Avatar Nutrition and flexible eating

The times in my life I've lost a significant weight I did it with low carb eating or a computer program called Diet Power. Diet Power was awesome because it adjusted my calories to ensure I hit a certain weight of my choosing by a certain date also of my choosing. The big problem with Diet Power was it was a computer program that was downloaded with a disk. So I had to carry a lap top with me everywhere. I also tried flexible eating with a diet coach. That worked well. I thoroughly enjoyed having someone knowledgeable there to tell me how many carbs, fat, and protein I needed to eat to make my goals. I also really enjoyed being able to log my food and prepare meals with absolute control and accuracy of carbs, fat, and protein. But a nutrition coach was expensive and having to report my daily successes and failures with feed back every week was to much pressure for me.

I recently found a website that seems to have all of the positive aspects of a nutrition coach and Diet Power on a mobile site for your phone. It's called Avatar Nutrition. It allows me to prepare and log food. And it also adjusts my calories, carbs, fat, and protein to ensure I'm maintaining my weight loss goals.

I started it today. I'll be able to use it until my family and I leave for a 7 day vacation in New York. During that time I'll put the Avatar Nutrition program on vacation mode, so I'll be able to start back where I left off when I get back from vacation.

Current weight 325lbs, down from 346lbs a month ago. My goal is to get down to the 220's.

I'll keep you updated on how I'm doing and what I think of Avatar Nutrition.

weight loss and olympic weightlifting part two: metabolism and olympic weightlifting

I've been trying unsuccessfully for over a year to lose weight while training olympic weightlifting. I was using the MyFitnessPal phone app. MyFitnessPal is great. It's easy to use and can be used anywhere. When using that app I assumed my metabolic rate was around 3000 calories a day. It was 3300 back when i was training triathlon 20+ hours a week. I assumed it would be slightly lower now that I was olympic weightlifting 4 times a week. I was wrong, and my assumption caused massive problems. I'd start dieting, I'd plan on losing 2 pounds a week. If my metabolic rate was 3000 calories a day and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, I'd have to cut out 7000 calories a week, which is 1000 calories a day. So I'd eat 2000 calories a day plus any calories I burned from workouts.

3000 (metabolic rate)
-1000 (calories per day for 2 pounds weight loss a week)
---------------------------
2000 (calories consumed per day)

Using this formula I'd get hungrier and hungrier everyday until I couldn't handle it anymore and I'd binge eat gaining more weight than I had lost. I decided to stop using MyFitnessPal and go back to using Dietpower. Dietpower is a program similar to MyFitnessPal, but the biggest differences is that Dietpower will figure out my metabolic rate, MyFitnessPal doesn't.

Now that I've been using DietPower, it's shown me my metabolic rate is much higher than 3000 calories a day. It's 4130 calories a day to be exact. That makes a lot sense as to why I was overly hungry and why I need more calories now. Muscle burns calories. I'm burning more calories now that I'm a weightlifter and have more muscle then I did as a triathlete.

Since starting to use dietpower I've dropped from 311 pounds to 299 pounds without being very hungry at all. So the good news is I'll be able to be more loyal to this diet because I'll be more comfortable. The bad news is I've decided to limit my weightloss to 1 pound a week and at that rate it will take me 68 weeks (May 2016) to get to my first goal of getting into the 105k weightclass. And it will take me 93 weeks (Oct 2016) to get to my 2nd goal of getting into the 94k weight class.

Wedding rings & triathlon aren't compatable/ Or weight loss & triathlon

The other day I was talking to a fellow triathlete & cycling stud named Jason McClure. Jason is one of the most amazing cyclists I've ever seen. Anyone who knows about cycling & running knows the lighter a person is the faster they are. Jason weighs 238 pounds & is still one of the fastest cyclists competing in the South West Challenge Series. How he does what he does on the bike being so big I don't know. It's simply not human.

Jason had seen how much faster I'd become in triathlon because of my recent weight loss. He asked what I'd been doing to drop so much weight & get so much faster so quickly.... I'd like to apologize to any athletes out there who are in his age group. I told him my secret. I told him, "It's all about the diet." & I told him about the diet plan I'd been using. I can't even fathom what kind of speeds this guy will be able to get to if he tries dietpower! The sky's the limit!

When I first started triathlon training I was overweight. Within months of starting a triathlon training plan I was able to get down to 235 pounds, which was progress from where I had been at, but I got stuck at that weight. Nothing I tried seemed to get me below the 235 mark long term. A couple years ago I found a diet program called Dietpower that gave me the tools I needed to get triathlon thin & fast! Shortly after I started using Dietpower I was able to drop below 200 pounds for the 1st time since high school. I was able to stay between 184-200 pounds for a year & a half. I got my body fat tested in May 2010 at The University of New Mexico physiology department & at 186 pounds my body fat percentage was eight & a half percent. I had a ripping 6 pack (see picture above), & was a faster runner & cyclist than I'd ever of dreamed I could be. Over the winter I stopped utilizing dietpower & gained my weight back. By the new year I was back to my old weight of exactly 235 pounds. Why the heck does my body like that weight so much? I dunno, but I know I sure didn't like being 235. I was slow in triathlon & I didn't like the way I looked, so I started using dietpower again. Since Jan 1st I've lost 34 pounds & have got my run speed from a dismal 9:30-10 minute per mile pace back down to a 7:36, which is what I averaged at this weekends Mesa Valley Triathlon in Las Cruces New Mexico.

As I lose weight I get thinner everywhere. Even my fingers get thinner. The only bad thing I've found about triathlon training & finding a diet that works well for me is that I've had to buy a new wedding band every time I lost more weight. The old one became to big- rather my fingers became too small. I've had to buy 3 wedding bands, 2 in the last couple years alone! The 1st couple times I lost so much weight I had to buy a new wedding band I thought it was cool. I'm hoping if I get to my dream Ironman Arizona weight of 180 that the wedding band I wear now will still fit, having to buy a 4th wedding band would be ridiculous!

that's a first!

I woke today wanting to eat, needing to binge. That same old story for me. Its never easy getting so close to a goal (185-195 pounds) & seeing it, in one single day start to slip away so quickly. That is exactly what has always happened to me once I get near or at my goal race weight. There is a clear difference in the way a craving feels & an upcoming food binge feels. Once I feel a binge coming on I've never once been able to avoid it. Worst of all is that it takes weeks or months to get pointed back in the right direction.

When I woke up today I needed to EAT, & it wasn't just a food craving, it was a binge. I adjusted my DietPower from having me lose 2 pounds a week, to a maintenance diet. That gave me 1000 calories a day more to eat, plus whatever I may earn in working out. I ate a good breakfast with lots of water, some coffee, & a bit more fat than I usually would have. Through trial & error I have learned moderate amounts of fat help satisfy cravings & bad food tendencies. Having coffee helps too, not sure why, but it most definitely does. & obviously water helps because the body can confuse dehydration & hunger (great advise Misty, thanks). After the first meal my cravings subsided, not much but at least I didn't feel like eating EVERYTHING!

I did the same thing for lunch. I ate what I was craving, which was 2 egg sandwiches with mayonnaise on whole wheat bread. I also had a bunch of water & a diet Mountain Dew. Not the best meal for an endurance athlete, but my goal today was to right the ship, not eat the perfectly designed athletic recovery meal here. Now, did you notice I was able to stop at 2 sandwiches? The list of foods I ate doesn't go on for half a page here!!!!Shortly after lunch I felt almost no cravings at all. By golly I did it!!!!!! I'm still on track to getting to 195. Perhaps even 185!!!!! This is the first time I was able to stop the evil downward spiral! HURAY!!!!!!!! Good for me, bad for competing Clydesdales everywhere:)

Still going strong

This whole week I've been on a high. I finally had a good race this weekend at the Santa Fe Triathlon. I averaged over 20 miles an hour on the bike & had one of my top 3 swims ever. I'm sure a lot of my performance had to do with me finally completing all of my scheduled workouts. I was swamped with family obligations this summer and missed a bunch of workouts, but even when I did have the time to train I missed more than my fair share. A lot of that had to do with burnout from training for Ironman Arizona last year. I believe I'm back in full swing now!

I believe the other aspect of my increased speed is my diet. Before I was following Weight Watchers, which I don't believe is a great diet for endurance athletes. Most of the week I burn well over 1000 calories a day working out. On WW I only replaced half of what I burned, which left me at a huge deficit, which not only prevented me from getting the nutrients & calories needed to recover, but also left me furiously hungry all the time. Coniquently I was constantly falling off the diet wagon. All that yo-yo dieting was frustrating to me.

On my new diet regimen I'm rarely ever hungry. When I am hungry I do a quick swim, bike, or run at an easy pace to earn some extra calories. Since I get to eat %100 of the calories I burn it's very easy & worth while to do extra exercising.

Because it's so rewarding to workout extra, I've been doing a lot of zone 1 training on my indoor trainer while watching the Tour De France. It's very easy for me to lose track of time watching the Tour. Normally an hour on the trainer a couple times a week is all I can tolerate. While watching this epic bike race I'm putting in an hour and a half to two hours a day at least four times a week on top of my scheduled workouts. So far this month I've racked up 470 cycling miles. I'm hoping to hit my first 600 mile month without missing any of my scheduled running or swimming. I'll need to average a bit over 17 miles a day the rest of the month, but since this entire week is a recovery week I may miss my goal by just a bit.

My weight this morning was 213.6. I l'm down another 2 pounds this week, 14 pounds lost total while using dietpower. 28 pounds to go.

Thanks for tuning in!

warning very very graphic pics, & more losses

This week has been an awesome week! My wife's B-day was celebrated this week. At the party I had to much cake & pizza. I was 1100 calories over to be exact. On dietpower, my new found dieting program, I am able to easily do a quick workout to earn extra calories. I got home, rode my indoor trainer trainer while watching the Tour De France. 1 hr 38 minutes & not only was I able to earn enough calories to negate my excess calories, but I had earned 200 calories more than I'd needed. Speaking of indoor training miles I've been logging a ton of indoor trainer miles on top of what my coach has assigned. Another successful day & successful week in the books! Current weight is 216. I'm down 11 & have 31 more pounds to go.

At work we call new employees fish. Partially they're called fish because they are wet behind the ears, but also because more often than not it's the rookies who either don't have the experience or common sense to avoid getting stabbed. So they are usually the ones flopping around the the floor like a fish out of water with holes poked in them from an inmate.

My oldest friend works at another facility & sent these pics to me, they are of a rookie who was a really big guy. He saw an inmate with a shank & rather than wait for proper back up or calling for the tower to open fire he decided his size, strength, & aggression would be able to overwhelm the skinny, yet armed inmate. Apparently that didn't work out so well for him.

One of the things I've learned from 14 years working in a prison is no matter how hot it is, bring a jacket with a liner, hoodie sweat shirts, and at least a few t-shirts, along with our mandatory uniforms. I wear all these into the pods, cell blocks, or dorms when I have my spidey sense tell me to be on my toes. There's been more than one time that this has saved me from earning extra holes to breath from, literally & figuratively, just like a fish.

Thanks for tuning in.

Continued weight loss!

A friend of mine named Sandra is an endurance athlete very similar to me- only she's a faster cyclist. She too struggles with her weight. it sucks having to struggle with weight when your an endurance athlete because low body weight is so very important to our speed and endurance. It has to do with our power to weight ratio on the bike & the height to power ratio on the run.

Sandra showed me a computer program called dietpower. It's AMAZING! I've been making great gains for the 2.5 weeks I've been on it & haven't fallen off the wagon once since starting the program. I was until recently doing weight watchers online. I found out that on WW I was hungry all the time. Like I've said a 100 times I'm an all or nothing kind of a guy. Once I fall off the wagon for one meal I may not gain control for days or even weeks. I believe the reason I was so hungry on WW was that I was only able to eat half the calories I earned from my workout. Being a long distance triathlete, it's fairly common for me to burn 4500 calories on a long day of training. Out of the 4500 I burned I'd only be able to eat 2250. In my opinion that left me at such a large deficit that not only was I STARVING, but even worse was that I wasn't getting enough calories or nutrients to recover from a hard days training.

Another thing than Sandra & I have in common is we've both turned to blogging to stay motivated, show our recent weight & athletic gains & losses, to share our battle, & perhaps to even help others who also have our issues with the battle of the bulge. Her blog isn't public or I'd share the sight with my peeps, but I'm very excited to watch her adventure.

I weighed in @ 218 this morning, down from 225 a little less than 3 weeks ago. I'm hoping to be approximately 205 by the Halfmax National Championships race on Sept 19th. I'm a fast triathlete at that weight. My long term goal is to be @ 185 pounds by Nov 10th. The lightest I've been since mid school was 188 pounds in May of last year. I think I'll be able to get to that weight using my new Diet Power. But more importantly I think I'll be able to maintain that weight this time.

On to the Tour De France!!! I'm a bit behind, stage 5 was today yet I just finished watching stage 4 on TiVo. Stage 4 was the team time trial. Stage 4 was the most exciting stage I've ever seen!!!!! & this Tour is turning out to be the most exciting Tour I've ever watched. I'm going to try to watch all of stage 5 today before I go into work. For those not watching YOU ARE MISSING OUT BIG TIME!

Peace peeps!