Paleo Dan

I have been bad about not updating this blog. I’ve been spending too much time on Twitter, DailyMile, and Facebook. I’ll try to do better about that in the future…

So, now on to today’s post…

Back in September, I posted my current stats and ideal weight calculation from Body-Mass Index, Waist-to-Height Ratio and More…. Since that time, I’ve lost about 30 pounds and 9 inches off my waist. My Waist-to-Height Ration (WHtR) was reduced 12.2%.

via http://home.fuse.net/clymer/bmi/

According to research by David Willoughby, the ideal WHtR for athletes is 45.8%. I’m about halfway there with 12.7% left to go. That would put me at 208 pounds with a 34 inch waist. The worst part is that, at my ideal weight of 208, I would be considered borderline obese using the standard BMI measure.

A week ago, I posted about some of my goals for 2010. A few days ago, I took the first step toward achieving those goals. My goal time is 2:10. Realistic? Probably not considering that my first half was 3:03.

So why did I pick 2:10?

Well, I use a couple of cool apps from Maverick Software: Race Pace and TriCalc. Race Pace is pretty cool in that if you give it a finish time for a particular distance, it can give you a rough idea of your finish time and pacing for other distances. Accurate? I don’t know, but it’s the best I got right now.

Well, using Race Pace, I entered my 5K PR of 32:45 and it estimates a half marathon time of about 2:30. I believe, however, that I can do much better than 32:45 in the 5K. For one thing, I was 271 pounds when I did the Komen. Considering that I’m already down to 262 and plan to be less than 225 by the time of the half, I expect to be a faster, stronger runner by then.

Because of that, I just decided to shoot for faster time than Race Pace was giving me. I chose 2:10 for no good reason aside from the fact that I think I can do it. I put 2:10 into Race Pace for the half marathon and it’s telling me that I should be able to do a 28:15 5K… Yeah, I think I can do that. I recall seeing a table in Runner’s World that shows improvements expected at certain levels of weight loss. Yeah, I know that it’s a very, very rough guide at best, but I’ll go with it for now… extrapolating from that table and given my weight loss goal, I am expecting a 5 minute improvement in my 5K time to about 27:22.

Yeah, I think I can do that. I will do that.

Oh, as I side note: I signed up for a Thanksgiving Day 5K: the Turkey Strut 5K in Winston-Salem.

I’ve started thinking about my goals for next year. Yeah, know it’s a bit early with still two months left in ‘09, but @coachprs has a bit of a contest going until November 5th… send him your goal race and time for 2010 and he’ll choose someone to receive a free training plan. So, I figured “what the hell?!” Sure, there are plenty of free programs out there, but to have some develop a plan for your needs and to have that someone available to chat adds tons of value over what you’ll find with the one-size-fits-all programs out there.

Two and a Half Goals

1. To continue to drop fat and to reach a goal weight of 210 pounds by June 1, 2010. Yeah, given my current weight, that’s an aggressive goal of 2 pounds per week. A less aggressive goal would be to reach 225 pounds by the time of the 2010 Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon (September 5th).
   And, why do I want to be 225 pounds (or, hopefully, less) by the time of the ‘10 VB RnR?
2. To achieve a PR (personal record) time for the half marathon. I have “run” one and only one half marathon and that was the VB RnR back in 2006. This was after I had lost 100 pounds in a year and I attempted the half marathon at around 215 pounds. The big problem is that I had done it on no training. Yeah, I finished it, but my legs cramped real bad in the last 2 miles and I was struggling to cross the finish line in 3:03:17. Want to know the embarrassing part? My dad finished less than 30 minutes behind me (3:32:23). What’s so embarrassing about that? He had a broken hip!!! Seriously!?
3. And, my last goal is to complete a triathlon. My biggest limiting factor is my swimming. A local sprint tri that I would like to participate in involves a 1K ocean swim. Considering that I have a hard time finishing 100m in the pool, I think 1K is just a tad outside my reach at this point. I’ve been told that I have pretty good form (for a novice, at least) so my hope is that losing weight and building muscle will be the keys to better performance in the water. I’m listing this as a goal for 2010 to try and push myself to get it done, but I’m thinking that a more realistic goal would be to complete one in the first half of 2011 before my 34th birthday in July.

How?

First off, I plan to continue eating clean. In 2006, by the time the half rolled around, I had lost the weight I wanted to lose so I had started getting sloppy with my diet allowing too many carbs and too many non-paleo/non-primal foods into my diet. That was a very bad decision and led to a downward spiral that lasted these past three years. I intend to keep up my high-fat, moderate-protein, and low- to very-low-carb intake throughout my weight loss and half mary training. I wonder if U.S. Wellness Meats would sponsor me and provide some of their pemmican to this effort?

Secondly, I plan to actually train! You can see my workout logs from the past two and a half months. I’ve made some great gains in my ability to move weight and actually finish a workout. If you look at my first workout log from August 24th, you can see that I struggled to squat 230 pounds after what should have been a light warmup set and an easy second set and 60 seconds of rest between each set. Compare that with my last workout with squats on October 26th (almost exactly two months later). This time, not only did I finish all four sets, they were part of a superset with bent-over rows and with 45 seconds of rest between sets, and my last set was almost 100 pounds heavier than in my first workout. Same thing with my deadlift numbers… first workout had me struggling to lift 90 to 140 pounds while my last workout I had no problem 130 to 200 pounds.

Yeah, most of that is talking about my strength gains, but I’ve had pretty good endurance gains at the same time with no specific endurance training aside from someHIIT sessions after my strength workouts. At the end of September, a week before I added the HIIT sessions, I ran a 5K in 35:40. At the time, I was happy because I did it with no walk breaks. Four weeks and eight HIIT sessions later (a little over 2 weeks ago), I ran another 5K in 32:45 shaving almost three minutes off my time.  Of those eight 19 minute HIIT sessions, only four of them were running workouts and those were all under 2.5K in distance. The other four sessions were split between a stationary bike and a Concept2 rower.

There you have it. My first set of goals for 2010 and a rough idea of how I plan to achieve those goals.

According to various calculators I’ve found, given my height and body frame size, my goal weight is in the 142 to 187 pound range. This would put my BMI in the 19 to 25 range. Honestly, though, and based upon past experience, I think that if I weighed that little, I’d be much too thin.

While stumbling the Health/Fitness category, I happened upon a page called Body-Mass Index, Waist-to Height Ratio and More…. In addition to providing my current BMI and waste-to-height ratio, the “more” that was provided included what are called the “Willoughby Athlete Weight and Waist”. These values are calculated from tables based upon “extensive anthropometrics measurements on highly-conditioned (male) athletes.” As my ultimate long-term goal is to become as fit and conditioned as possible, I like the idea of aiming for the Willoughby Athlete values.

Here are my numbers:

via http://home.fuse.net/clymer/bmi/

I have to say… a 34 inch waste at 208 pounds sounds great! And I think that the paleo diet and New Rules of Lifting strength program both will help me reach my goals.

PS: That’s an old waist measurement from about 31 days and 10 pounds ago.

I am ashamed to admit this, but…

I fell off the wagon almost three years ago. Over those three years, I regained much of the weight that I had lost while living the paleo lifestyle. I’d like to blame this failure on the stresses of moving from North Carolina to Virginia, or perhaps on the birth of our third child, or, or, or…

Oh, who am I kidding, I failed for three specific reasons:

First, I allowed myself small “rewards” for having done so well over the previous year. The problem, though, was those rewards began to come more frequently and in larger portions. It did not take long to completely undo all the hard work.

Speaking of hard work, the second reason for my failure was the lack of a fitness program to go with the change in diet. Oh yeah, I ran once in a while and tried to make it into the gym on occasion, but that just did not cut it.

Finally, I failed because I was not prepared to deal with failure. During the first year, I was fanatical about eating right and staying away from “harmful” foods. When I realized that my reward meals were, in fact, failures, I did not have the strength of will to recover my wits and get back on the program.

Enough! I’m tired of being fat! Again!!!

As of August 18th, 2009, I am recommitting myself to a paleo-esque lifestyle, but with a quality fitness program this time. I have signed up at DailyBurn, a website that offers body, nutrition, workout tracking, and more. But, it also has a section for challenges. One of these challenges is the DailyBurn Fitness Challenge, a 90 day challenge “to eat right, workout hard, and get fit.” My DailyBurn public profile is here: dandavis.

Here are the ways that I will meet the goals of the challenge:

• Eat Right I’m currently back on a (mostly) paleo way of eating. I have made minor changes to “pure paleo.” I’m eating small amounts of dairy in the form of cheese. I’m allowing for small servings of corn on occasion. And, finally, I’m adding various legumes to the diet.

• Workout Hard I’m following “[t]he Eternal Beginner” program found in Lou Schuler and Alwyn Cosgrove’s New Rules of Lifting. When done correctly, the workouts in this book are short, but intense. They knock me on my ass, but I love ‘em!

• Get Fit In addition to correcting my diet and adding in the strength training, I’m spending time in the pool and on my bike. Once I get more weight off, I plan to add running into the mix. If it sounds like I’m gearing up for attempting a triathlon, yeah, that’s one of my long term goals: by September of 2010, I plan to have completed at least one sprint distance triathlon.

Well, there you have it. I may have fallen off the wagon (and gotten trampled by the horses) but I am back on and this time I’m strapped in and ready for the long haul.

-Paleo Dan

Oh, and here’s an updated “before” image: