Whisper’s Reboot!

[Whisper]

Introduction:

Back in mid-2015 I was really starting to make progress on myself.  I joined the Academy, got active with the forums there and started knocking out quests. For the first time since high school I was about to see the other side of 300 pounds! Then everything went to shit… Medical problems and relationship issues pushed weight loss to the back burner and the weight came right back. I’ve been fluctuating up and down for three years now, with my weight currently at 361. My highest weight was 375.

 

Why it’s gonna work this time! One of the biggest supports I had in my first run was the Academy Forums, where I received a lot of support, encouragement and advice.  Sadly, those forums are gone now, but I am hoping to find the same thing here.  I’ve cleared a lot of the distractions from my life, and with the stress and obligations of the holidays behind me, I feel ready to jump into this thing with both feet, and this 4-week challenge feels like the perfect place to do it!

 

Long Term Goals:

1.     Lose 111 pounds. I don’t know what a healthy weight will end up being for me, but I know it’ll be easier to see down at 250.

2.     Eliminate all debt (including my student loan) by the end of 2024.  I’ve got a few other milestones slated for that year, and I want that milestone to make the list.

 

Goals for the Challenge:

1.     Follow a four week Keto diet plan. Got a cookbook with the meals and grocery lists all set up together for me.

2.     Log all food. Meal plan only comes to about 1500 kcals. I have keto friendly snacks to supplement that. Aiming for about 2000 kcals/day.

3.     Do the Academy Warm-Up and Cool-Down every day.  This should jumpstart some strength and flexibility for and lay the groundwork for Bodyweight Exercise.

4.     Log all financial transactions in a budget app. Just like logging food to know what I am eating, this will help me get a stronger hold on my money and see where I can refocus my spending.

 

I just noticed that this challenge doesn’t start until the 7^th, but I am jazzed up and going to be starting tomorrow.  I’ve done my grocery shopping and cleared out the junk food, so wish me luck!

[RES]

54 minutes ago, WhisperLost said:

I just noticed that this challenge doesn’t start until the 7^th, but I am jazzed up and going to be starting tomorrow.  I’ve done my grocery shopping and cleared out the junk food, so wish me luck!

You don't need luck, you got this!! Lots of us start in 'zero' week so you've got company!

 

[Jean]

46 minutes ago, RES said:

You don't need luck, you got this!!

QFT.

 

Also, I love your goals. Looking forward to following your progress.

[WhiteGhost]

Welcome back!

 

6 hours ago, Whisper said:

Sadly, those forums are gone now, but I am hoping to find the same thing here

I don't know anything about the Academy forums but the forums here are really great.  I have observed that as long as people stick around, the forums are a great resource and source of strength.

 

Remember, the only way you can lose is to quit trying  

[Watkinson.DM]

Great goals friend!

 

Reach out if you need a hand or someone to chat to. 2019 is going to be a great year!

[NicTheRugger]

You have really solid long-term and short-term goals!! I think you're gonna kill it this challenge. I'll be cheering you on!

[Whisper]

Today I cooked! Followed the meal plan from my cookbook, and logged everything in Fitbit. Came out to 1,694 cals. 63% fat, 32% protein and 5% carbs. I've got lots of food set aside to get me through the work week.

 

I also did the warm-up and cool-down this morning. It was more challenging for me than I thought it would be, and took about a half hour to get through. Not something I'm going to be able to do in my rush to get out the door in the morning, but I can do it after work, and with some practice I should be able to get it done more quickly and at some point switch it to mornings.

 

For the Academy, I did my before pictures and my measurements.

 

Overall, I'm feeling really good this day -6 of the challenge. 

[Whisper]

Day -5 is done!

 

Kept to the meal plan and food logging. 1,552 cals. 60% fat, 34% protein, 6% carbs.  I haven't been feeling all that hungry, but did feel some impulses to eat junk food while driving past fast-food places this afternoon.

 

Completed the Warm-Up and Cool-Down. My legs were actually a little sore when I got up this morning from just the little bit of squatting and lunges I did yesterday.

[The budgie smuggler]

Hi whisper

looks like you’re going strong keep up the good work.

[karinajean]

hey! I am a fellow academy forum member too. I was pretty nervous about joining these forums, because they seemed so much bigger and scarier than the friendly academy forums, but I really really love it here and am happy to call this a "home." 

[Whisper]

Day -4

 

Last night (when I should have been sleeping) I ended up wandering around and snacking mindlessly.  Fortunately, I really did clear out my junk food, so rather than a bag of popcorn, or a bunch of chips, or a bowl of ice cream, I had a couple handfuls of pumpkin seeds.  Did my best to estimate the amount and added it to my food log for today.

 

Logging went well, following plan went ok. I don't think I would use this exact meal plan again, but it has been a really helpful learning tool thus far. 1,903 cals, 66% fat, 24% protein, 10% carbs.

 

Completed the Warm-up, decided to make a few changes to the Cool-down. Removing "Downward Dog" and Lunge stretch; having too much balance struggle with Down and the Lunge position puts too much pressure on my knees. I still feel I'm getting a good full body stretch without them.

 

[Whisper]

6 hours ago, karinajean said:

hey! I am a fellow academy forum member too. I was pretty nervous about joining these forums, because they seemed so much bigger and scarier than the friendly academy forums, but I really really love it here and am happy to call this a "home." 

 

They were a useful tool, and I do miss them, but I am finding this a good substitute thus far. I tried the Academy Facebook group, but that format really doesn't work for me.

[karinajean]

9 hours ago, Whisper said:

 

They were a useful tool, and I do miss them, but I am finding this a good substitute thus far. I tried the Academy Facebook group, but that format really doesn't work for me.

 

the facebook groups are huge and it's really hard to dig deep into a question there. There's also such limited search functions on fb so there's virtually no historic archive of info. I'm glad these forums are working out!

[Whisper]

Day -3

 

This morning, as I was heading back to work in a department during their break, I saw couple operators carrying doughnuts, and thought to myself "Sweet! The manager brought in doughnu... ohhh... shit." Then my friend that I was giving a ride to wanted me to swing by Papa Murphy's to pick up a Pizza for her, and every fast food place we passed looked so good.

 

Keeping up with my log and plan. 1,842 cals, 66% fat, 31% protein 3% carbs. Fun fact; Fitbit seems to think I should be eating about 3000 more calories than I am. It also thinks I burn nearly 4,000 cals on a day off, and 5 to 6 thousand on a work day. I really hope that it is wrong, I really hope that I wasn't eating that much crap everyday to be this fat with that much output.

 

I've been feeling slightly queasy most of today and haven't been sleeping well this week (or most of last week), so decided to skip the Warm-up and Cool-down today. Might try to do it when I wake up. For now, I'm gonna spend some time in Sir Terry's world and try and get a better nights sleep tonight.

[Sylvaa]

1 hour ago, Whisper said:

Keeping up with my log and plan. 1,842 cals, 66% fat, 31% protein 3% carbs. Fun fact; Fitbit seems to think I should be eating about 3000 more calories than I am. It also thinks I burn nearly 4,000 cals on a day off, and 5 to 6 thousand on a work day. I really hope that it is wrong, I really hope that I wasn't eating that much crap everyday to be this fat with that much output.

 

It depends! I know my husband (who is about 250) has a maintenance calorie base of about 2,500 (purely coincidence that it's that pretty). If you have a fairly active job, it wouldn't be out of the realm of the possible. Current weight does impact how many calories you need to stay in maintenance, so your would be higher also.

 

However, just as an FYI - Fitbit will potentially double count calories, depending on how you have your profile set up. For example, if you set your daily activity level higher in your profile, it's going to give you a higher calorie goal based on activity level AND will give you extra calories for exercise / walking. FWIW, I always set my activity level to sedentary, so any "additional" calories aren't duplicated. 

[Whimsy]

Hello and welcome! Will be cheering you on.  Goodluck!

[NicTheRugger]

10 hours ago, Whisper said:

This morning, as I was heading back to work in a department during their break, I saw couple operators carrying doughnuts, and thought to myself "Sweet! The manager brought in doughnu... ohhh... shit." Then my friend that I was giving a ride to wanted me to swing by Papa Murphy's to pick up a Pizza for her, and every fast food place we passed looked so good.

Ooh, doesn't it always? Congrats on staying strong, my friend! You can do it =)

[Whisper]

TLDR for below: I'm losing weight! More than weight than I think is fat loss, and more fat loss than I think is sustainable, but I am happy with it.

 

Ok, I weight myself in this morning at 351.9 lbs. Some quick mat [361.4-351.9] puts me at -9.5 lbs over the last week, only 4 days of which were on Keto. Even if my doubts about how much Fitbit says I burn a day were entirely unfounded, I would still only have expected to see a bit less than 4 pounds of fat loss. >3,000 cal deficit over 4 days would be >12,000 cals.  3.500 cals per pound of fat would be >3.43 pounds.

 

So, lets round that up and say I lost 4 pounds of fat, and 5.5 pounds of water/fluctuation.  That's still really damn good for less than!

 

Extrapolating a whole bunch of assumptions going forward... I could be looking at up to 7 pounds of fat loss and up to 16.625  total pounds by next week! Now, I would expect the water loss/fluctuation to go down overtime. I don't care about that; I'm not trying to lose water, I'm trying to lose fat, and like the thought of losing 7 pounds of it a week.  

 

Fun fact: fat exits the body as carbon dioxide and water at a roughly 80/20 ratio. So 7 pounds of fat would turn into  5.6 pounds of C02 [is there a way to make that 2 subscript?]  and 1.4 pounds of H20 [that tutu?]. Now, while this could arguably make my fat count as something of a carbon sink, I think the reduced carbon emissions from eating less food will more than offset my increased personal emissions.  Amount of C02 per calorie of food varies wildly by type and source of that food; meat takes more than plants, local takes less in the form of transportation...

 

Buuuuuuuuuut [I like big caveats and I cannot lie] this really isn't a sustainable weight loss rate over the long term. As my weight goes down, the number of calories needed to support that weight will also go down [I decided not to graph that, for now] and I suspect that I'll also need to take in more calories per day than I currently am, thus reducing the fat loss from both ends. I'm good with that. I'm not sure what the taper rate is going to be, but overtime I expect to stabilize between 1 and 2 pounds per week and hit inevitable plateaus; I'll just be thankful for the early kickstart on the journey.

 

To be clear, I'm not even hungry right now, much less "starving" myself. I've given myself full permission to eat Keto friendly snacks, and when I get hungry, I'm doing just that. Most days thus far, I'm feeling just fine with my meals and not wanting to snack at all.

[Jean]

48 minutes ago, Whisper said:

Fun fact: fat exits the body as carbon dioxide and water at a roughly 80/20 ratio. So 7 pounds of fat would turn into  5.6 pounds of C02 [is there a way to make that 2 subscript?]  and 1.4 pounds of H20 [that tutu?]. Now, while this could arguably make my fat count as something of a carbon sink, I think the reduced carbon emissions from eating less food will more than offset my increased personal emissions.  Amount of C02 per calorie of food varies wildly by type and source of that food; meat takes more than plants, local takes less in the form of transportation...

 

Considering a good part of it would also turn into CO2 upon your death, you'd also need to eat things with tons of preservatives and hope your body turns into stone or something to keep the carbon there. I like your approach to environment preservation more.

[Whisper]

TLDR for below: Sleep sucks and my meds aren't working right. I don't think the diet is the problem, it's been going on for a while but it has been even worse since starting keto.

 

Now that I've written way too much about fat loss, I'm going to write way too much about sleeping!

 

So, I put this in my introduction [but not here], I have Narcolepsy. Most people seem to fall into two categories when I say that; they either have no idea what it is, or remember comically exaggerated media depictions. Even medical descriptions on places like WebMD and Mayo Clinic belie the fact that it can take as long as 10 to 15 years after the first symptoms appear before narcolepsy is recognized and diagnosed. Basically, if you think Narcolepsy means randomly falling asleep, you're not exactly wrong, but you're missing the reality of it.

 

Overly simplified, the root cause of Narcolepsy is a breakdown in the barrier between being awake, and being asleep. The symptom of that most critical for treatment is disrupted nighttime sleep. Basically, I don't stay asleep at night. For years "normal" for me was waking up every 15 minutes, checking the time and rolling over. Lather, rinse, repeat ALL NIGHT LONG. Leaving me incredibly tired ALL THE TIME, to the point that, yes, I can fall into a microsleep at inopportune times during the day and I even think I got in a car accident because of it while fighting with my insurance about the diagnosis after they refused to cover treatment. I stopped driving for close to 6 months after that... Even with treatment, if I am both board and sitting I am likely to konk out briefly. Fortunately I have a job where meetings are rare, short and standing, and long sit-down meetings average fewer than twice a year.  I stand in the back of the Sanctuary during sermons, and am actively engaged with either playing music, or running projection for the rest of the service. I've thought about going back to school to earn a Master's, but the sleep issues during High School and College make me afraid to seriously consider it. But day to day life? With treatment I'm fine, and yes, I do drive (my doctor has to sign off on that every year).

 

"So how is it treated?" I'm happy you asked that imaginary person! Every night at bed time, I take what is essentially a date-rape drug to knock myself out for 2 to 4 hours, when I wake up and take a second dose to get me through the rest of the night. For a few years now, this has been highly effective. The stuff is strong enough that I get quality sleep, but metabolizes quickly enough in the body (thus needing two doses) that I'm not completely zombified the next day like I was with normal sleep aids. At least, that's how it was.

 

For the last few months, the first dose has not been knocking me out nearly as quickly as it used to. I've been working with my doctor to try and make some adjustments, but thus far it hasn't worked. Since starting the diet, the second dose hasn't been working right! Last night I was feeling soooo tired that I tried going to bed early. I took my first dose, only got an hour of sleep, waited for the second prescribed hour to pass and took the next dose, but didn't fall asleep for another hour and woke up after just one more. Tried for another hour to get back to sleep and out of sheer frustration (and knowing I didn't need to be anywhere this morning) took a THIRD dose, and STILL didn't sleep!

 

I reached the point last night of being so thoroughly sedated that I couldn't even hold a book up, much less stand, but I wasn't asleep and didn't feel sleepy!  The third dose is rarely a good idea. I'll do it sometimes when I'm sick and need more sleep, or have a day off to get some extra after not getting enough sleep for several nights, but it doesn't leave my body the way the first two do. Even now, over 8 hours later I can still feel it in my, and tingling feeling in my legs, hands and chin. I feel fatigued, but wide awake. My trip to the grocery store is on hold until this feeling passes. I might try testing my balance with some exercises and see if getting my heart rate up for a bit helps process the stuff out.

 

I did some research this morning on whether Keto and Narcolepsy don't mix, and I'm mostly finding the opposite.  I didn't talk to my doctor about keto in the context of narcolepsy specifically, but trust that if they didn't meld together, she would have told me. Looking online, I've found several things saying that Keto helps Narcolepsy, and even one saying that Keto might improve the efficacy of the medication I am on.

 

Did some more research... Looks like it isn't uncommon for people to find the med not working as well over time. This is really scary for me. The med has helped me so much, and everything else we've tried has at best done nothing and often made things worse. Okay. Need to calm down and try and get this day moving.

[Whisper]

1 hour ago, Jean said:

 

Considering a good part of it would also turn into CO2 upon your death, you'd also need to eat things with tons of preservatives and hope your body turns into stone or something to keep the carbon there. I like your approach to environment preservation more.

 

That is what makes modern burial so wonderful! Right at the end you get pumped full of preservatives and stuck in a hermetically sealed box underground. Unless someone digs you up and cracks the seal, that carbon is staying sunk!

 

Seriously though, I find our burial traditions creepy as fuck. It's an empty shell, why do we try and hang onto it? Screw the carbon emissions, when I die burn that thing up and get rid of the ashes, dumpster out back is just fine.

[NicTheRugger]

My family knows that my greatest wish is to have a Viking funeral: dump my body on a boat with my favorite possessions that people don't want to keep and then set that sucker on fire!

[NicTheRugger]

On a more serious note, I'm so sorry that your meds aren't working as well as they used to! I hope keto works out for you and that you and your doctor can find something that will help!

[Whisper]

Just tried doing the warm-up, it was not a good idea. Step 1: 30 seconds of high knees. By the end my nausea was worse and headache started flaring up. Stopped. Decided that being three hours late on lunch was possibly a bad thing. I was holding lunch until after I did the warm-up, and it took a LONG time to work up the willpower to even try...

 

Shit, I am stupid sometimes (or experiencing the brain-fog associated with the Keto Flu)!

 

Induction flu: Headaches, lethargy, nausea, confusion, brain fog, irritability. Hmmm... sounds vaguely familiar. I read about it literally (literally literally, not figuratively "literally") everywhere I read about the Keto Flu.  I wrote it off because the solution seem to be more salt and water. I'm good on my water intake, close to 100oz each day. I figured I would be good on the salt side of it. I've been adding a bit extra pink salt to the food I'm making, and my sleep med literally (again) has the word "sodium" in its technical name! Thought I would be fine on salt.

 

I'm trying zero calorie sports drink now. Read somewhere (don't remember, not looking up again) that an epsom salt soak can help too, so Sir Terry and I are off to take a bath.

[RES]

9 minutes ago, Whisper said:

Induction flu: Headaches, lethargy, nausea, confusion, brain fog, irritability

This is a real thing...as someone who's been mostly Paleo for 5 years and did Keto for about 6 months...I totally understand what you're talking about here!

I have sleep issues for other reasons, I hope you find the answers soon, sleep is important!