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

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!

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

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.