AsmodeusDM

Thanks everyone for the support! I'm having another MRI this week (this one with some sort of contrast) so that can be 100% sure the full nature of my injury; and I will likely seek another professional's opinion just to make sure; however this Doc comes highly recommened from several others who have been in a similar situation.. so I'm pretty sure he's giving it to me straight. He did mention to me that (while certainly not right away) lower-body cardio is fine during those initial months, he himself had shoulder reconstruction and used a stationary recumbent bike to keep in shape, eventually moving into leg presses and other lower body isolation exercise... As for somethign so upper-body/arm intensive as rball or climbing.. best to wait until 2013

After a series of intense racquetball games last month I found myself with an increasingly sore shoulder. After noticing that I was having a hard time rock-climbing and doing shoulder presses; I scheduled a trip to a sports medicine doc's office. Just learned yesterday that I have a torn labrum in my right shoulder. It'll take surgery and then require 6 to 12 months of recovery time! I mean this thing barely hurts; discomfort is more the sensation and then 6 to 12 months of recovery time! Geesh. It's not the money, the time-off, the Phys Therapy, or the pain that's upsetting to me. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm super bummed that I won't be able to work out, lift, or go do the intense sports/activities that I have come to love. I'm really scared that I'm going to put back on weight (that took me years to lose) and get super outta shape during this recovery period. Not to mention missing the entire summer's worth of fun: swimming, sailing, tennis, outdoor climbs, etc.. and possibly even some of the winter stuff if the recovery takes that long. No real question here; just wanted to share :-/

The armband is always worn high on the left arm tricep (if you are right handed). If anything it underreports single-arm sports since I don't use my left arm for anything during racquetball. But clearly either intake or output is wrong. re: laidback Do I like the way I look in the mirror? No. In a way, despite the weight loss, I look worse. My stomach still has a very pronounced gut, although now it's looser and more wrinkly then before ( I imagine from losing the fat from beneath the surface). As I mentioned my waist size has not dropped in months. My thighs and butt still have thick folds of fat on them, which haven't really changed much.

Perhaps I have been a bit colder... but then again it is winter..so hard to tell. I take a Vitamin D supplement, but not Magnesium... not sure I've read about that before.

Yeah I tried doing a big refeed week back around November. I figured it was convenient with Thanksgiving and all. I went 3000+ calories each day. Ate tons of dark and light meat turkey mostly (with skin). Had some of the starchy carbs and fattier meats (honey ham). The net result? Well with loading back all those carbs and salt I also loaded up a ton of water and gained like 12 pounds of water weight. I mostly felt bloated and uncomfortable during the week, and after I went back to mostly low-carb the 12 pounds took about 5 days to come off (which was psychologically nice to see) but then the weight after dipping to 192.. buoyed back up into the 194's.

Corey I definitely accede your point: But consider this: in 66 days, while my weight has gone and gone down, it has on average, remained flat (if you take a 30-day moving average the trendline is almost entirely flat). I record my calories in about as accurately as a person can, my data tells me I'm eating 2500 calories per day. Let's say I was 10% off (which would be a lot) and I'm actually eating 250 more calories EACH day. Now my revised version is that I'm eating 2750 per day. In order for my weight to have not changed I need to have burned then..2750 calories. My armband tells me I'm buring 3300 calories per day. It would have to be off by almost 25% then, which is a huge variance. Failing that, Harris Benedict clearly would indicate I am very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) which takes BMR x 1.725 for daily calorie needs. So let's sabotage that, let's say I'm only moderately active and BMR is multiplied by 1.55. So to get a daily burn of 2750, my BMR must be 2750/1.55 = 1774 the standard BMR calc would tell me that I'm 66 + (6.23 * 195) + (12.7*73) - (6.8*29) = 2010 So the question is... even with these DRASTIC overconservative measures. Do I really think my metabolism is 20% slower than the normal base persons? And if it is!!!! What do I do about that?

My point for the armband and "metabolism slowdown" is that if my body was indeed adapting and workign LESS hard on my exercises, BMR, et. al. then I would expect my armband to show the slowdown in burn rate whilst doing exercises. If this HAS happened, it hasn't been a large enough drop to be noticeable visible from a numerical perspective.

-I do drink a goodly amount of water, sometimes based on how often I have to go to the bathroom at work... I would say probably too much. -As I mentioned, my sodium level is above what the American Heart Association says, but it's far below the American Average. And I feel like I'm getting too woozy if I take it down too much further. - re: Sedentary/Moderate ratio. Sedentary is defined as 0-3 METs that's sleeping, sitting at a desk, walking around a shopping mall, standing in-line. Moderate Activity 3-6 METs is triggered by low-level cardio exercise. My 1 hour and 30 minutes of Moderate activity each day is hiking in the park near my home, or (if nasty and cold) doing the treadmill at the gym at 4.0mph on a 6%-10% grade. This is inline with the Primal Fitness approach of plenty of low-level cardio. I should also note that no matter how "intense" my lifiting sessions, they always fall within Moderate Activitiy (and if there are long rests between sets back down into Sedentary). Vigorous is only triggered when I am running or playing VERY hard (like competition level racquetball). And yes this does mean I spend 1.5 hours each day doing hiking or incline treadmill (or lifting). - re: 1g protein per pound per day. I currently weight ~195 pounds, 19.5% bodyfat. I eat an average of ~190g of protein per day. - re: 8 hours of sleep per night in a dark room. Dark? Yes. 8 hours? No. I would say that I need to get more sleep (the armband tracks this too). On average I get close to 6 hours each night (the armband tracks when you are in deep restive sleep, or non resting sleep... I typically am laying down for 7 hours per night midnight to 7am.. and of that only 6 hours are actually "good" sleep). - re: cycling. I do cycle. Actually I carb cycle. I alternate between carb-down days where I eat very little calories or carbs. And then occasionally have a carb up day where I'll eat some oatmeal at breakfast, a bunch of 'sweeter' vegetables at lunch along with some fruit, and then have a sweet potato for dinner along with my regular fair. - re: IF. I have not tried IF. I know the hoopla surrounding it, but boy o' boy do I get hungry with my exercise schedule... and missing a meal just seems....wrong somehow. but maybe I can give it a try. -re: BMR. Now the armband does not work off an "expected" BMR. It uses a series of calculations and sensors to determine your caloric burn but primarily heart rate, skin temperature, perspiration level, and galvanic skin response. I have a friend that is the same height as me 6'1" and around the same body weight (a little less) but has a freakishly high metabolism, he has always been able to eat whatever he wants and has no problems with weight. When I am sitting down completely at rest/asleep my resting rate is 1.5calories/minute. That's ~2160 calories per day "BMR". In fact when I was sick for a few days and got complete bed rest my daily burn on those days was around 2200-2300. My friend who put on my armband recorded a 1.9 cal/min burn rate. Doens't seem like a lot but it's ~2700 calories per day... a 600 calorie difference. -re: exercise rotation: I throw in random activities whenever possible... throwing in swimming if I haven't done that in a while, or snowshoeing or biking.. anything to spice it up. My lifting routine is also cyclical.. somedays we'll do 5sets of 5 reps heavy.. .other days 2 sets of 15 lighter. I also have a "book of exercises" containg about 500 different exercises.. and some days I'll randomly flip to an exercise and we'll perform that one just for some new variety.

I do. An average of 2815mg per day. More than the recommended, less than the average. I initially cut my sodium way down just by switching off processed foods and elminating added salt. I found, however, that I was getting kinda woozy after hard-long runs so I did start adding more salt back into my diet and the wooziness during/post exercise has dropped off. I would say that my primary source of non-added sodium is cottage cheese and deli meat. My typical daily meal structure (which varies only slightly) looks like this: Although I never have Cottage cheese more than once per day. Breakfast: Egg white omelette with mushrooms or peppers. Occasionally shredded cheese. AM snack: Cottage Cheese OR Protein Shake OR deli-turkey (chicken) lettuce wrap (just meat and lettuce, an occasional slice of whole milk cheese) or Nuts Lunch: Lean protein + Salad + Olive oil PM snack: Cottage Cheese OR Protein Shake OR deli-turkey (chicken) lettuce wrap (just meat and lettuce, an occasional slice of whole milk cheese) or Nuts Dinner: Lean protein + Salad + Olive oil + Vegetable.... plus rarely a "better' starch (like a sweet potato)

Members of the revolution, I present to you a dilemma that I cannot quite wrap my head around. For the past 13 months I've been actively involved in losing weight through increased physical activitiy (racquetball, rock climbing, running, skiing, etc.), resistance training (barbell whole-body lifting via NF/Primal), and diet (I'm more paleo-inspired that dedicated, but I have substantially cut down my carbs and dont' eat any flour/sugar/etc). I am a data analyst by profession and so I have taken detailed and copious recordings of my weight, BMI, waist measurement, and calorie intake for the past 13 months. When it comes to calorie intake I record every single thing I eat (even a life-saver) and I go by package calories, WEIGHING all food when necessary (even something like an apple) to get the accurate amount. On the occasions where I do eat out and calorie information is not available, I ASSUME THE WORST and pick the worst example of the food I can find in the food-calorie catalog. From Jan'11 to Jul'11 I lost an appreciable amount of weight and saw myself getting stronger. I was lifting more weight, and moved down a pants size. As I said I weighed myself everyday too, so despite the day to day flucutations (sometimes as much a +/- 8 pounds) the overall trend (smoothed average) was definitively downward to the tune of ~ 1.5 pounds of body weight lost per week. In addition I dropped from around a 22% body fat to a 19-20% body fat. This changed in Aug 2011. For reasons that I cannot figure out, my weight loss suddenly stopped. In September I found that my weight was actually increasing somewhat. I hypothesized one of three reasons: 1. I was gaining more muscle than losing fat. 2. My metabolsim had slowed and I wasn't "burning" as much as I thought I was. 3. I was eating more than I was recording in my log. I quickly dismissed #3. While I accept that my calorie logging will never be 100% accurate, it would have had to have been 50% off-target in order to explain the lack of weight loss. While I may log 2400 calories and it may have been closer to 2600 calories [reasonable]. I refuse to accept that my logging is so inacurate that when I THINK I'm loggin 2400 calories, I'm actually eating 3600. Again I eat out rarely, prepare most the vast majority of my foods at home (breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and snacks) and weigh everything. I also dismissed #1. You see since Aug 2011 (through now) I have continued to lift weights. I have added another 40 to 50 pounds to most of my major lifts. However, in that time my body fat % has NOT CHANGED. It is still in the 19-20% range on a daily/weekly basis. I perform my body fat % calculation using two methods 1. Electrical Impedence device AND 2. Body fat calipers. I even visited one of those clincs once where they put you into the "egg" shaped device and pump it full of gas to determine your exact body volume; it confirmed that my BF% was 19.6%. If I really am/was gaining that much muscle and losing fat at the same rate (resulting in a net weight gain/loss of zero) shouldn't my body fat % be heading down into the lower teens? This left me with the second option... how many calories am I really burning? To answer this I purchased a BodyMedica CORE armband. This device (which I wear 24 hours a day) measures your heart rate, movement, electrical response, skin temperature, etc. to determine how many calories you are burning per minute. I wanted to confirm, exactly how many calories I was burning. The device is fairly impressive, it is sensitive enough that I can see on the min-to-min chart when I was doing something like climbing a couple flights of steps. It also highlights the fact that gym machines are NEVER accurate about calorie burn [ a treadmill which says I was getting 14 cals/min burn rate, was actually closer to 9 cals/min when recorded by my armband]. The end result however, is that I have now been DILIGENTLY recording both my calorie INTAKE and BURN for the past 10 weeks. The summarized results (downloaded via my various electronic recording tools) are shown below: Date range: 11/26/11 - 1/30/12 Days: 66 Calories Consumed: 167,237 [Average of 2533 per day] Nutritional Intake: % from Protein: 29% % from Carbs: 21% % from Fat: 50% % from Alcohol: 0% Calories Burned: 216,609 [Average of 3281 per day] Physical Activity Daily Average: 1h 31m Average Steps: 11077 Average METs: 1.57 Average Hours Sedentary per Day (0-3 METs): 22h 2m Average Hours Moderate per Day (3-6 METs): 1h 43m Average Hours Vigorous per Day (6+ METs): 0h 15m Net Difference: -49,372 calories [-750 per day] Now with ALL that. A loss of almost 50,000 calories, you'd expect a weight loss of ~14 pounds. However, my weight has essentially not changed. The day-to-day week-to-week calculations still bounce around the 194-200 range. And my moving average is actually completely flat. In addition, during this time my body fat % has not changed AT ALL. I have continued to lift and have added more weight to my lifts, although not as quickly as I did initially [ of course ]. Objectively this means I am getting STRONGER, I am BUILDING muscle; how else could I be lifting more then? Why then has my Weight NOT dropped NOR my body fat % gone down. My waist measurement has also NOT changed; it is still at the same 36"-38" measurement that I had BACK IN AUGUST. I am completely and utterly clueless here as to what to do next. Everything I'm looking at tells me that I should have lost any where from 10 to 15 pounds of body fat and gained at least several pounds back as muscle. This should have at least caused me to lose 5-10 pounds of net body weight, and dropped 3-4% of bodyfat. It hasn't. I need help... I am looking at a math problem that goes 2-4 = 0 and I cannot figure it out for the life of me. Thanks...

Yes but I've only been doing Primal for 6 weeks... I haven't lost weight in 6 months. And during that 6 month time I was a diligent calorie counter and exerciser. So I agree Primal hasn't done anything to "shake me out" of this lull. Question is... what SHOULD I do?

Cottage Cheese = Dairy = Not allowed on a Paleo/Primal diet. Mark Sisson's Primal Blueprint allows SOME dairy, but only in moderation, and if it's super unprocessed and as close to raw as possible. Also I agree that BMR (and it's subsequent formulae and calculations) are all a bit too exact for a science that isn't at all exact; but I generally feel that after losing weight for 3 years (well 2.5 since I haven't lost any in 6 months) that if I exercise and east around 2500 I lose a pound a week. The calories burned may be hard to get exact, but I know exactly what I'm putting IN at least.

... but can't seem to make it over that last hill. Quick history: I'm 6'1", 29 years old. In 2008 after being unable to ride a ride at an amusement park I decide "I need to change like everything about my life". At this point I weighed 310 pound. ~40% bodyfat In the intervening years I've progressed through a slow but steady life-altering changes. I cut soda, eliminated all super processed foods, began regularly exercising and playing racquetball. I lost about 60 pounds. ~30% bodyfat Not yet satisfied, starting mid last year I began diligently recording all my calories in and calories out. Wearing a heart rate monitor when I worked out. Did half-a-round of p90x twice Weight continued to come down to about 220. For my height... 189 pounds is the textbook definition of "no longer overweight." For some reason, I wanted to be able to meet that definition (plus I get my healthcare costs at work lowered if I do it). Earlier this year I began running: a mile used to kick my butt, no I can do a 10k at the drop of a hat. Also via nerdfitness started doing free weight whole-body lifting into my routine. Soon I dropped down to 195 pounds, 20% body fat. .... And there I have stayed for almost 6 months. I cannot for the life of me shake off this remaining 20 pounds or so of body fat. I feel healthy and good, better than I have in my whole life. But I still have this thick paunch of belly fat around my mid-section (and some in the thighs). I really really want to get to below 189 pounds, and ideally to 10-12% body fat. Almost 6 weeks ago I bought one of NerdFitness's PDF and decided to go Paleo/Primal (after reading Cordain and Sisson's books). I already didn't eat any refined carbs, so removing grain was easy, dairy (esp. yogurt and cottage cheese) was the hard part. Okay so 1.5 months of Primal eating. 6 months of big, barbell weight lifting 3x/week. Playing racquetball/tennis/rock climbing/kickball, going for hikes and geocacheing, getting some nice long easy runs thrown in there, doing sprints once a week. I take my multivitamins... hell I even bought a pair of Vibrams! On top of this I still record all my cals in/out. Sure there are days where I go over my goal, but each day I manage to eat 2000-2500 calories, with my BMR at about 1900, my actual burn (w/ exercise) closer to 3000. That puts me right on for 1-2 pounds of slow fat weight loss a week. Those cals? 20-30% from carbs (all fruits and vegetables), 30% from protein (turkey, chicken, eggs, protein shakes), 40% from fat (healthy nuts, avocados, seeds, etc) And nothing...... NOTHING. My gut it still there... my weight bounces between 190 and 200 like that it's job... My % body fat has stuck between 18.5 and 20.0 for the entire 6 months. I literally CANNOT think of anything else that I could do.. in order to make this happen.. I dont' want to eat less.. because I understand all the risks associated with UNDEReating... and I don't want to exercise more because I understand all the risks associated with OVERexercising (hell I'm already in the gym about 5x/week for lifting and for racquetball). Please... NF community..... HELP