Unfortunately, that just meant it was now time for lowers.  The two front lower teeth were spared for now, but only because there is a good chance I will have to get one pulled to make room.  I’ve been assured these teeth come out easily and the gap closes quickly (due to the braces); while this makes sense logically, the thought of losing a 5th perfectly good tooth (counting my wisdom teeth) doesn’t sit well with me.  Even though I’d gotten used to the braces in the top row, the bottom row still feels very foreign.  The pressure was bad for a few days, but now it’s settled down so that it only hurts when I eat medium hard to hard things.  Interestingly, the lowers have really cut up the inside of my lip much worse than the uppers did, and it’s the braces themselves, rather than the wires.  I’d really hoped to be done with dental wax, but I guess I’m glad I bought it in bulk when I got my uppers.

Need more DOTs

I don’t know if I just had a crappy dentist before (possible) or if my teeth have shifted since getting my wisdom teeth yanked, but I was always told that if I wanted to get braces I would have to get my jaw sawed, my teeth pulled, and my soul partially drained.  However, this year I actually went to an orthodontist and was told that I could probably get braces without surgery and at most one tooth extraction (one of the small, bottom, center ones).  Needless to say, I wanted in on this.

I don’t have crazy bad teeth, but although they’re symmetric they are also overcrowded.  It’s a pain to floss and brush, so I always wanted to get braces.  Wouldn’t you know that when I finally decide to get them, I’m much too old to have them covered by any kind of insurance.  Fortunately, because Kiwi’s birth counts as a life event, I was able to change my health insurance after he was born last month and add the full amount to a flexible spending account.  The tax savings are quite substantial, although I would have gotten the braces regardless.

The leadup to the braces was simple enough, with a weird tasteless putty being inserted into my mouth to make a cast.  On the day of the procedure, the orthodontist brushed my teeth individually with some foul smelling adhesive, stuck the brackets on the teeth, and then used some futuristic ray gun to heat the adhesive and bind the brackets to my teeth.  His assistant then strung some wire through the brackets (I think I have self-ligating braces since I didn’t get rubber bands.  My braces are ceramic, so from far away they are nearly invisible.  The procedure only took about 20 minutes, although I had to go back later to get one of the wire ends snipped because it was poking into my cheek.

The first few days my teeth were really sore, and it was nearly impossible to eat.  The front teeth were especially painful, although the molars didn’t hurt much after the first day.  I had the procedure done 4 days ago, and now my teeth don’t hurt normally although eating still causes me some pain.  I heard that after a week the pain pretty much subsides.  I’m also thankful I only got the top row done at first, because the thought of doing both rows at the same time strikes fear in me.

Abrasive Water Blast!!!

Most of the purchases associated with braces are cheap, such as the floss threaders (super annoying!), the dental wax, and the brushes.  I did, however, splurge and grab myself a Waterpik.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, and the Waterpik really surprised me.  It pulses (like a machine gun combined with a jackhammer) water, and is superb for getting all the food bits out of my braces.  I have worked my way up from the noobtastic setting of 2 up to 4.  Even on the lowest settings, it’s extremely powerful; one night I accidentally turned it up to 8 and I felt like I was trying to commit suicide.  At first it made a terrible mess, but I’ve started to get the hang of the Waterpik, and I love it.

So close!

It’s been 2 months since I started dieting and exercising, and I’ve lost about 19 lb.  I took last week off to gorge and rest my body, so I’m not too worried about the plateau near the end of the chart.  I’m very happy with how this program has been going so far, and I now feel like the meal planning feature was worth the extra dollars.  I basically treat meal planning as a sort of game, trying to hit all my various targets while keeping the calorie count low.  I hope I can keep this up so that I look good in pictures once my baby is born!

OMG Graphs!

I’ve been on DailyBurn for almost 3 weeks now, and it’s been a very interesting experience so far.  I got so into it that I tried out the Pro membership, but I wouldn’t say the extra features are that spectacular.  You get some more graphs and the ability to plan your meals and track whatever you want.  It ended up being kinda confusing, and I bet most users don’t need the extra features.  I canceled my Pro membership (you can try it out for free for 2 weeks I think), but now that I am using the meal tracker, I’m afraid I’m hooked and might sign back up again…  Damn these gateway features!

Lost a whole frog in only 1 week!

Weight Loss

The results have been encouraging, although most of them were front-loaded.  I think just counting calories and cutting down on carbohydrates helped me lose 5 lb in just the first week.  That sounds awesome at first, but I think it was mostly water weight.  During the first week, I had to pee all the time, almost every hour.  I felt like I was competing with Bunky to see whose bladder got full first.

At this the brain receives a signal that the body is not getting the same calories & food that it use to have regularly so the brain takes it as a state of drought & starvation in the body, & further sends impulses to activate the storehouse of energy. So now, the body utilizes the energy reserves, which stores glycogen- the stored form of glucose.  When the body metabolizes glycogen, it leads to the production of energy in the form of ATP molecules & water. This is the reason that the body produces more of urine & you urinate more frequently when you are skipping meals or fasting. Therefore, after a few days of following this regime, the person may lose one to two kgs frequently but this is merely the loss of water.

Thankfully, because I wasn’t really going on a low-carb diet, the weight has stayed off even though the rate at which I’m losing weight has decreased.  I seem to be losing a healthy 1-2 lb a week now, although the sample size is small.

You're ALL invited to dinner!

Protein

I’m trying to get a good balance, as “fat burns in the flame of carbohydrate,” and I don’t want my kidneys to shut down or my breath to smell like rotten apples.  I have a conservative 40/30/30 carb/protein/fat spec.  At first it was very difficult hitting the recommended fat, carbohydrate, protein, and calorie ranges, but I ended up treating it similar to an RPG situation.  Put simply, I was using n00b food.  I would say that protein is the most difficult quota to hit, and so my food scouting focused mostly on foods that provide lean protein.

• Seafood is probably one of the best, since it is low calorie, low carb, and low fat.  You can eat a ton of seafood, and really pump the protein levels.  The downside of seafood is that good seafood can be expensive and perishable.  I go with flash-frozen fish fillets because they are cheaper, but it takes a little time to defrost the fillets.  I especially love frozen, cooked, completely shelled (tail off) shrimp, because I am extremely lazy.  I’m not the biggest fan of canned tuna, but I’m willing to give it a try.
• Poultry is pretty good, although turkey is easily overcooked.  I’ve found that turkey jerky (and buffalo jerky) from Trader Joes is a good source of snacking protein, although you have to watch the sodium levels.  I also like turkey burgers when I eat out at restaurants, since seafood at restaurants is generally overcooked and expensive.
• I love eggs, but I can’t bring myself to just eat egg whites; I just have to take the extra fat from the yolk with my eggs, because that’s not a sacrifice I’m willing to make just yet.
• I’ve tried 96/4 lean beef, and it’s alright but not my favorite.  It’s good for mixing in with things, though.
• Tofu is a good source, but I’m not a fan of most of the tofu in the supermarket.
• Nuts have a lot of protein, but the fat content is extremely high (even though it is supposedly healthy fat).  I’ve found myself going away from nuts, even though I love the taste.
• Many dairy products are good.  I have not yet tried cottage cheese (since it looks gross), but many people swear by it.  Low-fat cheese is excellent for snacking, since those cheeses are generally kinda fake tasting anyway.  I tried low-fat yogurt and it’s ok, but then I tried some vanilla whole milk yogurt and it blew my mind.  I’ve decided that I will accept the fat in whole milk yogurt, because whole milk yogurt kicks so much ass.
• Edit: I just tried fat-free cottage cheese.  It’s… interesting.  It has a vaguely cheesy flavor and my mind recoiled at the texture-taste combination at first.  The second spoonful went much better.  Not my favorite food just yet, but I could see it being an acquired taste.  It seems many people like to mix it in with more traditional foods.
  

Protein is usually filling, and if you eat seafood you can eat a lot of protein without increasing your other stats very much.  I like to eat a lot of protein for dinner; and seafood is perfect for just bumping up my protein stat in cases where I’m at my limit for fat and carbs.  This is important for me, since with Bunky on her pregnancy see-food diet, it’s harder to practice portion control.  Plus, it’s demoralizing to doom your diet with just a handful of nuts and a burger.

Hello, my name is Charlie

Whole Grains

I’ve also been trying a variety of whole grains.  The fat content is usually very easy for me to control at home (restaurants are a different story), but I love carbs.  I was sad to see that white rice is not as high-level as whole grains since the bran and germ have been polished away, because I love white rice.  I usually try to eat most carbs (grains and fruits) for breakfast and lunch, so that I will burn them off throughout the day.  Whole Foods, while overpriced, has been invaluable for trying various grains.

• I found I don’t like barley, and it takes quite a while to cook (~45 minutes).  I love barley tea, but I don’t like barley as my grain or in my soups.  I was surprised at how much I disliked it, but it does have an interesting texture.  I tried pearled barley (which isn’t really a whole grain anyway) because I am too lazy to soak my grains before cooking them.
• Couscous is a refined grain, but I still eat it from time to time because it is by far the easiest grain to prepare.  You don’t even have to cook it, per se.  I find couscous very boring, but sometimes convenience wins over (lack of) taste.
• Brown rice is a good choice, although you have to work fairly hard to chew it.  I’ve found brown rice and bulgur to be fairly similar in taste and texture.  Brown rice and bulgur have different cook times with bulgur needing 15-20 minutes, and brown rice taking 30-40.  Although brown rice takes a while, it’s a familiar taste and easily found in most supermarkets.
• Quinoa also cooks quickly, and has a very nice texture (with a bit of bite) and appearance.  I use red quinoa (looks cool with the little germ tails) that has been pre-washed to remove the bitter saponin.  I don’t love the taste of quinoa by itself, but it mixes very well with other foods, and gives dishes an interesting texture.
• I’ve started eating oatmeal every day for breakfast.  I copied this from David.  I didn’t think I would like oatmeal, but I got used to it pretty quickly.

In spite of my efforts, carbohydrate and fat levels usually go out of control on days when I eat out, so I have to be very conservative with my meals on the weekends.  As you can see from the graphs, the main challenge every day is getting enough protein and keeping carb levels under control.  From what I’m reading, keeping a calorie deficit is the key to losing weight, although exercise speeds the process and helps keep the weight off.  I’ll leave that for another post, though.

Do 100 pushups and then drink these 5 bottles

Back when we were all in senior year basketball class, the VGI gang used to joke about downing some hearty whole milk after several hours of intense ballin’.  After all, what quenches your thirst like chugging creamy dairy at Oakenshield’s?

Well, lately I’ve actually been trying out milk after my daily exercise routine.  While I’m not hardcore enough to go for whole milk, I down a cup of 2% right after I’m done with my weightlifting.  In some ways, it’s pretty terrible; the milk doesn’t feel at all refreshing like water or Gatorade might.  I wouldn’t say I love the feeling of milk sticking to my throat after a hard workout.  On the other hand, some studies have shown that milk is a fantastic after-workout beverage (taste and texture aside).  I’ve read that chocolate milk is supposed to be even better (and probably thicker…).

Upon the study’s conclusion, researchers found that the milk drinking group had lost nearly twice as much fat – two pounds – while the carbohydrate beverage group lost one pound of fat. Those drinking soy lost no fat. At the same time, the gain in muscle was much greater among the milk drinkers than either the soy or carbohydrate beverage study participants.

“The loss of fat mass, while expected, was much larger than we thought it would be,” says Phillips, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster. “I think the practical implications of these results are obvious: if you want to gain muscle and lose fat as a result of working out, drink milk.”

I’ve found that I only have one glass of milk a day, so I time the cup of milk for when it will do the most good.  I’ve read theories that the protein and carbohydrate content in the milk is useful in repairing muscles, if taken less than 30 minutes after an intense workout.  I hope these theories are true.

So much better with pictures

A few months back, I tried out an exercise/nutrition log called FitDay.com with some pretty good success.  While the idea of a log is really great and worked wonders (I lost between 15-20 lb in a few months using the log), the site was very plain.  I used to avoid snacking because I dreaded logging the snacks; it was that annoying.  It was hard to find exactly what you ate/did, and the site was pretty much all text.  Eventually I got tired of logging everything so I stopped and gained the weight back. So now I’m giving the logging idea another go, but this time I’m using DailyBurn.com instead.

While the idea is the same, the execution looks much better.  There are pictures of the foods (great if you eat some kind of packaged food), and the database is much more extensive.  The exercise log is also easier to use and features pictures as well, so you can be sure you are logging the correct exercise.  The other feature that I thought was cool was the motivator feature.  It gives specified people access to your activities, so they can check if you are keeping up.  I set Bunky as mine, since I know she will nag me if I slack off.  I’m much more excited about this log, especially since I know even a boring log is pretty effective.

The other change I’m making in my exercise program is to try to burn the same amount of calories but in less time.  In other words, I’m going all out for a very short period of time.  I don’t know if it will be any better, but at least it won’t take as long.  It’s not like I really need any endurance, as I just want to burn as many calories in as short a period as possible.