Year 30: Fitness

I've decided to try to get back into blogging. As limiting myself to just design-related posts ended up yielding a rather slow stream of posts, I'm going to expand to cover all sorts of stuff.

I recently turned 30, and like many people, I felt like this was a milestone that deserved a little introspection. I've decided to refocus on some things that have been important to me. The first thing is my health and fitness.

I've been on a new fitness plan/diet since January 2, and I waited until today to post about it because I was waiting for a major milestone: I've officially lost 10 pounds already.

First, a little background -- I've never been fat or scrawny, but instead have vacillated in roughly the same 30-lb. weight range for half my life. I was 185 lbs. when I was 15 (I was already at my full height of 5'11"), and started realizing that was maybe a little big for me. I changed my diet and began exercising and within a year was down to 155. Through high school and college it slowly climbed back up to 175, and then for some reason in the first couple years post-college I lost about a pound a month until I was down to 152. At this point, I genuinely was too thin, and I decided to finally join a gym. Having built some muscle I ended up reaching the peak of my fitness around age 25, weighing around 160-165 lbs. and even had some slight ab definition in the right light. But in the years since I've gained some back and have mostly been 175-185.

This past fall I sort of "fell off the wagon" in terms of exercise and not only was I back at my peak weight, I am fairly certain I had lost some muscle. Basically I looked the worst I'd ever looked and wasn't happy about it. I then learned about the Four Hour Body by Tim Ferriss, and was particularly enticed by three major points: you get a day off each week to eat whatever you want, on other days you do not have to limit portions as long as you stick to "approved" foods, and apparently the whole thing works fast. (He claims you can lose 20 lbs. of fat in one month.)

So I decided to do it, but waited until the day after New Year's so I could ride out the holidays without watching what I ate.

The diet is pretty simple to remember but is quite restrictive. You can eat anything from these three groups but nothing else:

1. Proteins (meat, poultry, fish, eggs, tofu, etc.)
2. Legumes (beans, lentils, etc.)
3. Non-starchy vegetables (mostly greens -- no potatoes, for example)

That's it. This is hardcore low-carb (the only carbs allowed are basically beans -- not even brown rice is okay) and doesn't even allow eating fruit (other than tomatoes) because of the fructose (sugar) in it. No alcohol, aside from a couple glasses of red wine. You're not even supposed to consume artificial sweeteners (aspartame, Splenda, etc.) as they trigger some of the same chemical responses in the body that real sugar does, basically telling your body that you should store calories as fat and increasing your hunger. One day a week you are required to eat whatever you want all day -- not just allowed, but required -- as this "reboots" your metabolism to prevent it from thinking you are on a starvation diet.

This diet was especially hard for me because I am the pickiest eater you'll ever meet. "Oh I'm worse," you say? No, you're not. Of those three things allowed above, the only thing I ate was the protein part, mostly in the form of insane amounts of chicken. I could go into more detail, but just trust me -- everyone I've met has been flabbergasted by my limitations with food (a lot of things actually start to make me retch).

This is part of why I picked this diet, though. It was forcing me to try new things that are healthier for me. The first week of the diet was painful. The vegetables I tried were mostly terrible, and I was only able to really stomach some spinach being tossed in with the few things I actually liked. I tried a variety of beans and found them barely edible but mostly unpleasant. I was eating chicken, eggs, and turkey bacon constantly, as some of the few "recognizable" foods I was allowed. I was aching badly for my first "binge day" when I could revisit the foods I loved. And yet, I was surprised to find my hunger greatly diminished very quickly. Something about the carbs in my diet (I used to eat a LOT of whole grains -- shredded wheat, oatmeal, whole wheat bread, etc.) had made me feel like I could eat non-stop. The new diet was painful, but it was changing my appetite, and in that first week, I lost 5 lbs. It was working, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to survive week 2.

Realizing 5 lbs. was nothing to sneeze at, I relished my binge day and then decided to try the diet again for another week. I found myself doing the previously unthinkable -- searching across the grocery store for new legumes, soups, vegetables, and seasonings that would fit in the diet. If I was going to have to eat like this, I was going to find foods that I didn't just tolerate but actually liked. And somehow, things started turning around. I realized that since bacon was okay, I could add it to a salad. I tried mixing beans with my favorite marinara sauce. I learned that cooking lentils with soy sauce outweighed their natural flavor and made them tastier. Things began looking up. In week 2 I lost another 3 lbs.

Week 3 wasn't even a question -- after my second binge day I felt ready to hop back into things and was actually starting to (gasp!) enjoy some of these new foods. I've eaten 2 salads pretty much every day this week, and although at first the weight loss seemed to be plateauing, I am down two pounds and still have one more weigh-in tomorrow morning before the official week count is up.

I'm a little more than halfway to my total weight loss goal, and it's exciting. The plan includes some other elements -- supplements and vitamins, lots and lots of (cold) water, and three 30-45 minute weight training workouts a week (which is actually less than I used to do as recently as this summer) -- but it was the diet that I knew would be my biggest challenge.

Why am I sharing all this? Well, first, I'm proud that I have been able to actually lose some weight, but mostly I'm proud that I've finally been able to bust out of my old patterns and expand my diet to include healthier foods. Once I reach my goal (and I'm fairly certain I will), I may even share my before-and-after pictures. And at that point, I'll move into "phase 2," which will switch from weight-loss to muscular fitness and involve some other beneficial changes.

I will say, if you are looking to lose some weight yourself, most diets will work -- if you stick to them. And this is where almost everyone fails. What I think differentiates this one is that it is somehow both one of the most restrictive and one of the most freeing, by balancing the diet limitations with a weekly day off, and does not require you to ever feel hungry. I had tried low-carb diets before and always felt deeply sad at the prospect of potentially never eating some of my favorite foods again (pizza, chocolate, and oddly, shredded wheat). There is no feeling of that here. I'm never starving, I don't have to count calories, and I always know that whatever I want to eat is just a few days away.

And still, I've lost more weight faster than I ever have before. I hope I can keep it going!