Things have been happening, though, I promise. For instance, I've dropped about 5 pounds since my last post - which means, I'm currently in the high 250's!!! Time for champagne and caviar, right? WRONG!!! This is just the beginning! Well, not the beginning, really, but somewhere in the middle. The point is, this was a minor goal in the grand scheme of things.
I weighed in with my gym a few days ago and, because of this sudden surge in weight loss, I had to drink about a quart of water before my weigh-in to compensate. What, it's not cheating! Anyway, my "before" weight for the challenge is 260.4, which I think is entirely reasonable and not much inflated. My new low weight is 256.6, measured last Thursday, and it seems that every day now I am around 257-259, which pretty much means I'm out of the 260's.
That was the first development. But what really makes the awesomeness so awesome is the second development: the assessment with my gym.
The first assessment I had, at the end of November, was after about 30 pounds weight loss, so I was feeling pretty good about myself - and this was before Keeley and I decided to incorporate exercise. I had weighed in at 274 (with shoes etc), with a body fat percentage of 28.6%. So despite all the weight loss, I was still obese. And that was okay with me - I honestly didn't think I was going to get under that line at the time. Well, this time around, I was 257.8 and 24.7% body fat - a loss of almost 4%! On top of that, now that I am under 25%, I am no longer obese! I was thrilled at this news. I even scored a lot better on my cardio (not surprising), bench (really not surprising), sit and reach (mildly unsurprising), and a smidge better on my sit ups.
This was all great news. I honestly did not think I had come so far with my body fat, but that just goes to show that sticking to it really does pay off.
And now the bad news: I had overestimated my body fat percentage, and couldn't remember what it was from the fitness score in November, so my macronutrient ratios from the keto calculator were totally off. I was getting enough protein to maintain muscle, but not build it. And while I clearly have gotten stronger anyway, this is an important piece to the evolving puzzle of how I should eat. At this point, my minimum will be 200g protein (about 1g per pound of lean body mass), up from 170-180, and this will only be on rest days. On lift days, I need to take in at least 233g, observing the required 1.2g per pound of lean body mass. This is a ridiculous amount of protein.
Oh, that's the other thing - lean body mass, as I've discovered, equals your weight minus fat content. I am about 25% fat, so my lean body mass is around 193 pounds. This is a crucial learning.
This also raises my minimum caloric intake from 1100 to 1400, but currently I do not plan on going lower than 1900 anyway, even on rest days (lift days I aim for 2300), for fear I might lose muscle. Essentially, even though I was fairly accurate about my diet, I still had to make some changes to account for extra protein intake.
I am also a little surprised that 193 is my lean body mass. That means that, unless I lose muscle, there is basically no way I can get down to 200 pounds, unless I want to be a bodybuilder (which I don't). Ultimately, I think 12-15% body fat would be wonderful. Were I to reach this level, which is considered extremely fit, I would be somewhere between 215 and 225 pounds. My goal for June has been 230, and it will remain just that.
30 pounds over the next 3 months. Shouldn't be too hard.........
I also went throwing a couple days ago, for the first time since September. Here's a look at how that went (I'll give you a hint: not very well).
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