The three and four week hunger pains and stagnated weight loss

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At the beginning of this past week I started feeling hunger pains as bad as I did before the surgery. I was told by the dietitian and my support group that there was an inflated hunger phase at the third and four week. Maybe mine came a little early because I have been hungry since Monday or maybe Tuesday. I fought it, but in retrospect, I was eating too many calories and I was snaking with almonds... a lot of almonds.

My weight loss stagnated. I didn't gain weight, but I stopped losing it as fast. I can now see that 15 pounds per month is going to be more realistic. But, I don't think there will be months where I only lose 10 pounds. I think 15 pounds will be the rule until I reach 200 or so.

Three things revealed themselves this week: First, the hunger weeks exist even for me. Second, as much as I wanted to deny it, the first few days of ridiculous weight loss was mainly water weight. I didn't think it was so much because I have always taken water pills otherwise known as diuretics, but, sure enough, all of the swelling around my ankles, calves, and feet has gone away... completely. So I must have lost some water weight. I would estimate as much as 10 pounds of water weight.

In addition, my increased gym time has built up muscle very quickly and muscle weighs more than fat.

Total photo shop. Maybe? nah

That being said, this morning, after a very strict Friday, I weighed in at 380.00. That makes my total weight loss to date at 30 pounds. Wow right? Well, believe it or not, I was disappointed. Stupid huh? Thirty pounds since my pre-op appointment on July 29th 2011. Of course, my real weight loss didn't begin until my liquid only pre-op day so I have really been losing weight since August 2nd. That's 30 pounds in 18 days.

Wow, that is insane. The best part is that I won't gain it back. That is unless I totally screw up the surgery by expanding my stomach or eating high calorie foods. A friend of mine that stopped losing weight eats fast food and ice cream. What does she expect? She knows and she is trying to fight it, but it all goes back to being fat in the head. I really think my pre-surgery weight inclined therapy and hypnosis has helped me and will continue to help me.

Monday August 10th, 2009 "Registration"

This morning I weighed in at 326.6. It seems I'm still paying for my gastronomical indulgences last week. Today, I had school registration for both my Senior and my 8th grader. I also had to get this nasty squeak fixed on my car. And, this being the day before my 25th Anniversary, I had some last minute shopping to do. Needless to say, I decided to take an exercise break today. My body really needed a break anyway. Tomorrow, I am going to try to take my longest bike ride yet and hit the gym before my wife gets back from work.

August 17th's issue of time magazine has an article "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin." In a nut shell, it's about compensation. It's true that exercise actually makes you hungrier. An hour after I get out of the pool or several hours after a bike ride I get hungry. What happens to most people is they give into the hunger and eat too much much to "compensate" or reward themselves. Exercise alone will not make you lose weight, but burning more calories than you take in will. Below you will find the formula for your metabolic rate. If you use the formula below and my calorie counter on the left of my page and use the Calorie Burned calculator at http://www.healthstatus.com/cgi-bin/calc/calculator.cgi you can use math to predict your weight loss.

The Harris-Benedict equation for calculating Basal Metabolic Rate is:

66 + (13.7 x weight in kilos) + (5 x height in centimeters) - (6.8 x age in years)

After calculating the BMR, you have to multiply it with the appropriate activity multiplier. This determines the exact calorie requirements of a man. The Activity Multiplier is:

• 1.2 (for those who do little or no exercise)
• 1.375 (for those who do light exercise/sports 1-3 days a week)
• 1.55 (for those who do moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days a week)
• 1.725 (for those who do hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week)

Lets say my Activity Multiplier is 1.6. My caloric requirement is 4260 per day and if I want to lose 6.6 pounds this week, I need to burn 6,350 calories per day. For example, on Saturday I rode my bike for a hard two hours. My burn rate that day was 7,871 and my intake was good, thus I lost some weight. Today I burned 4,751 so I may have lost a tiny bit of weight. Tomorrow, my burn rate should be around 10,000. If I can maintain a productive week I should be down to 320 by Sunday. That is, of course, if I don't over eat.

Thursday July 30th, 2009 One more day left

I suppose I'll take my final end of "July" weight on Saturday. It will be okay if I miss 20 pounds because I am in so much better shape, I'm eating healthy, and I've lost inches anyway. I was thinking that I should set a modest goal for next month, but that just wouldn't be me. I know that I can increase my exercise and I'm in a real nice groove with my calorie intake. Sooo, we'll set a goal of another 20 more pounds in August.

Yesterday, I had my first "5" on my calorie scale. I ate all my meals, but they were completely within my calorie intake goal and my calorie burn rate was awesome. This morning I weighed in at 332.8. That's down from 350 at the beginning of July. I tend to be very muscular and I like that, so my ideal weight is 200-210. If I reached that goal in one year, it would be the same as the bariatric surgery claims of weight loss. And, that would be 250 pounds from November 2007. My calorie burn rate surley out paced my calorie intake by more than 3,500, but I did eat well today. Try Red Robin's veggie burger. It's that best I've tasted and they serve it on a whole wheat bun. Yumm.

This morning was rainy, so I held off my bike ride with DW. Around 10am I felt guilty and went to the gym. I will now try to hit the gym everyday or as much as humanly possible. While at the gym, I rode this "virtual" bike that had a screen in front of you and you get to ride with other virtual rider on different courses. It is so cool that it has horses, birds, and all kind of realistic scenery. It has different skill levels. When I used to ride it, I usually killed myself on "moderate." Today, I was feeling gutsy so I went for an "extreme" 10 mile ride. It was 80% up hill. Every time you thought you were at a crest, more hills would appear. I was completely drenched with sweat when I finished and thought I was done for the day. However, the sun came out in the afternoon and I called my buddy DW and scheduled a 4pm ride. We did 11 miles of up and down, but not as silly as the virtual bike. So, I rode 21 miles today. I need to use longer trails. If time permits, I would like to start hitting 40-50 mile trails this month.

I remember when I started this quest in April. I could barely make 5 laps in the pool and I could only ride about 2 miles. Now, I'm going to beef up and do no less than 66 laps in the pool, increase my weights and sets, and increase the miles on the bike. I am also going to start playing Frisbee golf up in the mountains and probably sneak some basketball in. And, of course, stay on the vegan diet and watch my calories. Soon, it will be football season and I can go out and "play" with my friends.

July 29th, 2009 Mid-day

This morning's weigh in was great. 333.6. I found an awesome calculator for calories burned. It counts every thing from exercise to house chores to sex (I think that one's off a bit). You can find it at http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc . I figured out yesterday's bike ride and such and came up with 6,985 calories burned. You need to burn 3,500 more calories than you eat to lose one pound. That would explain the weight loss. Having been boosted by this morning's weigh in, I went for the monkey at the gym. I swam my first mile in about 46 minutes (fair), but I swam the second mile in 44 minutes. I guess I caught my stride. Afterwards, I lifted weights for an hour. Combined with the other daily activities, I should burn 7,479 calories today. So far, through lunch, I've eaten 1,200 calories. I feel confident that tomorrow's weigh in will be great!