Leigh's 'Get Less Fat' Challenge

[Leigh]

In the last 2 years, I’ve dropped a significant amount of muscle mass but have maintained my weight, telling me I’m getting fat. As I’m turning 38 this year, I can’t afford to do that. To make sure I don’t get to an unmanagable point, I’ve decided to drop by body fat percentage.

To do this, I’m going to follow the tried and true tradition: eat less, move more. The ‘eat less’ part will be reducing my portion size and cutting out snacks. I don’t really eat high-sugar foods so there’s not much space to cut that out. It’s just the amount I’m eating. The ‘move more’ part will be getting back into the gym. I only surf as exercise right now and the swell is to inconsistent where I live to be able to surf consistently. Getting back in the gym will give me an avenue to exercise that isn’t weather-dependent.

I’m not going to start out counting calories just yet because I can’t be bothered, but I probably will down the line when I don’t see any results.

Starting weight: 90.7 kg
Starting body fat percentage: 26.7%*

Target weight: NA
Target body fat percentage: 12%

Timeline: 3 months

I’ll update my progress once a week.

I don’t have a solid set of rules just yet but I’ll make them up as a go along. If you’re keen to join in, list your starting figures and timeline below and we can get cracking.

*This is what my body fat percentage scales tell me, but I’m dubious about that figure. Looking at myself in the mirror, I would say between 15%-20% but it’s all guesswork. I’ll just go off what the scales say and then adjust my target as necessary.

Topic

[Leigh]

First week update (yes, it’s been 10 days but I decided that starting on Monday’s would be the best way to go):

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%

These results are pretty good for 10 days but I definitely don’t expect to keep up the same momentum for the next three months. I’m aiming for around 1% body fat percentage reduction for the 3-months so this is a bit above that, but we’ll just see how it goes.

Diet

The biggest change I’ve made this week is my diet. I’ve cut out anything that’s carb-heavy. I’ve pushing towards Keto but I think I might be getting too many carbs through nuts (cashews) to actually make it.

My typical day starts with either eggs or sausages for breakfast at around 7am, neat and salad for lunch around 11:30, a snack of cheese and ham or something similar around 3pm, and dinner of meat and vegetables (stirfry, casserole, pot roast, etc…) around 6pm. If I just need something to quell the hunger pains, I default to cashews at this point in time.

I’m not counting calories or watching my fat intake, I’m only making sure I’m staying away from any carb-heavy foods.

Exercise

I’ve done a pretty average amount of exercise this week. I’ve surfed three times for a total of about 4 hours and spent another hour in the gym lifting weights. As it gets colder here, I’ll start to spend more time in the gym and less in the water.

Thoughts

The exercise isn’t hard, but watching my diet is. It’s been really interesting to see just how undisciplined I’ve become with my diet. Not in terms of what I’ve been eating (because I’ve never had much sugar and I’m not craving sugar at all), but in terms of how often I eat. I’m having constant urges just to graze on anything I can get my hands on. Resisting the urge to eliminate any kind of hunger pains has been a struggle. It should get easier as I get more used to it, but it’s been tough and I’ve definitely caved a few times – not through a lack of discipline, but just through not being conscious of what I’m doing.

Competition

To make this more fun, my wife has decided to join me on this adventure. The winner is the person who reduces their body fat percentage the most. If, after three months, she’s lost more than me, she gets $1,000 to spend on a new wardrobe and a night away with her friends. I’m not sure what I’m going to ask for, but I have three months to work it out.

I’ll update this thread next Monday.

[Anonymous]

I have a habit which involves me to stay conscious too

I wonder what you do to remind yourself to away from things which you dont want to do.
” For example, I am curious to know if you have any strategy to remind yourself to snack less”

[Leigh]

When you’re trying not to do something and you already have enough motivation and conviction to not do it, it really just comes down to being more conscious of the actions you’re taking in any given moment.

It’s making ‘being conscious’ a priority throughout your day and backing that up with action. Doing so will allow you to catch yourself falling back into bad habits which then allows you to choose a new action.

Have you subscribed to the ‘Focus Control Challenge? That’s the best place to start with this.

[Leigh]

Week 2 update

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg (part of me wanted to write something like 84.1kg for April Fools day, but I resisted the urge)

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%

Not the results I wanted, but unsurprising considering I’ve been less discplined than last week. Apart for one night when I went out to an amazing new Sushi restaurant and had a big, beautiful, sushi roll, I haven’t strayed outside my dietary guidlines. I even turned down wood-fired pizza and birthday cake last night. But, I have grazed more between meals than I did the week before.

Diet
Still keto, still going. The only time I’ve struggled with craving carbs was the day after I had the sushi. Every other time has been fine. It’s just been a matter of keeping enough food in the house to make sure I don’t have to eat carbs.

Exercise
I’ve done heaps of exercise this week. I’ve surfed three times for a total of about 5 hours and been to the gym three times. This is mostly why I’m not too worried about my weight going up. I get the feeling that over the course of this challenge, my weight actuallly won’t go down much. It’ll just be redistrubuted from fat to muscle.

Focus
The focus for this upcoming week is limiting the grazing and allowing myself to be hungry. It should be interesting to see how that goes. Allowing myself to be hungry is something I’ve never really done before.

I’ll update this again in a week.

[Luiz]

Great to see your commitment, Leigh!

All the best during this journey, I’ll watch it

[Nathan]

I want to see a picture of Fat Leigh, and then when you are done we can see the pictures of Fit Leigh. Then I can use the photos, photoshop them a bit, and use them to sell viagra and dodgy fat loss pills. (That’s how it works right?)

But seriously, great stuff dude.

You’ve mentioned some of your habits around exercise, but have you been developing new habits around what you eat? Particularly when those cravings hit hard. Or is it all sheer willpower? 😉

Love to hear how you approached it.

 

 

[Leigh]

There’s not a chance in hell I’m posting “Fat to Fit” photos… without getting a cut of the profits 🙂

The diet stuff has been interesting and there’s definitely a blog post in here somewhere.

The one thing I’ve noticed is that the sensation I get when I eat till I’m full is basically fulfilment (Get it: FULL-fillment???) so I know that when I’m craving stuffing more food into my face, it’s because I want to feel like I’ve achieved something.

And, it’s the same with sweets. The closest experience I can describe to the sensation I’m seeking when I want ice cream and cake and everything else terrible, is connection. So, I know that when I crave sugary shit, I need to find a more effective way to connect with people.

It’s been interesting to watch what’s happening in my mind and how close it fits with the LifeOS philosophy of finding more effective ways to fulfil your desires.

The biggest challenge I’m dealing with at the moment is trying not to burn out. I’ve done serious exercise (at least 45 minutes in the gym, all the way up to 2 1/2 hours surfing) almost every day (only missed one day) since I started this challenge and I’m really feeling it. I’m going to take this weekend off and try to recover a little so I don’t just burn out completely.

But, at the same time, it’s great to see the results. I weighed myself yesterday and I was down at 88.0kg and 24.5% body fat, which is really looking good. I haven’t been this light in maybe 10 years??

Will be interesting to see how low it goes.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%

These results are interesting because they’re actually a lot higher than they were yesterday. I weighed myself yesterday morning and was 87.7kg and 24.2% body fat so I don’t know what the fuck I ate last night but it certainly wasn’t good!! 🙂

As a side note, I really wish I’d taken ‘Fat to fit’ photos now. I’m not losing as much weight as I wanted, but I’m definitely changing shape. I’ve lost a significant amount of weight around my mid section and legs and put it on my upper body. I don’t have photos to prove it, and it would have been good to see.

Diet
Still keto, still going. All good. I managed to say no to a bunch of different non-keto options this week so that felt good.

I’ve cut down my grazing heaps and getting much better at letting myself be hungry. There were plenty of times this week where I would have normally had a snack but didn’t and just allowed myself to be hungry till my main meal.

One really interesting thing I’ve noticed is that I’ve completely stopped craving anything even remotely sweet. Given how much I wanted sweet stuff at the start, this is interesting. Even remotely sweet stuff that still falls under the ‘keto’ category like raspberries and cream (which was a favourite of mine) is now not even in the equation. In fact, the only thing I’m really craving is milk. We have some incredible, locally produced, non-homogenised milk down here and it’s hard work to stop drinking it. I have a glass for dessert now if I haven’t had enough fat during the day to fill me up, but it’s tough to say no. It’s definitely not something I expected.

Exercise
I deliberately cut down my exercise this week. I was just getting burnt out. I was at the gym three times, surfed once, and was at pilates once, but did nothing on the weekend. My body was just over it. I’d exercised something like 16 out of 17 days or something stupid and I just needed a rest so took the weekend off.

Feeling much better now and hit the gym this morning. I’ve started this program: https://athleanx.com/max-shred

The dude is fucking excellent and has to great YouTube videos if you’re keen to start lifting. I don’t know if this program is the right one for me though so I might move onto something else.

Focus
The focus for this week is just keeping going. I’m going to focus really hard on not snacking and just making sure I stick to my main meals.

I’ll update this again in a week.

[Anonymous]

How about Sprinting , long distance running .

There were some guys online who wanted to have abs,or cut down weight, and all that they emphasized more on in the end was on diet .

How about weekly once ” water only or liquid only” fasting .on that particular day , let’s say , maybe one of the weekend, you can drink coconut water , lime juice , and some other liquid whenever hungry.

I read another post of yours ,where, you wrote about reminders,so, you could try sticking notes to your purse and other things,plus, even places . This might help .you can use paper, cellotape .

[Leigh]

Running doesn’t work for my old and tired body. I’ve put it through FAR too many kilometres and my hips, knees, and ankles all disagree with it. It’s a pity, because I used to really enjoy it, but it’s not for me right now.

Fasting is an interesting one. I’ve been looking at and reading about intermittant fasting for a while now and thinking about going down that path. I think I could do the 16/8 version (where you fit all your meals into an 8 hour window and fast for the other 16 hours) without too many changes to my life. For me, it would just mean delaying my first meal till 10:30am, which isn’t that much of a stretch. It’s definitely on the cards, but not at the top of the list just yet.

Have you tried fasting before?

[Author]

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