Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Down over 7% Body Fat since Nov!

So as I mentioned before, I have been eating a Keto diet, which is a high fat/mid protein meal plan. I typically aim for 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbs, although there are certain days where I might be a few percentage points, overall I've been within the ballpark. I get most of my carbs from vegetables, nuts, cottage cheese and berries. To meet my fat content, I've been cooking with butter and coconut oil, and eating lots of bacon and sausage. It's not hard to do, as my brekkie is almost always bacon and eggs, and my lunches a huge salad with protein and dressing. On the weekends I tend to get a little more adventurous with recipes, and have found several great sites with keto-friendly fare. When I'm itching for noodles, I've discovered that T&T Supermarket carries Shirataki noodles, which are made from tofu. They smell like socks when you first open the package and drain the water, but I rinse several times before boiling them for 6 minutes or so. They can also be dry-fried instead of boiled, and there is macaroni, spaghetti and fettuccine shape noodles to choose from.



I've dropped over 7% body fat since late fall, which is a huge shift for me. I'm eating the same amount of calories as before, but for some reason my body is happy to continue dropping fat. I've even put on a few pounds of muscle, although it must be noted that I am not killing myself with exercise, just walking and some short Turbo Jam workouts.



Drinking and Keto, I have discovered, do NOT go well together, or they really do depending on how you look at it.  I can drink. I can drink a boatload. But since November, I have had 3 incidents of "lost time" after drinking the same amount that I normally would when not eating keto. Since that scares the crap out of me, I have been cutting my consumption WAY WAY DOWN. This is good for my calories for the day, my aching liver, not blacking out, my wallet, and staying in ketosis, so I am okay with it.

I am still avoiding the gym and all the New Year's Resolutioners. One of my coworkers is still going and has been infuriated at the lack of equipment from the influx, so I am waiting for another few weeks before I resume. I am going to try the spinning classes again. Wonder how different it will be with the fat/weight that I have taken off since the last time I went? (Thank you, Keto!)

Here's a new webseries by a dude that has switched to keto, in case you want to check it out:




Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Treadmill Desk - Phase 1 Complete!

There is something different about this post...I am typing it while walking on the deck of a treadmill. That's right, I was able to find a treadmill to take apart for phase 1 of building my walking desk.

I started by trawling on Craigslist for used treadmills. I looked. I looked and I looked and I looked. There were lots of big machines with big decks, but nothing that seemed just right. Then I did a search for what other people used, and found models I could not get up here in the Great White North, or that cost a bundle AND had huge shipping costs.

Finally I figured I would just go for a new, cheap and cheerful model. I ended up with an Exerpeutic Walking treadmill, which only goes up to 4.0 (fine by me, I get pain at 2.8 or above!) with a really small deck, perfect for my small desk area.



It was also a bonus, as they only delivered to my front door and I had to drag it up the stairs and to my bedroom by myself.  Thank spaghettimonster for the nifty white packing straps that I was able to use to do this.


Unpacking was fairly easy to do. Those little short arms are for the bottom of the stand to help stabilize it. Since that's not the game I was playing, I just chucked these out of the way.


One of the reasons that I chose this treadmill is because the connector from the arms and the deck looked fairly simple. I was not completely wrong about this, but it took more than a wrench to undo the side bolts.


I had to undo the screws holding the plastic paneling over the motor, but overall it only took a few minutes. I was then able to undo the bolts holding the arms to the deck.


Easy peasy!


Next I took off the bar that raises and lowers the platform, as I had no further need for this.


The wires were not hard to locate, as they were not down in the tubes of the arms as you might expect from a finished product. But then again I cheaped out, so...I really should be making snarky remarks.


Some of the wiring needed to be disconnected and reconnected later. There are only 3 connections, all which appear different, so my super-anal "label them with masking tape" was a little overkill.


There was a small screw on the underside of both arms that I had to undo to be able to thread the additional controls out of the stand arms. One side is the speed control, the other is "On/Off" and "Mode".


Finally I had to add a few blocks of wood to the bottom to accommodate a small metal tab left of the underside of the deck, from the arm that allowed you to store it standing. I guess I could have sourced a metal grinder and taken it off, but well, gluing wood to the bottom and getting a bit of an incline was just as easy.

I haven't yet made a new housing for the controls, so they are floating around my desk, but I am a busy girl and won't do that for the next while. So there you have it, phase 1 of my tread desk.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Happy 2013!

Though I would check in for the beginning of the month.

I continue to eat Keto for the most part. I am pretty quickly getting the idea that cheating always shows up within 3 days on the scale, except if I only have a few Vitamin V's (Voda/Soda) once a week. Breads/Pastas/Rice carbs show up, vodka does not. I can live with this.

I'm down over 16 lbs. of fat and up just over 3 lbs. of muscle, which I understand is pretty hard to do (lose fat and gain muscle at the same time) so I will take it with a grin on my face.

Did a lot more walking in December, and threw in 6 cardio workouts. I think for January I will aim to do 8 workouts, as a way to complement Keto eating, and to kick my ass back into ketosis when I've cheated. Basically I can do 2 workouts over 2 days and get back into ketosis, as long as I am really focused on sticking to the food.

Food wise, I have to mix vegetables into the mix to be able to lose. For some strange reason if I do nothing but meat/eggs/bacon/cream/coconut oil, my loss slows, but if I throw in a salad for lunch and some veggies in my stir-fry, my body responds. This is good, as a keto newb I was nervous that I would not be able to have my veggies!





That being said, I am a very happy girl to be able to eat bacon and eggs every day. (And yes, I pretty much do this every day for breakfast or lunch. Yum!)  If I know I will not be near a kitchen, I will do hardboiled eggs and some bacon in a ziplock. Portable, and delicious hot or cold.

I am also still using Nexercise, which is an app that lets you earn points for working out, and competing with your friends. They have also started letting people earn rewards from different sponsors, such as free eyeglasses, amazon credits etc.