P90X: "Dick's Actual Diet...Does Calorie Counting Work?" Day 42 of 90

I weighed myself for the first time this AM.  When I started this program, I told myself that it didn’t matter if I lost zero pounds…so long as I saw tangible results in the mirror.  I am definitely seeing results.  The new question is, after switching to P90X Classic from the P90X Lean routines, am I getting enough calories?  The Lean routine is much less strenuous from a muscle and muscle building perspective.  The Classic routine incorporates an extra day of Ab Ripper and one more hard muscle building day.

The one big mistake I made, or “thing I should have done,” was weigh myself on day one.  I have a guess that I was at about 220, maybe a little more.  It was the highest I had been at since losing my weight in 2008.  The lowest I have been is 198 when I was running every day.  I know the number because I memorized it as the first time I had been below 200 since I was 21.  198 was the result of staying on the low calorie intake and running like crazy.  Because of the lack of a well-rounded routine, and having just come off of what amounted to a starvation diet, I was very light on muscle mass.

P90X is different.  This is designed to have you lose fat but also build muscle.  While you will lose weight, the goal is not precisely ‘weight loss.’

That said, I weighed myself this morning.  205.  By my count, in forty two days, I have lost about 15 lbs.  It probably seems like a lot.  On the Optifast Diet I lost about 5 lbs per week routinely…but I was obese.  I also was not building muscle, which means I was losing both fat and muscle mass.

I have begun to feel exhausted on the Classic routines.  I have been questioning all week whether or not I am taking in enough calories.  On my Beachbody team, in addition to our Coach/Leader Lisa Barker, we have a Coach who specializes in Nutrition, Melissa Binkley.  She has volunteered to do a nutritional analysis of my diet, in order to answer my concerns.

You may follow along!  This is a curious experiment because, if you have followed my blog, you know by now that I eat an insanely consistent diet.  This makes the diagnosis easier.  If you are doing Beachbody, or are a dietician, or are interested in the math of weight loss, I think you will find this interesting!

Breakfast

½ cup of oatmeal                                        150 cals

½ cup of natural applesauce                          50 cals

Palmful of Raisins                                             ?

Coffee, 4 oz 1% milk                                       ?

One scoop of Protein Powder                    130 cals

Lunch

1 lb of salad greens mostly lettuce.  Green Pepper, Olives    ?

1 Hard Boiled Egg                                             ?

3 oz lean Chicken or Fish                                   ?

1 piece of Fruit                                                    60 cals

Afternoon Snack

1 NutriGrain Bar                                                120 cals

Dinner

Shakeology                                                         150 cals

½ Fruit blended in                                                 40 cals

1 Protein Bar                                                      200 cals

Evening Snack

¾ cup of mixed nuts                                               ?

2 pieces of fruit                                                 150 cals

When I look at the calorie count.  It looks low.  I weigh 205 and work a fairly sedentary daily job on a computer.  I probably burn a normal amount of about 2200 calories per day.  On top of that is P90X and the Treadmill.  With that, I am maybe burning another 800-1000 calories per day.  I can call it an even 3000 calories per day used.  Without knowing the calories for several things on my list, I have counted at least 1080 calories and estimate about 500 calories for the missing items.  I am probably between 1600 and 1700 calories per day.

The calorie deficit would be about 1300 calories per day or 9100 calorie deficit per week.  3500 calories approximately equals one pound of weight.  Divide 9100 by 3500 and that puts me at 2.5 lbs per week of weight loss.  It’s been about 6 weeks now….which totals to…wow…15 lbs.  On the dime.

If you ever wondered if weight loss math works…just reread this.  I didn’t expect it to be that accurate.  But it is!

I am very familiar with diet math after the medical diet program I was on four years ago.

Now, the big nutrition question is, based on this routine, am I taking in enough calories to build muscle and do the physical exertion?  Let’s face it, I can’t run this calorie deficit forever.  When you run the deficit, the energy being depleted comes from carbohydrates first.  When they are used up, and on my diet that happens fast, your body then pulls the calories from your fat and protein stores.  At this point, your body will pull from fat and protein in an uneven ratio but depends on your level of fitness and your exercise regimen.  It gets the fat calories from, well, your fat.  It gets the protein, however from ingested protein and then from the protein stores in your muscles...which defeats the purpose of a muscle building program.  So there is a balance here to be maintained as well as a point where the calorie deficit may be hurting the physical fitness goal.

This is where Melissa comes in.  I want to build the muscle as well as lose the weight and she will tell me whether I have the right formula for this or not.  If I don’t, I will change to whatever she says.  Why?

Go check out her pictures on Facebook.  That’s why.

Many who read my blog and look at the weight loss I have had will listen to my advice because I have actually done it.  If that is the case, then you have to listen to Melissa when you are trying to sculpt a more muscular body…because she has done it.

Thanks for following and I will keep you plugged In to her response!

You Can't Go Home Again

When you go on the Optifast diet, if you follow it and do not cheat, it is like being in a nice secure bubble. You are insulated from all the bad things that you were doing that turned you into a Thanksgiving Day float. But eventually, you have to leave the bubble. The rest of the world doesn't live in there. That's when your time comes and it's "fly little bird, fly!!" It's time to do the hard work. It's time to look at the real world and address all the things that contributed to the XXL or XXXL person who walked through that door on day one.

At week 12, I hit 219 lbs. I had now shed about 60 plus lbs of ugly fat. 12 weeks is an incredibly fast time to lose that amount of weight. It is weird in that you just seem to be hitting stride and now it is time to think about managing your life OFF the diet. My original goal as set by the doctor was 215. My personal goal was 205. I was basically where the doctor thought I should be. Next week, we would talk about adding another meal to the daily plan. As I have said, I was on three shakes per day plus one carefully measured dinner meal. I now had to consider a diet that was 100% real food. The Miriam Hospital program, in my opinion, excelled at showing you how to manage your eating like a normal person. Strike that. Our country is now comprised of a population where over 50% are considered overweight, obese and morbidly obese. This condition is becoming the 'norm.' So this program was teaching us how to eat within the boundaries of a normal human body, not at the levels we have become accustomed to as a society.

To do this, the education program in broken into behavior and dietary management. I have said this over and over, but the diet management was the most valuable to me. I am going to cover some of the topics in the next few blog entries.

A man of 210 lbs burns about 2000 calories per day. If you want to lose weight over a long term, you should restrict your intake to about 1600-1800 calories per day. Exercise plays an important role. First, you need to have enough energy to exercise. Second, you can burn a large amount of calories depending on how much exercise you are doing. On my diet I was taking in 900 calories per day. I was burning about 2000 normal calories and about 400 exercise calories. The exercise calories came about from my speed walking which I did daily. On weekends, in addition to the walking, I would mow the lawn etc. I was running a daily 1500 calorie deficit. The weight, at this tempo, comes off at a speed that has been reflected in my progress.

Start to think about your sex, height and weight. Look at a chart that will show you your normal calorie burn. That is what you work with daily. The most important thing you need to know now, coming off of Optifast, is how many calories you are burning on average daily and how much you are taking in. We could go into the detail about the type of calories but let's keep this real simple. My 'off-diet' calorie intake should be about 1800 calories daily. I could manage this because I had decided that I would exercise 3-4 days per week and figured I was burning around 2400 calories per day. That number gave me some leeway for any small indiscretions. We aren't perfect and we aren't robots either. So that's my number 1,800.

One of the most astonishing things I learned in the education classes was how many calories I had been ingesting. I had absolutely convinced myself that, before this diet, I didn't consume that many calories. The day it really came home to roost was the day our class covered the "Dining Out Guide." This is a compiled list of meals and their calorie content from some of the most known restaurants in the United States. If you are serious about losing weight, you should go out and buy "The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter 2009" by Allan Borushek. If you eat out even one night a week, you should just take this little baby with you. It lists the calories in most foods but it also has a section like our class "Dining Out Guide," only even more extensive. It tells you just how much you are stuffing into that chubby little frame when you eat out in restaurants. You won't believe it. I didn't .

Here are a few examples. As an appetizer (the meal hasn't even arrived yet!!), an order of fried Calamari (3 cups)....1,037 calories. That was more than my diet allowed ALL DAY! Here are some more appetizers. Ruby Tuesday's low carb Spicy Buffalo Chicken Wings with dressing...1,090 cals. That's right football aficionado's, don't even try to tell me that you limit it to one serving either. Especially during the playoffs and on Super Bowl Sunday. Don't rationalize this one...the restaurant doesn't matter! Check out TGI Friday's Buffalo Wings...1,010 cals. Whew!! But you may actually be making a relatively HEALTHY choice! Check out these! Stuffed Potato Skins with sour cream...1,260 cals. The Bloomin' Onion with dipping sauce (because it tastes awful when it's plain)...2,130 cals. Here is the all time show stopper appetizer, Cheese Fries with ranch dressing...3,010 cals. Make sure you have the diet-cola!!

Here is something you figure out pretty fast using these guides, and take it as a tip. The appetizers listed above had more calories than the entrees. They also have more calories than dessert! The golden rule, SKIP THE APPETIZERS and SKIP THE DESSERT. If you are going to eat the meal, an appetizer could multiply your calorie intake by (depending on choice) a factor of 4!! Add a dessert and multiply that intake by 6!

I could cover this forever. Go and buy the book. It will be the best education and investment you can make. Go and find a chart of calories you burn daily, print the number in BIG BOLD CHARACTERS on a sticky label, and put that label on the cover of the guide. If you are serious about weight loss, you may never have another appetizer OR dessert.

Other major thing to consider in restaurants:

(1) Watch the alcohol. It is a source of empty calories and makes resisting the dessert and appetizers hard. You will thank me when you get the bill and see the difference between the cost of two Brown Ale's and two Ice Water's with Lime.
(2) Watch how the meal is cooked. If it says "fried" or "baked", ignore it. Go for grilled or steamed. Watch the sauces. Go light. Pick "marinated in juice" over "marinated in butter."
(3) No pasta and no starch. Go double veggies always with your protein.
(4) If all else fails, go with the Grilled Chicken or Fish Salad.

My pre-Optifast life was one of excess. Absolutely. No exercise. Much food. Much drink. I was King of my castle. My castle of fat.

The walls are down and it's time to live like a person who hopes to see the finish line. It IS possible. But...you can't go home again. You don't want to anyway.

Next: Stay with the new life plan, don't listen to them!!

Turning Wine into Water

Water. As comedian Lewis Black would say, “it’s the elixir of life.” 70% of our planet is made up of water. In a normal lean human being, water makes up approximately 60% of our body composition. In a normal obese human (and obesity is sadly becoming ‘normal’), water composes about 47% of that same makeup. The rest? By now you should know the answer. Fat.

Water should be a staple of your daily diet. 50-60 ounces per day. It makes your bodily processes work better. It aids digestion. When (not if…WHEN!) you exercise, it acts as a lubricant for all of your muscles and joints and the exercise feels better. If you have ever experienced cramping due to lack of hydration, you know what I am talking about. It helps your liver and kidney’s flush fat and uric acid from your body when you are on a diet like Optifast. Water is a must.

What do you drink during the day? Coffee? Good for a pick-me-up. It is a vice of mine, I happen to drink about 3-4 cups per day. For the first 3 months of the diet, I drank it black with ice cubes. I now use about a teaspoon of skim milk in each cup. NO SUGAR or ARTIFICIAL sweeteners. Ever. The upside, it is a known thermogenic and aids in the fat burning process. The downside, it is a diuretic and will deplete your body of its water supply if you don’t drink water during the day. So if you drink coffee, drink water too.

Tea? I am not a big fan but Green Tea is also a known thermogenic. Use the same rules with tea as you would with coffee.

Do you drink milk? What kind? It should be ‘No Fat’ or ‘Skim.’ On Optifast, you can only have it when the diet says you can have it. If you are on any other kind of diet, skim or ‘no fat’ is the only milk you should be drinking. Before you begin to complain about the taste, and that is everyone’s first complaint, try skim for a week. Then go back to whole milk. As the whole milk slowly plods its way down your throat in chunks and leaves that fatty film…ask yourself how it tastes then.

Soda? Do you drink the poison? The best thing I have heard in years is that schools are pulling it from vending machines in place of water or 100% juice. Having it in vending machines in our schools is like having a special boot camp to build little fat kids. 12 ounces, 150 calories of corn syrup. Really, is it necessary? Diet Soda? STOP THERE. Do not drink diet soda. I have a whole blog entry for tomorrow on Aspartame (also known as Nutra-Sweet) and how it affected my Optifast diet. So here is my policy…no soda. In any form.

Alcohol is a no-no on any diet. This part kills most people on a diet who enjoy a nip here and there or everywhere. On Optifast though, it is not an option. Oh, some people think it’s an option. Some don’t listen to the counselors and don’t listen to the dietician on why you can’t (not shouldn’t, CAN’T) drink on the Optifast diet.

The reason you don’t want to have alcohol when you are dieting is two-fold. Number one, it is a frivolous source of empty calories. You are on your diet. You are depressed because the weight won’t come off fast enough. You are working out like a fiend. Then, you drink the alcohol. One can of beer is between 90 and 150 calories per 12 ounces depending on what you choose. One 4 ounce glass of wine is about 100 calories.

So you have a couple drinks. 200 calories. 300. Mmmm. Just one more. 400. You know, I can exercise tomorrow. 500. Wow, this has been fun, just one more before we close the place. 600. God, I am starving. Let’s stop at the McDonald’s drive through! 1700.

That’s how it happens. It’s not the alcohol, it’s the escalation. As they say, “been there, done that.” Lots of that.

The whole escalation experience takes us to reason number two for why you shouldn’t drink on a diet. The diet is hard. It requires self-discipline. It requires control. It requires you to care about the goal. Drink by drink, all of these things slowly disappear. We’ve all done it…the booze just gets in your brain and starts singing show tunes, “tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always, tomorrow…” Next thing you know, it’s 11:00 at night and you are waist deep in the freezer looking for that last half pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey.

Do you know what it takes to burn off 1700 calories? Most of us don’t. Consider this. If you are a woman of normal to above-normal weight and about 5’5” tall…

- You burn this amount of calories, maybe a little less, in a whole day just doing normal things
- If this is excess calories (and it is), you would need to walk the dog for 6 hours to burn this off.
- You could work out at the gym for 5 hours
- You could do aerobics for a little more than 4 hours
- You could swim for 3 hours
- You could jog for 2.5 hours

As a man of 205 lbs, I have to spend 50 minutes on a treadmill at 6.5 miles per hour to burn 900 calories. That is 5.5 miles. I would have to run almost 10 miles at that pace to burn the 1700 calories. I am exhausted just considering it.

If you had a ticker on your arm that lit up and gave you this information as you were knocking down the alcohol calories…you probably would have left after the first drink. That is a lot of work to pay for those frivolous calories.

Ok. Warning time. For those of you doing Optifast, this is serious. You are on a starvation diet. 800-900 calories per day. Your liver performs a process when you are in this mode where it spends all of its time taking fat from your fat cells and breaking it down into fuel for your body. The byproduct of this process is uric acid (which by the way needs to be flushed from your body, hence the need for 60 ounces of water per day). The reason you CANNOT drink alcohol is because your liver is busy. When you drink alcohol, your liver has to process it out of your body. If you are in starvation mode AND drinking alcohol, your liver will not properly function and you could damage it. Fatty liver disease, jaundiced like conditions…you get the picture. If the damage is not enough to convince you, remember this…your liver will be processing alcohol and not your fat…so you won’t lose weight!

Water. The elixir of life. Drink plenty of it. Turn your wine into water for a better, healthier you!

Next: Family gatherings, a starving man's look at gluttony.

Do I Have to Exercise?

On day one of this diet, I exercised. That was the key right there. If you are on this diet, or any diet for that matter, and are not exercising, do not expect any long term results. That's a fact.

Exercise is essential to any diet. You cannot reduce your calories, not exercise, and expect to lose weight over a period of time. Your body has a very efficient way of dealing with the calories you took away...it takes away your energy. That's right, it goes on strike. You take away the calories, your body's metabolic rate lowers. It learns to work with less calories. It burns your carbohydrates. Then it looks for proteins. A real nice source of protein is any muscle you have. This is something I bet you wanted to have a little more of when you started your diet. It will work on your fat last. One reason the fat burns last is that your body senses the deprivation and the caveman instinct built into our genetics over hundred of thousands of years feels that a long period of starvation may be afoot. So it holds onto the fat for future energy needs. You have officially scared your body into hanging onto the one thing you were hoping to get rid of. Fat.

As your metabolism decreases, you begin to feel exhausted. So you look for things that can give you energy. Most folks will turn to sugary products for that quick boost. You are then putting yourself in a nice glucose/insulin cycle that will have you craving sugar until you fall asleep or induce a glycemic coma, whichever comes first. That isn't a diet, that's self abuse. That is why most people hate diets.

Exercise is essential because if you restrict calories and work out, you keep your metabolic rate at a normal to normal/high level. Your body not only continues to burn calories at its normal rate, but it will burn more during exercise and continue burning more throughout the day. The deficit between the calories you are taking in and the calories you are burning will be much, much greater. You will definitely lose more weight. You will actually feel like you have MORE energy after exercising. When you get done exercising, have a good dose of water and, if you are hungry, have an apple.

This is really not complicated. Eat less, exercise more.

The Optifast Liquid Diet is unique in that it restricts calories severely to about 800-900 calories per day. When you walk at the rate that I was walking (about 2.6 miles per day in 45 minutes) you will burn approximately 350 calories in that 45 minutes. Add that plus a little more to your daily expenditure. I was using about 2000-2200 calories a day just walking around at my height and weight. That plus the 400 I got exercising and from post-exercise burn was about 2500 calories per day. I was taking in 900. I was running a 1600 calorie per day deficit. That is a deficit that will guarantee weight loss.

Take the same person on a 900 calorie per day diet and take away the exercise. Their metabolism slows down so they are burning about 1500 calories per day (about 1300 per day for women due to their smaller stature). Then to get energy they take in sugar. One pack of M&M's...six Oreo cookies...pick your poison here...250-400 calories easy. 1400 burned and 1300 taken in...100 calorie deficit per day. This is why just dieting doesn't work. I have exercised on every diet I have ever done and have lost weight without fail every single time.

Ok. So you need to exercise. What is exercise? This is not a trick question. It cracks me up what some people actually believe exercise is. Someone said to me, "I walk my dog." That was their exercise. Understand something here. Dragging a small furry animal with six inch legs fast enough to make it crap is not exercise. It might be for the dog. It is NOT exercise for you. If you go inside and YOU have to visit the bathroom, we can have a different conversation but for now, let's agree you have to do a little more. Walking is not exercise. It is the way we move about our day. It is natural, but (and I am not talking about the super-overweight and obese) it is not exercise. It is exercise if you are walking at a pace quick enough to make you sweat and if it is done over a long enough period, say 30 minutes at the sweaty pace. For the obese, walking at a natural pace may in fact classify as exercise.

Exercise is a word which can be broken into two parts. "Exer", the derivative of the word exertion, and "cise", uh...the latin form of "size" meaning your size is too damn big. Ok, I made the second part up, but exertion is the essential ingredient here. There is nothing wrong with sweating. You are going to take a shower when you are done exercising anyway, so tear it up! Sweat until it's rolling off you. Think of it as your body surrendering in the form of liquid fat.

So that is my opinion (somewhat educated) on exercise. I sat back during the course of this diet and went to my classes. I saw people struggle on the Optifast diet. I am convinced that one of two things kept them from success, either they cheated outright and never DID the diet, or they did not exercise and coped with the diet. In both cases, they did not achieve results that helped them reach their ultimate goal OR they reached the goal and were miserable doing it.

If you follow the Optifast diet and exercise daily the way that I did, you will lose weight. They have to, for legal reasons, say that my weight loss is not typical. I will say that if you do what I did, and it wasn't miraculous, you WILL lose weight. No one and I mean NO ONE runs a 1500 calorie per day deficit and does not lose weight. It is impossible. Bill, a friend of mine, started on the diet 6 weeks ago. He follows the diet. He walks every day. He emailed me yesterday that he is at 38 lbs lost. That is better than 6 lbs per week.

"Exertisize". You will feel better and your dieting will be a rewarding experience.

Next: What should I be drinking?