How it happened is not a big surprise, but Chelsea and I have both gained significant body fat over the last two years; I much more so than Chelsea. Stress contributed greatly – it’s not been an easy several years with the economy having wiped out our income sources – but maybe the fried fish, crawfish, shrimp po’boys, cracklins, deep-fried turkey, fried alligator, venison sausage, boudin, beignets, ice cream pistolets, funnel cakes, fried oysters, Blue Bell ice cream, and fried Snickers Bars we consumed on a steady basis during our year in Louisiana had an effect.
Whatever happened, the bottom line is grim. We need to lose inches, lose weight, and replace body fat with muscle weight.
We did well after arriving home in terms of “normalizing” our eating, but letting go of the Blue Bell Moolenium Crunch and Mocha Almond fudge was a struggle. We bought Alex a Ninja smoothie maker and started drinking healthy smoothies; I ordered the herbal formulas LeanCare (helps maintain normal processing of fats) and LiverCare (supports normal liver function); we started taking them regularly.
For me the final straw was when I knew we wanted to buy the specialized cycling clothing from New Zealand, but no way would I fit into my regular size. I told myself it’s time for a change. A major change.
Ten years ago after returning from the Czech Republic I discovered that I had serious liver damage. I was one sick puppy for quite a while, but as with everything else I don’t like, I decided that had to change. I created and embarked on a several-year-long health program for my arthritis (which was getting worse), my liver damage, and Chelsea’s brain injury.
We were incredibly successful. I completely reversed all the damage from my arthritis and improved my liver functioning by a significant degree. Chelsea regained her eyesight to pre-accident levels, lost the food allergies precipitated by the injury, and significantly improved the levels of her cognitive functioning.
All that improvement required quite a focus. I knew we needed a structure to accomplish our goals, so I created one. This time around, I knew we needed a structure once again so I went to Body for Life, the program I was on when I discovered my liver damage.
Body for Life is a program created in 1999 by Bill Phillips, a weightlifter and coach, who wrote a best selling book by the name of Body for Life. The program integrates exercise, nutrition and supplementation in a very specific methodology. Participants are required to eat six meals a day and do three intense twenty-minute cardio workouts each week, alternating days with three intense weightlifting workouts.
Bodyforlife.com offers a multitude of support, from animations of how to do the weight workouts properly, food recipes, a two-week meal plan, letters of encouragement from past winners, training tips and nutrition tips, to write-ups on how to calculate body fat.
The big attraction to this program, besides that fact that it’s been around for a relatively long time and is going strong, is the potential to win prize money of $25,000 for the Grand Master and $10,000 for each of six category winners.
In order to win, you need to take a “before” photo, follow the regimen carefully for twelve weeks, submit your “after” photo, and write an essay describing your inner transformation resulting from the twelve-week program. Winners are judged on the “quality of their inner and outer transformation”.
Coming from as far down as we’ve been, it’s taken a bit to get our lives turned around enough to even consider the program. We started with the food, getting a menu plan set up, figuring out the ingredients we’d need to have on hand, figuring out the recipes, and getting our lives organized around eating six meals a day.
Then we brought our workout bench inside from the porch where it’s been languishing for the last few years. It needed cleaning and oiling. The foam rubber padding on the rollers had disintegrated so I cut up an old white cotton dishtowel in sizes to fit each roller. We secured the dishtowels with black hair ties and sewed the edges up, and voila – we had a working weight bench in our newly refurbished bedroom.
Cardio was our next challenge. Neither of us likes running, so we decided to try swimming in our backyard pool. Chelsea was a lifeguard at sixteen; she even got her qualifications to teach swimming. How could we go wrong with her as a knowledgeable resource? Chelsea insisted on getting kickboards and a ball; a quick trip to Wal-Mart solved that.
It’s been a few weeks now of eating regularly. We find that the recipes are great, and we are plenty full after each meal. Even though we may feel like the portion sizes aren’t big enough (that nasty old conditioning kicking in), we know we’re okay because we can eat again in two hours. Eating smaller portions more often, with slightly higher protein and very little fat (and no sugar), has greatly stabilized our blood sugar levels and has increased our energy levels.
The swimming has turned out to be great fun. We set a clock on the porch ledge and start doing laps. We’ve been religious about sticking to the twenty minutes and swimming steadily – no fooling around till the session is over. After our twenty minutes Chelsea usually takes a few minutes to teach me how to do the kicks and strokes properly, then we play ball for a few minutes in the pool. The water has warmed up to delightful levels lately, so just being in the water is fun.
In addition to the swimming we’ve set a schedule of bike riding that we’ve stuck with for the last two weeks. We swim Monday, Wednesday, Friday; we ride Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. We’re still only doing twenty-three miles a day, but we’ve decided to increase our average speed to get the energy output up.
Over the years we’ve ridden an average speed of twelve miles an hour, and somehow we never seem to get beyond that. That’s about to change. We decided that before we leave we’ll be able to ride eighteen miles per hour as an average. We developed a spreadsheet on our computer; every day we record how far we went, the wind speed, wind direction, and our average speed. We’re aiming to break thirteen, then fourteen, then fifteen and so on. Having a goal makes the rides more interesting, and we’re getting a much higher intensity workout.
The weight workouts have been the last onboard in our program. We’re not as proficient with weights as we are with riding and swimming, and we’ve been really tired from the increase in cardio. But yesterday we did our first workout. It’s quite different from a normal weight workout – we do a succession of reps on each exercise with increasingly heavy weights, then switch to a different exercise, following the same pattern of increasing weights with each. The idea is to provide faster results with a more intense workout.
Our results with the food and cardio have been extraordinary. In only three weeks I have lost three inches on my waist and two inches on my hips. Chelsea has lost two inches on her hips and two on her waist. And this is without trying! We’re eating well and having fun and losing inches…how great is that?
We’ve been so pleased with our unexpected results that we are now seriously considering joining the program “for real”; that is, we want to win the Grand Master for $25,000 or one of the categories for $10,000. We’ve taken our “before” photos, taken our body measurements, and measured our body fat. All we have to do is sign up and get really serious about this. I think we’re leaning towards entering to win.
Whatever else happens, one thing is absolutely certain – we’ll end up much healthier and looking significantly better!
I promise to keep you updated on our decision and on our progress.
Note: I’m not admitting my beginning body fat percentage (it’s ghastly) or my weight until it’s over, nor will I share my “before” photo until I have a glorious “after” photo. You’ll just have to wait.