Hangrybear's journey from chonk to stronk #1

[Hangrybear]

Hello everyone!

 

Excited to share this journey with like-minded people and both give and receive mental support throughout these challenges.

You can read my introduction and see some progress photos right here.

 

I currently work out 4-5x a week in my home gym, and am very blessed and fortunate to have that opportunity.

However, diet and mental health have been major challenges for several years now.  

If I could avoid binge-eating for the entire 5 weeks, it would be a massive achievement, but will require lots of problem solving,

discipline and at this point also a little bit of luck.

 

Physical:

• 2x stretching per week
• 3x core per week
• 1hr daily standing desk 

Mindset:

• 1x daily ask someone close to me how their day is going

Nutrition:

• 1x daily anti-inflammation smoothie
• avoid binge-eating at all costs, this is the prime objective
• no alcohol in week 0
• no beer and only clear liquor in week 1-5

 

Tracking in spoiler.

Spoiler

 

[Stronkey Kong]

Yus! 

 

Get stronk friend!

[Harriet]

Good luck beating the binge eating. And much stronk to you!

[Elastigirl]

Great goals! Do you have ideas on the things that lead to your binge eating?

[cn3wton]

Nice start my dude will be following along!

[Scaly Freak]

On 2/8/2021 at 3:15 PM, Hangrybear said:

• 1x daily anti-inflammation smoothie

 

This intrigues me. What do you put in the smoothie?

[Hangrybear]

On 2/9/2021 at 2:14 AM, Stronkey Kong said:

Yus! 

 

Get stronk friend!

 

And may the creative muse bless your drawings and paintings stronk friend!

I'm sure that list will get cut down significantly in the next weeks.

 

18 hours ago, Harriet said:

Good luck beating the binge eating. And much stronk to you!

Thank you so much.

Are you still doing high-doses of Vit D and how many IU were you taking? I've been doing 5600IU per day for a couple years now, it definitely helps.

Good luck with winding down on caffeine.

 

15 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Great goals!

Thanks!

I hope you can master the pistol squat, it's way more complicated than it looks and barely any of my strength-focused friends are able to do it.

Is the L-Sit a good core exercise you think?
 

 

14 hours ago, cn3wton said:

Nice start my dude will be following along!

Will follow your path to become a saiyan as well, hope you can get your goku statue!

Stronk together!

[Hangrybear]

15 hours ago, Elastigirl said:

Do you have ideas on the things that lead to your binge eating?

Yeah, it's usually a combination of

1. the day itself being overwhelming emotionally (loneliness, self-doubt)
2. running low on sleep (which means anything less than 9 hours for me)
3. having a day at work where I just hit my head against bricks for 10-12 hours (coding can be that way)
4. MOMENTUM. If the diet shifts in direction and I've gained weight it can trigger a loss of momentum throwing me down a spiral.

So what I do is try to find support online or from friends for the emotional issue (1).

I try to get 9 hours when possible and take a nap when sleep-deprived (2).

Aim for 7-8hrs work a day but limit myself to 10 hours maximum as my boss told me I work too much (3).

(4) is the hardest to deal with at the moment. My current solution is to only ever allow myself 2 days of eating like a turd.

I 100% believe in the words of comedian Tom Segura after his weight loss: "I'm always just 3 days away from being obese again"

referring to this spiral.

[Hangrybear]

6 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

This intrigues me. What do you put in the smoothie?

 

It's mainly to combat inflammation -> Acne due to improper food sources as I haven't been able to eat clean consistently.

With the added benefit of giving my body protein, fibre, vitamins and such.

Oh and it would be MUCH better with berries but I'm allergic to fructose.
 

Skin:
Ginger powder
Kurkuma powder
Flaxseeds crushed
Chia seeds
Chili powder
red beet powder
pepper

Consistency, Taste, Nutrition:
cinnamon
oatmeal ground
spinach powder
psyllium husks
hemp protein

to turn dry ingredients liquid:
liquid artificial sweetener (important, or it tastes vile)
almond puree (only as a treat, when I can afford it)
Oat Milk / Almond Milk

[Harriet]

33 minutes ago, Hangrybear said:

Are you still doing high-doses of Vit D and how many IU were you taking? I've been doing 5600IU per day for a couple years now, it definitely helps.

Good luck with winding down on caffeine.

Cheers! I was taking 5000 I.E. daily for several weeks, but I quit taking them recently because they didn't seem to make a difference. It's hard to tell, really.

[Scaly Freak]

6 hours ago, Hangrybear said:

Oh and it would be MUCH better with berries but I'm allergic to fructose.
 

Skin:
Ginger powder
Kurkuma powder
Flaxseeds crushed
Chia seeds
Chili powder
red beet powder
pepper

Consistency, Taste, Nutrition:
cinnamon
oatmeal ground
spinach powder
psyllium husks
hemp protein

to turn dry ingredients liquid:
liquid artificial sweetener (important, or it tastes vile)
almond puree (only as a treat, when I can afford it)
Oat Milk / Almond Milk

 

This looks like it could be quite tasty... I will add it to my collection of summer smoothies for this year. Thanks! And noted on the sweetener... I am going to blatantly assume honey or agave nectar will suffice for sweetening purposes and apply as needed.  

[cn3wton]

Ive done some juicing/smoothies. Have a bunch of frozen veggies in my freezer that i really should use.

 

I was always surprised with how easily spinach turned to liquid in a blender. And zucchini is a very good way to thicken a smoothie and has almost zero taste.

 

Sorry that you have a fructose allergy. Are there some options out there to sweeten it up?

[Elastigirl]

7 hours ago, Hangrybear said:

Yeah, it's usually a combination of

1. the day itself being overwhelming emotionally (loneliness, self-doubt)
2. running low on sleep (which means anything less than 9 hours for me)
3. having a day at work where I just hit my head against bricks for 10-12 hours (coding can be that way)
4. MOMENTUM. If the diet shifts in direction and I've gained weight it can trigger a loss of momentum throwing me down a spiral.

So what I do is try to find support online or from friends for the emotional issue (1).

I try to get 9 hours when possible and take a nap when sleep-deprived (2).

Aim for 7-8hrs work a day but limit myself to 10 hours maximum as my boss told me I work too much (3).

(4) is the hardest to deal with at the moment. My current solution is to only ever allow myself 2 days of eating like a turd.

I 100% believe in the words of comedian Tom Segura after his weight loss: "I'm always just 3 days away from being obese again"

referring to this spiral.

Sounds like you have good plans in place to keep you on track.The very cool thing about next day mornings, are new days and a chance to start again. I try and do the same thing as you if the day before I was not happy with my choices,

[Elastigirl]

7 hours ago, Hangrybear said:

hope you can master the pistol squat, it's way more complicated than it looks and barely any of my strength-focused friends are able to do it.

Is the L-Sit a good core exercise you think?
 

Thanks, yes , it is way more complicated than it looks.My current plan isn't to master it, just to improve. I mean , hopefully, one day master it, but trying to be ok with it if it takes a while. L-sits are great for core.

[Hangrybear]

This week has been difficult with challenging tasks at work plus overtime and I didn't manage all my goals but feel like I'm on the right track and looking optimistically ahead.

 

Still excited for the challenge and happy about the warm welcome received here. 

 

The benefit of having to think and focus at work is a larger calorie deficit, since the brain actually uses a solid amount of energy. 

 

Will be in a deficit for the entire challenge and likely the next two as well, as my goal is to reach 12% body fat and to maintain that thereafter. This will allow me to be light enough to excel at bouldering. Used to go bouldering multiple times a week at 100kg and the advanced courses were not really suited for that bodyweight. 

The end of lockdown should somewhat align with the weight loss goal, but both do not have a finite date. 

 

Weight loss for me has to be taken slow and deliberate, or the danger of binging and falling into bad habits is magnified. So right now it's just a couple hundred kcal deficit daily and no deal breaker to go slightly above when needed. 

[Scaly Freak]

19 minutes ago, Hangrybear said:

The benefit of having to think and focus at work is a larger calorie deficit, since the brain actually uses a solid amount of energy. 

 

Case in point: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess

 

The human body and how it actually works in all it many capacities, is endlessly fascinating and amazing.

[Hangrybear]

1 hour ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Case in point: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess

 

The human body and how it actually works in all it many capacities, is endlessly fascinating and amazing.

That was a good read. It's cool to understand the physiology of the increased consumption. I've just assumed it's the brain using more sugars or ketones but actually it's the chain reaction caused by mental stress,increasing heart rate, blood pressure and breathing. That's dope! I'd still much rather have a slow workday, lol. 

[cn3wton]

The human body is pretty crazy in almost every regard. One of the coolest books I ever read was "Wired to Eat" and it talks about how our brains deal with things like hunger and why we eat how we do. It was pretty crazy.

[Hangrybear]

Broke my 'no beer' goal today since I just got zapped by a powerline in my house while doing construction, to calm the shock xD

There's now a nice little burn mark where it entered and exited on my tricep. 

Will take two days off working out to not stress my heart. 

Spoiler

 

 

[Elastigirl]

Yikes! That's scary. Glad it wasn't too bad

 

[Hangrybear]

All good and the beer was delicious. 

 

After a couple months of trial and error I will with a heavy heart give up on milk products. Adding the goal to my 5 week challenge to abstain from dairy once the fridge is emptied from it. 

Despite many attempts at getting good dairy sources, it's just proving time and again that it's not good for my particular genetics.  It's not the lactose. It seems to be a combination of issues with casein and the unsaturated fats leading to inflammation. My skin is just super irritated and my gut is in pain, even if limited to high quality, low sugar cheeses like Greek feta or parmigiano. 

 

Since my favorite food item is Parmesan I will try to introduce it after a couple weeks of elimination. 

 

But first, we gotta eat the 600g of remaining cheese in the fridge

[Scaly Freak]

25 minutes ago, Hangrybear said:

Despite many attempts at getting good dairy sources, it's just proving time and again that it's not good for my particular genetics.  It's not the lactose. It seems to be a combination of issues with casein and the unsaturated fats leading to inflammation. My skin is just super irritated and my gut is in pain, even if limited to high quality, low sugar cheeses like Greek feta or parmigiano. 

 

I have a sibling who has a reaction similar to yours, when ingesting dairy proteins.

 

On the bright side, knowing what to avoid makes a huge difference and you are going to feel much better from here on. And cheese freezes pretty well if you grate it first.  

[Bullroarer Took]

How are things going?

[Hangrybear]

Hello everyone, sorry for not being active.

 

Am now in 3 active software development projects at once, almost all of it is entirely new to me.

At the same time depression is creeping in once again. 

There isn't that much pressure to perform at work, but my inner drive and will to improve push me to unhealthy work hours regardless.

I want to prove my worth and get stuff done to get my first big raise, the talks for which will happen soon. If they give it to me, I have earned my place and can slow down.

If they dont't give it to me, I can simply stop working overtime and take it more easy, since my efforts aren't rewarded. 

In any case, life will get better in a little bit.

 

Still tracked everything daily, including calories. 

It's been around 500-600 over maintenance for these last weeks, which has lead to 2.5kg weight gain.

Which is still pretty manageable, and could definitely be worse.

 

Definitely not pleased with the amount of red in this screenshot, so will do pretty much the same plan with some minor tweaks in the next challenge coming up. 

The 6 weeks has definitely helped. The binges were never crazy, since I knew I'd have to work it all off and my will to do these challenges here is unbroken. 

 

[Scaly Freak]

4 minutes ago, Hangrybear said:

Hello everyone, sorry for not being active.

 

No worries, I'm sure you had a good reason for taking a break.

 

4 minutes ago, Hangrybear said:

Am now in 3 active software development projects at once, almost all of it is entirely new to me.

 

Yeah, that would do it. Yikes. Schedule downtime for yourself and get lots of rest!