1/23 Highlights

Fatty pulled another 7.5 mile jog yesterday. This one was just out on the road and in the neighborhoods around my house. Included in this was a 1-mile pace check on a school track near my house. I was right around 10:30 or so. Still jogging then. I've decided that my Saturday goal is to get to 10 miles.

Also, today was the end of week 1 for our church's biggest loser contest. I lost just about 1 pound. That's not bad considering I ate out three times this week for social engagements and I didn't hold back on any of those.

Now, there were people who dropped 5, 8, 12, 13 pounds. That seems pretty impressive. But, if you take a look under the surface, you see some inconvienient truths. You may recall that I made my goal the loss of 35 pounds OF FAT. Total weight is really only half of the equation. Body fat % is the other. Anyone out there want to drop 10 pounds if they knew that 2 was fat, 5 was water, 1.5 was muscle, and 0.5 was bone? YIKES!

Keep in mind that there are 3500 kilocalories in a pound of fat. When someone drops 10 pounds in a week, that would be 35000 calories if it were all fat. For the record, an entire weekly recommended caloric intake for a man of 200+ pounds ls going to be at least 17,500. Anyone seeing a problem here? You would have to eat a big scoop of NOTHING for a week and you would still have to burn ANOTHER 17,500 through exercise that week... To burn 17,500 calories through exercise, you would have to do 20+ hours of aerobic workouts that week. Try doing that while eating nothing... You'd probably be dead by day 5.. And I don't mean tired.

In other words, it's not possible. Whenever people are losing that kind of weight, it is primarily water. But, you are also losing muscle tissue too. Not good. Every reputable source will tell you that it's a bad idea to lose more than about 2 pounds a week. If you do, it's likely that the weight is not just fat loss. In fact, it's almost certainly not. 

A couple more facts: 

Initial excess water weight from a diet/exercise program is normal. But, if your high weight loss lasts more than about 2 weeks, you probably are in an unhealthy way. 

Burning muscle tissue is generally BAD news. Muscles are the furnace that burn calories. Lose that and you burn fewer during those 22+ hours a day you are not exercising. 

SOME muscle loss can be considered somewhat acceptable when someone loses a lot of weight over time. Your body packed on more muscle as you gained that weight anyway. It needed extra muscle to support/move that weight. 

On the show "The Biggest Loser", contestants work out hours upon hours a day. In those unnatural circumstances, one could theoretically do better than 2 pounds a week and still be burning fat. For the other 99% of us out there, 1-2 pounds a week is where you wanna be on average. Which, as it happens, is right where Fatty has been. Oh yeah baby.

Study about bone loss with dieters