EmbracingChaos

Good news! FYI, ellipticals often state that your burned way more calories than you actually burned, not less. So be very cautious in allowing yourself to eat exercise calories... in fact, I'd just recommend not eating more from exercising until you're absolutely sure that you need to.

Welcome! Everyone is a nerd at something. Start doing something, anything, maybe taking the kids for a daily mile walk? Choose something small, do it consistently, and grow the habit until you're completing more than you ever could have imagined.

Moved my Tuesday fast day to Sunday. At 11 A.M. I started thinking about how I wasn't looking forward to doing it on Tuesday. So I figured instead of dreading it on Sunday, all of Monday, and then still having to go through it on Tuesday I'd just leverage the fact that I had already fasted 17 hours by that point and do another 24 to knock it out for the week. So, I did. I have to say that makes it a lot easier to deal with when you're "surprised" that you have to fast. It made me think of doing a mind game with myself. Since I usually don't eat until dinner anyway, I could do a calorie lottery. 6 pieces of paper with 2,000 calories written on it, and 1 with fast day. Each day right before my wife is about to prepare dinner I draw my piece of paper. If it's a fast day, cool, I'm already about 24 hours fasted at that point, no big deal to wait until morning. If I draw 2,000 calories, cool, let's eat. I'm a big fan of "last second decisions" so unnecessary stress is avoided. I used to get all worked up and anxious over things in the future (still do) and half of the time the event doesn't even happen. Anyway, just a thought I'll probably never try. It would be an interesting experiment, though... I'm not going to count those fasting calories for Sunday though since they are designed for Mondays' week. I'll just have to backfill my Monday calories to this entry (should be about 2000). Food: Fast Day Exercise: Rest Day Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Creatine Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,859

Food: 1,808 calories / 203g protein / 31g fat / 187g carbs Eating window ~5:00 PM - 7:00 PM Exercise: Bench Press 6x185, 7x175 Weighted Dips 6x205, 7x185 Barbell Rows 5x165, 2x6x165 Tricep Extensions 3x4x115 Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Creatine Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,712

Food: 1,994 calories / 208g protein / 70g fat / 132g carbs Eating window ~4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Exercise: Rest Day Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Creatine Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -3,239

Looks like you're making some excellent progress! Your calorie counts are good and you're getting consistent exercise. I think all you have to do is keep on going. Just remember, failure is only feedback. If things get hard and you find yourself needing to talk to someone, don't be afraid to reach out.

1) Hard to tell without more stats, such as height / weight / gender / age. The 'generally accepted' answer is that you should be able to safely lose 1% of your body weight per week. So if you are 200 lbs. then you can safely lose 2 lbs. per week. 150 lbs would be 1.5 lbs., etc. 2) Focus on eating real food, but if you track calories then there's no reason you shouldn't be able to fit in some treats here and there. We all know what real food is, but basically it means meat, vegetables, fruit, etc. Stay away from processed foods (cereal, pastries, brownies, macaroni & cheese, etc.) except as calorie tracked treats. 3) Whatever you'll keep doing. If you like tennis, go play a lot of tennis. If you like doing bodyweight exercises, get to it. The most important thing is consistency, and if you enjoy what you're doing then you are more likely to remain consistent. General advice: Instead of focusing on the goal you want to achieve, focus on setting up the habits and processes that will carry you there. For instance, instead of creating a goal to lose 50 pounds in 6 months, create a goal of eating no more than 2000 calories for 42 consecutive days. Or create a goal to go for a 2 mile walk each day during your lunch break. You really can't control how fast your body decides to lose weight, but you can always control what actions you're doing.

This was a pretty crappy workout. My ITB was hurting a lot so I completely bailed on the lunges and took it easy on squats. Then my rotator cuff was bothering me so I stuck with bodyweight pullups vs. my usual weighted. I was just a mess. That's all right though, I've been remaining consistent with my ITB rehabilitation exercises and I did get some lifting in. I got some quality writing in last night too, and that gives me a good "reward" feeling that I usually get from completing a great workout. Gotta have that accomplishment high! Food: 2,061 calories / 195g protein / 37g fat / 266g carbs Eating window ~3:15 PM - 6:30 PM Exercise: Barbell Squats 4x165, 5x150, 8x120 Barbell Lunges Weighted Pullups 2x12 x bw, 10 x bw Handstands 2, 2, 2 Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Creatine Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -2,953

There is no actual right number, it varies a great deal based on the individual. The best way is to track calories as exact as you can for about two weeks and then calculate your TDEE. To give a concrete example, let's say you averaged up your calorie intake over two weeks and found that you are eating an average of 1900 calories. Over that same two weeks you lost 1.7 lbs. You would do the math like this (1.7 is the pounds lost, 3500 calories per pound, 14 days in the time frame): 1900 + ((1.7 * 3500) / 14) = 2325 calories. So if I were in your shoes I would start somewhere around 2000 (to guarantee weight loss) and then figure out your TDEE.

When it comes to the weight loss, I agree with what everyone else said. 1 week is way too small of a timeframe to notice any sort of loss. My weight fluctuates 3-4 lbs. on any given day and I'm a male well under 200 lbs. The weight variance is greater both for females and heavier people; I'd recommend only weighing once a month unless you are going to weigh daily and create a moving average to track (which will remove a lot of the noise). As for the chores, I recommend making a deal with yourself. If there are dishes to get done, then you are going to go into the kitchen and wash one dish. That's it, just one and you can turn around and leave. Sometimes you'll only wash a dish and leave, other times you may find that momentum takes over and before too long the pile of dishes is taken care of. Whenever I try to accomplish anything big I get anxious, overwhelmed, and I procrastinate. On the other hand, whenever I come up with something so small that I can't say no, that's when I succeed. Just one dish, that's it.

Just be cautious. I was utterly amazed at how much fat I was able to put on in two days of slacking. It literally set me back not only my two week diet break but also two weeks before that. That being said, you're much more controlled than I am. Enjoy it!

That's a pretty decent macro breakdown for fat loss and your daily calories look decent as well. Are you losing weight too fast, is that why you're concerned? As long as you aren't losing more than 2 lbs. a week I wouldn't stress about it.

I set up a blog yesterday to "mind dump" for myself. I come across so many interesting self-improvement, fitness, diet, nutrition, and behavioral psychology tidbits that sit in my brain and ferment that I felt like it would serve as a better forum to be able to process my thoughts. I garner a lot of satisfaction from sitting down and distilling my thoughts into a cohesive written format. Plus, I truly enjoy writing (I finished writing a novel last year) and this will give me a more structured format to engage with people. Anyway, if anyone is interested in reading my mind vomit I placed a link in my signature.

Food: 1,775 calories / 157g protein / 99g fat / 75g carbs Eating window ~5:45 PM - 6:15 PM Exercise: Rest Day Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Creatine Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -2,734

It feels good to be back on track this week. My body fat definitely took a big hit as my trend is still going up and I'm pretty sure it will settle at about 14.3% before changing direction (~1% gain even after two days of pure fasting, ~1.35 lbs.). It's all good though, as Jim Rohn says "You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight." There's no chance I didn't get all my hormones back into an optimal state with such a massive surplus so I should be good to go to cut until satisfied. Currently, I intend to hit about a 3500 calorie deficit weekly until the end of the year, which given my rate of muscle/fat loss ratio per week would have me enter 2016 at just about 10% body fat exactly. Obviously there are plenty of holidays in there, birthdays for two of my daughters, my wedding anniversary, etc. so we'll just see how it goes. If I screw up and eat something stupid I'm not going to overreact to it. If I can make up the calories another day, great, if not then I'm not going to guilt binge over it and make things worse. I watched an interesting video from Kinobody called How to Stop Binge Eating & Get Lean Effortlessly and everything he said made perfect sense. It's a great video to watch if you struggle with guilt binge-eating after making a minor screw up like I do. It's going to be really interesting not to note down my daily weight / body fat measurements for a few weeks. Since tomorrow is October 1st, it seems like an appropriate time to start the experiment, so I'm just going to start tomorrow. On October 22 I'll enter all of the data and make sure I'm still heading in the correct direction. Food: 2,291 calories / 193g protein / 53g fat / 274g carbs Eating window ~11:30 AM - 6:00 PM Exercise: Deadlifts 4x305, 5x285 Weighted Chinups 5x195, 7x175 Overhead Press 6x120, 7x110 Barbell Curl 6x85, 2x5x85 Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin Weekly Deficit/Surplus To-Date: -2,229

Just don't eat yourself stupid like I would. Load up on protein for satiety and because it amazes other people when you grab 4 large hunks of meat and eat like a caveman.

Agreed. I've already planned out some rice, bananas, and oatmeal for later today. Staying in ketosis just isn't going to happen, plus my wife would probably kill me if I told her no more pasta.

My schedule had me fasting Monday and I still felt great after my workout so I just let it ride and stuck with the schedule. That makes this about 60-61 hours fasted as I write this. I'm going to do my scheduled deadlift workout today and that will have me right on schedule. I'm in a weird place right now with this fast because I've passed the difficult time period (the first two days are supposed to be the worst). I'm actually in ketosis for the first time. I've read that you get keto-breath, your urine smells like 'dinosaur sweat', and hunger pangs stop for the most part when you get into ketosis, and surprisingly that's exactly how I woke up this morning at 4:30 A.M., unable to fall back asleep. It's very strange. I have tons of energy, I'm not hungry, and I feel great despite only sleeping for about 4.5 hours or so. In theory I'm primed to complete an extended fast with ease at this point, which interests me, but at the same time I don't necessarily believe that extended fasting is particularly beneficial for body composition. I would also probably be best served to adopt a keto diet from this point forward since 1) I'm already in ketosis, 2) my preferred caloric deficit method resides on periodic fasting (ketosis is muscle sparing so it would be useful to stay in it), and 3) I already eat relatively low-carb (keeping carbs on training days). I don't really want to give up carbs entirely though, so meh, I'll probably not do it. I do like my pasta, oatmeal, rice, and sweet potatoes. All of these problems are so trivial and first-world. I'll probably just do my deadlifts and break fast as planned, but it's great to have options. Food: Fast Day Exercise: Bench Press 6x185, 7x175 Weighted Dips 6x205, 7x185 Barbell Rows 3x5x165 Tricep Extensions 4x115, 2x3x115 Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin

Yea any surplus is probably going to muscle recovery/building if you're that sore... you'll probably get trace fat storage at most.

Made it through the fast day without issue, though I must admit the leftover pizza my daughters ate for dinner sure looked good. I was craving pretty hard during the day but that isn't surprising given how much pure crap I'd eaten the day before. I feel great this morning (this is about hour 38 or so of the fast) and I am excited for a great workout in an hour or so. It's definitely liberating to prove to myself that I have the control over things and can get back on track quickly after making stupid decisions, particularly since I have to do these company travel meetings twice a year. I'll just get better and better at dealing with them (albeit slowly). Last year and in April of this year I did a horrible job for both trips; this trip I did great the first half and then really sucked the second half. Hopefully in April 2016 I'll manage to do great the entire time. Iterative and continuous improvement is the name of the game. Food: Fast Day Exercise: Rest Day Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin

This article on focusing on systems instead of goals fits the bill for the mindset I need to take at this point. Instead of worrying about how much body fat I lose by a specific date, or how much muscle I gain, I need to focus on hitting my daily calorie counts and workouts. At some level results are always outside of my/our direct control, but the steps we use to reach them never are. All I can do is make sure I hit my calorie counts, complete my workouts, and lower my stress level as much as possible... everything else is outside of my direct control so there is no reason to stress over it. Starting tomorrow (Monday) I'm going to workout every other day and end up with at least a 3500 calorie deficit per week. That is the totality of the plan. A week from tomorrow (October 5) I'm going to add in creatine and avoid looking at my daily weight/body fat measurements for about three weeks (I'm going to take a picture of them daily though without looking, I'm way too much of a data junkie to not gather it for later analysis). I'll backfill those data points after 3 weeks to figure out how to approach the following 3 weeks.

Yep, sugar truly is like a drug to my brain. I get a rush from it and will keep chasing that feeling until I run out of sugar or feel like I'm about to explode. If I use it like you said, I usually don't have quite as many problems, because I've planned out my calories to the point that I know I can only have X amount (I always want more though and it's still hard to fight the craving). As for binges and guilt, I'm not real sure what to do about that. Like you said, I'm worried I'd just use a guilt-free binge as an excuse to do it more often. Who knows. I'm just glad to start getting back on schedule, tracking, making progress, and making the rest of 2015 worth it. I've definitely reset any hormonal issues I may have had in the past two weeks and should be good to go for cutting as long as I need/want. I weighed myself for the first time in a little over a week this morning and it appears I've gained around 1% body fat (somewhere around 1.5 lbs. of fat). Today's fast will probably just counteract yesterday's indulgences and Monday should see me at around 14.3% body fat and ready to start working my way back down. I'm not really going to set a goal at this point; I'm just going to start down the path and enjoy the process of slowly down-trending body fat.

Interesting article about the effect of Intermittent Fasting on mice, even when calories eaten are the same:

Friday I ate quite a bit of food but did better than I could have. We were doing brewery tours all afternoon for mandatory company fun which had me avoiding trying all kinds of beer and eating other bar/grill food. I went to breakfast beforehand and had a breakfast pizza, then for lunch had shredded chicken tacos and chips (as opposed to hot wings or a large burger w/ fries), some Gardetto's for a snack before heading to the airport, and then finally a deli sandwich with a yogurt parfait before flying back home. If I'd stopped there and gone to sleep it would have been a pretty good day but I was hungry and stressed from the flight that took about an hour longer than it should have and had me arrive back home at about 1:30 A.M. I started with a large bowl of mixed vegetables and a chicken breast sandwich, hoping to fill up enough to sleep, but then ended up eating a few bowls of cereal after that while watching a Netflix documentary on Steve Jobs. Saturday More of the same disappointment. After 5 or so hours of sleep my daughters woke me up. My wife made my daughters French Toast so I ate some but skipped lunch to justify it to myself. My wife and I had already planned (before I left on my trip) to make some deep dish pizzas tonight, so I just tried to get in a good workout so it went toward something. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how well squatting turned out considering my left leg ITB is still so injured. After a truckload of pizza I ate homemade s'mores with my daughters, which started the sugar binge, and bowls and bowls of cereal followed. Ugh... totally ready for the sugar binge train to let me off. Sugar just does not agree with me. As soon as I have a little bit of sugar I have to have all of the sugar. My wife and I are both intending on doing a full-day fast tomorrow to reset blood sugar, insulin, and all of that crap. I need to prove to myself that I have the discipline anyway; I'm in that nasty failure mind-set where I feel like I just can't keep it together any longer. Tomorrow completes my two-week diet break and I am completely content to end it at this point and get back to tracking along with the accountability it provides. I feel bloated, dehydrated, unhappy, disappointed, injured, and overall just pretty shitty about how this two weeks turned out. It's time to break out of this funk. Notes for my next diet-break/calorie counting hiatus/company trips: Just stay away from sugary foods (except fruit). You'll just feel guilty and binge; five minutes of taste isn't worth the regret and cravings you'll suffer immediately after.Stick with your eating schedule. If you eat breakfast you'll just be hungry right after anyway; not to mention you won't eat any less for the meals you usually eat.Keep fruit in your hotel room for your dessert after getting back from company/family functions. It's something sweet to look forward to and helps avoid the constant temptations. It might even be worth looking into taking something to the long social functions, such as grapes or something in a baggy?Once the guilt kicks in from messing up one meal, you need to find a way to forgive yourself and just move on. Otherwise you're just going to screw up every single meal from that point forward. I seriously struggle with 'just moving on' and need to figure out how to get out of that mind-set. Exercise: Friday: Rest day Saturday: Barbell Squats (warmup), 6x165, 7x150 Barbell Lunges 2x120, 3x120, 2x120 (these hurt my ITB too much, went lighter and fewer reps) Weighted Pullups 4x185, 5x167.5 Handstands 2, 2, 2 ITB Stretches/Foam Rolling Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules (both days) Daily multivitamin (both days)

Skipped the fruit and pastry breakfast, ate reasonable at lunch, skipped the afternoon cookies and all-day gourmet coffees. Dinner I ate too much and then had a few pieces of cornbread and a pastry type dessert with some sugar/cream coffees. The day ended up in a pretty good surplus, I'm certain of it, but I did way better than I could have. I'm sick of fighting all of the good food and social occasions lasting until 10:30 P.M. Since I fly back home tonight I'm just going to relax and enjoy food the rest of the time and not stress too much over it. Monday will start my strict tracking again, so I should enjoy a bit of my break from it while I can. Food: Calorie Counting Hiatus (estimating ~4,000) Exercise: Pushup / Pullup / Situp / Handstand pushup circuits 2 x 25 / 10 / 20 / 1 1 x 25 / 8 / 20 / 1 ass-to-grass wall-squat holds: 1:00, 1:30, 2:00 Supplements: 4 fish oil capsules Daily multivitamin