Anyone else losing weight?

After being vegetarian for 43 years, I converted to an all raw, vegan diet last March 2013. I have lost 8 pounds, trying to lose another 8 so I can get to 100 pounds. Damn, that last 8 is killing me. I don't limit what I eat, but, I think if I want to get to 100, I am going to have to cut down on the nuts and dried fruit.

I think being lighter takes the sress off my joints and makes the overhangs that much easier.

The simple and sad truth:

If you really want to lose a beer belly . . .

stop drinking beer.

Seriously, beverages--whether alcohol or sodas--are the main source of empty calories for most of us.

Mike Belu wrote:I like to think that the blubber I've strategically placed on my body this holiday season is like a built in weight vest. It's so hard to eat healthy for me. Put down the double cheese burger and walk away...

Yeah, when I started dropping weight, things felt so much easier from building a power base at a higher weight. Silver lining I guess

By the way, I'm Indianapolis born and raised (all but the last 2 years) - good seeing other Indy climbers getting out there.

I've got a serious post-Valentine's Day bloat going on right now. Took the GF out to a nice dinner then drank many drinks with friends afterwards. Good times, but now I'm going to the gym to do my penance. Hit my cals for every other day this week, so the scale should be moving in the right direction even with last night's gluttony.

Keep grinding everyone. We gon make it.

Another book I enjoyed was "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" by Brian Wansink.
The main theme is that we eat until our plate is empty, not until we are full.
He runs the Cornell food laboratory where many entertaining and enlightening studies were performed.
For example, they set up soup bowls to automatically and invisibly refill themselves while the diners ate and measured how much soup they consumed. It was much, much more than a bowl full. Some folks ate several quarts of soup and then only felt mildly full. But got lots of unneeded calories.

Mark E Dixon wrote:The main theme is that we eat until our plate is empty, not until we are full.

It's the American way - you go to a restaurant and they bring you enough food for a group of three.

I also found 'Racing Weight' by Matt Fitzgerald to be pretty applicable to climbers. I've upped my running volume to around 30 mpw. I also did around 4 diet bets at dietbetter.com - they really helped with the motivation. I've found weight loss is 50% portion control, 25% what I eat, and 25% activity.

When i want to lose weight i only eat cardboard because its good fiber and go into the sauna until I pass out. my only concern is that when i lose weight my barbed wire "yolo" tattoo wont look as hard as I am

I started using the myfitnesspal app to track calories and a fitbit to roughly gauge activity level. I set some goals in there, stuck to them religiously and lost about 20 lbs over 3 months. There are a ton of calorie tracking apps out there, as well as pedometers, the trick is just keeping up with it and not lying to yourself.

Once I started tracking everything I ate and how many calories I burned it became a competition with myself to beat my own goals for daily activity. It also illustrated pretty quickly which foods had empty calories. I ended up eating a lot more veggies and quinoa and lean protein (fish and chicken). Something like that might provide the motivation you are looking for. Good luck.

Got injured back in Oct, couldn't climb at all, and blew up from my lowest good climbing weight @ 133 to 145, in a month of sitting on my butt and eating everything i normally don't. Pint of Ben and Jerrys at a sitting, etc.

Got a free calorie tracker app (called "Noom", pretty good with a large database of commerical and generic foods), and used it for a couple months. Then got lazy about using it. While using it, I lost about 2 lb. That's less than I normally do when dieting, which is about 1 lb every 10 days.

Then I got a new track bike, which led to more time on the bikes. Started climbing and training again. 30min to 1:30 on the bikes a few days a week, couple days of climbing and weights, and I've lost 4 more while actually eating more calories and not worrying too much about it.

Oddly enough, at 10lb heavier than what i consider my best climbing weight, my bouldering phase peaked as high as it ever has. That was interesting, and I think I need to maintain a higher weight for more of the training cycle, only dropping to my supposed best weight for the sport route peak of the cycle. I'd maintained within 3lb of the
'best" weight throughout the cycle that couple before that.

Will S wrote:Got injured back in Oct, couldn't climb at all, and blew up from my lowest good climbing weight @ 133 to 145, in a month of sitting on my butt and eating everything i normally don't.

Out of curiosity, how tall are you?

PS. I have read somewhere that for someone with good technique, 10lbs is equivalent (not perfectly, but close) to about 1.5 French letter grades. E.g. someone who is climbing 7b would find that he's able to work on redpointing 7c+.

I find myself losing weight about twice a day, sometimes 3 times if I hit the granola in the morning...

10 lbs means a lot to my climbing, seems like the difference between v7 and solid v10...which I find very interesting. I thought it would be a little more linear than that.

Will S wrote:Got injured back in Oct, couldn't climb at all, and blew up from my lowest good climbing weight @ 133 to 145, in a month of sitting on my butt and eating everything i normally don't. Pint of Ben and Jerrys at a sitting, etc. Got a free calorie tracker app (called "Noom", pretty good with a large database of commerical and generic foods), and used it for a couple months. Then got lazy about using it. While using it, I lost about 2 lb. That's less than I normally do when dieting, which is about 1 lb every 10 days. Then I got a new track bike, which led to more time on the bikes. Started climbing and training again. 30min to 1:30 on the bikes a few days a week, couple days of climbing and weights, and I've lost 4 more while actually eating more calories and not worrying too much about it. Oddly enough, at 10lb heavier than what i consider my best climbing weight, my bouldering phase peaked as high as it ever has. That was interesting, and I think I need to maintain a higher weight for more of the training cycle, only dropping to my supposed best weight for the sport route peak of the cycle. I'd maintained within 3lb of the 'best" weight throughout the cycle that couple before that.

Not that you exactly recommended it, but I started using Noom and it seems so far to be helping me to be more mindful of my eating, and to provide that extra little bit of "do you really want to eat that, dude?" Thanks for mentioning it...

Will-power can be purchased:
www.TheKitchenSafe.com

There's also been recent stories (and studies?) about how Motivation for losing weight can be purchased.

Ken

P.S. An old fictional story that's more radical about the Motivation thing: Quitters, Inc..

beer, our nemesis and savior. i'm with you, need to drop 15-20. determined - -

Question for you guys: at what level do you think ticky-tack weight loss matters? I mean, I'm only bouldering V6-7, and I feel like my dropping 20 pounds has been super helpful, but do you think 2-4 pounds for specific phases is really useful and necessary when not climbing at the V10+/ upper .13s range?

Jon Frisby wrote:Question for you guys: at what level do you think ticky-tack weight loss matters? I mean, I'm only bouldering V6-7, and I feel like my dropping 20 pounds has been super helpful, but do you think 2-4 pounds for specific phases is really useful and necessary when not climbing at the V10+/ upper .13s range?

Depends on the style of climbing. Do you mostly climb indoors or outdoors? Is it mostly face climbing on thin holds or roofs on incuts and jugs? On smaller and less positive holds lighter people have a distinct advantage, regardless of the grade. Same goes for sustained endurance routes or really long traverses, like if the stuff you find on European limestone. If you mostly climb indoors or do mostly power-problems or routes that have distinct power cruxes, you should not worry about weight as much. Also, the older you are, the more weight will make a difference.

Jon Frisby wrote:Question for you guys: at what level do you think ticky-tack weight loss matters? I mean, I'm only bouldering V6-7, and I feel like my dropping 20 pounds has been super helpful, but do you think 2-4 pounds for specific phases is really useful and necessary when not climbing at the V10+/ upper .13s range?

Jon, if you don't mind, would you be able to say what your "super helpful" weight loss was in BMI terms (ie before/after)? I need some super help myself! Seems like most of the professionals are hanging out in the 21-22 range...

Optimistic wrote: Jon, if you don't mind, would you be able to say what your "super helpful" weight loss was in BMI terms (ie before/after)? I need some super help myself! Seems like most of the professionals are hanging out in the 21-22 range...

Seem to me that professionals are in 20 and under range BMI-wise and the taller they get, the lower the BMI.

Here is a table from Annals of Biological Research, 2013, 4 (5):196-199:
Screening climb (YDS): ~5.14
National team background (years): 3.5±2.4
BMI (kg/m2): 20.53±1.54
Body fat percentage: 6.92±0.96
Height (cm): 174.8±4.75
Body mass (kg): 62.44±5.73
Age(year): 23.2±2.02