{"id":4517,"date":"2019-08-07T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T01:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/?p=4517"},"modified":"2022-01-10T11:09:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-10T11:09:27","slug":"fat-belly-challenge-diary-day-30-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/fat-belly-challenge-diary-day-30-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Fat Belly Challenge Diary \u2013 Day 30 Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>After 30-days of being on the intermittent fasting meal plan and monitoring my sleep with the Oura ring, have I lost weight and body fat?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am just over 30-days into <a href=\"\/my-90-day-fat-belly-challenge\/\">my fat belly 90-day challenge<\/a> where I committed to losing weight and lead a more active and healthier lifestyle. you can check out why I started this challenge and what I am trying to achieve in the link above. <\/p>\n<div class=\"gb\">\n<p><strong>To recap;<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Follow an intermittent fasting meal timing plan where I only eat for 6 hours each day, fasting for 18 hours.<\/li>\n<li>Increasing my daily activity levels primarily through walking to get more steps<\/li>\n<li>Improving sleep patterns and ensuring good quality sleep<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Looking back at my <a href=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/one-year-goals\/#Health_Goals\">one-year health goals<\/a> I can see that in October 2018 I was 67kg. When I started the challenge last month, I weighed 69.8kg with 27.5% body fat percentage \u2013 <strong>weight gain of nearly 3kg in 9 months!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So, how have I got on?<\/p>\n<p><strong>I am very happy to report I have lost weight and made improvements with my body fat percentage; I will go into the figures below. But first, let's start with how I have felt during the last 30-days.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>What Did I Learn in the Last 30-days?<\/h2>\n<p>From the outset, I was looking to make lifestyle changes that last. Not a quick fix but a solution for maintaining a healthy active lifestyle that allows me to keep in reasonable shape.<\/p>\n<p>This is why I chose to make the challenge 90-days to give time to make the changes a habit and to ensure I kept them.<\/p>\n<p>The fact is there is no escaping the numbers, either I lost weight and body fat, or I didn\u2019t. More on the numbers a bit later on, here I want to reflect on what I learned during the last 30-days. <\/p>\n<p>Here are my positive and negative observations.<\/p>\n<div class=\"greenb\">\n<h3>Positives<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>I was away for one-week last month and didn\u2019t put on weight \u2013 activity levels much higher than usual (twice in fact)<\/li>\n<li>I know that just relying on intermittent fasting without a keen eye on food intake during the 6-7 hour eating period is not enough for fat loss<\/li>\n<li>I can maintain an intermittent fasting plan easily<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rb\">\n<h3>Negatives<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>I lost weight but not much body fat<\/li>\n<li>Normal life doesn't include anywhere enough activity<\/li>\n<li>Sleep schedule needs some work &#8211; consistency is not as good as it could be<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Did I Lose Weight During the Last 30-days?<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s crunch time, what do the numbers say?<\/p>\n<p>I was a couple of dates late recording my data as I was on a family holiday. As soon as I got back, I jumped onto my Bluetooth <a href=\"https:\/\/www.picooc.com\/en\/?lag=en\">PiCooc<\/a> weighing scales and took a screenshot of the results.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Good news, overall my body weight has dropped 1.8kg (nearly 4lbs) with body fat reducing to 26.4% (a drop of 1.1%).<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>PiCooc also showed by &#8220;body score&#8221; had improved from 5.1 to 6.4 due to the positive changes.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"center\">August 5th, 2019 Measurements<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-august-body-measurements.jpg\" alt=\"Adam body measurements August 2019\" width=\"800\" height=\"525\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4526\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-august-body-measurements.jpg 800w, https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-august-body-measurements-20x13.jpg 20w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"gb\">\n<p><strong>Measurement Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Body Weight:<\/strong> 68.0kg<\/li>\n<li><strong>Body Fat:<\/strong> 26.4%<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visceral Fat Index:<\/strong> 9<\/li>\n<li><strong>Body Score:<\/strong>6.4<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><em>There have been positive changes from my original baseline measures recorded on the 1st of July 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I took a picture of my fat belly to see if there was any visible change. Unfortunately, not the best selfie was taken but I believe shows a slight decrease in the one-pack!<\/p>\n<p>Speaking with my mother-in-law at the weekend about losing the weight she remarked it's not gone from the belly but from my face &#8211; charming eh?<\/p>\n<p>The words of encouragement from my mother-in-law aside, I can feel the difference in my trousers, which is great.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-one-month-later.jpg\" alt=\"Adam before and after one-month\" width=\"650\" height=\"206\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4547\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-one-month-later.jpg 650w, https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/adam-one-month-later-20x6.jpg 20w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"center\"><strong>What do you think, is the fat belly smaller?<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Sleep Efficiency the Last 30-days<\/h2>\n<p>I track my sleep efficiency each night using the <a href=\"\/oura-ring-review\/\">Oura ring<\/a>. This is a fancy piece of technology that is worn on your finger every day and with sensors inside monitors the time in each sleep stage (REM, Deep, etc), body temperature, sleeping heart rate, and variation in heart rate between beats.<\/p>\n<p>Using this data Oura calculates a readiness score which can give you feedback on how much to push yourself (or not) during the day.<\/p>\n<p>Checking over the data for my sleep efficiency and score for July 2019 it's pretty good.<\/p>\n<div class=\"gb\">\n<p><strong>Sleep Measurements:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Sleep Score:<\/strong> 78 \/ 100<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sleep Efficiency:<\/strong> 90% (a score of over 85% is considered good)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>Delving further into the data though it's clear I am not sleeping long enough as my average total sleep time was 6 hours 44 minutes, less than the recommended 7-9 hours suggested by Oura to adults to perform well and stay healthy.<\/p>\n<p>I wanted to understand why this is, so I investigated more and discovered my average bedtime was 23:37 pm &#8211; this is late, especially considering that I have two kids that often wake me up at 6:30 am!<\/p>\n<div class=\"yb\"><strong>The obvious takeaway here is that I need to get to sleep earlier. So, it's clear I need to get to bed earlier each night to consistently try and get 8 hours of sleep per night.<\/strong><\/div>\n<h2>Activity Levels the Last 30-days<\/h2>\n<p>Since <a href=\"\/living-life-as-an-expat-in-malaysia-pros-and-cons\/\">moving to Malaysia<\/a> my activity levels have been getting worse. It's hot living here and so the tendency is to drive everywhere and to seldom walk apart from inside air-conditioned shopping malls.<\/p>\n<p>Checking my Oura ring for the <strong>average daily steps in July 2019 I am reaching my target of 10,000 steps per day.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The last week of July though I was on a family holiday and we walked a lot, it was tiring at times with the kids too! So, I am aware that the last week of 15-20k daily steps pushed up the average daily steps.<\/p>\n<p>This is something for me to keep an eye on in August!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/oura-daily-steps-july-2019.jpg\" alt=\"Oura Ring daily steps for July 2019\" width=\"700\" height=\"565\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4535\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/oura-daily-steps-july-2019.jpg 700w, https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/oura-daily-steps-july-2019-20x16.jpg 20w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>The Next 30-days<\/h2>\n<p>I am already into the second month of my challenge and know that weight loss tends to level off after a while. So, this month is going to be challenging if I wish to maintain the momentum and lose 2kg per month along with losing body fat too!<\/p>\n<p>Although I find it difficult to consistently exercise I will be looking to increase my average daily steps to 10k plus. This will partly be done with walking to <a href=\"\/why-every-solopreneur-should-try-coworking-spaces\/\">my co-working space<\/a> from my kid's school and going to the gym &#8211; even if it means walking a few km.<\/p>\n<p>Nutrition-wise, I am still taking <a href=\"\/supergreen-tonik-review\/\">my Super Greens powder supplement<\/a> each day and being mindful of the daily calorie intake without going so far as counting and measuring each gram.<\/p>\n<p><strong>There is still some way to go for me to reach my goal of 64kg and a healthy body fat percentage of 17-23%. I have two more months to go! The next update will be early next month, stay tuned.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"rb small\">* A small disclaimer here as I want to clearly state that the information in this article is exactly that, purely informational content and is NOT medical advice. Whilst I am following the practices mentioned above it may not be suitable for you. So, if you\u2019re interested in following along I would suggest checking with your medical doctor first.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 30-days of being on the intermittent fasting meal plan and monitoring my sleep with the Oura ring, have I [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/fat-belly-challenge-diary-day-30-update\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4517"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17022,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions\/17022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifehackerguy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}