From Buddha to Adonis (body type) – the 60 Day Challenge

It’s scary to look at some pictures from just a few years ago. It’s so easy to just let life happen and all of a sudden you have sleep apnea. I’ve been telling myself, I need to get back down to 170lbs for the past… since 7 years maybe? Well this post is more of a motivation for myself than anything.

Life Time Fitness has this 60-day-challenge where you get some access to other classes, and “virtual coaches” and diet recipes that help you get to either a goal weight or overall “whole body transformation”. You can actually win some loot. Now there is an associated cost, but it helps drive incentive to perpetual physical activity. 

I feel like I want to join and be on my way to a healthy BMI, but then I start to make excuses… I already don’t have the time to dedicate 100% to working out, going to the fitness classes (which is true, the times are not compatible with current life), I will not have any use for the recipe’s that they offer, and why should I use a virtual coach, how would that help?

Well… as I tell my patients, you have to make the time. There is always time to do something. You may not want to do it, but there is always a way to find it or make it. For instance, instead of working out now, I am sitting here writing this blog (which by the way, I commend anyone who does this regularly because it is hard to do well). As I made the excuses in my head, I realized, how can I expect my patients to take anything I say seriously if I can’t do it myself. 

My current BMI is 26.4 (near my all time high). I do have a family history of vascular dementia, stroke, heart attack and diabetes. So why the heck would I not take my health seriously, and take my own advice. Now As I write this, I have already started to implement some Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC). On my professional Facebook Page, I have been trying to track my physical activity via PolarBeat. I like tracking my heart rate during exercise as it give me a better idea of the calorie use. I also sport a FitBit (mainly due to the benefit we get from our health insurance). You do NOT need these tech gadgets to be healthy, but I like gadgets.

I frequently ask my patient to use myFitnessPal to track calories and activity to help them stay focused on their goal weight loss. They have Apps you can use for both Android and iOS. I think you can actually watch my MyFitnessPal Diary here. http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/alphapenguin

So back to this 60-day challenge. I’ve tried sticking with P90x in the past but can’t get beyond day 30. Working out about 90 minutes a day takes a helluva time away from the day. Personal trainers are expensive. You know what though, not good excuses. Even if it’s just 40, or even 30, or even 20 minutes a day, it’s better than nothing. Finding ways to multitask works best. Unless you are superhuman and get up at 4 am to workout like some people I know, great ways to get physical activity in is to be active when you choose to be sedentary. Sounds obvious, but I mean instead of sitting down for 1-2 hrs watching NetFlix or a basketball game, get on a stationary bike or a treadmill (if you have one) and watch the Netflix. If you don’t have one, there are ways to get creative to do something. Now YouTube has a lot of great workout channels/videos with exercises. If you want to spend the money, there is the BeachBody On Demand, which gives you access to most of the BeachBody Material via the Android/iOS apps or via the website.

To keep myself motivated and accountable, and maybe to help motivate others that know me (or even the ones that don’t), I decided to publicly journal my strive for fitness. I’d love to have that six pack, but I think I would love even more is to not die of a heart attack prematurely or succumb to diabetes. As far as I know, I have been lucky so far with my biometric screens. Also, it would be nice not to have sleep apnea.

My current Plan to stay accountable:

GOAL: Weight loss down to 170lbs

Commitment:

  • must work out at least 20-40 min in a day, 5-6 days a week, and will provide proof. Will likely update blog weekly. maybe daily? To be seen.
  • must log food/calorie intake daily (will be using myFitnessPal), as above, may update only weekly.
  • will post weekly weigh-in weight.
  • no Fast foods.

how long am I going to last…

[dare i post a before picture here?]

 

Feel free to comment with any thoughts.

 

“I want adipex, and I refuse to exercise” – how about Develop a weight loss plan with the Kinect

can the right incentive shed the pounds (for good)?
Just Dance 3 (for XBOX360)

I am sure people already have some fangled setup using the kinect to lose weight, but I wonder if we can actually entice patients to lose weight more effectively using video games. They are more fun, and would more likely keep attentions spans longer.

Games like Dance Central and Just Dance are very exhausting, yet still fun. Other cool thing is your progress is tracked, and I think you should be able to share the progress online via the XBox Live.  I am pondering if we can do a study that would have people play the kinect consistently every day for about 30 minutes a day, and eat a healthy diet. Maybe there would be more compliance and success with weightloss. You might think, “duh, if you exercise and eat right you will lose weight.” That is a no brainer, but the hardest part about doing that is… doing it. I’ve tried many times to finish P90X, but it just gets kinda of boring. It’s a great workout and I have no doubt if I stuck with it every day, I’d have

"X ME!"

Abs like Thanh Nguyen. Also if I had no obligation every day, I would definitely not mind spending 90minutes a day with Tony Horton and him telling me to “x” him.

Then again, playing the Xbox might not be enough motivation to keep on an exercise program. That too can still get boring. I guess it’s all about motivation. There was a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA] titled “Financial Incentive–Based Approaches for Weight Loss”

They were trying to see if people would have more compliance/success with weight loss if there was a monetary incentive/benefit. Their conclusion:

The use of economic incentives produced significant weight loss during the 16 weeks of intervention that was not fully sustained. The longer-term use of incentives should be evaluated.

Employees of Ohiohealth who have the employee health insurance are able to enroll in this “Health Miles Program”. You get this pedometer and you can get money back if you log a certain amount of steps/activity every day throughout the year. You can get up to 500$. There is no cost for you to enroll either. Now you would think this is a great incentive to stay active, but I never made it to the $500. Some days I was too busy to wear it, and there were many days that I was still just too lazy to stay active. Another drawback is people cheat, I have see many people [at least when it first started] that sit there on the hospital floor and just shake the pedometer in their hand…. yah. anyway.

Maybe my friend, we’ll call him Qi, has the right idea, and compete with your friends in “the biggest loser” contests, where you win something for losing the most weight. Then again, the goal should be to be healthy and lose weight, not get fat as you can and then crash diet to win the contest.

Then again we have the people who see me for the first time and want to talk about weight loss.  They tell me “I don’t eat anything” and “never lose weight”, and ask me to prescribe Adipex (weight loss pill, stimulant, more or less not good for you). I usually ask them to keep a food diary/activity log so they can visualize how much they “are not eating” or rather ARE eating. Of course, I would say 99% of the people don’t follow through, or don’t come back. Endocrine disorders aside, it’s really simple math. Calories in minus calories out. If you get a positive number, you are taking in too much or not using enough. If you get a negative number, then you really should be on your way to shedding weight, (or you are logging your cals wrong).

I am not a big fan of diet pills because of the dangerous side effects. I wouldn’t want my patient’s heart to explode because they were too rev’d up from the diet pills. I mean there is a place (I suppose) for the use of these medications, but if you are not going to make an effort at watching what you eat and try to exercise… a diet pill is not going to do it for you. It’s the same for the bariatric surgeries, some people expect the surgery to do all the work. They don’t change their life style, and they end up gaining their weight back.

Well, I think I got a little side track with this post. Maybe I will see if MommyMD will give me some stimulants so I can lose weight too, and forget about this P90X and Tony Horton can just X himself. (I jest).