Saturday! The day when I weigh myself to see whether weight control is happening or is just a figment of my imagination. All week I have been keeping a food journal and counting calories. I can truly say that I have no idea what I will weigh. I never do. But the calorie counting has been going well. How did that translate to weight loss this week?
Success! I have lost a fraction over two pounds since I last recorded my weight 2 weeks ago. This means that since I started my new weight control lifestyle in January of 2019, I have lost:
That's 73 less than I used to weigh
…but about 47 more than I want to weigh. I prefer to look on the positive side. After all, I have already lost 73, so the next 47 should be easy, right?
Actually, I am finding that it seemed much easier to lose the first half of my excess 120 pounds. Weight loss was about 3 pounds per week fairly routinely, and I kind of got used to that. Now it is harder. Why is that? Well, part of it is success. It takes more energy to maintain a body that weighs 325 pounds than it does 251.8 pounds. So eating the same amount means I probably won’t be losing as much every week. According to the weight loss calculator on the internet here:
325 pounds – 3337 calories per day to maintain weight
275 pounds – 3026 calories per day to maintain weight
251 pounds – 2876 calories per day to maintain weight
(205 pounds – 2590 calories per day to maintain weight)
For now, my goal weight is 205 pounds. Then I will assess what to do next.
I have been keeping my calorie intake steady at about 1,850 calories per day, so you can see the problem. In weekly terms, I need to be in deficit 3,500 calories, over a week, to lose a pound that week. At first (325 pounds), I was in deficit 10,500 calories per week and was losing three pounds at a time. Now at 251.8 pounds, eating the same amount of food, I am only in deficit 7,000 calories and so losing only 2 pounds a week; and errors and cheats in my calorie counting (some on purpose, some not) now have a bigger effect. There is less room for error.
My feeling is that adding in some daily exercise (e.g. walking for 30 minutes) will help even out those problems. I have also had some interest in strength training (weight lifting) which is also apparently a high calorie burning activity. But I am not eager to get started yet, that’s another activity that would take a lot of time and dedication.
For now, I will stick with my winning system, even if the wins are slightly smaller. Things are still going my way, not as fast. Maybe it will be 2020 before I reach my goal. But I will still reach it.
-The Doctor
Yay! A loss is a loss and a win is a win, so you’re a double-barreled success — Congratulations on another low weigh-in!