My weight this morning is 118.5 pounds and body fat is 22.2 percent. This low carb diet and two workouts a day is working. I'm sure some of the loss is water but there's some fat coming off too. My stomach is flatter. Which is weird as I'm still pre-menstrual and usually gain a few pounds of water weight around this time.
Today's food plan:
Meal one - 1 cup shrimp salad
Meal two - 4 ounces chicken and salad with 1 teaspoon flax oil
Meal three - protein shake, 1/2 banana
Meal four - smoked salmon and cucumber slices with 1 teaspoon walnut oil, 1/2 cup strawberries
Meal five - 4 ounces lean ground beef, green beans with onions and peppers, 1 teaspoon olive oil
Meal six - 4 ounces salmon steak in butter, 1/2 cup mixed berries, 4 ounces vodka
I don't have the stats in fitday yet but I've been running roughly 1600 calories a day with under 35 grams carbs with 35-65 grams alcohol, 35-60 grams fat, and over 90 grams protein.
Beverages - 2 cups black coffee, 1 gallon (minimum) water and lime, 4 ounces vodka.
Supplements - Multi-vitamin, 2000 mg calcium, 10 grams fish oil, 1000 mg Max CLA, 3000 mg cranberry.
Workout one - biceps, triceps, shoulders, 5 sets each of various exercises (usually two exercises per body part including biceps curls, hammers, shoulder side raises, front raises, chair dips, overhead tricep extension) of 10-12 reps each with heavy enough weights to achieve failure or near-failure (15-25 pounds per side). Chair dips I can run about 25 reps a set. This means I do 5 sets x 12 reps of bicep curls, 5 sets x 12 reps of hammer curls, 5 sets x 12 reps of shoulder front raise, 5 sets x 12 reps of shoulder side raises, 5 sets x 12 reps overhead tricep extensions, and 5 sets x 25 reps chair dips. Total of 30 sets of exercises.
Workout two - one and a half hours pool aerobics / jogging / tag.
I've been sleeping very soundly and about 9 hours a night thanks to these workouts.
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My recipe for Fast and Spice Shrimp Salad - I forgot to take a photo before I ate it.
5 ounces cooked shrimp, tails removed, de-veined
2 tablespoons nonfat sour cream (full fat has 2 carbs and 120 calories while nonfat has 3 carbs and 25 calories. Hey do the math - I save 95 calories).
1 1/2 teaspoons regular mayonnaise (see, I put a healthy *tastier* fat back in too and end up with about the same calories as if I used just 2 Ts of full fat sour cream alone).
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Old Bay spice
Combine all ingredients and chill. Serves 1.
Calories 294, Fat 11 grams, Carbs 8 grams, Protein 38 grams
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In The News & Fat Loss Articles
Battle Of The Bulge: Low Leptin Levels Undermine Successful Weight Loss
ScienceDaily (June 24, 2008) — Individuals who are obese are at increased risk of many diseases, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. As 75%-95% of previously obese individuals regain their lost weight, many researchers are interested in developing treatments to help individuals maintain their weight loss.
A new study, by Michael Rosenbaum and colleagues, at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, has provided new insight into the critical interaction between the hormone leptin and the brain's response to weight loss.
Leptin levels fall as obese individuals lose weight. So, the authors set out to see whether changes in leptin levels altered activity in the regions of the brain known to have a role in regulating food intake.
They observed that activity in these regions of the brain in response to visual food-related cues changed after an obese individual successfully lost weight. However, these changes in brain activity were not observed if the obese individual who had successfully lost weight was treated with leptin. These data are consistent with the idea that the decrease in leptin levels that occurs when an individual loses weight serves to protect the body against the loss of body fat.
Further, both the authors and, in an accompanying commentary, Rexford Ahima, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, suggest that leptin therapy after weight loss might improve weight maintenance by overriding this fat-loss defense. End of article.
Extra Sleep Boosts Athletic Performance: Study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Athletes who get extra shut-eye over an extended period of time could see significant improvement in their athletic performance, mood, and alertness, research shows. "Our results begin to elucidate the importance of sleep on athletic performance and more specifically, how sleep is a significant factor to peak athletic performance," Cheri Mah of the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory told Reuters Health.
In an ongoing study, Mah and colleagues are testing the impact of extra sleep on five healthy students on the Stanford University men's and women's swimming teams. For the first two weeks of the study, the swimmers maintained their usual sleep-wake pattern. The athletes then extended their sleep to 10 hours per day for 6 to 7 weeks.
Athletic performance, assessed after each regularly scheduled swim practice, showed marked improvement with the extra sleep, Mah reported Monday at SLEEP 2008, the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
"Various drills including reaction time off the block, 15-meter sprint, and turn time improved while kick strokes increased with extra sleep," she said. Read more.
Fat Loss Nutrition Basics
Eating to get lean is not as difficult or confusing as we have been lead to believe. The problem is the quick fix mentality and distorted reality supplement companies and diet programs try to sell us. The best method of nutrition to achieve a lean and healthy body is one that consists of mainly whole foods and is macronutrient balanced. When trying to lose body fat, we want to make sure we cover the essentials and avoid the pitfalls. Once these bases are covered, fat loss will become natural. Read more.
20 Ways To Trick Fat by David Gluhariff
A Synergistic Approach To Fat Loss by ISSA
Excerpt - In this day and age everyone has a set idea of what they want to look like, but have difficulty obtaining it. Whether it is those annoying love handles or a little excess fat on the thighs, cutting calories can help. By incorporating a proper diet and exercise program into your daily life you can get on your way to that figure you always wanted.
Your Body
The body liberates energy from its tissues and stores when the caloric intake is less than the caloric output. If this occurs there is a loss of fat along with lean body mass. When planning to lose fat, one must first establish a body composition goal. Men lose fat easier than women due to hormone differences. This is because testosterone levels in men are higher, helping them to maintain more muscle mass.
The hormone system of women resists change in the body composition as a protective mechanism that helps conserve energy stores during pregnancy. It is for this reason that women lose fat slower than men do and find it difficult to maintain a body fat percentage lower than 16%. Read more.
This article has a cool lean body mass calculator. Here are my results:
Your Lean Body Mass Results.
Your Weight: 54 kilograms.
Your BodyFat Percentage: 20%.
Your Lean Body Mass In Kilograms: 44 kilograms.
Your Lean Body Mass In Pounds: 96 pounds.
Back To The Basics of Dieting by Robboe
Excerpt - The goal here is fat loss and there are many ways to do it, regardless of what many protocols recommend. The information presented here is going to be aimed toward the less experienced.
Before I begin, I'd like to point out that this piece is not a comprehensive dieting protocol such as Twin Peak's Carbohydrate Cycling or Lyle McDonald's UD2.0. I'm not going to give you meal plans, suggested foods or calorie intakes. What I will do, however, is show you how to get started towards your goal of fat loss, and how to ensure progression towards this goal.
There are many ways to skin a cat, so obviously this advice may conflict with what some dieting protocols recommend, but realize that these guidelines can be used in conjunction with whatever dieting protocol you adhere to. This is aimed more towards the less experienced, although veterans may still benefit from little tricks here and there. Read more.
“Don’t Call Him ‘The Keto Guy’ – An Interview with Lyle McDonald By: David Whitley
If you have been around weight training for very long, you have probably heard of Lyle McDonald. A few years ago, he conducted an experiment on himself based on the Body Opus program by Dan Duchaine, and went onto make a name for himself with his book The Ketogenic Diet which established him as an authority on sports nutrition and specifically low-carbohydrate dieting. He probably knows more about low-carb dieting than anyone, but please don't call him the "Keto Guy".
What you may not know is that he is also a serious speed skater with designs on competing in the Olympics. Lyle recently took the time to tell me about his current training, life and the sport he loves. Read more.
