veginator

According to the US Navy formula (available in calculator format at http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/library/blbodyfatcalculator.htm), I'm at about 18.7% body fat. That seems a little closer to the mark than the 25.3% I got this morning on my bathroom scales. I mean, of course it's self-serving to pick the lower figure, but given that no one would notice I have any belly fat at all unless I have my shirt off, 25.3% just seems less plausible. (I'm just shy of 5'7", 165 lb., and my waist currently measures just under 34 inches.)

How do those of you who measure your body fat do so? I have one of those scales that reads out body fat percentages, but I'm quite sure it's a completely useless device for measuring anything other than weight. As I said in my blog this morning:

No new records to log as far as weight lifting is concerned. Managing to maintain strength in most areas, gradually gaining in some, while I shed body fat. Did push-ups (12), shoulder shrugs, and bent-over rows yesterday. Weight this morning: 165.0 lb., down 18 from July 1 and 25 from March. My scale says I'm at 25.3% body fat. Although that's probably not very far off (I'd say it's a tad high judging from looking at pictures of men who say they're x% body fat), I have to say that at least this brand of scale (Homedics) is completely useless for accurately measuring body fat. If I exercise and sweat a lot, it registers my body fat percentage as dramatically lower, by exactly the amount you'd expect if I'd lost all that weight as fat instead of the majority of it being water (sweat). And this morning I measured my body fat a second time, after I'd had two bananas and a cup of tea for breakfast. Now it says I'm at 25.9% body fat! Yeah, I have sugar in my tea, but there's no way I gained a pound of fat in two hours from consuming around 300 calories! Rode 44 miles on the bike yesterday. Will probably try for 50 today.

With relatives who don't exercise at all in town the last few days, it's been a bit of a challenge either to stick to my diet or get in enough of a workout, but I've done what I can. I've eaten out 4 times in the last 3 days. Tried to get in as much cardio as I could (rode bike 30 miles Sunday, 15 Monday, 39 Tuesday) to make up for it, but at best I was stuck on 167-ish in the mornings when I weighed myself the last few days. Yesterday I got back into the swing of things in terms of both diet and exercise. Did 44 miles on the bike, and did an upper-body workout at the gym. Numbers: Barbell curls: 2 x 12 x 60, 8 x 60 Shoulder Press: 3 x 12 x 70 Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 115 (slight assist from spotter on last two reps) Back: 20 x 130 Incline Situps: 10, with about a 50-degree incline Pushups: 12 Pullups: 4 1/2? I almost got up for a fifth one, but not quite. And the result of all that working out...165.8 lb. this morning, down over 17 lb. from July 1 and down 24 lb. since March. I have no idea if it's accurate or not, but my scale says I'm at 25.5% body fat. If that's an accurate number, then I need to lose about 1 more pound to officially be out of the "overweight" category in terms of body fat percentage. I'd say I probably need to lose about 20 more pounds of body fat to get some good definition in my abs, but I'm over halfway there from where I was in March, and with a shirt on you can't tell there's any flab there at all.

The claim--usually made by the US government or by companies such as Monsanto that are producing the stuff--that GMOs represent some great advance or hope for humanity reminds me a lot of claims about what a great idea nuclear power is for alleviating dependence on foreign oil, global warming, etc. Proponents of nuclear power pretend that there aren't lots of alternatives that are cheaper, safer, and generally more environmentally friendly, and constantly downplay how unsafe and environmentally unfriendly it is, just how much of a role nuclear power at one or another point in the fuel cycle has played in cancer, birth defects, and other health problems. Much the same scenario seems to be unfolding with GMOs. They are one of the greatest advances in our society according to Monsanto or DuPont or the US government, maybe, but geneticists and others knowledgeable about the technology who don't have some vested interest in GMOs are generally quite alarmed by them and, based on the research that has been done so far, consider claims about their benefits quite overblown. Dangerous side effects of GMO technology have already been observed. There's a good brief overview of the hazards or potential hazards of GMOs, and research challenging the claims made about their benefits, in John Robbins' book The Food Revolution. And what need is there that can't already potentially be met in other ways besides GMO foods, even assuming that GMO foods could meet some important unmet need? Reducing/eliminating hunger and malnutrition is the most commonly claimed benefit of GMO technology. But hunger and malnutrition certainly are not a result of the fact that humans hadn't until recently invented GMOs! People usually starve or are malnourished because they are really poor, and either don't have enough access to land, seeds, etc. to adequately meet their nutritional needs, or don't make enough money doing something other than living off the land to make ends meet. In most poorer countries the majority of arable land is owned/controlled by a small number of really rich people and by foreign companies. (There's the same unequal distribution of land ownership in rich countries like the US, but of course as long as the vast majority of people at least have enough money to buy food there isn't much malnutrition resulting from it.) Just as important in creating food shortages for the billions of hungry or malnourished people on the planet, as several people have already mentioned, is the fact that most of the world's arable land is used to grow food for livestock, not for people. The problems of hunger and malnutrition could easily be solved if their root causes were addressed, but most of the world's governments and essentially all of the world's major corporations have no interest in doing that. Um, well, except that what's usually done is inserting genes into plants from utterly different species such as fish. Injecting genetic material from highly unrelated species into plants is not at all the same thing as cross-breeding different strains of plants. It's a dangerous, unnecessary, stupid idea, which as you have pointed out yourself is in practice just a way for companies like Monsanto to make lots of money while providing no tangible benefits and instead creating lots of problems (such as foods doused with extraordinarily high doses of Roundup). Actually the genes are from daffodils and bacteria! And what's wrong with just growing and eating, say, sweet potatoes? As noted above, malnutrition issues such as vitamin A deficiency have nothing whatsoever to do with people suffering from it being unable to grow anything but rice or some other single food. People suffering from hunger and malnutrition simply need the financial means/resources to meet their nutritional needs; there is no need for golden rice or any other Frankenfood.

Weight this morning: 167.2 pounds. Only 7.2 pounds to get to my initial goal weight, but I want to go well beyond that as far as fat loss and, when I'm satisfied with my body fat level, I'll start eating more calories and try to put on more muscle. I've managed to lose a couple of pounds this week without trying all that hard. Totally stuffed myself at a Thai restaurant on my birthday Tuesday--although, for the first time in my life, I did without birthday cake! Last night, I ate a pizza and a half, although it was homemade and very low-fat (nutritional yeast "cheese" sauce, yum!). I haven't been lifting as regularly the past week or so as I had the weeks prior to that, as I've had some muscle soreness and strains in various places that I wanted to get over. Amount of cardio is also down. Since my son has been over the last few days, although we've done something active every day (soccer, racquetball, basketball, biking), I haven't had any days with 2+ hours of exercise the past week. In short, diet and exercise have still been pretty good the past week but I haven't been as strict/intense this week, so not surprisingly the rate of weight loss has slowed down a tad. I will get back to pushing myself hard the end of this week.

Torturing and murdering people is better than having an affair? Granted, with NAFTA, bombing Iraq, horrid environmental policies, etc., Clinton did some pretty horrible things in office (other than having an affair, which obviously was not a nice thing to do to his wife), too, but nothing quite on a par with launching all-out unprovoked wars lasting for several years with no end in sight, shredding the Constitution like so much toilet paper with policies like the Patriot Act, detaining people without charges and torturing them, etc. Yeah, he's a human being; so was Adolph Hitler. I'm not wildly optimistic that the next President, whether it's McCain or Obama, will be much of an improvement and I don't plan to vote for either one, but it would be a bad day in hell if the next Chief Executive were even worse than Bush.

Thanks Robert! I was about to say you were a few hours early, but by the time I wrote this it had passed midnight out here. One of the best birthday presents I could ask for is being in so much better shape than I was just three or four months ago, and VBBF has been a major motivating factor for me. Onward to even better things!

Weight this morning: 169. Recent workout figures: Squat: 12 x 140 Flat Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 115 (another p.b.) Pullups: Did four complete ones today. Incline Situps (approx. 60 degree angle): 8 Leg Extensions: 2 x 12 x 100 Leg Curls: 12 x 100 Barbell Curls: 10 x 60, 9 x 60, 2 x 8 x 60 Calf Raises: 2 x 20 x 155 Just biked a bit here and there the last couple of days, totaling about 20 miles.

Did four today.

Weight loss still progressing well: 170.4 this morning, down over 12 pounds from July 1! I managed to get by with just a couple of bananas and a smoothie until dinner tonight, knowing that I would "pig out" when I had company over for dinner. Though I ate a ton for dinner, I still managed to keep it low-fat, even going so far as to make my own poppy seed salad dressing with lowfat silken tofu substituted for the massive amounts of oil in the store-bought poppyseed dressing that was in the frig. Hopefully eating low-fat foods will compensate for the large quantity of wine I drank -- unusual for me, since I've hardly been drinking alcohol at all since I started getting serious about being fit. Did about 29 miles on the bike today, keeping a pretty good pace (for me)--managed it in just under 2 hours, despite it being a pretty hilly ride. I started on physical therapy for my sore Achilles tendon today; hopefully it will get things healthy enough down there that I can start running again some time! Since I had guests over for dinner, I only had time to get in a brief workout, which consisted of: Barbell Curls: 10 x 60, 9 x 60, 2 x 8 x 60 Shoulder Press: 8 x 80, 8 x 75, 2 x 8 x 70 Bent-Over Rows: 12 x 100, 8 x 100 I took some progress photos this weekend and was debating whether they showed enough progress to be worth posting. In the end, I decided that although it wasn't huge (how could it be in only 4 weeks?), there was definitely some noticeably improved muscle tone and it made some difference that I'd lost about 10 pounds since the previous pics. It's strange, my scales only show me losing fat, but both from the somewhat increased weights I'm lifting and from checking things out in the mirror, I find it implausible that I haven't added a little muscle mass the last few weeks. Maybe scales that measure body fat just aren't very accurate? Here are the photos, so anyone who views this (if they really want to ) can compare with the photos at the beginning of the blog and judge for themselves:

I can forgive you for not being a vegan, as I do my family and many of my friends, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let you off the hook! You were a vegetarian before, which I assume means there's some motivation to be at least that. By your own admission, you didn't eat a very healthy/balanced vegetarian diet in general then and specifically ate some things that you now know were making you feel bad, so it doesn't sound like you've yet given a vegan diet a fair try. By the way, I'm gluten-intolerant, too, and it took me a long time to figure that out. I feel a great deal better now that I've gone gluten-free. Although in your case going veg might involve a lot of experimenting around (and, obviously, avoiding gluten), it would be nice to see you give a vegan diet another chance. There's no biological reason that I'm aware of why meat (or dairy) should be necessary for anybody in order to feel good and healthy (and, of course, plenty of reason to think that significant amounts of animal products are bad for just about everybody); it's just a matter of finding the right plant products. You didn't really say what prompted you to be a vegetarian before. What motivated me to become vegan was John Robbins' book Diet for a New America. (He has a more recent one called The Food Revolution that I'm reading now.) Like Robbins, I think it's essential for all Americans to both know intellectually and understand on an emotional level exactly where their (animal-origin) food comes from and at what price on all sorts of levels. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so watching "Earthlings" (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1881460791819585324&q=&hl=en) is a great (which is not necessarily to say fun) way to do this. Now that we've got that out of the way I think Veganmaster was on target about the protein issue. Like much else that passes for conventional wisdom about nutrition, the notion that we have to go out of our way to eat gobs of protein in order to build muscle is probably wrong. You don't see cows downing protein shakes and they seem to have no problem putting on plenty of muscle. The couple of studies Veganmaster cited in another post seem to indicate that limiting fat to about 10-15% of calories or less is important, as of course is eating enough calories to put the muscle on, and that getting the vast majority of calories from complex carbohydrates works best. Jeff

Weight this morning: 172.4. That makes more than 10 pounds lost for the month. Except for a day here and there, I'm managing to stick pretty well to a diet in the neighborhood of 10% fat, which is very important since I've found that exercise alone isn't quite good enough for anything other than very gradual weight loss. What I ate today, more or less: Bananas, raw 3 medium (7" to 7-7/8" long) 315.1 calories Bread, rice bran 4 slice 262.4 Broccoli, raw 1 cup chopped 30.9 Quinoa, cooked 1.5 cup 333.0 Mushrooms, portabella, grilled 50 g 17.5 nutritional yeast sauce 1.5 Cup 324.0 Carrots, raw 0.5 cup chopped 26.2 tea, sweetened 2 cup 184.0 Vegetable oil, coconut 2 g 17.2 (This was part of a sauce with the mushrooms and some other calorically insignificant stuff not listed here.) Potatoes, baked, flesh, without salt 2 290.2 Rice Protein, Nutribiotic 14 g 57.9 Total Calories: 1858 Calories from protein: 243 (13%) Calories from carbohydrates: 1480 (80%) Calories from fat: 135 (7%) Only biked 12 miles total today because I spent about an hour at the bike shop buying and getting used to clip-in pedals. I did manage to get in a brief but fairly complete workout at the gym (supplemented, as usual, with some free weights at home): Inner Thigh Machine: 12 x 257.5 Outer Thigh Machine: 12 x 160 (p.b.) Squat: 12 x 140 Flat Bench Press: 2 x 8 x 110 (p.b.) Pullups: Did four today, although on the last one I didn't make it 100% up. Incline Situps (approx. 60 degree angle): 8 Incline Back Raises 12, w/25 lb. weight Leg Extensions: 12 x 100 Hammer Curls: 12 x 30, with a slight assist from the other arm on some. Barbell Curls: 12 x 60 Standing Shoulder Press: 6 x 80, 11 x 75, 8 x 75 (p.b.) Shoulder Shrugs: 10 x 145, 2 x 12 x 140

I tried it. Neat program! However, one problem: There were quite a few foods I commonly eat (e.g., nutritional yeast) that weren't in the list. Also, the only entry for sweetened tea in the list was for Lipton's Instant and the calorie listing was clearly a misprint: over 700 calories for one cup. Since I know that one cup of any sweetened beverage (other than milks) is at or just above 100 calories and the calories are almost all from carbs, I just put in orange juice instead. But of course that threw off the numbers for vitamins.

Heh, well, as long as I exercise at least an hour and a half a day and sometimes a lot more, yeah. But I managed to put on 15 pounds in 3 months last winter, and I wasn't even totally sedentary, so I don't know. Thanks!

Have been weighing in at around 173-174 in the mornings the last 3-4 days, even though I've been eating lots! I've been going pretty heavy on the cardio (biking as well as soccer tennis and left-handed racquetball with my son), around 2 hours a day this week, so as a result I've continued to lose weight just a little bit despite overindulging some diet-wise. Still unable to go running due to my Achilles injury--sufficient pain to make me want to stop begins about a mile after I start. Fortunately, stop-and-go exercise such as racquetball doesn't seem to inflame it very much, and biking is just fine. I saw a foot specialist this week and will begin physical therapy next week. After a three-day rest from weight-lifting, did a full-body workout today except for a couple of areas that I'll get to later. I didn't remember a notebook so didn't write anything down, but here's what I remember: Squat Machine: 12 x 120; 12 x 140 (another p.b.!) Flat bench press: 12 x 95, 12 x 105 Dumbbell Curls: 20 x 20, 12 x 25, 12 x 27.5 Pullups: I managed three. Couldn't do any a few weeks ago when I weighed about 10 pounds more and had slightly less upper-body strength. Inner Thigh: 12 x 257.5 Outer Thigh: 12 x 152.5 Leg Curl: 12 x 110 Seated Dip Machine: 12 x 140, but pretty sloppy form--arms were tired by then. Calf Raises (done on squat machine): 12 x 180 Done later: Shoulder Press: 2 x 8 x 75 (p.b.) Bent-Over Row: 12 x 90; 12 x 100 (p.b.) Shoulder Shrugs: 2 x 12 x 140

I use an electric shaver, and find that if I shave with a dry beard, it doesn't work so well. However, as long as I shave immediately after showering so that my beard is still moist, it works fairly well. Still leaves a few stray whiskers here and there, especially under my nose, and I use a nose hair trimmer on those.

Good to learn more about you after reading your many excellent posts. I, too, am a science nerd, and I think society would be a lot better off if people were not so poorly educated about science and the scientific method. I do my little bit in that direction by making my living teaching psychology. (I have a Ph.D. in social psychology.) Wish I could say I was a musician, but never managed to last more than a year in music lessons and got into too many other things (chess and tennis, among others) growing up, but I'm a very big music fan of many genres as it sounds like you are. It would be hard for me not to have music in my blood, with a dad who sang all his life in choirs and theatre productions, a sister who has won international piano competitions, and parents who ran the local classical music series when I was a kid. Me, I just listen, to music from many genres--classical, all forms of jazz, progressive rock, metal, folk...really almost anything played by good musicians--which of course excludes 99% of what's played on typical radio stations these days! At this moment I'm listening to the smooth sounds of Dave Brubeck's Time Changes album. I recently switched to doing a lot of biking myself, because I was getting too many foot and leg injuries from running and I'm committed to doing whatever I can to get back into excellent shape after a few years of being sedentary for me. I'm a bit older than you (46) so I don't think I'll be setting any records at whatever sports I'm doing, but maybe one of these days I can be competitive in my age group around here in running or some other sport I enjoy. Again, welcome to the forums, and I look forward to your future contributions here! Jeff

So, if I don't have a double standard wherein I feel compassion for some animals capable of experiencing physical and emotional pain (say, humans I know and maybe my pets), but feel no empathy or compassion whatsoever for the ones that wind up on people's dinner plates, who under modern factory farming conditions have undergone a huge amount of pain and suffering on the way there, that makes me "uptight"? WTF? I think if anybody's "uptight" it's those who erect a wall of denial around the issue of livestock animals' well-being. And it isn't just faceless hordes of humanity who are that way, but friends and relatives whom I know and love, too. That doesn't change the way I feel in the least--it angers and saddens me a lot to think about how indifferent most people, including most of my relatives, are to the way animals are treated, and how complicit they are in this treatment. Of course, most people don't really know what life is like for animals raised under factory farming conditions, but then again, it seems many would rather not know. I think "Earthlings" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhxKnys7Ryw) should be required viewing for anyone old enough to not be completely traumatized by it. Anyone who watches this video and sees with their own eyes the brutality of humans' typical treatment of animals and isn't moved to tears has something seriously wrong with them. Jeff

Bush isn't a serial killer?

But it's the crazy maniacs (or just bought-off maniacs) in the government that allow unfettered speculation, and also heavily subsidize the meat industry and pretty much every other heavily polluting industry. And in the US, they provide virtually no funding for rail or other public transportation, or to renewable energy sources. Our rail lines (both passenger and freight) suck!

If it's gluten that you're sensitive to, you should seriously consider giving it up. It took years before I realized that much of my bloating and almost all of the uncomfortable digestive issues (e.g., acid reflux) I was having were due to gluten. Although there are still foods that can cause me to get bloated (soy being one of them, and I think high fructose corn syrup is another), I feel a lot better after having followed a gluten-free diet for a few years. The other reason for anyone who's having difficulty with wheat or other high-gluten grains to try to give it up is that continuing to consume a food that is in all likelihood tearing up your intestinal villi will in the long run lead to serious health problems, including a greatly increased risk of bowel cancer.

Wow, that really sucks. I wish I had some useful advice other than to go to the doctor, but I don't. Maybe something's twisted around in there? I've had something to that effect happen before, but nothing nearly as painful or long-lasting as whatever happened to you. Hope it goes away soon.

Comment made. Here it is: "Great article! It's wonderful to see stereotypes about vegans being dispelled, and Robert and Diane are great role models and spokespeople for a healthy and compassionate lifestyle. The article mentions John Robbins' book The Food Revolution, which is an excellent source of information about what the livestock and dairy industries in the US are really like. If more Americans knew how horribly animals raised for food are typically treated in this country, as well as the extent to which our environmental problems are related to heavy consumption of animal products, vegan bodybuilders or vegan anything else would not be a rarity any more." We are at 86 comments right now, just a few more to get to 100. Let's keep getting the word out about the importance of being vegan for not only our own health, but animals' and the planet's.

More improvements to report: Standing Shoulder Press: 2 x 12 x 70, 8 x 70 Bent-Over Rows: 2 x 12 x 90 Shoulder Shrugs: 14 x 140, 2 x 12 x 140 Weight is presently holding steady at 175-176 on an empty stomach. I think about a pound of this week's weight loss was due to a bit of indigestion I had earlier in the week; i.e., partly water weight rather than fat. Still, 7 pounds in 16 days is not bad! I'm probably just hallucinating, but I think I'm starting to see abs again. Did very little aerobic exercise today and had a big, delicious dinner (Thai red curry with tofu and bell peppers...mmmm! ), so we'll see what the scale has in store tomorrow morning.