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Last month (exactly 28 days ago, as it happens) I posted about my 2011 experiment, which I call the Moderation diet.
The short summary: Eat what I want to eat, only eat less. Listen to my body, and try to avoid known bad behaviors.
Right about the time I posted, I hit a plateau. As this is an experiment, I am constantly evaluating what's working, what's not working, and trying to ascertain if there's something I should be/should be doing differently. In particular: Am I ignoring my body's signals? Am I failing to control myself?
February has been a difficult month. I've had a lot of client work, plus a code sprint that made it very difficult to stay on track.
Last week I started to get a little discouraged, honestly; I was riding about a pound above where I'd been. That said, I knew that I had utterly failed during the week of the code sprint. We'd eaten out and despite knowing that the plate contained too much food, I was finishing what was on my plate anyway. Some days I felt this more than others. The days I felt it less were the days I started to worry that I was stretching my stomach back out.
The code sprint generally made it a little harder to cope. There was always food around, and eventually I stopped exercising discipline. It's not that I was hungry, it's that when there's food in front of me, I have trouble not eating it.
The week after, I focused on going back to better habits. The scale didn't seem to notice.
This week, though, it did, and rather suddenly. This morning's weigh in is literally 5 pounds under where I was last week. I'm sure it will bounce back up a couple of pounds, but seeing progress again makes me feel better.
It's worth keeping in mind, both to myself and my readers, that weight loss tends to plateau. After a time of weight loss, the body will hold onto weight for awhile. I think I felt this happening internally. I got a little hungrier and the need felt more urgent.
My theory on plateaus is this: I think it's important not to fight a plateau, but instead listen to the body. If it's holding onto weight, you have to let it return to a state that it thinks is normal. If, while losing weight, you see a plateau, mark a period that you expect weight loss to cease. During an identified plateau, the goal shifts: Don't gain weight. Right now, my guess on a plateau period, mostly through anecdotal experience, is that it should be about 3 weeks, of which the first week is spent identifying that you're on one. So once I've identified a plateau, I will assume no weight loss for the next 2 weeks, and ensuring that my body is comfortable at its weight and not feeling deprived.
The other thing I did this month is do some thinking about the math.
Assuming that an ideal rate of loss on this kind of diet is an average of 1 pound per week, or ~4 pounds per month or ~50 pounds per year, I'm on a 2 year plan to get to my ideal weight. Since my experiment is for 1 year, if the experiment goes as well as I hope, at the conclusion of the year I should be nearly halfway to my ultimate goal.
1 pound per week is 3500 calories or, when you think about it daily, 500 calories per day that my body needs to convert from internal fat stores. That's actually a lot, unfortunately, and I'm not sure that level is truly sustainable, particularly when I'm closer to my goal weight where my normal calorie intake is dramatically less. Plus, it won't take long before the body decides to start breaking down muscle because it's easier and more effective. Clearly the only way this is going to work, long term, is if I start making sure I add in a weekly exercise regimen. Last year, I'd been doing a daily walking bit, but I failed to keep up with it. Partly it's a struggle to find the time. It takes rather a lot of time to walk significantly (3 miles a day was what I was angling for, that takes me most of an hour) but it's also very good for me. So I'm going to have to make some further adjustments to try and make this happen.
Finally, the official stats from my tracker:
Time spent on experiment: 2 months, 11 days.
Weight lost: 13.6 pounds. (note: I recorded a trough so reality is probably closer to 11-12 pounds).
Weekly average: 1.36 pounds.
Next minor milestone: 1.4 pounds (15 pounds lost).
Expected time to reach milestone: 2-3 weeks.
Next major milestone: 16.4 pounds (10% lost)
Expected time to reach milestone: 18 weeks.
The short summary: Eat what I want to eat, only eat less. Listen to my body, and try to avoid known bad behaviors.
Right about the time I posted, I hit a plateau. As this is an experiment, I am constantly evaluating what's working, what's not working, and trying to ascertain if there's something I should be/should be doing differently. In particular: Am I ignoring my body's signals? Am I failing to control myself?
February has been a difficult month. I've had a lot of client work, plus a code sprint that made it very difficult to stay on track.
Last week I started to get a little discouraged, honestly; I was riding about a pound above where I'd been. That said, I knew that I had utterly failed during the week of the code sprint. We'd eaten out and despite knowing that the plate contained too much food, I was finishing what was on my plate anyway. Some days I felt this more than others. The days I felt it less were the days I started to worry that I was stretching my stomach back out.
The code sprint generally made it a little harder to cope. There was always food around, and eventually I stopped exercising discipline. It's not that I was hungry, it's that when there's food in front of me, I have trouble not eating it.
The week after, I focused on going back to better habits. The scale didn't seem to notice.
This week, though, it did, and rather suddenly. This morning's weigh in is literally 5 pounds under where I was last week. I'm sure it will bounce back up a couple of pounds, but seeing progress again makes me feel better.
It's worth keeping in mind, both to myself and my readers, that weight loss tends to plateau. After a time of weight loss, the body will hold onto weight for awhile. I think I felt this happening internally. I got a little hungrier and the need felt more urgent.
My theory on plateaus is this: I think it's important not to fight a plateau, but instead listen to the body. If it's holding onto weight, you have to let it return to a state that it thinks is normal. If, while losing weight, you see a plateau, mark a period that you expect weight loss to cease. During an identified plateau, the goal shifts: Don't gain weight. Right now, my guess on a plateau period, mostly through anecdotal experience, is that it should be about 3 weeks, of which the first week is spent identifying that you're on one. So once I've identified a plateau, I will assume no weight loss for the next 2 weeks, and ensuring that my body is comfortable at its weight and not feeling deprived.
The other thing I did this month is do some thinking about the math.
Assuming that an ideal rate of loss on this kind of diet is an average of 1 pound per week, or ~4 pounds per month or ~50 pounds per year, I'm on a 2 year plan to get to my ideal weight. Since my experiment is for 1 year, if the experiment goes as well as I hope, at the conclusion of the year I should be nearly halfway to my ultimate goal.
1 pound per week is 3500 calories or, when you think about it daily, 500 calories per day that my body needs to convert from internal fat stores. That's actually a lot, unfortunately, and I'm not sure that level is truly sustainable, particularly when I'm closer to my goal weight where my normal calorie intake is dramatically less. Plus, it won't take long before the body decides to start breaking down muscle because it's easier and more effective. Clearly the only way this is going to work, long term, is if I start making sure I add in a weekly exercise regimen. Last year, I'd been doing a daily walking bit, but I failed to keep up with it. Partly it's a struggle to find the time. It takes rather a lot of time to walk significantly (3 miles a day was what I was angling for, that takes me most of an hour) but it's also very good for me. So I'm going to have to make some further adjustments to try and make this happen.
Finally, the official stats from my tracker:
Time spent on experiment: 2 months, 11 days.
Weight lost: 13.6 pounds. (note: I recorded a trough so reality is probably closer to 11-12 pounds).
Weekly average: 1.36 pounds.
Next minor milestone: 1.4 pounds (15 pounds lost).
Expected time to reach milestone: 2-3 weeks.
Next major milestone: 16.4 pounds (10% lost)
Expected time to reach milestone: 18 weeks.
