Calorie Warrior

Fighting Weight One Calorie At a Time

Category: Check-Ins

What I do on Low Carb Days

Happy Thursday Everyone!

Well I figured I’d post a quick update because I always weigh the least on Thursdays. Today I got on the scale and almost all of my Florida Vacation weight dropped off. I was 244.5 lbs this morning. That’s really great but we have an upcoming weekend filled with things like Easter and family gatherings.

What I’m doing

Well I’m still doing this carb cycle thing where I completely limit my carbs and eat low calorie Monday – Wednesday. I’m very impressed how well this is working out for me. I do end up feeling kind of crappy with low energy by the time Wednesday night roles around.

I cant keep this up all week because life comes into play. The easiest days for me to structure my meals are these days because its the beginning of the work week and we rarely have plans. We can do all our food shopping and planning on Sunday. Its so much easier when everything’s already in the house and you know what your going to eat. Im really not suffering and happy with my food choices.

Ever wonder why Thursdays are sabotage? I haven’t mentioned this but we do a weekly dinner at my Grandmothers. She cooks really rich food and it always kills me!

Ideas of what I’m eating

Snacks:

If you looked at my MFP diary you’d see that I eat tons of quick snacks and pretty small or limited meals.

  • I bought a ton of beef jerky
  • Lots of Nuts
  • Polly-O Stings Cheese
  • Fresh Mozzarella Cheese

Breakfast:

  • Most of the time I skip breakfast otherwise-
  • Scrambled Eggs
  • Coffee

Lunch:

I can get pretty creative with my lunches. Having easy to heat up frozen stuff in the  house keeps me on track.

  • Turkey Meatballs
  • Turkey Burgers
  • Salad
  • Salad with Tuna
  • Omelet with cheese

Dinner:

Dinner I get a little creative and I try to eat mostly protein and get in my vegetables. I try to really mix it up because its my main meal for the day. Here’s some ideas.

  • Chicken Breast
  • Chicken Thighs
  • Fish
  • Pork Chops
  • Steak

Sides

  • Spaghetti Squash
  • Acorn Squash
  • Salad
  • Tomatoes with Fresh Mozzarella

This is at least the stuff I’ve been eating recently. I know some of these arent the healthiest options but I’ve been so busy lately. If I really need fast food I have the options of Chinese Takeout, Greek Salads or the quickest Boston Market. Usually I get whatever I want at Boston Market but the sides are important. Eat the creamed spinach and green beans and do your best to skip the corn bread!

I’m still keeping my calories below 1650 or around. This is pretty simple!

Check out last nights dinner!

Baked Chicken Thighs & Spaghetti Squash

Baked Chicken Thighs & Spaghetti Squash

 

 

3 Week Diet Fail

Its really sad to follow up my post of a 3 Week Diet Challenge with my 3 week diet failure! I was able to less for less then 5 days before I completely fell off track. The worst part is my weight seemed to be dropping like crazy mid-week and I’m sure I did some damage.

Full Failure

It happened Friday night…. A friend took us out to a really classy Steak house. I was peer pressured into getting some drinks with my friend but the 32oz Rib Eye was my fault. That and all the sides we got ala cart for the table to share. This doesn’t include the Sushi appetizer or the fact that they accidentally split Amy’s salad in half. It was really good food but totally not worth it as a cheat. I would have rather cheated with some Wendy’s and a milk shake. The only thing somewhat helpful was I went back to the gym the first time since California and burned about 800 calories on the treadmill. Still not a huge help.

This meal was grotesque and the total calories I logged on MFP were over 3,000!

MORE THAN I EAT IN ALMOST TWO DAYS!!!!

It continues Saturday

Saturday afternoon we joined some friends for the St. Patrick’s Day parade in a small nearby town. It started with a pretzel I split with Amy. After that we went to our friends house where they bought a bunch of pizza for everyone and I couldn’t help but eat three slices. This was our afternoon.

At night we went to a friends birthday party in a bar. Amy and i didn’t have dinner so we split a Sliders appetizers which wasn’t so bad but I followed it up with about 6 or 7 beers and a shot of cafe patron.

Sunday Funday!

Sunday wasn’t a total loss because I had a big bowl of strawberry’s for breakfast. Lunch time came around and we decided on the diner. I knew this was my last big meal of the day and decided on french fries and a cheese-steak sandwich.

Activity

Not only did I eat like shit this weekend but activity was at an all time low. We laid around on the couch, napped and watched TV. Amy says were taking it in before the baby comes but watching my Fitbit was getting me seriously depressed.

I’m sure my Monday weigh-ins going to suck!

All I can do is get back on track =(

 

Attempt at a 3 Week Diet Challenge

In my weigh-in post on Monday I mentioned starting a 3 week diet challenge. After not losing weight for almost a month and getting pretty pissed blaming myself for not working hard enough I decided to clean up my diet and knock out some of the carbs and sodium.

What the hell am I thinking?

That’s pretty much my thought today. All day I was like, “if I make it till Monday I’ll stop”. I forgot all bout Mondays post saying I would go at it for three hole weeks. Cursing myself now because if I said it I should do my best to stick with it.

I’m having a hard time mainly because I dropped carbs since Monday. My net carbs for the day have been pretty much under 30. More than likely my body is starting ketosis and its got me feeling like crap. There were two things I wanted today in the worst way.

  1. To eat something loaded with carbs. Monday and Tuesday were fine but today I was having major withdrawals. I kept fantasizing about slamming a Kellogg’s 90 calorie cereal bar in my mouth.
  2. The other problem I was having was a total lack of energy. I hit the ground running in the AM and because I didn’t have any appointments until 2:30 I contemplated between cleaning up the house or going for a jog. I still cant get myself back in the gym and the weather was pretty nice for a change for cleaning won. Around 11:30 all I wanted to do was go back to bed . I dragged my ass for the rest of the day and now I’m sitting here at 9:00 ready to pass out.

I don’t plan on doing a full keto diet but I was curious what would happen if I mixed things up and continued eating low call and dropping out the carbs. Well….. somethings working and I’m really exited because I was 246 on the scale this morning. That’s about a half a bound from the lowest I’ve been in the last 8 years. If I weigh myself in on Monday and I break that weight it will be a huge personal milestone.

Keeping a clean diet is going to be the goal for the next three weeks but I’m not sure what angle I want to take this carb thing. I read a little about carb cycling which sounds like a viable option. Id like to bring back the fruits and various vegetables because eating mostly meat, eggs, nuts and cheese gets boring really fast.

Hopefully for the next 18 days I can keep it clean. I’m going to call this the gluten-free-paleo-hybrid-diet.

Here’s a rundown of what I’ve been eating;

Monday-

-Breakfast

  • Coffee
  • Chocolate Protein Shake with Almond Milk

-Lunch

  • 2 Poached Eggs
  • Half Avocado

-Dinner

  • 2 Baked Chicken Thighs
  • Garlic Sauteed Broccoli Rabe
  • Trader Joe’s Kimchi

-Snacks

  • Polly String Cheese
  • Baby Bell Light Cheese

Tuesday-

-Breakfast

  • Scrambled eggs with cheese
  • Side of strawberrys

-Lunch

-Dinner

  • Greek Salad with Gyro meat

-Snacks

  • 2 Baby Bell light Cheeses

Wednesday-

-Breakfast

  • Chocolate Protein Shake with Almond Milk

-Lunch

-Dinner

-Snacks

  • Baby Bell light Cheese
  • Tuna Pouch mixed with Greek Yogurt Guacamole
  • Almonds
  • Polly-o String Cheese

I also started drinking lots of green tea from my Keurig. I’m trying to get used to this so I don’t have to drink coffee every morning. Green tea is supposed to be good for you I think.

Well that about sums up my week so far and I’ll keep the blog updated on anything new. I’ll leave you with pictures of my last two lunches, definitely not #foodporn!

Poached Eggs

Turkey Meatballs and Green Beans

Vitamin D Deficiency

I heard back from my doctor about my test results. I originally posted about the weirdness I saw in my Blood Work Protein Levels before I left for California. I was concerned that I had a problem with my thyroid or maybe Celiacs or something. All those results came back OK. My doctor did let me know that my Vitamin D was on the low side so of course I turned to the internet.

Vitamin D Deficiency

Vitamin D DeficiencyVitamin D Deficiency is a common problem found in many people and it really shouldn’t be ignored. There are some common causes of this deficiency and its very easy to reverse. If Vitamin D Deficiency is left untreated it can also lead to very serious problems in people of all ages. Vitamin D also helps the body use calcium properly.

Vitamin D Deficiency Symptoms

The symptoms of Vitamin D Deficiency may be different form one person to another from from research these are some of the most common.

  • Fatigue
  • Achy bones
  • Muscle cramps
  • Joint pain
  • Lack of energy
  • Weight gain
  • High blood pressure
  • Restless sleep
  • Poor concentration
  • Headaches
  • Bladder problems
  • Constipation or diarrhea

What Causes Vitamin D Deficiency

The most common cause of Vitamin D Deficiency is lack of sunlight. That’s right, Vitamin D is actually produce by the body when your skin is exposed to sun light. Vitamin D Deficiency is very common among people that live in areas where it isn’t practical to be outside often. Also sunlight has different strengths in different parts of the world which would make you require an even longer exposure.

Vitamin D Deficiency can also be found in people with diets that lack vitamin D.  This is common in vegetarian diets where food containing vitamin D just aren’t consumed.

Obese people are also known for being Vitamin D deficient. This isn’t only because obese people don’t go outside but actually because they are just to fat. Vitamin D is absorbed from the body by fat cells so if you have a high BMI those fat cells are drawing all of your vitamin D for themselves.

There are other health problems related to Vitamin D deficiency such as kidney problems, Crohn’s disease, Celiacs or Cystic Fibrosis.

Foods With Vitamin D

If your low in Vitamin D you can increase your levels by increasing your intake of Vitamin D through foods that are known to contain it. Here is a list of some foods that have Vitamin D.

  • Fatty fish
  • Fish oils
  • Oysters
  • Caviar
  • Egg yolks
  • Cheese
  • Fortified milk
  • Beef liver
  • Mushrooms

Vitamin D and Weight Loss

If you search around the internet you will read many articles saying YES Vitamin D helps with weight loss, and you will read the same amount that say it doesn’t. Another popular subject you will find is the correlation between obese people and lack of Vitamin D.

There have been a few studies in the last few years that show signs of increased weight loss in people that have had increased levels of Vitamin D while dieting.

I felt the best feedback I could get on Vitamin D and Weight Loss was by reading through some of the weight loss forums like the MFP community.

Majority of what I’ve read from actual people that have been diagnosed with low Vitamin D and had doctors give them supplements to increase their levels have not lost weight. Many of these people have read the things I have in hoped that adding high doses of vitamin D to level them off would help them shed the pounds. I couldn’t find any stories of people that were losing any more or faster than the had been on their original diet plans.

Vitamin D and Me

After reading all the symptoms I could see how this may have been effecting me. My doctor has prescribed me a three months supply of 50,000/IU vitamin D capsules and wants me to report back when I’m finished. I have to take these once a week.

I discussed this with my mom and she says that she was given the same prescription and after a few weeks she felt much more energized. That’s probably the biggest symptom I could see myself having but I just took my lack of energy as the norm.

I guess its also good that this was caught so I don’t risk any of those diseases that can happen after not having enough of the D in my body for so long. I will just keep pushing forward with my diet but I thought this was a good subject to update the site with. If taking this Vitamin helps me lose some weight I will just consider that a bonus!

 

Dieting in California

To be honest I wasn’t exactly dieting in California. My original trip was planned from a Wednesday night and I was coming back on the red eye Sunday night. This would of been about four days where I planned to eat what i want and exercise in the form of hiking with my brother and walking around Hollywood.

Weather Problems

The first problem was the fact that Los Angeles and much of the west coats was completely rained out. Apparently the day I arrived LA was expecting to get more rain in that weekend then they’ve gotten in total over the last couple years. It was cold and wet until Sunday making it impossible to get out and do anything. Most of the trip was spent in my brothers apartment watching Netflix.

The other problem was that NY was expecting a super snow storm Sunday Afternoon into Monday afternoon. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have a problem with my flight until I woke up Sunday morning to an email from Virgin America letting me know my flight was cancelled. Check out the weather report!

Longisland Snow

I spent hours on the phone with Virgin America trying to reschedule the flight but couldn’t talk to anyone. Amy was pretty pissed knowing that Id have an extended vacation and she’d be stuck home pregnant with a driveway full of snow.

Low and behold the weather was wrong and we pretty much got a dusting. My new flight was scheduled for Tuesday night giving me an extra to days. This was OK but my brother had to go back to work Monday leaving me by myself for two days.

Dieting in California

Lets talk about the food part of the trip. Before I went I knew that this would be a problem because LA has great food but my brother was also doing paleo. For the most part I did my best to track calories but ate whatever I wanted within my range. It started when I got to the airport…. I didn’t eat anything that entire day and opted for a #2 from Mcdonals. Not my best choice but it was foo and i was on vacation. I didn’t super size it or anything. I counted the calories which still put me under 1,000 for the day. I grabbed two Kind Bars for the flight in case I got hungry. I’m not going to do a food play by play here.

For the rest of the trip I either ate food my bro cooked which was mostly breakfast or we’d go out to eat. We didn’t order appetizers and I got whatever Id want. Restaurants ranged from Sushi, Brazilian BBQ, Sandwiches to Burgers. I didn’t have dessert anywhere or snack on anything but grapes in his apartment. I stuck with diet soda, unsweetened Iced Tea and water. We only went out drinking one night which consisted of Captain and Diet coke for me. I tried to log everything.

I even took pictures of some of the meals to share on the blog….

Food Pics

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This is the typical Paleo breakfast my brother eats every day. It consists of two eggs, bacon and half a baked avocado.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is a salad place we went for lunch. Its just a giant all you can eat salad bar but they had soup, macaroni and desserts. You can see my salad blow but I didn’t take a picture of my mini muffin.

 

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This was a homemade Paleo dinner with steak, roasted tomatoes and mashed cauliflower loaded with garlic and parsley.

 

2014-02-28 08.52.37

Another Breakfast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This was my sandwich from Mendocino Farms. Its grilled chicken with prosciutto and candied walnuts on cibatta.

 

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This is a personal pizza and a sugar free soda I got at a place called EVO. Pizza was really thin and about 10” across with pepper, sausage and onion.

 

Fitness

I didn’t go to the gym while I was away that’s for sure. But… yes my bro has dragged me to the gym with him when I visit. I figured being outside and walking around would be more than I needed. Unfortunately because of the rain and being stuck inside for the beginning of the trip there wasn’t much walking.

As soon as it was nice out I wanted to hit the streets. I walked around Hollywood in the morning to get my coffee and run some errands. Later that day my brother and I walked up to Hollywood Boulevard to see where they shot the Academy Awards. This was all just casual walking around and lots of fun. Surprisingly I blew away any day I was on the treadmill according to the Fitbit.

Check out these stats:

Hollywood Walking

Hollywood Walking

Over 21,000 steps!! I got a notification from my Fitbit when I hit 15,000 and again when I hit 20,000 congratulating me for the achievement.

Look at the calorie burn of just being active and looking around and stuff. This is so different then living at home stuck at a computer!

I only ate over my calories one day on the vacation and this day surely made up for it. Its like completely backwards as to watching how much food you take in and trying to exercise it out. This way you burn loads of calories and would have to eat them back.

My brother walks to work every single day which is about 3+ more miles. Each way takes him less than 20 minutes and his body loves him for it.

Sharing this pictures makes me think how much people walk around when they go on vacation and visit places that require them to walk around and site see. I think this is why I didn’t do so much damage on the cruise ship buffet on my honeymoon! We walked from the time we woke up until it was time to get back on the ship.

The second thing this makes me think is how much of an inactive lifestyle I live. If I walked to work everyday or even ran some errands without my car Id be more active and burning way more calories. Its too bad that where I lie has crappy weather and most amenities are too far to walk mainly because of the time it would take.

More than site seeing

If you think those stats are inflated just because we were seeing sites your wrong!. The next day I walked my brother to work, walked to get all my meals, walked to the post office to send a package home and I still blew my treadmill days off the charts.

Here is that screen shot:

California Lifestyle

California Lifestyle

This shot gives you a good idea of how active my brother is. He lives an urban lifestyle and does lots of walking.

Would I be skinnier if I lived in LA? Who knows, but I do know Id be much more active naturally. California especially has no rainy days (except for when I visit) so you have nearly 365 beautiful days a year to be outside enjoying life.

I was really impressed with my Fitbit too because I left with it fully charged and the battery lasted the entire time. The only complaint I have is that it didn’t recognize the 3 hour time difference. This isn’t the Fitbits fault but it kind of sucked that my stats would reset at 9:00 at night and all the walking we did after that registered for the next day.

 

Back to NY

Now that I’m back home I have to get back on the wagon and start counting calories and eating better. I also have to get myself back into a gym routine. I really hoped to be in the 230’s at this point and wanted to start weight training but my weights pretty stuck in this range. I’ll keep you guys updated.

 

 

 

End of Week #4 Stats & Progress

Its the end of week for and I have some time to share all my stats with the site. I hope to be able to do this every week so you can see how I’m doing and what the week looks like from my technology standpoint. All of the images in this post are from screen shots of the Fitbit and MyFitnessPal App.

Overall I know I could of done better food wise but, I did add an extra day at the gym. My non-gym days were so sedentary that I don’t think it did too much damage on the calorie burning aspect. I don’t expect to see much of a jump in the scale Monday. I need to work on this weekend food thing!

Weight Chart

Week #4 Weight ProgressFirst lets take a look at my actual weigh loss progress over the last month. I think Fitbit calculates the weight change from the highest weight (259). I’ve hit my lowest weight this week which is great! You can see that my weight easily fluctuates about 3 pounds per day.

 

Week #4 Calories Burned

Week #4 Calories BurnedThis graph shows the calories I burned for the week. The three green days are the ones I went to the gym. On gym days I burned more than 3,350 calories putting me at my goal. On sedentary days I burned between 2,700 – 2,900 which are shown on the graph in grey.

 

 

Net Calories Eaten

Week #4 Net CaloriesHere is a graph from MFP showing the net calories eaten. This means that burning calories added to the allowable calories. I don’t ever eat back my calories so they are well under 1,650 on exercise days. MFP has me set up to eat about 1,650 calories a day. You can see the days I went over because the graph is red above the 1,650 line.

My worst days were Thursday and Friday because I didn’t eat at home. I burned a lot of calories at the gym on Friday morning which is the only thing that saved me from going off the charts that day.

I don’y pay attention to the 4,174 number because it doesn’t include the calories MFP adjusts when it suggests me the 1,650.

Actual Calories Eaten

Below is the chart from the MFP website showing my actual calorie intake for each day of Week #4. MFP actually calculates a week from Monday – Sunday and I can’t go back to show Sunday – Saturday. You can see how MFP adjusts for exercise.

Week #4 Calories Consumed

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