Aug - Jan: before and after (pics)

Thanks! I'm hoping to get my belly to look like it belongs to the legs over the next 6 months.

I'm 4 pounds down from those last pics, not losing nearly as quickly as you Akane but still chugging along. I hit my initial goal of 135. Now I want to try 125. I can't wait for warm weather to start up again! I expect to drop the rest once I'm back on my bike.

I've been fascinated by the arrival of new muscles I didn't know I had. I've got big dents on the lower sides of my abdomen now and I think they're trying to be cut lines. I want to nurture them along and probably have to drop more body fat for that to happen. By measurements I seem to be 25% fat still, ugh.

I hear ya. Hey, 4 lbs is pretty darn awesome considering you have reached your initial goal and are heading towards a lower one. I am kinda hoping I don't slow down...we'll see how my body treats me. I'm still at about 30-31% fat....so, I've got a ways to go. Kinda hoping I can get to the "norm women body fat" i.e. 22% at least by my goal weight and then work on getting that last 4% off to get my 18% bodyfat goal. It's awesome you are seeing "dents" where you didn't know you had them before. I'd like to see more dents too..and not the fat kind. I'm waiting for my "muscle treasures" to unearth so I can see what kind of toning has went on.

I started kettlebells in late sept with 25lbs, and in Feb I upgraded to 30 lbs. I wanted 35 but the store I was at (that I had a 50% off coupon for) only had 30 or 40, and 40 felt way too heavy for me.

I've stayed away from juicing because my understanding is that it normally removes the fiber which is as important as the vitamins. But I think if you made a cold or hot veggie soup and hit it with a regular or immersion blender or food processor, you could drink it like juice.

Do you have an updated progress chart to share with the 4HB world?

Thank you! I got a balance ball for Christmas and am planning to work the core and arms more. I'm kicking myself for letting myself go to pot over the last decade, I had it in my head that it's just fate for women to get thick around the waist once they hit their 40s and when it started happening the feminist in me was accepting it as normal aging. Darn feminism!

Thanks! That was 51 days ago, 136 pounds. Today I'm 130.6 pounds, and here's the comparison of new leg muscles:

I was bummed that the weight loss has slowed, 6 pounds in almost 2 months is slow, but I can see some of it is added muscle, so there's more than 6 pounds of fat lost.

Look at those gams

You're definitely losing fat and gaining some buffalicious muscles.

Get a set of fat calipers. We're probably near the same size. I'm at 5'4", 131lbs.

I'm still amazed at the changes I'm seeing. The before again:

and today:

I bought some clothes today in a size small and almost wanted to cry; two summers ago I was really frustrated because even the large shirts sometimes wouldn't button closed right.

DAMN GIRL!!! You look amazing. Lean and fit and ready to kick some @ss! Keep up the great work Jake!

Awesome!! THAT's what 47 looks like : ) Thanks for the inspiration!

Very inspiring! Keep it up!

Heh, I DO feel like I could go kick some @ss! I built the set for our spring musical last month, and I had all kinds of fun swaggering about in muscle shirts slinging power tools around. I think I've found my alter ego - and it's a 16 year old boy.

You look amazing!

WOW! Great transformation! AWESOME JOB!!

Wow! Great work!

Love those jacked-up guns!

We can start our own buff girl gang

Time for good news, bad news. Good news: I hit a few milestones this month. I finally dipped below 128, and it's the first month where my average for the month is below 130. I also did my first crossfit session this week (OWWW!) and am going back tomorrow for session 2. And I got my blood tested this week, first time since the diet started. My blood glucose (fasting) is down from 89 last year to 80. (anything below 100 is desirable)

Updated progress photos, now showing Aug 2011, Jan 2012 and this week - the same shirt hangs over the elastic loosely now and my shoulders are angular.

And the bad news - my cholesterol is through the roof. My LDL was already borderline but now it's up from 151 to 179. (Ideal is below 100, anything above 160 is high.) I may have to rethink the egg breakfasts, bacon, and baked chicken legs with skin. So sad!

Triglycerides were low and still are (under 150 is good, mine rose from 65 to 73).

On the plus side, I feel way more empowered to change the cholesterol situation naturally. Before when I was told mine was borderline high, it seemed like a function of aging and generic weight gain that was out of my control. Now my immediate reaction was: "I got this." Not having the food addictions anymore means I can rationally look at what I need to change and move into the next phase of the experiment.

One more post because now I'm calculating cholesterol ratios, and they all look good.

Your Total Cholesterol of 272 is HIGH RISK

Your LDL of 179 is HIGH RISK

Your HDL of 79 is OPTIMAL

Your Triglyceride level of 73 is NORMAL

RATIOS:

Your Total Cholesterol/HDL ratio is: 3.44 - (preferably under 5.0, ideally under 3.5) IDEAL

Your HDL/LDL ratio is: 0.441 - (preferably over 0.3, ideally over 0.4) IDEAL

Your triglycerides/HDL ratio is: 0.924 - (preferably under 4, ideally under 2) IDEAL

So the LDL stuff is pretty bad, but easy to identify the problems. Once I get that part of the diet sorted out, my ratios should be ridiculously good (assuming the diet affects the LDL a significant amount).

Amazing stuff Jake! Just amazing. this is so very impressive - I am lost for words here!

I haven't posted in a while because I went off the diet to try to fix my cholesterol without meds. I switched up my breakfast to oatmeal and blueberries most days. I dropped bacon and a lot of meat-fats. I've kept a lot of veggies and protein in the diet, and had a few too many pb&j sandwiches.

3 months later:

Total cholesterol dropped from high risk to desirable. (272 to 194)

LDL dropped from high risk to near optimal (179 to 114)

HDL is still optimal (79 to 64)

Triglycerides stayed normal (73 to 80)

Ratios all stayed in the ideal range.

I gained back a few pounds, but I'm still under my initial goal weight. Next up is more tinkering with the diet to see if I can find a happy medium where cholesterol is optimal and I lose back the 5 pounds I regained.