What's a Youatarian? It's my own phrase I have used when people ask me how I have lost my excess weight. I'm a Youatarian and live the youatarian lifestyle. Simply put, a Youatarian is someone that follows YOU On a Diet. For any YOAD followers out there that would like to adopt the phrase
for themselves, please feel free.

- Marshall (aka Orlando Tek)



Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

My Story

In July 2006, I visited the doctor for a multitude of
ongoing medical problems and when I weighed
in I remember being 305lbs. That was the heaviest
I could ever remember weighing on any scale in my life.

My wife, also overweight, started some small changes
in her diet at that time and those changes made its way
through into my diet as well.

In September 2006, I watched my mother undergo
triple bypass surgey. And I always believed her
to be of modest health although she had passed
on a few of her problems to me including high blood
pressure and acid reflux issues. In her early 20's,
unaware of her high blood pressure problem, she
actually had a stroke, although not very severe.

My dad is a bit healthier even though being
12 years older than my mom, but he has borderline
adult onset diabetes and he had a stint put into an
artery a few years back.

Taking in all this information, It was then I decided
I needed to make some serious changes in my life
or I will be the next one on the heart ward not too
long from now.

It was Novemeber, 2006 and I was already following
the few changes my wife had made to her diet and we had
both lost about 15lbs in the last few months. Any
change at this point was a good change. We watched
a Discovery Health special called YOU: On A Diet featuring
the YOU docs and a few families incorporating YOAD
into their daily lives and showing their amazing progress.

The very next day, November 7th, 2006, my wife and
I went through every cabinet and cupboard in our
house and got rid of ALL the bad foods. We then
went to the grocery store and bought foods that
met YOAD and from that day we have not looked back!

We could not find the book at any local store so we
ordered it off Amazon. It took a few weeks to arrive
but we started cooking with only YOAD approved foods
using YOAD approved methods and we WERE seeing
results even before the book arrived.

From there it has been all downhilll. I have lost 110lbs
since starting on YOAD in November but about 125lbs
over the last 18 months total. Wahoo!

And most of my medical problems related to my weight
have now vanished including high bood pressure, acid
reflux and sleep apnea. I have much more energy and
I feel better than I can ever remember!

And its all thanks to YOAD!



Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Exercise and accuracy...tips and tricks

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought a new pedometer. It looked like
a good one although I didn't really research any particular one online
before taking the plunge.

After now doing the research, I am finding that some can be more accuarate
than others. But, for the way I am using mine, they are all about equally accuarate.
I am using mine JUST on my daily 3 mile (or however long) walks. If they are used
only in this fashion, walking at least 2.5 mph or more for a set duration, the accuracy
is pretty close to the same for almost any model.

Mine allows me to keep track of distance walked, steps, time and calories burned.
Hmmmm, how do they figure how far I have walked? You have to program your stride
into the pedometer. The way I figured this out was the distance toe-to-toe inbetween
normal walking steps. I recently walked four miles inside of a mall and they have all different colored equally sized and spaced tiles on the floor. Over the 45 minute period, I was able to determine that my stride covered 2.75 tiles. I grabbed a measuring tape and figured it
was about 36 inches. So, that is whatI programmed into my pedometer. It seems to be
pretty accurate. Later that day I drove exactly 1 mile, then got out and walked the same distance and wouldn't you know it, the pedometer said I walked exactly 1 mile. So, I was impressed with that. And my pedometer is not all that great ratings wise.

The calories are a different story. When I joined the local gym, I saw that the treadmill
and stationary bikeI was using had a digital readout for the calories burned by asking me
my weight. After doing research, I found out that the calories reported by such devices
can be overestimated by as much as 30%. Although most articles concede that it is
probably closer to a 10-15% overestimation. With this information I always subtract
15% from whatever the readout says and that is what I put into Calorie King. Likewise, the pedometer also overestimates. Using websites that calculate calories burned by weight and walking distance, I am finding my pedometer shows between15-20% more calories burned
than it should. Not to mention that the pedometer assumes you are walking on a smooth,
level surface. If you have hills or stairs on your walk, you are going to burn a few extra calories. But, I am now deducting 20% off whatever the pedometer reports for my calories and that is what I am putting into Calorie King.

One of the best parts of the pedometer is being able to finally figure out how fast
I am walking. Using distance and time I have been able to determine I walk between
3.5 and 4mph. This morning my average speed for my 70 minute walk was 3.77mph. This better helps in more accurately figuring out my total calories burned.

That is my rant for today :)

5 comments:

Chari said...

Nice rant Marshall, it's good to see you doing your homework...lol.
On that note, I always thought the calories burned (on the pedometer) where to low. The machines at the gym (treadmill and elliptical) more accurate...these machines are brand new. I should be burning off 500 calories a day through exercise. Rie says if you wear a HRM it will tell you how many calories you are burning for anything, not sure I wanna wear a chest strap...but it might be worth it just to see on any given day.

Have a great one!
Chari

Vinyl Bozz said...

Never heard of an HRM.

Yeah, it's not ez to figure calories burned through walking. 10 different calorie burning calculators on 10 different websites putting in the same criteria will net you 10 different answers. Sometimes up to 100 calorie differences between them.

I have found 1 or 2 which seem to net in the median range between all the numbers so those are the ones I go with.

It's not an exact science anyway :)

Hope you are having a great day too :) I'm about to go work out..do some muscle toning stuff and maybe a mile or two on the treadmill. I just ate 200 calories of 100% whole grain cookies (found at a local health food store.quite good, too) that I need to go burn off. LOL.

Chari said...

Hrm=heart rate monitor is a device that allows a user to measure his or her heart rate in real time. It usually consists of two elements: a chest strap transmitter and a wrist receiver (which usually doubles as a watch). Strapless heart rate monitors are available as well, but lack some of the functionality of the original design. Advanced models additionally measure heart rate variability to assess a user's fitness.
There are a wide number of receiver designs, with all sorts of advanced features. These include average heart rate over exercise period, time in a specific heart rate zone, calories burned, and detailed logging that can be downloaded to a computer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate_monitor
y
Your cookies sound great!

Vinyl Bozz said...

Cool, I'll check out the monitor.

Yeah, all the ingredients were wholesome and nutritious, no HFCS or hydrogenated anything..all whole grain (whole wheat and whole oats)..the only bad part was the brown sugar and the 7grams of sugar per serving. Oh well..we gotta live a little..and of all the bad things out there a few extra grams of sugars I think is really a minimal thing to worry about...and we rarely have anything that high in sugar anymore...

Chari said...

Marshall I personally think a few extra grams of sugar are fine, just count those calories , or work it off as you did. Moderation is the key and knowledge is power over your own destiny!

Have a great night my friend!
Chari
P.s. I'm gonna get me one of those HRM when and if I ever have any extra dollars, raising a kid is spensive. You should see all the crap she brought home from Trick or Treating!