To Be Continued

click to say goodbye 

It's been almost two months since I finished my diet and I'm happy with the results.  I feel healthy and more fit than I have in many years.  I've actually continued to loose weight even thought I've stopped counting everything.  What this means for me is that I think I'm done.  Done for now at least.  This blog was a documentation of a change in me.  I ended up changing a lot more than I had originally thought I would.  I feel proud of my accomplishments.

My father says it takes 21 days to form a habit.  A habit however is quite different than a change.  I can't really say how many days it took to change me, only that I exited this process different. 

This isn't goodbye, it's see you later.  I'm still blogging on the other site, and I have many ideas for future blogging adventures.  I may call upon the powerful power of blogging in the future to help me with another life change, and when that time comes, there will be metrics.  Thanks for reading.

To be continued.

Final Metrics

Age:  27

Height:  5'9"

Weight:  161 lbs

Waist:  31

Week 6: End of Phase 1, and I Suck at Soccer

Lots to talk about this week.  First off, I weighed in at 164 lbs today.  This means my DCV is 1882 Cal and my BMI is 24.2.  This is excellent news.  It means that I've successfully completed phase 1 of my fitness goals:  Get my weight down.  

Phase 2, is where I increase my range of motion/flexibility, and add weight-lifting to my workout.  This may result in my weight going back up, but it will be built on a better cardiovascular base and a much more disciplined diet.

Speaking of diets, now that phase 1 is complete, I'm technically done with the diet.  This doesn't mean a green light for junk food, but it does mean I'm going to allow a greater tolerance for my caloric totals.  I may decide to stop tracking the composition of my diet in the next few weeks.  This has been the hardest part in my opinion.  Getting accurate information on food items can be really hard.  Even more hard when I'm eating many vegan recipes from the web.  I've often used the non-vegan numbers when I couldn't find nutritional data on the vegan version as to be conservative with my numbers.

Last week was kind of a bummer.  I was honestly not motivated at all to do this blog.  I was back-logged on recording my numbers and honestly wasn't caring.  It was only over the weekend that I was talking to the motivational speaker and pop-locker extraordinaire, Otis Funkmeyer, that I found the motivation to continue. He said he was impressed at what I had done so far, and made an analogy I thought was worth sharing.  He said that no business enterprise is successful without good accounting.  I thought about my success so far, and in my fitness and wellness enterprise, I had to admit, it was my nutritional and exercise accounting that had made me successful.  It's not time to quit.  I may keep new metrics for phase 2, but I will still keep the numbers coming.\

I thought I'd give you some new graphs this week.  The old graphs are great, but it's the same thing every week.  The first two, examine the relationship of how I spend my time in relation to what type of day I'm on in my schedule.  

click to notice the the images are already large

The first thing I notice is that, on average, I'm actually pretty much the same on days and mids.  I only exercise and sleep a little more on days.  The second thing I notice is that I'm using my days off in a good way.  As for consistency, well... the standard of deviation for how long I sleep is about 2:21.  I'm kind of all over the place.   It's interesting to me that even though I get a little more sleep during days, I'm way more consistent on mids.

click to view battle damage

I thought I'd offer some data to inspect my previous claim about my attention to fiber being a great way to stay on top of things.  While there is some reason to believe a relationship is here, you can see that my data points are all over the place.  There appears to be a pretty natural break at around 2,000 Cal where my fiber level seems to vary with a large degree.

click to ole, ole, ole, ole, o-le, ooo-le!

Lastly, I'd like to show you how awful I am at soccer.  I shot 10 balls from three places on the field:  The left and right corners of the penalty box and the top of the penalty arc.  The ones I made in, I assure you would have been very easy to block.  It's time for the World Cup, so get excited.  I know I am.  I will post future attempts to best this terrible performance.

Week 5: Less Than Enthusiastic Post

Hey. Working in the middle of the night blows. I'm almost done though. Five more nights of work starting on Saturday. I think posting has been hurt due to this, so that sucks. I can report that things are still being recorded though.

I weighed in on Monday and I'm down again. I now weigh 168.1 lbs. This means my DCV is now 1902 Cal. My BMI is 24.8 which means that I'm officially no longer considered overweight! My clothes fit pretty loose and so I can sense that I'll need a new wardrobe soon.

Sleep is better during mids I think. It's that or I'm just getting better about doing it since I'm recording it. Necessity drives you. That's the interesting thing about recording your life. It's introspection on yourself in VERY literal terms. No ego to lie to you.

I had a few high calorie days recently, but I'm not too concerned. Crossing my DCV doesn't mean I gain weight. It means I lose less weight that if I was below it. I'm getting better at developing a sense for my numbers and I think come the day that I stop writing everything down, I'll be well equipped to live healthy and happy.

Week 4: Mega Metrics

I have 28 days worth of Data! This is a cause for celebration! I wanted to put something special down today because I've not been so good about posting this week. Tonight, I've brought you just about everything I was supposed to post, plus a little more. Things of note this week: good results and I took some time to make my graphs look polished. Also, observe the new blog banner.

click to go over the rainbow

This week we can see some interesting habits in my sleep. Note 5/11 through 5/14. This is while I was working my "mids" schedule. What I see here is that when I'm on mids, I'm much better about being consistent with my sleep schedule, and I'm actually getting more sleep than my daytime work schedule. Perhaps this is a sign of Shift Work Disorder. I'm not sure if I buy into SWD just yet. It seems like a ploy to sell pills for what is otherwise obvious: When you work through the night, you sleep at odd times.

Moving on to the Composition of my diet. I've been posting "young data" in the last two weeks, but I figured I'd show all my composition cars at once since today is 28 days worth of data.

click for professional teens

Protein is an area I do fairly well in. For a 2000 Cal diet, the daily value is 50 g of protein. The DV is calculated to a % of your calorie intake. I'm actually getting a good serving of protein. This I want to emphasize because you'll notice I meet my protein needs with no problem given the recent change to a pescetarian diet. Although I still eat fish, it is not a daily food for me. Most days, I eat zero animal products. It is a common misconception that vegan, vegetarian, or similar diets leave a person protein deficient. Even when I was still eating meat, my primary source of protein was from sources like black beans and lentils. On average I ingest 74.04 g of protein a day.

click fo- Wanna ride bikes!

Sugars I don't quite have mastery of. I vary quite a bit, but I don't have a terrible average intake. I haven't observed any real noticeable fluctuation in my energy levels, but I've also minimized my caffeine intake. Sugar shouldn't be feared, I need it for my brain to function well (Editor's note: Results may vary). In a given day my average sugar intake is 69.47 g.

click regularly

I can't prove it yet, but I'd say that my success thus far has largely been due to good fiber intake. For a 2000 Cal diet, the DV for fiber is 25 g. As I've stopped eating meats, the foods that have replaced them have all been higher in fiber. Fiber, along with drinking lots of water (approx 2000mL) every day make me feel good. On average, I intake 33.86 g of fiber. I'm extraordinary at being regular.

click if you like pasta

Carbohydrates are more erratic in my diet, but I'm almost always under the DV. The DV for a 2000 Cal diet is 300 g. I eat on average 221.07 g per day. I'm particularly proud of this considering my choice to become a pescetarian. The increase in vegetables has not shot my carbs through the roof. Suck it Atkins! I'm doing this with a balanced diet.

click avocado style

Fat is a something I go over on rather frequently. It's not something I worry about. Fat is quick energy, and is easy to burn. My workouts help use this energy quickly. If I'm monitoring my calorie intake, and I'm active, fat content is lesser an issue. The DV for fat for a 2000 Cal diet is 65 g. My average is 59.87 g per day.

click because you see pretty colors

I won't lie. I've had cheat days. any day where my calories are exactly my DCV are days in which I have decided in advance that I the day would be better if I went off duty tracking things. On these days, I don't punish myself on the numbers, so I just record the day's calories to equal the DCV. For my diet content, I use the average values from all data previous. If you're wondering what that recent really low day is, it's from me staying up an not sleeping after my mid shift so I could flip my schedule back. This added a weird half day in. I did not starve myself.

click lightly

Today was my weigh-in. I woke up at my girlfriend's house and used her scale. It's the same model as mine. It read 170.6 lbs. I peed. It read 170.2 lbs. I didn't believe my eyes. It seemed like too much. I figured the scale was calibrated a little differently than mine. I decided to redo when I got home. By time I had got back I had drank some water. Despite this I ended up weighing in at 169.8 lbs. I didn't know what wizardry was afoot, but I thought that perhaps the scale wasn't level and I moved it. Upon the second attempt I weighed-in at 169.2 lbs.

I decided to write in 170.0 lbs for this week. This means that my new DCV is 1912 Cal, and my BMI is now 25.1. In terms of BMI, for my height and gender, a value of <> is normal weight. My goal is still 165 lbs. This means I'm close to completing the first phase of my wellness and fitness goals, but we'll talk about what changes when that days comes.

So what happened this week? No loss last week and then a loss of over 5 lbs this week? I speculate that last week's weigh-in might have been when I was water-heavy. I think it would make more sense and explain both weeks. 3 lbs in a week is normal at my level of activity and diet, but 5 lbs is a bit crazy.

It's much more difficult for me to post this stuff during the week due to the mids schedule, but I'm sure it's better that I'm getting more sleep.

Workout Data

Tuesday: Aikido - 01:45

Wednesday: Interval training - 00:30

Thursday: Interval training - 00:30

Friday: Interval training - 00:30

Saturday: Interval training - 00:32 (two minute bump! w00t?)

Sunday: Hiking in Rock Creek Park - 03:30

Nutritional Data 3.0

click or die

Here is a newer and more functional Nutritional chart. I've become increasingly more efficient at entering my numbers and organizing my information. This chart is color coded.

Color Data!

Yellow - Dairy
Pink - Red meat and poultry
Blue - Aquaculture
Black - Alcohol
Green - Vegetables

As you can see, a large portion of the chart is also Red. This would be the red meat, poultry, and dairy products. I am no longer eating these things.

The Metrics of the Metrics of Me

click to understand my free time

Who watches the Watchmen? I just wanted you to know, that I'm watching you, and if I'm watching you, I'm probably counting you as well. Let's get a little meta for a moment. I thought I'd put up a fun post. Some may have noticed on the sidebar a link labelled "The Metrics of the Metrics of Me". I guess it could be fun to do a post about me and my blogging habit.

Some background on me and blogging. I've been doing it for about a decade now. In it's earliest form it was mostly bad poetry about girls and not fitting in. More recently, it has been more political and addresses some issues in American culture. True to my roots, I still like the bad poetry and pining over women. What's a guy to do?

So here's a fairly comprehensive summary of my Blog habit.

click because it feels right

Day & Night

I work a shift schedule. My shifts are all 12 hours long and either run from 7:00AM - 7:00PM (A "Day" shift) or from 7:00PM - 7:00AM (A "Mid" shift). The schedule follows a 56 day cycle.

Schedule Data

4 days - 5 off - 5 days - 4 off - 5 days - 5.5 off

4 mids - 5 off - 5 mids - 4 off - 5 mids - 4.5 off

This will have an obvious impact on my diet, workouts, and sleep. My goal from here is to make the second half of the 56 day cycle as successful as the first half. The "month of mids" as I call it will have some unique challenges, but I'm hoping to proactively address them.

Planning will have a large part in this. I work out before work is one major change, but due to the nature of my schedule, I'll only be able to attend aikido classes on my days off now. This means, my running is going to be all that much more important. I'll also probably be eating prior to work, and packing a midnight meal. Having a nutritious meal at work will be a huge factor because my workplace typically only keeps very sugary and fatty snacks available in the break room. Removing any temptation there is of capital importance.

I'm still not sure what will constitute a "day" in terms of data during this time. It's easy when you sleep at night. A day's nutritional intake is just what you eat on a given calender date, but when you are awake equally for the date change, things get unclear. I think the rule will be to use the time I wake up on day one, until the time I go to sleep on day two. I'll log data under the date of the second day (just like I charge my hours at work).

Off to the grocery to be equipped for success! Take it away Cudi!

Week 3 & Monday Weigh-In

click at own risk

Plenty to learn from this week: Results aren't always linear. A note first about this week's data. My numbers for Saturday are made up. I did this in advance because I knew that I'd go off diet that day for the wine party I was hosting. I used my DCV for my Calories, and the average nutritional values for my diet content. Other than giving myself a day off, I did fairly well on my numbers and did not go over. I did hop on the scale mid week to take a peek (kind of against the rules... heh), and noticed I had actually gone up in weight. Instead of letting myself feel let down, I simply kept to the plan.

click for delay enlightenment

By this morning I seemed to have returned to 175 lbs. This means that I'm down zero lbs this week and my DCV will remain at 1937 Cal for the next week. It's nothing to be upset about. I feel my body is more toned, and I think that I made other types of progress this week. Speaking of tone, I think I'm going to slowly add back in some strength training into my workout. My goal is not to be massive, I don't think that would look very flattering on my 5'9" stature, however in both aikido and break-dance I'll need some more strength for me to continue to develop.

Workout Data

Monday: Interval Training - 00:30
Tuesday: Aikido - 02:00
Wednesday: Interval Training - 00:30
Thursday: Aikido - 01:15
Saturday: Interval Training - 00:30
Sunday: Interval Training - 00:30

Young Data: Fiber

click to see your future

Last Thursday I put up information about my carbohydrate intake. This week I'm going to put up some data on my fiber intake on the ongoing metrics involving the composition of my diet.

I guess that I should take some time to provide some context. How much fiber should I get?

The amount you need is tied to the number of calories you eat in a day. For healthy adults, the USDA recommends 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories consumed. So a person eating 2,000 calories a day should aim to get 28 grams of fiber daily.

This means that my 1937 Cal diet needs 27 grams of fiber. If you look at my chart, you'll see a very odd day in there. Honestly, I can't explain it. What did I eat that day that was so high in fiber? If I take out the highest and lowest values, I'm getting an average of 37.76 grams of fiber daily. Not bad says I. Fiber helps keep you "regular" (or in my case: Spectacular), but it also helps flush fats and lipids from your body. I find that on days where my fiber is high, most other numbers are in their desired ranges as well.

Sleepy Head

click for sweet dreams

Here is the last 15 nights of sleep. I'm not that good at this game. I think after this week, before I go back to work on my vampire schedule (I'll explain that later too), I'll punch some numbers on my sleep and see how many sheep I'm not counting on my nights before work. Sorry, I don't have much to offer tonight, but I'll leave you with something you can read in my absence about people other than myself that live by their numbers.

The New York Times: The Data Driven Life

Another blog: The Quantified Self

Monday Weigh-In (May 2, 2010)

click for full sized fun

Hello everyone! It's time to hit the scale. I weighed in this morning, but didn't have time to screen shot my chart until now. It's been a long day so I imagine that my sleep metrics will suck for the night.

It was a good loss this week. I'm down to 175 lbs. I also did some thinking, and I know where the end point is. I'm shooting for 165 lbs before I transition to the next phase of my fitness goals (but that's for another day). I figure this means I have about 3-4 more weeks of work ahead of me to clear the last 10 lbs. Diets aren't meant to last forever...

Body Metrics

Weight: 175.0 lbs

BMI: 25.8

This week's DCV: 1937 Cal (to lose weight)

Week 2

click to see full size image

Data for the second week! This chart displays not only this week, but both weeks thus far. I think that the more data the better. It will be useful in finding trends in my behavior and help me optimize my process. The blue line is my Daily Caloric Value (DCV) calculated for me to lose weight. Each week I recalculate the value, so each week it will move down as I lose weight (because I'm not going to get any taller... perhaps...).

Some notes on this week. I went over my value on two days, but in the end, my weekly total (11,931.47 Cal)was lower than last week (12,035.50 Cal). I think this is worth noting. It can be a deflating (inflating? heh?) feeling to mis a daily goal, but it's good to remember to not get discouraged and refocus.

I'm becoming very conscious about how much work goes into this, but at the same time, I feel like this is a very positive growth for me. Tomorrow is my Monday weigh-in. I think it will go well. My goal for this next week is to try and stabilize my numbers some and try to learn and analyze my diet composition so I can start engineering a more perfect experience (because let's face it, I don' want to diet forever...).

Workout Data

Wednesday: Interval Training - 00:30

Thursday: Aikido - 01:30

Friday: Interval Training - 00:30

Saturday: Interval Training - 00:30 (tried to up my speed but it kicked my ass)

Bloodwork

click to see full sized image

So this is my blood. I got the lab results in the mail today. This felt a little weird typing up, but hey, why not? I'm pretty healthy... Oh wait. What is that at the bottom? Oh shit, I need Vitamin D. I have about half of what I should have for the lower limit. Well, this should be expected given I work in a cave perhaps, but I'm not going to take it laying down (in the shade no less). The doctor gave me a prescription for a mega Vitamin-D pill that I take once a week. I try and spend a good amount of time outside on my days off, but I'll admit it: I need a tan.

Summon the vampire jokes...

Young Data: Carbohydrates

click on image for full size

I've not just been counting calories, but also I've been monitoring the composition of my diet. Here are the numbers thus far in terms of carbohydrates (the above chart is in grams, sorry for the absence of units). I admit at this time, I haven't done much ground work as to being able to read into the daily carbohydrate contribution should be for my body. What I can tell by looking at this graph is that I've been on a upswing of carbohydrates even though in general I'm decreasing the over all amount in my diet.

I've also been monitoring fat (g), sugar (g), fiber (g), and protein (g). My hope is to post about a component of my composition diet on Thursdays. Also, I'm trying to make thee graphs more fun. As you can see this is also a journey in Microsoft Excel.

If you have any useful info on composition diets, please do share in the comment data. Thank you!

Sleep Number

Click for full sized image

It's late and I guess that means it's perfect for me to post of the last week's metrics on sleep. This is an area that will be fun to trend with my work lifestyle. This is a wellness blog, so I have other things that I'll be tracking here other than my diet and exercise. To mix things up, I'll try and post this information on Tuesdays.

Monday Weigh-In (April 26, 2010)

click for full sized image

The weigh-in went well this morning. I'm down to 179.2 lbs. I have not been below 180 lbs in since my 5th year in college (not an encouraging statement for multiple reasons.

This week, I'm off Tuesday through Friday, so my days will have less structure. This will provide me a challenge to keep numbers in tolerance and use my time effectively to get as many workouts in as I can (my shoulders are still sore from Thursday's Aikido class).

Week 1

click for full size image

So here is the data for the first week of my diet. The blue line represents the daily caloric value I have calculated for myself (1,972 Cal for a 5'9" male with moderate activity). The red line represents my recorded values for the week. This chart will be one that is posted on a weekly basis.

Some notes here. The weekend was erratic. This was largely due to me eating many new foods. I can't fully trust the numbers for either day (especially Sunday). I may end up going back and recalculating numbers to see if I was actually that low. I find that when I feel I don't know what (as in nutrition facts) I'm eating, I'm very "portion shy" to be on the safe side.

Last week I also had some good workouts. We'll see if the diet along with the week's activity produced any results! I'm feeling confident.

Workout Data

Monday: Interval training - 00:30

Tuesday: Aikido - 01:30

Thursday: Aikido - 01:15

Sunday: Yoga - 01:30

Nutritional Data 2.0

click for full image

The completion of week one has taught me a lot in terms of tracking numbers. First lesson: It's hard. The best thing I think I've done is use good tools. In this case, constantly updating the nutrition data chart to include new food items, and literally printing out weekend diet worksheets to fill in for the days i'm away from the computer.

Fashion Metrics

I thought of some more measurements that seem easy enough to keep track of today: Clothes.

I can already tell many of mine are fitting looser (over the last 3 months). It could be that I've shrunk, or I've just stretched out my jeans... Hmmm. I'm going to track this metric as well, even if it is more a measure of what I spend my money on.

Clothes Data

T-shirt: L

Button up Shirt: M

Jeans: 34/30

Shoes: 10 US (9.5 UK)

Hat: 7 and 3/8

Nutritional Data 1.0

click image for full image

So my approach to nutrition currently is to examine the places I eat already and the common foods at my home. For the restaurants I go to regularly (or order carry out from work, I will pre-examine the data and have ready to order purchases so I can know I'm making the healthiest selection possible. For foods at home, I looked around and tried to find healthier selections at the grocery. This spreadsheet will continue to be updated as I gather and pull more data.

E.g. - I now purchase Baked Tostitos instead of the regular type. This is part of my strategy to control my portion sizes. My roommate makes his own awesome healthy salsa, but our consumption of it is limited by the old chips we had.

Serving Size Data

Tostitos: 6 chips (weak shit)

Baked Tostitos: 14 chips (Hadoken!)

Cat Cohabitation 1983 to 2010

I think this deserves further investigation. Hmm... Interesting.

click image for full image

Cat Data

Number of Cats: 1

First Data Point

Today is the beginning, so today should be recorded for a measure of success. I've actually lost about 8 lbs already, but for the purposes of this journey, today is day one. Having said that, I have lost 0 lbs so far. Today defines the successes of tomorrow. I will weight myself once per week (usually on Mondays)

If I had to pick an arbitrary day to be day one, today isn't bad. Yesterday was my 27th birthday, so today is Julian day one on my 28th orbit around the sun. For instrumentation, I purchased a scale and the scale told me that I did not gain any weight over my birthday weekend (booze, pecan pie, booze, Japanese food) which means one thing: I love this scale.

Data

Name: Chi

Age: 27 years (9,855 days)

Weight: 182.0 lbs (82.55 kg)

Height: 5'9" (175.26)

BMI: 26.6 "Overweight" (calculated using NIH online calculator)

Blood Pressure: 120/80

click image for full image

Science Arrives

Hello, my name is Chi. I'm a long time blogger and I've just started a new phase of my life. I've decided to loose some weight, regain range in my joints, and reenter the world of martial arts (and perhaps some others too). I'm an engineer by trade, and I've been watching a few people close by as they are embarking on similar challenges. This blog will be not only about my exercise and diet routine, but also some fun with me inspecting my world and documenting it.

Today is the beginning (well, actually I'm like a week into the plan already, but here is a good starting point to blog).