Hello,
It's been 6 weeks since I started my own body transformation diary and it's time to make another transformative report! I had two interesting weeks since the last report and a couple of discoveries that I'd love to share today.
What did I do in the past 2 weeks?
The main focus was the diet, which was low-carb once-a-day-meal nutrition plan. The only difference was starting counting my calories - just to keep things more interesting and scientific. Also several people asked me how many calories I had per day and I couldn't give them an accurate answer. I started doing it just 1 week ago and noticed a couple of things - first of all, my average caloric intake was just below 1000 kCal per day, which is close to very-low-calorie diet (they usually start somewhere below 800 kCal/day). Second important discovery was that effectively as I started counting my calories, my calorie counts went down, a good example of the Hawthorne effect (when people know that they are observed, their performance improves). Another interesting thing that happened was the following - on one of the days I was very tired when I came home and I simply fell asleep rather than making myself a dinner and having it. I woke up in the morning and realized that a) I wasn't really hungry and b) I managed to lose around 3 lb overnight, but for the sake of accuracy I must say that most of the weight lost was lean body mass (water). I am not planning on doing it regularly, but having longer fasts might be another tool for boosting the weight loss in the future.
What are my results of the past 2 weeks?
As predicted and as hoped, during the past 2 weeks my weight loss continued to my great satisfaction! I was hoping to at least cross a psychological barrier of 90 kg or/and 200 lb of total body weight and I managed to get way below that - I have lost 8.2 pounds and now I weigh 87.6 kg or 193.1 lb. I wanted to say that most of the weight lost was body fat - 70.0% according to my scales. At the same time I grow more and more skeptical about their accuracy. First of all, there is a growing discrepancy between them - I use two scales and the difference in body fat percentage is around 2-3%. While none of them is cheap, both of them are not professional tools. I tested myself on professional equipment - a scale that costs several thousand dollars and is way more robust than my home scales - and it showed that my body fat percentage is 18.5%, which is also a bit hard to believe compared to 25.5-27% that two of my scales have been giving me over the course of the past weeks. So, I really want to believe that I am approaching the normative 15% body fat for men, but at the same time it's hard to ignore the readings of the scales I've been using for months (one of them for years actually).
In terms of body measurements and looks - I've lost another inch in my waist (2.8-3.9" in total) and I look and feel more fit. I can also tell that my clothes fit me way better, some are already too big for me and people were making nice comments. Again, I have to mention that people tend to ask me how I feel and the answer is pretty much the same - I don't feel particularly energetic, but I can definitely proceed with body transformation strategy without feeling overwhelmed and I can work and train effectively. If anything, I feel somewhat intellectually tired of having very simple meals once a day and not being able to enjoy certain things that I would normally have at the moment, like having nachos in a movie theatre or ice cream on a hot summer day. I'm coping with that "diet fatigue" by focusing on work in order not to think about food and lack of culinary entertainment.
What's the plan and what are the expectations?
The plan is to continue with the current nutritional approach and to count calories (it seems to have merit for me) as well as to continue with regular light-to-moderate exercise, to keep increasing weights during my resistance training and I also plan to add a third day of resistance training starting next week. The expectation is to go over 30 lb of weight loss in total, likely close to 33-35. I don't really care about my scales anymore, but even according to them I lose more fat than lean body mass, so weight loss effectively equates to improving my body composition.
As always, I will keep you posted as I proceed. Please, leave comments and ask questions - I'm always happy to answer them and to share my knowledge. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave comments there too. I hope you find the information I share useful and it will help you with your goals!
Sincerely Yours,
Dr.Sam