August 3, 2025 • 28 mins
The weight loss journey never follows a perfectly straight line. After a three-week adventure through Portugal and Spain, I stepped on the scale expecting the worst. The number showed 255 pounds—15 pounds heavier than when I left—sending me into a momentary panic. Yet amazingly, within just five days of returning to my normal routine, I was back down to 245.
This experience brilliantly illustrates one of the most important lessons about sustained weight management: what happens on vacation stays on vacation, particularly when it comes to water retention! My swollen feet, long flights, and yes, indulging in more refined carbohydrates than I'd had in two years didn't actually create the fat gain I initially feared. My body was simply holding onto fluid after extensive travel and altitude changes.
Throughout my Portuguese and Spanish adventure, I consciously stepped away from my usual fasting routine to fully experience local cuisines. Scuba diving in both the Atlantic and Mediterranean, exploring Lisbon's charming streets, and sampling port wine in Porto created memories worth the temporary adjustment to my eating patterns. However, I noticed the absence of my supplement routine affected my mental state more than expected—a fascinating reminder of how interconnected our nutrition is with our mood and energy levels.
What does it mean to be consistent on a weight loss journey? After shedding over 300 pounds, I've learned that consistency isn't about the scale consistently going down. Rather, it's about making that commitment to yourself every single day, regardless of circumstances. When the scale showed 255, I recommitted—restarting my lemon water routine, taking my supplements, and resuming my intermittent fasting schedule. By understanding the science behind weight fluctuations, we can approach these inevitable variations with wisdom rather than panic.
Have you experienced dramatic weight fluctuations after travel? How do you handle the emotional impact of temporary weight gain? Subscribe to Hacking the Fat Man to join me on this final leg of my journey toward my goal weight and the sustainable practices that will keep me there.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Hi, welcome to episode six of Hacking the Fat
man.
First I want to apologize forsome radio silence.
It's been several weeks since Iactually did an episode, not
that anyone remembers.
But in episode five I talkedabout taking a vacation.
We took three weeks to go toPortugal and Spain and initially
I was planning to skip a weekand then do a week or two on the
(00:52):
road.
The difficulties or thechallenges I was having, and
really it was too much, Ibrought the equipment but never
really had the opportunity toset up or internet connectivity
or just to be honest, I wastired.
There there were we.
We did a lot.
The trip was fantastic.
(01:12):
We uh went to lisbon first,spent a day up in Porto, which
is the region where they makeport wine, did a factory tour
there the Sandeman Port and thatwas really good.
That was a lot of fun.
And then we stayed in Lisbonfor a couple of days.
(01:34):
I went down South um to PortoMayo um and actually got in uh,
two days of scuba diving.
Four dives uh, in the in theAtlantic.
Uh, the first dive was crazy.
Uh, the visibility was zero.
Um, it was first time I've dovewhere I was blind pretty much
the whole time.
The second, third and fourthdives are better.
Um, I could see a lot more and,and you know, I think I put out
(01:58):
on the Hacking the Fat manvideo daily diary.
I put a couple of those divesin.
Then we went to Seville for acouple of days beautiful city
and then over to Barcelona toend of the trip.
I did end up going up to abeautiful place called Tossa de
Mar up going up to a beautifulplace called Tossa de Mar,
(02:20):
that's about an hour hour and 15minutes north of Barcelona and
got to dive in the Mediterraneanand that was beautiful, it was
a lot of fun.
Before I left, just to give youa status update.
So before I left, I weighedmyself and I was 240.
I didn't do a single fastduring the trip.
I'm going to be honest, Iprobably didn't even do a micro
fast during the trip.
(02:40):
I kind of let myself I don'twant to say go but it and I
freaked.
But I calmed myself down,realized when you travel there's
a lot of fluid, especially forme at my age.
I get fluid in the legs,especially for me at my age.
(03:20):
I get fluid in the legs and alot of that was a lot of the
weight was that I weighed myselfthis morning and I'm 245.
So I, you know pretty much backto where I was.
This is also remember.
After surgery a month ago I hadgained 20 pounds.
So I still think I have somefluid floating around.
I can still feel it up here.
I'm not really too worriedabout it, you know, but this
(03:43):
happens right Every day.
You just kind of wake up andyou deal with what life has
given you, and so I'm sitting at245 right now.
I'll just continue to work onit.
Hopefully the goal is still to,by the end of the year, get
close to 200 or at least under220.
So I'm still working on thatand, yeah, the break.
(04:04):
Also, you know, some interestingthings happened during the trip
.
One is I still have a problemtaking my supplements when I
travel.
I had packed it, I'd done thedaily, you know, sorted them,
done the daily organizers, and Istill probably only took about
a third of supplements I shouldhave been taking through the
whole trip.
And as the trip progressed Istarted noticing that I started
(04:27):
having some bad thoughts.
Not bad thoughts, not bad badthoughts, but just, you know, I
was getting tired and I wasgetting.
Yeah, I can't really explain it.
Anyway, didn't want to do thesupplements started having
thoughts.
I probably had more refinedcarbohydrates during this trip
(04:47):
than I've had in the last twoyears combined, but it was good.
I'm in a country that I may notget to again Hopefully I will
at some point but you know, I'mgoing to enjoy the food, I'm
going to enjoy the food, I'mgoing to enjoy the cuisine.
All in all, I think I was for avacation overall pretty good.
The refined carbs and thealcohol is probably what led to
(05:08):
me not losing weight.
Yeah, cause the five dives Idid actually was pretty heavy
exercise.
So, even given all that and notlosing weight and coming in
neutral, I guess, yeah, that'sfun, fun, fun, fun things.
The other thing is and you knowit gave me some time to think
(05:30):
about it you know I was thinkingabout this.
I was getting frustrated that Icouldn't, couldn't do the
podcast and I realized gettingfrustrated that I couldn't do
the podcast, and I realized Ihad I don't know how to describe
it I started to make this intosomething more than I originally
intended.
You know I started oh, I've gotto do research and I've got to
have something interesting tosay, and I still hope this is
(05:52):
interesting, but it wasn'treally the reason why I started
this podcast.
Going back to episode one whenI talked about it, I started
this because I really am not I'mgetting better at it but I
wasn't sure of why the diet wasworking at this point.
I had spent my whole lifedieting.
I talked to you guys, I was aswimmer, I was a water polo
(06:13):
player.
I talked to you guys, I was aswimmer, I was a water polo
player.
And yet somehow this is allstarting to work and work
naturally, and there was a lotof thought put into it, right, I
made sure that it was part ofmy life, part of every day, and
it's got to be easy and it's gotto bring me joy and all the
things that we've talked aboutin the previous episodes.
(06:34):
But I really wasn't quite surewhy it was working.
And ultimately, once I get downto my goal right, I'm not going
to say I'm not near my goal I'velost over 300 pounds, yay, but
I still have another 60 to go 70.
And I've talked about thisbefore is at some point I'm
(07:00):
going to stop looking at pounds,my weight, and start focusing
on my fat percentage, and I'mthinking somewhere in the 15%
fat range or 12%, something likethat.
I don't think I've everactually I was going to say I've
never been under 20% fat ratio,but my sophomore year I
definitely was.
But my sophomore year in highschool I was at a 29-inch waist
(07:25):
and I was basically starvingmyself.
I was anorexic, I was bulimic,I was going weeks without food
and still working out Completelystupid.
So, anyway, but the goal is toget down, get my fat down,
percentage down.
And at that point I think iswhen I say, okay, I've arrived,
I've accomplished what I wantedto accomplish.
(07:47):
Yeah, so you know.
And so, thinking back on this,and you know, spending the time
during the vacation and thinkingabout what I've been doing here
with the podcast, yeah, Ireally, at that point, once I,
once I get to the goal, whateverthat goal is, I get to the goal
, whatever that goal is, I planon writing a book about it,
right?
And at that point I'll put inrecipes and I'll put in things
(08:11):
like that.
And so the original idea of thispodcast was just to help me
record this last little bit, the60 pounds that I have left.
I have to transition from beingin weight loss mode.
Know, I keep saying that itneeds to be an everyday thing,
but at some point I'll stopbeing in weight loss and start
(08:31):
being in maintenance mode.
At that point, do I continue totake the ZEP bound?
These are still questions Ihave.
Do I cut back on the ZEP bound,you know?
And so I really wanted to dothis podcast to help me document
that.
I really wanted to do thispodcast to help me document that
, and I hope you know that allof you will want to join me on
this, just to see if I actuallymake it.
But yeah, I was starting to cutcorners a little bit Not cut
(08:54):
corners, but you know, it's oneof those things where, like, if
you have a weekly check-in, Iwas trying to be more than I was
ready to be here.
This is a side, not even a sidegig for me.
This is I'm doing this in myspare time.
Half the time I'm talking I'mactually talking to myself,
though I hope you get value outof what I'm discussing, but yeah
(09:16):
, so I just wanted to kind ofreset expectation.
If I miss a couple of weeks,it's okay, my apologies if
you're really into hearing metalk, but I will try to do this
weekly.
Like I said, I want to documentwhat I faced during the week and
, in a year from now, be able togo through these and use this
(09:40):
information and what I'vecaptured as the basis for a book
.
So you get to come along withme on that.
You'll be like hey, when youread the book you'll be like hey
.
I remember when Drew wasactually dealing with this and
talking about it.
So on that, I've kind of givenyou a status.
I'm sitting at 245.
I'm happy with that in thesense of well, I'm much happier
(10:02):
with 245 than 255.
That did worry me.
I had a moment of yeah, it wasa bad moment.
Monday was not a good day for me.
In fact, I was trying to fastthat day and I just happened to
weigh myself.
I was like, let me see where Iwas, even though in my head I
knew that I had gained liquid inthe body, I had swelling, and
(10:27):
I'm like let's just see where Iam and I was not expecting 250.
From less than five days laterI'm at 245.
So and I've had one fast daythis week, one micro fast day.
Pretty much it's been a standardweek, as I've discussed.
So Monday I try to micro orfast.
(10:48):
If I can't do it Monday, then Ifast Tuesday.
I then do a micro fast.
Micro fasts are just to remindeveryone.
A micro fast to me, by mydefinition, is, is somewhere
between 500 and 1200 calories ora thousand calories.
So I've had two of those thisweek.
I've had a couple of keto dayswhere I focused just solely on
protein, and we're heading intothe weekend and I'll probably
(11:11):
just stick with keto.
I'm going to try to be a littlebit better than I've been.
Obviously, over the last threeweeks I have not been good at
all, so I'll get back to that.
So yeah, this week was prettychallenging.
I mean, I'm coming off thetravel, I'm tired.
It took a lot out of me.
My feet are swollen, my legsare swollen.
The flight from Barcelona weflew from Barcelona.
(11:33):
That's a two and a half hourflight to London.
We had a five hour layover inLondon.
This is the flight back A fivehour layover in London, and then
we had the 12 hours from Londonto LA, and then we had the 12
hours from London to LA and thenI had to get back on a plane
the next day, fly out to mysister-in-law's in Vegas so that
I can get my car and my dogsand drive home and if you've
(11:54):
ever driven out of Vegas on aSunday, it's always bad.
This day was a lot worse than Ihad ever seen it.
On that outside of a holidayweekend, there were literally
seven accidents.
It took me seven hours to drivethe puppies back home.
So I was pretty exhausted bythe time Monday came.
(12:16):
And then stepping on the scalewhich I probably shouldn't have
done, even though I knew betterthan that and getting that
result, it sent me into a spiral.
I'm not going to lie.
I got very frustrated.
I got very, and after a while Ijust calmed down.
I thought about everything thatwas going on and just got this
(12:37):
and I think I talked about thisin episode two or three where
consistency isn't consistentlygoing down.
There's never a straight line.
There's always ups and downs.
Life's full of it.
We know this is ups and downs.
Consistency is about makingthat decision every single day,
with whatever you're facing, togo and tackle it.
And by the time Monday afternooncame around, I went okay, I
(13:00):
haven't fasted pretty much forthe month of July.
I haven't been doing any lemonwater for the better part of
four weeks.
I had some lemon water or somecitrus while I was in Portugal
and Spain, but it wasn't thedaily consistent that I've been
doing, and you know I swear byit.
I actually think it helps withmy appetite control, along with
(13:25):
the supplements.
I think the supplements alsohelp with my mood, and so I had
just gotten myself all out ofwhack and so Monday evening I
just stopped and I went, okay,went and made myself some lemon
water, went and took mysupplements, went to sleep,
slept great because I wasexhausted.
And then every day I've justbeen repeating that I haven't
(13:46):
been doing the daily videodiaries yet I'll probably wait.
I've got a couple of thingscoming up next week that it's my
40th high school reunion, soI'm heading down to my hometown
of Costa Mesa, california, goMustangs and seeing some friends
I haven't seen in a very longtime.
So again, another week of I'lltry to be good, I'll be good for
(14:10):
the most part, but, yeah,probably not a time I really
want to put a camera on myself,but we'll see.
We'll see how it goes.
No, I'll probably won't bedoing that.
So, yeah, that's been the week.
It's been very challenging andagain I just am reminding myself
(14:30):
that I need to make thiscommitment every single day and
that you know you can'tnecessarily.
You can take a day off now andagain, but at some point you
know I will not be gainingweight again.
So that the two 55 was kind ofa a a wake-up call for me.
Not a wake-up call, but uh.
Well, there was a wake-up call.
It was, uh, wait a minute,we're not doing this, we're not
(14:51):
going back up and wait,absolutely not.
And I just kind of redoubleddown and made that commitment
again.
Um, so, looking forward to it,I'm feeling good, I'm happy.
You know, like I said, fivedays, 245.
Did I lose 10 pounds?
No, it wasn't fat, it was justwater retention, I suspect.
If I suspect, I gained maybe apound or two from from the
(15:17):
vacation.
So during the trip I tried tostay up on my reading, looking
for articles talking aboutweight loss or or specifically
around, either keto, cyclicalketo or intermittent fasting or
fasting, and one came out.
Actually, it came out July 30th.
That was pretty interesting.
I've had questions over theyears.
So I mentioned that I swam andplayed water polo and I was
(15:40):
anorexic and bulimic during thattime.
So one of the things that'salways bothered me not bothered
me but I had questions about wassupposedly you can't build
muscle without a caloric overage.
If you want to build muscle,you have to eat more than your
body expends and then do theworkouts and then you get to
build muscle.
(16:00):
Obviously, if you want to loseweight and I've talked about
this in the prior podcast, thatI think it's like 3,500 calories
you have to be in a deficit forevery 3,500 calories for every
pound, and so if you're in acaloric deficit, which is what
I've been doing, then you'lllose weight.
But one of the things I'venever really understood was well
(16:23):
, that's all timing right, so Ieat fairly big meals.
When I do eat, I eat fairly bigmeals.
I'm not the 200 to 300 caloriemeal.
I tend to go for five to 600calories per meal.
Sometimes I'll even go up to1200 calories, depending on what
kind of day it is and what I'mfeeling.
So anyway, I came across thisarticle that touched upon it.
(16:45):
It's out of Men's Health,published on July 30th.
It's by Andrew Heffernan andCorey Ritchie and medically
reviewed by Aaron Kinney, andthey are talking about well, the
title is let me make sure I cansee it what to know about
intermittent fasting and yourworkouts.
They worked with Luca DonickLakers over the summer, who was
(17:09):
doing intermittent fasting tohelp get in better shape but
then also was trying to work out, and so they actually touched
upon this, and so there weresome interesting things that I
got about it.
So first is definition ofintermittent fasting.
There's a lot of differenttypes of fasting.
I use the term microfast andI'm going to be honest, I
(17:29):
invented it.
I don't even know if it's areal thing.
It is a real thing because itis to me right, and a microfast
to me is I'm fasting, but I'mgoing to stay within a very
limited range of 500 to 1,000calories.
Intermittent fasting is prettymuch what I do every single day.
That's not a pure fasting dayand what I mean by that is so
(17:52):
intermittent fasting.
There's different schedulesthat can be intermittent fasting
, but the most basic one is youonly eat for an eight hour
period during an eight hourperiod during the day and I've
talked about that I try to tendto get most of my calories in
the morning or early afternoon,and by four or five o'clock if I
haven't eaten or I don't haveany calories or try not to have
(18:14):
any calories after five o'clock.
So that's intermittent fastingis just this you fast for 16
hours, you eat for eight hours.
So that was interesting to me,that there's actually a makes
sense, a definition out therefor it.
They go into the benefits of itand I've talked about it by
restricting our calories.
(18:34):
Getting our calories earlier inthe day we tend to avoid the.
You know I ate at eight o'clockat night.
I had 800 calories.
I go to sleep and that's alljust going to turn to fat.
So we tend to use more of thecalories for exercise or for
activities and it helps usreduce.
For me personally, it helpsreduce the weight.
(18:54):
But it also you know, there'sevidence that you know I found
it.
It helps lower my bloodpressure.
At my peak weight I was.
I think my A1C was 6'7", whichis literally walking into the
6'8 is diabetes, or at leastthat's what my doctor said.
So I was walking through.
The way he put it was I was inthe doorway heading towards
(19:16):
diabetes.
Last time I had it measured wasApril and I was 5'3" and so
that's going well.
But it also can.
So it can also help withdiabetes or lower your bread
pressure.
The one interesting thing was itsays it helps maintain muscle
mass and they kind of get intowhy that is a little bit,
(19:38):
basically, by doing theintermittent fasting, the 16-8,
or whatever version ofintermittent fasting you're
doing, it helps preserve themuscle mass because you're not
totally starving yourself andyour body tends to not.
16 hours is not the point whereyour body's going to start
(19:58):
devouring muscle.
But they do talk later on that,if your goal is to maximize
muscle, intermittent fasting isthere are some what they call
them roadblocks or some potholesthat you got to watch out for.
And really, if you think aboutit, what they said was it makes
(20:18):
sense, basically, you don't wantto do your workouts at hour 15
of your fast because your body'snot there and your calories
aren't there, the carbohydratesaren't there and you could burn
muscle faster.
Their suggestion was that yousandwich pun intended, you're
(20:40):
eating between your workouts.
So if you are going to work out, you should eat just before the
workout and then you should doyour recovery thing and that
should all be within theeight-hour window of your
intermittent, your eatingportion of your intermittent
fast.
And the other thing that Ifound interesting and I'm going
(21:00):
to research a little bit morewas they were saying that even
though you, you're fasting andyou're you're in a caloric
deprivation that lifting weights, even in that uh uh state,
actually helps preserve muscle,and that's something I'm going
to.
They don't really go into itmuch further there, but it
(21:21):
that's an interesting why.
Why sort of makes sense to me.
But you know, I just saidearlier that if you know you did
something, if you tried to liftat hour 15 of your fast, you
might burn more muscle.
So anyway, I've got to researchthat a little bit more.
But that was anotherinteresting takeaway out of the
article.
So yeah, basically they say,eat before you lift weights,
(21:43):
sandwich your workout betweenthe meals.
But they also then said thatyou can do cardio, that it like
that Doesn't really burn downthe muscle, so that is okay, to
(22:09):
do cardio during a fasting.
This was all just interestingfor me in the sense of, as I'm
starting to.
You know, I've talked about thedives that I did.
That's really kind of my future.
I absolutely 100% love scubadiving.
I am in my natural habitat inthe water.
I still have things I need towork on.
(22:35):
My knees still aren't there yet.
A year ago I was walking with acane.
I don't need the cane anymore,but I was having problems
carrying the scuba gear andgetting out of the water.
That's still an issue for it.
We were in Pasadena Mara out ofthe water.
That's still an issue for it.
We were in Paso de Mar it was ashore dive.
In Puerto Mayo it was pontoonboats, a boat dive.
So anyway, so I still havethings to work on.
(22:56):
But as I'm starting to move intoa more active lifestyle up
until now I've 300 pounds.
I barely outside of just doinggardening and getting up and
moving.
I haven't really doneactivities.
I haven't done the exercise andI've talked about this in the
previous podcast.
Right, if you're exercisingjust to lose weight, you're
doing it wrong.
I want to exercise.
I want to do activities that Ienjoy, that bring me happiness.
(23:20):
I don't want to have to get upand well, I've got to run three
miles today because my dietrequires me to run three miles.
I'm not.
I'm never going to do thatagain.
I'll go run three miles to helpmy knees so that I can go do
shore diving.
I know it's just mind games,but it matters to me so as I
move into it.
So these are interesting and itdid was.
(23:40):
It's been a long time questionI've had of.
You know I think I built muscleeven when I was fasting, and
now this kind of explains it wasmost of the time.
Even in my youth, in mytwenties, in college, I tended
to eat.
Actually, very rarely did I eatbefore.
If you've ever done somehardcore swimming or some
(24:01):
hardcore audio, eating is nevera good thing because you'll end
up just throwing it up.
So I tended to eat, but I wouldeat immediately after and I
think that's why I was able to.
I knew I had built muscle andlost weight and so it was a
question I have and this kind ofhelped me understand and think
about what it is and why thathappened.
(24:23):
So that helped answer somequestions.
Anyway, interesting that Luca isdoing the intermittent fasting.
Also, now that I understand thedefinition of intermittent
fasting, I realize outside of apure fasting day, I'm doing it
every single day.
Even on the days I say thatit's free reign on a Saturday or
Sunday, I'm still limiting itto the eight hour window.
(24:47):
I very rarely will haveanything If I know I'm going to
a party or a dinner forsomething.
I know that dinner is sixo'clock.
I probably won't eat anythinguntil then and even then I'll
keep it under a thousandcalories.
So I technically still is it.
Yes, it's late in the evening.
(25:07):
Yes, I could tend.
That's why I kind of tend to ifit's a late dinner, late meal
in the evening, I tend to makesure to not quite eat as much as
I do or as I could.
Anyway, I found it interestingMore articles on intermittent
fasting, more articles on theexercise and how it all works.
(25:28):
So that's it.
That was this week.
We'll see what next week.
Like I said, next week I'mheading down to my hometown,
costa Mesa.
I'm going to be down there andfor my 40th high school reunion.
Yes, I'm old.
I look forward to having somegood times with people and
seeing everyone.
So anyway, thank you all forlistening and we'll see you next
week.
All right, cheers, bye.
Hi, welcome to episode six of Hacking the Fat
man.
First I want to apologize forsome radio silence.
It's been several weeks since Iactually did an episode, not
that anyone remembers.
But in episode five I talkedabout taking a vacation.
We took three weeks to go toPortugal and Spain and initially
I was planning to skip a weekand then do a week or two on the
(00:52):
road.
The difficulties or thechallenges I was having, and
really it was too much, Ibrought the equipment but never
really had the opportunity toset up or internet connectivity
or just to be honest, I wastired.
There there were we.
We did a lot.
The trip was fantastic.
(01:12):
We uh went to lisbon first,spent a day up in Porto, which
is the region where they makeport wine, did a factory tour
there the Sandeman Port and thatwas really good.
That was a lot of fun.
And then we stayed in Lisbonfor a couple of days.
(01:34):
I went down South um to PortoMayo um and actually got in uh,
two days of scuba diving.
Four dives uh, in the in theAtlantic.
Uh, the first dive was crazy.
Uh, the visibility was zero.
Um, it was first time I've dovewhere I was blind pretty much
the whole time.
The second, third and fourthdives are better.
Um, I could see a lot more and,and you know, I think I put out
(01:58):
on the Hacking the Fat manvideo daily diary.
I put a couple of those divesin.
Then we went to Seville for acouple of days beautiful city
and then over to Barcelona toend of the trip.
I did end up going up to abeautiful place called Tossa de
Mar up going up to a beautifulplace called Tossa de Mar,
(02:20):
that's about an hour hour and 15minutes north of Barcelona and
got to dive in the Mediterraneanand that was beautiful, it was
a lot of fun.
Before I left, just to give youa status update.
So before I left, I weighedmyself and I was 240.
I didn't do a single fastduring the trip.
I'm going to be honest, Iprobably didn't even do a micro
fast during the trip.
(02:40):
I kind of let myself I don'twant to say go but it and I
freaked.
But I calmed myself down,realized when you travel there's
a lot of fluid, especially forme at my age.
I get fluid in the legs,especially for me at my age.
(03:20):
I get fluid in the legs and alot of that was a lot of the
weight was that I weighed myselfthis morning and I'm 245.
So I, you know pretty much backto where I was.
This is also remember.
After surgery a month ago I hadgained 20 pounds.
So I still think I have somefluid floating around.
I can still feel it up here.
I'm not really too worriedabout it, you know, but this
(03:43):
happens right Every day.
You just kind of wake up andyou deal with what life has
given you, and so I'm sitting at245 right now.
I'll just continue to work onit.
Hopefully the goal is still to,by the end of the year, get
close to 200 or at least under220.
So I'm still working on thatand, yeah, the break.
(04:04):
Also, you know, some interestingthings happened during the trip
.
One is I still have a problemtaking my supplements when I
travel.
I had packed it, I'd done thedaily, you know, sorted them,
done the daily organizers, and Istill probably only took about
a third of supplements I shouldhave been taking through the
whole trip.
And as the trip progressed Istarted noticing that I started
(04:27):
having some bad thoughts.
Not bad thoughts, not bad badthoughts, but just, you know, I
was getting tired and I wasgetting.
Yeah, I can't really explain it.
Anyway, didn't want to do thesupplements started having
thoughts.
I probably had more refinedcarbohydrates during this trip
(04:47):
than I've had in the last twoyears combined, but it was good.
I'm in a country that I may notget to again Hopefully I will
at some point but you know, I'mgoing to enjoy the food, I'm
going to enjoy the food, I'mgoing to enjoy the cuisine.
All in all, I think I was for avacation overall pretty good.
The refined carbs and thealcohol is probably what led to
(05:08):
me not losing weight.
Yeah, cause the five dives Idid actually was pretty heavy
exercise.
So, even given all that and notlosing weight and coming in
neutral, I guess, yeah, that'sfun, fun, fun, fun things.
The other thing is and you knowit gave me some time to think
(05:30):
about it you know I was thinkingabout this.
I was getting frustrated that Icouldn't, couldn't do the
podcast and I realized gettingfrustrated that I couldn't do
the podcast, and I realized Ihad I don't know how to describe
it I started to make this intosomething more than I originally
intended.
You know I started oh, I've gotto do research and I've got to
have something interesting tosay, and I still hope this is
(05:52):
interesting, but it wasn'treally the reason why I started
this podcast.
Going back to episode one whenI talked about it, I started
this because I really am not I'mgetting better at it but I
wasn't sure of why the diet wasworking at this point.
I had spent my whole lifedieting.
I talked to you guys, I was aswimmer, I was a water polo
(06:13):
player.
I talked to you guys, I was aswimmer, I was a water polo
player.
And yet somehow this is allstarting to work and work
naturally, and there was a lotof thought put into it, right, I
made sure that it was part ofmy life, part of every day, and
it's got to be easy and it's gotto bring me joy and all the
things that we've talked aboutin the previous episodes.
(06:34):
But I really wasn't quite surewhy it was working.
And ultimately, once I get downto my goal right, I'm not going
to say I'm not near my goal I'velost over 300 pounds, yay, but
I still have another 60 to go 70.
And I've talked about thisbefore is at some point I'm
(07:00):
going to stop looking at pounds,my weight, and start focusing
on my fat percentage, and I'mthinking somewhere in the 15%
fat range or 12%, something likethat.
I don't think I've everactually I was going to say I've
never been under 20% fat ratio,but my sophomore year I
definitely was.
But my sophomore year in highschool I was at a 29-inch waist
(07:25):
and I was basically starvingmyself.
I was anorexic, I was bulimic,I was going weeks without food
and still working out Completelystupid.
So, anyway, but the goal is toget down, get my fat down,
percentage down.
And at that point I think iswhen I say, okay, I've arrived,
I've accomplished what I wantedto accomplish.
(07:47):
Yeah, so you know.
And so, thinking back on this,and you know, spending the time
during the vacation and thinkingabout what I've been doing here
with the podcast, yeah, Ireally, at that point, once I,
once I get to the goal, whateverthat goal is, I get to the goal
, whatever that goal is, I planon writing a book about it,
right?
And at that point I'll put inrecipes and I'll put in things
(08:11):
like that.
And so the original idea of thispodcast was just to help me
record this last little bit, the60 pounds that I have left.
I have to transition from beingin weight loss mode.
Know, I keep saying that itneeds to be an everyday thing,
but at some point I'll stopbeing in weight loss and start
(08:31):
being in maintenance mode.
At that point, do I continue totake the ZEP bound?
These are still questions Ihave.
Do I cut back on the ZEP bound,you know?
And so I really wanted to dothis podcast to help me document
that.
I really wanted to do thispodcast to help me document that
, and I hope you know that allof you will want to join me on
this, just to see if I actuallymake it.
But yeah, I was starting to cutcorners a little bit Not cut
(08:54):
corners, but you know, it's oneof those things where, like, if
you have a weekly check-in, Iwas trying to be more than I was
ready to be here.
This is a side, not even a sidegig for me.
This is I'm doing this in myspare time.
Half the time I'm talking I'mactually talking to myself,
though I hope you get value outof what I'm discussing, but yeah
(09:16):
, so I just wanted to kind ofreset expectation.
If I miss a couple of weeks,it's okay, my apologies if
you're really into hearing metalk, but I will try to do this
weekly.
Like I said, I want to documentwhat I faced during the week and
, in a year from now, be able togo through these and use this
(09:40):
information and what I'vecaptured as the basis for a book
.
So you get to come along withme on that.
You'll be like hey, when youread the book you'll be like hey
.
I remember when Drew wasactually dealing with this and
talking about it.
So on that, I've kind of givenyou a status.
I'm sitting at 245.
I'm happy with that in thesense of well, I'm much happier
(10:02):
with 245 than 255.
That did worry me.
I had a moment of yeah, it wasa bad moment.
Monday was not a good day for me.
In fact, I was trying to fastthat day and I just happened to
weigh myself.
I was like, let me see where Iwas, even though in my head I
knew that I had gained liquid inthe body, I had swelling, and
(10:27):
I'm like let's just see where Iam and I was not expecting 250.
From less than five days laterI'm at 245.
So and I've had one fast daythis week, one micro fast day.
Pretty much it's been a standardweek, as I've discussed.
So Monday I try to micro orfast.
(10:48):
If I can't do it Monday, then Ifast Tuesday.
I then do a micro fast.
Micro fasts are just to remindeveryone.
A micro fast to me, by mydefinition, is, is somewhere
between 500 and 1200 calories ora thousand calories.
So I've had two of those thisweek.
I've had a couple of keto dayswhere I focused just solely on
protein, and we're heading intothe weekend and I'll probably
(11:11):
just stick with keto.
I'm going to try to be a littlebit better than I've been.
Obviously, over the last threeweeks I have not been good at
all, so I'll get back to that.
So yeah, this week was prettychallenging.
I mean, I'm coming off thetravel, I'm tired.
It took a lot out of me.
My feet are swollen, my legsare swollen.
The flight from Barcelona weflew from Barcelona.
(11:33):
That's a two and a half hourflight to London.
We had a five hour layover inLondon.
This is the flight back A fivehour layover in London, and then
we had the 12 hours from Londonto LA, and then we had the 12
hours from London to LA and thenI had to get back on a plane
the next day, fly out to mysister-in-law's in Vegas so that
I can get my car and my dogsand drive home and if you've
(11:54):
ever driven out of Vegas on aSunday, it's always bad.
This day was a lot worse than Ihad ever seen it.
On that outside of a holidayweekend, there were literally
seven accidents.
It took me seven hours to drivethe puppies back home.
So I was pretty exhausted bythe time Monday came.
(12:16):
And then stepping on the scalewhich I probably shouldn't have
done, even though I knew betterthan that and getting that
result, it sent me into a spiral.
I'm not going to lie.
I got very frustrated.
I got very, and after a while Ijust calmed down.
I thought about everything thatwas going on and just got this
(12:37):
and I think I talked about thisin episode two or three where
consistency isn't consistentlygoing down.
There's never a straight line.
There's always ups and downs.
Life's full of it.
We know this is ups and downs.
Consistency is about makingthat decision every single day,
with whatever you're facing, togo and tackle it.
And by the time Monday afternooncame around, I went okay, I
(13:00):
haven't fasted pretty much forthe month of July.
I haven't been doing any lemonwater for the better part of
four weeks.
I had some lemon water or somecitrus while I was in Portugal
and Spain, but it wasn't thedaily consistent that I've been
doing, and you know I swear byit.
I actually think it helps withmy appetite control, along with
(13:25):
the supplements.
I think the supplements alsohelp with my mood, and so I had
just gotten myself all out ofwhack and so Monday evening I
just stopped and I went, okay,went and made myself some lemon
water, went and took mysupplements, went to sleep,
slept great because I wasexhausted.
And then every day I've justbeen repeating that I haven't
(13:46):
been doing the daily videodiaries yet I'll probably wait.
I've got a couple of thingscoming up next week that it's my
40th high school reunion, soI'm heading down to my hometown
of Costa Mesa, california, goMustangs and seeing some friends
I haven't seen in a very longtime.
So again, another week of I'lltry to be good, I'll be good for
(14:10):
the most part, but, yeah,probably not a time I really
want to put a camera on myself,but we'll see.
We'll see how it goes.
No, I'll probably won't bedoing that.
So, yeah, that's been the week.
It's been very challenging andagain I just am reminding myself
(14:30):
that I need to make thiscommitment every single day and
that you know you can'tnecessarily.
You can take a day off now andagain, but at some point you
know I will not be gainingweight again.
So that the two 55 was kind ofa a a wake-up call for me.
Not a wake-up call, but uh.
Well, there was a wake-up call.
It was, uh, wait a minute,we're not doing this, we're not
(14:51):
going back up and wait,absolutely not.
And I just kind of redoubleddown and made that commitment
again.
Um, so, looking forward to it,I'm feeling good, I'm happy.
You know, like I said, fivedays, 245.
Did I lose 10 pounds?
No, it wasn't fat, it was justwater retention, I suspect.
If I suspect, I gained maybe apound or two from from the
(15:17):
vacation.
So during the trip I tried tostay up on my reading, looking
for articles talking aboutweight loss or or specifically
around, either keto, cyclicalketo or intermittent fasting or
fasting, and one came out.
Actually, it came out July 30th.
That was pretty interesting.
I've had questions over theyears.
So I mentioned that I swam andplayed water polo and I was
(15:40):
anorexic and bulimic during thattime.
So one of the things that'salways bothered me not bothered
me but I had questions about wassupposedly you can't build
muscle without a caloric overage.
If you want to build muscle,you have to eat more than your
body expends and then do theworkouts and then you get to
build muscle.
(16:00):
Obviously, if you want to loseweight and I've talked about
this in the prior podcast, thatI think it's like 3,500 calories
you have to be in a deficit forevery 3,500 calories for every
pound, and so if you're in acaloric deficit, which is what
I've been doing, then you'lllose weight.
But one of the things I'venever really understood was well
(16:23):
, that's all timing right, so Ieat fairly big meals.
When I do eat, I eat fairly bigmeals.
I'm not the 200 to 300 caloriemeal.
I tend to go for five to 600calories per meal.
Sometimes I'll even go up to1200 calories, depending on what
kind of day it is and what I'mfeeling.
So anyway, I came across thisarticle that touched upon it.
(16:45):
It's out of Men's Health,published on July 30th.
It's by Andrew Heffernan andCorey Ritchie and medically
reviewed by Aaron Kinney, andthey are talking about well, the
title is let me make sure I cansee it what to know about
intermittent fasting and yourworkouts.
They worked with Luca DonickLakers over the summer, who was
(17:09):
doing intermittent fasting tohelp get in better shape but
then also was trying to work out, and so they actually touched
upon this, and so there weresome interesting things that I
got about it.
So first is definition ofintermittent fasting.
There's a lot of differenttypes of fasting.
I use the term microfast andI'm going to be honest, I
(17:29):
invented it.
I don't even know if it's areal thing.
It is a real thing because itis to me right, and a microfast
to me is I'm fasting, but I'mgoing to stay within a very
limited range of 500 to 1,000calories.
Intermittent fasting is prettymuch what I do every single day.
That's not a pure fasting dayand what I mean by that is so
(17:52):
intermittent fasting.
There's different schedulesthat can be intermittent fasting
, but the most basic one is youonly eat for an eight hour
period during an eight hourperiod during the day and I've
talked about that I try to tendto get most of my calories in
the morning or early afternoon,and by four or five o'clock if I
haven't eaten or I don't haveany calories or try not to have
(18:14):
any calories after five o'clock.
So that's intermittent fastingis just this you fast for 16
hours, you eat for eight hours.
So that was interesting to me,that there's actually a makes
sense, a definition out therefor it.
They go into the benefits of itand I've talked about it by
restricting our calories.
(18:34):
Getting our calories earlier inthe day we tend to avoid the.
You know I ate at eight o'clockat night.
I had 800 calories.
I go to sleep and that's alljust going to turn to fat.
So we tend to use more of thecalories for exercise or for
activities and it helps usreduce.
For me personally, it helpsreduce the weight.
(18:54):
But it also you know, there'sevidence that you know I found
it.
It helps lower my bloodpressure.
At my peak weight I was.
I think my A1C was 6'7", whichis literally walking into the
6'8 is diabetes, or at leastthat's what my doctor said.
So I was walking through.
The way he put it was I was inthe doorway heading towards
(19:16):
diabetes.
Last time I had it measured wasApril and I was 5'3" and so
that's going well.
But it also can.
So it can also help withdiabetes or lower your bread
pressure.
The one interesting thing was itsays it helps maintain muscle
mass and they kind of get intowhy that is a little bit,
(19:38):
basically, by doing theintermittent fasting, the 16-8,
or whatever version ofintermittent fasting you're
doing, it helps preserve themuscle mass because you're not
totally starving yourself andyour body tends to not.
16 hours is not the point whereyour body's going to start
(19:58):
devouring muscle.
But they do talk later on that,if your goal is to maximize
muscle, intermittent fasting isthere are some what they call
them roadblocks or some potholesthat you got to watch out for.
And really, if you think aboutit, what they said was it makes
(20:18):
sense, basically, you don't wantto do your workouts at hour 15
of your fast because your body'snot there and your calories
aren't there, the carbohydratesaren't there and you could burn
muscle faster.
Their suggestion was that yousandwich pun intended, you're
(20:40):
eating between your workouts.
So if you are going to work out, you should eat just before the
workout and then you should doyour recovery thing and that
should all be within theeight-hour window of your
intermittent, your eatingportion of your intermittent
fast.
And the other thing that Ifound interesting and I'm going
(21:00):
to research a little bit morewas they were saying that even
though you, you're fasting andyou're you're in a caloric
deprivation that lifting weights, even in that uh uh state,
actually helps preserve muscle,and that's something I'm going
to.
They don't really go into itmuch further there, but it
(21:21):
that's an interesting why.
Why sort of makes sense to me.
But you know, I just saidearlier that if you know you did
something, if you tried to liftat hour 15 of your fast, you
might burn more muscle.
So anyway, I've got to researchthat a little bit more.
But that was anotherinteresting takeaway out of the
article.
So yeah, basically they say,eat before you lift weights,
(21:43):
sandwich your workout betweenthe meals.
But they also then said thatyou can do cardio, that it like
that Doesn't really burn downthe muscle, so that is okay, to
(22:09):
do cardio during a fasting.
This was all just interestingfor me in the sense of, as I'm
starting to.
You know, I've talked about thedives that I did.
That's really kind of my future.
I absolutely 100% love scubadiving.
I am in my natural habitat inthe water.
I still have things I need towork on.
(22:35):
My knees still aren't there yet.
A year ago I was walking with acane.
I don't need the cane anymore,but I was having problems
carrying the scuba gear andgetting out of the water.
That's still an issue for it.
We were in Pasadena Mara out ofthe water.
That's still an issue for it.
We were in Paso de Mar it was ashore dive.
In Puerto Mayo it was pontoonboats, a boat dive.
So anyway, so I still havethings to work on.
(22:56):
But as I'm starting to move intoa more active lifestyle up
until now I've 300 pounds.
I barely outside of just doinggardening and getting up and
moving.
I haven't really doneactivities.
I haven't done the exercise andI've talked about this in the
previous podcast.
Right, if you're exercisingjust to lose weight, you're
doing it wrong.
I want to exercise.
I want to do activities that Ienjoy, that bring me happiness.
(23:20):
I don't want to have to get upand well, I've got to run three
miles today because my dietrequires me to run three miles.
I'm not.
I'm never going to do thatagain.
I'll go run three miles to helpmy knees so that I can go do
shore diving.
I know it's just mind games,but it matters to me so as I
move into it.
So these are interesting and itdid was.
(23:40):
It's been a long time questionI've had of.
You know I think I built muscleeven when I was fasting, and
now this kind of explains it wasmost of the time.
Even in my youth, in mytwenties, in college, I tended
to eat.
Actually, very rarely did I eatbefore.
If you've ever done somehardcore swimming or some
(24:01):
hardcore audio, eating is nevera good thing because you'll end
up just throwing it up.
So I tended to eat, but I wouldeat immediately after and I
think that's why I was able to.
I knew I had built muscle andlost weight and so it was a
question I have and this kind ofhelped me understand and think
about what it is and why thathappened.
(24:23):
So that helped answer somequestions.
Anyway, interesting that Luca isdoing the intermittent fasting.
Also, now that I understand thedefinition of intermittent
fasting, I realize outside of apure fasting day, I'm doing it
every single day.
Even on the days I say thatit's free reign on a Saturday or
Sunday, I'm still limiting itto the eight hour window.
(24:47):
I very rarely will haveanything If I know I'm going to
a party or a dinner forsomething.
I know that dinner is sixo'clock.
I probably won't eat anythinguntil then and even then I'll
keep it under a thousandcalories.
So I technically still is it.
Yes, it's late in the evening.
(25:07):
Yes, I could tend.
That's why I kind of tend to ifit's a late dinner, late meal
in the evening, I tend to makesure to not quite eat as much as
I do or as I could.
Anyway, I found it interestingMore articles on intermittent
fasting, more articles on theexercise and how it all works.
(25:28):
So that's it.
That was this week.
We'll see what next week.
Like I said, next week I'mheading down to my hometown,
costa Mesa.
I'm going to be down there andfor my 40th high school reunion.
Yes, I'm old.
I look forward to having somegood times with people and
seeing everyone.
So anyway, thank you all forlistening and we'll see you next
week.
All right, cheers, bye.
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