Engineering My Weight Loss

[Leever]

I have lost over 30lbs since January 1st of 2008.

In December I looked at myself in the mirror while I was at the YMCA getting ready to go swimming with my kids and I saw a large man with large love handles and a large gut. Even though I am an avid lifter and can gain muscle easier than anything, I have always had a hard time losing the fat. That night I thought for a long time, â?????How am I going to lose the weight in the way that works for me?â??? I then came to the conclusion to look at things in the manner as an engineer, which I am. I sat down and started creating my project plan with no dates, I just wanted milestone because if I had dates, I would fail due to inconsistencies found in the human body. Every personâ??????s body is different so no date plan can be successful. I know if I missed a date, I would just give up on the whole thing. After creating my milestones, I then created and FMEA (Failure Mode Effect Analysis). This document allowed me to list out all of the possible means of failure to my weight loss. I had listed out several items that will keep me from losing the weight. A couple of them being my habit of eating at night, eating sweats, and also making sure that I stay at around 2000 calories a day. Now, I did put one more thing down as a possible failure and that was the adaptation of the human body. The human body will adapt to your lifting schedule and cardio schedule in time, so why would calorie intake be any different. I did some research on this and my theory was correct so I cycle my calorie intake of five days at 2000 calories and two days at 2600 calories, give or take an ice cream sundae.

After my FMEA and project plan was created, I then created a data sheet which will track my FMEA occurrence and avoidance, weight training and cardio occurrence and avoidance, weight for that day, and also a little journal spot to document any event or reason of inconsistency (Birthday Cake, Holiday Cookouts, etc.).

The last thing that I created was an IPO (Input Process Output) diagram to show how this all ties together to my body and goal. My inputs are food, workout routines, and environment. My processes are digestion, eating (chewing and eating slowly), and exercising and lifting. And as far as the outputs areâ???¦I donâ??????t think you want to know the outputsâ???¦or care.

I thought I would share this with anyone else who might be an engineer or just interested in seeing what works for other people.

 

[DiGiTaL]

Very good thread.

According to your blog you have lost alot of weight but have no lost any strength. Would you mind giving us an example of how your diet looks so we can learn from it?

 

[Built]

Nothing wrong with eating at night while cutting. I do it all the time.

In fact, I always go to bed with a full tummy. Makes it not feel like dieting.

Hi there. Math geek here, we're family LOL!

Are you tracking your diet? That for me has been KEY. FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal
Enter your food, see what you're eating.

Do you know what your measured maintenance calories are, or are you going by some formula?

 

[Leever]

This is were the boring part of me comes out. I reviewed my requirements for keeping my strength and losing fat. I also looked over the foods that I really enjoy and I came up with this as a food plan. I wanted to keep it simple so I tried to make things modular with as little measuring as possible.

6-6:30am â?????? 2 eggs and 1 grapefruit
9-9:30am â?????? 2/3 cup Oatmeal (Old Fashion and Nothing in it.)
11-11:30am â?????? 1 can tuna and 1 baked potato
1-1:30pm â?????? 9 baby carrots and 1 serving of peanuts
3-3:30pm â?????? 2/3 cup Oatmeal (Old Fashion and Nothing in it.)
5:30-6pm â?????? Supper (500 to 600 calories)(typically a lot of veggies and meat, not much for carbs â?????? no simple sugars, all complex carbs in this boy.)
6:30-7pm â?????? Some little snack to tie me over and keeps me in my 1800 calorie diet.

Monday to Friday I take in about 1800 calories and during the weekend take in about 2600 or so, I donâ??????t track weekends. I have consulted with doctors and with nutritionists and they agree with my diet. I still lift and none of my lifts have gone down. I make sure that I am taking in enough protein in order to keep my body from cannibalizing itself. I also drink a ton of water, I mean none stop and the days that I donâ??????t drink a lot of water, I see a trend of not losing any weight and stay stagnant.

 

[Built]

Doctors and nutritionists don't bodybuild and I have yet to meet one who knew how to cut properly. Your experience may be different.

You are a gear - this will appeal to you, trust me.

Enter your planned diet on fitday and post up the macros - not just the calories.

K

 

[Leever]

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I will take a look at it when I have more time to explore the account and possibly the software. I have been working on something for my smart phone (Moto Q) so I can manage my journal and data. Yes, I am a gear. My wife says I make things way to complicated, but that is just how I operate.

 

[Built]

Engineering isn't about making things more complicated - it's about making things work, bypassing problems rather than solving them. It's an applied science.

My education is in Mathematics (Statistics) and OpLog. I'm family, I get this.

Here's the best I can offer you:

Track your inputs: the food YOU actually consume, the training YOU actually perform.

Track the outcomes: your weight, your bodyfat, how much you can lift, how fast you can sprint...

Manipulate the inputs to affect the outcomes.

Ignore the calculators that tell you how much to consume, how much x amount of exercise burns etc. They are correct for population averages, not for individuals - too much error to be all that helpful.

I weigh and track my food, weigh my body, and train properly. If I gain, I'm eating over maintenance. If I lose, I'm eating under maintenance.

I made a toy to work with when I was working this out:

Assume exercise burns zero calories, and that your weight is entirely governed by your calories.

Assume you need to feed your lean mass - the part you want to keep - as follows:
Protein: no less than 1 g per pound LBM
Fat: no less than 0.5g per pound LBM
Fibre: no less than 25g daily

Lifting directs calorie traffic to the muscle. In a deficit, this preserves it. In a surplus, this grows it.

Cardio is good for your heart, builds capillary and mitochondrial density, helps move glucose into your muscle cells.

There. Chew on that for a while.

 

[Leever]

You are preaching the the choir. I tried not to put to much calculations to the food intake in comparison to the expenditure through working out. Because the human body is just one variable that contains so many different variables within it, I tried to leave the math only to where it is necessary (subtracting the weight lost and also adding the calories eaten). Those are two variables that actually can be measured and looked at. Everything else is just one large uncalcuable variable. Our system adapts and that is a variation in which can not be producted so I tried not to.

Like you said, if I lose then I ate under my mantenance and if I gain then I ate over my maintenance.

 

[Built]

Exactly.

And the magic trick here is that if you eat under maintenance, your body's natural reaction is to drop metabolically active muscle, yanno, so you survive the famine… <rolls eyes>

The lifting effectively risk-manages muscle-retention during this self-imposed famine. Too much activity will just fry it off - but frequent, heavy (but low-volume) demands will convince the body to maintain muscle. With too few resources to support the entire structure, SOMETHING has to go. And that something is fat.

So cool.

 

[Leever]

The other thing to keep in mind is that if you cut down in calories, don't cut down in feedings. The best thing to do is to graze so your body still knows that it is getting the food, just less of it. That is why I upped my feedings to 6-7 times a day instead of the normal (should never have become the norm) 3.

You have a good weekend Built.

 

[Built]

The other thing to keep in mind is that if you cut down in calories, don't cut down in feedings. The best thing to do is to graze so your body still knows that it is getting the food, just less of it. That is why I upped my feedings to 6-7 times a day instead of the normal (should never have become the norm) 3.

Actually, this one's a myth. You have a calorie budget, and it really doesn't make any difference to your metabolic rate if you consume that budget in two meals or twenty. Many of us feel more comfortable on a few large, satisfying meals than 6 tiny ones. I have been so grateful to know this - it completely changed the way I diet.

You have a good weekend Built.

You too.