Starting a program

[devonin]

So I've been recommended through my doctor for a thing called the 'CHANGE program' (CHANGE doesn't appear to be an acronym despite being in all caps) because I've got Metabolic Syndrome.

Metabolic Syndrome is the name they give it when you've got at least 3 out of these 5 problems:

High Fasting blood sugar
High blood pressure
High fats in the blood
Being on meds for any of the above
Having a large waistline

IE: i'm a fat fuck, and as a result, I've got an increased risk of diabetes, heart problems, cholesterol problems etc etc.

So I'm part of this program that is basically set up to say "If we actually make you eat better, and get exercise, we can probably reduce the chance of these things happening, and that's good"

So starting tomorrow I'm going into this one-year thing where I'll be consulting with a dietitian and a physical therapist to generally just improve my health. I see them both once a week for 3 months, and then once a month for the next 9 months for a full year program. I'll be getting sets of bloodwork done every couple months and coordinating it all through my doctor.

So I guess this is sort of a long-term progress thread? They are concerned only with the issues above, and trying to make them better, and not with anything specifically to cause me to lose weight or gain muscle, but they both sort of seem inevitable by eating healthier and exercising more, so hopefully some progress there too, but the main thing will be hopefully habituating some healthier behaviors. I used to actually be in pretty solid shape back in the day.

Adding 1 Banana (Or serving of fruit) per day
Changing White Bread for Whole Wheat in my subs
Changing cold cuts for turkey breast in my subs
Keeping subs including at least 4 vegetables (lettuce, spinach, cucumber, green pepper)
Getting salad instead of fries when I eat out at restaurants
Changing sausage-on-a-bun to just sausages without the bread
Capping pop consumption at 7 cans/week
Trying to reduce overall caloric intake by spreading out existing meals better into more smaller meals
Whole wheat crust on pizzas

3/week having a 20 minute vigorous walk (aiming for 120bpm heartrate)
2/week two sets of as many pushups as I can manage (Start 10/8 Current Best 25/23)
2/week two sets of 20 squats
3/week a single plank held as long as I can (Start 45 seconds, Current Best 90 seconds)
2/week two sets of 20 rowing with bands
2/week two sets of 20 tricep curls per arm with bands
2/week two sets of 20 bicep curls with bands
2/week two sets of 20 lunges
2/week two sets of 20 crunches

[choof]

big ups dude my family has a history of diabetes and I quit smoking and drinking because of it
u cen do this

[Reach]

Fantastic news. Welcome to the start of your new life :)

Everything is better on the other end. I too went through a phase, going from in very good shape to fat as fuck. Getting back in shape was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Best of luck, feel free to share progress or ask any questions :)

[devonin]

The best health I was ever in was when I was 16.

I was 70 pounds lighter, doing Phys Ed in school, taking Karate, and had just gotten out of Cadets.

University wrecked me for weight, and living with some equally unhealthy friends after I graduated compounded it. Part of my problem is that I have some struggles with both obsessive/compulsive behavior and some autism spectrum stuff that results in a lot of very heavily habituated behaviors that are very hard to kick. I do the things I do because they are the things I do, and changing it even temporarily is a lot of mental stress for me.

So hopefully the fact that this program makes me accountable to somebody else for a full year will be enough for me to actually make some changes stick long-term, but it's likely going to be slow going.

And we're building this stuff up -very- gradually. Like, I just had my first appointments with the dietitian and physio, and literally my goals for week 1 are

Diet:

Eat a banana every day

Change the sub I order every day I work for lunch from white to whole wheat bread, and get turkey breast instead of the more processed cold cuts

Get salad instead of fries if I eat out at a restaurant

Exercise:

20 minutes of brisk walking (aiming for 120bpm) three times this week

2 sets of 'as many pushups as I can do in a row' two times this week

2 sets of 20 squats two times this week

Like, seriously baby stuff for big fat babies. But it IS a year-long process, and I'm there every week for 3 months, and we're going to be putting in more strict dietary changes, and more and heavier exercise as we go. They're also just deliberately aiming low for week 1 to combination ease me into it, and make sure they don't aim too high, so while I know it seems like it's so little it would be of no benefit at all, I'm trying hard not to feel too pathetic even posting about it.

[Reach]

Your story was pretty similar to mine. I also started putting on the lbs when I started university, going from some 155 lbs with abs to about 215 at my heaviest when I graduated with my BS.c. I didn't start getting into shape until I got into professional school, as I had a minor health scare but that in combination with where I was going with my life made me say "what the fuck am I doing to myself?".


Accountability is definitely a core component to any program, so it's good that you're doing that. I always consider one of the first steps to be taking ownership of your problem. Really admitting to yourself that you've done this to yourself but that means you can undo it if you want to, and part of doing that is starting with accountability. It's easy to make excuses about why you're fat until you're blue in the face if you don't take ownership of your situation.


Nothing wrong with starting with baby steps either. The process ends up having to be a lifestyle change...a permanent lifestyle change, and I mean you have your entire life ahead of you, rushing into it often doesn't accomplish anything useful.

The way that I see it is that, if you're making a change that is pushing you in the right direction, it doesn't matter how small that change is, you're still winning. The tortoise will reach the finish line eventually as long as you're going in the right direction. More importantly is not getting lost on the way and turning around, but it sounds like you have a good net to prevent that from happening.

[Mourningfall]

Originally Posted by devonin

Diet:

Eat a banana every day

Change the sub I order every day I work for lunch from white to whole wheat bread, and get turkey breast instead of the more processed cold cuts

Get salad instead of fries if I eat out at a restaurant

The banana is an excellent decision, I start my day no other way.
bananas are abundantly rich in potassium and B6, potassium is very important imo as it helps maintain fluid levels in the body and regulates the movement of nutrients and waste products in and out of cells. It also helps muscles to contract and nerve cells to respond. It keeps the heart beating regularly and can reduce the effect of sodium on blood pressure.

Cutting out processed meat is excellent (you don't wanna know what goes into making those delicious meat pancakes), so is a salad (go for those greens man).

I'm happy you're being the change you want to see in your life, and I hope everything works out wonderfully for you.

[devonin]

Week 2:

It seems like it was mostly their plan all along, but I pointed out that it would be a lot better for me in terms of getting everything done, if like, literally every appointment we just added cumulative things, instead of swapping things out for other things, and they seemed to be good about "whatever you think will work best for you"

So from the food side, in addition to everything from last week:

1/ When I eat sausuage-on-a-bun (which is a fairly common "basically no work" food I have a couple times a week) I'm going to just not have them on buns anymore

2/ I'm going to only have 7 cans of pop a week (I do go some days with none, and some with more, but in week 1, I ended up having 9, so we're aiming for 7. Ideally if I can replace it with something I like as much, as I wean off the caffiene, I can drop pop entirely again)

And on the fitness side, the same as week 1 except I'm adding

3 times a week of doing just a single plank for as long as I can. He pointed out that he tends to want to push for core stability over core mobility especially at first since a lot of crunching/twisting/etc can end up bad for your spine if your muscles are still not the best which is why we're doing it that way.

I also actually finally own an oven-safe glass dish, so I can do things like make chicken parm, or other stuff with just 'chunk of meat and then some other stuff' which also means I could occasionally do something like a roast, and then use it for sandwiches and so on later in the week. One of my big problems with good nutrition is that it is really hard to make myself cook anything that has elaborate preparation (where literally, chopping some vegetables counts as too much preparation)

I also have a problem mentally with just sort of idling, and having time pass without doing anything, which in turn means not enough time to do things like cook. Like I can sit at the computer and with the feeling of maybe 25-30 minutes passing, check the time and it is 6 hours later, and all I've done is idly cycle through facebook, twitter, discord and ffr a dozen times each. A lot of the time I have to force myself to have a scheduled thing just to forcibly make me start moving, and then it is easier to do other things.

[Wayward Vagabond]

dont be like me and throw away all the hard work because of feelings

[Reach]

If you're drinking diet pop there's really no reason why you can't keep drinking it.

[devonin]

Caffiene is bad for me even without the sugar.

But I don't plan to -never have it again- I just plan to not have it something that I have every day, often more than once a day.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by devonin

One of my big problems with good nutrition is that it is really hard to make myself cook anything that has elaborate preparation (where literally, chopping some vegetables counts as too much preparation)

meal prep is a great solution to this

it's just making your week's meals in one giant cooking session and spreading it out

the efficiency of it is, I've found, attractive to the kinds of people who would use this forum

[devonin]

When I can do it, that is the only way I can do it. But the only thing harder than mustering the energy and motivation to do something time consuming that isn't a mandatory obligation is mustering the energy and motivation to do it even more.

The thing that would make me actually cook meals for myself is if there was no way for me to get food any other way. I always get to work because I have to. I am too easy to convince myself to just order pizza because the option exists.

[Reach]

I certainly understand that feeling.

Not buying things you know you shouldn't be eating is definitely a start, but as for fast food and takeout, I think for those things you have to truly convince yourself that it's in your best interest to avoid them and that ordering it means you're wasting your time and health. And getting to that level can take some time.

Once you get through that ownership phase and really develop the intrinsic motivation to avoid bad eating habits it's easy, but getting there is difficult. You might find it helpful to add cheating to your log and give yourself some sort of weekly allowance (e.g. one takeout a week). Thankfully, it is actually very easy to add virtually any type of takeout, permanently, to a healthy diet, as most restaurants nowadays have accurate nutritional information available online.

If you find yourself cheating far more often than that there's a record of it and you'll have to stare the failure in the face every time you go to record something in your log.

[devonin]

I'm already logging everything just to give more info to the dietitian and it definitely makes me resist doing anything really bad, if more because of shame at admitting I failed publicly than any actual positive thoughts on my end. But if that's what it takes to get the better behavior habituated, so be it.

[devonin]

Week three, we're mostly working on cutting caloric intake a bit.

My work schedule and sleep schedule tends to make me end up eating too much. I work 10 hours, and by the time I'm done work, basically anything but pizza is closed, and I'm usually too low energy to cook anything significant.

usually I get up around 10:30, and eat one meal around 2:00, I eat my second meal around 7:00 and then by the time I get home at 10:30/11, I'm usually a little peckish, and I tend to stay up until around 2/3am so often I have a full third meal around 11:30

This wouldn't be the worst thing except usually all the meals are pretty big.

So the plan for this week is two experiements.

Once during a work day I'm going to have my usual 12" sub for meal 1, and then try to have like...a banana and some peppers or some other veggie through the afternoon, trying to tide myself over until I get home from work, and then eat a full meal.

One other time during the work week I'm going to have my usual 12" sub for meal 1, and then instead of having another 12" sub for meal 2 (which usually ends up leaving me hungry at night sometimes I snack, sometimes I eat another full meal) the plan is to just have the regular sub for meal 1, and then just have half of the other at 6ish and the other half at 10ish when I get home. Spreading the food out longer and trying to eat it slower might hopefully let me just cut that whole other meal out of the day's calories which would be huge.

[devonin]

The bits of progress are so interesting to see, even if only small ones.

When I started 3 weeks ago, my first set of pushups was 10/8
I just did a set tonight and after about 3 weeks I'm at 23/17

In just two weeks I've added 10 seconds onto my plank, and in 3 weeks I'm down about 6 or 8 pounds.

[Reach]

Awesome progress.

Must feel good!

[devonin]

Mostly I just feel even more tired all the time :P

[Reach]

Yeah, that feeling often lasts for a few months before you really start to feel better physically. You have to deal with the withdrawal in a sense before you can get to the good stuff. Pretty common, and it's the crushing wall that causes most diets to fail. Keep at it!

[devonin]

One month down, Eleven months to go.

So far I've come a pretty long way in terms of general fitness re: ability to do things like pushups and hold a plank etc, but man am I still just tired and sore like, all the time.

The other bit of good progress news is that I am at least slowly losing weight. When I first started, they weighed me at the office at like 253 but that was with clothes on.

At the end of week 2, I weighed myself at 245
At the end of week 4, I weighed myself at 239

Both at the same time of day, having not yet eaten etc etc.

It's a small move, but I mean, everything I've ever read says that the safest most healthy way to lose weight ends up being like 1lb/week which is just from slightly lowering caloric intake and slightly increasing exercise. So 6 pounds in two weeks is actually pretty good for not really feeling like I'm expending a bunch of effort specifically on weight loss.

In fact since I'm doing all the pushups and curls and rows and planks and everything, I've probably lost more like 8 or 10 pounds of fat and gained back a couple in muscle.

That's a nice feeling.