Week 14 (4/9/11): It’s the exercise, Stupid!

This post is for week 14, and also a look back on program to date (since 1/1/11).  Cool charts are at the end.

After getting off of week 13 (with the conference), I was more motivated than ever to break this month of stagnant performance in March with a great April. I went back and re-read the book, which I highly recommend for everyone as you can get complacent and not realize you are taking shortcuts or not following it correctly. I also looked back at what I was doing back in January and February when I had such great performance and saw a few things.

Most important, and easiest to fix was exercise. I saw on New John’s blog that he uses RunKeeper to keep track of his stats (time, distance, pace) so I downloaded it for my iPhone. SO FUN! I am a data geek (can’t you tell?) and can have my Pandora Radio on at the same time. I have a favorite station that I seeded with the Go-Gos, the Bangles, the B-52s and My Sharona which is a great workout station. The app tells you periodically elapsed time, pace, distance completed which is great – “I can run until she says we are at 15 minutes, then I can walk.” Keeps me motivated.

Another change was motivated by a post on the Daily Burn “The Four-Hour Body” Group – “eat big, lose big.” Tim says to eat up on “Dieters Gone Wild” day, which we all find so counterintuitive (but so delightful). I was playing with that, watching how much I ate and keeping it to a dull roar this last month in an effort to have less to lose the following week. Well, I ate like crazy on 4/2 (I was solo with my 2 and 5 year old sons for the weekend, so I ate chocolate chip waffles with them for breakfast, with fruit. There was a burger and fries for lunch and a cookie for dessert, then half a pepperoni pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. The weight came off much easier the next week and had great results:

I lost 2.2. pounds (from free day morning to the next free day morning). BMI down 0.4 points, and trailing-7-day body fat down 0.7%. Inches are creeping down each week.

For exercise, I started out on Monday deciding to walk to the bank, rather than drive, to make a deposit. No idea how long it would take me, but I had a lovely walk. It is about 3.2 miles round trip, the first .6 miles or so is very hilly – steep 0.25 miles down hill from our house to the main road, then back up about half that and back down again in the next 0.15 miles. The rest was a gentle up hill to the bank and gentle down hill (barely noticeable) back before the brutal climb back up the hill to the house. I ran probably 3/4 of a mile or so and the whole event took maybe 50 minutes.

Tuesday I took a short walk, about 20 minutes or so – to meet my husband for a drink at a local dive bar. I loved this idea – why not walk to the bar? Then I earned my red wine?

Wednesday I got on the elliptical for 30 minutes. Always good for a great workout.

Thursday and Friday both I used RunKeeper to track my runs. 3.9 miles Thursday and 3.2 miles on Friday – and I use the term “run” loosely. More like a lope. But with “We’re Not Gonna Take It” blasting, it was such fun. I am looking forward to watching my pace improve over time, and another shout out to New John (newjohn.wordpress.com) for the RunKeeper recommendation.

So what about this whole program to date?

So far I am down 18 pounds in 99 days. My body fat % is down 6.7% and I have improved my BMI by 3.1 points.  And check this: I have lost 21.1 POUNDS of body fat, and gained 3.1 pounds of lean mass.  Inches are down 12.75″ – this is measuring waist, hips, each leg and each arm. My waist is 3.75″ narrower and my hips are 3.75″ narrower. Where it is obviously different is in my bum, which is hard to measure, but noticeably smaller.

You will see a set of goals in my little custom Excel file below – Body weight of 174 has two meanings for me: first, it is the weight at which I began both of my pregnancies, and a level I have not seen in at least 3 years. It also is the level at which my BMI will put me in the “overweight” category, no longer “obese.” The body fat % is roughly where my BF% will be if I hold my lean mass constant with where I began and get my weight down to 174.

My long term goal is to get to 145 pounds (what it has said on my drivers license since I was 20 – and has gone from being a little white lie to a great blue lie – as in great blue whale – lo these many years). 145 would have my BMI at 24.9, which is the high end of the normal range. I will have a look at things once I get there to decide if I have further to go.

OK, so here are the cool charts.  I am toying with the idea of making a version of this highly automated Excel file to share with others – so let me know if you have data you are tracking that I am not that I could work in, or if you have suggestions or ideas. I am trying to make it really easy for a novice Excel user to use. Mostly because I like a good challenge.

I took out even numbered weeks for the first few months to clean up the chart a little bit. The vintages (weeks) in March were stacked right on top of each other, which bugged me, and also motivated me to get my exercise on this past week. The two dots at the bottom are the first two points of week 15, which I am pretty happy about – cheat day was epic on Saturday, involving pizza, IPA, sliders, pancakes and chocolate, cocktails, pasta, carrot cake, and wine. I couldn’t eat another bite. Not even a “wafer-thin mint.” This vintage chart lines up the day after cheat day each week and tracks performance through the morning of the next cheat day (which is also when I do my measurements). Helps to keep me from focusing too much energy on how much above my prior low I still am by lining up the prior week, same day and showing how well I am doing versus that.

This is more of a standard presentation – you can see the classic Four-Hour-Body see saw pattern.  Strong performance the first two months, flatter in March (hampered by conferences, travel and work obligations), then hopefully April will be strong again. The bottom of the chart are the levels at which my BMI gets into the “overweight” category from “obese” – and once I get there I’ll move it down to 145 and 24.9 BMI (top end of the “normal” range for my height).

This is kind of like a stock chart – what was the highest for the week, the lowest for the week (the vertical black line) and a triangle at the ending level. Again, you can see the flat March performance. April is feeling good so far.

My favorite one is the purple line – trailing 7 day average Body Fat%. The blue line is daily body fat % readings, and the red line is daily water %. Note how body fat % and water % go in opposite directions each day (if one is high, the other is low, and vice versa). I smooth this out with the 7-day average, and also know that over time, the general level is coming down so I don’t sweat the bumps.  LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT.

I have a battle cry on Daily Burn  – YAHHHHHH! Let’s do this.