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, New Challenges and Changes

Good evening! 

First, here’s the weekly weigh-in:

	6/8/2014	8/19/2014	9/3/2014	9/30/2014	10/15/2014	10/22/2014	10/29/2014
Weight	191.2	182.6	182.8	181	181.6	181.6	181.4
Pounds Fat	82.7	72.5	73	70.3	70.8	71.3	70.8
Pounds Muscle	67.3	66.8	67.2	65.2	67	65.4	67.3

Essentially the same number as the previous three weeks - a bit annoying since this was the first week “back” after all the Jewish holidays, and I was hoping to lose a bit.  Overall I’m considering October a maintenance month - not ideal, but pretty good considering the challenges.

Speaking of challenges, while I’m not a huge fan of the aforementioned weight-loss related ones that life craps out, I do like making little challenges or goals for myself. In fact, I’m so committed that I’ve been trying to break into the 170s since August.

Challenges keep me accountable, keep me focused, and make things interesting. When I did the low/no sugar month, I stopped eating office food, something that had definitely been stalling my weight or at the very least, slowing it. 

I was able to do it for the month because I knew it was temporary, and then I was able to keep it going after the time ended because I realized it was a good idea, and not as impossible as I’d assumed it would be. Just today our boss brought in delicious apple fritters for everyone and put them on my desk since that was the central location at the moment, and I didn’t eat any. And it was fine, and nobody cared. So I’m going to consider October not as the month I maintained, but rather the month in which I broke a bad habit.

New challenge: starting today and through November, I want to try and stop picking at food in other setting - that piece of pasta out of the strainer, that bite of leftovers, you know what I mean. I track it, but it’s really mindless, pointless calories that I barely remember and definitely are not satisfying. Maybe there are food issues at hand, but part of the reason I do this is plain old habit. And habits can be broken.

If I can work on issues one at a time, I think I could make real long-term progress.

I’m also going to change up how I count calories so that it works better for my style and can help incorporate those “picking at food” slip-ups into the week instead of wrecking the day. 

Since March, when I started diligently tracking my food, I’ve had a daily calorie goal. It’s on the lower end of the expected range, but I ended up averaging a bit higher because of occasional high-calorie days. Sunday through Thursday, I can usually hit that target number without too much effort. I slip up some days, of course, and go over my calorie goals, but for the most part these days have routines and I often “earn” more calories by working out.

However, I didn't give myself any flexibility. This Sunday I burned 700 calories from Zumba and walking to/from the gym, and felt like I had more calories available than I really needed or wanted. And then on Tuesday, I was weirdly hungry, even after my normal breakfast. So why not take the calories I don’t need from Sunday, within reason, and save them for the rest of the week? Why not count calories weekly instead of daily? I think as long as I’m eating a healthy amount each day and have an weekly average deficit of, say, 4000-4500 calories, the daily breakdowns don’t matter as much and my weight will go down.

I’m going to copy part of the Weight Watchers plan, specifically the idea of having both daily and weekly calorie goals. Weight Watchers managed to be be flexible but stringent, if that even makes sense. Essentially there were flexible rules, and flexibility built into the plan, and if you were careful to stay (rigidly) within those flexibilities, you’d lose weight. There was a daily minimum of “food points,” and a weekly allowance that could be used at any time - all in one day or split over different days. 

So I will start giving myself weekly calories, two thousand of them, available anytime from Wednesday through Tuesday, started today. Based on my patterns, I expect to use most of them on the weekend, but again, it’s all about flexibility.

I’ll keep this up for the next four weeks, and see how I feel. I’m thinking of October as the month I stopped eating office junk, instead of the month where I struggled through holidays and barely maintained. So maybe November could be the month that I get a handle on nibbling at foods and having unplanned higher calorie days.

On an unrelated note, you might have noticed that goodnightcheese.blogspot.com is now redirecting to goodnightcheese.com, of which I am now the proud owner. Did you know they'll let anybody buy a domain?