Once a week, I weigh in to see how my calorie counting is going. My mechanism to establish control over my body’s weight has two parts: 1. Regulate food intake and 2. get weighed once per week. Some people weigh themselves every day. They both work. Having undergone a metamorphosis into a person who will sacrifice a lot to control his weight and become thin, I can act out the two parts of my mechanism and not use all my willpower on deprivation. My goal is not to feel deprived.
Some weeks, things don’t go well. Usually, they do.
I woke up today and weighed myself but it was not a triumph. My weight increased a pound since last week (now 260.4). That isn’t possible per the number of calories I have recorded in my food journal, but it’s useful to think about what went wrong and what I can do about it next time. Next week is a new week, after all.
Dissection and reassembly
So what was different from other weeks where I have lost weight? I overate on a couple of days, consequently my calorie count was higher than usual for the week by about 2500. Also, for a few of the days my calorie count was lower than usual. After my Wednesday late night eating fest, I only had 1000 calories the next day – I wasn’t hungry for much, and no wonder. So my calorie intake was bunched up and not spread out as usual. Last, I have had a bloated and full feeling in my gut all day.
- Calories per day: (Saturday) 2420, then 1750, 3800, 1740, 2880, 1080, and 1640 (Friday). Total: 15,400.
- My break even point (neither gain nor lose weight): 3200 per day or a Total of: 22,400.
- My usual calorie goal is about 13,000 calories per week (1850 x 7).
As you can see, even with a couple of bad diet days in there, I should be losing weight. Why didn’t it happen?
- I could be wrong about my calorie counting. I don’t see that being right, my calorie counting has been good so far through the first 65 pounds lost. But it’s possible.
- I could be retaining fluid. I like this theory, because I feel a little bloated and blocked up today. And it means I am not to blame! Blame has lots of calories.
- The unevenness of my eating this last week (one day 1080, another day 3800) has thrown off my metabolism and given time my true weight will reveal itself.
It will be hard to tell the difference between #s 2 and 3. They both will get fixed with time. I don’t know if it helps, but I was sure to have a yogurt today with lots of active live cultures. This will also not distinguish between #s 2 and 3, but will help either situation equally.
It seems unlikely that with a maintenance level of 22,400 calories per week, that I wouldn’t lose weight by eating only 15,400 calories in a week. The usual estimate is you lose 1 pound for every 3500 calories of deficit. So I will forge ahead and get my routine re-established. I have no reason to change anything, yet. But there is still a long way to go – losing the rest of the extra weight, finding out what weight I want to maintain, and then figuring out how to maintain it. It will take a lifetime, and I hope I can keep finding ways to make it worthwhile.
-The Doctor
The scale weight is a trailing indicator that is – well inaccurate! A leading indicator is the journal you are keeping. If you have created a deficit you are likely losing weight (provided your metabolism is still firing away – that is where exercise can help). Water weight, muscle building, etc. all have a short term appearance of weight gain or plateau – but if you are meeting your leading indicators, keeping exercise and metabolism, your weight will follow!