August Fitness Review (-3.9 KG)

This is my first monthly fitness review. It covers about 2 and a half weeks in August. I started on the 13th of August weighing 98.6 KG and at the start of September, I weighed 94.7 KG.

But, I sort of cheated. The weekend before I started my journey, I decided to eat like an absolute pig. The Friday before I was 96.6 and after stuffing my face for 2 straight days I put on 2 kilos. This weight was always going to be easy to lose and I knew the first few weeks I was going to lose weight.

The month of August was all about transitioning to the Keto diet. I’ve been doing intermittent fasting for years (I don’t eat breakfast) so my main goal of August was to remove all the carbs from what I ate. It wasn’t about anything else. I didn’t track calories, I didn’t go out of my way to do exercise. All I did was make sure I ate mostly fats and some protein and less than 20 grams of carbs per day (between the hours of 1pm and 8pm).

I also wanted to get into ketosis asap. So I started with a 3 day fast. 72 hours of nothing but water, green tea and black coffee. As I had stuffed myself the 2 days prior, day 1 and 2 were pretty easy to get through. Day 3 wasn’t as fun, but I managed to get through it and had a big meal for dinner (lesson learned: after a fast, do not eat a big meal. Eat small liquid meals first and slowly get back into other foods).

You can get these sticks you pee on that let you know if you are in ketosis. I didn’t have any, but after 3 days of no food, you can be pretty sure you are. I’ve felt pretty good on Keto so far, but I did crave sugar and bread. You will see a spike on September 2nd, as I had designated Father’s day to be my cheat day (which I can do once per month if I want and kicks me out of ketosis).

My initial post about this journey saw a few readers email me and ask for advice. I tried to help but made them aware I am as lost as them when it comes to all this. With anything, there is only so much reading and thinking you can do. Until you actually do something, you will never truly learn what is going to work for you. But it is good to know that if I do succeed, it will give you guys another bit of data you can use in your own journey.

Walking

10,000 steps a day. That’s what we hear all the time. Apparently, there is no scientific evidence that 10,000 steps is the correct amount. It was used because it was a simple round number. 7,500 or 12,500 might be better. I want to keep this simple though. So 10,000 it shall be (eventually). 10,000 steps is very hard for someone who sits in front of a computer all day. You really have to make a big effort to get to that figure each day. That’s why it was not my goal for August, nor is it for September. You can see that in August, I averaged 3,460 steps per day. The two months prior I was in Europe and averaged well over 10k per day. But that was because we were exploring and walking everywhere.

Exercise

My spin bike was used every other day for about 20 minutes on an easy setting. In September I am looking to ramp up my biking and the plan is to do at least 20 minutes (burn 200 calories) around 1pm. I’ll then have a shower and break my fast.

Calories

A calorie deficit is all that is needed to lose weight. My body burns about 2,500 calories a day due to natural processes. 1 kilo is worth about 7,700 calories. So if I was to eat 1,100 calories less per day (2,500 – 1,100 = 1,400) then after 1 week I would lose 1 kilo.

Going from over 2,500 calories per day down to 1,400 would likely result in me hating life and quitting. Losing 1 kilo per week sounds great, but is not a good idea. My goal will be 0.5 kilos per week which is 2 kilos per month. That means I should eat 550 calories less per day. By to give myself some leeway (I might not be burning 2,500 calories a day, or I might not track everything I eat), I’ll be aiming to consume 1,800 calories a day.

I’ll be using MyFitnessPal to track what I eat.

Sleep

I’m slowly learning that sleep is the most important ingredient for a healthy body. I received my Oura ring near the end of August and it tracks my sleep and a heap of other things. I’ve already noticed some very interesting data and in September I will talk more about how my sleep is going and the other data the ring supplies.

The pics

We all know what you really want to see. Me with my shirt off. There is nothing like a before and after shot. I’m sure in a years time my before and after will look amazing. But for now, these small incremental improvements will be barely noticeable.

I have noticed a difference already, but I knew the first few kilos would be easy. In the next month or two I will hit a plateau and have to work really hard to keep losing weight. When that time comes, it will be these posts and my own attitude that will see me get past it and continue to drop the weight.

In September, I will continue to eat Keto, keep under 1,800 calories, and do at least 20 minutes on the bike per day. I will also get blood work done to get a baseline and also take some measurements.