You really don't want to lose weight

Weight is a horrible, horrible indicator of your fitness. I weigh more now than I ever have but that's because I've put on muscle. If I just looked at the scales as an indicator of my health I would be depressed and quit exercising and watching what I eat. Why bother training and dieting if there's no change? If weight is my only guide then I wouldn't be happy.

If you decide to lose weight and begin to exercise what do think is going to happen? You are going to burn fat. That's good. Congratulations. Burning the fat means that you will lose weight. But guess what else is going to happen? All those muscles you are exercising are going to toughen up, get bigger and stronger and you know what that means? It means you are going to put on weight. When you get on the scales and see that the weight hasn't changed how are you going to feel? Horrible, right?

Weight is a horrible indicator. It has it's place but, as a sole indicator, it is not helpful. A better measure is your fat content. If your fat content is going down and your weight is staying the same then you are putting on lean mass - that's a good thing. If your fat content is going up and your weight is staying the same then you are losing lean mass - that's not a good thing. Measuring your fat is a healthier measure than weight alone.

So how do you do it?

Let me suggest two ways of measuring your fat content. In both cases you will get a reasonable gauge of your fat content as a percentage of your total weight. For me, I like mini goals and quick feedback so I will measure myself once a week to see that I'm making gains toward my goals.

Currently I am currently using Accu-Measure Calipers. They give a quick and accurate measure of my fat percentage. They are very easy to use and aren't very expensive. You can purchase them online (here in India). They come with a chart that quickly lets you know where you are within 2%.

The second method is the US Navy Calculator. This is what I used when I first started measuring my fat content. All you need is a tape measure. An online calculator can be found here, here and here. There are two formulas running around the internet, an older one and a new one. One formula for working it out yourself is:

Men in inches: %Fat = 86.010*LOG(abdomen - neck) - 70.041*LOG(height) + 36.76
Men in cms: %Fat = 86.010*LOG(abdomen - neck) - 70.041*LOG(height) + 30.30

Women in inches:%Fat = 163.205*LOG(abdomen + hip - neck) - 97.684*LOG(height) - 78.387
Women in cms: %Fat = 163.205*LOG(abdomen + hip - neck) - 97.684*LOG(height) - 104.912

At some point in your journey toward fitness your body fat won't matter. What will matter is how you feel about yourself. Do you like the person you see in the mirror. When you get to that stage the measuring tape will no longer be your friend - get rid of it.

Be as lazy as you can to be fit and healthy

There are lots of diets and exercise programs out there and most of them work - for a while. You try the watermelon diet and you will lose 5kg, 10kg and then a year later you put it all back on with 20% interest. This cycle of lose-gain-lose-gain results in a billion dollar weight loss and fitness industry and a generation of obesity. The secret to being fit and healthy all year round is to be lazy.

Lazy is an unwillingness to work or use energy and that's the key to being fit all the time. You must be unwilling to work, unwilling to do any more than you need to in order to achieve your goal. You must do the absolute minimum to get there. If you can get to your weight loss goal or your fitness goal with the least amount of work then you have a much better chance of sustaining it.

If you want to be thin then there are lots of unsustainable methods. If you want to be thin all the time you need to make lifestyle changes. Often those changes are just small tweaks that build up over time that make your goals a reality. The same goes for fitness or health or strength.

Of course, if your goal is to be an athlete then your level of lazy will be higher than someone who wants to attain an average level of fitness. The point I'm making here is that the less you can do to achieve your goal the more likely you are to maintain it. If it's a lot of work and effort to achieve your goal then you are less likely to maintain what you have achieved.

For me, right now, I'm trying to lose about 4kg of fat. I'm doing 2 things to achieve that. I'm following a diet that isn't difficult that is 500 calories less than what I would normally eat. That amounts to about 20% less food per meal. That's doable. And I'm exercising 4 times a week for about 30 mins. That's 2 hours per week. That's doable too. It should take me about 12-20 weeks. That's realistic. When I get to the goal I get to eat a little bit more and the exercise is still only 2 hours per week. That's lazy fitness.

Are you doing too much to achieve your goals? What's the absolute minimum you need to achieve your fitness and health goals? What could you achieve between now and the end of the year? Leave a comment and let me know.

It's time to eat, drink and hope for the merry

In 10 days it will all be over. The experiment would have come to an end and I will, no doubt, have mixed emotions. Some things have gone well while other things haven't but these will be judged by the results. But judgment is for next week.

For now it's about the final preparation. I have my final speed workout today which involves doing a few laps at faster than marathon pace. Then it's just another couple of easy runs throughout the week to stay relaxed. The two big changes this week will be my sleep schedule and my eating plan.

The marathon starts at 6 am. I need to leave home about 45 mins before that. Before I leave home I need to hydrate and clear out the bowels (the last thing I want in the middle of a marathon is to need a toilet for a number 2!) So that means I'm up about 4:30 am. To avoid being groggy and tired I will be adjusting my sleeping routine this week so that my body clock is used to getting up at 4:30 am. That should leave me feeling fresh and ready on race day. The discipline involved in succeeding in this is not getting up at 4:30 am but getting to bed early enough so that I've had enough sleep to get up at 4:30 am.

And then there's the eating plan. I need to eat lots of carbs and drink lots of water. I want my body to store lots of energy so that my legs have lots to draw on during the run so I'll be eating lots of carbs. Hydrating my body is also crucial, especially for me. I sweat a lot - and I mean a lot. I did a hydration test in Australia and I lose 1.1 litres per hour. In India I can lose that much in half an hour so I need my body to well hydrated long before the race.

Hopefully, I will finish the next few days feeling fantastic. As I continue to taper the aches and pains should completely disappear, I should feel energised and mentally excited. The hip pain has subsided nicely (although there is still some lower back pain on that side of the body) and the legs are feeling good. For now, it's time to eat, drink and sleep, for in 10 days I run.

10 days to go. 

Apparently, this may kill me sooner than later

I was watching a Youtube Tedx video entitled "Run for your life! At a comfortable pace, and not too far: James O'Keefe". The gist of the talk is that running more than 20 miles (36km) per week is not too good for you and could in fact undo all the benefits of runners. While this talk has brought out some critics such as this article from Runners World,  there are some take home applications which both Alex Hutchinson and James O'Keefe do agree on. And Ill finish with my thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, yes, running too much is detrimental to your health. Nobody disputes that. The question of course is how much is too much. Where that line is nobody really knows and while James O'Keefe, a research cardiologist, has some opinions at this stage the evidence is unclear and unconfirmed. What Dr. James does suggest is that we all should get out there and do something; exercise a bit each day and you will be significantly healthier and live longer than if you do nothing. So the first take home application is that we should exercise, at least a little bit.

If Dr. O'Keefe is right, then long endurance based exercise over 25 years will shorten your life by about 6 years, the same amount if you did no exercise. My second point would be this - who cares? I don't know anyone who is out there doing long endurance based exercises because they must. Anybody who is exercising because they have to don't get into endurance based events and maintain that for 25 years. If you do something you love for 25 years and die 6 years earlier then that seems like a good trade. I'm a twin. Do you know how many twins live past 100? I know of one set of twins. Genetically, I'm wired to die early. I intend to live well with the years I have and if you love exercising for long periods then enjoy it. And remember, nobody really knows for sure if Dr. O'Keefe is right yet so he may be wrong.


Lastly, it turns out that diet is really important - who knew? You can be fit and thin and really unhealthy. You may be fit and still get a heart attack. What we eat impacts us on the inside even if the muscles are big and the girth is narrow.  What we eat affects our arteries and if we put junk in then no amount of exercise, either strength training or endurance training, can help us. Of course, if you are sedentary then junk food will impact you more and cause more problems but just because you look great and can run a marathon doesn't mean that you can eat whatever you want. Your choice of food matters.

So what's my take home perspective on all of this? I'm not over training by anybody's standard either O'Keefe's or Hutchinson's so I'm fine. I'm going to die early anyway so the best I can do is be healthy until the end. And lastly, my diet is fine. I'm going to do my strength training and stay strong and I'm going to do my fair share of endurance exercise to keep the heart healthy.

Actually, one more point. If you don't exercise or if your diet is horrible, please, do something about it. Extreme exercise may be a problem but even if it does kill you earlier, it's compared to those who do nothing. Do you hear that? If you aren't doing something you will die 6 years earlier and it's not a healthy six years. It's six years of pills and pain.

So tell me, what are you going to do this week to get off the couch and bring health to yourself?

4 weeks to go.

Conflicting Diets

Different diets produce different results.

Depending on what your goals are you need to find a diet (an eating plan) that matches your goals. My challenge is that body building and marathon running have two very different diets. The body building diet is high in protein because muscles need lots of protein to repair and grow. Protein doesn't make a good fuel source which is needed for running long distances. Protein is great as a building source but horrible as a fuel source.

Fuel well

For fuel the body requires carbohydrates. Before a strength training I take carbs to give myself the fuel to have an intense workout. But once the workout is done I don't need a lot of carbs for my lifestyle but I do need protein to repair and build the muscles. While protein is important for running a high carb diet is the norm. Strength training burns some calories but running burns a lot of calories. Today, for example, I burned over 2,000 calories during my long run. 2,000 calories is what I would normally eat for the entire day! That's a lot of fuel I'm burning. Having just a high protein diet won't help. A high carb diet is crucial to running a marathon.

So I have a conflicted diet. On one hand I need high protein for building muscle and for marathon prep I need high carbs. In order to balance both requirements I'm following a body building diet for most of the week but increasing my carbs on the running days. On the days I'm running, and therefore burning lots and lots of calories, I'm eating my normal amount of protein (and fat) and then eating a very healthy size of carbs to compensate.

This is what it looks like in practice. Before my run (which I do in the morning) I take some protein powder as my pre-run drink. I don't eat anything else. I want to run without a stomach full of carbs because I'm training my body to use fat as a secondary fuel source so I don't want carbs in the stomach - protein is fine. Today was a three hour run. I drink lots of water during and after the run. After the run I'll eat a really good meal full of protein, fat and carbs for recovery. My current calorie intact on a normal day is 2,000 calories. Adding what I've lost to running for 3 hours means I need to eat 4,000 calories today - that's not going to happen. I feel sick if I try and eat that many calories. So, today, I make sure that my protein and fat requirements are met and then I eat whatever I feel like in carbs knowing that I won't even come close to 4,000 calories.

On non-running days when I'm lifting I stick to my usual calorie intact.

In the midst of all of this I continue to monitor my body fat. If that's going down too much then I'm out of balance. If it's going up then I'm eating too much and I need to scale it back. As I'm increasing my running I need to be increasing what I eat on those days and monitoring my energy levels the other days.

How about you? Are you following any kind of diet to produce best results? Does your diet match your bodies requirements? I still feel like a novice in understanding what's best for fuel and dieting. Any pointers are greatly appreciated.

11 weeks to go.