Annual Physical and Weight Loss Thoughts

One of the nicer benefits of working at a small hospital is our free annual physical - not even a co-pay. The offer is only good in the month of your birthday, and I had my physical yesterday.

For the most part, everything was great. The doctor read back the note from a year ago, when I was complaining of fatigue and poor workouts. That trend followed me through early August of last year, when I decided to take an extended low-level rest period. I told him that I feel way better this January than I did a year ago. My weight was almost identical to last year, but I know my body fat percentage is lower.

My one complaint to him was about my weight and how difficult I find it to lose weight these days. His first response was "I can't very well ask you to exercise more, can I?", followed by some laughter. I asked if he had any other patients similar to me - lots of exercise but they really struggle to control their weight. I got a "not really" sort of answer, and he acknowledged that he has no patients who exercise as much as I do.

He then reverted to the standard "calories in, calories out" position. He did acknowledge that one medication I take could have an impact on my weight, but my dosage is so small that he doesn't think it's a likely issue.

So, that's it. Eat less. I really wonder these days about the huge disconnects between the USDA-sanctioned position vs. the millions of other theories out there. I know that the world is full of people trying to make a fast buck any way they can from people who want to lose weight. I know the drug companies are working on a magic bullet solution as well. The USDA sticks to its food pyramid, which I believe is absurd, but money talks and the dairy and grain lobbies don't want to see their products de-emphasized in the pyramid.

I guess I've become a convert to the thoughts of a number of fitness trainers and some of the basic tenets of the Paleo Diet. There are a number of trainers whose blogs I read, such as John Berardi of Precision Nutrition, Craig Ballantyne of Turbulence Training, Alwyn Cosgrove, Naked Nutrition, Avidity Fitness, and some others. They all seem to agree that weight loss is best achieved by high levels of intense exercise, diets that emphasize frequent small meals, and food choices that limit the quantity and timing of carbohydrates.

I try to avoid foods that have no nutritional value. That is, I try to avoid foods like white flour, sugar, white rice, etc. My overall grain intake is fairly low. A typical day for me includes a number of smaller meals, each meal containing some protein and some veggies. I've cut way back on alcohol consumption - none for 10 days right now - a significant streak for me.

But, there are certainly times when I could eat better. It seems that I'm most likely to eat some food I'd be better avoiding when I go too long with no food. A good example might be lunch on a Saturday or Sunday, when I'm teaching skiing. If I don't eat breakfast, I'm starving at lunchtime, and a cheeseburger will look a lot more tempting than a salad. Or, right after skiing, if I don't eat something right away, I'm more likely to go home and eat anything I can find in the kitchen while I'm cooking dinner. So, I know where I am likely to overeat or to eat the wrong things.

Precision Nutrition advocates that you can't really know how well something works unless you are at least 90% compliant on a long-term basis. I know that I don't hit 90% over the long term, although I have short bursts of high compliance compliance.

So, I'm not really losing weight. What's going on? Perhaps I'm losing fat but adding muscle. The way my clothing fits says this might be true, but I need to check with my body fat calipers. I might be semi-following a good program, but not following it well enough. I might be following the wrong program completely. Perhaps I've fallen for something that doesn't make nutritional sense at all.

Of course, I tend to believe that my body doesn't follow the laws of thermodynamics. It can't be my fault, right?

Yes, I think I know where the answer lies. It's in the choices I make every day. They just aren't good enough right now.

And, until I get my weight moving in the right direction, and under a particular goal, I won't drink any alcohol at all. That gives me some pretty good motivation at least.

Weights this morning

I'm just about done with a program from New Rules of Lifting called Hypertrophy 1. Truthfully, I'm not all that interested in hypertrophy, but that program was next in the sequence that I've been following. I've enjoyed the program because of its variety. There are 24 workouts in the cycle and you do each exactly 4 times. There is a workout A, which is upper body and a workout B, which is lower body. Then, you alternate between 5x5s with 90 seconds rest, 4x10s with 60 seconds rest, and 3x15s with 30 seconds rest. All I've got left is a 4x10 upper body day and 3x15 lower body day. To me, the 3x15 days are the toughest, and perhaps also the most important for a runner.

The 5x5 days are my favorites though, because I feel like I'm lifting some real mass. Of course, within lifting, it's all relative, and real lifters would laugh at the amount of weight I'm pulling or pushing. Today's squats started at 135 for the first set, and then I did 3 sets at 145 and the last at 155. Deadlift shrugs were all done at 185 pounds. Both of these were PRs for this workout, in terms of total poundage moved. Then, I did Bulgarian split squats with 2x30# DBs and bench step-ups with 2x40# DBs. Then, 3x15 reverse crunches. I also added some push-ups and pull-ups. All in all, it was a great workout.

I'll finish this program early next week and I have to decide what is next. I think I'm going to drop lifting to 2x per week after the first of the year. I think I'm going to go back to the concept of the Fat Loss programs, but modify them somewhat.

Each of the first two fat loss programs contained 6 different lifts, paired up into 3 supersets. The goal was that each superset would combine two lifts not really related to each other, so there would be minimal interference within a superset.

The basic goal is to have one lift from the categories of push, pull, deadlift, squat, lunge and rotation. However, the fat loss programs have you either squat or deadlift on each day, but never both, so one movement usually gets repeated.

So, I think I want to vary the lifts I've been doing since I'm tired of lat pulldowns and cable rows and a few other lifts. But, if I put together something similar to the fat loss programs, focusing on one lift per category, I should have a huge amount of variety available for my next sequence. I'll spend the next week creating a new set of workouts to use after the first of the year. I may also vary the set/rep numbers from the fat loss programs to do at least some 5x5 days, so I can focus on lifting heavier weights periodically.

Oh yeah, I still run too - 11 easy miles yesterday.

After Friday, I'm going to take a multi-day break from running, and do a lot of skiing for a few days. Then, after skiing on the first of the year, I'll start upping my running mileage.

We went out for dinner last night and I had a bowl of soup and a salad with grilled chicken. No bread, no butter, no burgers, and no alcohol. I guess WS really has me focused right now. The important thing is to extend that focus through the next 27 weeks.

My mortal enemy - The Scale

I stepped on my scale for the first time in a while this morning. I weighed 196.

Over my running career, I've raced at weights as low as 165 and I've been as high as 227, although I don't think I ever raced when I weighed over 210.

In my 10 starts at 100 miles, I've been as light as 176 or so at Hardrock (they don't weigh you there) and as high as 202 at Vermont in 1997. Not surprisingly, I didn't finish that race in 1997.

I weighed in for WS at 187, VT at 194, 197, 198 and 202. I was 189 at Wasatch.

I ran my marathon PR (2:57:35) at 168 pounds. I ran my 5K PR just a few weeks before my marathon PR, at 170.

Except for Hardrock in 2004, I've never been under 180 pounds for an ultra.

A typical pattern for me will be something like this:

Decide on my key race for next season by the end of the previous calendar year. Enjoy the holidays and enjoy some beers after skiing early in the season. Step on the scale on the first of the year and freak out. Plan to lose x pounds by race day. Divide x by the number of months, n, until the race. The number will seem small. So, I'll figure I can make a few moderate changes and I'll get there slowly. Then, I eat well for a week and go right back to my normal habits. I'll drink beer after skiing every Saturday and Sunday. I'll eat cheeseburgers for lunch while I'm teaching skiing.

Suddenly, it will be the first of February. I still have x pounds to lose, but one less month. So, I need to lose x/(n-1) pounds per month. It still sounds doable.

Repeat January's habits in February. Repeat again in March. Finally, ski season ends and I switch to running on the weekends, but I'm now behind on where I need to be weight-wise. This affects my ability to run the number of miles that I'd like to run. I get frustrated, and eventually simply accept that I'll lose a little weight during my higher mileage training, but "x" is not going to happen. Maybe x-10 or x/2.

On raceday, I show up weighing more than I'd like, and despite all my training, I'm left wondering "what if". Fit and fat - story of my life.

So, here we are again. Is it time to lamely repeat the past?

I have a set of bodyfat calipers. They're kind of cheap, but I use them every month or two and I get pretty consistent numbers.

According to those calipers, at 198 pounds one month ago, I was at 21.7% body fat with a lean body mass of 155 pounds. It's hard to imagine that I'm ever going to see 10% body fat, which would be 172 pounds if my lean body mass stayed unchanged.

However, I imagine that as my running mileage increases and I cut my weight training from 3x per week to 2x, I'll lose some lean body mass.

I made it to Hardrock in the mid-170s back in 2004 and I finished 65th of 125 starters. That was probably the ultra race of my life so far.

So, I want to make 175 pounds my goal for Western States. Perhaps more important than the weight is my body fat percentage, depending on what happens with my lean body mass as my mileage increases. So, I'm going to set a goal there as well, although it may be unachievable: 12%.

I have just over 6 months until the race and I'm saying I'd like to lose 21 pounds. Hmmmm, that's just 3.5 pounds per month.

Here we go again...

Random Comments

Last week was a good training week. I had a rest day on Monday when a snowstorm and a town meeting stopped me from ever getting to the gym. After that, I lifted and ran on Tuesday, ran twice on Wednesday, lifted and ran on Thursday and ran twice on Friday. I taugh skiing both days over the weekend and woke up a bit sore this morning.

Regrefully, my workout this morning was a lower-body workout, doing 3x15s with only 30 seconds rest between sets. I always have to use much lighter weights for this set/rep/rest pattern. I did squats, deadlift shrugs, Bulgarian split squats, and bench step-ups, the latter two with dumbbells. Then, some reverse crunches, push-ups, and pull-ups. Tonight will be a very easy run or uphill walk on the treadmill.

It was great to be teaching skiing to kids again over the weekend. I enjoy our pre-season training clinics, but I feel most comfortable when I'm back at work, hanging out with the kids all day. My group has a range of ages, from 7 to 11, but no 9-year old children. We were skiing double-black-diamond bump runs yesterday afternoon, so I know we'll ski hard this season.

I had a hard time following the meal timing of Precision Nutrition while skiing. I have to figure out how to eat 3 small meals during the skiing day - meals that include protein and vegetables.

I guess that getting into Western States must have scared me a little bit. I didn't have a drop of alcohol last week - the first time in many months that I went a week without a drink.

I need to step on a scale and see where my weight is right now. Getting my bodyfat percentage lower is a key for me if I'm going to be successful in June.

Overall, I think I know the keys to getting my bodyfat lower. I know that we're all different, but this is what seems to matter the most for me. From a training perspective, speed work helps a lot with my weight, lifting seems to help, and total mileage doesn't seem to matter much. I think that as my mileage gets high, I simply compensate by eating more.

From a dietary perspective, alcohol seems to have the worst impact on my weight. After that, simple carbs (sugar and flour especially) are probably my biggest problem, and perhaps dairy fat is next. If I stay away from those three categories of food, or limit them properly, I can eat all the food I want and still lose weight. That basically means lean meats, lots of salads, other veggies and some fruit, plus my post-workout recovery drinks. It gets boring, but it seems to be effective, especially when combined with speed work or weight training or both.