Diet and Exercise - the battle to live forever, or die trying...

My perennial battle to lose weight and get fit was going very badly towards the end of last year. I'd given up on my adult beginner Judo lessons early in the year, after developing sore shoulders from trying to do break falls when my BMI was still around 33. I'll probably only try Judo lessons again when I eventually get my weight down to my 'ideal' BMI range of 22.5-25. I'd also cancelled my membership of the local discount 'Crunch Fitness' gym ($8/wk), as I simply wasn't using it often enough, and was instead going to try to do '5BX' exercises at home...

By the end of 2015 my weight had hit 106 kg for the first time ever, with my BMI approaching 35! I was also noticing that I was getting quite unfit -- getting slightly puffed just walking up three flights of stairs in the office every morning. So in early December I decided to get a head start on my New Year's resolution and take a deep breath and 'reboot' my diet and exercise regime.

I have a 'standard' diet plan that I've checked provides suitable amounts of nutrients, doesn't leave me feeling particularly hungry, and which provides a modest amount of 'caloric restriction' (CR) of around 35%. IF I managed to stick to this diet plan every day I would lose around 1kg per week, but in reality I 'sort of' stick to my diet 'most days', and I've been losing weight over the past four months at a reasonable rate of around 0.5 kg per week.

Some recent research has suggested that the 'Fit Fat' have similar mortality rates as healthy, lean individuals (although I suspect it may be easier in the long run for normal weight individuals to maintain high fitness levels compared to overweight or obese 'fit' individuals trying to do so). So in addition to aiming to walk 10,000 steps per day, I've joined the local gym ('low use' membership at $12/week for one visit/week) so I can hire one of their squash courts for the member's rate of $5/hour (the normal court hire rate is $38/hour!). Every Sunday afternoon I now take the boys along to the squash court and they take turns hitting the ball around the court with me for an hour (quite 'low intensity' squash, but still enough to keep me out of breath and sweating for an hour!).

I'm also trying to get back into the habit of doing 11 minutes/day of '5BX' exercises every evening, but so far I haven't quite made that into a habit...

Overall, my 'standard' diet plan is 1750 kcals/day which would contain 40.5 g fibre, 69% carbs, 11% fat and 20% protein. In addition, during the first week of March I tried a five-day 'Fasting Mimicking Diet', which some research suggests can be very  beneficially if done once every 1-3 months. I didn't have any trouble sticking to this fairly restrictive diet for five days this month, so I plan on trying to do five days of FMD at the start of every month from now on. Hopefully by the end of 2016 I'll be a LOT fitter, get within my healthy weight range, and my next annual blood test will hopefully show improvements in my cholesterol and HDL/LDL levels...

To keep me 'honest' I'll start doing a post of my daily averages for each week. To kick it off, here are the figures since the start of March. I've noted whether each week was my 'standard' diet plan (STD), or contained five days of Fasting Mimicking Diet (FMD):

.             Fibre      Carbs    Fat     Protein    kCals     Wt       Steps
Week 1 (FMD)  25.7 g/dy  65.6%    22.2%   47.3 g/dy  1568 /dy  96.7 kg  8,511 /dy
Week 2 (STD)  31.3       62.4     17.8    129.3      2747      96.6     5,426

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Net Worth: Feb 2016

Another negative month due to weakness in the local and international stock markets. The only bright spot was that the Sydney real estate market held up fairly well, despite a growing number of international commentators predicting the 'bubble' was about to burst (some predicting imminent price drops of up to 50%). The stock market has recovered slightly at the start of March, so next month's NW figure might look a bit more positive.

There was a flurry of media attention regarding the 'residents collective' that we are in -- a group of ~60 local residents that have banded together to try and 'market' our homes as one parcel to potential developers, given the rezoning of our properties that is being considered by local council due to the construction of the nearby North Shore hospital. Our group sent out a request for 'expressions of interest' from developers (they have until the end of next week to respond), and once the real estate section of the Sydney Morning herald had gotten wind of this (http://www.domain.com.au/news/group-of-neighbours-in-sydneys-frenchs-forest-make-200-million-property-play-20160229-gn6amy/) the local TV channels all ran the story over the next few days. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the 'expressions of interest' process, and when the council eventually reaches a decision regarding the rezoning. The current estimated value for our home is therefore the current 'market value' for a similar house in our suburb, but outside of the hospital precinct, and is therefore likely to be very conservative. The actual price realized if sold to a developer could be double that value... but there's no point trying to estimate a figure while everything is still 'up in the air' for the next year or two.

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Net Worth: Jan 2016

As would be expected for a high risk investment approach, my net worth dropped considerably last month, due to the global uncertainty regarding China growth, and the negative sentiment seen in stock markets around the world. My geared share portfolio was down a massive $37,302 (-26.16%), and my retirement savings (SMSF account balance) was down $19,920 (-2.79%) as it is largely invested in local and global stock markets via the Vanguard High Growth Index Fund.

On a more positive note, the estimated value for our home was fairly stable, with the 'correction' in Sydney house prices being more of a sideways move than an actual drop in average sales prices (so far).

Overall, my net worth decreased by -$57,110 to $1,788,873 (-3.09%). So far it isn't looking likely that I'll become a 'multi-millionaire' in 2016.

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Net Worth: December 2015

Net Worth increased slightly during December (up 0.87% or A$15,731) due mostly to an increase in the estimated market valuation for our home. My leveraged stock portfolio saw little change over the month, and my retirement savings showed a slight decrease with a bi-annual tax payment offsetting the two employer contribution payments that were processed during the month. Depending on how the stock market performs during 2016, this might be the first year my net worth touches two millions and I become a 'multi-millionaire' ;) Unfortunately these days that no longer qualifies one as being 'rich' or UHNW (ultra-high net worth) -- for that you'd need ten or twenty million dollars of 'financial assets', not just a house in Sydney.

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