Hey, guys. How about this east coast weather? On Wednesday, I was out running in shorts and a t-shirt. This morning (Saturday), I was digging my car out of the ice. Crazy.

I’ve been VERY level in my weigh-ins over the past week. I haven’t been doing as well with my workouts (gym closed) or diet (I’m fat). So I’m just happy that I’m not gaining any weight. I’m excited about next week, when our gym opens back up.

I was doing better with my diet when I was recanting everything I was eating on the blog here. But I thought that was boring to read, so I cut it out. Maybe I should get started again.

Great Mexican/Peruvian Food in Lancaster, PA
Today I ate fairly well, but was ruined by a dinner out suffered a setback at dinner. We took Kim’s mother to El Sereno in Lancaster, PA for her birthday. El Sereno is one of our favorite restaurants, making great Mexican and Peruvian food. My favorite dish there is “pollo fundido” — grilled chicken with cheese, wrapped in tortilla dough and covered in cheese sauce. It’s awesome stuff. They used to serve it deep fried, chimichanga style, but recently started simply grilling the stuffed tortilla. I guess that’s healthy, and I had it that way once (they got me by surprise). Since then, I actually ask them to deep fry it like they used to. Because it tastes better that way. Mmmm.

(I wonder if anyone trying to diet will mistakenly come to my site, read that last paragraph, get hungry, and then run out to Taco Bell for a fix. Poor guys.)

Weigh Yourself Everyday
I promised to address some of the things that came up during the Calacanis Cast that I didn’t get a chance to talk about. One of them was when our buddy Tim Elliott mentioned that he only weighs himself every other day. Some people weigh themselves less often. One reason given for these less frequent weigh-ins is that one wants to ignore the day-to-day fluctuations in weight due to things like water retention, how long it’s been since your last #2, or how long your hair is, etc.

They make a fair point. People shouldn’t get caught up on one or two pounds here or there day-to-day. If you’ve gained one pound from yesterday, you don’t want to get discouraged and … who knows what. If you’ve lost one pound since yesterday, you don’t want to get too cocky and reward yourself with a cheesesteak. By weighing yourself just once a week, instead of every day, you give yourself more time to REALLY lose weight so you can trust your weigh-ins more. Not really.

I mean first of all, I’m only on track to lose about 1lb a week. My weight fluctuates 2-4 lbs each day (besides the past few days of very consistent weight ins). I can make progress in a week and still weigh in higher.

But the real reason I like to weigh myself everyday is that I need to be able to make immediate adjustments. I can’t wait one week to find out that I’ve been gaining weight. I need to know right away to fix my leaks and get back on track.

So how can I tell if I’m getting off track without being deceived by my daily fluctuations? I use a Google gagdet called the Google 15, which tracks my weight day-to-day and also graphs for me the 15-day moving average of my weight. The moving average shows how my weight is trending (just like with moving averages on stock charts). If my current weight is above my 15-day moving average, I am risking reversing trend. If my current weight is below my 15-day moving average, I’m in good shape (hehe).
I don’t mean to nag on Tim. Every other day might be often enough to check your weight. You can’t do too much damage in one day. And Tim seems to be doing very well with his system, losing 8 pounds so far since he started fat blogging. So I’d say stick with what’s working. I’m a big proponent of doing what works for YOU.

Still, using a program like Google 15 to track your weight and moving average can help you stay on track by giving you an early detection warning. Check it out. It’s fun and challenging keeping those little dots below my moving average. Anything to turn my weight loss into a video game is going to help me get fitter!

I haven’t weighed myself yet today. My routine is to weight myself before I shower, while I’m in the buff. So yeah, I haven’t showered yet today either. 😛

It’s Spring Break for the young ones at Haverford College, and so I don’t get to use their gym this week. Still, it’s very nice out so I’ll be running some outside. Kim and I ran on Sunday.

I’ll miss lifting weights though. I was really getting into it. Kim was impressed by the veins in my forearms the other day. That’s progress, baby.

My past posts have all been very long. And good bloggers that build an audience mix up the length of their posts (something to be considered in Blog Tycoon). So I’ll cut this one short right here.

I weight 221 pounds and I’m having ice cream for breakfast. My diet is sweet. I’m pretty much going against a lot of the common wisdom out there, trying to find the diet/exercise plan that works best for me. I really hope I can do well with this, because it would be great to prove that one can lose weight without giving up the food they love.

BTW, the ice cream I’m eating is Edy’s Slow Churned, Rich and Creamy, Vanilla Bean. It has 100Cal per 1/2 cup serving, which is much less than most other ice creams. It’s also more tasty I think and goes really well with a spoonful of Kim’s dad’s jam.

So How Much Weight Can You Gain Lifting Weights?
Not much. Probably none. Technically, I’ve read that one could gain about 9lbs (4kg) of muscle weight from “intense” weight training. Who knows what “intense” means, but it doesn’t even matter unless you are already in crazy shape. Because the amount of calories you would burn in that “intense” workout will offset any muscle weight gains for all but the fittest people.

This page also tries to debunk this myth and also talks about how many calories that added muscle actually burns (emphasis mine):

Another common misconception is that if you lift weights and add muscle mass you will lose weight when sitting due to a higher metabolism.

Scientific studies of muscle metabolism have conclusively shown that skeletal muscle burns about 13 calories per kilogram of body weight over a 24 hour period. If a man weighs 70 Kg (154 Lbs), has about 28 Kg of skeletal muscle will burn about 22% of the calories his body uses through the day. Adding 4 pounds of muscle bulk thru weightlifting, during a high intensity 6 month lifting program, would result in burning 24 more calories per day. One bite of an Oreo® cookie contains about 24 calories.

A corollary to this is that you may gain weight due to lifting weights, even while loosing fat weight. This is one of the greatest exercise myths. The myth is based in fact: muscle is more dense and weighs more than fat. The same weight of muscle take up nearly half the volume as the same weight of fat.

The problem with this is that not very many people will be able to add the volume of muscle mass relative to fat lost to gain weight. Remember, the average man will add only 4 Kg of muscle mass in a rigorous training program.

This does not mean that weight training should be avoided. Weight training will result in higher lean body mass. This translates into more efficient fat metabolism for energy. Cellular membranes are more permeable to glucose, reducing the need for excess insulin in the blood. This results in a reduced susceptibility to diabetes.

So let me introduce this rule of thumb:

You won’t gain any net weight through your workouts unless you don’t have any fat weight to lose.

Us fatbloggers for the most part have a lot of fat to lose. So don’t even worry about this one.

My Real Question
I’m still interested in finding some specific numbers, since part of my goal now is to be able to bench 210lbs as well as weight 210lbs. (I’ve already lifted 200lbs once. It was a lot easier than I thought for me to build up my bench press… so far.) For giggles, I posted something at Yahoo! Answers. (link)

How much weight will I gain lifting weights?

I’ve heard one can gain about 9lbs (4kg) of weight through “intense” weight training. Does anyone have more specific numbers like this.

Ideally, I’m looking for something like:
“Increasing your max bench press weight from 150 to 200 will add _______ pounds to your weight.”

Thanks everyone.

Let’s try this embed thing. If not, you can see it on Calacanis’ blog.

My bit starts about 20 minutes in. I think I’m kind of boring on the line, but the show is a good one nonetheless. My favorite part is when Jason implies that I am pretending to be fat just to get “an in” with him (since he has some influence on how Sequoia Capital spends their VC money). Great idea.

Though I am actually overweight and fatblogging to get in shape, I do appreciate the fact that I have some way of getting Jason to read my emails from now on. “Knowing” Jason can’t be a bad thing. Can it?

Yesterday (eh)
Yesterday was a good day… until dinner. As much as I wanted to get to the gym, I didn’t have the time. Too much work and a launch party for a friend/client of ours who just published a book (I need to talk about this more later) kept me busy.

Although I couldn’t work out, we had a dancing class at night. Kim and I did two group sessions, which at 45 minutes each were a workout of their own. Kim’s mother also came as our guest and I think had some fun dancing with strangers.

After dancing we went out to a late dinner at Tango in Bryn Mawr. By this time I had already eaten my 2000Cal limit for the day (a big lunch and some picking at that launch party). I know that there are many ways I could have avoided eating while out or at least eaten some healthier food, but restraining myself at restaurants is not really part of my plan.

The PLAN is to avoid being at the restaurant at all when I’ve already eaten a lot of calories. Or maybe starving myself all day if I know I’m going to be eating out later. But yesterday was one of those seat of the pants days that just shows us how important it is to KNOW IN THE MORNING WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO EAT ALL DAY.

For those who care I ordered the “quesadilla of the day” (BBQ beef with carmalized onions, guacamole, and salsa) and ate 3/4 of it. I also had two big glasses of the red wine we drunk and a couple of these things called “latin meatballs” as an appetizer. I’d say I went over my 2000Cal target by almost 1500Cal, effectively putting me 3 days behind. Nothing I can’t catch up from.

Today (awesome)
My goal today was to eat fewer than 2000 calories. I’ve been shooting for 2000 calories a day on this diet and have been either hitting it or going over by a little (sometimes a lot). Until today I never ate less than 2000 calories. If was at risk of going under, I would always know how many cals I had left and use ’em up. These calories are like vacation days that don’t carry over.

Today for lunch I had some cooked ham (250Cal), asparagus (100Cal), and Kraft macaroni and cheese (500Cal). I also had a small amount of tortilla chips and salsa as a snack (150Cal). For dinner I had a turkey sandwich (bread = 240Cal, cheese = 100Cal, little-bit-of-mayo = 60Cal, turkey = 200Cal) with a bag of Route 11 “Garlic Herb” chips (280Cal). I also had two pirouline cookies (40Cal), a Hershey Kiss (25Cal), and a couple pieces of gum (5Cal). For a grand total of 1950Cal today.

I had to count that up twice to make sure. Go me!

Kim and I also walked/ran around the track at Haverford (the gym is closed this weekend) earlier in the day. I feel pretty great and am looking forward to another great day tomorrow (and something yummy for breakfast ;).

Kim and I went on a little mini vacation Mon-Wed. It was a great time. But I loosened up on my diet a bit, which in addition to some binging before I went away must have contributed to me putting a couple pounds back on.

I won’t sweat it too much because, like the economy, my weight loss needed a healthy pull back. Well, that sounds good anyway.

Though my diet went to hell, I only lost one day of working out. I worked out Monday morning before we left and Wednesday night when we got back. We haven’t been dancing as much lately though, which was like an extra mini work out every night. But we’re back on that schedule too.

Fat-casting
I called into a podcast recording with Jason Calacanis and a bunch of other fat-bloggers today. I’ll let y’all know when he posts the podcast. It was a good time. I at least met (virtually) a bunch of other passionate fat-bloggers stay in touch with.

I’ll be reading through everyone’s posts and link to them over the next few days. I also had a ton to say, but didn’t get to any of it. There were a lot of people to fit into the recording, and Jason does a really good job of quickly filling in any silences 😉 So I’ll also try to address some of the things that I took notes about during the call. In any case, I want to thank Jason for the opportunity to speak on the show. Unlike we joke on the podcast, this not just some excuse to get to know a VC. I’m doing something for my health and taking advantage of all of the support we’re drumming up in the community.

Also, one of my fellow guests on the show was none other than Tim Elliott from WineCast.net. I “know” Tim through my work at WineLog, and have been in touch with him lately. But I had no idea he was on this fat blogging wagon as well. He fat blogs at his personal blog here, which I didn’t even know existed. So unreal. Go Tim!

My Work Out Today
Kim and I had a dance lesson, 40 minutes long. We also made it to the gym for about 30 minutes. Since the session was shorter, I ran on the treadmill instead of playing basketball and did an abbreviated lifting routine. I’ve been incorporating more leg stuff into my weight training, which is good. Our biggest muscles are in our legs, and so they are good to target for fat burning. Bigger leg muscles = more calories burned = slimmer Jason.

Daily Calorie Count
I think I did good today, but let me add it up. I had a sandwich for lunch with some chips from Route 11 that we picked up earlier in the week. They are the best chips ever. I’m a bit of a potato chip connoisseur, and I think they’re the tops… followed by some Good’s “Blue Bag” (I might need to proposition those guys to build a real website for them).

Sandwich bread = 250Cal, mayo = 100Cal, 150Cal for cheese, 200Cal for meat (turkey ham!), negligible amounts of lettuce, and 300Cal for the chips. I also had one Hershey’s Kiss (left over from the Twisted in Philly event) for 25Cal. That’s 1025Cal for lunch.

I had a small handfull of cashews between my workout and dinner, which is maybe 125Cal.
Kim made chilli for dinner, which was great (again). I had two medium-sized bowls with some bread and butter. I’d say 350Cal a piece for the chilli bowels and 350Cal for the bread and butter. That’s 1050Cal for dinner. 2200 on the day. Not bad. Could have been better. A sub 2000Cal day would be nice.

Am I Addicted to Losing Weight?
Busy day today. Lots of work tomorrow too. But I think I’m going to be able to maintain this workout and fatblogging schedule. Before I would be slacking off more as my other responsibilities piled up, but I think I’m becoming addicted to losing weight.

Seriously, I’ll look at myself in the mirror and notice some little things (and the changes are still pretty minor): my chin looks more defined, my biceps look more defined, my leg muscles are poking through the fat a bit. Seeing myself in the mirror, looking better, makes me want to keep it up… to lose more weight and become more in shape. I can see how some people become obsessed with this. I’m about 10 pounds away from being at my all-time low weight as an adult, and that excites me.

Hopefully I won’t go anorexic on you guys and then have to start blogging about that, but I think I’m detecting a little bit of a value-change. I used to wonder about how I could be so responsible in other areas of my life, but not be able to control my weight.

Calacanis brought this up on the podcast tonight: how come there are all these super successful people changing the world but unable to control their weight? I’m not in the same league as the guys he was referring to in terms of wealth or power, but I think for instance how easy it is for me to save money and act financially responsible compared to my brother. It’s practically second-nature for me to make good money decisions, a lot of which revolve around delaying gratification (buy a used car now to retire $100k richer later). But when it comes to food, it’s been much harder for me to delay gratification (pass up on that cheese steak now to be healthier later). Anyway, I think that’s changing a bit. We’ll see how things go.