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 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

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.