J. Weighty's Shangri-La Diet Blog

One year off of SLD

2007-07-14T06:40:00.001-05:00

It's been a year since I stopped following the Shangri-La Diet. Have I gained weight? Yes, a little. My seven-day moving average is about three pounds higher now than it was then.

In the last year, I've been lighter when I've been running every day, or nearly every day, and about this weight when I haven't. For example, through the 17th of March, I ran 55 days in a row. On the March 20 I hit my low for the year, 175.2 lbs. Since then, my running has been much less consistent, and I've gained weight.

Though I remain skeptical about SLD for me (though not for many others; see the SLD forums for plenty of evidence), I'd have no qualms about trying it again.

Who knows, this may be my last post. Thanks for reading.

Another month flies by

2007-04-18T10:20:00.000-05:00

I don't think I've gone an entire month without a post until now. I have less and less to say as time goes on. My weight has stabilized for many months now, with no Shangri-la dieting; indeed, no watching my diet of any kind. I'd like to lose some more weight, but I'm reasonably happy where I am right now. The theory behind of SLD says I should be gaining.

Gastroenteritis

2007-03-18T11:49:00.000-05:00

A mild bout of gastroenteritis is probably going to end my streak of running every day at 55. The worst part is that my two-year-old has it, too. We'll spend the day together, feeling lousy, napping, reading, watching some TV, and trying not to spread our germs to the rest of the family.

David? Are you out there?

2007-03-08T22:41:00.000-06:00

One of the very few active Shangri-La Diet blogs has disappeared, and now redirects to a site that's, uh, shall we say, not safe for work. I about had a heart attack when I loaded the page at my desk today. I've removed it from my links, but if you're out there, David, and your site comes back as it was, leave a comment and I'll put the link back.

Snow

2007-03-02T09:10:00.000-06:00

J. Weighty's one-day crash weight loss program, in three E-Z steps!

Shovel snow in the morning.

Skip lunch.

Shovel snow in the evening.

Weight: 178 lbs.
Seven-day average: 179.3 lbs.

Treadmill vs. the ground

2007-02-22T21:45:00.000-06:00

It turns out that running on a treadmill and running on the ground are really rather different.

[T]hese biomechanical considerations explain why it is almost always better for serious athletes to train in real conditions rather than on the treadmill when given the choice. Working out on a treadmill in a controlled environment is better than slipping along on icy roads, plodding through snow drifts, fighting gale-force winds or battling with high heat and humidity, but it is unlikely that treadmill training can improve running economy as effectively as overground work. In fact, the movement patterns of the two types of activity are so different that treadmill training might even retard improvements in overground running economy - a particularly troubling thought.

It's also just more fun to run outside. Right now, though, the "icy roads and snow drifts" argument is more than enough to keep me inside.

Drop

2007-02-22T08:19:00.000-06:00

Two-pound drop. If you weigh yourself every day like I do, you learn to treat those impostors -- two-pound gains & two-pound losses -- just the same.

I am at my lowest spot weight since November, and my lowest 7-day average since December. My spot weight bottomed out at 175.2 and my seven-day average at 176.1, both in October, about three months after I stopped the Shangri-La routine.

I've now run 32 days in a row. My year-to-date mileage (243 km) has surpassed last year's January through March mileage.

Life Fitness T3-5

2007-02-15T21:08:00.000-06:00

I promised a review of our new treadmill, and I'm now officially breaking that promise. I wrote a review, then read it, and realized that I don't have much insight or authority.

I will say that I like it very much, and it's a wonderful Survival of the Thinnest tool. With just a few button presses, I tell it to get my heart rate to 160 and keep it there for 30 minutes, and it does the rest. Well, I have to run and run and run, and for a few minutes I have to run up a rather steeper incline that I would like.

I run daily at 11.5 km/hour, which is almost exactly my half-marathon pace from last September. It gives me 2 or 3 minutes to warm up, then starts to crank up the incline until my heart is pumping at my goal rate. The incline usually gets to around 5% or 6%, but I've seen it go above 8%. Then the incline goes gradually down (and occasionally back up a little) for the rest of the run. Some days it gets all the way back to 0% incline, and once even that wasn't enough to keep my heart rate low enough, so it slowed my pace a notch. I bumped it back up manually, and my heart rate stayed near enough to 160 that it didn't try to slow me down again.

I have a couple of minor complaints about the treadmill. It doesn't show pace in minutes per km (or mile), other than briefly while one is manually raising or lowering the pace. Other than that, it just shows km or miles per hour. I'd say that most runners think in terms of minutes per mile, not miles per hour. Another thing is you have to take what it shows you on the display. If you want to know how many minutes you've run, and it instead happens to be showing how many minutes you've been in your target heart rate zone, well, you just have to wait. Eventually it will switch back to showing total minutes. The Precors I'm used to let you change the display at any time.

But those are minor quibbles. I'm quite pleased with it.

Currently my running streak stands at 25 consecutive days, with the last 21 on the Life Fitness. 25 may be more than I've ever done in my life. Certainly it is in the last five years.

I've noticed that my appetite at meal time is lower lately, but between meals I often crave snacks. This is the opposite of when I was on Shangri-La, when I rarely snacked but when meal time came, I was often pretty hungry. Maybe it was just the forced twice-daily two-hour flavorless windows that cut down my snacks; or maybe the oil was the snack.

In any case, the 25 days of running hasn't had a dramatic effect on my weight. My seven-day average has dropped only 1.6 lbs. since my running streak began.

Treadmill adventure

2007-02-08T10:17:00.000-06:00

A little experiment with our new treadmill gave me a bit of a surprise. I'd been using it with English units (miles & pounds). I'm used to using metric, but I just hadn't bothered to change it yet.

I'd set up what LifeFitness calls a "workout profile," which saves a workout for quick selection later. In this case, it goes for 30 minutes at 7.1 miles per hour, and it automatically adjusts the incline to keep my heart rate near 160 beats per minute. I like how the profiles work; with four button presses I'm up and running.

I thought there was a slight chance that it stores the unit setting as a part of the workout profile, so I could easily run my metric workout, and not have to set the global units to metric. My wife prefers English units.

So I set the treadmill to metric and reprogrammed my workout profile to go at 11.5 km per hour (fractionally faster than 7.1 mph). I also changed my weight from 180 lbs to 82 kg. It uses this to calculate kcal used. I don't really pay attention to that, but I thought that I may as well have it right. Then I set the treadmill back to English units, and started up my workout.

It accelerated to 11.5 miles per hour! Yikes!

I don't know about you, but I can't sustain that speed for anything close to 30 minutes. Or 3 minutes.

It also put my weight at a hyper-anorexic 82 lbs.

So much for that experiment. For now, I'm going to leave the profile at 11.5 some-units-per-hour, and just change the units setting before and after each run. It takes about 8 or 10 button presses, which is a mild annoyance. I just know that periodically I'm going to either forget to change it before, and go on a brief, wild run until I frantically hit the stop button, or forget afterwards and confuse and annoy my wife.

More on Unhappy Meals

2007-02-01T16:05:00.000-06:00

Seth Roberts doesn't share my opinion of the Michael Pollan piece.

New month, new low

2007-02-01T09:26:00.000-06:00

Well, a recent low, anyway. Both my spot weight (178.8 lbs.) and my seven-day average (180.1) are lower than they've been since December.

I'll post a review of the Life Fitness T3-5 treadmill in the next week or so. It helped me achieve my highest January mileage (117 km) since I've been keeping track. My current streak is 11 straight days. There are runners that go for years without missing a day. I don't hope to match that, but I do intend to miss as few days as possible. My best stretch last year was 40 out of 41 days -- two 20-day streaks, with one travel day in the middle. Had I had a treadmill then, I'd have run that one day too.

What to eat

2007-01-29T15:01:00.000-06:00

There was a fantastic article in the New York Times yesterday: Unhappy Meals. It's a good description of what science doesn't know about food and nutrition.

wt: 181.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 181.1 lbs.

Serial Self Help

2007-01-24T10:58:00.000-06:00

I found a relatively new blog today with a really interesting premise. The writer will follow one self-help book (or web site) each month for the whole year. This month's book is none other than the Shangri-La Diet.

It's called Just Help Myself. Give it a read.

Treadmill

2007-01-21T08:38:00.000-06:00

The Weighty family spent the day yesterday shopping for a treadmill. We chose the Life Fitness T3-5. We had settled on the Precor M9.23, which was on sale at a pretty good price, but we went to one last store as the day ended, and were really impressed with the Life Fitness product. Mrs. Weighty negotiated a price on the T3-5 that was just too good to pass up. It was a bit too big to wedge into the old van at the same time as the whole family, so we'll get it in a day or two.

I can't wait.

Back into the swing

2007-01-12T09:59:00.000-06:00

wt: 180.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 181.2 lbs.

I've put in five short runs so far this week. Sunday and Monday my left knee was bothering me a little, so I took Tuesday off. Since then, it's been much better.

It's turned very cold here. Some people, not me, run outside when it's this cold. I have free access to treadmills at work, but the weekend hours are limited. Mrs. Weighty (hmm... probably shouldn't refer to her that way...) & I are considering buying a treadmill for our home. It wouldn't see much use in the summer, but boy, in the winter it would be nice to have.

Speaking of the Mrs., she's trying the Shangri-La Diet. I'll report her progress, or better yet, get her to do it herself.

Back from vacation

2007-01-09T07:09:00.000-06:00

wt: 180.8 lbs.
~~seven~~ four-day average: 181.7

I was at about 1600 km running for the year just before Christmas, which is just short of 1,000 miles, and I didn't make it. The holidays, immediately followed by a long vacation via automobile, stopped me from getting in those last 5 or 6 miles.

Despite getting almost no exercise, and eating out a lot, I kept my weight gain to a fairly modest level. I'm back in my routine now, so I hope to start losing a bit again. I've set some running challenges for myself for this year that I think will require me to drop a little weight. I'll have more to say about that later.

Day 233: down 19.6 lbs.

2006-12-24T06:54:00.000-06:00

wt: 178.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 179.9 lbs.

200 blog posts. I only wish I could have made many more of them interesting or useful.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back in the new year. Good luck to everybody trying to stay healthy and lose weight.

Day 266: down 18.8 lbs.

2006-12-22T11:13:00.000-06:00

wt: 179.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 180.5 lbs.

I'm still in a plateau. My seven-day moving average has been in a narrow range all month, hovering around 180 lbs. I'll be on vacation after today, and I probably won't have any more blog posts for a few weeks. I won't even weigh myself most days.

I'm about 6 miles away from hitting 1,000 miles of running for the year.

Day 223: down 19.4 lbs.

2006-12-14T08:30:00.000-06:00

Wt: 179 lbs.
seven-day average: 179.4 lbs.

Day 220: down 19.2 lbs.

2006-12-11T06:37:00.000-06:00

wt: 179.2 lbs.

Day 219: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-12-10T07:46:00.000-06:00

wt: 178.2 lbs.

Day 218: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-12-09T07:48:00.000-06:00

wt: 178.2 lbs.

Day 217: down 18.8 lbs.

2006-12-08T09:59:00.000-06:00

wt: 179.6 lbs.
seven-day average: n/a (I've missed too many weigh-ins lately to get a meaningful number)

It's been a long while since I've posted. I've found it hard to stay interested, even to the point of not weighing myself. Probably as a result, I've drifted up a few pounds.

I'm still off of Shangri-la. My wife is talking about trying it. Given the success that so many have had, I'm gently encouraging her. Like me, she exercises a lot, and anecdotal evidence on the Seth Roberts forums tend to make me think that dampens the effect of Shangri-la. But it's most certainly not unhealthy, and if it works for her, great.

My running is going reasonably well, but I'm not making it out every day. It's turned very cold here lately. I'm lucky enough to have a gym at my workplace, so during the week it's easy to get in a short treadmill run over my lunch hour or before work. The weekends are tough.

I missed five days in November, but my monthly mileage was second-highest of the year. With winter here, and road races a distant memory, it's a little harder to stay focused. Through the end of the month I'll be thinking hard about my running goals for next year; maybe that will get me motivated.

Day 204: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-11-25T07:27:00.000-06:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.5 lbs.

Day 203: down 21 lbs.

2006-11-24T07:11:00.000-06:00

wt: 177.4
seven-day average: 177.4

Day 198: down 22 lbs.

2006-11-19T06:56:00.000-06:00

wt: 176.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.6 lbs.

Day 197: down 22.4 lbs.

2006-11-18T07:13:00.000-06:00

wt: 176 lbs.
seven-day average: 177 lbs.

Day 196: down 23 lbs.

2006-11-17T08:33:00.000-06:00

wt: 175.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.3 lbs.

I'm in a long plateau right now. My seven-day moving average has been in a three-pound range for about 2 1/2 months. I've been able to run a little more consistently lately, and I hope that will break me out of this and get my weight dropping again.

Day 194: down 21.6 lbs.

2006-11-15T05:49:00.000-06:00

wt: 176.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.7 lbs.

Day 193: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-11-14T06:24:00.000-06:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 178 lbs.

Day 190: down 20.4 lbs

2006-11-11T07:19:00.000-06:00

wt: 178 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.7 lbs.

Day 189: down 21 lbs.

2006-11-10T06:05:00.000-06:00

wt: 177.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.6 lbs.

Day 188: down 20 lb.s

2006-11-09T06:09:00.000-06:00

wt: 178.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.4 lbs.

Day 186: down 21 lbs.

2006-11-07T06:08:00.000-06:00

wt: 177.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.1 lbs.

Day 185: down 20.4 lbs.

2006-11-06T06:55:00.000-06:00

wt: 178 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.1 lbs.

Day 184: down 22 lbs.

2006-11-05T07:32:00.000-06:00

wt: 176.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.9 lbs.

Day 183: down 21 lbs.

2006-11-04T07:08:00.000-06:00

wt: 177.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.3 lbs.

Day 182: down 22.4 lbs.

2006-11-03T05:53:00.000-06:00

wt: 176 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.9 lbs.

Day 181: down 20.6 lbs.

2006-11-02T05:31:00.000-06:00

wt: 177.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.9 lbs.

Day 180: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-11-01T05:54:00.000-06:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.9 lbs.

Day 179: down 21.6 lbs.

2006-10-31T06:05:00.000-06:00

wt: 176.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.8 lbs.

Day 178: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-10-30T11:11:00.000-06:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.7

I weighed in on Saturday, but forgot to write it down. I think I remember what it was. I was at work from Saturday afternoon straight through Sunday morning, so I didn't weigh in yesterday.

Anyway, on Saturday morning I believe my weight was 181.4, which is as high as it's been for several weeks, and a 5.4 lb. gain in a single day. Too much drinking & eating the night before at our annual Halloween costume party. I had to get up early to run a 5K road race the next morning, too. To top it off, what was supposed to be a four- or five-hour project at work turned into a 21-hour marathon. You know how people say they gain an hour of sleep when the clock goes back to standard time? Well, not if you're awake from 6:00 a.m. on Saturday until 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

Most of that 5.4 lbs. is gone already. I barely ran all of last week due to a pretty bad cold. Now that I'm healthy again, and partially caught up on my sleep, I just need to get my running shoes back on and hit the road.

Day 175: down 22.4 lbs.

2006-10-27T07:00:00.000-05:00

wt: 176 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.3 lbs.

Day 174: down 20.4 lbs.

2006-10-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

wt: 178 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.3 lbs.

Day 173: down 22 lbs

2006-10-25T06:54:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.1 lbs.

Day 172: down 22.8 lbs.

2006-10-24T06:49:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.1 lbs.

Day 171: down 21.6 lbs.

2006-10-23T06:52:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.2 lbs.

Day 170: down 22.8 lbs.

2006-10-22T07:06:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.1 lbs.

Day 169: down 22.4 lbs.

2006-10-21T08:35:00.000-05:00

wt: 176 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.5 lbs.

Day 168: down 23 lbs.

2006-10-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.4 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.6 lbs.

Day 167: down 21.8 lbs.

2006-10-19T06:26:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.6 lbs
seven-day average: 176.6 lbs.

I forgot to weigh in yesterday.

Day 165: down 21.8 lbs

2006-10-17T06:39:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.5 lbs.

Day 164: down 22.2 lbs.

2006-10-16T07:00:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.3 lbs.

David Hariton's Survival of the Thinnest

2006-10-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

I promised more to say about another genetics-based weight-loss theory, described in a book Survival of the Thinnest. I've been putting it off until I had time to do it right, but I can see that it's not going to happen. So I'll just dash out a few thoughts.

Hariton's basic theory is that the genetics of humans direct them to be thin if they are active, and fat if they are sedentary. This goes beyond mere calories-in, calories-out, much as Seth Roberts's Shangri-La Diet does. Neither of them deny the basic equation, that your energy expenditure must be greater than your consumption in order to lose weight, but they both say that the elephant in the room that most everybody is ignoring is hunger. Your genes are telling you to eat in some circumstances, and to stop eating in others.

Hariton's prescription is 30 minutes of rather vigorous aerobic exercise every day. Every day, for the rest of your life.

I stumbled on this same routine several years ago, and it worked like crazy. I lost just over 30 lbs. in only 60 days, and I was not hungry. I can't imagine why I ever stopped, but I did, and gained half or more of it back. I'm now well below that weight, and still dropping.

My chosen exercise is running. Hariton is a bit antagonistic towards running. He thinks it's too hard on one's body, which can be true. He lists 10 do's and dont's for running, which he doesn't for any other form of exercise. A couple of these are downright laughable. He says not to run competitively, or even make any running friends!

Well, for me, that train has left the station. Running is my chosen exercise. It's what I like to do. I run for fun; I run in road races; I have running friends; I read about running; I think about it; I run and run and run.

On the other hand, I see his point. Running for weight loss and running -- training -- to get faster probably aren't entirely compatible. Runners like to do things like alternate long & short days; easy & hard days, and take days off for recovery. I think there's a good chance that those things undermine weight loss. In my own case, probably the best thing that's going to make me faster is to lose some more weight. Current training theory talks about things like improving your VO2max, lactate threshhold, and running economy. Those things have their place in my future, but for now, I need to lose my big belly.

What does Hariton do? He rides a stationary bike. That's certainly easier on one's joints.

I may, over the winter, experiment with substituting stationary bike or elliptical trainer for running a day or two each week.

Despite his views on running, I think the Hariton book is quite good. I recommend it to anyone who wants to lose weight. I think it works.

Day 163: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-10-15T07:54:00.000-05:00

wt: 178.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.4 lbs.

Day 162: down 22 lbs.

2006-10-14T06:56:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.4 lbs.
seven-day average 176.1 lbs.

Day 161: down 22.6 lbs.

2006-10-13T07:02:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.8 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.1 lbs.

Day 160: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-10-12T06:57:00.000-05:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.3 lbs.

Day 159: down 23.2 lbs.

2006-10-11T05:51:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.4 lbs.

Day 158: down 22.8 lbs.

2006-10-10T05:54:00.000-05:00

wt: 175.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.7 lbs.

Day 157: down 21.8 lbs.

2006-10-09T06:26:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 176.9 lbs.

Day 156: down 22.2 lbs.

2006-10-08T06:12:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.2 lbs.

I finally bought David Hariton's book, "Survival of the Thinnest," which I mentioned a few months ago. I've read about half of it. I'll have more to say about it in the next few days.

Day 155: down 22.2 lbs.

2006-10-07T06:48:00.000-05:00

wt: 176.2 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.3 lbs.

Day 154: down 20.8 lbs.

2006-10-06T06:37:00.000-05:00

wt: 177.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.5 lbs.

Day 153: down 20.8 lbs.

2006-10-05T06:09:00.000-05:00

wt: 177.6 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.7 lbs.

Day 152: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-10-04T06:18:00.000-05:00

wt: 177 lbs.
seven-day average: 177.6 lbs.

Day 151: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-10-03T06:04:00.000-05:00

Day 150: down 19.6 lbs.

2006-10-02T06:56:00.000-05:00

Day 149: down 21.8 lbs.

2006-10-01T07:58:00.000-05:00

Day 148: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-09-30T07:55:00.000-05:00

Day 147: down 20 lbs.

2006-09-29T05:44:00.001-05:00

Day 146: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-09-28T05:49:00.000-05:00

Back on the wagon

2006-09-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

No, not me -- SD Blogger is back on SLD.

Welcome, Woman's World readers

2006-09-27T06:38:00.000-05:00

More readers are finding their way here recently, and I'm told that it's probably because of the cover story on the Shangri-la Diet in Woman's World.

You won't find all that much about Shangri-la lately, as I eventually ran out of things to say. You will find more in the archives, which you'll find near the bottom of the right-hand column. If you want the whole story, start with the May archive, and read each monthly archive page from the bottom up.

Day 145: down 20 lbs.

2006-09-27T06:24:00.001-05:00

Day 144: down 22.4 lbs.

2006-09-26T06:22:00.000-05:00

Day 143: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-09-25T06:28:00.000-05:00

Day 142: down 19.2 lbs.

2006-09-24T06:17:00.000-05:00

My 15-mile road race went reasonably well yesterday, although I went out too fast for the first 10 miles. I paid for it in the last five.

Day 141: down 19.8 lbs.

2006-09-23T04:53:00.000-05:00

Day 140: down 18.8 lbs.

2006-09-22T06:45:00.000-05:00

I've now been off of Shangri-la for 70 days, after having been on it for 70 days. I lost 13.8 lbs. in those first 70 days, and 5 lbs. since then. The last 10 days or so have seen just about the worst results yet, with my weight up 3 lbs.

My seven-day moving average, which I put more stock in than the daily numbers, bottomed out last Saturday at 1.6 lbs. below what it is now.

My eating habits have been pretty terrible lately. Too many trips to the vending machine. I need to get back in the habit of bringing healthy snacks to work.

With all of the road races I've run lately, I've also skipped more days of running than I would like. I have a 15-mile race on Saturday (which will be my longest run ever), then not another race for over a month, so I hope to get back on my daily running routine.

tags: Shangri-la Diet

Day 139: down 18.4 lbs.

2006-09-21T11:57:00.000-05:00

Where have all the bloggers gone?

2006-09-20T11:04:00.000-05:00

I list a number of Shangri-la Diet blogs in my "links" section in the sidebar, and I've flagged a few as defunct or moribund. Virtually all of them are moribund. Where'd everybody go?

OK, Rod went to Scotland.

But where is everybody else? There was never really a blog-storm of SLD activity, but what little there was has virtually dried up. Here's a chart from Technorati (a web site that tracks blogs) showing the number of daily posts tagged with "Shangri-la diet." (By the way, if anybody can tell me what's wrong with the "Blog this chart!" code generated by Technorati to show this stuff, I'd be grateful. I had to do it the hard way.)

Back in May and June there was hardly a day without something posted somewhere, and often several a day. Now there's one or two a week.

Did everybody just give up and go to the Seth Roberts forums? Back in May, Dr. Roberts published some charts on the growth of the forums. I wonder what those numbers look like now. I wonder how the book is selling.

tags: Shangri-la Diet

Day 138: down 19.2 lbs.

2006-09-20T08:28:00.000-05:00

Day 137: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-09-19T06:31:00.000-05:00

Day 136: down 19.8 lbs.

2006-09-18T06:51:00.000-05:00

Day 135: down 19.6 lbs.

2006-09-17T07:08:00.000-05:00

Day 134: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-09-16T08:22:00.000-05:00

Day 133: down 20.2 lbs.

2006-09-15T07:37:00.000-05:00

Day 132: down 21 lbs.

2006-09-14T06:43:00.000-05:00

Day 131: down 21.6 lbs.

2006-09-13T06:35:00.000-05:00

Day 130: down 21.8 lbs.

2006-09-12T08:36:00.000-05:00

Day 129: down 21.6 lbs

2006-09-11T08:45:00.000-05:00

I ran a half marathon yesterday. It went pretty well. It's only the second one I've run. I weigh about 10 lbs. less than I did three years ago when I ran my first, and I ran about 9 or 10 minutes faster this time. Last time my training was geared more towards the half marathon distance, with more long training runs. This year, I'm running mainly to lose weight, with shorter but more frequent runs.

Day 127: down 20.6 lbs.

2006-09-09T07:29:00.000-05:00

Day 126: down 19.6 lbs.

2006-09-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

Day 125: down 18.8 lbs.

2006-09-07T06:50:00.000-05:00

Day 124: down 20 lbs.

2006-09-06T06:38:00.000-05:00

Day 123: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-09-05T06:28:00.000-05:00

Missed yesterday's weigh-in. My family and I were out of town. I ran a 10K road race yesterday. My right hamstring was bothering me a little, so I didn't push it. I still ran about a minute faster than I have before. It's a lot easier to run at 177 lbs. than it is at 188 or 199.

tags: weight loss, running

Day 121 - down 21 lbs.

2006-09-03T07:30:00.000-05:00

Day 120: down 21.4 lbs.

2006-09-02T08:49:00.000-05:00

Day 119: down 20.8 lbs.

2006-09-01T05:59:00.000-05:00

Well, that was a wild swing: up 2.6 lbs. one day; down 2.8 the next. Because of swings like that, I keep track of my seven-day moving average weight, and I've considered just reporting that number instead. Here's the chart; click it for an enlarged view. The moving average is just a little bogus right now, since it includes part of a six-day stretch where I didn't weigh in. I just used a straight-line interpolation for the missing days.

tags: weight loss