Dave's Fall Journal: Losing the Gut

[Kaido]

Update:

Making an updated diet with more DIY foods. Starting 6-week plan shortly. Check back later

Introduction:

Note: This was originally my "Summer Journal", but I made excuses to myself and never got my act together after May. So now it's the "Fall Journal". No more excuses!

My first six weeks of getting in shape went well - I lost 20 pounds by going to bed early, eating 6 small and healthy meals a day, and using my exercise bike for 10 to 15 minutes a day, 5 days a week. I am currently at 200 pounds and would like to be at 175 pounds by the end of the year. Starting Monday, September 15, 2008, I am starting a new fall fat-loss plan that consists of the following:

1. 8:45pm bedtime
2. 2-week meal plan of 6 meals a day
3. 45 minutes of cardio, 6 days a week

I am also allowing myself one cheat day per week. However, I'm not planning on porking out or anything. Mostly I am using the cheat day to learn new recipes. I have a Wok and a DVD training video set on how to cook Chinese-style stir fry, which I think will help me speed up meals and add more variety to my menu. In addition, I want to try out more recipes from the Vegan cookbook "The Thrive Diet". I'm not Vegan, but the author makes some excellent arguments for a veggie diet and so far the food has been excellent (I've been making energy bars for my long bike rides and they work awesome - no headaches, no unrelated fatigue).

At the end of this 3-month program, I plan on beginning strength training three times a week as well as starting to jog. I've picked up the "Starting Strength" and "Practical Programming" books to learn from. I plan on building a home gym with a power rack and barbells in December in my garage. Once I master strength training, I plan on pursuing bodybuilding and endurance sports. Specifically, I want to build up a lean, muscular frame and I want to participate in an Ironman competititon (swim, bike, run).

3-Month Training Program: Monday, 15-Sept-2008 to Monday, 15-Dec-2008

Progress Log:

TBA

 

[Kaido]

Diet Plan:

I stop eating after 5:00pm and stop drinking after 8:00pm. I carry a water bottle with me all day to stay properly hydrated and to avoid soda and sugary fruit juices and whatnot. I have to eat all of my meals within 3 hours of each other. My eating schedule is as follows:

7:00am: Meal 1
9:30am: Meal 2
12:00pm: Meal 3
1:00pm: Meal 4
3:00pm: Meal 5
5:00pm: Meal 6

Here is my 14-day meal plan. This is based on my previous 7-day meal plan with some modifications to add more variety. The basic structure is still in place, however. The portion size is also limited to my weight, height, and goals. Here's a quick look:

Day 1:
Meal 1: Oatmeal, Berries
Meal 2: Chinese Beef & Broccoli, Brown Rice
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Salmon, Brown Rice, Asparagus
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken Salad, Red Potato
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 2:
Meal 1: Raisin Bran
Meal 2: Sliced Turkey Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled BBQ Chicken, Sweet Potato, String Beans
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 3:
Meal 1: Wheat Chex
Meal 2: Tuna Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Strawberry Protein Shake
Meal 4: Baked Tilapia, Brown Rice, Cauliflower
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken Salad, Red Potato
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 4:
Meal 1: Shredded Wheat
Meal 2: Sliced Chicken Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled Sweet & Sour Chicken with Broccoli, Whole Wheat Pasta
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 5:
Meal 1: Oatmeal, Berries
Meal 2: Steak Sub, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Lean Steak, String Beans, Red Potato
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 6:
Meal 1: Grape Nuts
Meal 2: Sliced Turkey Sub, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Strawberry Protein Shake
Meal 4: Turkey Burger on Whole Wheat Pita, Broccoli
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 7:
Meal 1: Whole Wheat Pancakes with Honey
Meal 2: Sliced Chicken Sub, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled Honey Mustard Chicken, Broccoli, Brown Rice
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 8:
Meal 1: Oatmeal, Berries
Meal 2: Tuna Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Salmon, Brown Rice, Asparagus
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken Salad, Red Potato
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 9:
Meal 1: Whole Wheat Toast with Honey
Meal 2: Chinese Beef & Broccoli, Brown Rice
Meal 3: Strawberry Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled Seasoned Chicken, Sweet Potato, String Beans
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 10:
Meal 1: Cheerios
Meal 2: Sliced Turkey Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Baked Cod, Brown Rice, Cauliflower
Meal 5: Grilled Chicken Salad, Red Potato
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 11:
Meal 1: Shredded Wheat
Meal 2: Chicken Stuff Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled Lemon Pepper Chicken with Broccoli, Whole Wheat Pasta
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 12:
Meal 1: Oatmeal, Berries
Meal 2: Sliced Turkey Sub, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Strawberry Protein Shake
Meal 4: Lean Steak, String Beans, Red Potato
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 13:
Meal 1: Raisin Bran
Meal 2: Tuna Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Turkey Burger on Whole Wheat Bun with Veggies
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Day 14:
Meal 1: Whole Wheat Waffles with Honey
Meal 2: Sliced Chicken Sandwich, Baked Chips
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled Season-All Chicken, Broccoli, Brown Rice
Meal 5: Tuna Wrap
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

All bread is whole-wheat (bread, pita, tortillas). As much of the food that I can make at home, I do. Even the raisin bran is homemade (box of raisens + multi-grain flakes mixed together). I have a Food Dehydrator which I am learning how to use; I'll be making my own dehydrated berries for cereal like strawberries. So far I've done apples and strawberries and they've come out great.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Thursday, 19-June-2008

Okay, I've made the thread and detailed out a 2-week menu. It could stand to have more variety, but it's good enough for now. I'll be using my cheat days to learn how to cook the same foods in different ways, such as on a Wok, so that I can add more variety to the menu. I've given myself a rough eating schedule that starts at 7:00am, which gives me time to exercise beforehand, and ends at 5:00pm. The schedule is subject to change depending on when I feel I need food - for example, I may change Meal #5 to 4:00pm since Meal #6 is small and I'm not eating for the rest of the night after that (~4 hours before bedtime). My acid reflux has completely disappeared since I went on my diet in April (where I stopped eating at 6:00pm); I'm curious to see if stopping eating at 5:00pm will help me sleep better.

I've discovered that I have some sort of sleeping problem. It's difficult for me to fall asleep and I often wake up during the night in panicky dreams. I don't want sleeping pills or any other sort of drug-based sleeping aid; at this point I suspect it's mostly my stress levels. Over summer I am going to be implementing David Allen's "Getting Things Done" system of dealing with responsibilities; hopefully having things organized in my life will help me sleep. Again, I am also stopping eating at 5:00pm at night to see if that will help.

I am going to be much stricter about sleep, diet, and exercise this go-around. I wasn't perfect the first 6-weeks that I did it, which is to be expected, but I know I can do a lot better. Sleep is especially vital to me - in addition to having sleeping problems at night, if I stay up much past 9:00pm my eyes burn the next day and it's harder to focus and stay motivated on anything at all. If I'm not at work or school, it's much easier to loaf around and be a bum by surfing the net or watching TV if I'm tired. So sleep will be a major focus this time. My goal is to be asleep by 9:00pm, so I've set my lights-out time at 8:45pm - that means in bed and lights out at 8:45pm, which gives me 15 minutes to fall asleep. I've been doing better at falling asleep; I've read about some techniques including breathing and counting exercises that have helped quite a bit.

Regarding food, one of my major goals is to improve efficiency. I already have my morning cooking routine down pretty well, but I want to start cooking ahead of time. I am going to start by cooking one week ahead and eventually move it up to one month ahead. This will not only save me a whole bunch of time, but save on food prices since I can buy in bulk. I have also been learning about food storage as I have a personal goal to have a year's supply of food storage in my home; having a detailed diet to follow makes it much easier to shop and store food.

I'm excited to start up my second phase of change. This summer I am going to get in the best shape of my life!

 

[MegaVovaN]

Good plan!
And the best thing - I know you gonna follow it to a dot!

Can't wait for daily updates.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: MegaVovaN
Good plan!
And the best thing - I know you gonna follow it to a dot!

Can't wait for daily updates.

Thanks! You know, I think the hardest part of any endeavor is making a specific plan. I learned a lot more about this last semester in my Project Management class. We did a couple sample projects and it was amazing how things could get off-track because we hadn't nailed down a specific plan and then stuck it on a schedule. Anyone can follow the dotted lines on a page, but it takes some real effort to create the dotted lines, if that makes sense. Once you've made yourself a roadmap, it's easy to follow because you already know where you're going and how and when you're going to get there. Then you just have to sit back and enjoy the ride

I'm doing my first shopping run tomorrow. My goal this week is to start making my own bread again. I've been using RideFree's excellent 13-cent loaf bread recipe and it's great, but I want a whole-wheat version instead of a partial-whole-wheat version. My grandma sent me a recipe for 100% whole-wheat bread, which I am going to try to adapt to my bread machine. That way I can do a loaf every night for the next morning and freeze it for future use if I don't need it for the day.

Once I get this nailed down, I was thinking about putting up the basics up on Youtube - i.e. what equipment you need (George Foreman grill, electric steamer, etc.), how to make the recipes, how to make the diet plan, how to make the shopping list, etc. What do you guys think? I'm a very visual person, so I know something like that definitely would have helped me a lot!

 

[xboxist]

I'd definitely be interested in checking that out!

Thanks for posting your stuff -- fairly inspirational.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Friday, 20-June-2008

Whipped out the dehydrator today. I'm going to start dehydrating fruit to use with my cereal - bananas, apples, blueberries, strawberries, etc. That way I don't have to shop for fresh fruit as often because it lasts longer in a dried state.

Going shopping tomorrow!

 

[Megatomic]

Kaido, I love your diet plan, it's pretty damn good. One thing you might consider changing is the rice cakes. There is no nutritional benefit to eating them and the glycemic index is astronomically high. They are crap. Maybe you could try whole wheat toast or some other whole grain carb instead?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Kaido, I love your diet plan, it's pretty damn good. One thing you might consider changing is the rice cakes. There is no nutritional benefit to eating them and the glycemic index is astronomically high. They are crap. Maybe you could try whole wheat toast or some other whole grain carb instead?

Yeah it's really just a filler to put the peanut butter on and to fill up your stomach. The diet plan actually calls for 3 of them, but they're so dry I usually only have one or two. I don't mind them, since it's my last meal of the day it's nice to have something with some kind of starchy substance to put in my stomach.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Saturday, 21-June-2008

Did my shopping today! I also picked up some Life cereal; it had pretty much the same ingredients as Wheat Chex did (which I also got) and only 1 gram of sugar more (6 grams per 3/4 of a cup; I actually only have 1/2 cup for breakfast). I also picked up some strawberries, blueberries, and apples to dehydrate; the berries will go good with the cereal and the apples should go well with some cinnamon in the oatmeal. Anything to make that stuff more platable, haha. Although I actually don't mind the steel-cut oats plain, since I'm usually reading Engadget or something in the morning when I'm eating and they're warm

My evening routine starts at 8:00pm. Basically I find a towel and clothes for the next day, do my planning, prep as much cooking stuff as I can, such as laying out all the tools and putting frozen meats in the fridge to thaw overnight, some other miscellaneous stuff like brushing my teeth, and then hopping into bed at 8:45pm. My goal is to be asleep within 15 minutes, so that I'm actually asleep by 9:00pm instead of just in bed then. So I officially unplug from the computer and TV at 8:00pm, a full hour before I'm supposed to be asleep. That plus I'm stopping eating at 5:00pm, so I'm hoping this will have a big impact on how well I sleep and how fast I fall asleep.

So Monday is the big day...back to the diet, 45 minutes of cardio a day, and shut down at 8:00pm with lights out at 8:45pm. Not so much of a change anymore, just back to the old routine

 

[KoolDrew]

Macros?

Any reason you're waiting until after you lost a bunch of muscle mass to begin weight training?

 

[Megatomic]

Kaido, have you seen Kashi Go Lean Original cereal? It has lots more protein and fewer calories than Life or Wheat Chex for the same amount of cereal. That's what I eat, with some cinnamon sprinkled on top and Vanilla Silk. That's a delicious and healthy bowl of cereal right there.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Kashi Go Lean Original cereal?

It's tasty and all, but man, it gives lots of gas.

 

[Megatomic]

Go Lean Crunch gives me gas (bad) but the Original doesn't. Course it could be that I'm using Silk rather than milk now, I don't know. But the protein and fiber content of the cereal is high enough that I'm willing to overlook the gas.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: KoolDrew
Macros?

Any reason you're waiting until after you lost a bunch of muscle mass to begin weight training?

Yup. It's easier for me to focus on one thing at a time

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Kaido, have you seen Kashi Go Lean Original cereal? It has lots more protein and fewer calories than Life or Wheat Chex for the same amount of cereal. That's what I eat, with some cinnamon sprinkled on top and Vanilla Silk. That's a delicious and healthy bowl of cereal right there.

I've tried a few versions of Kashi and some other cereals. Some give me gas as well, I don't know if it's the excess fiber or what. I'm actually thinking of cutting out Life; I had some this morning and the sugar seemed to turn my stomach a bit.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Sunday, 22-June-2008

Ready to rock and roll for tomorrow! If anyone has a tasty recipe for homemade Chinese Beef & Broccoli, please post it here - my A1/Soy Sauce mix stinks, haha.

 

[gramboh]

Congrats on your progress so far, I'm sure the results you've seen and your discipline will get you to the next stage. Keep us posted.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Monday, 23-June-2008

My eating schedule is a bit off today; I skipped Meal #5 and just had Meal #6 at about 6:00pm. Doing my prep tonight so I won't run into that problem tomorrow. Once I get back on my sleeping schedule (the most difficult part of this program for me), things will be going smoothly. Luckily I had a long day at work so I'm pretty wiped, in fact I'm finding it hard not to take a nap right now haha. Doing a 12 mile ride tomorrow morning before work for my cardio, should take a good hour or so.

Update: Actually I'm pretty wiped out. I think I'm just going to do the inside bike tomorrow. I did a 20 minute walk today and called it a night, haha.

Diet:
Meal 1: Oatmeal, Blueberries
Meal 2: Chinese Beef & Broccoli, Pork Fried Rice (was in a rush, oops!)
Meal 3: Chocolate Protein Shake
Meal 4: Salmon, Brown Rice, Carrots (discovered I didn't actually have any asparagus, d'oh!)
Meal 5: Skipped
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

I need to make sure that (1) I have all of the supplies I need, like asparagus, and (2) that I prep my stuff the night before or wake up early enough to prep the food - I made half my meals on my lunchbreak, which wasn't as nice as doing it in the morning. Yay for efficiency!

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Tuesday, 24-June-2008

Eating schedule was off again - skipped Meal #5 and had Meal #6 at 6:00pm. I think my "old" habits from Phase 1 have stuck with me

Diet:
Meal 1: Raisin Bran
Meal 2: Sliced Turkey Sandwich
Meal 3: Vanilla Protein Shake
Meal 4: Grilled BBQ Chicken, Sweet Potato, String Beans
Meal 5: Skipped
Meal 6: 2 Tbps Natural PB + 2 Rice Cakes

Also, no exercise today. I didn't fall asleep for a few hours last night and was too tired. It's a lame excuse though, at the end of the day I didn't get any kind of exercise done. I need to buckle down! I have an early work day tomorrow and will probably be staying overnight at a job site, so I'll pack what meals I can tonight, but the next couple of days are probably going to mess up my diet and exercise routine. Luckily it's physical labor, so I'll count that as my cardio, and I'll have enough meals for tomorrow (gotta get a bigger cooler!) so that Thursday will be my "cheat" day if I have to stay overnight. I need to be more prepared for things like this - like having a few meals tucked away in the freezer to grab-and-go when my schedule changes suddenly like this.

I am feeling much better throughout the day back on my diet than off it. I can definitely tell a difference - the multiple healthy meals give me a strong energy backbone for my day versus just eating whenever and eating crap. My gut is calling for exercise though, so it's time that I really got on top of that. Anyway, I'm posting late (8:23pm) and I gotta hop off!

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Wednesday, 25-June-2008

Worked a 13:45 day today, woot! Helped one of the storefronts I work for change locations, lots of manual labor. My buddies on the job were passing out and I was still going strong at the end of the day thanks to my healthy, multiple meals!

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Thursday, 26-June-2008

Sick day, ugh. Really, really bad sore throat. Pass the chicken noodle soup, please

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Friday, 27-June-2008

Feeling a lot better than yesterday, but not 100%. Throat still hurts a bit. Oye.

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Saturday, 28-June-2008

Recovery day

 

[Kaido]

Daily Update: Sunday, 29-June-2008

Recovery day

Did some shopping for food last night, getting ready to get back on track tomorrow. I'm feeling almost completely recovered today. Yuck @ getting sick. That's what I get for staying up late for the past few weeks and not eating as well as I should have, haha.