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Good morning!
It's a weird weigh-in today.
All the numbers seem askew somewhat.
I did great yesterday, coming out of the day at 2500 calories consumed, 2800 burned. I was definitely under a little, as I wanted to be.
I was low in protein too, though, and that isn't okay. I can't be low in protein. This is twice this week.
Yesterday, I had counted on buying a couple of protein shakes at the store by my brother's house. When I went there, they had none. I had to go for high protein yogurts to compensate.
It wasn't all that bad of a choice. Here in Denmark, we have something called "Skyr". I'm not sure what it's called elsewhere, but it's like a very thick Greek Yogurt. You can get it with just the yogurt flavor, or with either spices or fruits. I picked the natural flavor, as it had less calories.
The trade-off was pretty sweet - 240 calories for 400 grams, packing 44g of protein. It was affordable too, to boot, and filled me up like eating a brick. I can see this being WAY more profitable to eat than say protein bars, if I need something easy from a store.
The only problem I see in it is that it's a milk product in a plastic container, so I can't have it sitting my my backpack (which I always have with me) for day until I need it. For this, protein bars are great.
At some point I cut out the protein bars entirely. They were making me want to eat more, snack more. This has changed. Now that I can eat more, I don't really have the crazy snacking urges, and having a protein bar is no problem. I can much easier see it as a tool for protein and also a snack, eat one and leave it at that. It's easier.
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But back to the weigh-in. Like I said, pretty much all numbers are off.
I'm one kilo down. I'm not surprised by that. I would expect it based on the foods I ate yesterday, and with regular fluctuations.
But the measuring of muscle mass says I am down THREE KILOS(!!) since yesterday. I'm down two kilos of fluid, and I am up two kilos of fat, with my body fat percentage ringing in at over 12%!
Not cool, man. Just not cool.
There is absolutely no way I have gained body fat or lost that kind of muscle.
I think the source of all this is lack of water. I didn't drink nearly as much water yesterday, but I did have a lot of coffee. Coffee is a diuretic. I think it's reasonable to think that I am simply low in fluid.
The other thing - and here is a little TMI warning - is that I haven't gone #2 for a couple of days. The iron pills that I'm taking post-surgery messes with my stomach. Also, I had pizza the day before yesterday, and it can do it to me too.
It's not that big a deal. I'm just a little puzzled with the drastic day-to-day change in numbers.
It messes with EVERYTHING, it seems. It even nudged my abdominal fat reading to 6. :/
Still, it's okay. And even if it wasn't okay, there's nothing I can do to change that number today, so there's no point in nagging. Trying to understand it is much more efficient.
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So, I am still trying to understand the trends in my new "average" system of eating. It's pretty interesting, actually.
I think it's really fun to read into.
I built the spreadsheet to calculate my daily allowed calorie intake based on the last 28 days' calorie burn and intake, along with any weight loss/gain wishes I might have.
If I eat too little, the allowance will go up - but evened out over the next 28 days. If I eat too much, it will affect the next 28 days too. The same goes with exercise. If I more too little, my RDI will be lowered for 28 days by just a little per day. There are no drastic day-to-day changes as long as I am reasonably consistent - which is key in day-to-day life.
I really think the system works.
The only thing that is a little hard right now is that I'm being "punished" by the averages from having eaten quite a lot more than I probably should, as I took my RDI from the numbers from the scale instead of the numbers from my fitbit. In hindsight, this was probably a mistake, but I had to try it out. It was actually a challenge to eat all that food, so I don't think I'll miss it. :)
So, since I just had the surgery, and had quite a lot of very inactive days afterwards, and I had all the days of over-eating by many hundreds of calories daily, I'm being punished by the system averaging all those extra calories out right now. This brings my intake down lower, down to 2600 calories. I know it can comfortably be higher, as I often burn 3000+ calories when I am active. But I can easily live at 2600 calories and in no way feel that I am dieting at all.
What is just as interesting is looking back a month. Before surgery.
I was working HARD on lowering my weight - TOO hard.
I was exercising like a madman, and I was cutting down calories HARD. I knew that it wasn't the "right" way to lose weight, but it worked for the specific mission of getting the weight down and the fluid out for surgery.
But in essence, I was starving myself at that time.
Since I was so much lower in calorie intake, the averages would even it out for me, and giving me higher allowances. At that point, I would actually have been with and RDI of up to 4200 calories on a few days, simply because my deficit was so huge! Wow!
No, I have also made sure that I can't just save up insane amounts of calories. After 28 days, all excess calories will "expire". The same if I over-eat. The key is of course to not over-eat constantly, but there IS a little forgiveness put in the system. I only calculate 28 days back. There is no "eternal bank" of calorie deficit or surplus that I can keep coming back to. A month should be fine.
I already see that I binge a LOT less now than I did before, now that I eat more. I think I am perfectly capable of doing good now that I get higher RDIs. It makes everything easier.
It just proves my point:
Losing weight is NEVER about eating as little as possible. Losing weight is about eating with a small calorie deficit in accordance with your calorie burn.
That's all. Once one realizes this, life gets easy. :)
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Today, I have to watch out that it doesn't turn into a lazy day.
I want to have AT LEAST a calorie burn that matches my RDI. I would even like it a little bigger, maybe at 3000+ calories. I can do this, if I put my mind to it.
I have a few errands I need to run, but nothing much going on. The weather is cold and grey, and it's really not motivating to be out there.
I think I might hit the bike again today, and knock off a ton of calories, just to up my RDI in general. I kind of like having an RDI that is a little high. It just makes life easy. If it requires me to bicycle for an hour, then I'm cool with that.
We also have to go shopping, and I'm gonna try to "trick" wife into walking with me for an hour. :)
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Today, I'm thankful for:
- Wife!
- A nice, long, night's sleep.
- Coffee!
- A great feeling of being in the right place with my diet and exercise, even if today's weigh-in was crap.
Happy Sunday! Life is good!
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182.3 lb
Lost so far: 159.4 lb.
Still to go: 0 lb.
Diet followed 100%.
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losing 17.0 lb a week
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