Hi,

I've finally reached the point where I'm so disgusted with myself and my body that I'm motivated to do something about it. I'm not a real fatty or anything, but over the past 4/5 years, my average weight has probably risen by 1kg/2lbs a year and while I still look ok in clothes, I'm not happy with how I look/how I feel in clothes and I want to re-commit to a more disciplined approach to nutrition. Plus, it's Spring time here in the land of the kangaroo and I live by the beach, so I need to get myself and my body in order before the Summer/party season/Christmas period starts.

I exercise regularly and have done all my life - these days it's pretty much all gym based and I get in 4 times a week on average. Albeit I have several injuries and haven't been able to train as intensely over the past few years as before. But...exercise isn't going to help me lose weight - it's helped me keep my body in check, but to drop the lbs I need to sort my diet out.

My diet is generally OK but...I eat too many carbs, I drink too much alcohol and I don't like denying myself treats/leaving food on the table, so I eat too much volume too.

Paleo works really well for me - I followed a 5 on/2 off paleo diet for the 4 years I was training Crossfit semi seriously. I love meat, am happy eating vegetables for my carbohydrate and once I get through the first few days of sugar cravings, I feel energised, sleep better and worry less (I have a small business that has huuuuge swings in revenue & income and when I'm drinking/eating badly, I regularly wake up at 2am in an anxious mood). I will drink some milk while on paleo and it doesn't seem to affect me too much - I crave it though and would find it really painful to give this up.

My wife is a weight loss nutritionist and a keto advocate (she does it in conjunction with HCG and gets incredible results for her clients) but keto is too hard core for me and I want something I can stick to

My plan is to complete a 6 week paleo (+ dairy) program. I'm going to allow myself 6 'mulligans' for the entire course, to allow for times when I'm really craving a glass of wine or a baked potato or sth, or when we have a dinner/social event that I can't escape. I'm not capable of going 6 week's straight. I hope I don't need all 6 mulligans, but I also want to keep going on this for as long as possible and these will help with my mental health.

After a conversation in Bip's thread
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/8...87/index3.html
I'm also interested in what happens to my body composition and strength during this period so....

- I have 2 Dexa scans booked, to test my pre and post body composition. I'm terrified about how bad they're gonna be.
- I will be recording PRs in 4 key lifts on days 1 & 2 and at the end of the 6 week period.

the lifts for me will be Strict Press, Bench Press, Max Pull Ups, Max Dips. Because of a significant disc injury, I've had to stop squatting, deadlifting and Olympic Lifting.

Goals:
- lose 6kg(13lbs).
- I'll add a body composition goal once I have the Dexa results.
- add 25% to my Dip & Pull Up numbers (should be possible given the weight loss) while maintaining the Bench and Press numbers

I'll be tracking my weight loss, my training performance and my sleep patterns.
I'll take pre and post body pics, although I'm not certain I'll be happy to post them

Timeline.

Start Date: Mon 2nd Oct

Lift PR attempts 2nd & 3rd
Dexa: 3rd

additional info

I'm 46, self employed, married with 3 kids.
I have a long history in sport and exercise and played tennis & rugby to a high level. Since stopping rugby at 28 I have run marathons, did Crossfit semi seriously and have done weights through all of that time.

I have had knee and shoulder reconstructions, have a bulging disc and the ITB on my left hand side is ridiculously tight. I can no longer road run, squat or pull heavy or olympic lift.

'Paleo' for me will be mainly Meat, Chicken, Eggs, Vegetables, Nuts & then protein bars and shakes. I drink black coffee and will continue to do so.

I'll be alcohol free apart from mulligans. I won't eat fruit and I don't eat fish

Why not?

I don't enjoy it, which is criminal living in Australia, but I just dont

Let's do this!!

I got back on the wagon yesterday and ran 4 miles. Heart rate went to 191 at the end of the run... hopefully I am still alive in 6 weeks to congratulate you

GL, please post DEXA data it will be interesting to see how it changes.

Good luck! Sounds like you are light years ahead of most 46 year olds.

gl

+1, subscribed. And good luck.

I really wanted to get started today, but with the Dexa scheduled for Tues am and a public holiday here tomorrow, I kind of feel I want to hold off and start at rock bottom on Tues.

Fish is an acquired taste. Nobody's saying you need to eat it to be healthy, but it would probably complement your fat loss goals to start developing a taste for it. Canned tuna (does that count as fish even) and sardines are great cheap and quick snacks with >20g protein that are fat loss staples. Some curries and soups with fish have such strong overall flavors that there's very little "fishiness" so they're good jumping off points.

source: a fellow fish hater

I agree, but it's just not going to happen - that ship has sailed. Tuna, in particular is so incredibly convenient but I can't stand the smell. In a past life, I used to run the European advertising account for John West and the NPD days used to crush me - sitting in a room full of tuna cans!

Convenience is important for me too, because I eat breakfast and lunch away from home 4 days per week - I leave home at 5.30am Mon to Thurs, so having lean sources of protein handy is critical to avoid carbs/huge expense

The smell of canned tuna is absolutely repulsive. It's so bad that I've never been able to get past it to get to know what canned tuna actually tastes like. A decent cut of tuna, at for example a sushi place, is delicious though.

Day 1

Utterly traumatised by the DEXA results.

I feel like I need to write this next sentence to allow me to post the results honestly. DEXA is a lot harsher (and more accurate) than the old style BF tests I/you may have had in the past using callipers. (throw out the bathroom scales by the way - the idea that a $30 scale from KMart is gonna send electric messages through your body and accurately measure your BF% is lolworthy). By the account of my scanner this morning, on average DEXA BF% readings are 30% ish higher than the callipers. So...your 'I was 10% BF in high school means you were really about 13%. etc etc

Still ****ing traumatised though. My results are

Height: 184cm, which I think is 6ft and a half inch
Weight: 89.5kg (197lb) (yikes, bedroom scales had me at 86.5)

Bone: 4%
Lean: 69.7%
Fat:26.3%

I found my last DEXA, done 7 years ago and I was 18.4% at a weight of 86.5kg

By my calculations, that means that over the past 7 years, I have gone from a total body fat of 15.9kg to a total body fat of 23.5kg. I've gained 7.6kg or 16.7lbs of fat and given I'm only 3kg heavier, this means I've lost 4kg of muscle. (my head has 140g more fat - insert sad, slightly fatter face). The loss of muscle doesn't surprise me hugely, given I was squatting 150kg and clean and jerking over 100kg back then and I'm not doing any lower body based lifting at all now. But the amount of fat added is horrific to contemplate

And at that initial reading 7 years ago, the advice I was given was to lose 4 more kg of fat to maximise my crossfit performance.

I need a little time to process this before I work through my goals and plans moving forward. Not that I'm gonna cancel this challenge, or anything...more that it might change my diet plans and the length of the challenge. I realise I'm 46 and I'm not training to be a world beater at anything any more, but I still want to have the body of an athlete who looks way younger and fitter than his age and I want to feel (and look) capable and prepared for a variety of physical challenges


I went to the gym after the early morning scan to record some current maxes. Annoyingly, both benches were in use the entire time I was there, so I'll have to do a bench 1RM tomorrow, but my other numbers were

Max Deadhang Pull ups: 14
Max Strict Press: 62.5kg/137.5lb (almost got 65 but was a fail)
Max Dips: 20

from the above, I'm gonna guesstimate my current bench max at 95kg, but I'll do it anyway

I'll post my training plan in a little while. If people are interested to see the limb/body part splits for the DEXA, happy to post that stuff too.

My physical activity plan is to visit the gym/train with weights at home 5 times per week, with 1 of these sessions to be a yoga class and to be active on the other days wherever possible - walking with my wife, doing outdoor stuff with the kids, working in my garden.

at the gym, I'm limited by my disc injury and so it's upper body only, plus a few leg focused strength exercises which don't put any pressure on my spine, eg weighted walking lunges, weight sled push etc. on the 'leg' day, I'll also subject myself to the instrument of torture...the assault bike, albeit it'll most likely be long and slowish, as opposed to the interval stuff I used to do.

weights wise, I'm going to do higher reps but with intensity. I'm not trying to get stronger, but I'd like to maintain muscle while I'm cutting the weight. So...I'll be doing supersets, drop sets etc.

After years of trying to ignore/train through and around my back issues, I've finally realised that I need to take action to sort it out, so I'm gonna go and get an MRI in the next few weeks too. And I'm going to start doing all the stuff I should have always been doing but have been too damn stubborn to. So while my plan is to be in the gym for 60 min sessions minimum, that'll include lower back warm up, mobility exercises and compulsory core exercises every day. And as above, yoga once a week.

Breakfast. Brought in my own lunch but didn't et organised enough last night to do two meals

That meal looks delicious for being on a diet

I am curious about the DEXA stuff. We have a bod-pod machine around here, but I doubt anything is as accurate at the DEXA.

Paleo is definitely an 'easy' way to diet, because you can eat decent meat still. Here's lunch

Just had a call from the DEXA man to say that the machine this morning was set up wrong. Brand new machine and I was first one to use it. Re-test this evening and will post any changes

Unless you've really let yourself go I think 25%+ is not really possible.

Thread is lacking nudes to tell though. I bet resident experts can guess your % about as accurately as the machine.

I went Paleo a couple of month ago for health reasons. I´m normally really happy with the diet but I get problems when I do a lot of sports, especially stop-n-go-sports which requires a lot of carbs. I still don´t know where to get the carbs from because I don´t like sweet potatoes (mega eeew) and I hate pumpkin (super-eeew). I try to eat a lot of potatoes (but they contain only 5 g net carbs per 100 gr.) or rice but it still doesn´t seem to be enough because I cannot eat sooooooo much rice. Interestingly, endurance sports works quite well on fat.

And don´t feel wrath. It´s only human and with 40 plus you need A LOT of discipline to keep your weight.

Yippee! Am not a fatty

yes, I think fat is the answer. A lot of the Paleo guys who also do Zone for portion size substitute carb blocks for fat blocks and then also use double fat blocks.

it means you end up eating a **** ton of almonds and avocado, but that's way easier than trying to eat 20 blocks a day of vegetables

but...man up on the sweet potato - God's food. I like it roasted. Cut into golf ball sized chunks, boil for 8 minutes and then roast in olive oil for 40 minutes. D LISHUS

So, the DEXA guy called me at lunchtime - 3 consecutive clients had registered way higher than expected readings. It turns out it was a brand new machine and he thinks it's faulty.

So he re-booked me with the existing machine and yes, the first reading was faulty. A huge relief and way more in line with my expectations going in.

Bone: 4%
Lean 77.1%
Fat 18.9%

Not ideal at all, but far more in line with what I imagined and significantly less depressing. Really relieved.

First day of eating has been fine. Had a protein bar mid afternoon. After dinner )beef patty and salad veg) I got some sugar cravings and also craving for a huge glass of milk. Ended up having two spoons of peanut butter and a glass of water.

Will work through goals for the BF over the next day or so.

Day 2.

Current Bench max - 95kg.
Did heavyish Bench 3x5 after the max. Then
3x10/10 SS of Incline DB press & Incline DB Flye.
3x10/8 SS of Wide Grip & Close Grip Pull Downs.
5 mins Back mobility as warm up and some hip mobility and core work to finish

Felt great all day yesterday - energised and more focused.
Was pissing like a racehorse as all the water drops away
Took 2 hours to get to sleep last night - think it was related to no alcohol for first time in 2 weeks.

Goals

After that scary morning yesterday, the plan is back on track. By my calculations, I have about 17kg of fat in my body right now. My plan is to lose 6kg of overall body weight, with 4kg of that being fat, which would give m a body fat percentage in the 11-12% type range

I've got no idea how realistic that is - I figure it's more than possible that I'll lose more muscle/water etc than fat and that maybe a good result would only be to lose 2 or 3kg of fat during that time but...let's see how we go.

Goals therefore.

Sub 83kg body weight - stretch goal sub 81.5
Sub 12.5% BF - stretch goal sub 11
18 Pull Ups - stretch goal 20
25 dips - stretch goal 30 (this I think is the most do-able)
62.5kg Strict Press
95kg Bench

I think the two press numbers will be very difficult to achieve going off past times lifting while dieting.