Viva la difference: Messing with perfection

I've lost 24 pounds since the first of the year, and 12 of them at a very consistent pound-a-week since the middle of May when I took out a new membership at the pool and started swimming several times a week. My progress has all been based on the accountability that comes with posting regularly here at BMGS 2.0 and acting reasonably on the knowledge that I will lose a pound a week if I limit my calories to 2500 a day or fewer and get regular exercise. This is not rocket science.

But I suppose it has made an impression on my pal, and in the past couple of days she has kind of asked me if I would help her do the math so that she could get on track herself and maybe drop a pound or two by the time she celebrates what some might consider a big birthday in late December. Although I am not one to mess with perfection, I have agreed to help.

She is 5'8", and that is all you need to know. Although I have recorded other data in the table that follows, I am a wise man who understands the value of the little Google Docs gizmo that blacks out certain fields. If it worked for Bush and Cheney, it can work for me. Some information is best handled on a need-to-know basis.

As you can see from the table, life is not fair or gender-blind when it comes to the arithmetic of weight loss:


My pal's exercise program involves:

• a) a combination of walking and running for 30 to 60 minutes on the bike trail near our home,
• b) the 8-minutes-a-day workout program with weights, and
• c) situps
• c) some yoga.

Based on her numbers, my take is that, if she does (a) and (b) 4 times a week each and does (c) and (d) once a week, her BMR based on the "moderately active" calculation would be 2087 calories a day, or 14,609 calories a week. That is the rate of calorie intake that would keep her weight at its current level. In order to lose a pound a week, she would have to consume 3,500 calories less than 14,609 each week. In other words, her target rate for daily calorie intake is 1,587 calories.

Now that I am finished with the considerable exercise involved in moving and I am back to swimming with an occasional day of walking and jogging, my exercise program involves:

• a) swimming laps for 60 to 90 minutes without resting;
• b) walking and slow jogging for 20 minutes; and
• c) crunches, pushups, or weights.

Based on my numbers, if I do (a) three times a week and (b) and (c) once a week each, my BMR based on the "moderately active" calculation would be 3227 calories a day, or 22,589 calories a week. That is the rate of calorie intake that would keep my weight at its current level. In order to lose a pound a week, I have to consume 3,500 calories less than 22,589each week. In other words, my target rate for daily calorie intake is 2,727 calories.

It isn't fair that I can lose weight just as quickly as my pal while I consume 1,140 more calories a day, or about 8,000 more calories a week, but, well, viva la difference!

Sources: BMR Calculator, BMR Calculator2, Harris Benedict Equation Calculator.

Afterword: In my 12-step program, this draft post would be called 12th-stepping. But whether I post it will depend, of course, on whether my pal feels her anonymity is protected.

Old Coot Shocks the World! (Or, at least, pleases himself....)

If I'm going to go to the gym to swim on a day when it is (1) deadline day for my weekly Kindle Nation email newsletter and (2) the day my Kindle DX arrived and half the sentient world is waiting with baited breath for me to post my incredibly interesting impressions of it, then, well, I better make something of the trip.

Did I?

Yes I did.

I started off feeling good and committed myself, right from the get-go, to lengthening out the segments between my 45-second rest-and-recoveries. Yesterday I lengthened out the segments from 50 yards to 100 yards (4 laps). Today I added another 50 yards to each segments and only rested after each bundle of 6 laps.

Then, during my second rest period, I happened to look up and see a sign on the wall that I somehow had not noticed before. Maybe it was new, or maybe I just have a way of filtering out what does not apply to me. Until it does apply.

The sign said:

1 lap = 25 yards 72 laps = 1 mile

Okay, I had noticed the top line. Not the bottom line.

Once I noticed it, my fate for today was sealed.

I was determined to complete a half-mile swim. 36 laps.

So that's what I did. It felt great, all the way. It's probably pathetic that I get such motivation out of such games. But I do. I knew I had done 30 laps last Friday, so getting to 36 isn't shock-the-world stuff. But for most of my daily swims I have just been adding 10% a week -- or that's what I am saying I am doing -- so the long-day jump from 30 to 36 feels good. Here's the log for the past 3 1/2 weeks:

5/19 - 12 laps
5/20 - 14 laps
5/21 - 16 laps
5/26 - 18 laps
5/27 - 20 laps
5/28 - 20 laps
6/1 - 22 laps
6/2 - 22 laps
6/3 - 22 laps
6/5 - 30 laps
6/8 - 24 laps
6/9 - 30-minute jog
6/10 - 24 laps
6/11 - 36 laps (1/2 mile!)

I'm just starting to get into a book that I picked up on fitness swimming, so I am probably a couple of weeks away from the craziness of timing my laps, swimming intervals, etc. But gaming the workouts a bit just helps to make it fun, and writing it down the way I do plays a big part in allowing me to see -- and celebrate -- the progress I am making. But as it is, I'll have to tell my friend Martha -- who sat next to me in Western Civ freshman year but swims so much that she still looks 37. Don't you think? She did 2 miles in 60 minutes this year, so half a mile is nothing. But it's a start.

I've never considered myself enough of an athlete to get seriously competitive with other people. Or at least not in a long time. But I do find it very easy to take inspiration from them. And I also find it very easy to feel self-congratulatory when I accomplish anything. Which is part of the brain chemistry that keeps me coming back.

A friend of mine got up before 5 this morning and went right out for a walk and jog, and then she said it was no big deal because she had already been up so early. I'm just the opposite. Give yourself credit! That's the way I look at it. And it is partly because I know that feeling good about what I did today will help me to go out and do what I need to do tomorrow.

It's a gray, slightly drizzly Thursday in East Arlington, but I barely know it. I am in the zone.

Viva la difference - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 on 10.13.2007

I think I have mentioned my friend Diane before.

Back on September 21, inspired by Big Man Getting Smaller, she began a diet. Her goal was to get down from 144 to 125 by following the same basic rules that are working here.

1. Take in fewer calories than her daily maintenance amount of calories, which was 1,904 when she started.

2. Get more exercise, or a moderate amount of exercise 4 or 5 days a week.

3. Keep track of what she is eating, and plan ahead.

As of today, she is at 136, which means that she has lost 8 pounds in 22 days!

That is 6% of her body weight in 3 weeks, which is basically the same rate of reduction that BMGS is experiencing.

It is also considerably faster than I suggested to her when she I produced a chart of weekly calories intake, etc., that would get her to her goal of 125 on February 1.

So congratulations, Diane!

But she is frustrated that it isn’t going more quickly.

Part of this, of course, is the impatience that any of us feels when we don’t get fairly constant positive feedback from, in this case, the scale. We’re working hard at something, and we want to see the progress reflected in some kind of meaningful metrics.

Another huge part of it is that Diane, when she started, was a 144-pound woman. BMGS is a man who started out at nearly twice Diane’s size.

Viva la difference, of course, but there are some very specific differences:

1. Even now, after losing 10.6% of my body weight, my daily calorie requirement for maintaining my current weight of 244.5 is 3398 calories. So, if I take in 1,898 calories a day. I will lose 3 pounds a week. 1,898 calories is not an all-day pig-out by any means, but it isn’t bad. It isn’t starving. It allows for the occasional pint, the occasional steak, and even the occasional dessert.

2. On the other hand, if Diane consumes 1,898 calories a day, her weight will never change. Of course, that is not fair. In order to lose 1 pound a week, which is what I suggested she do in order to get to her goal by February 1, Diane has to consume fewer than 1,400 calories a day. It isn’t starvation either, but it doesn’t allow nearly as much wiggle room as 1,898 calories.

3. 1 pound a week is a lot less rewarding than 3 pounds a week. It basically means, if you are getting on the scale every morning, 5 or 6 days a week it isn’t going to register any weight loss. That is harder.

4. In addition to the good news that I get when I step onto the scale, I also get good news when I step onto one of the machines at the gym. Because I am big, I burn more calories when I work out. Twice this week I had workouts where I burned over 1,000 calories in a single session at the gym. It’s a lot easier to burn 1,000 calories if the number you punch in on the elliptical keypad is 245 than 145.

Oops, excuse me. 136.

So, it is natural that this is occasionally frustrating, and more so for a woman. If it weren’t frustrating, it would be easy. If it were easy, you would have already done it!

Keep it up, Diane. The amazing thing to me is that you are able to do it without creating a blog!