In an earlier post (July 11th) I talked about my Facebook diet and how it enabled me to lose 15 pounds in 90 days. In the last paragraph, I went on record: “My plan now is to try to stay steady for the rest of this month, and then do a major push in August to get below 200.”
It is now August 2nd, and I did manage to stay steady the rest of July. My last weigh-in on July 30th had me at 207.5, about two pounds less that the July 11th posting. My goal for August is to lose 10 pounds, and get below 200 for the first time in 30 or 35 years. Also, I have a chance to weigh less than my brother Hank (198.5 recently) for the first time since I was about 4 and he was 6. Unfortunately, he just joined a gym and may represent a moving target. Nothing like the additional motivation from sibling rivalry.
I’ve decided that managing a weight loss program is a lot like running a business, which is why I am calling this a weight loss program for entrepreneurs. Amidst a lot of uncertainty, I tried experimenting to see what would work, and what would not. This is something you are constantly doing when you start and run a business.
I tried to understand better what I was capable of. I kept good records so that I could come back and analyze performance over an extended period of time. It helps to distance yourself from the daily and weekly swings in weight, and take a longer view. Same thing with a business: you can’t get too excited over daily swings in sales, but you sure as hell better understand the monthly trends so that you can size the business appropriately. I feel like I have a good idea now of what is possible.
Continuing the analogy, I’ve made some investments to improve my performance in the future. I investigated nutritional databases and found a good one to help me get a better handle on my “expenses” – i.e. the colorie content of the food that I eat (www.calorieking.com). I bought a food scale so that I can be even more precise when I need to. I’ve kept a food diary the last 10 days to see if it is practical to do.
Finally, I made some projections of future calories burned and calories consumed, to see what it would take to reach my target of losing 10 pounds in 30 days. I am putting a system in place to monitor actual performance against projections. Now, I just have the minor detail of actually executing the plan. This blog and Facebook will have a major role in that. Making the measures visible and public and powerful motivators.
Starting on Tuesday, August 4th, I plan to publish my weight each day on Facebook. I will supplement that with a detailed blog entry specifying the exercise for the day and estimated calories burned, as well as a log of food that I eat, and the estimated colories consumed.
Based on my age, weight, and gender (55, 207.5, Male), I burn about 2300 calories a day with a sedentary lifestyle. According to CalorieKing, I burn up about 400 calories an hour when cycling. I’ve read that a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories. So here’s my analysis and plan:
- I need to burn 35,000 calories above and beyond what I consume for the month in order to lose 10 pounds. That’s about 1,130 per day over 31 days.
- I feel like with some concerted effort, and the flexibility I have from being my own boss, I will be able to do 3 hours of day of cycling. That equates to 1,200 calories per day.
- This means that I can eat 3,500 calories a day to stay steady (2,300 + 1,200).
- To achieve my 10 pound goal for the month, I can eat 2,370 calories a day (3,500 minus 1,130)
Wish me luck!
