|
|
DECADE ONE: 15 Feb 2010 – 24 Feb 2010
So here are the results everyone has been waiting for!
Start of Decade: 84.3 kgs
End of Decade: 83.1 kgs
Weight loss: ♣ 1200 grams ♣
Well, I’ve lost 1.2 kilos in the first ten days of 100 for 100. From 84.3 kgs, I’m down to 83.1. Can’t say I’m not happy, but will have to admit that I’m not overly delighted. For, I do know that it is easy to lose a bit of weight quickly at the start of any fitness programme. As one goes along, the rate of loss slows down, and one has to sometimes work harder just to stay in the same place. Decade Two and Decade Three will be crucial for me, and will determine if all my careful calculations need to be completely reworked or not. Continue reading Progress Report – Decade One
“Alcohol is the anaesthetic by which we endure the operation of life.”
- George Bernard Shaw
I couldn’t agree more with good ol’ George Bernard. And good ol’ alcohol has provided the perfect setting for lots of fun times too. As you might have gathered by now, I do enjoy a good tipple now and then. But alcohol, as most of us have realised sooner or later, has its downsides too. Apart from everything else, it can become the enemy of weight loss, with all the disappearing kilos suddenly doing an about turn and returning right back to where they were. But there’s no need to despair and morph into a miserable teetotaller. One just needs to understand what alcohol metabolism entails; what the ill effects of alcohol can be; and, how to minimise weight gain caused by drinking sessions. Continue reading Understanding Alcohol
Even if one is not interested in meticulous counting of calories, it is useful to know the amount of calories contained in the three different food types:
Carbohydrates :: 4 calories per gram
Proteins :: 4 calories per gram
Fats :: 9 calories per gram
For alcohol, the figure used is 7 calories per gram of 100 percent pure alcohol.
All this of course is an oversimplification, but it’s okay to use these figures directly if one does want to count calories, as at worst you will be erring on the side of caution.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting to delve a little deeper:
Continue reading Calorification
I was hooked onto Google Earth from the moment I opened the program for the very first time. I’ve always had a thing for maps, and discovering Google Earth made me understand how Bruce Lee must have felt when he got his very first nunchaku. Combine GE with Google Maps or Wikimapia and you’re assured of hours and hours of unadulterated bliss.
Among the many niceties of GE are the Ruler and Path options: Mark out any walking path, broken up into sections to account for curvature, and then automatically find out the distance covered (assuming flat land of course). Continue reading Measured for Success
It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon on 17 June 2005. Don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly decided to set out from my home in suburban Mumbai and walk to “town”– the Big Walk, I later dubbed it. There was no elaborate plan, except that my destination was to be the Catholic Gymkhana, located near Charni Road railway station on Marine Drive in south Mumbai.
It was not as if I hadn’t walked long distances before. In my school and university days I did play a lot of football and hockey too, but all that seems like some previous life now. But in more recent times, post-2000, I had restarted walking for exercise only with great difficulty. Often, after the first 500 metres or so, I would get excruciating pain in my calf and shin region, making it impossible to continue. Strangely, this would not happen on every occasion, but it was obvious that either something was very wrong with my legs, or I was doing something incorrectly.
Continue reading The Big Walk
My effort starts tommorow 17 Feb Ash Wednesday. Lets go Val.
84.3 kilograms at the start of the 100 days, and 74.3 at the end. It’s not going to happen just on its own. The final goal is known. What’s required is a logical and quantifiable plan to get there. So let’s try and work that out!
I am well aware that weight is a complex entity, dependent on a wide range of factors all interlinked in one way or another. But at a very simplistic level the equation is straightforward: Consume more calories than you burn, and you will put on weight; burn more than you consume and you will lose weight; and, if consumption and burn are more or less equivalent, weight will be maintained at a steady level.
You’ve probably heard of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the amount of energy you require per day just to stay alive. Here’s a good calculator for BMR. My BMR is 1740. Of course one needs to add in calories for the various regular activities done every day to arrive at an approximation of total calories burnt every day. I’ve calculated mine to be 2800.
Continue reading Quantification before Pontification
100 for 100.
Just think:
If I can lose 100 grams a day for 100 days, I’ll be 10 kilos lighter at the end of it all!
Now what could be simpler than that? The challenge of course, is to do it without fancy equipment, without crazy diets, without major changes to lifestyle — now that would be something, wouldn’t it?
Well, why do I want to lose 10 kilos in the first place? Many reasons really, but most importantly, I think the reduction will help alleviate (if not eliminate) a couple of my medical problems — high blood pressure and gout. I know of course that excess weight is not the root cause of either, but it definitely is a contributor and an aggravator. Continue reading What it’s all about
|
|
Everyone has an Opinion