I’ve lost muscle because of all the volunteer work in the community garden which is exercise but not like weights, rowing, and bike. Headed to Palm Springs Friday till March or April. No responsibilities there so working out, riding and improving my golf game are priorities. Wifey is doing a half marathon in Joshua Tree on night of Nov 1. I asked my knees if they wanted to go too and they said “ not NO…. HELL NO!

Thankfully the elliptical doesn't bother them.

Down to 192 from 205.5 in May. Never thought I'd get close to being under 190, but I'm in striking range and can get there before the holidays, I think. My lower and middle back had a bad couple weeks, but I'm back to swimming harder intervals again and can hike with the weighted vest again. Great news for you. You need to get the heart attack-preventing visceral fat level down before the new AD/head coach/GM are announced because we may all have heart attacks and strokes that day.

pressure on your joints. He said losing weight was more important than exercising and being in shape as far as joint pressure goes. I just started w/ creatine and that's making me gain water weight. Considering stopping that now.

Your water weight retention will pass. I've linked an article explaining it below:

My swimming endurance and speed has increased. I have regained some lost muscle mass (the bicep and shoulder surgeries cost me a lot of mass) and can tell a major difference. My daughter was mid distance D1 swimmer and felt a major effect in her ability to recovery from the beatdowns (she also did reps of 415# on the trap bar and squatted 300#). The short term fluid gain will pass. Highly recommend it. I didn't like the Klean powder, so I've taking the gummies.

...more water in my muscles...lol

Admittedly, I haven't really been putting in any effort to lose 7-10 pounds. I've maintained this weight for quite a while...I eat pretty healthy, but I just don't get any exercise during the week. I'm sure if I do some walking on the treadmill in the evenings, I can get under 190. I just need to motivate myself to do it. Nice work on your recent shed. I hear you on the struggle with the back...we have commiserated about back pain before, and while I have been doing OK recently, fear of aggravating my back again is always on my mind and is probably the biggest obstacle to regular exercise for me.

I worked really hard on mobility and core strength last Spring and Fall and got to where I was back to doing flip turns, and that makes swimming more enjoyable and faster. Then inevitably I went too hard in August trying to get myself in some kind of shape for the Fall push, and I got a tweak that was hard to get rid of. One thing I have really committed to is doing a lot of walking. I have a four year old golden puppy and walk her daily and twice on the weekends in addition to doing my lifts and swims. It makes a difference. I have started taking chromium picolonate, which really helps with sugar cravings. If there was no such at chocolate or Wisconsin brandy old fashioneds I could probably get to 185 faster!

But these are pretty clean, with the only ingredients being sweet potatoes, avocado oil and sea salt.

I looked at the ingredients and thought it might be worth a shot. I'll continue buying them. I bought the "Norse" potato chips cooked in beef tallow, and found those pretty darn good too. I won't have any more of those until the next time I relax my Keto.

Haven't touched it this year, but I'll probably eat a few Reece's Cups from my halloween candy bag...lol

Drop your carbs a little further and you'll see your weight decrease.

I eat a salad for lunch almost every day of the week, and I don't eat lots of sweets and junk. So, I'm not sure eating fewer carbs is sustainable for me long-term. I could really get strict by eliminating stuff like salad dressing, snacks like peanuts, and the little bit of sweet tea that I mix in with my unsweet tea, and I'm sure that would cause me to lose weight, but I can almost guarantee I won't maintain those diet restrictions long-term. Plus, I do need to get more regular exercise anyway just from a cardiovascular health perspective, so I'd prefer to drop weight by being more active. I do think that if I get in the habit of that, I'm much more likely to maintain that long-term.

There are better salad dressing choices. Take it from me...if you want to lose weight avoid peanuts...lol Remove sweet tea, and just add allulose or stevia to your unsweetened tea. See, there are much better ways to decrease your carbs and still enjoy your food and drink. Check out "protein ice cream." That will be my eventual holiday "treat" once I buy allulose from Amazon. Low carb ice cream...you have to love it!

When I turned 30, I went hard on a low carb diet and went from 212 to 167. At 6'-0" tall, that was way too skinny...people started asking me if I was dying, ha. So I eased up a bit and have generally maintained my weight between 185-195 for the past 14 years. The biggest difference between now and then is my physical activity level. Obviously at 30, I had more energy, but I also worked a job that had me on my feet all day every day. It was not uncommon at all for me to get 20,000 steps in a day. But about 6 years ago, I switched to an office role with my company, and around the same time, I also injured my back. So I have been much more sedentary for the past 6 years, which has caused my weight to hover near 195 instead of 185. You make good suggestions for diet alternatives, and if I ate at home every day, I'd be inclined to try to do more of that. But I'm in the middle of my career and have probably never been busier, so I eat on the go and have to eat out every day. I'm happy that I can find places that offer salads, but finding places that offer keto-friendly dressings is honestly just not something I'm going to make the effort to do. And, I do like stevia and use it when I eat somewhere that offers it, but most places don't. I prefer to use real sugar instead of artificial sweeteners, so I just try to mix in sweet tea sparingly with my unsweet. Sadly, I can't do stuff heavy in dairy like ice cream, so I don't have to worry about stuff like that ruining my diet.

...the next time they see me that I'm not sick, but have just been doing Keto...lol. Want to give them a heads up since I've significantly changed my appearance.

...lost a ton of weight since you last saw them.

I still have visceral and subcutaneous fat to lose. Not sure how much different I'll look after another ~20 pounds, but doubt my face will look much different than it does now. But it should be very noticeable if I take my shirt off at the beach...lol. It's very noticeable now, and will be more so then.

I remember my mom making me choke salmon down growing up. We didn't have much money, and it felt like a delicacy, but I'm pretty sure a can of salmon was cheaper than hotdogs.

My mom used to fry "salmon patties" and I was definitely NOT a fan...lol. Unlike beef liver, I would eat it.

I know you feel better with less weight!

I picked the Hume because it links the scale measurements to an app on my phone, and it claims to be as accurate as a DEXA scan from your neighborhood doctor's office. You will see swings of data from changes in your hydration level from day to day, so I use it to track trends. The two measurements I follow the closest are visceral and subcutaneous fat. I've accumulated too much of both, so It's nice being able to track more things than just my weight. I've noticed visceral fat loss seems to go hand in hand with subcutaneous fat loss. Drops in VF appear to coincide with a ~4.25 pound drop in subcutaneous fat.