I've been on this VLCD for a while and am feeling great. I actually don't feel hungry and I don't feel deprived. I find that planning is my best friend. I typically eat one big meal a day and the other 2 meals I either do Roca Labs or a protein shake or something. If I know I have a work lunch or it's Cinco de Mayo then I plan ahead. I time my Roca Labs approx. 45min to an hour before my big meal and depending on when that meal is, I snack on nuts or whatever low calorie thing I want (honestly, if I want some Oreos and my calculation only allows me to have ONE....I'll take it! Don't deprive yourself! It's the worst thing to do while on a 'diet'). My energy level did dip at first but now that my body is used to it, I don't feel it at all! I even forget to eat!
And we've recently had a big life change. We rescued a puppy! She is a 10mo (?) old Yorkiepoo (we think) and she wasn't in a terrible home, but it definitely had the potential to be. We named her Sophie. They had big dogs and a few little kids that would do terrible things like stick pencils in the dogs' nose or whatever. AND they had no intention to spay her! She is about 6lb and in maybe her 3rd or 4th heat cycle, it's not safe for her size to have puppies! Especially because they just open the door to let the dogs do their business and roam their unfenced yard.....dangerous for a female in heat. So we took her in, she's loving our fenced yard and Chewy is loving her company. We're getting her spayed as soon as we both find a day off together (besides Mother's Day, who spays their dog on Mother's Day?! It's an oxymoron). So I've been busy! Housework and running around with 2 puppies about 1 year old and a 15 year old senior dog is exhausting and definitely calorie burning.
Anyhow, my one 'big' meal a day is working great. It gives me something to look forward to as well as allows me to plan around it. For example, I knew ahead of time we were making steak fajitas for Cinco de Mayo, and after some research, I simply wasn't happy with the calories even whole wheat tortillas have. So I decided to do a fajita salad! I eat fajitas for the filling anyways! Let me tell you, it was beyond delicious. And I didn't have to worry about not getting enough of my Cinco....I had a ton! The steak was on the grill and the peppers were steamed then finished on the grill, only some seasoning and barely any oil. And it was so flavorful I didn't even need dressing! So I find even though a VLCD sounds depressing, I'm actually eating very well and am relatively happy and stuffed most of the time. Planning is just key.
The fajita salad lasted me a couple days, then even when the fiancé brought home Chinese take out last night, I wasn't even hungry enough to nibble on more than a couple pieces of Mongolian Beef and some tofu. I did end up a little higher on calories yesterday than I planned, but 537 plus some incalculable puppy wrangling and obedience class (BTW Chewy passed with flying colors!), I'm still at a good place.
In terms of progress, I find I'm definitely an inch-loser rather than a weight-loser. Maybe I'm building muscle or whatever. Here are the measurements:
Arms: 1.5" off
Waist: 1.5" off
Chest: same
Hip: 1" off
Weight: yo yo-ing between 170 and 172lb.
Nothing major, not the numbers I had hoped for in weight loss, but I've only been on the VLCD a week or so, I'm hoping my body is just getting used to it. Cuz all these inches has came off in the last 2 days.
Today: Roca Labs & black coffee for breakfast (diuretic); turkey and egg white salad on whole wheat bagel for lunch (SOOOOO EXCITED!); walking during lunch; puppy wrangling; Roca Labs or protein shake for dinner if I'm hungry.
Showing posts with label starvation mode; body by vi; visalus; smoothie; VLCD; calories; HMR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label starvation mode; body by vi; visalus; smoothie; VLCD; calories; HMR. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Yo-yo Effect
I FEEL better....clothes fit better....but why am I not losing weight?! Again...my OCD google research begins.
I've been keeping up with almost an hour of walking a day (in 70-80 degree weather no less!) plus either housework (it's surprising how many calories MyFitnessPal app says it burns!) or Taebo for an hour or two a day. My calorie intake has fluctuated but I try to keep it at about 800 net calories.
Yesterday morning I weighed myself and almost threw a fit! 175.5! WTF! Woke the fiancé up and everything! I know I didn't eat the best Monday night but there's no way I ate 2.5lbs worth!
Yesterday breakfast: Body by vi shake; Roca Labs
Yesterday lunch: Body by vi shake; walked for 50 minutes
Yesterday dinner: Lean Cuisine @ 280 calories when I got home then took our puppy to obedience training and walked approx. 15-20minutes there (we were learning to "heel"). Came home and did 2 hours of housework/cleaning (392 calories??!?!?!)
Yesterday late dinner: I realized at this point even though I wasn't hungry (thanks to Roca Labs), I was NEGATIVE net calories. I wasn't going to chow down on a Big Mac of anything, so I made a turkey and egg salad (no mayo, about 300 calories).
Net calories = 157...........bad I know, but I honestly had no idea housework was an "exercise". Now my house will probably be spotless!
This morning I weighed myself again, 173.5lb. Confusion. I lost 2lbs in one day?
My OCD googling came up with the "yo-yo effect", which basically means that many of us will "gain weight" at the beginning of any workout routine. Whether it is water retention or the fact that muscle is denser than fat. Somebody like me that doesn't have any muscle besides vital organs (hahaha, I kid.....but practically), may be quick to gain some muscle definition when I start something like Taebo. This means I will lose quick (the 3 lbs I lost off the bat), then bounce back up (the 2.5lbs I gained between Monday and Tuesday), and finally will begin to lose a substantial amount of weight once my body catches up (the 2lbs I dropped between Tuesday and now).
I know the scale is not the best way to keep track of one's weight loss process, but without giving myself a headache with all the math or getting the calculation done by a personal trainer, I'll just settle for this yo-yo effect, which makes logical sense. Here's a couple articles I found:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/83598-why-you-gain-when-starting-a-new-workout
http://exercise.about.com/od/weightloss/f/gainingweight.htm
All of the reading material I've found says slight "weight gain" at the onset is normal and common, then between the range of a week to a month or so (they all say different time spans), my body will catch up and I'll see the weight drop significantly. Given I don't have all the time in the world to wait....the 800 calorie diet I'm on should help speed things up.
I've already found myself more able to keep up with Taebo!
So I'm crossing my fingers ~
Today will be an off-day (from Roca Labs) for me. I've scheduled my off-days this week to be today (Wednesday) and Saturday. Today work is taking us out for a belated Administrative Professionals Day lunch and then the fiancé and I have dinner plans with friends. There's no point for me to waste my expensive Roca Labs when it'll either be impolite/rude or weird for me to eat 1/4 of what I ordered or I simply just want to enjoy myself today. Since we're going out for lunch I won't be able to walk, but I plan to do more housework (laundry, so prolly not as calorie-burning) and Taebo + Wii tonight Fit to compensate. Saturday I'll be with family and will be going to a friend's kid's 1st birthday party, so no point in trying then. Sunday the fiancé is gone most of the day so I'll be home alone and should have no problem doing Roca.
I've been keeping up with almost an hour of walking a day (in 70-80 degree weather no less!) plus either housework (it's surprising how many calories MyFitnessPal app says it burns!) or Taebo for an hour or two a day. My calorie intake has fluctuated but I try to keep it at about 800 net calories.
Yesterday morning I weighed myself and almost threw a fit! 175.5! WTF! Woke the fiancé up and everything! I know I didn't eat the best Monday night but there's no way I ate 2.5lbs worth!
Yesterday breakfast: Body by vi shake; Roca Labs
Yesterday lunch: Body by vi shake; walked for 50 minutes
Yesterday dinner: Lean Cuisine @ 280 calories when I got home then took our puppy to obedience training and walked approx. 15-20minutes there (we were learning to "heel"). Came home and did 2 hours of housework/cleaning (392 calories??!?!?!)
Yesterday late dinner: I realized at this point even though I wasn't hungry (thanks to Roca Labs), I was NEGATIVE net calories. I wasn't going to chow down on a Big Mac of anything, so I made a turkey and egg salad (no mayo, about 300 calories).
Net calories = 157...........bad I know, but I honestly had no idea housework was an "exercise". Now my house will probably be spotless!
This morning I weighed myself again, 173.5lb. Confusion. I lost 2lbs in one day?
My OCD googling came up with the "yo-yo effect", which basically means that many of us will "gain weight" at the beginning of any workout routine. Whether it is water retention or the fact that muscle is denser than fat. Somebody like me that doesn't have any muscle besides vital organs (hahaha, I kid.....but practically), may be quick to gain some muscle definition when I start something like Taebo. This means I will lose quick (the 3 lbs I lost off the bat), then bounce back up (the 2.5lbs I gained between Monday and Tuesday), and finally will begin to lose a substantial amount of weight once my body catches up (the 2lbs I dropped between Tuesday and now).
I know the scale is not the best way to keep track of one's weight loss process, but without giving myself a headache with all the math or getting the calculation done by a personal trainer, I'll just settle for this yo-yo effect, which makes logical sense. Here's a couple articles I found:
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/83598-why-you-gain-when-starting-a-new-workout
http://exercise.about.com/od/weightloss/f/gainingweight.htm
All of the reading material I've found says slight "weight gain" at the onset is normal and common, then between the range of a week to a month or so (they all say different time spans), my body will catch up and I'll see the weight drop significantly. Given I don't have all the time in the world to wait....the 800 calorie diet I'm on should help speed things up.
I've already found myself more able to keep up with Taebo!
So I'm crossing my fingers ~
Today will be an off-day (from Roca Labs) for me. I've scheduled my off-days this week to be today (Wednesday) and Saturday. Today work is taking us out for a belated Administrative Professionals Day lunch and then the fiancé and I have dinner plans with friends. There's no point for me to waste my expensive Roca Labs when it'll either be impolite/rude or weird for me to eat 1/4 of what I ordered or I simply just want to enjoy myself today. Since we're going out for lunch I won't be able to walk, but I plan to do more housework (laundry, so prolly not as calorie-burning) and Taebo + Wii tonight Fit to compensate. Saturday I'll be with family and will be going to a friend's kid's 1st birthday party, so no point in trying then. Sunday the fiancé is gone most of the day so I'll be home alone and should have no problem doing Roca.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Starvation mode myth
Starvation mode is the oh-so-popular belief that if you restrict your calorie intake so much then your body will conserve every calorie you consume as well as slow your metabolism down so much you'll actually GAIN weight.
After learning about the HMR diet (a physician monitored diet program, mainly used for those morbidly obese or awaiting weight loss surgery), and how physicians restrict patients' diets down to 500-800 calories a day, I was confused.....How can a clinically approved and monitored diet bring someone down that much to lose weight but you supposedly have the opposite effect when you do it alone? So I googled the crap out of it.
Of course there are contradicting beliefs, but the majority of what I found is that "starvation mode" (at least in the sense of "normal" weight loss) is a myth. Yes it is true your metabolism will slow, but there is never a point where your metabolism will slow enough to compensate for your calorie deficit and more. Any caloric deficit equal weight loss, even just by 10 calories. It essentially kicks in when a person has no more excess body fat for the body to use. Somebody at my weight will lose weight very fast on a VLCD but as my weight vs. body fat ratio changes, my weight loss will also slow. It's the same concept where a 400 pound person can go on Roca Labs and have miraculous results whereas someone like me isn't going to have results remotely comparable to theirs. One mile for a 400 pound person equals a much higher calorie burn than a 200 pound person. I'm probably not explaining it clearly, here are some articles:
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
http://www.nowloss.com/starvation-mode-myth.htm
I'm not discrediting people who believe in it, I too, believed in it just a couple weeks ago. But now that common sense has kicked in, weight loss simply means you burn more than you take in.
Anyhow, after my rant on starvation mode. I have now put myself on a VLCD ( ~800 net calories a day....NOT gross) with much success!
I've been drinking 2 Body by Vi shakes a day for breakfast and lunch, I just mix it with the frozen mixed fruit I got from Costco. I snack on nuts and I have a sensible dinner. "Sensible".
I just realize I am the kind of person that doesn't do well with deprivation. I get grumpy and feel deprived and discouraged. I still need to have "normal" food. So I stocked up on Lean Cuisines, they average about 300 calories each and is actually delicious and hearty enough for me to feel like I'm having "normal" food. The portion size is small but Roca Labs makes me full-ish about 2/3 the way through anyways.
Just this weekend I followed Roca Labs instructions exactly and stopped for 2 days after 5 straight days.
Saturday: Body by Vi shake for breakfast; leftover Mongolian Grill for lunch; 1 hour of Tae Bo and fish tacos for dinner. We were at a auction fundraiser thing for the Rotary Club that night, so fish tacos was the healthiest option I could do without ordering a 'salad' and pissing everyone at the table off. Lots of veggies, small pieces of cod, and the fattiest thing was probably the tortillas, which I didn't finish. I inconspicuously picked out the filling as much as I could.
Sunday: Body by Vi shake for breakfast; French Onion soup & fish and chips (didn't touch the chips) for dinner. I was wayyyy over my calories so I did 35 minutes of Wii Fit and 45 minutes of Tae Bo afterwards.
Again, weekends kill me. But I am also very accepting of the fact that if I'm going to 'cheat' and overeat then I need to own up to it and exercise it off so my daily NET calories is where I want it to be. Both weekend days I over-ate and didn't make the best choices, but both days I exercised and brought my NET calories down to at least 900.
Sidenote: I went to see my seamstress last Friday and my wedding gown is already falling off!! The chest area is gapping like crazy (you could seriously fit a couple kittens in there), and the waist area is so loose she had to grab at least 2 inches at the zipper for it to fit correctly! YAY~~~
So I am proud to announce, in the 5 days I have been on a VLCD (remember, net calories, which is AFTER exercise)....I've lost 3 pounds!!!
3 pounds in 5 days isn't bad! At this rate (yes I like to calculate this stuff)....I'll lose 18 pounds a month and by my deadline (3 months to go), I'll lose 54 pounds!! Which brings me down to approx. 122 pounds!! yay!!!
It honestly hasn't been difficult keeping around 800 calories a day, the Body by Vi shakes really do fill me up. I usually have it on the way to work, then around 10am or so I get hungry and I'll have my Roca Labs, then I'll have another one around noon to 1pm after I walk. I look forward to dinner but I plan it out and I get to snack on nuts if I get hungry. So really I'm not starving and barely staying alive. I really do have energy and I feel as satisfied as one can feel while trying to lose weight for their wedding.
After learning about the HMR diet (a physician monitored diet program, mainly used for those morbidly obese or awaiting weight loss surgery), and how physicians restrict patients' diets down to 500-800 calories a day, I was confused.....How can a clinically approved and monitored diet bring someone down that much to lose weight but you supposedly have the opposite effect when you do it alone? So I googled the crap out of it.
Of course there are contradicting beliefs, but the majority of what I found is that "starvation mode" (at least in the sense of "normal" weight loss) is a myth. Yes it is true your metabolism will slow, but there is never a point where your metabolism will slow enough to compensate for your calorie deficit and more. Any caloric deficit equal weight loss, even just by 10 calories. It essentially kicks in when a person has no more excess body fat for the body to use. Somebody at my weight will lose weight very fast on a VLCD but as my weight vs. body fat ratio changes, my weight loss will also slow. It's the same concept where a 400 pound person can go on Roca Labs and have miraculous results whereas someone like me isn't going to have results remotely comparable to theirs. One mile for a 400 pound person equals a much higher calorie burn than a 200 pound person. I'm probably not explaining it clearly, here are some articles:
http://www.aworkoutroutine.com/starvation-mode/
http://www.nowloss.com/starvation-mode-myth.htm
I'm not discrediting people who believe in it, I too, believed in it just a couple weeks ago. But now that common sense has kicked in, weight loss simply means you burn more than you take in.
Anyhow, after my rant on starvation mode. I have now put myself on a VLCD ( ~800 net calories a day....NOT gross) with much success!
I've been drinking 2 Body by Vi shakes a day for breakfast and lunch, I just mix it with the frozen mixed fruit I got from Costco. I snack on nuts and I have a sensible dinner. "Sensible".
I just realize I am the kind of person that doesn't do well with deprivation. I get grumpy and feel deprived and discouraged. I still need to have "normal" food. So I stocked up on Lean Cuisines, they average about 300 calories each and is actually delicious and hearty enough for me to feel like I'm having "normal" food. The portion size is small but Roca Labs makes me full-ish about 2/3 the way through anyways.
Just this weekend I followed Roca Labs instructions exactly and stopped for 2 days after 5 straight days.
Saturday: Body by Vi shake for breakfast; leftover Mongolian Grill for lunch; 1 hour of Tae Bo and fish tacos for dinner. We were at a auction fundraiser thing for the Rotary Club that night, so fish tacos was the healthiest option I could do without ordering a 'salad' and pissing everyone at the table off. Lots of veggies, small pieces of cod, and the fattiest thing was probably the tortillas, which I didn't finish. I inconspicuously picked out the filling as much as I could.
Sunday: Body by Vi shake for breakfast; French Onion soup & fish and chips (didn't touch the chips) for dinner. I was wayyyy over my calories so I did 35 minutes of Wii Fit and 45 minutes of Tae Bo afterwards.
Again, weekends kill me. But I am also very accepting of the fact that if I'm going to 'cheat' and overeat then I need to own up to it and exercise it off so my daily NET calories is where I want it to be. Both weekend days I over-ate and didn't make the best choices, but both days I exercised and brought my NET calories down to at least 900.
Sidenote: I went to see my seamstress last Friday and my wedding gown is already falling off!! The chest area is gapping like crazy (you could seriously fit a couple kittens in there), and the waist area is so loose she had to grab at least 2 inches at the zipper for it to fit correctly! YAY~~~
So I am proud to announce, in the 5 days I have been on a VLCD (remember, net calories, which is AFTER exercise)....I've lost 3 pounds!!!
3 pounds in 5 days isn't bad! At this rate (yes I like to calculate this stuff)....I'll lose 18 pounds a month and by my deadline (3 months to go), I'll lose 54 pounds!! Which brings me down to approx. 122 pounds!! yay!!!
It honestly hasn't been difficult keeping around 800 calories a day, the Body by Vi shakes really do fill me up. I usually have it on the way to work, then around 10am or so I get hungry and I'll have my Roca Labs, then I'll have another one around noon to 1pm after I walk. I look forward to dinner but I plan it out and I get to snack on nuts if I get hungry. So really I'm not starving and barely staying alive. I really do have energy and I feel as satisfied as one can feel while trying to lose weight for their wedding.
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