Greg's Weight Loss Blog

I have started running on 1/12/10 as my choice of cardio exercise to replace my trusty hour of elliptical in front of  the TV. I have been running very diligently since then and I have seen constant improvements in my training by faster and faster paces for the same effort. But the real test comes when you can compare apples to apples, or race times to race times. I ran my first 5K on 1/30/10 and finished it in 24:04. It was a great achievement and I was very pleased with my time. I have averaged 7:44 minute/miles that race. Last Saturday I ran another 5K race out at the historical Fort Worth Stockyards and I smoked it!

I was going in with hopes of getting under 22:00 minutes which was probably a very easy goal considering I just had a 30 minute 7:03/mile tempo run on Thursday night. Unlike my last 5K which took place in freezing 24 degree weather and high winds, today’s race weather was perfect. It was a nice 50 degree morning with 5mph winds. It was sunny and georgeous.

I showed up around 7:30, race start time was 8:30. I warmed up with an easy 10 minute run which was the slowest I had run in a long time yet my heart rate was as high as it usually is during my normal slow runs. I was anxious, no doubt. I picked up my timing chip strapped it on my new obnoxious red Brooks T6 Racer that I bought a couple days ago for the race and went to the start line.

At the Cowtown 10K I made the mistake of starting from the back of the pack which probably cost me some time at the beginning of the race. While it’s a lot more fun to pass people than getting pased I wasn’t going to take that route this time around. It turned out to be a good idea to line up in the front.

The race did have chip timing but it wasn’t true chip timing. The start was a gun start with the finish being chip timed. It meant if you started from the back of the pack you really ended up losing some quality time as ther was no offset applied to your time and your net time was counting from gun time. I lined up in the first row, all proud and scared at the same time thinking to my self “What the hell am I doing in the first row?”

It was a small race, a combined 5K and 10K start with about 400 runners, split 50-50 between 5K and 10K. Both courses were out and back races the only difference was that the halfway point for the 10K was another 1.6 miles down the trail.

While waiting for the airhorn there was a young boy standing next to me in the front row with his Garmin 305 on his arm, getting ready to push the button. The race director came up and asked his dad behind him if he was fast enough to go from there, they didn’t want him to get trampled. His dad assured the director that he was fast enough. I asked the kid what his goal was and he said he’s planning on running around 8:40 min/mile. I was pretty impressed, he must have been 8 or 9. He just looked so darn cute standing there in the front with his watch ready to go with a min/mile pace set in his mind. It’s not often you see something like that.

At 8:30 the airhorn sounded and off we went. The first 0.2 miles were on cobblestone at the historical Stockyards then we got on some street to run to the Trinity trail which is a long biking/running trail running along the Trinity river. As we got on the trail there was a large downhill with a small bridge and a smaller uphill on the other side. Then the course was flat for the rest of the way until the turning point and then the repeat back, except the finish was not at the exact same spot as the start which saved us one small section of downhill running at the end.

While in the starting straightaway I glanced at my watch and I was looking at a 4:35 min/mile pace. I was thinking “hell there is no way I should be running this fast!” so I slowed it down with a dozen people in front of me pulling away. I slowed down but it wasn’t until the 0.4 mile marker that I really got into my race pace up until then I was running way too fast.

I was trying to keep up with the leading group but they were really fast and I figured there is really no point in me trying to run their race, I should be trying to run my race.

Then a really interesting thing happened at the turnaround. As I was approaching the big orange cones in the middle of the trail which was the clear turning point for the 5K runners, not one person in front of me took the turn. They all kept on running. They were all racing the 10K! And they were going faster than me. The 10K race was loaded with good runners and they were really booking it. This was the first year that this event has added a 10K race so most of the better runners went with that one instead of the 5K.

This left me in the lead at the turnaround which felt really weird and strenuous. The great thing about an out and back course is that you know exactly where you are and how much further you need to go. The other good thing is that as you’re running by the slower runners they cheer you on as you pass them, especially if you’re the leader at this point. One set of runners yelled at me “quit showing off!” and another said “hurry, they’re right on your heels”

The sucky part of an out and back course is that some of the slower runners are pretty ignorant and they don’t realize that there might be runners coming at them and they don’t move over until the very last moment when they finally decide to look up from fiddling with their iPods.

I still think the benefits outweigh the issue with runners who aren’t prepared for your return, maybe if I wasn’t the leader at this point it would have been a non-issue.

The person telling me about the 2nd place runner being on my heels wasn’t lying. By the time we got back to the end of the trail I was getting very tired. Mind you that’s what a 6:08 min/mile will do to you when you hardly ever run that fast in training.

As I approached the drop by the bridge and I had to climb the other side I didn’t feel like I could hold onto the lead. I could hear the other runner approaching and I eventually threw in the towel told him “I can’t keep it up, go ahead” and off he went. after the race he said he saw that my pace and cadence was detiriorating over the hill and that is when he felt he could take me. Boy, was he right.

I ran a 6:08 pace for the first two miles and a 6:37 for the last half a mile. Talk about positive split! But it didn’t matter, I still managed to finish the race while holding onto second place in 19:29 for a 6:17 min/mile overall average. Needless to say I’m super psyched about it! I got first place in my age group, the winner was a 50 years old guy who races 5Ks exclusively and has been for a long long time.

After the race was over I stuck around waiting for the award ceremony to get my age group winner’s medal. While waiting I cheered on the other finishers at the finish line and made some new friends with fellow runners. All in all it was a great race with some great running and I could not be happier with the result.

Tonight’s update is just a quick one, I already wrote most of the week’s happening in my weekly update. I didn’t even shave for this set of photos, this weekend, while a nice three day one, was way too hectic and didn’t get a whole lot done. I did get the pictures taken tonight. I think they don’t look as good as the last set, it seems to alternate between good and bad weeks, but today’s 45 degree flexed shot turned out alright. As far as my dimensions go, I haven’t changed one bit in the last 4 days at least not on the 0.25″ resolution scale that I’m operating on, everything reads the same.

04/04/2010 Transformation Picture

The photo updates every fourth day have gotten old after about a month. These weekly status updates are just starting to get old. I think I have mastered the whole calorie counting thing by now and I certainly know how to weigh in every morning and put it in a spreadsheet. Just as I have made the commitment with the photos, I’m dedicated on the weekly status updates as well and they will keep on coming until I have reached my target weight and switch over to maintenance mode.

So how did the week go? Let’s start with the weakest part, which clearly has been my strength training. I barely did my Monday training and I skipped my Friday one completely as we were off from work and we stayed home that day. I should have done something, at least some push-ups at home but I didn’t. Shame on me!

The diet is going strong, I have eased up on my calories a bit this week, I ate over 2,000 calories two days out of 7. And guess what was the culprit on both of those days? It was Italian food. On Tuesday me and my co-workers went out for lunch to a small, hole in the wall Italian restaurant where I had never been before. The food was great but it was rich in EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil, for the ones not familiar with Rachel Ray). I’m pretty sure I’ll go there again once my transformation is complete but I’ll stay away from it for the next couple of months. The other Italian restaurant was a bit more commercial, we went to Olive Garden with the family. I did great, only had the Minestrone Soup, no bread, and the Shrimp Primavera. Total damage? 830 calories and more sodium than you probably want to know (2,640 mg if you really wanted to know). I need to be fair though, on Saturday we not only ate at the Olive Garden we went to a co-worker’s daughter’s birthday party where the grill was hot and loaded with food. I just had to eat a hamburger for my afternoon snack (455 calories) and I’m sure either the Italian or the hamburger as the afternoon snack by itself would have worked out OK but the two together was a deadly combination. I had no chips, beer, sodas or cake though, the only thing I munched on were some broccoli and carrot sticks without dipping sauce.

So Italian food can be a problem for people on a diet but I still think I managed pretty decent for the week in terms of food. I have averaged out at 1.879 calories per day for the week with 124 grams of protein a day. I’m pretty pleased with the numbers, they’re right where I want them to be. The little bit of extra calories this week could not have come at a worse time. This week was not only heavier on the calories but it was lighter on the running.

This week’s running was a fall back week with a 5K race scheduled for the weekend (more on the race tomorrow). This meant reduced mileage and easier running towards the end of the week. I only ran 28.8 miles this week and burned 3,482 calories doing it. Not exactly the same as last week’s almost 37 miler with over 4,500 calories. But I needed a slower week and it was fine. I did every run the way I wanted to do them and I felt great throughout the week.

So with the bit higher caloric intake and the bit lower caloric expenditure I wasn’t expecting my usual 2 lbs (0.9 kg) drop to happen this week. But via some miracle it did happen! My rolling average has indeed dropped 2 solid pounds from last week and my actual weight also dropped the same. I have clocked in under 80 kg for the first time in a really really long time (sophomore year high school) on Thursday with 79.4 kg (175 lbs). And I have not been over that magic mark since then, not even with the excess sodium, and retained water that comes with it, on Saturday.

So how does the math add up? I have lost 2 lbs, 7,000 calories again. That’s 1,000 calories a day deficit. I have averaged 1,879 calories as my daily intake and my cardio equaled 497 calories a day. So my net calorie for a day was 1,382 meaning my BMR is 2,382 calories. Not too far fetched, still hovering around that 2,300 calorie mark.

Overall it was a good showing with good results, and I’m really looking forward to next week for another 2 lbs loss.

Yup, you have read it right! I went and bought some new wheels. I call them my ruby slippers. I have a 5K race coming up this weekend and I just felt that the New Balance MR1224 that I have been using might be a bit too heavy for such a short distance. So I went on the quest of finding myself some racing flats.

Racing flats? Aren’t those only for the elite athletes who care about seconds coming off their time and fight for a win? Why would someone like me, a beginner runner who was seriously obese a mere 5 months ago, want to run in racing flats designed for the top performance athletes? Why? Because I am actually pretty close to the top of my class, I finished in the top 4% at my last race, as amazing and impossible as it might sound. Plus I wanted to be sure that there is nothing for me to blame other than myself if I get an abysmal result.

First, I started looking at various racing flats on-line from different manufacturers and I had to conclude that there are about a dozen or so perfectly fine racing flats out there but most of them are made with not only very little cushioning, they are racing flats after all, but they also lack support which would be an issue for a mild overpronator such as myself.

Pronation is the process where your ankle buckles inward upon impact, aka heel strike. To offset this buckling shoe manufacturers make the inside part of the midsole from a harder material, called the medial post, than the outside so it presents more resistances and forces the feet to stay level as they roll forward to the ball of the feet for push off. With the exception of a select few, running flats lack this heavier material on the inside of the midsole.

After research and some recommendations from on-line message boards I have found three shoes that were going to fit the bill:

• Asics GEL-DS Racer 8
• Saucony Grid Fastwitch 4
• Brooks Racer ST4

All three shoes are running flats designed with a medial post to provide some stability in such a lightweight shoe. I went to the LRS (Local Running Store) but they didn’t have any of the three shoes in stock or available. So I went across the street to the other LRS in town, how convenient, and they had all three shoes on display. I asked for a sample from all of them. They only had a half size smaller in the Asics than my size, they had none of the Saucony in my size and they had the Brooks in my size. Both the Asics and the Brooks actually fit my foot, but the Asics felt a bit too tight in the heel area while the Brooks felt just right.

The assistant also brought out a Brooks T6 Racer which is a true racing flat for neutral gait. I have tried it on but it felt too tight on the sides. So I settled on the Brooks Racer ST4 which felt like a great shoe. But this is where things got interesting. We went over to the treadmills and they made me run on them with the new ST4 on. The guy said that my left foot actually was suppinating now, the ankle was rolling outwards instead of rolling inwards or tracking straight. He said even the mild support of the ST4 was overkill for my now neutral gait. I didn’t believe him. I had to get a second opinion. I also went to the car and brought in my trusty MR1224s with 280 miles on them and my thin running socks.

The second shoe fitter said the exact same thing. I was clearly wearing too much support and I needed neutral shoes. They also watched me and videotaped my feet while running with a slow motion camera in the various shoes. The rolling of my left ankle was clearly visible and it looked the worst in my MR1224s. They said that my MR1224s are pretty worn down and it makes matters worse but I would most definitely need a neutral shoe. They were actually surprised that I didn’t get shin splints in my stability shoes. So I tried on the Brooks T6 Racer again, this time with my thin running socks, and the darn thing fit like a glove.

I ran in them on the treadmill and my suppination was gone. I was tracking as if I was on rails. They were clearly the racing flats for me. So I bought them. In obnoxious red. That was the only color choice. I really don’t understand the manufacturers and the lime green, bright orange or obnoxious red colors of all racing shoes. The sales guy said “If you’re wearing racing flats chances are you are one who want to be noticed”. I much prefer the blue on white look myself, thank you very much. But I had no choice so I took home my new ruby slippers, the Brooks T6 Racers.

I couldn’t wait until next day so even though I already ran my 3 mile easy run at lunch I went out and ran another 2 miler in the new shoes. They felt great. They are super light, 6 oz each, half the weight of my MR1224s. My easy run clocked in at an 8:00 min/mile pace which is the fastest I had ever run easy miles. Today I ran a 30 minute tempo run in them and I have clocked a 7:03 min/mile (4:23 min/km) pace for 3 miles (5km) in the middle. Obnoxious or not, these babies are on fire!

So today I had another issue I had to deal with. I had two brand spanking new pairs of MR1224s sitting in my closet. One had 10 miles on it, the other one hasn’t even left the box. I bought them two moths ago on sale and I felt pretty awesome about it. And now, 2 months later they’re no good for my feet. The receipt was long gone. I tried my chances and I managed to return them to Academy for store credit. I’m sure I’ll find a way to blow through $140 at Academy in the near future.

I also went back to my LRS today to pick up my goodies bag and bib for the Saturday race and while I was there I bought a new neutral trainer for my runs. I bought a pair of the Brooks Ghost 2. They are lightweight and feel super comfortable on my feet. I can’t wait to take them out for a spin tomorrow for an easy 3 miler just before the race. I have always been a New Balance guy but these Brooks shoes sure feel pretty damn nice! Hopefully they will last and I’ll be able to run injury free in them.

As to why my gait has changed from a mild overpronator to a neutral one in 2 months I can only speculate. I had a gait analysis done 2 months ago, I have seen the video, I was clearly a mild overpronator back then. I think the change has to do something with the fact that I’m 25 lbs lighter now so my feet are getting a good bit less stress and force on impact. I think it also has something to do with my feet muscles and ligaments getting stronger over the past two months providing more support on their own. The bottom line is, don’t invest in expensive shoes, not even on sale, when you’re new to running or you’re in the process of severely changing your body composition as your running gait might very well change rendering the shoes wrong for your new and changed running gait.

Here is your chance to get a glimpse at my 15% body fat body again! Not a whole heck of a lot of changes from last time as usual. I feel great, the love handles are smaller again and this morning I started to feel a bit of my abs when I flexed them so I can confirm that they are indeed there under the fat and hopefully they will soon show through. My measurements are practically the same as before, nothing worth mentioning.

03/31/2010 Transformation Picture

I have been at my fat loss endeavor for over 22 weeks now and I have been very meticulous, some might call it anal,  with my measurements and logs. I have been measuring my body fat percentage from day one using a Homedics SC-540 Scale. It has served me well and it showed I had 38.7% body fat when I started and I went all the way down to 22.3% as of today. I have also been charting my lean body mass based on weight and fat percentage. My lean body mass has changed from 145.3 lbs (65.9 kg), 61.3% of 237 lbs, to 139 lbs (63 kg), 77.7% of 176.6 lbs. It means that while I have lost 60 lbs of total weight, 6.3 lbs of it, about 10%, was lean mass instead of fat.

If you look at my lean body mass chart, it was holding steady for a while then all of a sudden it started to drop.

If you compared it to my weight loss chart it made it look like I was loosing a ton of lean body mass.

But what a lot of people have probably failed to realize was that the two charts weren’t drawn on the same scale. My lean body mass loss looks a lot less once you draw the chart to match the weight loss scale.

Things look a lot better. A lot less drastic and severe now. 10% is still 10% and I felt really bummed about losing all that muscle coming down with the weight. I felt I had done everything I could to keep the muscle on; I ate plenty of protein, I had done strength training which would signal your muscles not to go anywhere and most of my cardio was low intensity that was in the optimal range for fat burning. There just simply wasn’t much else I could have done better to retain more muscle mass.

But there is a difference between muscle mass and lean body mass. Lean body mass includes your organs, ligaments connecting tissues as well as muscles. And if I look at my weight lifting stats I can lift the same amount of weight that I could when I started. I can actually lift a bit more now than I could at the beginning. This would indicate that my muscles have at least the same amount of strength that they had before. They might be doing it in a smaller package but when it comes to muscles usually bigger is needed for more power. So I wasn’t even sure that I lost muscle mass or whether the scale was playing games with me and was starting to be inaccurate.

My scale has a normal mode and an athlete mode. And per the user’s manual this is what defines an athlete:

An athlete is considered a person who does 10 hours or more per week of aerobic activity and has a resting heart rate of 60 beats per minute. These individuals should select Athlete Mode for the most accurate results. The Athlete Mode is available only for adults 18 years of age or older.

That is a pretty strict definition of an athlete and I really wonder how they came up with this definition. Since I only do 5 hours of aerobic activity a week I don’t quite qualify to be called an athlete avan if my resting heart rate is in the 40s. But I wouldn’t consider myself sedentary either. Just out of curiosity I had changed my scale to athlete mode and it showed my body fat percentage as 8.9%. That number was clearly way off.

If you know anything about body composition you should know that anything under 10% will get you to show off some sort of six-pack. I definitely don’t have a six-pack. So am I 22% body fat still? The mean body fat percentage in America for adult males is 21%. The 22% I’m at would indicate that I’m actually still fatter than the average American male which I found harder and harder to believe. So I had to get a second opinion.

A co-worker of mine took me to his gym on Monday and introduced me to a personal trainer who does body composition measurements with a 7 fold caliper measurement. She was very nice and took me completely by surprise as most of the personal trainers I had met before left me greatly unimpressed. But not her. She was very down to Earth, I really felt she was the kind of trainer that really cared about her clients and she wanted them to truly succeed and not just have them keep going back for more training sessions. She and I talked more about food and nutrition than exercising which was a great sign as most trainers would focus on machines and how to use them but she focused a lot on diet which I think a lot of folks need help with.

She took my weight, I clocked in at 179lbs in clothes, took tape measurements all over my body then did the caliper measurements with a Polar BodyAge system. The caliper and scale are all hooked up directly to a computer, there is no user input for the numbers; the caliper reads the numbers and sends them over to the machine automatically. It shows the exact location where each skinfold measurement should be taken from and all it takes is a button push to get the readings. It was a pretty neat setup.

My hip to waist ratio was 0.89 which was in the normal range meaning I’m normal and fit. It made me feel really good and I giggled a bit to myself. My dimensions were all symmetrical between left and right side with the exception of my forearms, my left one was a quarter inch larger than the right. She said it could be extra fat I carry on the left due to being right handed.

Then the time came to see my fat percentage number: 15.4% with 151 lbs of lean body mass. That is a whopping 8% less than I thought I was and a good 12 lbs more muscle mass than I anticipated! I could not believe it! I had to ask her about the measurement. Am I really that lean? Am I really at 15.4%? She said yes. She said just looking at me she would have put me there and the numbers just confirm it. I was ecstatic! That’s 12 lbs (5.5kg) less I need to lose! If I can trust the initial BF% from my scale, which I think was a lot closer to the truth than the current one, it would mean that not only I retained all my muscle I have actually gained another 5 lbs of it while I lost all the fat.

So while the scale was a great tool to track trend it is not a really good indicator when it comes to body fat percentage the closer I’m getting to my goal. I think I will stop worrying about fat percentages from now on, especially from my scale and I will start concentrating on losing the pounds and making sure I look right in the mirror. I’m just tickled pink about my result, it really made my day!

I’ve been talking about my running a lot lately. I wrote about the different kind of running days I have, hill intervals, tempo runs, fartlek runs and long runs but I never really talked about why I’m doing the different runs and whether there is a reason behind the different runs that are seemingly random.

There are people who are completely new to running, never ran a mile in their life and they just want to get started with running. They even have special programs such as the C25K (Couch to 5K) to get people running. I have ran before in my life. I actually used to run a lot. So for me to get off the couch and start running wasn’t as big of a change as it was for someone who never used a pair of sneakers for their intended purpose. But this doesn’t mean I didn’t need a plan. It just meant that I could start my newly found running career from a more advanced level.

I’m sure it’s crystal clear by now that I’m the kind of guy who likes to do everything full steam and with great attention to detail. This meant a lot of research and I spent a lot of time to figure out what it takes to run and to run better, faster and longer. So I consulted numerous websites and my best advice came from a co-worker when I told him that I would want to run a 10K race and I would need a training plan. He recommended that I would look at Hal Higdon’s training plans.

Hal Higdon is a marathoner and author who ran over 100 marathons in his life and wrote numerous books about running. He also has a great website which might look spartan but it is full of valuable information that is absolutely free! He also teaches training seminars and has interactive training plans available for those who need it. So for my 10K race I followed his 10K Intermediate plan. It’s an 8 week plan and I only had 7 weeks so I started with week 2 and went on from there.

During week 5 I got injured and had to pretty much skip week 6 but I still finished the plan and ran a pretty good 10K race at the end. After that plan I was hooked. I needed a new plan and I started on Hal’s Advanced Spring Training Plan 5 weeks ago. I’ve completed 4 weeks and doing week 5 currently. It is a pretty tough plan full of speed work and fast runs but as they say if you want to run fast you have to train fast. So this is the reason why I’m doing all the different kind of runs which might make no sense for the average runner who just run to get some fat off their tush and they put in 3-4 miles every night for the cause. I’m a bit more dedicated than that and this is why I’m doing the exercises that cause me to get blisters on my foot or leave me completely exhausted by the end of the run.

It wouldn’t be me if I wouldn’t have a log of all my runs. Well I do. And I have actually found a way to make them all public. So say hello to my new running log at http://runs.gregstransformation.com. It’s looking pretty good, it has all my logged runs in it but it has some minor issues with English and Metric unit conversions and currently it displays everything in Metric only. The software I used to display it is open source so I will make some changes to it as I have time to be a bit more user friendly with different units of measurements and correct units on some of the uploaded data that currently get doubly converted from English to Metric. It’s still a start, feel free to check it out. It’s more of a novelty for everyone else, it’s not a whole lot of interesting to look at my running logs I’m sure.

Today I started a new pair of shoes. My current pair has 62 runs and 266.8 miles on it. I have also noticed that the sole is getting a good bit worn and the mid sole is probably losing its elasticity too. So I have started a new pair with a 3 mile easy run and I will follow up with a fast hill interval tomorrow. As for what kind of shoes did I get? I actually have 3 pairs of New Balance MR1224 shoes that I bought on sale when I bought my first pair. I knew I would need them and I knew they fit me right so I stocked up on them when they were cheap. They are discontinued and I will have to buy something different once I go through all three of them but I’ll worry about that when I get to that point. I will still use my old ones for easy runs and long runs for another 100 or so miles but I’ll use the fresh one for speed and tempo runs and races.

Speaking of races, if you look at my advanced spring training week 5, you would see that I should be running a 5K race this coming weekend. And I actually am! I have just signed up for a 5K race, the Run For The Riders 5K event. I went to the running store and plopped down my $20 and signed up for the race. I also bought a nice Mizuno Creation Singlet and a Mizuno Maverick Short. Both look and feel pretty nice and I feel I just shaved off 10 seconds from my mile time. My stopwatch begs to differ but who cares? I’m running in style!

I have celebrated my 5 month progress anniversary this week and I’m just shy of 60lbs total lost. I came a long long way from the fat guy I used to be and this week was another great week towards the goal of being fit for life.

Strength training was solid, I did my two upper body sessions as planned. Cardio workout has been nothing but running exclusively for the past month and it went great this week again. I ran a total of 36.6 miles (58.9 km) with my longest run ever, a 9 mile one (14.5 km) on Sunday morning. My running program is coming along fine, a blister here and there but otherwise I feel fantastic when it comes to running. I have burned 4,579 calories with running this week.

Eating was really good again. I’m eating out a good bit more now but I’m making the right choices and it helps me stay within my caloric budget. I have averaged 1,856 calories a day for the week and I have averaged 125 grams of daily protein. It is less than I used to but with all the running I am doing I need more carbohydrates and a bit more calories so the average as well as the protein is a number I am very happy with. The only day I ate over 1,850 calories was Sunday and that day I ran 9 miles that burned 1,100 calories off of me. It’s hard to run the miles without calories.

I have lost 2 lbs (0.9 kg) this week which corresponds with 7,000 caloric deficit, 1,000 calories a day. Combine that with my 1,856 calories of intake and 653 calories of running average and you get 2,201 calories as my BMR. Again, it is pretty much spot on. I just need a couple more weeks like this and I’ll be hitting my target weight in no time!

Here is today’s photo update. My stomach is looking as good as it did 8 days ago again. I can also see a lot more definition on my back shot and in terms of measurements my legs are still shrinking. My calf have finally dropped another 0.25″. I thought they would be stuck at 14.5″ forever but this time they measured 14.25″. My thighs also went down 0.25″ so while there is no way to spot reduce fat my legs seem to be the only spots reducing this week. I kind of like today’s pictures, the posture has improved from the previous sets as well and the love handles are shrinking by the day. All in all, I can’t really complain. Oh, and I think I need a haircut!

03/27/2010 Transformation Picture

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.