For the last week my weight has not budged overly much. This has happened before, but I know deep down that there are three reasons to be concerned. First, the weight loss is a function of how much under maintenance calories my diet is, and as I lose weight my maintenance level also goes down. Second, I've been playing faster and looser with the diet in the last month than I had in the first three months. Third, I haven't been getting quite as much exercise as I should be.
The first concern is out of my control, but the second is something that I need to reign in. Even when I deviate horribly, my calories are well under 1500 calories. For example, today I finished a chef salad from last night for breakfast, had 7oz of tilapia for lunch, and 10oz of strip steak for dinner. Technically, that's probably 3 or 4 more ounces of protein more than I should be eating, but the steak is only 550 calories while the fish was about 250 calories. Even assuming 200 calories in lettuce, carrot, ham, Swiss, and bacon, I'm still at 1000 calories for the day.
Still, the program is in many ways a dogmatic thing for me. Knowing that I'm exceeding the limits is worrying. This weekend is easy to write off, as I had a friend's bachelor party on Saturday, so there was a generally debauched aim for the weekend. I'm not sure how wild and crazy a chef salad at 2am is, but it was tasty and the only other thing I had eaten that day was 3oz of chicken and 4 hot wings (i couldn't finish a 6-pack. In my prime I could knock out 24).
The third element, exercise, is in many ways the one I have the most control over. I'm walking more, and I shot nine holes of golf Saturday for the first time in a decade, but I need to get to the gym more regularly, especially as the weather is quickly getting too unpleasant for too much sweating. I am finding the heat less oppressive than I used to, having shed 90lbs and gained a little muscle back. I was able to hike the nine holes with no trouble, and I even had a few good golf shots.
This morning I finally weighed in at 342lbs, for a total loss of 92lbs and only 3lbs lost in the last week. Simple math seems to argue that I have to lose more than than over length of time. Assuming 10 calories per lb of weight, I'm still burning 3400 calories a day. Eating roughly 1000 calories a day means I'm down 2400calories a day, or 16,000 a week, or just under 5lbs a week. Adding nearly any exercise helps, and there's no way I'm secretly eating the 7,000 calories a week it would take to stop the loss of two pounds.
On the other hand, I need to relax a bit about my weight loss. I'm not keeping accurate enough records now to worry about the fluctuations. When I worked for the census I would weight myself every morning in roughly the same clothes, now I'm seldom wearing what I wore every day then. My goal was 330 by the end of the month, and 310 by July 31st, and I still have 15days to lose 12lbs. It's not easy, but I think I can jump start it. It's good to have a goal.
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