Sunday, November 16, 2014

Week 3 Recap - Engine 2 Diet 28 Day Challenge

Happy SaturdaySunday! I spent 3-4 hours shoveling the snow off our driveway(yesterday). May not be exercise from Rip's books but it was a lot of work and sweat. So I'm going to count it anyway.

Speaking of Rip, I finally got my Engine 2 Diet book back from the Hyland dietitian. So the general theme for Rip, as well as his father's, is diet. Make your diet #plantstrong and good things will happen. That is not the only message though, particularly with Rip who as a triathlete knows the importance of exercise in all of this. In fact, the whole entirety of Chapter 6 is about exercise with pictures to help you learn. In fact he has a host of Youtube videos with stretches and then workouts(and #2) to help guide you.

So part of the 28 Day Challenge is incorporating exercise. I have exercised on and off for a while now. My favorite thing this fall though is to watch the Browns games from the elliptical at Planet Fitness. That's a good 2 1/2 hours of low intensity cardio. I add to that with 1 or 2 days of Power Yoga at work, Spinning classes on Wednesdays. As I mentioned last week, I have also added the Planet Fitness 30 Minute Express workout to mix things up. I have not tried Rip's yet but I hope to since I can do those at home. I don't know about the Fire Cadet instructions but I am pretty sure that in the Firefighter Instructions for the 28 Day Challenge he has 7 or 8 circuits of exercise. See page 40 of the Engine 2 Challenge(link may change). For now though my favorites is power yoga. It looks so damn easy but it just whoops your butt.

An interesting take on the exercise came from my wife, Arisa. She said that it seemed that what I was eating was not adding weight but maintaining status quo. The exercise was what was dropping the weight. While that not be the exact way it works it does point out that exercise is important - more out than in will reduce your weight. But moving to a #plantstrong diet really starts that needle dropping. The reality is that I have been eating alot. I do spend more time thinking about when I am eating, what I am eating and what it tastes like, and noticing if I am full. But I am not intentionally reducing the amount of food. I have cut out after 8pm food (sometimes not always possible to have dinner before then), particularly the mindless eating I associate with zoning out in front of the tv. My dinners though are not small but because they are #plantstrong they are low calorie which means I can eat a lot but maintain my "out >= in" diet. And yet, I don't really count calories anymore except to a point to keep myfitnesspal happy.

So last week I briefly mentioned that I saw Jane again and that I would write about it this week. And so it is.

I actually had emailed Jane to see if she would be interested in speaking at Hyland (which she was) and simultaneously asked Jackie our Wellness Program Manager to see if she was interested in having Jane speak (which she was). It all got arranged and last Thursday Jane arrived at Hyland and I introduced her to Jackie. Jackie, Jane and I spoke for about an hour and it looks like we'll be having at least part of the Esselstyn clan come to Hyland for some wellness lectures - there is more to it than that but at this point Jane and Jackie are working on the details. I can't tell you how excited I am to see what they come up with!

There was also talk of doing some Engine2 stuff (think immersion weekend) as well but that will probably have to wait until we get through the first series. Anyway, Jane and I ended up talking in one of our meditation rooms for about another 45 minutes after Jackie left. It was great catching up with Jane who is so incredibly open, energetic and just a fun/interesting person to spend time with. The most important thing though is that I finally found out *why* we went out on a date 30 years ago. Turns out it was a homework assignment. For her sex ed class she had to date three strangers, not for romantic purposes, but to get to know them. She remembered that our date consisted of bumper hitching (it was a very snowy night) and who ever was driving (Jane and I were bumper hitching) hit my parents car and broke the rear brake lights. I now know why I remember that date so well ;-)

So on Wednesday I met with the Dietitian to start of week 4. I weighed in at 165.6 pounds for a BMI of 27.6! She submitted the waiver right then and there for my 5% discount. BOOYA. More impressive though was my Bodyfat % finally moved. It dropped from 30.7 last week to 28.6%, a 2% drop. Melissa was quite surprised since she didn't expect it to move that much yet.

We are now in the final week of the challenge which will end on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning I will be getting a blood test (fasting) to check my numbers. I will meet with Melissa later in the day to do Bodyfat %, and take final measurements(belly, thigh, neck)

So next weekend should be an interesting report! Until then, Stay #PlantStrong!

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