The Normal Calories - Double Trouble Eating Plan

It's time to share the new eating plan that I'll be sticking with for a while. For the past 60 weeks I followed 16 eating plans in quasi scientific study to find the best eating plan for me. To make it fun, I set up the plans in a bracket-style tournament called The Pounds Off Playoff. If you're new here, I'd recommend you read about the eating plans, view the final bracket, and read my lessons learned. Overall, I lost 25.9 pounds in 60 weeks, but amazingly I lost 39.4 pounds on the five most effective eating plans (and gained on the others). 

Before deciding on my permanent eating plan, I examined what worked from those five plans.

Top 5 Eating Plan	Advantages	Disadvantages
1. 2500 Calories	·         Counts everything you eat ·         Limits eating ·         Flexible ·         Sustainable ·         Approximates normal wt. (for me)	·         Unhealthy foods count the same as healthy foods
2. No Processed Food	·         Promotes healthy foods ·         Foods fill you up ·         Indirectly limits eating	·         Difficult to find food ·         Clashes with work, life
3. No Junk Food	·         Eliminates many unhealthy foods ·         Reduces high calorie foods	·         Can still overeat ·         Giving up treats forever
4. 1800 Calories	·         Counts everything you eat ·         Limits eating	·         Unsustainable ·         Typical of 5’2” female (i.e. not for me)
5. Three Strikes	·         Easy to track ·         Somewhat limits eating ·         Flexible	·         Imprecise ·         Can overeat w/o knowing

A few patterns emerged that would become the criteria for my permanent plan:

1. Limit eating.
2. Count everything.
3. Discourage unhealthy foods.
4. Be flexible and realistic.

After much consideration, I've come up with a plan that meets all four criteria...

The Normal Calories - Double Trouble Plan (NCDT)

In the spirit of simplicity, the plan has just two rules:

Rule 1: Eat the number of calories that you would to maintain a Body Mass Index in the "normal" range for your height.

To determine this, I first consulted a BMI chart to find the normal weight range for my height, like this one from the National Institute of Health. At 74 inches, the upper end of the "normal" range is 186 pounds. BMI is imperfect, since it makes no distinction between fit and flabby, but it gives me something to go on.

Next, I accessed a calorie calculator, like this one from the Mayo Clinic. Entering the "normal" weight from the BMI table, plus my height, age, gender, and activity level, I learned that 2500 calories is indeed what I would eat to maintain a normal weight.

As far as calorie counting, I do my best. Many foods are labeled these days, including more and more restaurant items. For everything else, a quick Google search will get you in the ballpark, and as long as you are careful to accept a realistic estimate, it's usually good enough.

So far, I've gotten away with keeping track in my head. The main thing I do to make this work is to subdivide the day into breakfast (20% of calories), mid-day (40%), and late day (40%). Those aren't strick divides - calories carry over - but it helps in keeping track.

Rule 2: Count junk food double. 

My definition of junk food is chips, crackers, sweets, and fried foods. Basically, it's items that are highly processed, "empty calories." I've identified the types of items I used to over do it on. You may have your own downfalls that fit this definition.

Oh, and somewhat arbitrarily, I've decided dark chocolate is not junk food. Hey, it's my plan.

So there you have it. I have a long way left to go on my weight loss journey and I'm betting this plan will get me most of the way there. Stay tuned... 

The Big Climb Participant's Perspective

"Dad, are you in the old man walking division?"

- My eight year old son

The Columbia Tower from street level

Yesterday was The Big Climb, a fundraiser in Seattle for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society where 6,000 slightly crazy people scale 1311 steps to the top of the Columbia Tower. I was one of those 6,000. I was a "climber," not a "racer." My time of 32 minutes would have embarrassed all of the racers and many of the climbers, but for me it was a huge accomplishment.

I'm going to write the post I would have wanted to read three months ago, when I started training for the climb, not even knowing if I could do it. As it turns out, with persistence, an event like this is doable. I believe any person without a medical condition could do an event like this (check with your doctor, yada-yada-yada), assuming you work up to it with regular training and learn the basics of heart rate monitoring. It's great to be a part of something like this, so as you read below, think about what event in your town that you've never done might just be your new adventure.

Before the Day of the Event

Fundraising

Shannon's father Stew (CLL) helped provide inspiration

I don't want to skip over this part, because it's an integral part of the experience. This event is a major fundraiser for LLS. Last year it raised $1.6 million. And what you quickly learn at an LLS event is how many people have been touched by blood diseases, especially children and young adults. Seeing teams representing children battling leukemia and related illnesses was the most humbling and touching part of the event. I was glad that I took the fundraising part seriously and that together we raised a lot of money.

My learning here was not to be shy. Folks are amazingly generous. After I sent emails to my family, friends, and co-workers, forty individuals/families donated on my page and together we raised $2,214!!! Rita, Mike, and Jan encouraged me to set high goals and hit up a few people I wasn't initially planning to. As a result, I was awarded "VIP" status, which meant that I got a few extra event goodies (shirt, wine glass, gift card) and, I kid you not, exclusive access to a "VIP Honey Bucket" portable restroom equipped with running water. I wish you all could have been there to experience it.

Training

I have tried to document my Big Climb training in previous posts. Basically, I found a set of 68 stairs at an elementary school near my home and trained once or twice a week, starting at half the number of stairs, and working my way up to the whole distance.

This wasn't a bad strategy, though if I had it to do over again, I'd have found a way to over-train. The major difference when climbing a tower is that your heart rate spikes much sooner when all you do is go straight up. Had I trained at a faster pace or for longer, it would have better simulated the actual climb.

The Day of the Event

Breakfast

We joined my friend Paul and his family for breakfast, as it was his birthday. Paul is a runner and I asked what I should eat. He informed me that usually, you "carb load" the night before. The one time "carb loading" is sanctioned, and I missed it???

Seriously, I learned in my last training run that climbing on a full stomach is not a good idea. I ate a decent breakfast (omelet with egg whites and toast), since it was a couple of hours before my 11:30 start time, but if I'd have had it to do over again, I'd have probably had just a little less.

Seattle skyline from Interstate 5

The Drive In

I had never paid attention to the Columbia Tower before, really. It's black and not especially interesting,  except for being the tallest building west of the Mississippi when it was built in 1984.

But I couldn't help noticing how it dwarfed the rest of the downtown skyscrapers as we approached downtown this morning, like a seven-footer on a high school basketball team. Shannon snapped this photo on her cell phone as we approached downtown.

I was tempted to be a little overwhelmed, but remembered reading of similar climbs at the Empire State Building, which is significantly taller, and the CN Tower in Toronto, which I believe is the tallest structure in North America. Thankfully, my crazy climb is happening in a starter-sized skyscraper.

Before the Event

Arrival at the site was a bit overwhelming. Even with the 6,000 climbers staggered throughout the day, the atrium was jammed. We circled the atrium twice before finding my race materials in the "VIP lounge", a roped off area with a short "red carpet." Knowing I should have done more to familiarize myself with the area, we compensated by arriving a good hour or so before the event. Many events of this nature offer an option to pick up race materials the day before, which could have helped, but arriving early was a workable strategy.

Arriving early allowed me the opportunity to exchange a few words with popular blogger Diana of "Diana's Weight Loss Journey." It was literally a few words, as she was being escorted to the start line by race officials, via escalator, of all things! You should check out Diana's account of The Big Climb.  She put together a large group from her work that was one of the biggest groups I saw all day (and she killed my time, BTW). As I have mentioned before, I got this whole Big Climb idea from Diana, so thank you.

Lastly, I must mention that the University of Washington was battling North Carolina for a spot in the Sweet 16 during the run-up to my climb-up. I "watched" the end via BlackBerry from the Starbucks in the tower. The seventh seeded Huskies, who were somehow matched against Georgia and North Carolina in Charlotte (somebody needs a geography lesson), battled valiantly, but ultimately fell to the second seeded Tar Heels at the end, 86-83. I immediately retired to the VIP Honey Bucket, and then got in line for the race.

During the Climb

I was alone for the climb itself. Shannon and the boys were nice enough to go downtown with me, but they had to wait for me at the lobby level while I climbed. It would have been great to do the climb with someone or a team, but the freedom meant I could take my own pace, which was a lifesaver.

After making small talk with another single climber who had completed LLS marathons, I got to the start line. After a pause to space the climbers, I was sent on my way, oddly outside the building, to an open door leading to the stairwell. I guess if you remember that the actual purpose for the stairwell is as an emergency exit, this makes sense.

Once inside, my new best friend, the marathoner, passed me on the first landing, never to be seen by me again. I was determined to set my own pace, a tortoise pace that would keep me from spending all my reserves in the first half of the climb.

Ironically, the climb is not difficult. People think it is, but it's just putting one step in front of the other, 1311 times. For a person in the shape I am in - trained for the climb, but still overweight and not a daily exerciser - the key was monitoring my heart rate and resting when it was getting above my training level. What surprised me was how quickly it hit my peak training level - by the 20th floor, I think - and from then on I had to manage it with 20-30 second breaks every 3-5 floors.  One or two of the breaks was longer, maybe.

Once I hit the halfway mark sign, things felt like they were getting a little easier. That may sound counter-intuitive, but once I fell into a pace of regulating my exertion level with short breaks, I really felt like I could have gone for 100 floors or more. As it was, we apparently started on the 4th floor and ended, I think, on the 73rd floor. I was in the untimed division ("old man walking," as my son said) but I self-timed at 32 minutes. This is not a good time, but it was my time. I could have probably shaved a few minutes off, but I just wasn't willing to exceed my top training intensity. I passed a few people who I kind of felt like I should check on, and I didn't want to be one of them. Not worth it. (There were paramedics, if needed, BTW; I'm not that heartless.)

A few floors from the top, I could hear high school aged volunteers boisterously singing along to "We Are the Champions." They apparently saved the most enthusiastic volunteers for the top. Maybe it was the altitude! But the high-fives felt good, and voila, next thing I knew, I was reintroduced to sunlight.

After the Climb

Raising over $2000 for a great cause was its own reward. Completing the 788 feet of vertical elevation was its own reward. But in that moment, the gorgeous views on a (partly) sunny Seattle day was an extra special reward for a great day.

Thanks once again for your support, especially to those who were so generous with their charitable gifts and to my family who have supported me non-stop in preparation for this event.

I'll leave you with the views from atop the Columbia Tower...

To the east...

Lake Washington and the Cascade Mountains

To the south...

Mt. Rainier peeking out on the left, Seahawks and Mariners stadiums on the right

And to the west...

The gorgeous, snowcapped Olympic Mountains over Puget Sound

2500 Calories Wins the Pounds Off Playoff!!!

Details on the Scoreboard and Eating Plan Power Rankings pages.

I don't have a lot more to say, other than that I'm proud to have stuck with this and to have lost 25.9 pounds. Much more work to go, which I'll tell you about next Monday.

And oh yeah, I just finished The Big Climb! So a big day today. There will be a full post on The Big Climb tomorrow.

Thanks for your support everybody!

Stuff I Read Friday

Here's what's in store for the blog over the next few posts:

• Sunday (3/20): Short post to crown the winner of the P.O.P. tournament.
• Monday (3/21): Recap of The Big Climb
• Monday (3/28): The new eating plan
• Monday (4/4): The next exercise challenge

To the links!

Excellent posts on the Japan tragedy by my friends Clyde and Michele. I left my thoughts in a comment on Clyde's.

What will you be doing when you're 100 years old? Bill Geist featured a man who is downhill skiing in the winter and biking 17 miles a day in the summer. So I guess maybe there's something to this exercise thing. (video)

Like animals and need exercise? Tara Parker-Pope says, "Forget the treadmill. Get a dog."


Baseball in the Northwest will break your heart. That's what I wrote last year, and it may be the most enduring words I write on this blog. Last Saturday, my son's Little League game was rained out, rescheduled for Sunday, rained out Sunday, rescheduled for Monday, and finally cancelled for good when the field was declared unplayable. Summer weather in Seattle is spectacular. Spring, not so much.

10 Lessons Learned from the Pounds Off Playoff

Fifty-nine weeks ago, I started a single elimination tournament of sixteen eating plans to learn about healthy eating. I included plans that ranged from calorie counting, to eating healthy foods, to behavior modifications, to tricks and maybe an urban legend or two. The point was to lose weight, but it was more important to me that I gained a new perspective on health. One of my rules has been "no extraordinary measures," meaning that I'd rather not lose weight than do something that wouldn't be sustainable. The purpose is to set me up for long-term health. Sure, I'd like to have lost more weight in the last year, but I have learned lessons that are more valuable and will help me land on a plan that will sustain me through "phase two" - sustained weight loss - which starts in one week.

Here are the lessons I have learned:

10. Get started and stay the course. This is the most important part. I spent many years planning to start a diet "tomorrow" or abandoning a plan before it had a chance to take hold.

9. Eating healthy and losing weight are related, but different. It takes more than eating healthy food. Eating food that's "good for you" is a great start and it has its own rewards. However, healthy food alone won't keep your weigh-ins on the downward trajectory if you're still consuming more than you need.

8. Exercise, just don't expect to lose weight because of it. My body has changed for the better over the last 14 months and I attribute it more to exercise than weight loss. I am more confident in my future health, which I attribute as much to exercise as my current weight loss. But my record keeping (and a little stats know how) show that minutes per week of exercise explains less than 1% of my weight loss. Your results may vary, but the point generally holds.  There are many reasons to exercise. Do it. But remember that 3500 calories is equivalent to one pound, and it's a lot easier to get to 3500 calories by cutting out food than through exercise.

7. Take weekly weigh-ins with a grain of salt. Weighing yourself is an amazingly powerful way to track your health, given how easy it is to do and how consistently weight and health are linked. And frequent monitoring is a best practice in most fields. But remember that your previous weigh-in and your current weigh-in are both subject to fluctuation that sometimes exceeds your weight loss goal for the week.

6. Stopping one thing isn't enough. Oh, if it were only that easy. It certainly sounds good and makes logical sense. "If I could just cut out ________, I'd lose weight."  The blank could be sweets, fast food, late-night snacking, or anything that has added to your waistline. This all makes sense, except if you replace your guilty pleasure with other food, you just won't lose weight.

5. Over-eaters will find any loopholes in an eating plan. Keeping with the example above, when I cut out eating after 8:00, I increased my consumption before 8:00. When I stopped eating out, I ate more at home. When I watched my portion sizes at meals, I increased my snacking. Only comprehensive plans that helped manage my eating all day long ended up being truly effective.

4. If you are overweight, you probably are not an intuitive eater. It sounds so good. The last diet book I read before stating the P.O.P. extolled the virtues of relearning how to eat to satiation (and stop). Babies can do it, right? Well, I don't know how that broke in me or when, but every time I try intuitive eating it takes about a half-day before I'm gaining weight. And judging by my fellow weight-loss bloggers, I'm not the only one.

3. A plan that's not in tune with your life can never work. I experience irregular schedules, with work meetings at mealtimes, kids who are always in activities, and a wonderful wife whose career frequently requires her to work nights and weekends. There are stressful times and busy times and times when I travel. I wouldn't give any of that up, so I need a plan that helps. Note that I didn't say keeps me in line - I have to do that - but my eating plan needs to be a realistic support that helps me when life happens. When I was on "No Eating Out," it got to the point where it didn't matter if I was losing weight or not, it just couldn't work for me.

2. Processed foods are weight bombs. I believe the factor most responsible for our obesity epidemic is processed food. Yes, we consume too much food, but it's almost always the processed food we overdose on. Yes, our society moves too fast and doesn't take the time to savor our meals, but processed food enables that. Yes, we're sedentary, but often with a bag of chips in our hand. Processed foods are weight bombs, and junk food is the A-bomb. The challenge for the contemporary American is to find enough food that's not processed to live on. If you're sensitive to weight gain, your life depends on it.

1. Everything counts. The human body is an amazing system, specifically its ability to reflect your eating and activity in the size of your body. If you eat a few too many Hershey's kisses, your body reflects it. If you cut out the extra serving of pasta, your body reflects it. If you eat early or late, in three large meals or six small ones, processed foods or organic, raw or cooked, eating out or in, moving or not, your body reflects it. The only plans that will ultimately work are the plans that account for everything. That's why calorie counting worked for me and not eating processed food worked, but not as well. That's why plans with loopholes are doomed. Everything counts, and your body knows it. Your eating plan needs to know it as well.

Stuff I Read Friday

To the links!

Foothills Trail with Mt. Rainier (Seattle Times)

There are some great bike trails in the Seattle area. The Seattle Times featured five last week. I've been on the one in this picture, which I blogged about last summer.

Message to the NFL: I don't care. I love Rita's Italian water ice when I'm back in Philly, but they close for the off-season and we get it. Apparently the NFL thinks we should care about whether they are locked out in March. We don't. I don't need to follow the free agency of Jeremy Shockey, I just don't.

More thoughts about anonymous commenters from Slate. Two months ago, I linked to a writer who tracked down an anonymous commenter. Farhad Manjoo's take is that shutting off anonymous comments by requiring authentication through Facebook, Yahoo, or Google accounts, raises the level of discourse. It'll be a while before this one's settled.

To 1% of my readers, Beyond the Boxscore has published a pronunciation guide to sabermetric stats. Must admit I have been saying BABIP wrong.

How Do You Climb 1311 Stairs?

One step at a time.

I did it. Saturday I climbed 1311 stairs! With two weeks to spare, I've climbed the equivalent of The Big Climb in the Columbia Tower.

Diana's post this week got me thinking about the mental game of The Big Climb. Her co-worker, who has done the event three times, considers it 70% mental and only 30% physical. In my experience, it is mental, and here's how I do it.

Break it Down

The saying is "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." The same goes for endurance physical tasks. When I get ahead of myself, I get into trouble. I think ahead. I wonder how I can do 700 more steps when I'm already perspiring. But I can always do one more step. One step 1,311 times is so much more doable than 1,311 steps one time.

Subdivide the Task (and keep track)



My training site is a 68 step climb behind an elementary school. Rather than count 1,311 steps, I count 20 flights (20x68=1360). I basically have added a flight a week since starting at around 10 flights.

Believe it or not, it's easy to get lost - "Is this 11 or 12?" - so I've adopted a device to keep track. I envision a picture of a uniform number at the start of each flight.

Here are my favorites (guess where I'm from?):

1. Richie Ashburn. Hall of Fame center fielder for the "Whiz Kids" 1950's Phillies and, with Harry Kalas, the childhood announcer for my hometown team.
2. Kenji Johjima. Mariners catcher with a name my kids like. 
3. Babe Ruth. Did you know the first uniform numbers represented the batting order...
4. Lou Gehrig. ...that's why the Bambino was three and the Iron Horse was four.
5. Donovan McNabb. The dude didn't get enough credit.
6. Julius Erving. Dr. J. was my first favorite player in any sport.
7. Ron Jaworski. The blue collar Eagles quarterback from back in the day has built a great career breaking it down on ESPN.
8. Cal Ripken. Gehrig and Ripken certainly represent the steadiness needed to climb 1311 stairs.
9. Roy Hobbs. No, he's not real, but he is The Natural.
10. Jake Locker. My sons and I saw him throw 5 TDs in a double OT win this season. Nuf said.
11. Edgar Martinez. The best right handed hitter I've ever seen, non-Pujols division.
12. Randall Cunningham. Three Eagles QBs in my top 12? Nobody said this would be fair.
13. Wilt Chamberlain. 1,311 is not a lot to him, if you know what I mean.
14. Pete Rose. The Phillies version, pre-gambling, just Charlie Hustle.
15. Me. I wore 15 as a teen baseball player. They had 15 uniforms, numbered smallest to largest. Yeah.
16. Joe Montana. As a child of the 80's, I was in awe.
17. Harold Carmichael. Caught balls from Jaworski, a larger than life tandem at the time.
18. Peyton Manning. My sons' Joe Montana.
19. Greg Luzinski. Nicknamed "The Bull" for a reason, I doubt in his prime he could have done The Big Climb.
20. Mike Schmidt. Apologies to Brooks Robinson fans, he was the greatest third baseman of all time. Between my first two decades in Philly and next two in Seattle, I've seen Schmidt, Carlton, Griffey, Rodriguez, Johnson, Martinez, and Ichiro in their prime. Not bad.

Maybe for you it's birthdays or songs with each number, but when you can turn the number into a thought, it's much easier to keep track.

Final Four Update: What Happened?


After I walked an even 1360 stairs on Saturday, I took my 10 year old to baseball practice, which gave me two hours to hang out with my eight year old. He loves baseball, in an obsessive way that reminds me of myself as a kid. So we held a parallel practice, complete with throwing, fielding, and hitting. The latter in particular was intense, as between throwing batting practice and shagging balls (we only had three, so I was always moving),  I got in quite a workout. By the night, I was exhausted. The next morning I was sore all over, particularly from my mid-back on down. But if felt good, a post-workout kind of good ache, until I got on the scale for my Sunday morning weigh-in. Up 3.4 pounds since last week, nearly wiping out the 3.6 pound loss I accomplished the week before. For the two week period, 2500 Calories netted a loss of only 0.2 pounds. Huh?

I'm not sure what to say. Of the eight weeks I've done 2500 Calories during the P.O.P., this is the only time I've gained weight. Did I add muscle? Retain water? Get too many of my calories from ice cream and pretzels? It's probably a combination of these things. I did go over 2500 calories a few times, but nowhere near the 11,000 calorie overload it's supposed to take to gain over three pounds. I've lost almost 18 pounds on 2500 Calories over eight weeks. Let's figure this week was the anomaly.

Now, I'm onto the final two weeks of the P.O.P., the last plan, Three Strikes. If you're new here, follow the link to see what it's all about.

Stuff I Read Friday

Last week I stated:

"This week's material is thematic to both The Big Climb and my current 2500 Calories plan. Next week I'll be delightfully random again, I promise." 

True to my word, these are random indeed. To the links!

Sunday's New York Times Magazine took on "mommy bloggers." Specifically, the "Queen of the Mommy Bloggers, Heather Armstrong, who has turned her family tales, advertisements, books, and endorsements into an estimated million dollar business. The feature length article acquaints you with several successful bloggers and the techniques they've used to generate big time followings. I won't do what they do, but I also won't judge. This piece is a revealing read.

Before there were bloggers, there was Bill James. The baseball stats maven and writer extraordinaire is still at it, and his latest book tackles one of his other passions. Great profile by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.


We're in the heart of "he's in the best shape of his life" season in baseball. It's great they're getting healthy, but it's rare that the new body translates to regular season success. Mostly, there are a lot of baseball writers in Florida and Arizona, and they have to write about something. But don't tell Jeff Francoeur that.

Fortunately, nobody responded to my last post with a recommendation to do the Chilly Hilly next year. It's a 33-mile February bike event on Bainbridge Island, WA. This year, the temperature barely edged out the mileage.

And the final link is the most random of all. Apparently, there were somewhat serious plans to build a floating stadium on Puget Sound, docked near the Space Needle, complete with monorail access and a ferry terminal. As much as this seems like the product of Woodstock era self-medication, I guess there are houseboats, so maybe it's not a crazy idea. Hey, it would have been way cooler than the Kingdome.