Nice. The last lbs were a little tougher, but were also the most rewarding for me. The difference between a large and a medium shirt was about 8 lbs. Finally saw a little definition on my arms right at the end, too.

3/23/2019 1:48:49 PM

How awesome was your tri?

3/24/2019 11:21:39 AM

Pretty damn awesome. 1:05:44. I think I was 6th in novice men. I was very pleased with my results. Never imagined I could do it a year ago.

3/24/2019 1:03:46 PM

here's some pics

swim: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tvBdw5HhpWyNUhFZ6
bike: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LhNW31GnbXF2nHjq9
run: https://photos.app.goo.gl/tysC3Xfc8pWfZqmb9



[Edited on March 24, 2019 at 4:46 PM. Reason : huge pics]

3/24/2019 4:39:36 PM

That's awesome, glad you liked it.

3/24/2019 4:58:27 PM

results: https://d368g9lw5ileu7.cloudfront.net/races/results_sxpyy7hkhl59je7mdoeonwc44drr.txt

3/24/2019 7:57:53 PM

Very nice!

3/25/2019 12:10:11 PM

i'll definitely be doing it again. already thinking about the wrightsville beach sprint in September. it'll be good to have a specific time goal to try to achieve now that i have a baseline.

buddy is trying to talk me into the carolina beach double. think it's in july.

3/25/2019 5:45:46 PM

do it!

looks like you have the same swimming problem I do: you turn your head too far when breathing

3/25/2019 6:40:24 PM

yeah, there's a lot of things i need to work on with my swimming, but you should've seen how bad it was when i started in January. it was practically a doggie paddle.

what's frustrating is there's a little guy from work who tarzan swims the whole time and did it in something like 5:30. he makes no effort to improve his technique. there's no telling how fast he could swim if he actually worked on it.

3/25/2019 8:43:36 PM

I decided to do a no cheat April and really stay dedicated to keto for a month. I've done really well so far. No cheats 6 days in.
This week I've finally gotten past a little bit of a plateau. I've lost 2.5 pounds. I now weigh less than I did at my wedding. I can fit into jeans that I haven't worn in 5 years. And I've increased my deadlift and bench max. 48 pounds down, 12 to go.

4/6/2019 11:37:07 PM

great job

Maintenance is going well. I'm actually down to 167 lbs. I don't really want to lose more, so I'm focusing on really dialing in how much I need to eat to fuel my exercise.

I rode in a charity bike ride yesterday and was able to keep up with the front group and actually pulled them for a while, so that was cool. Haven't rode the road bike outside much since December, so I didn't know what kind of speeds I could maintain. I was happy to see that all the time on the trainer has paid off.

4/7/2019 8:11:06 AM

I tied my PR in 5km on Sunday. I set it last year. Just can't quite get past 20:24 or under 20 (my lifetime goal). Gonna be in the second half of my 30s next year -- running out of time?

One of the kids (24 y/o) on my team at work ran track in college and told me his times -- sub 15s. Different league altogether.

5/1/2019 9:13:13 PM

Not bad..even for a White Sox fan.

5/30/2019 11:03:25 AM

Holy shit, NeuseRvrRat... that before/after pic is phenomenal. Congrats.

5/30/2019 3:14:36 PM

lost about 10 more lbs since then. holding around 163 lbs now. still logging everything. i try to run a very small deficit most days, which allows me to splurge on a meal that pushes me in a surplus every now and then.

6/3/2019 8:35:19 PM

I tore a bicep deadlifting an easy 640 lbs at a meet in early June. Go me!

6/5/2019 10:49:57 AM

Mixed grip? I finally bought a pair of straps a month ago because of fear of a biceps tear using mixed grip.

6/7/2019 3:01:33 PM

Yep. I only use mixed grip when I need to, such as PR attempts or 90+% pulls. It was hot as fuck in that gym with no AC that day. Everyone was downing gatorade and salt tabs to keep it in but it was coming out just as fast. My 2nd attempt was 640 and I smoked it, but right before I got the down command, it slipped from my overhand. Ok, so the 3rd attempt (2nd at 640) I was so hell bent on gripping the shit out of it I was flexing my wrist and that put strain on the bicep. POP. Between dehydration and the flexing, it was bound to happen.

6/11/2019 10:24:54 AM

Last year I got serious about my health and lost about 35 lbs. But what really saved me is my decision to quit a 6+ diet soda/day habit. It's been almost 2 months since I've had a Diet Coke or Diet Mtn. Dew.

I also started 16/8 intermittent fasting + keto six weeks ago. Down another 15 lbs, to 173 lbs and about 18% BF.

Cutting out snack food (low carb snack food) and processed foods have eliminated any type of inflammation/arthritis in my body. This has also made my sleep much better... no snacking after dinner puts me in bed by 11pm, instead of 12:30am.

I'm 44 and am in the best shape of my life.

6/15/2019 8:25:37 AM

Quote :

" But what really saved me is my decision to quit a 6+ diet soda/day habit. It's been almost 2 months since I've had a Diet Coke or Diet Mtn. Dew."

Can you talk more about how this saved you? 0 calories, but sounds like something else was going on with them.

6/16/2019 6:45:06 AM

Diet sodas encourage some people to overeat.

I've started adding more strongman implements into my training and not focusing so much on body splits on training days, as I want to do a contest in October. Yesterday was my first time doing standing overhead BB press ever, and then I did farmers carries with a hex bar as a first too. They were both awkward and fun, and it will be interesting to see how much easier they become as I work on technique.

6/16/2019 8:33:15 AM

In case anyone wants to know how quick you can fuck up your progress... I was super disciplined for past three years until I switched jobs last October.

Managed to gain 30 pounds in 4 months--definitely not lean mass. My lifts for deadlift, bench and squat is about 70% what it was in August of last year and my running instead of doing 5 miles at a 9 minute pace are more like 3 miles at an 11 minute pace.

Had some good ice cream and wine though.

6/16/2019 11:14:27 AM

Diet sodas might not have any calories, but they have articifical sweeteners and other additives. If you want to improve your health from a beverage perspective, just drink water.

6/16/2019 1:31:10 PM

Using MyFitnessPal to track calories, goal weight is 148 lbs

6/16/2019 1:39:13 PM

if you weigh your food as much as possible and log everything, you'll be successful

6/16/2019 8:07:29 PM

I read that diet sodas can make you hungrier, as your body thinks it's gonna get sugar when consumed. When it doesn't, it wants something, anything.

I also believe it's more about insulin control than being sugar free. Once I quit the diet sodas, my sweet tooth disappeared.

6/18/2019 9:26:37 PM

On a side note... I went to a wedding over the weekend... planned this cheat day for a while. I ate like a fool. Lots of carbs, and bad ones.

But I learned a hard lesson though. I can't jump back into eating like shit after doing keto/IF for almost 2 months. I woke up Monday at 3am sweating in bed. Ran to the bathroom and threw up like I was drunk off of 18 beers (but wasn't drinking). Then had the most foul smelling diarrhea for the next day.

I'm going to the beach next week for a full week. I was planning to take the week off of dieting too. But after the pain I just went through...

6/18/2019 9:36:34 PM

That's why I try to change only how much I eat and not what I eat.

6/19/2019 12:39:09 AM

Sorry to hear you went through that. I think even on cheat days, you should portion control to ensure you have no problems.

6/19/2019 1:02:02 PM

ketogenic diets are not effective if you cheat on them, as the hormonal response can get thrown off for 2-3 days if you introduce a lot of carbs back into your body in one cheat meal. I quit doing cyclic ketogenic diets because of how brutal the reefed periods felt, even though they were very effective.

6/19/2019 4:52:04 PM

I was going to do keto and I changed my mind. I still want to retain some fat.

6/19/2019 7:30:47 PM

I really don't see how ketogenic and similar highly regimented diets are viable for long-term weight loss and maintenance.

Obviously there are people out there that do it, but those types of diets strike me as too easy to fall off of and end right back where you started.

6/20/2019 1:34:38 PM

Keto diets don’t even have a metabolic advantage, it just gets people to eat in a deficit by restricting a lot of shitty food options that are high in calories. Yes you burn more fat while on a ketogenic diet but that’s because you’re eating more fat. At the end of the day total fat loss will be the same if you’re on a keto diet or a normally calorie restricted diet as long as you’re eating enough protein.

Some people are able to stick with a ketogenic diet easier but there’s nothing magical about it.

6/20/2019 1:58:23 PM

I get asked all the time what my carb limit was for my weight loss. Heads explode when I tell them I didnt care about carbs and just ate whatever I wanted as long as I stayed under my calorie limit. Nothing wrong with keto if it helps you stay in a deficit, but people interpret keto successes as "carbs = bad" and it's getting ridiculous. It's the low fat craze of the 80s and 90s all over again.

6/20/2019 2:08:09 PM

^That's crazy that people are still confused by this. They literally have a study where they show you can eat nothing but twinkies and lose weight as long as you eat at a deficit. You'll feel like shit and it's bad for your body, but eating a deficit is all that matters.

I'd argue all of this Keto, Carnivore, Paleo, etc, are all the same concept and just a different twist on it. Cut out the processed garbage, cut out the food heavy in sugar, restrict the calorie-heavy alcohol, focus on lean proteins, all the greens you can stand, and a little fruit. Not sure why we have to put a "name" on it or try to twist it in an extreme manner(carnivore diet for instance) for people to embrace it.

6/20/2019 2:40:46 PM

I tell folks to not worry about any of that. If you stick to a deficit, you will naturally find that you eat "healthier" foods since you'll be hungry as hell otherwise.

6/20/2019 3:08:26 PM

The most important thing is eating enough protein and staying in a caloric deficit. Protein helps maintain lean mass so more of the weight you lose is fat. Resistance training helps with this as well. The carbs vs fats thing just depends on what the individual likes/does best on.

6/20/2019 5:02:02 PM

MyFitnessPal app is pretty cool, in the way I can scan in barcodes from packages and it totals up my macros at the end of the day.

6/20/2019 6:39:46 PM

Had our annual health screenings at work today:

165 lbs. I'm 5'11".

Blood pressure 90/56. Lady said I must be a runner. I told her mainly cycling, but yeah.

Total cholesterol 156. Used to be close to 200.

HDL (good cholesterol) was 56. Used to be in the teens.

LDL (bad cholesterol) was off scale low.

Triglycerides were also off scale low. Below 45. Don't remember what this used to be, but it was always good enough to meet the goal, but not great.

Glucose was 81. Never had problems with this.

6/20/2019 7:27:25 PM

^Nice numbers, good job!

6/20/2019 7:44:20 PM

anyone have a good app for tracking macros that syncs with a good fitness tracker? I'm using withings which is great for everything except turning tracked workouts into calories (the estimates are incredibly bad, like 90KCal for a 30+min of HIIT with a 200+lbs body). I like this app called lifesum, but it doesn't sync with withings. I've tried myfitnesspal but the interface is awful. I have a withings scale too.

since undertaking a major remodel on my house, I've gained about 12lbs then another 6 on vacation. I've lost about 8 so far as the renovation comes to a close

6/20/2019 9:53:57 PM

I use Lose It! which connects with your scale.

6/20/2019 11:32:08 PM

Smoothcrim , congratulations on your 8lb weight loss!

6/21/2019 7:56:08 PM

^^I also prefer LoseIt! to MyFitnessPal or whatever else. It's a very good app

6/24/2019 10:17:45 AM

Agreed. The interface is much better than MFP and the food database seems to have a lot fewer garbage entries.

----

Now that I weigh 40 lbs less than the day I got married, any advice on how to keep my wedding band from falling off?

6/24/2019 11:19:30 AM

reducer

6/24/2019 11:42:50 AM

I find that MFP works pretty good when I can scan the UPC. Also, the Blue Apron meals we get are often already in the database. For generic meats and produce, including "usda" in the search filters out the crappy entries. MFP links up with Garmin Connect, which gets my watch, bike GPS, and scale all synced up. I'm too invested in MFP with meals and recipes to change at this point.

6/24/2019 11:47:52 AM

Speaking of watches and scales - does anyone want to buy my FitBit Aria? It's the white one. I switched to iWatch and the scale won't sync with Apple Health so I'd like to just get a few bucks for it and get something that will work with Apple.

6/24/2019 3:14:17 PM

MFP gets awful ornery if you eat less than 1200 calories in a day.

6/25/2019 11:23:51 PM