Ūruz's fitness journal: losing weight and getting in shape

So here I am with another journal. I already have a couple journals, but just to be consistent with my theme of obsessively compartmentalizing everything, lol, I wanted to create another separate journal just for fitness. I will journal here about exercise, but also about eating as well, because eating and fitness are inseparable and really one and the same—there is no being "in shape" without having the right feeding regimen; it's not just about exercise.
I used to exercise quit a lot years ago, in my early 20s, and was kind of in shape. But now I have lost it all by being sedentary and have to start from zero again. I have become pretty fat during last couple of years. Mainly due to depression—me emotionally eating when life feels like shit. I am obese. And that not only makes me feel like shit physically but also mentally, and obviously it's unhealthy, so I want to lose that. The way I will do it is by extended water fasting (not gonna go into much details here, I already posted my thoughts, and links to science from MDs, about it in this thread—Extended water fasting for weight loss, health and spirituality) in combination with whole foods plant based diet in–between fasts. And also of course exercise; so far gonna do just some walking, but I plan to get back into jogging and other more intense forms of cardio once I lose some fat. And then when I lose all the fat I will get into strength training routine to build some muscle, but let me not get ahead of myself.

So I just pulled out my old scale, for which I finally got batteries now, and weighted myself. Honestly was very nervous when doing that, haha. But got to face it! Here is my weight, along with the rest of my stats:

• Hight: 6'4 (194 cm)
• Weight: 274.5 lbs (124.5 kg)
• BMI: 33.5 (according to the body mass index calculator on CDC website), which puts me officially in obese category.

For reference, healthy weight is 18.5–24.9 BMI, overweight is 25.5–29.9 BMI and obese is 30.0 BMI and above. My ideal scenario would be to eventually drop down to lower end of healthy BMI (around 19 BMI), before I stop doing extended fasting and start to work on building muscle.

• Goal weight: 152–160 lbs (68.9–72.6 kg)—18.5–19.5 BMI respectively
• Weight left to lose: 122.5–115.5 lbs (55.6–52.4 kg)

Other measurements:

• Neck: 16.53 inch (42 cm)
• Upper arm (biceps area): 15.55 inch (39.5 cm)
• Chest: 46.85 inch (119 cm)
• Waist: 50 inch (127 cm)
• Hip (buttocks): 49 inch (124 cm)
• Thigh: 30.70 inch (78 cm)
• Calf: 18.11 inch (46 cm)

I entered couple of these measurements, along with my weight and height, in this body fat calculator and it gives me body fat of 36.3%.

Honestly I am not that upset about 274 pounds, I did expected more—I expected to be way closer to 300. Cos I think when I weighted myself couple years ago I was 275 and I felt like I gained since. But maybe I have not gained, or maybe I remember my last weight wrong and it was more like 260 or something. Either way it's a lot and I have to start chopping at it! Let's go!

 

Weight loss journey begins
So it's few minutes over 8 PM here right now, I just had a snack, but I am done eating for the day. As far as tomorrow, I am planning to do a water fast—no food from the moment I wake up, till the moment I go to sleep. Even though I already finished eating, and could start my count from now, I prefer to start it from midnight. Cos that's technically when a new calendar day starts. And I will be counting calendar days here, not hours. So that means one calendar day is from 12 AM, to 12 AM the next day. If there are any hours elapsed between the time I stopped eating and midnight, or between midnight and the moment I brake my fast, I will just dismiss them and count them as "eating day", since I am eating on that particular calendar day.
In the past I used to try the type of fasting tracking when you track hours, from the moment of your last meal, even if it's during mid day or whatever, and then sum these hours into days (so your fasting day could end at evening for example, if you managed to accumulate 24 hours since last meal): I used to use this free fasting app called Zero, which is a fasting focused timer app that lets you set a fasting goal of up to 7 day fasts. But that was just annoyingly obsessive. So now I will just keep it simple and stick to a calendar day: if I am eating that calendar day it's not a fasting day, if I am not eating that calendar day it's a fasting day—simple enough!

I expect to have a lot of energy on the first day of water fast, so I am planning to go for a walk tomorrow; walking will be my chosen form of cardio for a while. It's gonna be a slow walk, but I am hoping to do at least 4 km, maybe more, will see how my obese butt feels. Not sure what's the walking time for that, I will make sure I track it tomorrow, so I can maybe calculate how much calories it burns.

 

10k (6.21 mi) walk at 2.48 mph pace
One day water fast completed! I's the morning of Sunday right now and I have not eaten anything since Friday evening. Still did not refeed yet; want to do it later in the day. Cos even though I am not officially supposed to be counting hours, like I mentioned in the post above (but "unofficially" I couldn't resist to log onto my Zero fasting app, which is still on my phone, and set a timer lol—38h as of right now; it is motivating to use that app and to look at that timer, what can I say...), I still think that going for few hours longer would be beneficial. I mean why not, I am not usually hungry at mornings anyways, so what's the point of eating when I am not even hungry yet? Just for the arbitrary sake of eating? That would be silly! I usually get hungry at around 1PM; maybe with some discipline I can make it to 3 or 4 PM, I will brake the fast then.
I was hungry yesterday, but nothing too major. I honestly was surprised how easy the first day was. I have not fasted in long time, but I did try in the past. But the hunger (which I think mostly was emotional, rather than physical) was just too much and I gave in. Only difference from back then and now is that back then I was draining myself through having very frequent Ms and Os, while as of now I have been retaining for almost half a month! The hormonal benefits or retention are real; I don't think I could have made it through yesterday if I would be doing soft reboot (only no P) and still allowing M and O!

But anyways, I am not sure how I want to go about my refeeds. Should it be one meal a day (OMAD) during non-fasting days? Or should I keep my eating window longer, and just focus more on doing more frequent longer fasts instead? I am gravitating towards the latter. Cos I definitely want to build up to longer fasts and I am not sure that keeping it to OMAD in between would be enough to replenish everything for the next one (since my goal is to try to not go more than two—ideally one—days of eating between fasts). And I also probably would eat like a horse on OMAD, which might be fine for digestive system if we are doing short fasts (anything less that 5 days), but probably not that healthy mentally. So I think keeping my eating window to 5 to 6 hours during eating days, and having multiple smaller meals instead, would be more beneficial for me. Then I will switch to OMAD for maintenance, once I lose all the fat I need to lose and stop doing extended water fasting.
By the way, I weighted myself this morning and I am now 268.74 lbs (121.9 kg). I am planning to weight myself every day and also stand against a wall and take a progress picture every day. I think tracking things like that would be awesome for long term motivation. Maybe I will blur my face and post some pictures here. Still thinking about it—super ashamed of my fat body so don't really want to do that, but maybe that's the whole point why I should? Will see...

So I planned a 4k (2.48 mi) walk yesterday but ended up doing 10k (6.21 mi) instead. I think my body can handle that. I used to walk 10k almost every day, especially during summer, just don't remember whether it was summer of this year or the year before (it's sad how when you are depressed and self-isolating time distorts). But despite becoming obese and decreasing my activity by 90% I still kept up with walking somewhat, and have done 10k at least once or twice a month for the past year or so, and 4k couple of days a month in between, so at least I have that going for me; my joints and ligaments are probably stronger than if I would have stopped completely.
I took a timer on my phone and it took me 2 hours and 40 minutes to do that. Granted I took like a 10 min sitting brake half way, and I was not doing the same pace all the way through either. So maybe substract that 10min and round it up to 2h and 30min. That equals to average walking pace of 4 kph (2.48 mph). According to this calorie burn calculator it's 754 calories burned. Now I don't count my calories at the moment, I think it's rather pointless thing to do when doing regular extended water fasts, but I was curious. Also wanted to make a note of my current pace, to see how it improves when I lose some weight in few weeks.

 

2 day water fast completed!
I just broke 2 day fast with a tiny handful of raw fruit and will have a bigger meal in an hour or so. I know I wrote yesterday that I am gonna brake it, but I ended up going for one more extra day. I was kind of fantasizing about it yesterday, but did not expect to be able to, so did not want to commit to anything. But once again it was easier that I though. The hunger was there and it was harder to hold back more than the first day, but it did not require as much of a willpower as I expected. I don't want to turn this into a sexual retention journal, but I seriously think it's because of it, and I am kind of amazed! I see some people here struggling with discipline, willpower and motivation who are doing reboot from P, but allow themselves to M without it, or if they don't allow M then allow O during sex; god damn they are missing out by not also limiting Os too! The hormonal benefits of motivation, willpower and discipline you get from not hormonally resetting your endocrine and nervous system by O'ing are powerful indeed! Anyways, I will stop talking about this, not the point of this journal—focus on fitness and weight loss!

So I did decide 100% that I will not be doing OMAD, for the reasons I mentioned in post above. Full day of eating it is! Gonna try limit eating window to 6 hours or so though, but not gonna stress too much about it if I don't. So refeed today (gonna try to focus on getting decent amount of high potassium foods in, and some salt, to replace those electrolytes) and then gonna start another water fast tomorrow. This time aiming for 3 days, since I already did two, which were relatively easy, so it makes sense to build up. Definitely committing to not doing 4 though just yet, cos even if I could from the perspective of will power I want to build up to it gradually, to give my body more of an easier time. So maybe 4 day water fast next week instead, will see.

Did another 10k walk yesterday. Planning to possibly do 4k later this evening, will see. Definitely not 10 though, don't want to overtrain my joints, need to build up to more frequent walks slowly.
Daily weight in: 265.65 lbs (120.5 kg)—8.85 lbs (4 kg) lost so far. Obviously expecting to gain some back during refeed. But nonetheless I feel good about myself right now. And also happy that I started this fasting journey with a bang!

 

Absolutely! Mindfulness is super important, I have observed it myself in the past; when I used to meditate it was way easier to deal with urges and SAD! And lack of awareness can be destructive, experienced that too; so easy to lose control of your goals when walking around like an unconscious zombie. Hence I am back to doing daily meditations now for long time in years, since about a week ago, but not before meals though. But I have been thinking of starting to do mindful eating during meals, where you chew slowly and focus on taste and texture. I read somewhere a while ago that it helps with not overeating and getting rid of food cravings.

Thank you!

 

Didn't do my planned 4k walk yesterday.
Daily morning weight in: 270.72 lbs (122.8 kg).
Day 1 of 3 day water fast in progress...
Did a 4k walk today.

 

Day 2 of 3 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 267.40 lbs (121 kg).
Did another 4k walk today.

 

Day 3 of 3 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 264.11 lbs (119.8 kg).
Another 4k walk done.

 

3 day water fast completed!
This one not too much different than last fast. Didn't feel too hungry physically, not even sure if I did at all. I am not sure whether I even know how physical hunger feels to be honest, cos it's always been burried by psychological hunger. And I was always eating anyways, so never really let myself to experience it. I had growling stomach and an empty feeling in it, but from what I have heard it's not how physical hunger is supposed to feel like; from what I have heard is that physical hunger is a feeling in the throat, similar to that of thirst—I need to pay more mindful attention to it during the next fast.

Definitely had psychological hunger: thinking of food and what I could eat, fantasizing what I am gonna eat when I brake it, salivating while doing that, etc—my brain craves that dopamine hit from food. A couple of urges to brake the fast too, which I held back successfully. A side note: I notice it is very similar to erotic thoughts, fantasies and urges I get while rebooting from PMO. And even "arousal", if you can call it like that, (only it's in my mouth instead of genitals haha) pattern is similar to that. Anyways, definitely feel like I am rebooting and healing from some food addictions now. Still thinking of eating junk and craving junk. Had some junk already, probably gonna eat some more junk during my refeed. But I notice that desire to eat junk is slightly less than it was before these two fasts. I expect that I will reboot from my junk food cravings eventually, as I keep water fasting.
Noticed weird taste in my mouth during day 3; looks like I am entering in keto–genic state, which means I will be burning calories from fat directly at that pint, not just from stored glycogen—nice!

The water I drunk during fasts was 90% form tea. No sugar and no cream of course: zero calorie tea, but still probably not ideal. They say tea dehydrates you, but it's still 99.99% water, so I am sure the net effect is still full hydration. So maybe it doesn't matter? Especially since I am not eating any food: it takes water to process food in the system, so it stands to reason that when we fast we require less water to stay hydrated. I did not really had liquid consumption goal in mind, just drank when was thirsty, but I counted my used tea bags yesterday and there were 8 of them, so 1 per 250 ml cup equals to about 2 liters of liquids, so maybe 2.3 liters with simple water included. I don't think that's that bad.

Did 4k walk yesterday twice, one in the morning and another one late in the evening. The second was kind of spontaneous. Was a little worried about overtraining my fat joints by doing it so often, but what the heck, I enjoy walking!
Did took a timer with me in one of the previous days walks, just for the fun of it, and counted how long it takes me to walk it: 50 minutes. I honestly thought it was like 15 or 20—my feeling of time was weirdly distorted about it—so I was thinking it was so insignificant amount that I felt weird about even bothering. But I guess it's not that insignificant. Putting it all into the same calorie burn calculator that I used above it equals to about 300 calories burned. Not that bad!
Not sure whether I will walk today, I might in the evening—I notice I am way too lazy and tired during eating days.
At first this walking thing was mainly supposed to be just kind of random, depends how I feel about it. But I want to make it a regular daily routine that I do every morning no matter what; I think getting into a regular schedule will be good for me.

Daily morning weight in: 261.46 lbs (118.6 kg).

Gonna take two days to refeed now, then will go for 4 day water fast starting Sunday!

 

Thank you!
That's reassuring we are on the same page; yea, the tea not being good on a fast doesn't make sense, I don't know where I heard or read that, must be some fasting purist stuff haha. It does make it easier to stick to fasts for sure! At least my taste buds can get at least some stimulation.
I did not know that they put artificial sweeteners in tea! Well that's dumb. I will watch out for it more closely now.

 

Refeed day 2/2 in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 268.08 lbs (121.6 kg).
Did a 10k morning walk—I am officially committing myself to a mandatory exercise routine that I will make myself do every day of the week, during mornings: 4k five days a week; 10k during weekends (then if I feel like doing another 4k walk in the evenings I might do it, but not making the second one of the day mandatory, just depends how I feel about it).

 

Thanks! Appreciate the encouragement!

Yea, I always kind of enjoyed walking, it's very relaxing. But there was less and less motivation to do it as I would overeat and get fatter. But now when I am fasting I notice that the desire to go for a walk comes back more often.

 

Day 1 of 4 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 271.38 lbs (123.1 kg).
10k walk done.

 

Day 2 of 4 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 267.42 lbs (121.3 kg).
4k walk done.

 

Day 3 of 4 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 263.23 lbs (119.4 kg).
4k walk done.

 

Day 4 of 4 day water fast in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 261.02 lbs (118.4 kg).
4k walk done.

 

Another 3 day water fast completed!
So this was a little bit of a fail. I was supposed to do 4 days, but only did 3. I broke it yesterday evening, at about 6PM or so.
The physical hunger was barely there. The psychological hunger (mental cravings and urges to eat "for fun") was also there, but still manageable. I had the most urges to brake the fast during the day 1 actually. I guess, if I may use a nofap terminology here, you could call it a "Chaser Effect" of sorts: my brain telling me to eat cos it's not a big deal to brake a fast, cos we just ate relatively recently. The second day was without any cravings and urges at all, or at least not enough for me to remember. The third one had some, but manageable, same for the fourth day. So hunger wasn't the issue.

I felt fine during fourth day morning, but then started to get some headaches later during the day. And I just got so annoyed by it that I broke the fast. Because I thought that these headaches might be because of the fast. Apparently headaches are a common side effect of extended water fasting, but so far it's not understood exactly why. Scientists theorize that it's either due to blood sugar dropping too low or due to loss of salt in the system, or due to dehydration (apparently when we fast we flush out water at an accelerated pace—which is confusing, cos I also heard that we need less water when on fast, cos food requires water to process and we don't eat, but maybe this is after the initial drop of water has already happened during first couple of days; I need to look more into it). I have also heard it theorized that it may be due to dopamine withdrawals (and food is a big source of dopamine for us fatties).

So I broke the fast hoping that my headache will go away. And it did for a short while, pretty much immediately after I started eating. But then came back a little later. I tried to hydrate myself extra, but that takes a while. So I don't know what the hell. Either way, I am fine today morning. Gonna take two days to refeed once again and then start another fast on Saturday, if I feel fine. And then maybe try to go for 4 days again. This time will drink some extra water to make sure I am not dehydrated, I think 2 liters of tea is probably not enough, like I thought it was. Will see then.

I probably should not be upset about not making 4 days, since I still did whole 3 days, which is still good. And was at least more than 16 hours deep in the fourth; improvement from my last 3 day fast. Also, I noticed today, when I went out of the house, that my pants now feel slightly looser around the thighs! Feels encouraging.

Refeed day 2/3 in progress...
Daily morning weight in: 262.79 lbs (119.2 kg).

Edit:
4k walk done.