THE JOURNEY BEGINS…
IF IT TASTES GOOD, SPIT IT OUT!
Next step of the Plan was the diet. This was a real problem for me. Diabetes means no carbs (even if you try to eliminate them, you end up getting what your body needs). Triglycerides means no meat. I don’t eat fish, so that essentially leaves me salads. Oh. Yay.
Using an app called Lose It!1 and research from Youtube studies, I formed a Nutrition (Meal) Plan and an Exercise Plan. Maybe not good ones, but ones that I’m going with. (This is where I tell you I am NOT a doctor and for you to get professional medical advice before you do anything health related – now there! My lawyer is happy.)
Getting rid of fat is about burning more calories than you take in WHILE exercising to burn calories and getting your metabolic rate up. (When you take in less calories, your body is smart enough to slow down your metabolic rate, so if you just diet, you may not lose weight.) By speeding up your metabolism with exercise, your burn extra calories, create an even greater DEFICIT, AND activate your muscles so you don’t burn them instead of calories.
YOU WANT A BUDGET DEFICIT!
A caloric deficit is the difference between your BMR and the NET calories you have left over after exercise. BMR stands for Basil Metabolic Rate (basically how many calories you normally burn in your regular life, working, breathing, etc.) So, age old wisdom… you have to burn more than you take in. (Duh!) A man my age, weight, and activity level, my BMR is about 2,000 calories per day that I burn normally. It takes about 3,200 – 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight.
I know you shouldn’t do this way, but I’m doing it anyway. I set my caloric goal at 600 calories (cal) a day. (You can actually hear my family doctor having a heart attack if you listen real closely.) Wait for it, it gets worse. So, if burn 2,000 calories/day (BMR) minus taking in 600 cal, my caloric deficit is about 1,400 cal/day. (or losing about 3 lbs per week. But wait! There’s more! So then I factor in the fact that I am in the gym, burning about 800-1,000 calories/day. So, subtract 800 from 600 and my NET caloric intake is about -200 cals/day. My deficit is about -2,200 cals/day (or about 4.8 lbs/wk.)
Now (despite evidence to the contrary, I am not an idiot), I know this is NOT sustainable. But remember, back when I said I have a plan. Trust me. When I get to my weight goal, I am going to raise my initial caloric intake to about 1,000-1200 cals to maintain my weight. I also know that due to our traveling lifestyle, we are not near a Planet Fitness for a number of months, but I have purchased weights, a foldable weight bench, and plan on walking to at least burn a reasonable amount of calories till we get back in range of PF.
Professional body builders take in a TON of calories (mostly protein, including steaks, etc.) but they are concerned with building MUSCLE MASS and my first priority is caloric deficit (and there’s that whole “don’t-meat-because-of-triglycerides” thing!) So this is one way I don’t take their advice. To build muscle mass, even fitness doctors recommend you should be taking in about about 440-480 grams of protein per day. Each gram is about 3 calories so we are talking 1300 calories/day in JUST protein. That’s the equivalent of about 8 (EIGHT) protein shakes per day (or 4 Filet Mignon steaks PER day). Well, THAT’S not gonna happen.
I set my protein intake at about 200 grams (about 600 calories) and have never hit it yet. Typically, I am taking in about 130 grams of protein (on a 600 cal.day diet).
The Journey Continues… in Part 3
RVonTheRoadYet.com is a blog to keep our friends and family informed of our latest adventures or misadventures. We are NOT RV professionals, doctors, lawyers, or travel guides. We are a couple of people who have decided to embrace the full-time RV lifestyle of idiots and gypsies.