Friday, July 16, 2010

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

Monday, June 7, 2010

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.

Friday, May 28, 2010

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.