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

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have tried water only fasting(30 hours),plus, fasting with only liquid stuff(45 hours)

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%

This is getting easier. I don’t crave sugar or carbs at all now and even when I taste some while making my son’s dinner, they hold no appeal for me. They’re just empty nothingness now. In saying that, I went into a bakery the other day and saw an almond croissant that I nearly lost my shit to, but held it together 🙂

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the bodyfat measurements are a completely ineffective measurment of anything right now. I can influence them by up to 0.3% by going to the toilet or not drinking milk within an hour of measuring myself so they can’t really be even slightly accurate. I’ll continue to report them for interest’s sake, but I won’t be relying on them.

The 0.75kg weight loss is solid considering how much my body is changing. This week was the first time I put on my shorts I wore comfortably all summer and they were loose. They actually started sliding down my arse and I had to pull them back up again. Before that, I could see the way my body shape was shifting (the weight from my waist moving up to my shoulders), but couldn’t feel the effects. This is the first real effect I’ve felt.

I’m guessing the weight loss will slow down at some point as the muscle gain takes over but I’ll keep going till then. I think I can get down around 86kg or so before that happens and if I can, I’ll be happy.

Diet
As I mentioned above, still going strong. I probably grazed more this week than I did in the previous but I’m only ever grazing on good stuff. My biggest weakness is the roasted cashews I got shipped down from Sydney. They’re fucking delicious and they fit into my diet so seeing them and knowing I can eat them is hard, but I’m getting better at it.

Exercise
My exercise levels were roughly the same as last week. There’s been no surfable swell so it’s been three times in the gym, once at pilates, and a day in the garden, sweating it out, digging up garden beds.

I dropped that Athlean X program because it was ALL about fat loss, rather than putting on any kind of muscle, and I’m just going to use the same lifting program I did when I was younger. Three day split hitting all the major muscle groups once per week.

Focus
The focus this week is just fucking keep going. Don’t stop. Just keep doing it. It doesn’t look like there’s much swell on the horizon so it’ll just be more of the same for now – eat well, gym, pilates.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg
23/4/19: 87.35kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%
23/4/19: 24.2%

This week was interesting: it was easter. It meant there were three days of the week where I was eating at someone elses house and they were offering us chocolate. I didn’t want to be that guy, so I did eat a small piece of chocolate twice, but also creatively managed to say no to chocolate a number of times without offending anyone.

The really interesting part was that after I ate chocolate, I felt sick. My body didn’t want it. Which is interesting considering how much I used to plow through (probably a significant contributor to why I need to do this challenge!).

Diet
Apart from the chocolate, the other issue I had this week was that eating at other people’s houses made it hard to stick to the diet. We stayed at a friends house for a night, eating three meals with them, and they’re vegetarian. It’s pretty hard to eat keto with vegetarians… Two of the three meals I ate with them had carbs in it because it was the only way I was going to feel even the slightest bit full.

Exercise
Exercise this week was fine. It was nothing special. I was at the gym twice, did pilates once, and surfed twice for a total of 3 hours in the water. I’m definitely getting stronger and fitter, which is good.

Focus
The focus this week is getting my diet back on track. Eating non-keto food for the first time in 5 weeks made it clear just how much better I feel when I eat Keto so I want to make sure I stick to it this week. SO much easier when I’m at home.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg
23/4/19: 87.35kg
29/4/19: 86.95kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%
23/4/19: 24.2%
29/4/19: 24.0%

This is getting easy. Right now, I’m able to make carb-heavy meals for my son that I normally would have had to work really hard not to eat, but they don’t interest me now. When I get tired or worn out, I don’t crave carbs. I crave fat. After doing leg day at the gym the other day, all I wanted to eat was a Beef Massaman Curry, when I normally would have craved rice and pasta.

At this point in time, the only issue I can see coming up is when we travel the US for 6 weeks and will have to eat a lot of meals on the go.

Also, this is the lightest I’ve been since 2006. Feeling pretty good.

Diet
I was a little surprised that I managed to drop more weight this week because my calorie count was much higher than past weeks. I definitely put away more fat than I normally would and thought I wouldn’t lose anything. It’s interesting to see.

Exercise
My exercise was really limited this week. I had a few sleep issues and so struggled to find the time, more than anything, to get out and exercise. I went to the gym three times, but that was it. No surfing or pilates as there were no waves and my pilates instructor was away.

Focus
Just stay disciplined and on track. I’m going to focus on allowing myself to be hungry more often and for longer periods of time to reduce my overall calorie intake, just to see how that affects my weight loss and energy levels.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg
23/4/19: 87.35kg
29/4/19: 86.95kg
6/5/19: 86.85

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%
23/4/19: 24.2%
29/4/19: 24.0%
6/5/19: 24.1%

Interesting week. I really got to see the impact of breaking my diet has. I didn’t do it intentionally, but still felt it all the same.

I went out to a local Thai restaurant and ordered something I thought was keto-compatible – a chicken stir-fry with cashew nuts. No rice. I didn’t count on the amount of sugar that was obviously in the sauce. Granted, I wouldn’t have even noticed it 3 months ago, but this time, I was BUZZING. I felt jittery and weird. It was definitely the most sugar I’ve had since I started this challenge.

The comedown was intense as well. I felt sloppy, lethargic, and fat. When I jumped on the scales the next morning, I’d put on 1.8kg (I was at 88.8kg). Obviously, this was water weight to deal with the sugar, but it was a good reminder of what happens when I break my diet, even unintentionally.

Diet
As normal (except for the day above), so now I’m going to add something new in: intermittent fasting. I’m starting with a 10 hour eating window (8:30am – 6:30pm) for this week and then going to reduce that down as I become more accustomed to it. My wife’s also joining in so it should be far easier with both of us on the same routine.

Exercise
I was only at the gym twice this week but surfed a bunch. Had two 2-hour+ sessions because, well, I could. It’s been a while since we had good swell. Going surfing this morning and there’s swell around a few days this week so I should be able to get more hours in the water.

Focus
The intermittent fasting is obviously the challenge for the week. I just need to remember not to eat before 8:30 and not snack before going to bed. That’ll be the focus.

[Leigh]

Ok, so just an example of how much one meal of breaking my diet impacts my weight.

I just weighed myself and I’m 86.30kg and 23.7% body fat. There’s no way I lost half a kilo and 0.4% body fat yesterday. I would have had to have burnt 16,500 kilojoules more than I consumed, which would be pretty hard. I did surf for about 45 minutes but nowhere near enough to do that.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg
23/4/19: 87.35kg
29/4/19: 86.95kg
6/5/19: 86.85kg
13/5/19: 86.35kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%
23/4/19: 24.2%
29/4/19: 24.0%
6/5/19: 24.1%
13/5/19: 23.7%

Still just rolling in. Interestingly, I feel fatter today than I have over the last few weeks (which may have something to do with drinking about 2L of milk over the last 3 days) so I have a feeling that my weight my drog significantly over the next few days when the water associated with processing that sugar flushes out of my system

Diet
My diet was basically keto, with the exception of milk. I have started to get a bit lazy testing my son’s food as I’m making instead of spitting it out so I might go back to that.

I tried to get into intermittent fasting this week but my sleep patterns really made it tough. I can push through to not eating before 9am when I’m waking up at 6am, but there were a few days this week where I woke up around 3am, which just made it really tough and I caved.

My sleep is out already this week and I might add it in, but I also might not. I’m doing well without it so I’ll just have a think about it.

Exercise
I didn’t exercise much this week due to my sleep issues. When I don’t sleep, it’s pretty hard to find the energy to get out and work out. I was at the gym once and surfed 3 times, so it still wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t what it normally is.

Focus
I think for this week, I’m just going to go back to diet basic and eliminate carb-creep. I’m not paying as much attention as I should and it’s time to get refocused.

I don’t know how well this is going to go considering it’s my birthday this week and my family is flying in for it so I’m guessing there’ll be at least one day my diet is off track, but I’ll make sure that’s the only one.

[Jimmy]

Intermittent fasting is a bitch.  Nothing is worse than feeling hungry dude.  Seems like you’re making progress.  Keep it up.

[Leigh]

Jimmy wrote:

Intermittent fasting is a bitch. Nothing is worse than feeling hungry dude.

This is a really interesting point that I’ve been thinking about. What percentage of human history had we had the luxury of not feeling hungry? How many years have we been this privileged?

I would guess not very many. And even now, it’s not everyone who is this lucky. There are still millions of people not only in developing countries but is western, developed countries as well, that don’t have this luxury.

Being hungry, whilst tough, it a luxury. And even then, I’m hungry with the full knowledge that if I decided to, I could just go to the fridge or cupboard or any number of the shops around my house and end that in a second. For almost everyone else who’s hungry, that’s not an option.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about lately.

[Leigh]

Weight
15/3/19: 90.7kg
25/3/19: 88.5kg
1/4/19: 88.7kg
8/4/19: 88.35kg
15/4/19: 87.6kg
23/4/19: 87.35kg
29/4/19: 86.95kg
6/5/19: 86.85kg
13/5/19: 86.35kg
20/5/19: 86.80kg

Bodyfat Percentage
15/3/19: 26.7%
25/3/19: 24.7%
1/4/19: 24.8%
8/4/19: 24.5%
15/4/19: 24.3%
23/4/19: 24.2%
29/4/19: 24.0%
6/5/19: 24.1%
13/5/19: 23.7%
20/5/19: 24.0%

My first backwards week. I did expect it, though. It was my birthday on Friday and my family flew in for the occasion. They brought rice noodles down from Sydney and my mother in law made my favourite cake in the world – baked cheesecake.

I didn’t want to be the arsehole and tell them I wasn’t going to eat them so I cooked them and ate them both. To be honest, it was fucking excellent 🙂 I love it. I just won’t do it again.

I also got an insight into the struggles other people might face staying Keto. I went to the pub last night to watch a friend’s band and there was temptation everywhere. There were bowls of chips and everyone’s meal had some kind of carbs they were more than willing to share. I forget how easy my life of just sitting around at home makes it until I got back into the real world.

Diet
Outside of my birthday, the diet is still going well. I still drink a litle too much milk, but if that’s my biggest vice, then I think I’m going to be ok.

Exercise
I didn’t exercise that much this week. I was out of town for two days and have been spending time with my family on the others. I made it to the gym twice and surfed once, but that was it.

Focus
Get my shit back on track. I’m slipping. I’m going to cut down my milk consumption so that it’s only a treat, not a staple. That’s about it.

[Author]

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