Ravikant's Weight Loss Journal :)

Dear Ladies,

After years of neglect, I am trying to get back in shape. I need all the motivation and support I need to stay the course. So, I thought of this idea of posting my workout and eating every day for the next few months until I get in shape. I am hoping that this public commitment will be a motivator for me. Lets see..

If I fail, I can look back at this thread and see where I went off track. If I succeed, I know what it took so that I never fall back into the dark world. Lets go!

 

First off, let me explain why I want to loose weight. I believe that understanding exactly why I want to loose weight is important in helping me stick to it.

I am not too fat. I have my love handle, alright. I don't have 6-pack abs, alright. But, anyone looking at me won't say that I am fat. Then why do I want to loose weight? Following are the 6 reasons ..

1. Role model for my daughter - I have a 2-year old girl and I want to be a role model for her in ways of healthy living. If I don't live a healthy lifestyle, I loose all moral authority to talk about healthy life-style with her.

2. Bring back my focus, concentration and attention - My ability to focus, concentrate and pay attention to the task at hand has decreased tremendously. Because of that my productivity is pretty low and hence I end up postponing things to eternity. Items remain on my To-Do list for ever. My inbox is a mess. Average email response from me is in weeks.

3. Eliminate regrets in not keeping casual commitments - I have become sloppy. I don't keep casual commitments. I tell a friend I will call over the weekend and never end up doing it. I regret it after the fact, but end up doing the same mistake again. I want to eliminate that regret forever.

4. Grow intellectually - I had a good reading habit. That has disappeared because of my horrendous productivity and inability to focus. I am feeling that I haven't grown intellectually in many years. I want to build my reading habit back and add to my intellect. Might sound corny, but I haven't experienced in a long time the ah ha feeling that comes with reading an eye-opening book!

5. Build a healthy body - I do want to live a trouble free life as long as possible. Being over-weight (with a family history of diabetes) doesn't bode well for my long-term health. Obesity is now linked to almost every disease imaginable.

6. Look trim and neat - Finally, I do envy men who maintain their bodies well and show it off. It would be kind of cool to have a trim and neat body.

That's it Ladies.

Again, it is kind of cool to list these out, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let's see whether the clarity of objective helps with keeping me on track. Only time will tell!

 

Dear IL'ites,

As I started this thread a few days after I started exercising, I just want to bring this thread up to date. I started doing regular exercise beginning last Monday i.e. 6th Oct 2008. Since then, I have been running on a daily basis (Mon-Fri).

I have always remembered my weight to be around 181 Lbs. The last I checked was maybe 2-3 months ago. I checked yesterday and I am weighing 176 Lbs. So, I am not sure how I lost the 5 Lbs. It could be because of the last 10 days effort or it could be because it just happened in the last 3 months. I don't know.

For the last two weeks, I ran for 25 minutes with the below plan. I run at 2 incline.



Today, I upped it a little more and I went with the below plan. Basically, 0.5 MPH improvement across the board. Same 2 incline. Let me see whether I can stick to it. Wish me luck!

 

Hi Nags, thank you for the encouragement. At this point, it looks like loosing weight itself is very tough for me. If maintaining weight is even tougher, I don't know what I will do.

 

Hi DG, You can call me Ravi. Thanks for stopping by and congratulations on loosing 9.4Kg. You have crossed more than half your goal. Great job!

This is a simple graph and took me literally 5 minutes to put together. I have a long history of starting things with a bang and then letting it languish and move on to something else. So, I am not patting my back yet on this. The road ahead is pretty long.

 

A little history of my past experience on this weight loss topic. When I first landed in USA in 2001 (before moving to Australia), I didn't realize the dangerous difference between India and USA on the food front.

• Ubiquitous availability of food (there were 15 restaurants within walking distance of where I lived! + vending machines everywhere)
• In numerable variations of a food item (at least one of which you would crave)
• Low cost of food relative to your income (99 cents for french fries, $0.20cents for a can of coke in Wal-Mart etc)
• Generally fattening nature of these foods (milkshakes, fries, coke, etc)

Result?

I ballooned from 160 Pounds to 180 Pounds. All my pants that I brought from India didn't fit anymore. After much procrastination, I decided to reduce weight. I started running initially 10 minutes then 25 minutes every day and started reducing my food intake. In 4 months or so, I was back to ~165 pounds. Over the last 6 years, I have gained ~15 pounds to my current weight of ~180lbs.

Why am I telling you all this? I will explain in my next post.

Ravi

 

All,

Hope you read the previous post so that this one makes sense.

Because of my previous episode with weight loss, two things happened.

1. Sooner after I dropped down to 165lbs, I needed to go to a general practitioner for some common ailment (I think it is the flu or something). When she learned that I had reduced weight by running and starving, she said that such an approach is not good for long-term health and that I need to follow a more balanced diet and exercise regimen. That is when she suggested this book called "Body for Life", from where I picked up a lot of what I base my current weight loss program on.

2. When I went to India after reducing the 15 pounds that I gained, my family members and friends were shocked because I had become so pale and lean that they said that my whole appearance has changed. I had lost lot of the fat in my face and in my hands that I looked more bony in those areas. The feeling of well-to-do has disappeared, according to them.

It took me a while to realize what my parents told was true. Because I didn't do any weight training, all I have done was to burn the fat in my face and arms without building any muscle. That resulted in this skinny appearance that my face portrayed. Not to repeat that mistake again, this time, I am including weight training as part of the plan.

Until later..