The Doctor is following a system of weight control, rather than dieting. Every Saturday I weigh myself. This is so important, I am also teaching my children to do it. Weigh yourself every week, even if you aren’t dieting. Keep a record, and you will have 52 weights per year written down. It will be really clear if you are gaining, losing, or staying the same weight. If you don’t do this, you will almost certainly gain weight. That’s sad but true.
The second part to controlling your body’s weight is to regulate your food intake, which also means monitoring it. If you do that accurately and well, your weight will be moving in the direction you expect, every week.
This means since beginning my weight control system I have lost…..
The weight loss calculations were correct!!!!
That is fantastic, considering the weekly calorie total was 13,755. Let me explain.
I usually try to limit myself to 1800 calories per day. On swim days, that’s a little higher and my average for the week is usually 1850 calories per day. Per week, that means I am eating about 13,000 calories.
Someone like me should be eating 22,400 calories per week to maintain current weight. That’s plugging my information into the calculator at healthline.com (most of the calculators you will find on the Internet agree with this number). So, the 22,400 I should be eating to maintain my weight, minus the 13,000 I am eating per week is 9,400 calories. What does that mean?
The weight loss number, expressed in calories, is 3500. The fact is that if you are in deficit 3500 calories in a week, you will lose one pound of weight. I am usually in deficit 9,400 calories per week, which means I should be losing between 2-3 pounds per week. Amazingly, that has been fairly accurate over the last 6 months. 22 weeks have gone by and I have lost 58 pounds, or 2.6 per week. That’s an average, some weeks have been more or less, due to illness or other reasons.
So, this week I had about 800 calories more than usual. Instead of a deficit of 9400 calories, I was in deficit 8600. That’s still more than two pounds (7000 calories), so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.
The above calculations all come from my daily food log. I have a fairly simple one that describes what I ate, how I felt, and how many calories, my health, and whether I exercised. That bank of data, or self knowledge, is pretty useful. As it grows, I will learn more and more about myself. That can all be harnessed in service of the new goal I am living out: create a life full of satisfaction and fulfillment, be able to enjoy lovely food, and control my weight. So far that has all come true. Having lost 58 pounds, I am gaining confidence that this system works.
The above is all true, but the most true part is that to lose weight you really have to let go, change yourself dramatically, and live out the changes in a way that makes your life better. Say no to dieting, because dieting is too often a way of making strictly temporary changes. You are still the same person after dieting. THe Doctor is a new person with new values and priorities, and a new life goal and new eating goals. This was a big transformation. It doesn’t make me a better person, but it does make me one who is in control of his weight and who has found meaning and fulfillment in that part of life. How could you life improve?
-The Doctor
Congratulations on realizing the rewards of your labors! Keep it up!