First, let's do the results of 30 days on 4HB:
I started April at 156 lbs, but by the time I had the impulsive idea to do 4HB, I was at 154 lbs on Day 1. I had stated that my goal was to lose 7 lbs in 30 days, which would be extremely simple if I had a normal 9-5 job where I could handle every meal myself and be on a normal schedule. But I don't, and therein lay my real challenge: how to successfully accomplish this goal on my real schedule and at my job. It took planning, scouting, a lot of running about at the airports, and sometimes it just came down to luck, but here's what I accomplished.
Starting Weight: 154
Stated Goal Weight: 147
Actual Final Weight: 145
So I actually managed to lose 9 pounds in 30 days while still on my normal job and schedule. Last time I did 4HB a year or so ago, I had vacation and my airline was overstaffed and seeking voluntary leaves, so I ended up with a full month off and dropped 19 pounds. So, we can see a 10-pound difference between having full control over my schedule and meals versus not. Contributing factors included:
- I can't speak for most pilots, but as for myself and almost everyone I work with, we pace ourselves with our water intake so that we're not constantly getting up and using the lavatory in flight. If I worked at a bigger airline (someday soon, fingers crossed) that would be one thing, but I fly regional jets where the lavatory is all the way in the aft of the cabin so we have to make what we call the "Walk of Shame" past all the customers. Additionally, since 9/11 pilots leaving the flight deck has become a major production that involves the entire crew at the regional level, and honestly it's just not worth all the hassle if I can avoid it. Off work, we drink a lot of water, but before and during flights, we just sip now and then. Being at home that month, I could drink all the water I wanted because I was free to find a restroom any time I wanted.
- Our schedules are just too random. There were a few times we were awake around 4am but I was not able to get any food for at least 3 hours. One of the goals with 4HB is to have your first meal within 60 minutes of waking, and it just happened to work out that either I hadn't packed enough bars or whatever else to get me through that, or as I learned after logging my meals and going through all this, I don't care how much sleep I did (or did not) get, or how long it had been since my last meal, my body and brain simply has no interest in food before 5:30am at the earliest, usually 6 to 6:30am before I feel I can get any food down at all. That's just too early in the morning for me to really function well, so that affects the whole day afterward.
- Between packing bars and smoothie mixes, I had the protein angle covered. Vegetables proved to be a challenge, however. Especially in the Charlotte airport. There are three places I can get black beans, which are great for both protein and fiber. For non-legumes vegetables, though, there weren't many choices. The BBQ place in the center atrium has a really good cucumber tomato salad, nice and tangy as well as being a cool side dish for the hot summer. If I have the time, I can run all the way down the C concourse to Sbarro where they have fresh hot steamed broccoli, carrots, cauliflower and zucchini. Or if I'm desperate and willing to risk it, there's Manchu Wok which is god-awful "mall Chinese" but they have what they refer to as "steamed vegetables" which are limp and soaked in water, grease, and who knows what else. Not sure how many nutrients are even left, and the taste is horrid but in a pinch I guess it's better than nothing. A few places serve salads to go, but they're almost always made from an iceberg lettuce base, which is practically worthless in every way except as roughage, so I usually prefer to just skip iceberg lettuce salads.
So, the experiment was a success! 9 pounds total loss, when the goal was 7. But there's more!
Losing is one thing, and one big key here is knowing that a "Diet" is simply a means to an end. One must make lifestyle changes in order to maintain the weight loss, maintain or improve their health, and so on. This is why most "diets" fail -- because people will do the diet for a short time, perhaps see some results, then go right back to their old ways and regain all the weight along with some extra pounds for good measure.
Most of June was spent using what I'd learned about what was possible at work and practicing moderation. Some of the trips I would arrive in Charlotte around lunch time so I'd stop at the new Einstein bagel place and get one of the "bagel thin" sandwiches for lunch. Low calorie, low-ish carb (for a bagel) and vegetables for fiber, etc. and a little protein from the chicken or turkey. I still relied on the Quest Nutrition bars for a high protein snack (those things are sooooo good) along with taking some of those 100 calorie almond packs in my bag. I'd eat salads or things very similar to what I ate during 4HB but allowed myself a little of the starches, fruits and dairy that is forbidden. At home I might make a black bean or some other veggie burger with those "thin buns" instead of normal burger buns and baked sweet potato fries for lunch. Again, moderation is the key. All in all, by the time the next paragraph came about, I had pretty much settled at 146 after daily fluctuations, and my body was getting accustomed to being at that weight so wasn't fighting as hard to try to get itself back in the mid-150's it had been at in April.
All along, my First Officer had been occasionally mentioning that I looked better, thinner and healthier than the last time we'd worked together. He's kind of a big guy himself in both frame and stature, though the sedentary job we have has added a lot of weight to it as well. I had told him about my 30 day project and he became interested to the point he bought the 4HB ebook himself and in the middle of one of the trips suddenly announced he was going to start 4HB that very day! I cautioned him that he wasn't really prepared since he had just read over the book the day prior so hadn't packed 4HB-compliant foods but I was relatively certain I had enough to share with him to get us through the rest of the trip. I feel that when it comes to people making positive changes to themselves, a support group is helpful and he didn't have anyone other than me to go through this with him, so I restarted 4HB along with him to be supportive for him and to serve as an example of how to do it at work. He's getting married in October and is hoping to lose 30 pounds by then, so roughly 10 pounds per month. We finished that first trip and, I won't lie, it was a little rough on both of us because we didn't have enough 4HB-compliant foods packed in our lunch bags to get us through the days without being hungry but we were always able to have a great dinner even though 4HB turns you into a high-maintenance diva at restaurants. LOL We had five days off straight then came back for our final trip together where we both had packed plenty of 4HB foods and had no troubles at all. It was great even for me to have someone else go through this with me, so I can vouch for the usefulness of any type of support group, even if that "group" is only one person. He texted me when he got home that night to weight in, and in two weeks he had already lost 10 pounds! He'd been saying all during that last trip that he had more energy, was sleeping better, wasn't hungry, and could tell his uniform was fitting a little better even if he didn't have a scale to see if he was making any progress. After seeing a 10 pound loss, he was even more excited and feels his goal of 30 pounds before his wedding is even more attainable than ever.
As for myself, those two weeks have brought me down to 141 according to my weigh-in this morning! Maybe it's a "getting older" thing, but the bits of fat in the face no longer come off as easily as they once did, and abdomen fat for men is a problem as we mature anyway. So I'm going to keep at it and see if I can get to between 135 and 137. Of course, I have vacation next week and I can tell you right now that I will be having conch fritters and pina coladas... I'll just have to stay active and balance those with protein and vegetables to try to counter the damage they'll do!
A few additional statistics:
I thought there might be a difference between my meal schedules at work versus home, but thanks to packing foods, protein bars, and smoothie mixes, that turned out to not be the case.
At both home and work, I tended to have 3 meals per day, occasionally I would either have a snack between lunch and dinner (usually a Quest bar) or there were a few times where breakfast got split into two smaller meals at work where I knew it would be a long time before I could get lunch so I'd have a bit at the hotel (or a Quest bar) then try to grab something at the airport.
Also, I averaged 4.57 hours between meals the entire month. Counted in there, however, were 6 instances at work where I went longer than 6 hours before I was able to have a meal, and one instance of over 9 hours which is not good for anyone, dieting or not, but could not be helped due to the schedule that day. I'm reading now that health experts prefer we have 4 to 5 meals per day, and those meals spaced out roughly every 5 hours, give or take 30 minutes. I probably would have done 4 meals per day but for the most part, simply did not find myself hungry enough for a second lunch beyond having the aforementioned Quest bar as a snack.
