The Amiel Blog

Eat less, lift more

A few weeks ago I blogged about my recent Bod Pod measure of body fat and promised to look into why the improvement was minimal and provide a summary of my findings. I did the research that first weekend. Now I share my findings:

1. Eat less. My breakfast snack was supposed to be 160 cal. Instead I found it was 250-300. Lunches and dinners likewise were about 25% too rich in calories. You simply cannot lose weight (fat) when you eat more than you burn, even if you're eating good stuff (lean protein, healthy fat, slow carbs).

2. Lift more--and correctly. I learned I had waited too long to increase the weights in my Happy Body regimen. The reason? I still found one part of the regime very challenging. (In Happy Body you increase the weight of all exercises proportionally and simultaneously). Well, guess what I found? For an unknown reason I had been lifting double the weight on that exercise--20lb in each hand instead of 20lb in both hands. Oops! This explained why all the other exercises were so easy...and why I wasn't building muscle as quickly as planned.

As I write this (with a tired left hand on my iPhone), I am not lifting at all but I am 100% free to follow the nutrition program, which my brother, Alex, reminds me is 80% of bodyfat % loss.

Bodyfat update

After another foray into the BodPod, I learned that my bodyfat percentage is 20.2%. This is more than 4% less than my first measurement last fall but only a slight improvement from the 20.5% measurement in January.

After an initial sense of deflation and disappointment (remember my goal is 10% by July 9, 2012), I allowed the anger and frustration to well up inside the body and discovered a sense of determination and curiosity. Determination to continue on this path to greater health and curiosity about why my progress has slowed. 

Over the next few days, I will go back to my basic written materials to remind myself of the standards of excellent and look honestly at what I've done. Here are several hypotheses:

• Too much food. Although I reduced the size of my breakfasts a few weeks ago, my lunches and dinners may still be larger than needed. I intend to resume measuring portion sizes again for a short period of time until I remind myself of what is a useful quantity (as defined by the Happy Body folks).
• Mini cheating. I have a habit of tasting the free treats at New Seasons and Trader Joe's. These treats add up.
• Cheat Day isn't working. Maybe it's time to switch the weekly Cheat Day to a cheat meal (or two)?
• Nuts. I use almonds as my snack at least once a day. Although they contain healthy fat, could it be too much for the program?
• Transition to new strength training regiment. In switching from Strength for Life to the Happy Body program earlier this year, I reduced the amount of resistance per rep in favor of a more gradual approach. In short, I took a step back to take two steps forward. It's just about time to increase the weights of my Happy Body program, so perhaps this will help with the muscle building.
• Timing of workout. I think there is some evidence that working out earlier in the day is better for fat burning. I've shifted from 100% of my workouts in the 4-7pm range to about 50% in this range and 50% before 2pm. I am committed to continuing this shift--not because of today's news--but because I feel great after the workout and it carries me through the day.

Body weight over past week

Two pieces of news to report on the body weight:

1. I'm switching from daily measurements to weekly measurements. Rationale: I'm more concerned about the long-term trendline and am realizing my weight fluctuates from day to day. Read: daily measurements weren't adding sufficient value.
2. My body weight decreased from 155.6 to 154.8 pounds in seven days. I am pleased because this 0.8 lb decrease is near my goal of 1.3 pounds per week and happened during a week when I only lifted weights due mostly to my cold and when I did a big cheat day (last Saturday--pancakes, great Greek dinner, and Ben  & Jerry's ice cream for dessert). I did stick to the nutrition program quite diligently and limited my overall calorie intake to the "lose weight" regiment from Happy Body.  

Also, one thought on the target of 165 pounds and 10% bodyfat: do you realize how much easier the next two years would be if I set the target weight at 155 pounds? The amount of muscle I would need to gain would be nearly halved, yet I'd only need to lose a bit more body fat. This is a moot issue for the next 12 months, which is about how long it will take me to be 155 pounds and 10% body fat if all goes as (ambitiously planned). At that point, we can reassess the situation.

Experimenting with staying in one place

We're now a week into November, and I just realized what this month's experiment is about: imagining we'll live in Portland for the long term. And not just imagining it but living as if this were the case. A host of factors have led to this experiment:

• Deepening my Diamond Approach practice has helped me get in touch with--and see objectively--some distorted thinking to which I have been prone the past few years. In particular, I've seen the fallacies behind the narrative that "I'm meant to be in the Bay Area because that's where my community is, that's where four or five of my best friends are, that's where I developed a spiritual practice and learned Integral Coaching." It's an interesting story with some facts to support it and many that don't support it. The big "aha" was realized that the people I consider great friends in the Bay Area are not great friends by my own standard, one that includes frequent communication. In fact, the notion that they are great friends is a concept in my mind that, when poked even slightly, falls down rather quickly.
• Developing a whole set of deliberate somatic practices (nutrition, strength training, etc.) has helped me feel present in my body, in my home, and in this city. I actually feel like I'm here rather than thinking about being someplace else.
• We have made investments in our home over the last year, and I've enjoyed the process. These include waterproofing the basement, buying and sculpting a new screen door, getting the exterior window trim painted, putting a cap on the chimney, trimming bushes in the back yard...and the list goes on. Each investment we make, each time I talk to a contractor, and each time I see the physical results I experience myself as someone who owns this home, who inhabits this space.
• Recent reading about being self-sufficient as a family and neighborhood in the event of possible/probably energy and food shortages in the future due to peak oil and global climate weirdness--this reading points to many virtues of not just Portland but the neighborhood where we live. More on this below.
• Three 9-year-old girls in the neighborhood stopped by two weeks ago to offer their "practice babysitting" services. We accepted on the spot, and within minutes they were playing with Jacob in the living room while Julie cooked dinner and I lifted weights. 
• Twice in the past week, colleagues have referred possible clients to me, something that hasn't happened in a while. I suspect the timing is related to the publishing on my newsletter.
• A general feeling of contentedness and ease I feel, even when contemplating somewhat dismal scenarios for the economy and biosphere. This is the sign of a healthy (Enneagram) Six mind: highly alert to what's happening, particular dangers, yet relaxed, confident and trusting about the ability to respond.

The list above is not just what prompted this monthly experiment but also a descripton of how that experiment is unfolding.

Now, let me return to the question of what makes Portland a great place to be in the face of possible food and energy shortages sometime in the coming years? To answer this question, I'd like to quote the most important factors in choosing a place to live from the book Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front by Sharon Astyk:

• A place that would be good to live not just in five years but in 50 or 100 years
• Water--and lots of it--both for drinking and farming. This rules out places like Arizona and Las Vegas, which may see a mass exodus when U.S. water supplies  decline. Fortunately, never wanted to move there. In contrast, Portland and the Northwest as a whole has plenty of water, not just rainfall but reservoirs and the Columbia River.
• Not sitting on top of major energy resources (e.g. oil, gas). No problem here with that.
• Local food security, i.e. the region can mostly feed itself rather than requiring on imports which in turn depend on intact transport networks and low fuel prices. The Willamette Valley is a great place for growing food.
• Near the people you love. This is where Portland falls shortest. We are lucky Wendy, Bill, Phoebe and Will are just two hours away, but the rest of our families are spread out all over. I'm sad to write this, but the broad spread of our families makes no region any better than any other, unless it is one likely to attract other family members to move there. Perhaps Portland can be one such place, particularly once our country starts to feel the impacts of peak oil.

Portland actually matches up better on most of these criteria than the Bay Area. 

Let me mention a few other dimensions of the experiment happening this month:

• We are starting to explore ways to grow vegetables in our back yard (and possibly in the front yard). My father has agreed to help me do some research during their trip here this weekend
• I had a solar installation company come out to talk about putting PV cells on our roof for either solar electric or solar hot water. Solar electric is practically free, but it requires building a bigger dormer, i.e. one that would be part of a second bathroom project
• I've made connections with two men in the neighborhood who are thinking about home and neighborhood preparedness. 
• I've become more willing to do coaching work that pays less than my standard fees but is local in order to be of service and further embed myself in the community

 

Body fat update after 9 weeks

This morning I found myself in the Bod Pod once again.

After the trainer took this picture, he showed it to me and asked if I liked it. I shook my head up and down and moved my arm to signal yes. This corrupted the results (25.2%!), so we did it again. The second time, the number was 22.8%. This was good news, though not as good as I had hoped. This fact, combined with my weight today, 160.6 (essentially unchanged from 9 weeks ago) means:

• My body fat decreased from 24.5% to 22.8% in 9 weeks. That's about 0.2% per week.
• My lean weight increased from 121.3 lb to 124.0 lb, a gain of 2.7 lb . This is almost exactly what The Happy Body folks suggest is possible. Their formula for muscle gain is 0.2% of ideal body weight per week. For me that would be 0.002*165*9 = 2.97lb. So my muscle gain was par for the course. I feel pleased.
• My fat weight went from 39.4lb to 36.6lb, a decrease of 2.8 lb. While admirable, this is much less than suggested by The Happy Body folks. Their formula for fat loss is 1% of your ideal body weight per week. For me this would be .01*165*9 = 14.85lb. So I lost much less fat than projected. I feel disappointed.

Driving home, I was tempted to stop at Sanborn's for German Pancakes ("Why be so good if it doesn't have much impact?) but resisted. In a more grounded place and with Julie's assistance, I was able to identify a few causal factors for my fat loss being less than I had hoped:

• During my recent week-long trip to NY, I relied on situps and pushups rather than weights and did not stick to my nutritional program.
• My cheat day was 36 hours ago, so the fat was higher than it's been.
• Maybe I've been eating too many calories a day.
• Maybe I've been eating too few calories a day.
• Perhaps it's the 2-3 squares of 70% dark  chocolate I eat most days thinking the sugar is pretty low.

 The big question for me is how much to eat. Happy Body says two things that seem contradictory. On the one hand, you will lose fat approximately five times faster than you gain muscle, so if, like me, you're overfat but underweight, expect to lose weight before gaining it back. This suggests eating less until I hit the bottom. On the other hand, the book suggests that overfat-but-underweight  people eat a lot starting on day one. So...I'm confused, and I'm going to send them a note asking for clarification. Stay tuned for their reply.

Dedicating my strength training practices

Shawn Phillips book Strength for Life informs my strength training practice in many significant ways. One I'd like to briefly mention here: the use of dedications. 

Shawn suggests beginning each day's strength training (or cardio intervals) by dedicating it to someone in your life. The idea is that we do it not just for ourselves, but for someone else. We could just as easily dedicate it to a place, and idea, or a quality, but Shawn points to the immediate benefit of focusing on a person. So I have done this--at least half of the time (when I remember)--over the past three years.

A few things I have found:

• The best person to dedicate the practice to is the one who comes into my mind at the moment I am about to begin. 
• It doesn't matter whether I know this person well (a family member or close friend), recently met them, or just heard of them. 
• What determines the impact of the dedication is the degree to which I allow that person's being, concerns, and commitments enter my awareness--how much I am touched by them. 
• Dedications also remind me that not only my strength training, but my life as a whole, is about something much much larger than Amiel Handelsman. So the dedication stretches my sense of self outward.

 

First Cheat Day

Last Friday I held my first nutritional "cheat day." Not because I was desperate for extra sugar and fat, but because some in the strength training world suggest it supports fat loss by preventing one's basic metabolic rate from descending. Here is a quick report on what I ate and what I found: What I ate:

• The usual for breakfast
• A chocolate chip cookie and a brownie with lunch
• An iced mocha in the afternoon

Everything else was "to plan."

The result?

• I enjoyed the taste of the cookie, but the brownie was too sweet. The mocha hit the spot
• I felt quite full after lunch but not bloated
• I gained 1.5 pounds in 24 hours
• I easily returned to plan the next day. No resurgent longings for sugar
• Four days later, I'm up to 165 pounds, 3 pounds higher than my weight the four days prior to cheat day

Conclusion:

• Cheat day seems to have added fat weight with an unclear impact on BMR.
• Cheat day would be more effective if I were actually on a low calorie diet the rest of the week. In contrast, I've been eating heavily. 
• Now that I'm at my target weight and concerned about the lack of fat loss, I'm going to reduce my caloric consumption by 30%. Ironically, this may make a cheat day more useful than it was the first two weeks. 
• I'll wait two weeks to see if my weight goes down, then consider another cheat day

Brownies to live for

How can you have your cake brownie and eat it, too?

I loved baking brownies as a kid and enjoyed eating them ever since. Unfortunately, brownies are sin foods--high in sugar and saturated fats. What's a man to do?

Make Triple Substitution brownies, that's what. I pulled out Julie's 1968 Betty Crocker cookbook and made three key substitutions:

• Substituted 60 percent of the butter with applesauce (1:1 ratio) 
• Substituted all of the sugar with Xylitol, a low glycemic sugar substitute--it's technically a sugar alcohol (1 cup sugar = 3/8 cup Xylitol)
• Substituted 75 percent of the whole wheat flour with amaranth flour (1 cup flour = 1/4 cup amaranth flour) 

The result was a fairly tasty first stab at healthy brownies. They weren't chewy enough, and one fellow taster said they were "bland." I looked back at the Xylitol specs and realized it replaces sugar 1:1, so I underdid things. Forgot to take a photo (tsk tsk) but will next time around.

New merch

Digital kitchen scale--for measuring food that is typically counted in mass, not volume. Should be most useful at the outset and for favorite foods. The idea is to build competence in judging volume and mass of food so that over time I can eyeball it with accuracy. In coaching, we call this self-correcting.

Digital bathroom scale

Body tape measure--for accurate measures of waist, neck, shoulders, biceps, etc.

83 grams of protein for lunch

Just ate 83 grams of protein for lunch. Dover sole + hummus + lox + protein shake + one of these sugarfree bars (same protein content as other brands but no sugar):

That fulfills my lunch target of 330 calories of protein. The other Happy Body target for me is six four fistfulls of vegis. I ate three (two salad, one broccoli). Still exploring ways to eat enough to gain muscle while losing fat.