One week in to my two month challenge

So, on February 24th I was at 286.1 lbs. A week later, and I'm at 278.3. I'm making strides int he right direction.

What's working so far: I'm drinking two high-protein, low carb shakes a day. That gets me 60g of protein for 320 calories.

I'm going to the gym multiple times a week to do cardio on the elliptical and my strengthening exercises to rebuild my muscle and flexibility after my surgery to repair my ruptured Achilles.

I'm limiting carbs reasonably most days.

That's basically it. Lots of protein, watch the bread, work out. I'm generally not that hungry. When I am, I eat something good for me. I keep expecting my weight to bounce back up, but so far it's pretty steady.

Eight pounds down, but it's the easy 8 pounds. 12 to go in 7 weeks. I think I can do it.

Two months. 20 lbs.

I backslid a lot. I can say it was because of my injury and surgery. That's partially true. But there's also the holiday, where I ate junk because I wanted to. And I'm eating more fast food.

So it's a combination of things. It was easy to get into bad habits with limited mobility.

Now, though, I want to get back to where I was before the injury. That's ~260 lbs. I'm at ~280.

So, time to lose 20 pounds, trying to do it via IIFYM.

My primary strategy: 320 calories for 60g of protein shake, and make sure I eat a reasonable lunch meal and reasonable dinner, hitting 150g or more of protein and 150g or less of carbs.

I am planning to allow one cheat lunch and one cheat dinner a week. However these 'cheats' will be pre-tracked and I'll work around them to maintain IIFYM as much as possible.

Dinners will be Chicken, Fish, Turkey with Mushrooms and some other reasonable carb (beans, corn, a small serving of rice or pasta, or a single roll).

I'm not going to weigh this week as I'm kicking up exercise and changing my diet. I'm just going to track everything and see what happens.

I was doing well yesterday, but overdid my exercise and ended up eating a late snack of nutella and cheese that wasn't ideal for carbs, but I stayed way under on calories. I need to make sure that my late night snacks are a can of tuna, a cheese stick, maybe an apple... and not a spoonful of nutella out of the jar.

A mostly Medifast transition day!

So, I weighed in at 255 this morning, just over low, and have decided to do an 'almost not Medifast' day.

Breakfast (replacing: Medifast Shake)
2/3 cup egg whites
1 Laughing Cow wedge
4 slices turkey bacon

• 202 Calories, 4g carbs, 8g fat, 26g protein

vs Medifast:
90 calories, 13g carbs, 2g fat, 11g protein

2x the calories, lower carb. This breakfast fills me up much better than Medifast ever did.

Morning Snack (replacing: Medifast Bar)
5.3 oz Strawberry Cheesecake Greek Yogurt
1/4 cup Bear Naked Chocolate Granola

• 230 calories, 33g carb, 4g fat, 15g protein

vs Medifast:
110 calories, 13g carbs, 4g fat, 11g protein

I actually used too much granola today, and can probably cut the amount in half, saving 65 calories, 10g carbs, 3g fat, and only losing 1.5g protein. I really, really like this as a snack. The last time I tried Greek yogurt, I did not like it, texture-wise and flavor-wise it just didn't work. However, the cheesecake flavor masks the 'weird' flavor, and the crunchy granola mix-in really fixes the texture problem. This stuff is really good, and I will be trying more flavors as I go. The stuff I'm eating now has sucralose in it, and I'd like to not be eating much of that.

Lunch (replacing: Medifast Hearty Meal with Cheese and Chicken)
Quest Bar - Cookies and Cream

• 180 calories, 22g carbs, 7g fat, 21g protein

vs Medifast with add-ins
263 calories, 15g carbs, 11g fat, 29g protein

I really, really liked the Quest Bar. It was very dense, nicely sweet and cookie-like. It's got good macronutrients. Again, we've got Sucralose and Stevia in it, which isn't ideal. However it is more ideal than a candy bar and bag of chips. These guys are pretty expensive, but I think I'll keep eating them if they hold up. Which means I need to find a place to buy them in bulk for cheap.

Afternoon Snack (no change)
Medifast Pretzel sticks.

• 110 calories, 14g carbs, 2g fat, 11g protein.

I'm not changing this up today, but eventually I'll want something non-Medifast here that is higher protein and lower carb. I can easily see this ending up being canned tuna regularly, since it's protein-dense carb free. I'm one of those weird people that like canned tuna plain, so I can get away with that, I don't need crackers and mayo with it.

Dinner (no real change)
Tonight I'm going to make a turkey burger in a portobello cap bun, add cheese, and eat a few tater tots. Other than the tater tots and cheese, this is basically the same meal I'd normally eat.

• 413 calories, 23g carbs, 9g fat, 53g protein

Dessert (replacing Medifast SoftBake Smoothie)
1 Scoop Isoflex PB/Chocolate Whey Protein Isolate
.5 oz Neufchatel Cheese
1 Tbsp No-sugar added Quik

• 168 calories, 6g carbs, 4g fat, 29g protein

vs Medifast with add-ins
190 calories, 21g carbs, 6g fat, 21g protein

I'm going to end my day (presumably, if I don't snack extra) at:

• 1303 Calories
• 102g carbs
• 34g fat
• 155g protein

I'm also hitting 2433 mg sodium and 29 g fiber.

My 'IIFYM' targets for today (including my gym trip) would have me eat another 1200 calories, 59 carbs, 68 fats, 70 protein, and 31 fiber. I'm not yet to that point though, as I'm still transitioning. That said, I'm very happy to be eating different food, even if it is from the supplement store and not the grocery store. I think doing things this way will give me a much greater chance of success, because I can keep up my habits, shift away from them slowly, and not be tied to big shipments of Medifast.

So far so good! I'll keep cranking up my calorie intake, adjusting my macros, adding more foods, and see what happens!

If It Fits Your Macros - doing some math!

So, I want to convert from Medifast to IIFYM now that I'm at the tail end of my weight loss goal, as I think it will improve my ability to keep losing fat and to gain muscle. However, that means I have to do a lot of work into what my TDEE actually is.

If I go to http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/ and put in my numbers (Male, 43 years old, 6'2", 255 lbs) and plug in my desk job with no exercise, it claims that I have a BMR of 2223 calories and a TDEE of 2667/day. this seems fairly accurate with what MFP claims as well

So, to lose 1 pound a week, I need to consume 2167 calories a day with no exercise. To lose 2 lbs a week I need to consume 1657 calories a day with no exercise.

I do two circuit training workouts a week, which I think  probably burn about 350 calories per class. I also try to hit the elliptical at least once, which is about 700 calories generally.

So my 'extra' burn on a standard week is 1400 calories, or 200 calories a day. Spreading that across the week, it looks like I need to eat at around 2400 calories a day to lose 1 pound a week, or 2050 to lose 1.5 pounds. I like the idea of losing a little more than 1 pound a week, so I want to target that number.

Now, for the next step, I weigh 255 pounds and have a target of 2050 calories a day. IIFYM claims that that would be 'reckless' with no added exercise, however with my exercise level that should be considered closer to an 'aggressive' plan, which seems accurate to me.

With all that plugged in, IIFYM came back with the following guidelines:

189 grams of protein/day
85 grams of fat/day
133 grams of carbs/day
51+ grams of fiber/day

That seems totally reasonable. Now, lets look at what a normal day should look like on tis plan and see if that makes any sense at all with what I want to eat...

Breakfast - Egg white omelet (237 calories, 8 carbs, 5 fat, 37 protein)
2/3 cup egg whites
2 wedges laughing cow
3 oz grilled chicken

Morning Snack - Medifast bar and Almonds (280 calories, 18 carbs, 20 fat, 17 protein)
1 Medifast Crunch bar
28 grams almonds

Lunch - Medifast with cheese and chicken (260 calories, 15 carbs, 10 fat, 26 protein)
1 Mac and Cheese
3 oz grilled chicken
1 wedge laughing cow

Afternoon Snack - Greek Yogurt and Granola (230 calories, 33 carbs, 4 fat, 15 protein)
5.3 oz Yoplait Greek 100 Strawberry Cheesecake
1/4 cup Bear Naked Heavenly Chocolate Granola

Dinner - Chicken and vegetables (557 calories, 30 carbs, 33 fat, 39 protein)
8 oz grilled chicken
1.5 cups mushrooms
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
1 cup black eyed peas

Dessert - Smoothie (225 calories, 21 carbs, 9 fat, 22 protein)
1 Medifast soft bake
1 oz Neufchatel Cheese
2 tbsp PB2

This would end the day at:

1,789 calories (261 remaining)
125g carbs (8 remaining)
81g fat (4 remaining)
156g protein (33 remaining!)
29g fiber (22 remaining)

So, I need to supplement this with a high-fiber, high- protein, low-carb snack in some way. A quick look sees I can replace one Medifast crunch bar with a Quest Bar and add another Quest Bar (170 calories, 3 carbs, 6 fat, 20 protein) and end up here:

2,029 calories (close enough to be a rounding error)
137 carbs (just over)
90 fat (just over)
186 protein (just under)
42 fiber (under, I should add a fiber pill)

That's pretty freaking close, actually. My first thought is 'holy crap, that is a LOT of food'. My second thought is this is going to be restrictive in very similar ways to Medifast for most days, since trying to hit those targets is going to be tough. I'll also want to change up dinner a lot more, with different meats and starchy veggies.

I'll need to come up with a LOT of different meal plans/options, and I'll also want to look at ditching Medifast mac and cheese and expand my lunch options.

So, there's some stuff to blog about for the next couple of days! Meal planning. Medifast takes meal planning out of the equation, so this will be a change of pace.