*** Big Fat Weight Loss Thread ***

[MikeTheNative]

I have been doing well on the diet and exercise front but I've been surprised how much weight I've dropped already in January. Only difference this time from others is I have given up drink. Didn't think I drank that much to be honest but it's making a huge difference.

 

[Martynt74]

I have been doing well on the diet and exercise front but I've been surprised how much weight I've dropped already in January. Only difference this time from others is I have given up drink. Didn't think I drank that much to be honest but it's making a huge difference.

Yeah, i think booze does play quite a part, just in the way your body seems to hold weight aswell as the calories.


Standard bizarre results for me.

Net Calories - The 23rd shows nothing because it was -500 after burning 4500 running in the lake district (Today isn't finished as i've not had tea yet but i suspect i'll hover around the 2k mark)


My weight has therefore increased! Not sure if it's just to the big exertion on Sunday and i'll do the same thing as last week where it just suddenly dropped, but it's damn weird!



It doesn't particularly bother me, but it's certainly confusing!

 

[MikeTheNative]

You have to be really careful with eating back calories from exercise. The calorie burned calculation in apps/machines atc are often wildly inaccurate and massively overstate how much you have actually used.
I used to do calorie tracking before but don't bother anymore. I just tend to dish out a smaller portion and if I'm still hungry half an hour after eating might have a bit more. I do help myself a bit though and I don't snack at all throughout the day.
I have 3 square meals a day then a small treat after dinner.

 

[AndyCr15]

I think there's often a delay in seeing the results. I had pretty huge deficits over Friday, Saturday and Sunday but I weigh myself on Monday and I'd gained half a lb (weighing myself through the weekend, it was pretty flat). Monday was a rest day, I weight myself today and I've dropped 1½lbs and my lowest body fat % in about 3 months. Today will be a small effort, but probably a 700 cal deficit and I expect tomorrow I'll be down a little more, then it'll likely level our for a few days. As long as I keep things trending that way, it will be fine even if there are times it seems to slow/plateau.

 

[Martynt74]

Yeah, it's not bothering me, and stepping back i see that long term trend. Just amusing i can spend 7 hours running up mountains in the Lake District and still manage to gain weight!

 

[MikeTheNative]

Yeah, it's not bothering me, and stepping back i see that long term trend. Just amusing i can spend 7 hours running up mountains in the Lake District and still manage to gain weight!

That's strenuous physical activity that will make you retain water after. Just after the event you would probably be dehydrated and lower weight but later on after being hydrated again your body will retain water to help you recover from it. This is way IMO it's pretty pointless to track weight daily as it naturally fluctuates.

 

[AndyCr15]

it's pretty pointless to track weight daily as it naturally fluctuates.

...and that's exactly why I do track it daily I want to know the trend. A one off weight is pretty useless.

 

[MikeTheNative]

...and that's exactly why I do track it daily I want to know the trend. A one off weight is pretty useless.

If you weigh once a week on the same day that is enough, you will see the trend go down each week and you should have lost enough in that week that even the natural fluctuations you will still be down. Your obsessing over normal daily weight fluctuations which is why your probably better off not doing it every day.

 

[AndyCr15]

If you weigh once a week on the same day that is enough, you will see the trend go down each week

But the trend will take much longer to show. It will take two or three weeks. Lets just say in someone my size the fluctuation could be as big as 2lbs (that's probably a little high... but...) then I could lose 4lbs in two weeks and if I'm unlucky, I don't see any change in my weighing ins, then the next week I'm 6lb lighter?!

Your obsessing over normal daily weight fluctuations which is why your probably better off not doing it every day.

No, I'm trying to remove them by regular weigh ins. That's very different to obsessing about them.

It becomes easier to see the trend in fluctuating data the more data points you have. I'm just getting data points.

 

[MikeTheNative]

hmm.. let's wait and see how long till your next post about how you don't understand why your heavier today and then for everyone to tell you that's normal fluctuation.

 

[tom_e]

It's personal preference really and like I said in one of my recent posts you need to be able to not obsess over the daily number or else it becomes dangerous.

If I didn't weigh daily I'd not see any loss for weeks at a time sometimes as I do bounce up and down on the scales a fair bit, but with daily weighing I can see my weekly average and the trend very clearly which helps in motivation.

 

[AndyCr15]

hmm.. let's wait and see how long till your next post about how you don't understand why your heavier today and then for everyone to tell you that's normal fluctuation.

It's a long thread. Look back and see if I ever post that Look just a few post up where I say I don't expect to see results instantly. I'm always about the trend as I know one weigh in on it's own is pretty useless, this is my whole point and my reason for regular weigh ins.

 

[Martynt74]

hmm.. let's wait and see how long till your next post about how you don't understand why your heavier today and then for everyone to tell you that's normal fluctuation.

Yeah to be fair to Andy it was me posting. Not because i don't understand, just that it's pretty bizarre and goes to show that high volumes of exercise don't necessarily correlate to weight loss as you might expect.

As Andy says, i like to weigh daily at a constant time because otherwise to get a decent graph plot can take weeks, whereas you can see a much better trending with daily readings, you just need to apply a line of best fit as you would in any graph.

 

[MikeTheNative]

Yeah sorry, was getting a bit confused with posters there my bad.

 

[Martynt74]

I also think the graph in post 1102 shows the benefit of daily weigh ins.

The weight was steady all week, then spiked on the 7th day by 1kg, by weighing daily i knew it was a blip and would likely drop again, whereas a weekly weigh in would've shown the 1kg increase which would've been much more confusing given an ~8000kcal defecit for the week (assuming a 2500kcal intake for a 6'3 male weighing close to 100kg)

 

[Martynt74]

Standard Friday weight drop for me. I certainly see a spike on Monday/Tuesday presumably from water retention following my long weekend runs, but today showed 96.3 which is the first time i've dropped under 97 for a long long time which was good to see.

That makes it around 3.5kg for January which i'm fairly happy with. Hopefully that can continue in February, especially with ramping up running volume another notch recently.

 

[Martynt74]

First Monday without an increase. Today put me at 95.8. That puts me down 4.25kg for the month or 9.5lbs for you non metric folk. I'm fairly happy with that considering i've also increased my fitness rather than going all out weight loss.

Hopefully it can continue through February and get me as close to 90 in mid March ready to pull me up some hills

 

[ik9000]

Latest weigh in and I've gone up 0.5kg. tedious!

 

[MikeTheNative]

I had a really good January after. Did loads of exercise , fitness is up, strength is creeping up but managed to lose half stone as well. Down to about 84 kg now, not sure if I want to go too much lower. Might try go down to 13st which is about 82 kg and see how I feel.

 

[AndyCr15]

I had a January of two halves, the start was still lots of events and celebrating, then I hit it hard in the second half. From heaviest, I'm down (1/1 227lbs) 9lbs like @Martynt74. The only 'event' in the next few weeks is the Superbowl, so might over eat a little then, but I'm well ahead of schedule really. Last time, when I did my initial 7 stone weight loss, I stopped at around 14st 10. In some ways I'm finding it easier to eat less this time (mainly cause of WFH) so maybe I'll go all the way down to that again? My cycling trip is end of March and I think with a good Feb I can lose 10 lbs fairly easily... although I guess the rate will start to slow. I also worry a little I've not been to the gym in 2 or 3 weeks, so that could be part of the weight loss, but tbh for cycling up hills, I can stand to lose a little upper body muscle.