Yet Another PB Journal - hibbs02 style page

[hibbs02]

Howdy,

I'm 42 year old male, 6'1" and crushing the scale at 353 pounds. Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I carbed my brain out and felt sick most of the day. Today I got back into primal and feel great! I will count yesterday as an extreme carb refeed day.

I have been low carb on and off for years. I never made much progress. I think, looking back, that it was in large part because I was using a variety of "low carb" cheat substitutes such as low carb tortillas, pasta, etc. Too often I would get crazy cravings and cave.

A few months ago I did a month with slow-carb. Lots of beans and whole grain bread. No progress. The only progress I have seen is super extreme caloric reduction below 1200 calories daily. That is clearly unsustainable and unhealthy.

My wife and I have our first child, Grace, due 1/21/13 and having her so late in life I really would like to see her graduate high school. At 353 pounds that looks unlikely. I have been cruising Bulletproof Exec and now MDA for the last few weeks or so and feel like I get the final key on what has been holding me back. So, I am posting here to say howdy and get some accountability. I will do my best to stay primal for at least 30 days and do a posting here to say how well or badly the day went in regards to diet/exercise. I will post results as we go along. If I manage to make major progress I will add in pictures.

Food:

I plan to do 18/6 IF most days and have my diet figured out for 5 days of the week (work days) it looks like the following courtesy of Fitday:

CALORIE BREAKDOWN
GRAMS CAL % CALS
Calories: 1864
Fat 148.29 1326.5 71.2
Saturated Fat 50.67 451.4 34
Polyunsaturated Fat 5.77 51.2 3.9
Monounsaturated Fat 34.42 307.6 23.2
Carbohydrates 51 197.7 10.6
Dietary Fiber 20.2
Protein 99.3 400 21.5

Everything is getting compressed so I will add the macros separately:

Totals
Calories: 1864
Fat: 148.3 grams - 69%
Carbs: 51.0 grams (31 net) - 10%
Protein: 99.3 grams - 21%

I know that this looks odd and you will be asking how I think I'm going to hit those macros. Here it is:

Awakening: tsp Pink Himalayan Salt

Breakfast: BP Coffee
32oz Coffee w/ 2 TB Kerrygold Unsalted Butter & 2 TB Now MCT Oil

Lunch: "Health Shake"
12oz Coconut Milk
1 Tablespoon MCT Oil
1 scoop Green Vibrance
1 scoob Delicious Reds 8000
1 scoop ON Whey Gold
tsp Raw CaCao powder
dash creatine

Dinner: 6 oz Cauliflower & 6 oz Broccoli (tossed with Ghee and Sea Salt) / 8oz Trader Joe's Grass Fed Hamburger -- condiments may include a squirt of Heinz low carb Ketchup and perhaps a dab of Kraft Olive Oil Mayo

I know that this diet is doable because I did it most of the last week or so. The BP coffee kills my appetite until my lunch break. The shake does me in until Dinner. I was always perpetually exhausted until I found out about Green Vibrance. Adding that in to my life about a month or so ago really upped my energy and experience of life. Adding in the MCT oil and butter in the morning has helped me to get through the day feeling like a different person when added on top of the Green Vibrance.

I have two days off a week: usually a Wed or Thurs and always Sunday. I plan to switch it up on those days with two full meals after a morning fat fast. Sunday will be a carb refeed day with sweet potatoes added in.

Supplements:

tsp Cod Liver Oil
900mg St John's Wort
150mg Milk Thistle
500mg magnesium nightly
2 tabs Glucosamine & Chondroitin
250mg Resveratrol
500mg L-Tyrosine
Co-Q10
Saw Palmetto
200mg Potassium

Considering other sups such as adrenal supports.

Exercise:

Slow: Walking the building during breaks - works out to about 22 minutes walking daily. Added in to the long walk to the car before and after work works out to about 35 minutes walking 5 days week.

Heavy: Body weight exercises mixed in with some dumbbell work - squats, pushups, curls, etc 1-2 times a week. As currently setup mixed in with the Sprint portion below.

Sprint: Xbox Kinect - Your Shape™ : Fitness Evolved 2012 - HITT training with a couple of warmup games and working out on medium in bootcamp. Short spurts of maximum intensity. The boot camp has the squats, pushups and I add in the dumbbell exercises.

Not sure how this is going to work. I'm thinking of having the HITT with some resistance training 1 day a week and then a second day with just resistance.

Confounding factor!

I work a very stressful job with a crap schedule. The way my schedule works I get home at 11:30pm and then cook and scarf down food about midnightish and then hit the sack at 1am so I can get up at 9:00am and see my wife before she heads off to work. I can't see myself eating my big meal at work. As a fat person I am ashamed to be seen eating in public and a giant plate of food, even though mostly vegetables, would simply be too embarrassing. Then again, eating so late at night seems like a bad idea. So, we will see if there are any good results.

Also, I'm not sure about the caloric intake. I know when I was doing lots of whole grains I would probably gain weight on 1800 calories daily. Fitday is just a silly billy and says I burn over 4000 calories a day even being a cubicle dweller because of my size. If that were so I wouldn't be this weight!

I have been researching this for awhile but I am happy to take any of your comments with a humble heart. I want to live! I don't care who gets the credit. :-)

Thank you!

[hibbs02]

Just finished the PB book. Realized my protein is low. Decided to try two scoops of protein powder in lunch shake. But, want to keep total daily calories the same or lower. What to do? Decided that with my current energy levels I don't actually NEED 32oz of coffee to start my day. That lead to a very nasty argument. Seriously, myself and I aren't even talking right now. But, I don't care what myself wants, I need to make a change and 32oz of coffee is just a habit and probably a bad one at that. Dropping to 16oz of coffee with a drop of 1TB of butter and 1 TB of MCT oil. We will see how that is going to affect my hunger with this IF and also if I will even be able to drink the "Health Shake" or will I need to start bringing a spoon? That is a LOT of powder. I will take some celery and nuts to work for emergency backup.

Macro plan for 11/24/12
Totals
Calories 1792
Fat 124.8 62%
Carbs 55.0 (35 net) 12%
Protein 123.2 28%

[U2sandrah]

Hello Hibbs!
Let me share with you this: Ive been trying primal for some weeks now, and I thought that by keeping the calories low (lower than 1200 per day) ill fast track weight loss. That didnt happen.
Ive been browsing the forum and almost everyone recommends to start by upping the protein and fat intake and be very strict with carbs, regardless of the calories, that just to jumpstart the good hormones. Once you are there, then attack the calorie intake. Which kinda makes sense.
I am doing this starting today and Ill see if that is so!!

[WeldingHank]

Hello Hibbs!
Let me share with you this: Ive been trying primal for some weeks now, and I thought that by keeping the calories low (lower than 1200 per day) ill fast track weight loss. That didnt happen.
Ive been browsing the forum and almost everyone recommends to start by upping the protein and fat intake and be very strict with carbs, regardless of the calories, that just to jumpstart the good hormones. Once you are there, then attack the calorie intake. Which kinda makes sense.
I am doing this starting today and Ill see if that is so!!

Sound avice.

Let me add. Skip the shakes for now. eat REAL food. Don't drink your calories.

[hibbs02]

Hello Hibbs!
. . .everyone recommends to start by upping the protein and fat intake and be very strict with carbs, regardless of the calories, that just to jumpstart the good hormones.

Howdy U2sandrah, thanks for the heads up and good luck on your journey as well! That has been my take from the literature too. Dave Asprey (bulletproof exec guy) claims to take in about 3500 calories with 70% from fat and still lost/maintain his weight. It does seem that the evidence points to calories in/calories out being a flawed conception. I'm very interested to see how it all works out over the next weeks/months. At this point I feel like I have all the information I need to succeed I just need to put it into effect.

Today has been successful. Started walking the building again on breaks. Each lap is a 1/4 mile and I did 4 laps altogether as well as 12 minutes round trip to car. Followed plan re: reduced BP coffee and two scoops of protein. All that went well. I'm not even "hungry" right now but still very interested in eating my first solid meal of the day. All in all very pleased.

Tomorrow is off to church and then will probably pick up a roasted chicken on the way home as well as a stop at Trader Joe's. Planning on a carb "refeed" day with sweet potato to set myself up for the week of VLC IF. I'm going to try to ignore the scale this week except that I will weigh myself tomorrow as my "starting weight." After the ridiculous Thanksgiving I had I wouldn't be surprised if my official weight was going to be 355. Oh well, good luck and God bless each and every one of you.

[hibbs02]

Let me add. Skip the shakes for now. eat REAL food. Don't drink your calories.

I hear you Hank. But, I don't eat in public. Besides, doing the Green Vibrance has been extremely beneficial to me. This isn't a prepackaged shake. It is full of fat, protein, probiotics as well as about 10,000 ORAC. At this point in my life it isn't a question of "will power" but rather finding an approach that works without an extreme caloric deficit. If could rip out my stomach and have a little nuclear reactor installed I would in a heart beat. Right now I view food as an enemy that seeks to destroy me. Once I have kicked its little butt around town a while and am not in imminent danger of death I will reconsider this position.

[Annieh]

I hear you Hank. But, I don't eat in public. Besides, doing the Green Vibrance has been extremely beneficial to me. This isn't a prepackaged shake. It is full of fat, protein, probiotics as well as about 10,000 ORAC. At this point in my life it isn't a question of "will power" but rather finding an approach that works without an extreme caloric deficit. If could rip out my stomach and have a little nuclear reactor installed I would in a heart beat. Right now I view food as an enemy that seeks to destroy me. Once I have kicked its little butt around town a while and am not in imminent danger of death I will reconsider this position.

Oh no, food is not the enemy. Food is made for the body. Real food will nourish your real body. You are doing yourself a favour to eat good real wholesome meat and vegetables, eggs, etc along with a little fruit, nuts and dairy.

[Diogenes]

Hey hibbs

First of all, I have nothing but encouragement for your commitment. I am about your height, and even at 253, regarded my weight as extremely unhealthy. If I could offer a couple pieces of advice, one would be to do whatever you can to eat earlier in the day and avoid a big meal before bed. Sleep is important fat-burning time. Also, think about checking out Diet 101 by Jenny Ruhl. It will show you how what you eat affects your hormones, and how those hormones affect appetite and fat storage. Definitely keep up the walking and exercises, they are great fat burners. Unfortunately, a stressful job can encourage storage and retention of body fat. Not sure what you can do there...

Perhaps the most important thing is to consider this a new lifestyle, not just a diet or a project. Good luck and keep us posted.

[U2sandrah]

Hi Hibbs! How are you today?
I wanna keep updating you with what I read, and there is yet another all-around agreement: sleep.
I get your crap schedule, used to have one crap schedule myself and I totally relate to scarfing down food just arriving at home at midnite and having trouble waking up the next morning. How did I come through? The days that the schedule got demi-crap were the days that I squeezed the best sleep out of. Not ideal, but it's better than not having any night's of good sleep.
I also read in your intro that you get a couple of days off now and there, maybe those days you could get a few more hours worth of sleep.
Finally, a full stomach before bedtime is not a good thing. Maybe at that time is the best to have just a protein shake? One is tired, just arived home and in no mood to cook something. I mean, rather than eating something heavier... It's all about finding what works for you! Regarding body, schedule, etc etc.
If you got the will power, you are half way there!!

[hibbs02]

Finally, a full stomach before bedtime is not a good thing. Maybe at that time is the best to have just a protein shake?

Howdy U2sandrah. I've been pondering how to deal with it. While "will power" in general is not an issue my lunch is generally sometime between 6 and 7 pm. So that would mean going the last six hours of the day without food. To put in in normal people terms that is like eating at 4pm and then hitting the sack at 10pm without eating. I don't think I could do that. Also, I don't eat in public. So, at this juncture I am simply going to move forward and see how things work out. Should I not be able to lose weight then I will look seriously into making a change. Hope all is well with you as well!

Lifestyle changes I've made in last two years

Switching to vaping (AKA ecig) - I put some info in my "Visitor Messages" (assuming the moderators let it through) if anyone wants more info. I use the Joyetech Ego battery which is good quality and lasts a long time. It isn't the best thing out there to still be using nicotine but it is far better than smoking tobacco with all the tar, carcinogens, 4000 chemicals, etc. I've got a "Welcome to Not Smoking" email I have sent out to the 10-15 people I have helped quit smoking (I basically give them the starter kit for free and then if they like it they keep it and sometimes even pay me for it) that I'm happy to send out with the suppliers I use. I don't make any money on any of this and am not affiliated with anybody but these folks seem to have the best quality and/or prices. I just want to see people stop smoking and this method has probably a 60-70% effectiveness rate with the number of people I've helped to stop.

Returned to church. Always been a Christian but hadn't been going for many years. Told my wife when we had a baby I would go back to set a good example. When we started trying I figured that was as good a time as any. Also started semi regular prayer which is very peaceful for me and would probably count as "meditation" as far as attendant health/stress benefits.

Started walking, exercising again. Jump Squats are evil!

Started trying to figure out how to handle the weight issues, clearly. Have gone a number of different routes. Latest being "slow carb" with "healthy whole grains." That was a month of gaining 2 pounds while eating 1800 calorie days I will never get back. Also tried low carb but I think what killed me there was the Dreamfields Pasta and low carb tortillas. Seems like for at least some people it still spikes their insulin. I still went into major cravings. Also, still wheat based. Have obviously cut that out and going Primal.

I'm very optimistic that Primal will be my final answer. High fat is very satiating for me and Taubes work is VERY convincing. My hunger and cravings have certainly moderated. The additions I've made to my supplements (mainly the Green Vibrance with its adaptogens, high ORAC, probiotics) have been very beneficial. So, I have gone all in on this and even posted my (current) "Before" pictures (assuming the moderators let them through :-) in the profile including one of me sitting on the couch that was the most unflattering I could find. I figured if I'm looking for accountability having those floating around in cyberspace will spur me on. Good luck and God bless!