Lovin' my new Green Silence

I got a pair of Green Silence form Brooks last week. I was looking for a semi-minimalist street shoe that I can run the marathons in. I have definitely found it. In the last 4 days I have run 42 miles in them and I feel like a million bucks. The are low drop, but have nice cushioning and very little structure up top. After 40 miles of hills, LSD, and intervals, I do not have one blister or hot spot.

I plan to still train in the Vibrams on short runs and in the grass, but this is definitely my new street shoe.

Blake Rocked 10 Miles Today

We kept the pace slow and focused on form. Blake ran the 3 miles on Katy Trail completely barefoot. He is tired but not hurt in any way. It is cool watching him learn to run barefoot. His form is beautiful and he is not having any of the typical injuries as he is ramping up miles.

He thinks he is going to run the White Rock 1/2. I think that is realistic based on today as long as he fuels well and paces himself.

My New Birthday

This week is the one year anniversary of me starting to get in shape. On the evening of September 6, 2009 I did my first P90X workout. I remmeber putting in Chest and Back and trying the workout with the boys. I had to do all the push ups on my knees and I could not do one pull up without a chair assist. It was so foreign to me to be doing all this resistance for over an hour and then to take on Ab Ripper - I bet I only did 25% of that monster.

Anyhow, the last year has been a heck of a journey for me and I feel like I have accomplished a lot:
- I am generally much happier and never depressed
- My stress levels are much lower
- I feel like I have much better balance of life. I am now spending much more quality time with the family, coaching cross country, writing software again, and working efficiently in my job.
- I lost about 100 lbs of fat and gained about 30 lbs of muscle.
- My family in much healthier.
- I learned how to cook.
- I am in the best running shape of my life and I think I have a plan to find my potential.
- I have been blessed to help over 30 people find their personal paths to fitness and health.
- I have made new and re-ignitied old friendships through fitness.
- I built a pretty cool iPhone app that is helping many (3000+) people achieve their goals with P90X.


Sheri is so cool! She understands that 9/6 is now a more important day to me than my real birthday, so she bought me a new iPhone and threw a little party for me. I am so blessed to have her and I feel like our relationship is stronger than ever.

Looking forward, I only really see possibilities. I plan to:
- Continue my fitness journey including attempting to qualify for Boston without injury
- Find the best job fit for my career
- Enagage more in my community and find meaningful ways to help people
- Raise the best young men I possibly can

One of my only remaining fears is that I allow myself to slip back in to an physicially and mentally unhealthy state. I think it would be easy to start sliding and not watching nutrition and not working out. I have to make sure I do not stop. Continuing to blog and write down everything I eat is a key tool for me to hold myself accountable. Some days I wonder if I have to keep doing blogging or if I can stop. For now, I know it works for me and it is nice to be able to go back and see the journey. So, I guess I will keep on going and see where this goes. Who knows, five years from now I could still be blogging every nut and apple I eat. It would be fun to see Day 1825 on the blog!

I appreciate all the folks out there that come by the site to check in. I have a little site counter and usually 50+ people swing by each day. I hope in some small way my journey has helped you and you are able to find peace, strength, happiness, clarity, and hope for the future.

Keep On Livin!

Blake gets first place in 5 mile DRC run

I ran the 5 mile DRC run with Blake this morning.  The idea is that this is a good training practice to get up speed and distance.  I was thinking we would do an 8min overall pace and come in around 40 minutes.  Blake had other ideas.  He ran an absolutely perfect race.  We started at a nice comfortable 7:48 and then worked down from there.  His fifth mile was a 7:10.

WOW!!! 

The kid blows me away.  He is great at everything he does.  He gets straight A's, is the president of NJHS now and the student counsel last year, and now is demonstrating amazing running skills.

You should hear him.  He totally has the running bug.  He wants to do an easy 10 tomorrow.  I told him to take it easy.  We need to do strength training too.

Anyhow, if you can't tell, I am really proud of him and it is fun seeing him get to a point where he is actually pushing me a bit.

Here is the GPS data:

Cross Country is starting - I am giddy

I am getting to help coach Blake's cross country team.  It is gonna be a blast.  We had a practice today.  Blake, Issac and I ran to the field (about 2 miles) and then we did a quick practice race.  It was great.  Blake and Paint (Scott's son) really flew.  The GPS said 8:14 first mile and 7:45 second mile.  That puts them just under 16 minutes which blows away last years 20s and 21s.

Blake has a lot of power on the hills and he will be able to call on that in the race for passing.  I am trying to help him think about his breathing and when to grab the next gear.  It is tricky sometimes to keep up the pace when you are breathing hard.  When you just crest a hill, you want to slow to catch your breath, but that is when you pick it up a notch and let the downhill catch your breath over 30-40 seconds instead of going for a faster recover.  He tried it today on the second mile and it paid off.  He was 30 seconds faster in the second mile.

I think Paint has his dad's fast twitch muscles and that will help him in the flats and the sprints at the end.  I told Blake that he better have 50 yards on Paint toward the end if he wants to beat him.

They let parents race at the end of the cross country meets.  This will be fun for me.  I  look forward to some fun hilly fast races each Tuesday!

Here is the GPS from today as a starting point.

Friendly Reminder...

Drink

Your

Water

People

The Brotherhood

I feel like I am forming some seriously deep brotherly bonds with my workout buddies.

Take Scott for instance. We run 20+ miles together every week. Most of that is at a pace that allows us to have a conversation. We talk about work, family, religion, politics, philosophy and how lucky we are to get to watch the sun rise over White Rock. Over the months I have gotten to know Scott really well. For instance, Scott is a little OCD and a month ago I messed up the timing on the GPS watch and it showed an slower pace than we were really doing. This killed Scott because we were really pushing it that day. I have learned to not tell him our avg pace until the end of the run now and make damn sure it is accurate so it is a source of motivation not anguish. It takes a while to understand your running partner this well, but once you do, it is so easy to really help each other reach the next gear.

My son Blake has really gotten into P90X and yoga. It has reignited my love for push ups and pull ups. I love doing Chest and Back with him. I have also been going to Hot Yoga with him about once a week. He really loves it and that makes me feel good that I have been able to share these two things that are really helping him. He went from a little pudgy at the beginning of the summer to darn near ripped and in the best shape ever now. I think that working out together has strengthened our relationship and he is as much a source of motivation for me as I am for him.

My oldest friend Dan just started P90X this week. I got to do his first three workouts with him. It was a blast watching him really push it on Plyometrics. He has jumped all the way into the deep end on nutrition and working out. He is starting where I was a year ago. I expect to see huge results and really look forward to being by his side over the next year as he "Brings It!"

Running with Sheri is really fun for me. She is actually pretty fast and has great endurance. She has some funny quirks when running, like wanting to be on the edge of the road/trail, going nuts when I am a 1/2 step ahead and not wanting to talk much. That said, when we get in stride with each other on a long run, I can just feel us getting closer without saying a word. Don't ask me to explain it, but it definitely happens. My favorite part is when she goes to high five me after a nice run.

My buddy Pete is "the man." Two years ago, he was totally out of shape and started running and working out. It was seeing him all leaned up that made me want to get after it. He also got me back into running and we did a 1/2 marathon last year. I have known Pete for 15 years now and know we are friends for life. We have not been working out together lately, but I have a feeling it is about to start back up now that he is doing P90X.

Anyhow, you get the point. These are my brothers (and sista). We sweat, bleed, laugh, and cry together. We push each other and help each other find peace.

If you are on a fitness journey, make sure you have your posse with you. It is the brotherhood that will get you through the tough days and celebrate your successes.

I posted this to Reddit today...

Here is the stuff I learned on my 70 lb journey over the last year:

• Working out is critical to mental and physical fitness. You will be happier and balanced if you work out 5-6 times a week. 30 minutes is adequate, 60 is perfect. Remember that is less than 1/24 of your life.
• Weight loss is all about what you eat. An hour workout only burns about 500-600 calories and you can eat that in 10 minutes at McDonalds.
• You need to learn your metabolic rate and set a daily caloric goal. For me to loose 2 lbs per week, I ate only 1500 cal per day for 4 months.
• A net deficit of 3500 calories = one lb of weight loss. So 500 cal deficit a day will make you loose 1 lb per week. 1000 cal per day = 2 lbs per week. You should not try to go faster than 2 lbs per week.
• NEVER let yourself get hungry. That is when the body starts storing fat and cannibalizes muscle.
• Eat 20-30 g of protein after your workout to trigger protein synthesis and speed recovery so are not sore the next day. I like GNC AMP. I also do egg white omelets all the time.
• Fat does not make you fat. Calories do. Just watch your calories.
• Carbs are just energy and very little gets built from them. Your body will change when you get protein and vitamins and minerals in there.
• Find a workout buddy. It is so much more fun with a friend.
• Variety is key. Make sure you are doing many different kinds of workouts. Weights, Running, Yoga, Intervals, Pull Ups, Push Ups.
• Learn exercise moves that use your body before going to machines.
• Write down everything you eat. This drives more discipline than anything else. I have tracked all of my workouts and intake for 324 days on my blog
• Make sure you have these kind of foods readily available as snacks: popcorn, protein bars, almonds, pistachios, apples, celery & peanut butter, Go Lean.
• Try to eat 5-6 300 calorie meals a day instead of 3 big ones.
• Finally, learn to cook. Get some healthy cook books that have calories in them. When you cook, make 2X what you need so you have healthy left overs. Attack cooking with enthusiasm and make it a challenge to make delicious, yet healthy meals.

Best of luck!

Born to Run

I am reading Born to Run.

Most people think it is about barefoot running. I guess that is a side note, but not the main point. The point is, to be truly great at running, you have to love it.  Really love it.  The kind of love that makes you get excited and look forward to your next run.  You can't be a success in running to loose weight, win a medal, earn money, or anything else.  The only thing that will lead to sustained success in running is to love it for what it is. 

I have three favorite quotes so far from the book:

1. The only way to truly conquer something, as every great philosopher and geneticist will tell you, is to love it.

2. Beyond the very extreme of fatigue and distress, we may find amounts of ease and power we never dreamed ourselves to own; sources of strength never taxed at all because we never push through the obstruction.

3. There are two godesses in your heart...  The goddess of wisdom and the goddess of wealth.  Everyone thinks they need to get wealth first and wisdom will come.  So they concern themselves with chasing money.  But they have it backwards.  You have to give your heart to the goddess of wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the goddess of wealth will become jealous, and follow you.

Ask nothing from running, in other words, and you will get more than you ever imagined.

Reading this book while ramping up my mileage is amazing.  It is making me want to bust through the aches and pains and find out what I am capable of.  There is a cycle where I incrementally see running as the way to unlock my barriers and then every time I do I see another barrier to chase.  As I cross each of these, I grow more and more fond and dependent on running.

I am now running more miles per week than any previous point in my life.  I can see that increasing to 50, 60, 70 miles a week if my body lets me.  Can I do it?  Can I find the path.  We will see what the godess of wisdom has in store.

Stay tuned!

Musings 13: My Caffeine - Sweetener Habit

I did an experiment today and have not had any caffeine.  I just drank water in place of the normal 2-4 cups of coffee and 1-2 coke zeros I usually have.  All day I have been lethargic and have had a light headache.

I found a bunch of web sites that say this is normal:
http://coffeefaq.com/site/node/11
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-symptoms-of-caffeine-withdrawal.htm

In addition to the caffeine, I know I am intaking way too much unnatural sweeteners and I keep reading about how they are bad for you and most likely are carcinogenic.  It would really suck to get everything else squared away and get cancer from sweeteners.

I feel like I have enough discipline in my eating realm that I can start dialing in my caffeine drinking.  I am going to stop with coffee for a while and limit myself to boring old water.


These articles say I will have hangover like symptoms for a 3-5 days then it should be over.

It will be interesting to see what effects this has in the near term, but I am confident that long term, all these artificial sweeteners and caffeine are dangerous.

Musing 12: On Cooking

In the last 6 months I have fallen in love with cooking. I like the whole process: Chopping, dicing, slicing, mixing, searing, stirring, browning, brazing, zesting, seasoning, tasting, mixing, boiling, coating, tossing, baking, broiling, simmering, and grilling.

Cooking is a very active process that requires attention and a certain degree of precision and creativity. It makes me feel good to spend an hour each day cooking breakfasts, sack lunches and dinners for myself, the boys and Sheri. My favorite is when one of the boys wants to help. Grant is my usual assistant. He has learned to chop an onion correctly, brown ground meat, mix ingredients and flip stuff. I think he gets the same satisfaction I do. I am not sure how exactly to explain the feeling other than it just feels right to cook your food.

I also enjoy grocery shopping now that I understand foods better. I pride myself in finding fresh organic veggies. I spend a lot of time comparing nutritional spec on different foods and picking the best ones. I am certainly paying a lot more than we used to for groceries, but I know that my family is generally putting the best things they can in their bodies and that will make them live longer, happier lives.

We used to go to the restaurant most nights. That whole process is frustrating for me now: Get in the car, Drive somewhere, Wait to be seated, Wait to place order, Place order, Wait for food, Eat food (wondering what bad stuff is in there), Wait for check, Pay too much for so-so food, Drive home. There is a ton of wasted time and money going out to eat and at the end of the process, you generally only get marginally better food than fast food from a nutrition stand point.

I have started doing more planning in my cooking now too. At the end of dinner, I will ask the family what they thought. Do they want that dish again? How do they rate it? It is important to me that they enjoy what they eat as well as eat nutritiously. I also ask them what they want tomorrow (from a list of pre planned choices). That gets them involved in the process and let's them feel like they have some control over their diet. I have to be careful about offering Taco night or steak. They always want those.

Lately, I have been working on presentation. Good looking food is yummy food. Small adjustments in final presentation on the plate or in the bowl can make a meal seem much more special for very little effort or cost. Arrange the cherry tomatoes in a pattern, shape the meatloaf with a nice arch at the top, Use red bell peppers to add color, cut grapefruits perfectly, Sear the meat at 45 degrees to get the cross pattern, pile your cottage cheese into a pyramid.

It is humorous to me that I now have an hour to work out and an hour to cook each day and I still feel like I have free time because I watch less TV and need less sleep. Cooking and working out are my two favorite hours every day and I was not even doing either before. In fact, what the heck was I doing?

Go cook something yummy!

Musing 11: 20 Friends Doing P90X

I have had so many people tell me they are doing P90X now.  Some have finished their first round and have gotten other people doing it now too.  That is amazing to me.

Some are doing it because they saw what it did for me and others are just into BRINGING IT!  Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to track everyone I know that is doing it.

- Sheri - My gorgeous wife.  Finished her first round down about 25 pounds.  Still bringing it with P90X and Insanity.
- Mom - Has been doing Power 90 and is eating great.  She is definitely on a life changing journey.
- Deborah - Friend of Mom that is ready to get in shape.
- Rebecca (my sis) and Jessica - Have been bringing it off and on for 5 months now!
- Ken - Very cool dude that has just finished his first round.  I think he lost 30+ pounds and is still bringing it!
- Tracy & Sharla - Good work buddy and his wife.  Starting about where I did.  Goals are weight loss and to get in great shape.
- John and Michelle - Dear friends of mine.  I really look up to these two as pillars of the community and feel good that I could introduce them to this one little thing.
- Amy and Matt - These two are already skinny and pretty fit, but they wanted to take it to the next level and with three kids, an at home program like P90X was a great fit for them.
- Gene - Finishing up his first round.  A lot of days he will double up and hit the stair climber getting ready for Philmont.  Gene has 2-3 work buddies doing P90X now too.  I love that!
- Joel - Just starting next week.  Can't wait to hear how he likes it.
- Shannon - Old high school buddy.  Saw the results on Facebook and started P90X with her husband!
- Scott - Saw Ken and my results and has decided to bring it.  We did a kick off work out last week.
- Mary Ann - Just getting started.  I hope her husband does it too.
- Pete - Pete and I keep each other motivated.  He does not do P90X, but works out like he is and we run a lot.  I had to put him on this list.
- Rochelle - Sheri's sister
- Michael Deck - B-2 Boozer from my old corps days at A&M.


Are you ready to get ripped?

Musing 10 - Steady State

Now that I have reached my body fat percent goal, I am struggling a little bit trying to figure out what my steady state caloric intake should be.  I really do not want anything to change to much at this point including muscle mass or fat.

The caloric needs calculator says that on days I work out I can consume about 3000 calories per day and not gain weight.  That sounds ridiculous.  I hover around 2000 calories right now and feel full most of the time.  I would have to gorge myself to go over 3000.  I do not want to loose muscle mass by eating too little though.

The site does offer this interesting plan.  It says to vary my caloric intake through the week to minimize plateaus.  Here is the plan it suggests something like:

Monday	2626
Tuesday	2392
Wednesday	3151
Thursday	2626
Friday	2392
Saturday	2888
Sunday	2626

Here is a really interesting article on calorie cycling.  I think I am going to try this and bump up my intake on resistance days and drop it on rest and cardio days.

Also, I am going to start adding 100 calories per day each week for the next 10 weeks and watch my weight.  Once It looks like I am starting to slip back up, I will drop back down 100 or so calories and stay put.

I guess this is all part of the journey toward lifelong fitness and health.

Musing 9 - On Vinyasa Yoga

I am still a total Yoga beginner, but I have picked up a couple interesting tid bits that I thought I would pass on at this point. Most of the yoga I have been doing is considered Vinyasa yoga. Vinyasa is the basic sequence of plank, chataranga, and upward dog. This sequence is great for upper body strength and gives you a great stretch.

The Yoga X on P90X is a series of extensions to basic Vinyasa yoga. Specifically, it adds the Ashtanga series. A lot of studios call it power or flow yoga. This is by far my favorite type because it is so physically demanding. It includes all of the really hard lunge moves that smoke out your legs and butt. The Warrior I-III series, triangle poses, 1/2 moon, chair, etc... My legs still shake in the middle of some of these poses. Tony also adds in some challenging balance postures. My favorite is crane. It works everything. There is a whole core series too that includes wheel, table, bridge, scissors, and heel and hands to the heavens. I am not sure if all of these are official yoga moves, but they sure work you out.

After an hour with Yoga X, I feel amazing. I feel like I got a great workout, but I also feel like I got a massage.

I have also started trying Bikram or Hot Yoga. It is a lighter version of Yoga X. There are no Vinyasa moves, but there are still quite a few challenging balance and core poses. As the name implies, the key to Hot Yoga is the 100 degree room. Even though you are not working as hard, you will feel like you did. I am usually three pounds lighter after a Bikram session. In the middle, sweat is coming off in a continual stream (not drips). It is very demanding on the body and requires me to focus on recovery for a couple hours. Eating and drinking tons of water are critical. The best part of Bikram for me is how you feel totally detoxified. Your largest organ (skin) is pumping a ton of fluid through and there is just nothing bad left in you at the end.

The interesting thing about Bikram is that I was stalled out on weight loss, and when I added that in, my weight loss started back up. I am not sure why, but I know it did the trick.

The next step for me on my Yoga journey is to officially join a studio to get some instruction. I know I am not holding my poses right all the time and I am sure my breathing and mental state are not ideal.

I see Yoga as part of the fitness "tool-box" now and I would not want to be on the journey without it.


Cool Yoga Studios and places I have done yoga:
- My Bed Room late at night - sleep like a baby
- Lake Michigan in Chicago at sunrise in front of the sailboats - watch the sun come up over the water
- White Rock Lake at the Bath House on a warm Saturday afternoon
- Black Swan Yoga in Austin - Candelight "Sweaty Yoga" at 8:30PM Very cool
- Sunstone Hot Yoga in Dallas - Sweat like a faucet
- Miami Yoga @ Miami Beach - Jennifer's class was amazing.  http://miamiyoga.com/
- Buddhaful Spin in Cleveland - Excellent mix of spin and yoga.  http://buddhafulspin.com/
- Yoga to the People in Midtown NYC - Low Key Hot Vinyasa for $5. http://www.yogatothepeople.com/new-york-yoga.shtml

Musing 8 - BMI, Body Fat and Weight - Obese @ 13% BF?

I have finally had it with the scales.  I have not moved an inch in three weeks.  In fact, I may have gained a pound.  I am currently sitting at 213#s.

When I go to the CDC & NIH web sites and put in my height and weight, it says I have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 29.7.  It goes on to say that the Overweight range is 25-29.9.  Obese is 30 or greater.  It is basically saying that if I gained two more pounds, I would be obese regardless of my body fat percentage.

THIS KINDA BOILS MY BLOOD.

So I went and dropped $75 at the Tom Landry Fitness Center today to get a DEXA scan.  A DEXA scan is usually used to check your bone health.  However, it is a great body fat calculator.  In fact, it is 98% accurate, and it can tell you exactly where your fat is.  Well I went in and did the scan.  It is like a Star Trek device that moves over your body, irradiating every inch with x-rays.  The results:

I am at 13.7% Body Fat!  That's right...  This "obese" guy is 13% Body Fat. Shapeup.com says that men under 39 should be between 8% and 19%.  I am right in the middle of that range now.

I found this chart online for professional athletes.  It looks like 13.7% is inline with athletic levels.

Average Body Fat Percentage of Athletes
Sport	Male	Female	Sport	Male	Female
Baseball	12-15%	12-18%	Rowing	6-14%	12-18%
Basketball	6-12%	20-27%	Shot Putters	16-20%	20-28%
Body building	5-8%	10-15%	Skiing (X country)	7-12%	16-22%
Cycling	5-15%	15-20%	Sprinters	8-10%	12-20%
Football (Backs)	9-12%	No data	Swimming	9-12%	14-24%
Football (Linemen)	15-19%	No data	Tennis	12-16%	16-24%
Gymnastics	5-12%	10-16%	Triathlon	5-12%	10-15%
High/long Jumpers	7-12%	10-18%	Volleyball	11-14%	16-25%
Ice/field Hockey	8-15%	12-18%	Weightlifters	9-16%	No data
Racquetball	8-13%	15-22%	Wrestlers	5-16%	No data

So, What have we learned here:
- Measuring weight alone is BS.  I could gain 10 pounds, but if my waist stays the same, I will be under 10% BF.
- BMI is BS period.
- DEXA is pretty cool.  I plan to do it again in 6 Months.

Musings 7 - On Blood Sugar, Calories and Wheat

I finally got to the bottom of my blood sugar situation.  Over the last 5-6 days I have been tinkering with calorie intake and carb intake to keep blood sugar dips at bay.

I think I have figured out two things:
1.  I needed to add back more calories in general.  I have been eating too little and that is impacting me in several ways.  It is keeping me from being fully fueled for workouts and the normal daily activities and it is probably risking my body starting to sacrifice muscle because there is not enough fat in there to burn.  I think the right calorie loading now is about 2100-2300 per day.
2.  I need to get some wheat in early in the day.  Wheat carbs hang around longer and help keep the blood sugar leveled out.  So far I have had wheat toast and wheat pancakes.  They both worked great and I have not had any big dips.

I am going to keep with the two adjustments above for a week or so and decide then if I need to make any other adjustments.

Musings 6 - Plan and Turn off Your Brain

P90X has three key things going for it:
1. It is a canned program that you do not have to think about or plan for.
2. It is a relatively short period of time - 90 days is a reasonable period to get your head around.
3. The workouts have room to allow you to start slower and build up to higher intensity as you get leaner and stronger.

Of these three things, having the whole thing already figured out and planned was the most important for me. I was able to just turn off my brain and bring it every day. I never worried about doing the right thing at the right intensity.

Many mornings if I did not have that structure, I would have just gone on a low intensity jog or not worked out at all. With P90X I just put in the DVD and turned off my brain.

It would take a much more disciplined person than me to plan the variety of quality workouts without a program like this. I feel like now I could use the P90X and P90X+ workouts to build my own schedule, but I am sure I would do some stupid stuff like too much resistance together, or not enough rest or something bad like that.

Also, the 90 day goal period is perfect for me. A longer period would be overwhelming and a shorter period would not allow me to set goals for material results. I plan to continue to work in 90 day cycles whether I am doing P90X or not. I think you can set a goal like shave 20 seconds off your mile or gain an inch in your chest or get spartan abs for summer and attain that goal in 90 days.

By doing workouts that allow you to see material progress in your strength and capacity, you get a lot of interim motivation. Through this first 90 days, I have been able to basically go from zero performance in the following areas to being able to do what they do on the videos:
1. Crane
2. Wheel
3. Double Time Knee up Jumps
4. Pull Ups
5. Ab Ripper heels to the heavens
6. Warrior 3
7 Dips

Whatever workout I do going forward, I will set clear goals for 90 day success, wrap it in a 90 cycle, and will make sure the workouts have room for improvement.

Once I have my 90 day goals and plan set, I will just turn off my brain and bring it!

Musing 5 - Weight Loss Rates

Everyone told me when I started that I would drop a lot of weight at first and then it would taper off.  Although in the last couple weeks, I do not feel like it is melting away, I have continued to see sustained net weight loss.

Here is the graph of my weight loss to give a visual:

As you can see, the rate of loss has stayed pretty consistent over the last 100 days at an average .5 lb per day.  This really surprised me when I plotted it out because I really thought I would see something that looked a little more logarithmic.

So...  What does this tell us?

1. At .5 lb rate of loss per day, I probably have a net caloric deficit of roughly 3500/2 = 1750 calories.  If you adjust for muscle gain, I bet my net caloric deficit is more like 1900 calories per day.  I take in about 1400 calories per day, so that probably means my daily expenditure with workouts is 1900 + 1400 = 3300.  That is right in line with the beachbody caloric needs calculator.  It says 3320. 
   
2. I can only assume that if I stay at 1400 calories per day, I will continue to see a similar rate of loss until I get down to a really low BF% (probably 5-7%).
   
3. I assume a P90X workout is between 600-1000 calories.  So if I want to maintain weight on workout days, I can consume 3300 calories.  On rest days, I can maintain at 2300-2500 calories.   That just seems like a lot of food.
   
4. Since I have not seen a flattening in the curve yet, I am assuming there is still quite a bit of fat to burn off.  It will be hard to tell how far the floor is until this chart starts to flatten out.  I am still guessing that I can get into the 190#s during this next P90X round.

This really validates for me that weight loss is predictable, controllable, and measurable.  Weight loss is science, not magic.

Also, it confirms that the 3500 cal/lb deficit math certainly works for my body.

It will be interesting to chart this with Sheri over her journey.  She is running at a similar deficit right now, so I would expect to see her loose at a similar rate unless the math works different for women.

Musings 4 - On Aging

I have been thinking a lot lately about aging.  I saw my grandma at Thanksgiving and saw her on a oxygen tank taking 12-13 prescriptions every day.  She smoked most of her life and ate a pretty high carb diet.  That generation really got dealt a bad hand from a health stand point.  Prior to them, most people lived on farms and physically worked their butts off.  They ate natural foods like chicken, beef, veggies, cheese, eggs, and home made whole wheat bread.  Almost nothing was processed.  Basically they ate the P90X diet and did P90X level work every day.  They were ripped.

My Grandma's generation was the first to face the onslaught of fast processed food in the 50s.  They unwittingly reinforced the development of the market for easily accessible processed foods from the grocery store including the myriad of chips, cookies, twinkles, cokes and canned foods like chef boy r dee.  Also, they created the fast food industry.  Additionally,  almost all of them smoked.  Almost none of them realized at the time that these changes were going to lead to holocaust scale morbidity and mortality rates over the following 50 years.  Now our elderly are so sick that we need sophisticated nursing facilities to feed, medicate, bathe, and even breath for them.  Twenty years ago nursing homes looked like apartments with a few nurses checking in on the residents a couple times a day.  Now they look like mini hospitals with permanent patients.

I build and sell robots for dispensing medications in nursing homes.  It helps save nursing time and makes it safer for nurses to administer thousands of doses a day in a nursing facility.  That's how bad it is now.  We need robots to keep up with the level of care required to keep our elderly alive.

The greatest generation that defeated the Nazis was defeted by smoking and processed carbs.  What would they be like if they had eaten healthy, not smoked and had worked out?  I bet our long term care industry would be a shadow of its current self.  I bet more elderly would be able to age in their homes or at least in their children's homes without creating too much of a burden.

It will be interesting watching the boomers over the next 30 years.  Like my grandma's generation, the boomers were victims of the smoking wave and processed food revolution, but they also figured out working out.  In the 70s, and 80s most boomers were playing tennis, running, skiing, hiking, biking and having lots of sex.  Most of them were actually pretty fit.  You can talk to boomers who were doing protein shakes, eating wheat germ, and managing down carbs back 30 years ago.  However, the bad food and smoking won in the end and brought most of them down.  I have a theory that the microwave ovens played a material role in this downfall as it made it really easy to warm up vast quantities of highly processed and cheap foods in just minutes.  Just from personal observation, I think only 10% of boomers in their 50s and 60s are fit today.  The rest have big bellies, eat high volume high carb diets and are relatively slothful.  I bet the average boomer consumes 3500-5000 calories a day.  The good news is that most of them have stopped smoking, but heavy drinking is prevalent with boomers, so that may be a wash.

My guess is that boomers will see a similar fate to the greatest generation.  They will  have different morbidities though.  Diet related illnesses like diabetes will be more common than smoking related illnesses like COPD.  I plan to stay in the nursing home industry for the rest of my career because I think it is going to continue to grow and become get more complex for at least 30 more years and technology has a place in helping manage care.

Is it too late for boomers?  I don't think so.  Over the last three short months, I went from completely out of shape and obese to the best shape of my life.  It may take longer, but people in their 50s and 60s should be able to get there.  It will take dedication, diet changes, and a ton of work.  Most of them are retired or semi-retired at this point.  I cannot believe that they cannot dedicate 1-2 hours a day to getting fit.

My generation does not have any excuses.  We have known smoking is death since childhood.  We have also learned in recent years the dangers of bad diet.  Most people my age know that calorie intake is proportional to fat gain or loss and overweight people are generally less healthy.  We also have validated ways to work out efficiently to stay fit.  The biggest thing my generation faces is sedentary work life.  Most of us sit in front of a computer most of the day.

A fit person should be able to maintain their weight, strength and endurance with four thirty minute workouts per week.  Don't tell me that 2 hours of working out a week is not worth maintaining health.

The crazy thing I have learned through P90X is how fast you can get there.  90 days is nothing.  What else was I going to do?  Sit and watch TV?  That seems ludicrous now.  Almost every one of my peers should be able to get through a 90 day P90X round.  It will be really hard at first and you may only be able to do 1/2 of the workouts and need lots of breaks.  Thats OK.  It is amazing how quickly you can go from totally out of shape to fit.  Also, the diet side takes two weeks to get used to and then you do not want all the processed crap anymore.  Once you are fit, it is easy to maintain.

My hope for my generation is that we go into our 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s still able to do push ups, pull ups, run, bike, sail, and ski.  The crazy thing is I feel like I did when I was 20 - seriously.  I literally erased 18 years of cruft.  So if a 38 year old can feel like 20, why cant a 70 year old feel like 52.  The reality is that it can be done and it is easier than most people think.

I love the idea of staying young.  I mean really young.  You know - goofy, playful, laughing, sporty, strong, quick, witty, alert and most of all durable.

I refuse to give in.  REFUSE!

There is no material thing in the world that will bring me any sustained happiness.  However, keeping my youthful body and spirit is like gold.

We only get one shot at this thing and none of us get out alive.

- Get fit now
- Stay fit
- Find positive people to play with
- Refuse to give in to aging - EVER!

Musings 3 - Psychology and Stress

I had a heart attack when I was 35. At least that is what the hospital said. I was totally and completely stressed out. When they opened me up, they did not find any blockage or weird rhythms and one nitro glycerine was all I needed to relieve the symptoms. Any how, the helicopter flight and the week in the hospital cost me $15,000. It took us two years to fully recover financially.

Starting three companies, having three kids and just living on this crazy planet had taken their toll. Most of all, I let negative, unhappy people in my life affect my mental state. I did not handle criticism well and especially did not handle unintelligent and irrational business leadership that worked with a mini-max mentality (Minimize other people's outcome and maximize theirs). I believe the pie can alway be made bigger and everyone can win. I have discovered that most people do not sign up for that though.

I think a lot of guys find themselves in leadership roles in companies in combination with kids and wife and become overwhelmed by their perception of everyone's expectations. From this, catastrophic thinking emerges. A tendency to focus on the worst outcome emerges instead of focusing on the best outcomes. The biggest example is - what happens if I loose my job. This then leads to negativity and depression. Depression leads to a need to find something that makes you happy. For a vast number of us humans, the happy drug becomes food. When stress sets in, we reach for food - especially bad food. The happy feeling lasts about as long as it takes to swallow the food, so you keep eating.

Then you get fat!

I bet this story has been repeated hundreds of millions of times in our society. We are stressing ourselves out to death.

You cannot fix your health until you fix your mind. I saw an executive coach this year. We worked a lot on professional tools and strategies and that was very helpful, but the best stuff was the work on the personal side which has laid the foundation for everything positive that is happening in my life now.

Here is what I learned:

1. The most important thing is that most people do not really care about you one way or another. Very few people ever think about you when you are not around. Most people are totally self centered and egotistical. As soon as you accept this, you can go to the next point.
2. Since few people really care about you, you can quit worrying about what they think about you. In reality, they don't think anything - except the really negative people that tend to fixate on negative things and cannot find anything constructive anyhow.
3. Once you quit worrying about what other people think about you, you quit trying to please everyone else.
4. Once you quit trying to please everyone, life becomes super simple, because it is really easy to please yourself and meet your own needs.
5. Once you figure out how to meet your own needs (self actualize) you can find real peace and will no longer look for things like food and alcohol to fill the void.

This is the path I have been on this year. There is no way I could have done this process without accepting the 5 points above. For the first time in my life I am truly content. I need nothing and have everything I could possibly ever hope for. Our messed up society tells us we need to keep consuming and keep up with the next guy. This is silly. Once you check off the food, shelter, and clothes boxes, the rest is just window dressing.

In fact, I am finding that as I get rid of stuff, I get happier. The less stuff I have, the more free I am. Freedom to me means less stress and more space to live.

I have also found a renewed love for work. I love working hard in the absence of stress. There are days when I have to work super hard and there are easy days, but there are no longer stressful days. I am finding that this attitude has led to me being much more efficient and productive at work and I am much less emotionally driven.

Now that I am here, I am finding I have time and space to help others. I want my close friends and family to get in mental and physical shape and find personal peace. I want to help my co-workers achieve their goals. I want my customers to use our products to make their lives (and their customer's lives) better. I want to model a way of living for my kids so they never ever go through what I did.

All of this stuff is interrelated. You cannot get in shape without chilling out. It is hard to chill out without getting in shape. For me, I had to work on it all at once.

4 years ago, I doubted I would live to 40. I plan to live a healthy life to 100 now. I will never let myself return to where I was. Here is my vow to myself:

- No More Catastrophic Fear

- No More People Pleasing

- No More Stress Eating

- More Working Out

- More Helping Others

- More Chilling Out