Weekly Weigh-In: Seesaw

I got my groove back, working hard and ending the week with a 3300-calorie deficit. (I.e. almost a pound's worth of calories.) 

This week’s weigh-in below. Since I’ve been doing more intensive Tuesday night workouts that I think might have been affecting the weigh-in, I got on a scale a day early.

	Start	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	12/31	1/28	2/11	2/18	2/25	3/4
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.2	174.6	174.2	178	177	175
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	67.1	65.3	64.7	67.4	66.5	64.6
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.9	64.4	63.5	64.2	68.2	64.1

So we’re getting closer to where it’s supposed to be before the ridiculous 4-pounds-up-in-one-week gain, but still a couple pounds off by my calorie calculations. On another note, look how close the fat and muscle pounds are! The seesaw is about to turn the other way.

Honestly, I’m worried this is starting to mess with my head. Just based on these numbers, my weight has been overall quite stagnant for months. But it shouldn’t be. But it is. And I'm tired of being tired of it.

I’ve had one or two people tell me that they’ve noticed I look smaller, more compact, compared to a couple of months ago. I can feel it, too. My back and waist are smaller, and I think my thighs are actually smaller too. That one’s especially great, because they’re usually the last to go. I can see my jawline has gotten more defined. It's definitely time for some new measurements and progress photos, actually.

So it’s like my appearance matches my efforts and success, but the scale, even with it’s fat/muscle magic, isn’t. I liked the scale because it’s supposed to be a good way to measure shorter term progress, but right now it’s not doing its job. So I either need to really, really focus on the positive changes that have been happening to my body (because they really have and it’s great) or stop weighing in.

Tools are only tools when they’re useful (unless of course you’re talking about people who are tools), and this one’s not being useful. It’s time for some updated measurements, ASAP.

The other question is, should I put the scale away? 
Who else is sick of my whining besides me?

Weigh In: Fat vs. Muscle Edition

Another week gone. I love that the scale is out of sight and reach during the week. It forces me to focus on doing well, that day, because I can’t know if the scale is reflecting it.

This week’s numbers:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/31	1/7	1/14	1/21	1/28
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	177.2	176.6	175.8	174.8	174.6
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	67.1	66.9	67.6	66.5	65.3
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	63.9	63.9	65	65.1	64.4

Well, look at that fat number back down! I’m so, so close to having more muscle weight than fat weight. That feels like a huge milestone. Net weight is about the same, but (as should be obvious from my previous post) that’s not shocking. Another funny thing is that my fat loss is higher than the total loss on the scale!

Now that it's just three weeks till my 26th birthday, I think my goal of getting to the 160s might not be in reach. I'm going to keep trying, of course, but my second goal/deadline is to get there by the end of February.

This has been a good week overall, despite the PMSing (see previous post for how that was). I worked out five times, with some strength training, brought my lunch in every day, and have been a faithful food tracker since June. 

However, I repeated my tired pattern of going overboard on Friday and Saturday and having to reel it in the rest of the week. Because it’s been a while, here is the calorie breakdown for this week (first number is gross calories, second number is net calories, so if there’s one number it means I didn’t work out):

Wednesday: 1530, 1100

Thursday: 1625, 1245

Friday: 2520, 2175

Saturday: 2200

Sunday: 1600, 940

Monday: 1585

Tuesday: 1350, 1100

So four low calorie days, two high calorie days, and one in the middle, for a net deficit about about 2260, or a little over half a pound. Obviously not ideal, since I’m aiming for a pound a week, but honestly? I’m okay with it. I really think that what I’m doing now, how I’m doing this, is a way that will stick. .6 pounds a week adds up to 30 pounds in a year. That means that if I do all the weeks exactly as I did this one, I would be at 145 next year - a weight I’ve NEVER been at as an adult.

Does it sound like I’m rationalizing a not-great week? Maybe I am, but I’m okay with that. So every week, I’m going to aim for a pound deficit - a great, sometimes lofty goal. But I’ll know that even if I can do half that, I’ll make incredible progress.

Do you have trouble going overboard on weekends?

How do you make the best of it?

Weekly Weight: Down Again!

Here's the weekly number:

	Starting	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/19	12/17	12/24	12/31	1/7
Weight	200	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	177.6	179.2	179.6	177.2	176.6
Lbs. Fat		82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	68.1	68.4	69.5	67.1	66.9
Lbs. Muscle		67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	63.3	67.3	68	63.9	63.9

Excellent, down by another half pound! My expectations were low since I was sick for half the week and didn't move at all, let alone exercise, so I'm especially happy.

A few random bullet points: 

• Today, I wore another pair of pants that a year ago I couldn't even zip up. I think they were maybe borderline too tight in some places, but the waistline fit great and I was too excited not to wear them. "Why, these old thing that look like generic black slacks? Yes, they are part of this magical day!"
• I've been putting the scale away during the week and just checking in on Wednesdays. I think it's much better for now. It forces me to not focus on the number because you can't focus on what you don't know. I do still like to check in weekly, but those daily reminders were helping more than hurting. 
• I have six weeks left until my time goal to hit the 160s. Maybe I can actually do this!
• I was crazy sore yesterday. Is that what happens when you don't walk farther than the distance between your bedroom and the kitchen for four days, and then do some strength training and cardio? 
• We've starting watching Star Trek (though Jay has already seen most of them) and it's awesome. 
• I'm glad everyone is obsessed with Serial because there's many fascinating analyses to read. 
• I just realized I have 69 posts from 2014. Totally an accident - even my unconscious mind is in the gutter.
• Winter is here. Everything is cold. I hate it. 
• My father-in-law lives in LA, and he likes to mock us by sending photos of his wife and himself on warm sunny bike rides on the beach.

Weigh-In: How to Define Weight Loss

Happy Holidays to everyone! Or you’re like me and thrilled that it’s almost over.

This week’s weigh-in:

	6/8	8/19	9/30	10/29	11/6	11/19	12/10	12/17	12/24
Weight	191.2	182.6	181	181.4	179.6	177.6	179	179.2	179.6
Lbs. Fat	82.7	72.5	70.3	70.8	70.3	68.1	66.9	68.4	69.5
Lbs. Muscle	67.3	66.8	65.2	67.3	65	63.3	64	67.3	68

A little up, but mostly the same. Not what I was expecting, since I had a good week and was expecting to have lost a pound.

Zooming out over the last few months, overall I’ve been frustrated. Things don’t seem to be adding up (or rather, down) and I feel like I’ve been around the same 3-5 pounds for months now.

The upside is that I’ve been tracking my food intake consistently since maybe last February, so I have a lot of information to work with and I don’t just have to sit around and stew in my injustice. This is one of the things that I’m really proud of - I try to track as honestly as possible, even when the last thing I want to do is admit that I ate 500 calories worth of bread at dinner.

The last time I felt this way, that the scale wasn’t reflecting my efforts, was in June when I was 192 pounds.  However, when I added up the numbers, I quickly realized that I had been having way more “maintenance” days than I realized, and in fact my lack of weight loss was perfectly in line with what I was eating.

So before I got too mad at the scale this time around, I knew I need to do some more number crunching to see if I’m actually weighing more than I “should” or it’s all in my head again.

I made one large chart with all measurements from June through the end of last week - net calories and calorie deficit based on an 1800 calorie maintenance level for each day; then I cross-referenced it with weight measurements. So I can figure out what the calories say I should weigh at a certain time, and what the scale actually said.

So here are the results, in sum: Since June, I have eaten about 60,000 fewer calories than I need. Score! Of those 60,000, about 13,000 are from the last ten weeks. That means I theoretically should have lost 17 pounds total by now, and a little under four in the last ten weeks (yeah, October was not a great month).

In reality it’s more like twelve pounds lost overall and two pounds of that in the last ten weeks. Not adding up, so perhaps my frustration is legitimate. But what has changed is the fat - today I have a little over fourteen fewer pounds on my body, and exactly the same muscle mass. In the last ten weeks, I’ve lost about 2-3 pounds of fat. My conclusion is that the fat mass measurements are much more accurate overall than the weight ones. Thus, perhaps I should focus on the fat numbers and have the overall weight be secondary, instead of the other way around? Revolutionary!

I try to keep in mind is that my body is not magic and can’t defy the laws of physics and gravity. If I keep eating at a deficit, I will lose weight and it will all add up. It seems it will be frustratingly, agonizingly slow, but what other choice do I have?

The other thing to remember is that even the best estimate, hell, even the nutrition facts on a label are probably going to be off by a bit. With that, the gap between what I do weigh and what I think I should weigh shrinks. Or maybe my body only burns 1750 calories each day, though I’ve been counting it as 1800. I think 17 pounds should be gone, in reality it’s 14 pounds. That’s maybe not so much, in the end.

I still want to get into the 160s by my 26 birthday, which gives me another 7-8 weeks to lose ten pounds. That may not be likely at this point, but I’m going to try to get as close as possible.