Just like the last update, I increased my macros leading in to these weeks. I also decided to eat the same between training and rest days. It went well. Week seven was a full seven days, week eight had two cheat days that weren’t tracked, and I stopped week nine at six days because I’m on vacation.
Day Type
Carbs
Fat
Protein
Calories
Baseline
All
259
99
140
2,485
Goals 1
All/Training
220
70
200
2,310
Week 1
All
212
83
196
2,379
Week 2
All
200
85
200
2,365
Week 3
Training
222
71
203
2,342
Week 3
Rest
184
81
200
2,263
Week 4
Training
221
71
201
2,313
Week 4
Rest
193
73
200
2,229
Goals 2
Training
245
85
195
2,525
Week 5
Training
243
87
196
2,541
Week 5
Rest
184
95
197
2,379
Week 6
Training
249
87
197
2,567
Week 6
Rest
201
80
198
2,312
Goals 3
All
255
90
215
2,690
Week 7
All
257
86
215
2,666
Week 8
All
255
90
216
2,695
Week 9
All
272
95
215
2,809
In the last week or two I had been sneaking some small snacks that I wasn’t tracking and then for the last few days I did record them. As you can see my calories went up there. I did start adding extra cardio work on most days, so my body was asking for more food.
Water
Still no issues drinking enough water.
Scale
Weight
Body Fat %
Start
199.3
15.0
Week 1
199.0
15.2
Week 2
196.9
15.0
Week 3
197.0
14.2
Week 4
196.1
13.8
Week 5
196.4
13.9
Week 6
194.9
13.8
Week 7
196.8
13.4
Week 8
196.9
13.0
Week 9
195.1
12.9
Note: these are an average of three days at the end of each week.
My weight went back up after that big week 6 dive and leveled off with the increased calories before dropping again in this last week with additional cardio workouts. Nice to see my body fat continue to decrease since I want my weight to be stable here.
Thoughts
Like I mentioned early in the post I’m on vacation for the week so not going to track my food. If I was home I probably would, but I’m traveling to San Diego so I’m going to enjoy whatever I want to eat. I can almost guarantee I won’t get enough protein, but the body needs a good shock from time to time.
I’ll probably start tracking macros again next Sunday and I plan to adjust them once again. I’m going to shoot for 275g of carbs, 100g of fat, and 215g of protein for 2,860 total calories. That’s an extra 20 grams of carbs and 10 grams of fat.
This will likely be my last update on the experiment. There hasn’t been much to say and these posts seem pretty boring. Coming up with macros and adjusting is really easy to do, especially with the free Renaissance Diet spreadsheet. The hard part is making up your mind to make a change and then committing to it.
As I said in the last update, I increased my macros for these couple of weeks. It went well. Week five tracked six days and week six tracked eight due to things going on.
Day Type
Carbs
Fat
Protein
Calories
Baseline
All
259
99
140
2,485
Goals 1
All/Training
220
70
200
2,310
Week 1
All
212
83
196
2,379
Week 2
All
200
85
200
2,365
Week 3
Training
222
71
203
2,342
Week 3
Rest
184
81
200
2,263
Week 4
Training
221
71
201
2,313
Week 4
Rest
193
73
200
2,229
Goals 2
Training
245
85
195
2,525
Week 5
Training
243
87
196
2,541
Week 5
Rest
184
95
197
2,379
Week 6
Training
249
87
197
2,567
Week 6
Rest
201
80
198
2,312
I don’t have anything interesting to point out.
Water
Still no issues drinking enough water. I’ve settled in on an average of 106 ounces a day and seem to be down to one wake-up most nights. I’m still keeping track of water intake because it would be really easy to fall out of the habit.
Scale
Weight
Body Fat %
Start
199.3
15.0
Week 1
199.0
15.2
Week 2
196.9
15.0
Week 3
197.0
14.2
Week 4
196.1
13.8
Week 5
196.4
13.9
Week 6
194.9
13.8
Note: these are an average of three days at the end of each week.
Kind of surprised with the dive in week 6. I really want my weight to stabilize around 195.
Great trend lines.
Thoughts
After the decrease in weight I’m going to switch up the macros goals again. In order to help build muscle and lose fat, I’m bumping protein up from 1.0 gram per pound of bodyweight to 1.1. I’ll also increase carbs and fats. I will stop eating less on rest days, especially since one of my two rest days each week has been a 30-40 minute active recovery / cardio session. New goals will be 255g of carbs, 90 grams of fat, and 215 grams of protein for 2,690 calories. These changes will give me about 1,500 more calories a week.
I’m still feeling great throughout the day and even better in my workouts. Looking forward to what my body does with the extra calories.
The next 5 weeks are the CrossFit Games Open and I’ll be in San Diego for one of those weeks. I suspect I won’t be as disciplined as I have been. There wasn’t much to say in this post, so I may not publish another update until after the Open.
All of these posts will be tagged 2019 calorie counting to make it easy to browse the posts.
I haven’t changed much from the first two weeks. I did start cutting back on carbs and calories a little bit on rest days like the Renaissance Diet recommends. Not too much though, because some of my rest days are active recovery days where I do 30-40 minutes of light cardio.
I didn’t track for two days between weeks three and four due to a cheat day when I had family visiting and then not knowing how to count some split pea soup from my Mom. I cut week 4 to only 5 days because of the previous weekend and I’m visiting a friend today so it’ll be a cheat day.
With better selected Factor 75 meals it was so much easier to dial everything in over the last two weeks. Two of the F75 meals were no longer contributing more fat than my goal for an entire day. I started adding some variety to my snacks and supplemental food.
Greek yogurt, raspberries, and Rice Krispies (Frosted Flakes also work great) for breakfast
Due to the winter storm, my food delivery in week 4 came two days late, but I was able to work things out pretty well with some other frozen meals I had bought at Meijer.
I found out that Renaissance Periodization (the company behind the Renaissance Diet) has an iOS app with a wizard to help design your diet. I downloaded it and used the free trial to see how it would compare to what I came up with from the book.
Pretty damn close to my goals and really close to what I was consuming in the first two weeks. I also found a handy spreadsheet that comes up with similar numbers to the app. Check out that spreadsheet if you want a simple guide to designing your own diet.
Time for the data…
Day Type
Carbs
Fat
Protein
Calories
Baseline
All
259
99
140
2,485
Week 1
All
212
83
196
2,379
Week 2
All
200
85
200
2,365
Week 3
Training
222
71
203
2,342
Week 3
Rest
184
81
200
2,263
Week 4
Training
221
71
201
2,313
Week 4
Rest
193
73
200
2,229
Goals
Training
220
70
200
2,310
Couldn’t ask for anything closer than that on my training days.
Water
Has still been extremely easy to hit the water intake. I cut back, averaging 114 ounces per day in week three and 106 in week four because getting up so many times in the night was getting old. I also try to be done drinking at least an hour before bed. Hasn’t seemed to change my pee frequency during the night yet.
Scale
What about the scale and my body composition?
Weight
Body Fat %
Start
199.3
15.0
Week 1
199.0
15.2
Week 2
196.9
15.0
Week 3
197.0
14.2
Week 4
196.1
13.8
Note: these are an average of three days at the end of each week.
The first of the weigh-ins in week three was high, so the average was a bit out of whack there. This morning’s reading was exactly 195 pounds, so that’s one goal hit, but it’s as low as I really want to go. Happy to see my body fat decreasing quite a bit as well, because my ultimate goal is to lean out and get back down to the 11-12% range.
I think my core is looking leaner in the mirror, but it’s hard to judge because I didn’t take any pictures.
Looking back at the history in my Withings account, I got down around 200 pounds last year when I started getting the F75 meals and I hovered there until starting this experiment. The first time I went over 200 in my life was in October of 2013. I sort of roamed in the 193-202 range for the next year but hadn’t had any long period under two bills since then. My high was 217 in February of 2017 when I was following a competitor’s program for the CrossFit Games Open with a couple of buddies.
I’ve lost 20 pounds since I started eating Factor 75 back in May.
Thoughts
I am feeling really good, especially in the gym where I’ve set several significant PRs in 15-20 minute metcons, which historically are not a strength of mine. Gymnastics movements have never felt so easy and fluid. Those improvements probably shouldn’t be such a surprise since I’m so much lighter. Maybe I got stuck for a while when I was 215+ and it’s easy to forget what things felt like when there was less of me to move around.
A movement that has really stood out over the last few weeks is the wall ball. I don’t remember them ever feeling relaxing during a workout and they have been. I stuck to unbroken sets of 30 in a workout the other day, which is something I’ve never attempted for more than one set.
My strength is slowly coming back after not doing much heavy following my bad back tweak almost two years ago. Not concerned with the slow progress there though, because I’m focused on staying injury free instead of pushing limits with the weight on the bar.
What’s Next?
I think 195 is good for me, so I feel good about where I am. I would like to lean out, which will be a slower process now as I get more of my strength and muscle back. I’m going to adjust my macros to 245g of carbs, 85g of fat, and 195g of protein for 2,525 calories on training days. Hopefully the extra 200+ calories get me close to a caloric equilibrium.
The next update will probably be two weeks out again.
Real talk…
Since I started this experiment I’ve had several people mention something to the effect of, “Wow, you’re really serious about this.” This way of thinking is exactly why nearly everyone fails to reach their goals when dieting. A diet only works as well as you adhere to it. I’ve seen it countless times…
“I’m having a cheat meal,” turns into a cheat weekend.
“I’ll only have a drink or two,” turns into a full night out, a hangover, and several cheat meals.
“This is my reward for a tough workout,” quickly turns into a reward for every workout.
I’m not saying you can’t live a little, but the majority of people aren’t willing to make sacrifices (applies to way more than dieting). Making sacrifices is the quickest way to achieve things in life. People would be amazed at what changes they can make to their body over the course of two months if they had some discipline. If you half-ass a diet, it may take 6 months or a year to see big changes and you’ll probably give up long before that.
All of these posts will be tagged 2019 calorie counting to make it easy to browse the posts.
The second week is in the books. Some things were better and some were not. It was a net win though.
Macros
Something I forgot about last week that added to the difficulty dealing with more fat was that when I went to get milk the only skim left was expiring in a day, so I bought 1%. That gallon carried over through all of week two.
I think it’s important to repeat that during week one I got a bunch of home cooked food and really had no idea what the macros were. I estimated one day at 268 grams of carbohydrates, which shot the average up for that week. I’m going to go out on a limb and also say that my estimates were low on all of those meals, because the scale didn’t really show any progress compared to this week.
This last week was probably worse on the high fat Factor 75 meals, even with being able to pair them up better for the entire week. Yesterday was the first day I wasn’t fighting against fat calories from two meals. This new delivery is on point though because I selected all low/medium fat meals.
Carbs
Fat
Protein
Calories
Baseline
259
99
140
2,485
Week 1
212
83
196
2,379
Week 2
200
85
200
2,365
Goals
220
70
200
2,310
As you can see, I was on point with my protein. Fat was a bigger problem than last week, causing carbs to go down in order to keep calories close. I’m looking forward to the next couple of weeks as I dial things in. I’m still surprised the macro counting isn’t feeling like a chore yet. Planning out all of my meals the night before has really been huge for me so far.
Water
Nothing exciting to report. Water consumption has been really easy. I went up from an average of 110 ounces to 118 ounces per day. I am trying to drink more earlier in the day, so I’m not drinking much before bed. Hopefully it’ll prevent multiple wake-ups to take a piss. Oh, and I keep forgetting to use my SodaStream.
Scale
I started at 199.3 pounds with 15% body fat and was 199 with 15.2% at the end of week one. Things started to move this week without any estimated meals. My three day averages for week two were 196.9 pounds and 15% body fat. Dropping 2.1 pounds in a week is about right. Curious to see what happens as I start hitting my carb and fat macros.
Thoughts
One change I made this week was picking up some Magnesium tablets to take in the morning with the fish oil and multivitamin. I haven’t had any alcohol since Christmas Eve, mainly because I was sick over the holidays. That changes with a beer tasting / comedy event tonight though. I also have not had fast food or takeout at all in 2019.
I’ve been pretty close to my calorie goals and haven’t had cravings for sweets and treats. I also haven’t felt like I was over-eating. So I was curious what macros the old Eat to Perform calculator would recommend. We based our diets on that calc in my early CrossFit days. It shows my BMR just under 2,000 calories per day, which is an estimate of how much my body needs to function at rest, and it calculates I need over 3,000 calories per day if I’m moderately active, which would be 390 grams of carbs! If I set very active or extra active in the calculator it increases carbs by almost 100 grams for each level! No wonder Eat to Perform didn’t work for me, eating was a chore, and I was always struggling to get enough carbs by the end of the day! Pizza and Mountain Dew sounds really good, so maybe I should try those wild carb goals. 😉
I’m not tracking today due to a drinking event tonight, so week 3 starts tomorrow. I may wait and do my next update after two weeks.
Check out the coupon Meijer gave me last night when I picked up milk and yogurt. Damn trolls!
All of these posts will be tagged 2019 calorie counting to make it easy to browse the posts.
I noticed the calorie counts in MyFitnessPal didn’t match up with 4/4/9 (cals per gram of carb/protein/fat) calculations, so I started a spreadsheet of daily macro totals and will be using my own calculated calories from now on. Turns out that there are several different methods that can be used by nutrition labels to determine calories.
The averages from my baseline were 259 grams of carbs, 99 grams of fat, and 140 grams of protein for 2,485 calories. During my first week I averaged 212g C, 83g F, and 196g P for 2,379 cals. My goals were 220g C, 70g F, and 200g P for 2,310 cals. I’m really pleased with the shift I was able to make. It could have been even better, but I faced some challenges right off the bat.
Many of the meals I had left from last week’s Factor 75 delivery were very high in fat and eating two of them was already putting me at or over my goal for the highest calorie macro. To make up for it, I decided to cut back on carbs and still try to get as close as I could with protein. It was too late to change my food delivery for this week, so I’m having a similar issue, though not quite as bad because I’m able to plan it out right away.
My housekeeper brought me a bunch of food, so I have no idea what the actual macro content was for 4 of my meals. I simply estimated based on items I found in the MFP database. My actual intake for the week could be very different (either high or low) from what I estimated.
On the first day I was realizing how much the volume of food is when you replace fat calories with proteins and carbs.
My usual lunch would be the Factor 75 meal without the sweet potatoes and cottage cheese. I powered through even though I’d already eaten a lot more in the morning than normal. After dinner I was so full I didn’t even think about snacks.
On day two I ate a late lunch right before going to a movie so I wouldn’t get popcorn and Mountain Dew. It was tempting. On day four my body seemed to already be adjusting; after eating a bit for breakfast, my stomach was rumbling at noon. A couple hours after eating some banana pudding I was given, I could feel cravings, which I hadn’t had in the previous three days. I’d been so full I hadn’t thought about treats. That’s what excessive carbs do! On day five shortly after finishing off the pasta and banana pudding I could feel the meal. Too many carbs!
I still don’t like the macro tracking, but having the Factor 75 meals makes it bearable. If I was cooking on my own and had to input recipes and serving sizes I may have quit already. I’ve been planning out everything I’ll eat the night before, which has been huge for me. I just look at the log and eat what I’m supposed to. There isn’t any stress about needing to get 50 more grams of protein at 10pm.
Water
During my baseline I averaged 101 ounces of water, but like I mentioned in the last post i was already increasing my intake. This week I averaged 110 ounces per day, for a nice bump. On days I go to the gym, the average is even higher at 115 due to getting an easy 34 ounces between my intra- and post-workout drinks.
Going in, I thought water would give me the biggest struggle, but it’s been easy. I am waking up 1-2 times a night to pee with the water increase, compared to not getting up or getting up once a night before. Hopefully my body adjusts.
Scale
My averages coming in were 199.3 pounds and 15% fat mass on the scale. Over the last three mornings I averaged 199 and 15.2%. Not much change, which could be due to those macro estimations being off, so I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. Fat percentage is hard to measure, so I don’t like to look at it too closely. I find it better to look at fat trends over longer periods of time.
Thoughts
No plans to quit yet. Due to the high fat F75 meals I still have, I expect week 2 numbers to be similar to week 1. My food delivery on Tuesday will have meals with much lower fat content, which will make everything easier to manage.
It’s too early to make any observations about how I feel, so I’ll wait another week or two.
Beyond the Whiteboard, my favorite app for tracking CrossFit workouts, added a Macros feature and it looked really good. I was going to try their free trial over the next two weeks, but I immediately noticed the database of foods can’t compare with MFP so I cancelled after entering one meal.
So… how long is this experiment going to last? Good question. It could be as short as a week or two if it goes how macro counting usually does for me. Did I mention I hate counting calories? Hopefully it’ll last at least a month or two. By publishing posts, I hope it keeps me accountable and I stick with it.
I jumped on the scale on the 30th, yesterday, and today. The average readings were 199.3 pounds and 15% fat mass. Glad to see I’ve been stable for the last 6 months.
After 3 days of eating I had a decent baseline of my caloric intake, though I pretty much ran out of junk snacks in my house and didn’t eat out at all. On the first day I could feel myself altering habits because I could see the numbers in MyFitnessPal and had already decided what my macros would be to start the experiment. For days two and three I kept notes and logged everything at the end of the day.
My daily averages were:
2,464 calories
140g protein
259g carbs
99g fat
101oz water
I hadn’t been paying attention to the labels before this, so I didn’t realize how high in fat a lot of the Factor 75 meals are. I had already made the switch from 2% milk to fat-free, otherwise my fat numbers would have been even higher. Since milk is 85-95% water, I counted it 100% to make it easy. I know I was already adjusting to drink more water, so this is a lot higher than it normally would be.
Based on reading the Renaissance Diet 2.0, I’m going to shoot for:
2,310 calories
200g protein (800 cal)
220g carbohydrates (880 cal)
70g fat (630 cal)
100oz water
My calorie intake was actually pretty close. I expected to be low on protein, but not that low. I need to replace some carbs and fat with protein and stick with my increased water drinking. The book recommends “1.5 ml of water per calorie eaten,” which would be 116oz. Considering we get 20% of our water intake from the food we eat, I’ll aim for 100 ounces.
I will not be using different macros depending on if it’s a workout day versus a rest day. Makes everything easier. In order to set goals by grams in MyFitnessPal you have to pay for a membership, which I’m not going to do at this point, so it looks a bit different in there.
If I eat four balanced meals a day they would need to be 50 grams of protein, 55g of carbs, and 17.5g of fat for 578 total calories. Based on the high fat F75 meals, I’ll have to go almost fat-free in two meals per day.
Since the inspiration for this came from CrossFit’s season 2 of Killing the Fat Man, I wanted to see how these numbers compared to the Zone diet recommendations (PDF). I have no idea if I should categorize myself as “Large male” or “Athletic – well muscled male” though. A large male gets 19 blocks per day, which comes out to 133g of protein, 171g of carbs, and 28.5 grams of fat for a total of 1,473 calories. Using the athletic recommendation of 25 blocks would be 175g of protein, 225g of carbs, and 37.5g of fat for 1,938 calories. Both of those plans seem low.
The Zone diet is weird though. You’re only supposed to count the blocks for the most prevalent macro in a food. For example, steaks have a good amount of fat, but it doesn’t get counted because you only use it as a protein source. Maybe this is where they make up for those caloric deficiencies. Another odd thing about the Zone diet is their “blocks.” Is it to try to trick people into thinking they aren’t counting calories? News flash… if you’re keeping track of macros you’re counting calories! Having to convert everything to blocks adds extra math to something that is already confusing for people.
Enough about the Zone. The experiment begins today. Yesterday I had to actually go grocery shopping for something other than milk so I’d have sources of protein and carbs.
Last night I boiled and mashed all five pounds of sweet potatoes (froze half) and I hard-boiled and peeled a dozen eggs. Does that count as meal prepping?
Over the years I’ve tried a lot of supplements. My experience matches up with what the book says… most don’t work and the expensive stuff doesn’t produce enough of a boost in results for the money. Caffeine, protein, creatine, carbs, multivitamins, and Omega 3 are about the only things that have been proven to work. Experiment for yourself because your body might react in a different way.
I like MusclePharm protein because some of the flavors are like having dessert, it’s cheap, and you can always find deals somewhere. The 100% Whey is for after a workout. The Hybrid Series is a 5 protein blend, which releases over eight hours, and I use it in the morning or before bed. My intra-workout drink is made with 3 Sqwincher packets of electrolytes (providing flavor), creatine, BCAAs, and dextrose. I’ll take the fish oil and multivitamin with breakfast.
Last night I decided to plan out everything I’d eat today. Takes all decisions out of it and means I don’t have to pack in calories at the end of the day if I’m low on a macro. Feels like it’ll remove some stress from the process.
Nick Momrik 