Tag: coaching

How to lose weight (continued)

I posted some time ago about my great success in applying science to losing weight. At one point I had lost about 30 pounds in 6 months. Most people who lose weight go on to regain it, sometimes even eventually weighing more than they had when they started, so after six months I thought it was time to revisit my diet – or more precisely, my lifestyle.

The news is mixed.

I posted some time ago about my great success in applying science to losing weight. At one point I had lost about 30 pounds in 6 months. Most people who lose weight go on to regain it, sometimes even eventually weighing more than they had when they started, so after six months I thought it was time to revisit my diet – or more precisely, my lifestyle.

The news is mixed. I have regained a bit of weight, but I am now fitter than ever before, as measured by endurance capability, maximum weight I can lift, resting pulse, and blood pressure. Most of the weight I have put back on (about 12 pounds) is muscle, not fat. My visceral fat is down to 11%, and my body fat 17%. I still feel flabby around the middle though, and would like to lose more weight there. Some of the weight gain – a few pounds – is fat, so it is a work in progress with many gains and a few losses.

So I think overall the verdict is that a version of this “diet” works, at least for me.

As with most things, life gets in the way sometimes. It’s difficult to stick to a particular lifestyle  when there are events such as Christmas come along, or when you’re travelling. I try, but relax things a bit. After all one of my greatest pleasures is eating out, and one has to have some fun. I nearly always pass on the dessert though.

I have also had time to consider what were the essential aspects of my original diet. I still think for me then the big thing was obsessively weighing and measuring food, and calculating the nutritional content of what I ate. This monitoring enabled to stick to a diet of around 2000 Calories a day, with about 75 g protein, 25 g fibre, and 50 g or less of carbohydrate (and often less than 1 g of salt a day). (I didn’t and still don’t care about the fat/oil content because I am convinced by the data showing that fat does good rather than harm.) Note again that this intake is the inverse of the traditional food “pyramid” with a large carb intake at the base. I also aimed for as wide a variety of micronutrients as possible, by supplementation and by eating as many different vegetables, and some fruit, as possible.

I stick by these things although I have relaxed the carb limit a bit. In particular I enjoy baking, and make my own gluten-free bread, which is largely seed rather than grain-based, containing walnut pieces, linseed, flaxseed, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, and pumpkin seeds. It tastes good (others say that too), but doesn’t keep well. I still try and avoid sucrose (sugar) like the plague.

I think the increased carb intake, especially bread, makes it more difficult to lose more weight. My main struggle however has been finding a way of eating that enables me to continue gaining muscle while losing fat. I don’t yet have an answer. When you work out six times a week for 45-60 minutes a day you’re going to need more calories, but what is the ideal proportion of fat, carbohydrate, and protein? How many times should you eat a day, and when, relative to the workout? I have scoured websites and books on exercise physiology without finding any answers that convince me. It is also difficult to work out how many calories you need when you have a complex exercise regime with many different types of exercise. I’m pretty certain the answer is more than 2000 though!

I recently saw a television programme that monitored someone trying to lose weight rapidly by calorie restriction over a week. At the end he had lost weight – but it was all fluid and muscle, and muscle is the last thing I want to use. On the other hand this was a television programme not a scientific study (although the measurements appeared to be taken under laboratory conditions), his diet was extreme, and he was very fit and lean in the first place.

I am sure that the principles of my diet work if you want to lose weight and become healthier. Restrict your carbohydrate intake, watch the total calorie intake, drink plenty of water, and exercise – the more and the more different sorts the better. But to become super-fit and super-lean is a further challenge. If you know anything about the science of doing so, please let me know.

The other issue outstanding is why so many people who start to diet do well at first and then go downhill. There are of course several possible reasons.

  • You don’t really like the food in your diet. I am lucky in that I don’t like the taste of sugar that much and love blueberries and fish. It would be much more difficult if it were the other way round. So you have to include as much good food that you like and also re-educate your palate.
  • You’re not really too bothered about your current weight and appearance. That’s fine, it’s your life – just remember if you’re obese it might be quite a short life.
  • Not giving yourself enough rewards. Rewards work! If you find the going tough, decide on a reward programme. You’re doing something important so the rewards should be reasonable: stay on the diet for a week and you deserve that new book you thought was a bit of a luxury. I’m not a great fan of “treats” in the diet as rewards: after all a diet with two days of cake treats is really just dieting for five days. Similarly all these points-based systems are over-complicated for many people (like me) and it’s easier just avoid the cake than working out if you can have it, and buy a trip to California instead.
  • Lack of support. It’s difficult if everyone around you is gorging all the time. It’s difficult if you’re trying to diet alone. One of the reasons diet clubs work better than other things isn’t because of the system, but because they provide social support to encourage you.
  • Yo-yo dieting. Going on a diet and then stopping and starting again, perhaps with a new system, and your weight oscillating as you diet – and don’t. You have to ask yourself why do you stop after a while. Perhaps you don’t like the food. Perhaps there is no support around. Perhaps you haven’t rewarded yourself sufficiently.
  • Thinking of it as a diet rather than a lifestyle. I know I’ve used the word diet, but that’s just a shorthand. You should realise that you’re not just eating fewer cases, but embracing a new, better way of living. You’re not going just going to lose a few pounds, but you’re going to become a healthier, happier person, with a longer life expectancy and better quality of life. And a healthy body is important for a healthy mind.

Now pass the blueberries.

Emptying the mind

It’s been a while since my last blog. Who would have thought that being self-employed would mean being so busy? I have been trying to focus on what’s important: my goals in taking early “retirement” from the full-time job have always been to increase my reading, thinking, and writing time.

But we live in a world of distraction. Distraction makes procrastination very easy. I even know of academics who have been encouraged by their “line managers” (what a repellent phrase) to “multi-task” their administration and research. I’m not sure at what level they’re supposed to multi-task – reading a paper while giving a lecture perhaps? – but we know that multi-tasking reduces efficiency: it just doesn’t work. Doing two things at once has a cost (which is why even speaking on the phone while driving increases the chance of an accident, let alone texting and driving). It also increases stress. And we know that doing important, creative work requires focus – you can’t carry out great research while students back their essays. I even have my doubts about one of those great sacrosanct beliefs in academic life that great teaching and research must go together: good teaching requires time, and research requires time, and you can’t be doing two things at once (see above).

I have tried to simplify my life, for peace of mind both for being mentally ill, and in order to be able to think more clearly. I have just been reading Timothy Ferriss’s excellent (if lengthy) Tools for Titans, and it is obvious that I am not alone in pursuing this strategy. Physical clutter is distracting – some of us even find it distressing. Mental clutter is just as bad, perhaps worse.

And how much mental clutter we all must have! How can you live in the moment when you are worrying about what you did wrong this morning and what you have to do this evening? How can you write well when your mind is on the telephone bill?

So here are some of the things that I’ve done to reduce mental clutter.

  1. Write down as much as possible. First I carried out a brain dump of everything I had to do, everything I was worried about, and everything on my mind. This task took a while, and I kept adding to the dump over a few days.
  2. Make structured lists. Over the years I have experimented with several types of list and time management systems. Now someone with an obsessional personality has to be careful of lists – they can easily take over and become an obsession and a distraction in themselves. I recently tried a complex system of email folders with tasks for doing today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, this week, waiting for, and so on … (I am familiar with Dave Allen’s Getting Things Done system and implement a simplified version of it. I have tried dedicated software but am aiming for a simple solution.)
  3. To do. Currently I am using Apple’s Reminders, with several types of list organised by location and time. I am trying to keep it simple. I have tried complicated systems and apps and remain to be convinced that a to do list can be bettered. The important thing is that nothing gets lost, and that I know everything will be dealt with by the deadline. I don’t want to have to think about peripheral things.
  4. Removing distractions. Social media distracts us and increases mental clutter. I can’t go as far as some and remove myself completely from Facebook and Twitter, and I don’t want to delete all my email accounts (and I don’t think it would be a good idea for future employment possibilities). But I don’t need to check my email every hour. Emails generate emails. I have reached the fabled “Inbox zero”, partly by moving things I can’t do now to an appropriate folder. (Actually as I write it is Inbox 1.) There are some emails I can’t do anything about just now, either because they refer to future events or because I need to do something to be able to answer them – they are moved to a “Waiting” folder. I do feel bad about several emails in my “Weather” folder that I plan to get round to when I have time. These are questions about or suggestions for or things to add to my British weather pages (http://www.trevorharley.com/trevorharley/weather_web_pages/britweather.htm). I do feel a bit bad that people have gone to the trouble of writing to me, and I always thank them, but it’s not my day job, and my time is very limited, so I can’t process them all at once. Recognising that we have limited time is a big part of the fight. WE CAN’T DO EVERYTHING. And that means MAKING CHOICES. (Apologies for shouting these statements.)
  5. Meditation. Everyone says meditation is good for clearing the mind and improving mental focus and clarity. I though with my monkey mind find the process very difficult, and probably as a result find the benefits – so far – limited. I will persevere though. I am using Andy Puddicombe’s Headspace site; I like the structure it provides and the implicit coercion. My jury is still out on meditation.
  6. Mindfulness. At all other times I am trying to be mindful of what I am doing now. If a distracting thought arises I try to push it away or if it is something I need to pay attention to add it to my list. It is easy though for obsessive people to get obsessed with clearing our minds, so we are for ever writing down minor thoughts. We all also occasionally at least need to plan what we’re going to do: living in the present doesn’t imply drifting.

Interestingly, as I was half way through writing this blog, the following landed in my inbox and caught my eye (I know, I know):

http://calnewport.com/blog/2016/12/18/on-digital-minimalism/

Finally, we should think about whether it’s even a good idea to strive for an empty mind. Life isn’t that simple. Things are always cropping up, and surprises are always happening. Rather than avoiding shit we must learn to respond to shit in the right way. The more I think about it, the more important I think this point is: we will never achieve a perfectly empty mind. It’s our responses we need to change.

Have a good Christmas and New Year everyone. It’s a difficult time of year for people with mental health problems – if nothing else it’s so dark in the northern northern hemisphere. So just hang on in there.

True grit

Cheviots from Carter BarIt is easy to get out of the habit of writing. In spite of my blog a few weeks ago (Nulla dies sine linea – not a day without a line, first said by the painter Apelles of Kos, but which applies just as much to writing as painting), quite a few of my recent days have sadly passed without a line.

I can attribute this failure in part to what remains of the day job (especially marking, a task that I particularly detest but which is one of the most important things that academics do, and which requires time and concentration), but I know thats a feeble excuse. I should have had plenty of time. I have just found it difficult to find an independent working routine that suits me.
All the data shows that we work best when we follow a routine. Depressed people function better when they follow a routine that imposes some structure on our lives. Finding a good routine is good. In fact to be creative you might need one. If you look at the lives of highly creative people they all have very highly structured periods when they’re working – routines bordering on rituals (hence the title of one my favourite books on the subject, Mason Currey’s Daily rituals, a book I’ve talked about before in this blog). One of the most popular rituals is to get up early and start writing, stopping around lunchtime, and then taking the rest of the day “easy” (including do those low-value, distracting tasks such as email). I can see the advantages of such a schedule: you get your words under your belt first thing. I always feel better about the day after I’ve written at least a thousand words. But life is not so simple for a depressed writer: my medication (even though I’ve really cut back) really interferes with my morning. I feel tired on waking around 7.30, and it takes me a few hours to get going properly. Maybe one day I’ll be able to cut out that final Quetiapine, but I still can’t really imagine waking at 5 am, because I can’t imagine going to bed at 9 pm. I love midnight too much. And in any case I’ve talked to a few depressed people who say they can’t really get going until 10.30 or 11.00 am.
Let me take yesterday as an example. I woke at 7.15, and rushed to get out before my preferred two hours easing in time, leaving before 9 for gym at 9.30. At least exercise makes me feel better overall, and has the advantage of waking me up. Then I had a few errands to run, and back for coffee at 10.45. I did some useful reading while drinking coffee. Then as rain was forecast for later in the day, I did a few garden jobs I’d been putting off. Then I had my Primal living lunch (yet another type of diet, or rather lifestyle, I’m trying out). After that there were some “real work”-related things I had to do, and particularly several pressing emails to answer. That left me pretty tired, so I had a short nap. Then it was 4.45. I had a few work things to do again, and some washing to sort out, which took me to 6. That left me two hours of creative time, by which time I felt horribly guilty about not doing enough earlier.
Sound familiar? That’s how my life often goes. I can’t point to anything and say I shouldn’t have done it, so what else could I have done? Now you unlucky souls in a 9-5 job are probably thinking “lazy f*cker, he should have my job to see what can be done in a day”. But I “work” after 5, and all weekend, and most holidays too. And as I’ve talked about before in this blog, if you look at how much real work can be done in an hour, it’s surprisingly little. My own measurements suggest I cant do more than 35 minutes an hour over 8 hours without hitting the wall. This figure of 3-5 hours of real work – deep work – a day is consistent with what Cal Newport says in Deep work, with how highly creative people schedule their time in Daily Rituals, and how much deep practice can be sustained in one day (a discussion of which can be found in Duckworth’s superb book Grit, which I’ve just finished reading). Passion and perseverance are tiring.
So I am still searching for the perfect routine, the perfect ritual, the perfect day. And of course every day is different: some days I don’t go to the gym, some days there are other things to deal with, and some days it’s Christmas. Nulla dies sine linea says nothing about stopping writing just because it’s Christmas (but I have).
So one reason why we don’t we stick at what we want to do is finding the time to do real work. It’s difficult enough for the best of people with the best of intentions. Those of us with mental health problems suffer additional burdens that eat into our time in addition to the time-killing side-effects of medication.
Being mad really does steal your life.

The daily schedule of a depressed writer

 

wood pigeon

It’s not easy being depressed, and it’s not easy being a writer. Being a depressed writer is worse than the sum of the parts. I often wonder why I bother; why not just go for the easy life of staying in bed all day long, which is often what I most often most want to do? Instead I struggle to make time for my writing.
It does mean that for depressed writers there is the question of how can we best arrange our time to facilitate writing? Of course it’s a problem all writers and creative people share. One of the best books I have read recently is Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey (2013). Unusual creativity comes from unusual people living unusual lives. It is quite difficult to discern a pattern in the most creative lives. Have a look at this nice graphical representation of the daily routines of a sample of creative people (including creative scientists):

https://podio.com/site/creative-routines

With all sorts of caveats, and with many exceptions, the pattern seems to be get started early, exercise, relax. I’m not being prescriptive: until I cut down my quetiapine medication I was incapable of getting started early. And when I was Dean I had countless 8.30 and 9.00 am meetings, which really got in the way of getting deep work done (see my earlier blog on “Deep work”). There is robust evidence that some people are morning types and some evening, and if I were going to be prescriptive about anything, it would be to work out when you have most energy and feel best, and do your most creative work then. So of course there are many exceptions to this general pattern of writing first thing: some writers can only really get going at night after a few martinis. (Amazingly though Ernest Hemingway always started writing at six in the morning, even if he had been up late the night before with hard drinking, and worked until about noon.)
For me it ‘s good though to get the writing out of the way. I can never relax until I’ve completed my writing goal for the day. Another problem with starting late is that I never know how a writing task is going to take until I’ve done it. I’m writing a book on consciousness at the moment and I’ve set myself the target of a thousand words a day. It preys on my mind until the target bar in Scrivener (my currently preferred book writing software) reaches 100% for the day.
It is worth spending time on working out what is the perfect day for living the perfect life, in the sense of maximising quality time to get what we want to get done, done. It’s obvious that routine is important; routine crystallised to the point of ritual in many cases, as the title of Currey’s book suggests. Routine does bring its own problems for living – routine is the enemy of spontaneity, unless we schedule some hours in which to be spontaneous, which almost defies the purpose. But when on a creative burst, writing a book with a deadline, I need routine. A rigid routine or else I will not get it done. This routine means being tough on myself as well as other people. No exceptions.
I do wonder how some people manage to get so much more than me. I struggle at the moment with work, let alone writing. I try and free up as much quality time (for reading, writing, and thinking) as possible by outsourcing things like cleaning and mowing the lawn. I’m lucky that I can. How do people with children manage? But there are some days when I am so depressed that I just want to sit and cry and stare into space. Fortunately these days are much rarer when I’m writing; perhaps the sense of purpose writing provides helps us lift my mood. But one of the most depressing things about being depressed is how much time is lost to being ill. It is tragic.