So since my BIG project for this year is weight loss, I figured I'd post an update each Monday on my progress. So, here's the weigh in:
Monday Weight In
Start of Week: 144.6
End of Week: 143.0
Pounds Lost: 1.6
Total Lost: 27 (yay!)
Not too bad! But it was a little less than what I planned. If every week was like this week, I'd reach 130 pounds by May 21st - my goal is May 12th (2 weeks before Sam & I leave on a cruise! Need to leave time to buy a new wardrobe beforehand! haha). So next week, I need to lose a bit more to ensure I'll meet my goal.
To help make a basic plan for the week, I use the 1 pound = 3500 calories calculation to keep track of what my metabolism is doing. Ever seen the "based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet" on nutrition fact labels? That's a good starting point to estimate your daily metabolism (how much your body burns each day just doing basic tasks, keeping you alive, etc.) but it can vary a lot depending on how active you are during the week and I'm sure other things too. And I think for men 2,500 is a better starting point (?).
In order to meet my target date of May 12th, I need to lose 13 more pounds in ~7 weeks, or 1.9 pounds/week. So, if my metabolism stayed pretty steady at 2000 cal/day, my plan would be:
Weekly Plan
Weight Loss: 1.9 lbs/week or 950 cal/day
Food Intake: 1200 cal/day
Metabolism: -2000 cal/day
Exercise: -150 cal/day
Net Total: -950 cal/day = -1.9 lbs/week (check!)
So I use this as a starting point to figure out how much I need to exercise. After the week if over, I use my actual weight lost/calories eaten/exercise and calculate what my metabolism was actually doing. If it seems substantially lower than 2000 cal/day, I probably need to ramp up my exercise the next week to more than the usual 150 cal/day!
Keeping track of your metabolism really isn't necessary, but it can help explain if you see a sudden plateau or just a change in how fast you are losing weight. Mine seems to be changing a lot recently, which is frustrating, but it is what it is. Here's the breakdown for last week:
Actual Last Week
Intake: 1150 cal/day avg
Exercise: 200 cal/day avg
Weight Loss: 1.6 lbs
Metabolism: 1750 cal/day
So, all in all my eating and exercising were on track, but my metabolism slowed down. One thing I’ve noticed is that is always slows down if I exercise less – cardio definitely has the extra benefit of not only burning calories during, but also ramping up your metabolism to burn more throughout the day.
Since I want to lose more this week, I either need to exercise more or eat less (and I don't really feel comfortable going too far below the 1200 cal/day on food) - so maybe I'll add an extra bike ride on a weekday? Assuming my metabolism stays around 1750, I need to up my exercise to 400 cal/day (2000-1750 = 250 more I need to burn with exercise). I’ve found 400 cal/day is pretty doable so hopefully it will pay off!
Okay so I promise not to bombard you with all of the calcs next time, but I thought it might be somewhat helpful for anyone looking to come up with a weight loss plan and a reasonable time frame! It's not magic, it's just math! If you count calories on what you normally eat for a few weeks and you are maintaining a constant weight, you will know your normal metabolic rate. Figure out how far back you are willing to cut calories and how much you are going to exercise each week, and can easily calculate how much weight you can expect to lose each week!
And (nerd alert!) you make a cool spreadsheet too:
See how my metabolism (blue dots) is all over the place? That's why I usually look at a weekly average, not the daily number. It was so predictable there for a little while in January, but those days are over haha. But I do love seeing that red line of constant weight loss - it's a good reminder that the hard work is paying off!!
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