Feelin' Groovy

Here is my graph for this week. its pretty small. But it says I am weighing in at 238. But I think its more like 235 (and two pounds off my low of July's 233)

Now let me explain. Last week, I got married and it completely threw my tight schedule off kilter. Where I was hitting the gym everyday and maintianing my food intake, Suddenly I was sleeping and eating and enjoying life to its fullest. Yet, I really felt like a HUGE weight was taken off my shoulders.

Now, Before any of this happened. I took a serious look at my diet. and elsewhere posted this:

So when I was at 310 and leading a sedimentary lifestyle, and I first made the decision to take on this life changing endeavor, It was enough to start an exercise routine and adopt a diet that was less then what I was eating during my Other life (The sedimentary one).

That philosophy worked at first and for along time. I managed to lose a good 80 plus pounds going from 310 down to 230. But since then, my diet has completely stalled. I continued to eat pretty much the same thing, and increased my workouts to try and force the weight off. I believed that I wasn’t doing enough at the gym to overcome my calorie intake.

The results started to show in my muscle culture and run time. However I haven’t been losing nearly as much weight as I was. Some weeks, I haven’t been losing anything. I wanted to believe that this was the old “Muscle weight vs. Fat weight” that has been beaten to death many times throughout history. And so for quite awhile I was steadfast in my approach. I started to educate myself on other things, Vitamins, the effects of cholesterol, Healthy fat enzymes (omega-3’s 6 and 9). But despite my efforts and the adjustments I would make, I still couldn’t stunt my weight loss any.

After the festivities of this weekend, my diet and exorcize regimen is completely out of whack and its time to start over. But what good will I do to myself other than continue to improve my run-time, flexibility, endurance and dexterity. Don’t get me wrong, improving those things are good, But they won’t help me achieve my goal of 215 and a body fat of 26%.

I decided to look at my diet. In order to maintain weight, a body must consume a certain number of calories a day. For a 310 man, that’s a whopping 3700 calories a day. Eat more and you will gain, eat less and you will lose. In the beginning, when I adjusted my diet, I was eating 3000 calories a day. That and working out 3 or four times a week lead me to lose on average 4 pounds per week.

But as I lost the weight, the calorie intake requirement lessened. That is to say, if I needed to eat less than 3700 calories a day at 310, I needed to eat less than 2800 in order to maintain my weight loss at 240. That’s a 900-calorie difference. SO if my diet was at 3000 calories, it stands to reason, I would be gaining weight. Using only the power of exercise to try and take it off. Slow and methodological at best. And in some cases, it wouldn’t work at all.

So it stands to reason, that if I want to lose any more weight, I am going to have to adjust my diet down to 2400 calories a day in order to reach 200 pounds. And even more if I want to get down any further than that.

Well, all that is good, But it’s not good enough for me. I NEED, In order to satisfy myself, to plan to maintain a lower calorie intake, I have gone over some stuff and decided that I can easily take another 400 calories off my diet without much effort. In essence I can go on a 1600-calorie diet and my 4 pounds of weight loss per week should come back. Minus the muscle build up, of course. Now Another good point to maintaining a lower expected calorie intake per day is it gives room for mistake. Should I slip in some way, and take in an additional 300 calories, I will still come in under the amount needed to maintain 240 pounds.

I don’t know what the outcome will be, But If I continue on the pace I have been on without adjusting this way, then nothing will happen. Hell I may even continue to gain. So something must be tried. Heres hoping I can maintain this new diet.

The results so far have been amazing for me. even though I am off Kilter I still can see some great progress. I know it all boils down to "Eat Less and you'll lose more weight" but with that philosopy, Eventually, I'll be eating nothing. Now if I can grow on this success and start back up at the gym this week, Hopelfully I can double what I am seeing with this new approach.