Intro: I thought I would a Post Mortem covering my first month of my journey. I likely will do these most months, I may or may not publish them. This is for my first month of my plan, starting Jan. 1 (shout out to Jan 1sters) ending Jan. 31. Please don’t compare my results to yours, everyone is different, but this is my experience and I hope it may be helpful to others. Looking back at what went well, what was a challenge is a very helpful exercise for me.
Plan: CICO. 1000 calorie deficit. Eliminate: Fast Food, French Fried, Chips (my biggest nemesis), sweet desserts. Reduce: breads, pastas, rice. Huh, I guess that’s explains how I got to 300+.
January Weight
Jan 1: 338.5 (BMI – 42.2)
Jan 31: 306 (BMI - 39.3)
Scale Victory: Holy shit, I lost 22.5 pounds in the first month. It pays to start this lifestyle as a tall heavy man with a heavy sodium diet. I carried a ton of water weight and I have a long way to go. In previous attempts I have lost 20+ pounds in a single month, so that’s not new. My previous approaches had been low carb diets which was just not sustainable for me. I believe CICO can and will work for me long term.
# of days scale weight went down from previous day: 18
Biggest one day drop: 3 pounds (Jan 3 to Jan 4)
# of days scale weight went up from previous day: 8
Biggest one day gain: 2.5 pounds (Jan 12 to Jan 13)
# of days scale weight stayed same from previous day: 4
Calorie Consumption
Monthly goal: 61,870
Monthly consumption: 56,902
Low day: 1531 (Jan. 21)
Average: 1835
High day: 2113 (Jan. 25)
Non Scale Victories
I don’t look so bloated.
My wife said hey your tummy is shrinking after hugging me
One of my favorite t-shirts went from being a belly shirt to being a regular t-shirt. It may be surprising to know most of the world doesn’t appreciate a 300+ 50-year-old man in a belly shirt. Although thanks to the ones of you who do!
My ring comes off without half a gallon of liquid soap and water. I can actually take it slide it off at night. That one shocks me.
I get hungry, I get angry. I no longer am getting hangry.
Exercise
Mostly focused on diet. I do track steps, shout out to my team members on r/team_charmander who keep me very motivated in my steps with weekday hustle contests. I aim for 10,000 a day and I try to do one or two, 30-minute exercise walks during the work week on top of walking my dog (twice a day) and all the organic steps I take.
Fitbit
Starting Jan 9, I started tracking my steps with my new Zip. (I find way too many false positive steps on the wrist worn trackers).
Monthly goal: 230,000
Monthly Steps: 231,744
# of days goal met: 12 out of 23
Low day: 5,551 (jan. 12)
Average: 10,075
High day: 14,056 (Jan. 15)
What went well
Despite my weight, I didn’t expect to lose 20+ pounds during my first month.
It took me 11 days before I wasn’t constant hungry.
By the third week, I often wasn’t hungry during meal times, my “bad” cravings mostly went away.
Stuck to my plan for the month
All my prep left me feeling well prepared for issues
What didn’t go well
Protein bars have been a life savor for me to use as snacks. However, Ive realized high sugar alcohol is causing some unpleasant digestive side effects. I was very happy with the 20g of protein and 1 g of sugar in these bars, so I need to find some new ones.
I know I haven’t lost enough yet, but I would like someone to notice my weight loss.
Concerns
I spent a lot of time focused on weight loss. I am planning what to eat, when to eat, what I will eat nect, thinking about food, logging my food, thinking about logging food, reading all the various subreddits I get support from, walking, thinking about walking. And when Im not doing that I am reading the various subreddits. I’m only a month in, but this lifestyle has to scale for the rest of my life. I feel like I can, but I spent a lot of time focused on weight loss.
I travel in February, sticking to the plan when traveling worries me.
Tools used
My Fitness Pal, Happy Scale, Fitbit, reddit subreddits
