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Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

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Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#11

Post by throwaway2016a »

cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it around like an airplane.

It's not exclusive to older people (teenagers can do it too but it's not recommended)

It's called "having a baby".

My daughter weights 28 Ibs now and I have to lift her a couple dozen times a day. My upper body has definitely improved.

But seriously, I've found staying fit is MUCH harder than it was 5 years ago but still possible. The hardest part is finding the time. I don't know many 30-somethings (especially in tech) that can work out for a half hour uninterrupted, nevermind an hour.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#12

Post by antisthenes »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #11
cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it arou…

> I don't know many 30-somethings (especially in tech) that can work out for a half hour uninterrupted, nevermind an hour.

Sounds like a major lifestyle problem that needs to be solved before considering embarking on a fitness program. If you can't find a half-hour for a leisurely self-improvement activity, consider focusing really hard on making that change first.

If you don't have a kid, finding an hour to yourself every day should be no problem. If it is - consider improving your time management or just working less.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#13

Post by jjawssd »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #11
cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it arou…

Ain't that the truth. Motivation and time for exercise are my largest daily struggles. I am older but those two are far more important factors than just age.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#14

Post by karai »

jjawssd wrote: post #9

The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet in conjunction with strength and cardiovascular exercise. Even with minimal exercise I lost 7 kg since March. My weight loss hits a plateau when I am not exercising. It is essential to move your ass or lift things if you want more gains. Weight loss is not practical without some exercise. A lot of Westerners are rediscovering amazing gains from the ketogen…

shameless plug: just started a curated newsletter for keto enthusiasts here - https://keto.fm

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#15

Post by cheald »

If you're data-inclined, it's a powerful tool to drive health and fitness. Extracting actionable meaning from your data isn't that hard, as long as you understand the basic mechanics of what you're doing and can compute things like percentages and moving averages.

I'm 34, spent the last ~15 years at sedentary desk jobs, and became quite out of shape. I've lost 70lb over the last year doing little more than just logging what I eat in MyFitnessPal, sticking to caloric and macro budgets, and recomputing my TDEE based on moving averages of my caloric inputs and weight readings. I lift for 45-60 minutes 4 times a week, no cardio.

In that same time period, I've started lifting and seen excellent progress (bench 1RM ~260, squat 1RM ~320, deadlift 1RM ~465), again by thoroughly logging my workout data and using that to identify where I'm weak and strong (which lets me select exercises to improve my weaknesses), to help set and adjust training maxes, and to help set achievable goals on a daily basis. Symmetric Strength is a great tool here - it's incredibly gratifying to see my progress presented in several ways, and it helps me understand my strengths and weaknesses, as well as my progression relative to others, which can be very motivating.

I attribute just about all of this to the fact that I adopted eating and lifting plans which were based on data collection and specific goals and targets to reach for and hit on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. I've tried dieting and fitness regimes in the past that were basically coached as "just do this and try really hard", without laying out why, or what I could expect at a granular level, and those become really discouraging once the initial hit of motivation wears off. By contrast, having a year's worth of data to analyze any time I start to feel discouraged provides immediate reinforcement as to what does and doesn't work, and helps keep me on track.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#16

Post by jjawssd »

manmal wrote: post #10

His advice reminds me a lot of things Mr Berkham has to say over at leangains.com. IF, multivitamin, fish oil, cutting/bulking phases - those are not all things exclusive to advice given by Berkham, but it's a quite similar subset. Here's a post from another software developer having similarly spectacular success: http://merowing.info/2014/02/fit-geek/ I lost ~20kg myself by following Leangains loosely over a period…

I don't buy into your endocrine/metabolic system theory whatsoever. Do you have any evidence that this is even possible?

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#18

Post by allover »

jjawssd wrote: post #9

The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet in conjunction with strength and cardiovascular exercise. Even with minimal exercise I lost 7 kg since March. My weight loss hits a plateau when I am not exercising. It is essential to move your ass or lift things if you want more gains. Weight loss is not practical without some exercise. A lot of Westerners are rediscovering amazing gains from the ketogen…

> The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet

That was debunked recently [1].

> Weight loss is not practical without some exercise.

Nonsense. Do you have any evidence for that?

[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105660/do-low-carb-diets-work

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#19

Post by antisthenes »

cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

That's a valid complaint, in that the body generally experiences a somewhat rapid slowdown in metabolism around the age of 25-26, but after that it appears to be a relatively slow decline and is definitely no excuse to let yourself go.

To give you another data point, I've started a similar exercise routine around 27 and have kept it up until ~29, and while it has gotten harder to maintain the same weights, I still feel great.

Certainly better than my younger self that did no exercise at all and led a completely sedentary lifestyle.

It follows the tree quote: the best time to start exercising was "x" years ago, the 2nd best time is now.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#20

Post by tptacek »

allover wrote: post #18
jjawssd wrote: post #9

The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet in conjunction with strength and cardiovascular exercise. Even with minimal exercise I lost 7 kg since March. My weight loss hits a plateau when I am not exercising. It is essential to move your ass or lift things if you want more gains. Weight loss is not practical without some exercise. A lot of Westerners are rediscovering amazing gains from the ketogen…

> The real key to weight loss is a non-insulin-stimulating diet That was debunked recently [1]. > Weight loss is not practical without some exercise. Nonsense. Do you have any evidence for that? [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12105660/do-low-carb-diets-work

Anyone who clicks through to that link and reads is going to see that it doesn't "debunk" anything, and is in fact careful not to claim that it does.
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