Weight loss mathematics

Being roughly half way through my weight loss programm, I thought I'd indulge myself in a little bit of mathematics to get an idea of where I might get to.

What I wanted to see is where my body fat percentage might end up if I hit my 85kg target.

To calculate this, I'll need to make an estimate of the proportion of weight I'm losing which is made up of fat, and how much from lean tissue mass. I'll also need to know my starting body fat percentage.

Well I reckon when I started this weight loss initiative that my body fat percentage was around 22% - this is at least what some scales in my holiday home say (I don't have body fat measuring scales at my normal home).

And reading a couple of research reports into restricted and very low calorie diets, it appears that between 80% and 90% of weight loss is from fat with the remainder coming from lean body mass.

So, putting all of that together gives me the following prediction - if I get to 85kg (my goal weight) then I'll have 9% body fat. Not the most amazing in the world, but equally well lower than average and it should mean that I'd have plenty of definition in my muscles.

So, here is the working:

At the start of this exercise, I was 102kg with 22% body fat - so lean mass was 79.6kg and body fat was 22.4kg (I hate to think what that would look like if made out of butter...)

If I lose 17kg and 80% of the weight loss comes from fat, then I will lose 14.4kg of fat and 2.6kg of lean body mass.

Therefore, I'll be left with 8kg of fat and 77kg of lean body mass with a total mass of 85kg - this equates to 9% body fat.

All very interesting in theory - so let's see if:

1. I can get down to 85kg


2. 80% (or hopefully more) of my weight loss is in the form of fat


3. I was only 22% body fat when I started this and not substantially more!

I'm not sure how long it will take to get down to my goal weight - I think it'll take me at least until the end of October - stick with me and we'll see if my calculations are right!

Lose weight, run faster

Intermittent fasting and substantially increasing the amount I do physical exercise has kept allowing me to lose weight - I am now down just over 7kg (around 16 pounds) in just over 4 weeks.

And last week at the Wimbledon Common 5k, I managed to get my time down to 29 mins 20 seconds. That is the second fastest time I've ever run it. The only time I beat that was in March 2008 when I ran 29:14. Unfortunately I don't have a record of what I weighed then, but going back over my training log in Garmin Training Center, it seems that I had been running more than usual for back then, including adding in some long slow runs...

As well as losing weight through intermittent fasting, the other thing I've been looking at recently is improving my running technique to run faster.

Unfortunately running technique is a little like losing weight - no one seems to agree on the best approach!

However, I've found in weight loss that many people will argue about the exact details, rather than just getting on with it and cutting calories. Almost every diet which works relies on calorie reduction in one way or another.

And as far as I can see, much is the same for running. Whether you use the Pose method, or Chi running, or something else, most people seem to agree that good running technique has:

• a fast leg turnover - something in the range of 180 foot strikes per minute


• feet landing under the hips


• landing on the midfoot rather than the heel


• picking the heel up at the end (rather than swinging a straight leg forward

There are plenty of other things I can look at for when I get better/faster, but just focusing on these will be enough for now I think.

The other thing I read was that the way to run faster is to run faster. In other words, practice running faster during your training so that your legs are used to the pace when you want to use it in a race. So that's what I did on Monday night.

Tuesday night was going to be a long slow run, but I think I pushed myself so much on Monday that my legs were absolutely not up to anything more than 5k...

I'll report back next week on how my Saturday 5k race went and whether I've managed to achieve an all-time personal best (rather than just a seasons best)...

I've also put a graph onto my "Losing Weight" page which shows how my weight has come down day by day. It's part motivation for me, but hopefully it's useful to you if you're trying to lose weight so that you can see that intermittent fasting appears to work.

Until next time.

Losing Weight through Intermittent Fasting

In my last post which looked at my recent (and continuing) weight loss success, I promised to talk about how I had changed my diet to achieve this level of weight loss.

What I have been doing is a form of 'intermittent fasting' based on the book "Eat Stop Eat" by Brad Pilon.

Without going into the whole whys, wherefores, reasons and whatever around intermittent fasting, what it basically means is not eating for around 24 hours at time - and Brad recommends doing this 1 or 2 times per week.

Before I got the book, I had a handful of major questions, some of which were answered by the book, and others through my experience of sticking to the plan (which I have done now for just over 3 weeks).

Question 1) Would I lose weight - what about starvation mode?

Well I think that my weight loss results , so far, speak for themselves. I'm still continuing to lose weight although at a slightly slower pace than at the start. Initially, I was losing around 2kg per week, but this week it's more like 1.5kg. Not sure if this is a blip or not - we'll see over the next few weeks I guess.

I don't have body fat scales at home, so I can't tell you anything statistically about body composition, other than I look much flatter in the mirror.

In terms of 'starvation mode' then I looked up a few of the studies which Brad researched. There is a key study which looks at the impact of intermittent fasting on metabolic rate, lean body weight, body fat etc. The study (and Brad) point to the fact that the base metabolic rate of the subjects is roughly the same on fasting and non-fasting days to say that there is no drop in metabolic rate from intermittent fasting.

However, when you compare the metabolic rate 21 days after starting intermittent fasting, to the day before starting intermittent fasting, there is roughly a 10% drop. Before everyone screams "starvation mode!" let's compare that to the fact that these subjects are now ingesting almost 50% fewer calories. Therefore, the calorie reduction massively outweighs (no pun intended) the slight reduction in metabolic rate.

Furthermore, between 80% and 90% of the weight loss was in the form of pure fat, with the rest being made up of muscle. Again that gives ammunition to the 'starvation mode' camp - the fact that they lost muscle mass - but the vast majority of weight loss was in fat. Additionally, it is apparently normal for 'fatter' people to have more muscle mass than lean people anyway - we need it to haul our fat butts around! So when we lose weight, it only makes sense that we need less muscle...

Question 2) Would I feel sluggish the way I sometimes do if I get hungry?

From my experience so far, absolutely not. In fact, there is some research to suggest that metabolic rate actually increases slightly in the first 24 hours of a fast. Some have postulated that this is a sensible evolutionary trait - when our ancestors got hungry, they would need to be more alert and energetic so they could go out and hunt food. This makes sense to me (although I'm no dietician...).

Question 3) Would I feel hungry when fasting?

The biggest surprise to me is that I don't feel hungry when fasting. Well perhaps just a little bit but no more than usual. I used to hit 12 o'clock and immediately race out to get some food. Sometimes earlier. Now that I'm fasting, I realise that that urge to eat was not a need to eat - it was purely a learned pattern of behaviour that I'd need to unlearn. Just as someone may feel that they need a drink when they get home from work. They don't need that drink (unless they have alcohol dependency issues) - it's just a learned pattern of behaviour.

So when 12 o'clock comes around, rather than going to get food, I instead go to the coffee machine and get myself some green and peppermint tea which seems to satisfy my urge to put something in my mouth.

(By the way, I hate the taste of green tea but I hear that it's very good for you. So what I do is to put a green tea bag and a peppermint tea bag into the same cup so I get the benefits of the green tea but the taste of the peppermint tea. I've now noticed a number of my colleagues do the same now that they've seen my trick!)

Question 4) Is intermittent fasting healthy?

Well, as far as I'm aware no-one has proven that intermittent fasting is unhealthy. People have been able to prove that prolonged fasting or severe calorie restriction have depressed metabolic rate (although never enough to cancel out the impact of reduced energy intake on fat stores) and have reduced muscle mass (albeit with between 5 to 10 times as much fat being lost). I'm happy to take these two impacts along with the benefits of fat loss.

In addition, however, Brad'd book puts forward a bunch of different health benefits from intermittent fasting, including increased insulin sensitivity. In fact, it was this alone which made me look at the book in the first place. As an overweight (previously obese) person, I was at high risk of contracting diabetes and I wanted to make sure I didn't get there - hence trying to reduce insulin resistance.

Two of the other key benefits I have seen however as as follows:

Firstly, I just have much more time in the day. I no longer spend 10 minutes in the morning eating breakfast and tidying away. I no longer spend 20-30 minutes getting and eating lunch - instead I can work straight through and stay massively focused on what I'm doing.

Secondly, I have a completely different relationship with food. When I look at food now, I'm no longer eating because I feel massively hungry and just have to get food into my stomach. I'm far more balanced, and can make much more sensible food choices. I now ask myself what the food can give me, rather than just grabbing whatever is available. I actively choose salads and vegetables in restaurants now - not because I want to 'be good', but because I know that I want to get a bunch of vitamins and minerals into me.

Question 5) Would I be able to work out while fasting?

Apparently, adrenaline levels are slightly increased in the first 24 hour of a fast - for the same reason that metabolic rate increases. Which should mean that workouts should be just as effective (if not more so) when fasting.

However, I'm not quite sure how this works. Presumably in a fast, all of the muscle glycogen gets used up (that's why fat is being burned). But that means that when you work out, there is no muscle glycogen left meaning you need to burn fat instead, which is (as far as I understand) much slower to release energy. I'm going to ask Brad about this and see what he says.

My workouts have felt just as intense as before I started intermittent fasting - however I was not working out consistently before I started, so I don't have a quantified benchmark with which to compare my strength. What I am able to say, however, is that my strength has definitely increased WHILE I've been doing intermittent fasting. Not massively (I was always quite strong anyway) but it's definitely noticeable.

The thing which I find most puzzling at the moment is my 5k time, which has stuck at between 29:30 and 30:00 despite losing 6kg.

There are, potentially, a couple of explanations I can think of.

Firstly, perhaps the reduction in muscle mass is greater than I thought and I'm too weak to take advantage of the weight loss to run faster.

Secondly, perhaps the intermittent fasting means that I don't have enough glycogen in my muscles at the time I do my run to ensure a good performance.

Thirdly, perhaps it's just the impact of a substantial increase in training volume (mentioned in my last post) which means that my muscles are more fatigued than they used to be, masking any underlying fitness gains.

Fourthly, perhaps it's my running technique and that, whatever weight/strength/fitness I am, I won't be able to run more quickly with poor technique.

Right now, I'm thinking it's probably a combination of the second and third reasons. If I'm right, that should mean that I will start seeing gains in my 5k time soon, as the weight continues to drop off (as I won't be MORE glycogen depleted, or MORE fatigued than I am now). If I'm wrong, I'll look at getting my technique looked at.

Wrap up on intermittent fasting

So, there you have it - my experiences of intermittent fasting with Eat Stop Eat. If you're interested in more of the science behind the approach, as well as how to apply it, I'd recommend picking up a copy of the Eat Stop Eat book by clicking on the link.

Rapid weight loss success

In my last post which chronicled my own weight loss stories, I mentioned that I'd started on a radical new rapid weight loss regime, and that it was, to date, highly successful.

You may notice that at the top of the right hand column of my blog, I'm now posting my daily weight so that you can keep track of how I'm doing in my weight loss quest.

Also, here is a graph which charts my weight loss over the last three weeks.



So, basically I've lost 5.4kg (12 pounds) of weight in 3 weeks. Given where I want to get to (around 85kg or 185 pounds) that means I'm a third of the way already - and in only three weeks.

How have I been doing it? In essence, it's based on the principles which I identified in my last post which worked for me so well in my teenage years.

• Be active


• Eat less


• Get support

Be active

I have massively increased the amount of activity I do. I used to be lucky (if I'm honest) to get two runs or workouts in each week. Now I'm prioritising my health to the same level as my career success. This means that I'm running the Wimbledon Common Time Trial on a Saturday, having another run on Sunday, and then working out in the office gym two to three days a week. I'm following the principles of Turbulence Training which mean that I get a hell of a lot of exercise done in the gym in a short space of time. The Turbulence Training workouts are different to what I'm used to in three key aspects:

• Supersets. Supersets are combinations of two exercises which you do one after the other without a break. Normally they use different or opposing muscle groups, so that's why you don't need the break. For instance, bench press followed by abdominal crunches. Different muscle groups used, so why do you need a break? You don't. This means I can get through around 30 sets of exercises well within half an hour.



• Compound movements. Turbulence Training focuses on doing exercises which use a lot of different muscle groups at the same time, and also involve moving a lot of weight over a large distance to increase the amount of work you do in the workout - it can be rather intense! For instance, rather than using the hamstring curl machine, it advises doing a Swiss ball hamstring curl or Hungarian deadlifts - both of which force you to use many more muscles than just the hamstrings, and they also force you to stabilise your body through every move (so more of that 'core stability' we're all meant to be getting more of).



• Weights before cardio. I always used to do cardio before weights. Of course, if you want to put maximum effort into the weights, then you should be doing it the other way around. What I do find, however, with this is that the cardio suffers a little. Turbulence Training advises to do hard cardio intervals after the weight training, and sometimes it can be extremely hard to push out the final interval at high intensity, particularly if there have been a lot of leg exercises in the workout.

Overall, however, I'm very happy with Turbulence Training - it has opened my eyes to a lot more free weights exercises and body weight exercises, is very balanced across the major muscle groups, gives me a clear plan of what I'm going to be doing every time I step into the gym, and gets me out of the gym in the shortest amount of time possible.

The guy who wrote Turbulence Training - Craig Ballantyne - has a very good phrase to remember:

You can't out-train a bad diet

So in my next post, I'll cover what I've been doing on the eating front - it's worth reading as it's rather controversial.

My weight loss stories

As with most people who are overweight, I have been successful in the past at losing weight. Sometimes these periods have been a few months and sometimes longer.

So I thought I'd share with you some of my weight loss stories and then try to work out what made them successful and what I can learn from them.

Teenage weight loss

When I was 17 years old, I was already rather overweight. I can't remember my exact weight now, but it was certainly over 15 stone (210 pounds, 95kg). I had always been fatter than the other kids even though I was fairly active. At the time, British schools were good at making sure you had one swimming session, one PE (physical education) session, and one games session (anything from rugby to athletics) per week. On top of that, there were many after school clubs which I took part in such as football and basketball. Unfortunately, however, my diet was dreadful. The food at school didn't help (way too much fried and processed food), but I supplemented that at home with sweets and biscuits...

Anyway, I left school when I was 17 and had a "year out" between school and going to university. The first half of my year out was rather dull. I was too young to get a visa to work abroad (most countries require you to be 18) so I worked in a book warehouse. I'm not sure what it was, but I also decided that I'd make an effort to lose weight too. So my mother was helpful in making slightly smaller dinners, and I'd make sure that my packed lunch was also smaller. I still remember that the typical lunch was two slices of wholemeal bread with some ham between, and perhaps a bit of pickle. No butter.

Over those 6 months I lost around 3 stones (42 pounds, 19kg), which I think was pretty successful, and I largely kept it off for another three years. So what made it so successful - a couple of things I think:

• Firstly, I was always active - working in the warehouse I was always on my feet, pushing trolleys, and lifting large packs of books.
  
• Secondly, I was eating less - it wasn't just having the small dinners and lunches, but also the fact that while I was working it was not possible to snack.
  
• Thirdly, other people knew what I was doing. I think it was only my parents, but they were very supportive and helped me along the way.
  

The reason I put the weight back on? Actually it was when I was playing American Football at university and I simply needed more mass. So a lot of training and a lot of eating later, I'd regained almost every pound back (although admittedly much more muscle than before).

Break-ups are great for weight loss

Fast forward around a decade, and we get to the next time I was able to shed a lot of weight.

Since I left university, my weight gradually crept up from 210 pounds/95kg to more like 230 pounds/104kg. But that hid the fact that most of the additional weight was coming from fat and not muscle.

Anyway, towards the end of 2003, I had a rather bad break-up where the woman I was living with was cheating on me with someone I thought of as a friend. Before I found out that he was the reason she'd packed her things and left while I was on a business trip overseas, I even called him to ask for some advice!!

Anyway, needless to say I was feeling a little low and my appetite was absolutely shot. When I'd visit my parents and they'd cook my favourite Sunday roast, they'd only put a little on my plate because they knew I was having trouble eating, but I'd still not be able to finish it.

At the same time, I found it difficult to concentrate at work, so twice a day I'd need to leave my desk and go for a 15-20 minute walk to clear my head and refocus.

In less than 2 months, I lost over 28 pounds/12kg.

Getting into running

Since the break-up, I'd had a lot of fun and dated a lot of girls, which also resulted in a lot of restaurants and bars etc. And the weight came back on...

So the third time I successfully lost weight coincided with the time I decided I was going to start running. This was towards the end of 2004.

Along with running, I also started making healthier food choices, and I once again lost just over 25 lbs/10kg in around 2 or 3 months.

At the end of 2004, however, I met the woman who was to become my wife - and we ended up going to lots of lovely restaurants, not working out as much as we used to before (despite actually doing a few duathlons that year) and over 2005 I'd put most of the weight back on again...

Conclusions?

So what does this tell me?

Firstly, that whenever I've lost weight I've put it back on again. However, each time I've lost weight and gained weight, there have been rather large life changes going on at the same time. I can't imagine similar changes going on for the next few years, so I'm confident that if I lose weight now I'll be able to keep it off.

Secondly, I just ate a huge amount less when I lost weight. Now I know there are lots of people who will be screaming phrases like "starvation mode" and "metabolic slowdown" if I don't eat six meals a day, but I found that it worked.

Thirdly, each time I was also very active - either doing a manual job or exercising in some other way.

So that is going to be my plan of attack - substantial calorie restriction coupled with exercise.

And before a doubter says "it'll never work" or "you'll faint in your workouts" or "you'll lose more muscle than fat", I've got a secret to tell you.

I've started already.

I've lost more weight in the last two weeks than I've been able to shift since 2004, and I'm still going.

I don't feel drained in workouts.

I don't feel drained at work - quite the opposite in fact.

And my body shape shows that I'm clearly losing more fat than muscle.

I'll give it another week before exposing my full stats to you, but if you're interested in knowing the plans I'm following, then here they are:

My weight loss diet plan

My fitness plan

Weight loss in the media... lies and misunderstanding

Over the last few weeks, it has struck me just how much BS is written in the newspapers and magazines about health, fitness and fat loss which is either misleading or just plain wrong.

Here are a couple of examples:

The health benefits of sailing



And here is the quote...

"No wonder sailing burns 200 calories an hour. I can vouch its a great arm- and tummy-toner too, but so much fun it doesn't feel like exercise"

I'm staggered by the naivete of this particular reporter. She proudly exclaims the benefits of sailing for fat loss - after all it burns a massive 200 calories per hour!! Does she not realise how little that is? Does she not realise that the pre-made sandwich she may eat for lunch would still not have been burned off after 2 or 3 hours of sailing? The other thing to annoy me about the article is actually nothing to do with fat loss but about sailing. I used to sail a lot as a teenager, was an active competitor and for six months was a professional instructor, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that sailing truly rocks! The fact that she didn't get this, or ar least didn't write about the magic of sailing, was disappointing...

Orlistat (or Alli or Xenical) test in Men's Health

On to the second publication which will get a thumbs-down - and that publication is Men's Health. The author of the piece decided to test a fat loss drug marketed in the UK as Alli (and in other places as Xenical). Its real name is Orlistat and it has been available on prescription in the UK for a while and has just been released as an over the counter product which does not require a prescription. I'm sure that in other countries it has been freely available for some time.

The way it works is to bind with fat in the stomach so that some of the fat can't be metabolised and therefore can't find its way onto your waistline. Anyway the author put himself on a one month course of the drug. The end result - he actually weighed a little more than when he started, but his body fat percentage had decreased by 4%. He also took daily photos which showed virtually no change in his body shape.

What would you infer from these stats? Especially if I told you the following:

1. He said he didn't change his gym routine


2. He said he didn't eat differently, although he did admit to devouring a whole block of cheese at one sitting (over 400g calories and 35g of fat per 100g - and it sounded like he ate way more than 100g) to test out whether the product was working


3. He didn't think his bodyshape changed over the period of the trial (although his girlfriend encouraged him that it had)


4. And as I've said before, the daily photos he took over the month show no change in body composition (at least to my eyes) whatsoever

So, what do the stats tell you? Personally, to me it would just show the vast margin of error which exists in body fat percentage readings done using the typical bio-impedance scales.

He, however, had a different interpretation - he used them to say he had lost 3kg of fat, despite eating blocks of cheese, not working out any more, and crucially no change in weight. The only way he could be right would be if he had put on a stack of muscle or for some reason was holding way more water in the second weighing. But I think my explanation is far more likely to be correct, particularly given my experience with fat measuring scales!

These journalists should know better! Especially the reporter from Men's Health! I'm cancelling my subscription...

Image attribution: Passing dinghys by garryknight

Simple weight loss rules

It seems that Mad TV has beaten me to finding the secret of weight loss.

Please view this video for the two simple things you need to do to lose weight...