As some of you are probably well aware of by now, getting back on the running wagon is one of my goals for this year. At this point, almost 4 months in, I still haven’t gotten back into running regularly at all, but I am making strides towards getting the ball rolling again. On the exercise side of things, I mentioned in the 100 day update that I was considering doing Orangetheory again as a way to motivate myself, and I have since signed up and gone a couple times. I would’ve gone more, but I’ve been hampered with body problems and other things that ate up my time (excuses, excuses, I know). Of course, the other side of getting healthy is on the eating side of things, so this week’s post is about that.
To say that I have trouble sticking with diets is an understatement. It’s also universal among people in today’s world of food excess. I definitely fall into the camp of finding a diet that looks interesting, trying it out for a while, seeing results, and then slipping back into lazy mode once I’ve reached my goal.
To help give context for this monologue, I’ve provided a nice graph that shows my weekly average weight over the last 6+ years, starting in 2013 when I started taking daily measurements.
I really wish I had measurements all the way back to 2008, after I graduated from college, since it would show an equally impressive dip and climb back up to where the data starts. This post is going to cover essentially three different periods of time where I was able to make big gains, and then immediately fall off the wagon again, concluded with a look at what’s I’m going to be attempting this time around.
Before I start, it is important to note here that according to most estimates I’ve been able to find on the subject, the ideal weight for my size is around 195-200 lbs. That’s for a 6’4” guy, big frame, around 12% body fat.
First Cycle
As mentioned, I don’t have exact data from 2008-2012, but I mostly remember how it went. When I graduated college and moved back home (not having a job yet), I weighed around 215-220 lbs. The exact number isn’t that important, the significant part is that I gained around 30 lbs during those 4 years away from home, partly from time in the gym, but mostly because being a student means a poor lifestyle of ramen, potstickers, mac n’ cheese, chicken nuggets, pizza, and burger patties on toast.
Since I was living at home and had a bunch of time to fix this problem, I was able to undertake a pretty rigorous exercise plan. It’s not around anymore, but back then there was a website called I Want Six Pack Abs or something like that, and my best friend and I decided to give it a go. It consisted of six workouts per week, three days on strength training (for 30-60 min depending on number of exercises) and three days on cardio (30 min or less, focused on sprint intervals), plus some guidelines on what to be eating.
Food wise, the guide wasn’t too far off what many diets recommend these days. Meats and vegetables, some healthy grains, and allowed for desserts that consisted of applesauce or cottage cheese with berries. I also remember eating a lot of nuts between meals since the plan recommended smaller, more frequent meals that is common among athletes.
This strict routine lasted for almost 4 months, basically until I royally messed up my left elbow such that I couldn’t do half of the exercises anymore (and my elbow still has never fully recovered from this). But by the time this happened, I was able to get back under 200 lbs, so it was a success.
What happened after that? It took a while, but without the exercise I couldn’t maintain that weight, and my eating habits slowly got worse after I moved out on my own. I tried to get back into it a few times over the next few years, but it never stuck, so I ballooned back up to my post-college weight and beyond, as you can see from the graph.
Second Cycle
Now that I can use the graph, it is pretty obvious where the second cycle happened. There’s basically a peak around June 2013, then a consistent fall for almost a year into April 2014, holding steady for a few months, then another drastic drop from November 2014 to my ideal weight in the Spring of 2015.
The two main factors for the first drop are both exercise related. One, I started working at Amazon in September 2013, which meant that I started walking to work instead of driving. That alone had a huge impact on my mobility and how I felt. Two, I also started running in June, followed by joining Orangetheory shortly after starting at Amazon. I probably also made some diet adjustments to help fuel the new exercise, but I can’t remember exactly. It really was mostly just getting back into the habit of pushing my body.
The second drop was entirely diet related as I plateaued from exercise alone. November 2014 is when I heard about and immediately started trying the Bulletproof Diet. These days I have my doubts about the full efficacy of this diet since it seems to rely quite heavily on products that they conveniently sell, but at the time I was all in. And while I didn’t do the full Bulletproof Coffee since I generally dislike coffee, I stuck to the rest of it really well.
And the results definitely showed. My weight immediately started going down again and I cut off another 15 lbs in 4 months. However, maintaining the full diet is really difficult because of the limitations, so I didn’t stick with it much longer after I got down to that ideal weight. As I said before, I fall off the wagon quite easily.
Third Cycle
After falling off that diet for a few months, and seeing my weight creep back up again, I tried to find another diet that I felt would be easier to maintain with fewer restrictions. And I did find one that appealed because it was more about cycling through different modes of eating rather than limiting foods, so you would fast one day and then eat a bunch, followed by eating less again, cycling through different ratios of protein versus carbs versus fats, and so on. That also worked for a bit as long as I stuck with it, getting back down to 200 lbs again in early 2016. But again, it ultimately didn’t sync well with my normal life, so it lasted probably the shortest of any diet I’ve tried. I’m also not sure if the diet itself caused the weight loss or if it was just me focusing on healthy foods again.
And from there you can see the slow creep back up to where I’m at right now, hovering around 230 lbs. There are a few spikes along the way there and they are directly correlated with me quitting on my long-distance running due to foot injury, me moving away from downtown Seattle to a more suburb-like area (limiting good food options and walking), and me parting with Orangetheory because it got too inconvenient to attend. But even with all that I did seem to manage keeping the weight under control for a long while until I left Amazon in August 2018, at which point I became even more sedentary than before.
Fourth Cycle
That leads us to today where I’m aiming to start yet another cycle. I have no delusions that I will be able to lose the weight and keep it off forever, that’s just not how I operate. But if I’m going to fluctuate within a range, I’d rather it be around 200-210 instead of 225-235 like I am now.
So here’s what new. As I mentioned at the beginning, Orangetheory is back again, though I’m not planning to be as intense with it as I was before. Previously I would do 3-4 days a week, now I’m aiming for just 2, and try to get in a run on the weekends. Since my goal for the year is to run a half-marathon in under 2 hours, I need to be doing those longer runs at least once a week. Realistically the farthest distance I can get in at an Orangetheory class is about 2 miles, so that doesn’t cut it.
For my diet, I’m trying something pretty new. Not in the food I’m eating, I’m going to be attempting a close-to-keto diet, which is pretty similar to the Bulletproof stuff I did years ago that worked really well. No, what’s new is that I’m taking the super lazy route and having all my meals prepped by someone else. If I look back on my history of diets, the easiest time I had sticking to something was during those months after college when I lived at home. All I had to do was tell my parents what I was trying to do and they helped make it work. As soon as I was on my own, bad habits crept back in.
So this time I’m going to take myself out of the equation as much as possible, just eat pre-made meals with the right keto components and only involve myself when I feel like it. Yes, it is a little more wasteful and more expensive than doing it myself, but overall it’s still going to be a lot cheaper than what I’m doing now, which is going out 90% of the time because I’m lazy.
I don’t think this is something I can keep up long-term, but I’m going to do it for a few months, see how it goes, and then make adjustments if I find myself wanting to cook more. I’ve found over time that it’s easier to make good decisions when you’re already in a good place, hence why I eat so much bad stuff right now.
Hopefully things work out well this time around, and I’m sure I’ll have an update every month or two on how things are going.