You know what I’m talking about, that “Dad Bod” that happens after becoming a father. Just look down at that gut and ask yourself, “How did it get there?” If you are new to fatherhood like myself, then maybe you started growing YOUR bun when your significant other had HER “bun-in-the-oven.” When her appetite picked up, you hopped on board and were right by her side, trying not to let her eat more than you, so she didn’t feel so bad. Then your child was born, and your focus was primarily on your newborn, the most amazing gift God had ever given you. Your other focus was just trying to stay normal, by getting SOME sleep, eating that stuff called food, and forget the exercise, because… AIN’T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!
I am 5’5” and was at my peak body shape in college, weighing in at 145 lbs with 6% body fat. Granted, I was an NSCA certified personal trainer at the time, so I was really focused on fitness, but after this stage, life got in the way.
After college, I started working a desk job, married the love of my life, and we now have a son, who is one-and-a-half years old at the time of this writing. I weighed 180 lbs, and don’t even want to know what my body fat content was. Theoretically, if I didn’t lose any muscle mass since college (which I’m sure I did lose a little), then that 6% of 145 lbs, would translate to 8.7 lbs of fat. Gaining 35 lbs was most likely all fat, as I definitely was not bodybuilding, so that would bring me to 43.7 lbs of fat at 180 lbs, which is a body fat of 24%. Looking at my old “NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training” textbook (printed in 2004, but still extremely relevant), that 24% for my age group (26-35 years) puts me in the FATTER THAN AVERAGE category!!
Here’s the breakdown of body fat percentages (values shown in % body fat):
Credit: NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training, Pg.246, by: Earle & Baechle
If we were measuring by BMI (Body Mass Index), things would look even worse, especially since I am definitely not the tallest dad in the world. I don’t usually recommend using BMI as a metric, especially if you have a significant amount of muscle mass, but just for kicks, here’s the formula:
BMI (kg/m2) = body weight (kg) ÷ height2 (m2)
Stature of 65” (5’5″). Converted to meters: 65 inches x 0.0254 = 1.651 meters
Weight of 180 lbs. Converted to kg: 180 lbs ÷ 2.2046 = 81.6 kg
BMI = 81.6 kg ÷ (1.651 m)2 = 29.9, which is considered on the upper limits of OVERWEIGHT, almost into the category of OBESITY.
Here’s the breakdown of BMI:
Credit: NSCA’s Essentials of Personal Training, Pg. 241, by: Earle & Baechle, 2004
One thing we always try to do when losing weight is to do it in an extreme way. I’m sure you’ve played sports growing up; do you remember how hard you worked during practice? I remember wrestling in high school, and we would exercise in a 90 degree room, working out for a few hours straight, ending the workout by creating pools of sweat beneath our (what seemed like) 1,000 pushups. Well, this is not a sustainable way for me to get back into shape again. Sure, it would be a fast way to do it, but I would probably just give it up when the next child comes along, or when life gets too busy to put in the time for this. I needed something that I could use as a tool for many years. Something that is realistic, doesn’t take much time or effort, and something that just makes sense.
To achieve this, I had to first get motivated. A few months ago, I voluntarily signed up for a health risk assessment that my work was offering (for free!). They pricked my finger to draw a few drops of blood, checked my blood pressure, documented my height and weight, and then sat me down with a nurse to look over the results. What I was told was a huge eye opener, and gave me the kick start to change my habits:
Triglyceride score: 399, HIGH RISK (less than 150 is optimal, 200 or greater is high risk)
Total cholesterol: 263, HIGH RISK (less than 200 is desirable, 240 or greater is high risk)
LDL cholesterol: 150, near HIGH RISK (less than 100 is optimal, 160 or greater is high risk)
HDL “good” cholesterol: 34, HIGH RISK (greater than 60 is desirable, less than 40 is high risk)
Of course my BMI was out of whack as well, as shown above. Well, at least my fasting glucose and blood pressure levels were normal (94, and 103 over 70, respectively). Although I was not talking to a doctor or dietitian, all I needed to hear was common sense, and the wonderful nurse was more than qualified to help me with this. I was told to eat more fruits and veggies, eat the “good” fats (unsaturated instead of saturated), and exercise if I haven’t been already.
I immediately called my beautiful wife to tell her my results, who by the way, holds a Bachelor of Science degree in nutrition. She had nothing but encouraging things to say, and let me know that I am being proactive, instead of reactive. I could have waited to have serious health issues, however I didn’t let things get quite that far (Praise the Lord). For the first time in my life, I actually felt unhealthy and wondered how I let myself get there. I thought, “This can’t happen to me, I was competing in 100-mile bike races just a couple years ago!” Well, the data shows I need to get back on track, and the way to do this is by enacting the four-letter “d” word and the evasive “e” word: diet and exercise.
I started by thinking about what I would tell my clients as a personal trainer (back in the day), which was that if you want to lose weight, you need to expend more energy than you consume. There are 3500 Calories in one pound of fat, and a healthy rule of thumb is to lose around 1-2 pounds of fat per week, or 1% of your bodyweight (1% of 180 lbs = 1.8 lbs). Any more than this and you risk starving your body of vital nutrients, and losing precious muscle mass. I was on board to take the less extreme route of 1 pound of fat per week, which sounds easy, but when you break it down, it’s actually kind of tough without some kind of plan. What I mean by this, is to use “science” to drive your fat loss goals. I want to lose 1 pound of fat per week, which is a deficit of 3500 Calories every seven days. Spreading the fat loss over seven days, I would have to create a Calorie deficit of 500 Calories per day. At first, I thought that tracking Calories would be way too disruptive to my life, but wondered if there was a phone app (there’s an app for that?) to help me keep things simple, and still use “science”.
Enter: “My Fitness Pal”, a free app for both Android and iOS. At first, you open it up, create your profile (what is this, facebook?), then get tracking. There are other apps out there, I just happened to start using this one. Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with this app in any way. The main questions of the profile are your weight, activity level (I sit at a desk most of the day, so I consider myself the least active on the option list / planet), and weight loss goal (how much weight you want to lose per week). The app then gives you a recommended caloric intake number based upon the options you chose at startup, and you track as close as you can to that number of Calories, hoping all works out and you end up meeting your weekly weight loss goal. The app does the best it can to estimate how many Calories you need in order to sustain your weight, then subtracts the “weekly weight loss goal” from your daily Caloric intake (in my case, the 3500 calories being the equivalent of one pound of fat, was divided across the seven days, giving me a deficit of 500 Calories per day). When I first started the app, I was trying to achieve a 1600 Calorie target, however the more weight you lose, the less energy you need to sustain your body weight, so I eventually went to a 1500 Calorie target, which doesn’t sound like much, but let me tell you, it is not as easy as you think. One cool feature that I like, is you can enter in the exercise you do for the day, and the app estimates (vaguely) how many calories were in that exercise and adds it to your budget. So, if you hit your limit of say 1500 Calories, but then exercised and burned an estimated 500 Calories, that means you can go into the freezer and get yourself some scoops of ice cream (gotta love those afternoon walks!!). If you are also doing strength training, calories burned is not estimated, however it just means that your caloric budget doesn’t increase, and you have a higher chance of losing MORE weight than your original goal, if you stick to the plan.
Tracking calories to lose weight? What am I supposed to do, figure out how many Calories are in EVERYTHING I eat? Well, yes, but it is much easier than I expected. There is a category for each meal of the day (except dessert, which is crazy, right!?) where you can input your food. The input can either be typed and searched, or you can scan a bar-code to find the food you are looking for. So far, I have been able to find all the foods I eat. If you eat that meal often, you can copy it over to “today” from a previous day, or save it as a recipe or meal. I eat a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I have the ingredients to that saved as a meal. I have my wife’s salsa saved as a recipe, which makes it easy to input whenever I consume small or large portions of it (which can never be often enough!). If you cannot put in the effort to type in your food for the day, or scan it with a barcode from your smart phone, then this method of tracking calories may not be for you. It works for me, as every time I eat something, I think of how many calories it will take away from my daily budget. One of the best bosses I had would always say that if you start measuring something, the process will improve. This is definitely true with my weight loss tracking.
UPDATE: So far, after 20+ weeks of sticking to the plan, I have lost over 15 pounds with this method. I stopped using the app after this, and I ended up slowly losing another 5 pounds, bringing my new body weight to 160 pounds. Losing weight without the app proved to be much more difficult, however I wanted to wean myself from it and see if I still had the discipline (inner tiger strength) to lose the weight without help from the app. Assuming all weight loss was fat, my new fat content was reduced from the 43.7 lbs, down to 23.7 lbs, which translates to a new body fat content of 15%. According to my chart, I am now considered to be within the LEAN category!!
I haven’t quite developed the 6-pack abs yet, which is reserved for the VERY LEAN category, but I have definitely noticed that my dress pants (part of my work costume) have gotten “swimmingly” loose, along with going down to the last notch on my new belts (which were purchased when I was FATTER THAN AVERAGE). When I mentioned to my brother how much weight I had lost, he stated that it is the equivalent to carrying around a bowling ball on my body, every minute of the day. When thinking about it that way, there’s no wonder my pants won’t fit me anymore! Overall, I feel much better about myself, and I am looking forward to seeing what my next health assessment metrics will be.
If you feel the need to lose that “Dad Bod” (or “Bad Bod” that you are unhappy with) as well, I highly suggest using a nutrition/fitness app to kick-start the journey, and remember: slow and steady (weight loss) wins the race.