A personal training & food journal. Read about our weight loss progress at Train With Ron in Chicago, our nutritional habits and the life changes we're making to get in shape and stay healthy!

Ok, so as the title says: let’s talk food.  I’ve been working out harder and more than ever, but seem mired in a plateau and haven’t made much progress since late May even though I’m working out nearly 2x as much as I was when I started… which tells me that it’s the food I’m eating that is holding me back.

First let’s take a look back at the weight loss progress:

Oct. 5, 2009 – Jan. 9, 2010: During this period, I lost about 26 lbs, 4-5 inches off my waistline, and lowered my body fat% by about 11%, from 44% to 33%. I was going for sessions at TWR only twice a week, but eating very carefully. When I say carefully, I mean one “bad” meal a week – other than that, no refined or processed foods, tons of fruit and vegetables, whole wheats and grains only (whole rolled oats, brown rice, whole grain bread, etc.), and mostly poultry when I ate meat.  I “grazed” a lot… carrots, nuts, raisins, celery… during the day. I reduced late night snacking to maybe 100 calories once or twice a week… quite a difference from my nightly ritual of polishing off a pint of Haagen Dasz.

Jan 9, 2010 – March 6, 2010: DB and TWR ran the “Biggest Loser” contest… as a result of the contest work I did, I lost another 15 lbs or so – down to 236 lbs, lost another inch off my waistline, and got body fat down another 3% or so.  During this time, I added a 3rd workout to the TWR regimen, and continued to eat very carefully.  This continued until our Hawaii trip, in early April… where I ate whatever the heck I pleased.

Since coming back from that trip, I have really been less careful about my eating.  I was still having healthful breakfasts and lunches, but dinners started getting bad and snacking later on did too. More recently, even the lunches were starting to slide.

Since March 6th I have lost only about 8 more pounds and another 2 inches off my waistline… granted the body fat went down dramatically… today I weighed in at 228 and 24.5% body fat.  However, I’ve been working out 4 and sometimes 5 times a week, and also have been running to AND from my workouts at least once per week.  My body has reached a stasis and is quite comfortable with me eating as I please and working the heck out of myself to maintain my current body mass.

The problem is twofold: 1) I can’t keep working out at TWR 5 times a week forever, and 2) I’m not satisfied with my current body mass situation.

All that said, I have decided to join Monika and started tracking my caloric (and nutritional) intake, and also track my calories burned, on www.livestrong.com using the “MyPlate” feature. Monika is using an iTouch app called “LoseIt” but they’re essentially the same deal.

So far I am two days into this new habit. I’ve discovered that even when I am eating “carefully” these last two days, I am still eating too much carbs, fat, and sugar, and not enough protein. Yesterday I went over my calorie goal by 97 but today I killed it by eating well and a serious workout, and am 1200 calories UNDER my daily caloric intake goal.  Somehow I still managed to go over the top on the sugar and fat, but I kept the calories down and a really great workout burned 950 calories (or so my new little calorie counter gizmo tells me).

I am hoping to crack through the plateau by continuing to go to TWR 4 or 5 times a week and get back to eating more healthfully over the next two months.  If I can get down to 208 lbs by October 10th, 2010… I’ll have lost 70 lbs in a one year period through eating better and working out with Ron, Matt, and DB.  That’s the plan.

The good news in all of this is that right now I have 173.65 pounds of lean body mass on me… at 228 lbs. I had that much “lean mass” once before… when I weighed in at 256 lbs.  Now THAT”S exciting!