as she’s only being average. Who am I to stop her from that pipe dream?

I have replied to this comment but it got deleted:

This is not about “catering” to people who wear plus-sizes in clothes. Its about giving people who are fat all of the options for clothing that thin people have. This is a basic right and has nothing to do with health or anything else.

Can you say “sense of entitlement”? Since when did buying clothes in a store become a basic right? I recently became a US Citizen and I don’t think I have read anywhere in the rights and responsibilities section about plus size clothes. I think there was something about life,  liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There is a huge difference between the right to happiness and the right to pursue happiness. Apparently these folks didn’t get the memo.

The rest of the comments bring up every possible argument about being fat:

• I’m on medication
• I’m sick
• I have fat genes
• I have a slow metabolism

But anyone who lived it and can be totally honest with themselves would know that people are fat because of one very simple fact: they consumed more calories than what they burned.

Yesterday I had a blistering run. Literally. Tuesdays are my hill/interval days and yesterday was no different. I was planning on running 8x400m (0.25 mile) intervals on a treadmill at 5% incline. I prefer to run the hill intervals on the treadmill as they are more consistent and more controlled than running up a hill. But the weather was just too nice in the morning so I ran right in front of my neighborhood on a 2.8% incline instead and ran 8x368m (0.225 miles). I started with a 10 minute warm up then did the 8 runs up and down the hill and finished with another 10 minutes of cool down for a total of 5.9 miles. It was a good run and I ran the intervals hard. Here are my splits and paces for the 8 segments:

I think I did really good but after the run I felt a bit of a pain on my left foot. As soon as the shoe and the sock came off I was looking at a huge blood blister the size of Texas. It was right next to the other blister that I got a month ago on a 6 mile long run which was actually a lot bigger than originally anticipated. I went on with my day and didn’t know what to do about the blister or how it would affect the rest of my running for a while. On my way home I went to Walgreen’s and bought some Moleskin just in case I decided I needed it.

It turns out I needed it. I tried to research the best way to deal with a blister but there just wasn’t a lot of information available especially when I was looking for answers about “how to treat the blister so I can run another 28 miles this week on it?”. So I made the best decisions I could on my own and hoped for the best. I punctured the blister last night and drained it. It felt better already with the pressure relived. I let it heal and dry overnight then this morning I cut a nice patch of moleskin to go over it and went for a 6 mile easy run.

When I run I generally go out and back so it would have been 3 miles out then 3 miles back. But with the fear of not being 100% due to the blister I took a more cautious route and ran out 1 mile then did four laps of a mile loop and ran back for the last mile. The worry was unfounded, the Moleskin held up awesome and is probably one of the best running aids there is. I will apply this stuff to my foot in these areas even if there is no blister next time that is how good this stuff is. Big thumbs up for Moleskin! The run was uneventful, averaged 8:34 min/mile (5:19 min/km) and listened to some tunes. I left the moleskin on all day and I couldn’t even tell that I had it on or that I had a blister. I took it off for the evening bath but I think I’ll put on another patch tomorrow morning before I head out for my 45 minute tempo run.