Daily Maintenance Weigh In - Friday, February 14, 2014

I guess I'm about the only guy posting here regularly... so Happy Valentines Day to all the lovely ladies here...

181.4

Continuing my very slow, steady drop back to maintenance range.  Back in October I took about 5 weeks off of cycling per coach's instructions at the end of the season.  That was probably a mistake - I took it off too much - should have done other activities, that didn't involve the same muscles or something... but the result was a quick 8-10 pound spike, that I've been struggling to get off since.  

I've been playing around, and what seems to be working is intermittent fasting.  I'm going with a shorter eating window (noon to 8pm) each day and not eating from 8pm to noon.  I'm doing about the same number of calories (i've dialed in 1200 NET after exercise) as my target.  During my weight spike up, i was targeting 1500, but getting no exercise. Disaster.

So, the results seem to be a very slow, but pretty consistent loss for the past 30 days or so.  My weight has also tended to be more stable - fewer big jumps or drops day to day.

In addition, I feel that my fitness level has increased dramatically - the cycling week in Palm Springs I was able to keep up with really fast riders - something I could not do in November...

So good news all around at this point.

Also working on a VERY interesting personal project that I'll outline here shortly... stay tuned!

Happy Valentine's Day back at'cha- and may hearts and cyber glitter cover everyone in abundance today!!  145.2  Weight relatively stable this week for me, too- within a pound up/down.  I like it thatway!

Happy St. Valentine's Day! 

Tom, I agree that your post has great news all around.  How is your hunger level when you are doing this intermittent fasting?  I'm guessing that getting your fluids in helps with that.  Have you ever had your BMR calculated, or are you going from experience?  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  :)

164.4   :-D   I guess the shoveling paid off in more ways than merely avoiding trouble with the borough.  So glad I bit the bullet and got it done yesterday, or else I would have needed that flamethrower I was recommending to Slim recently. 

I haven't had an official BMR calculated, but I'm reverse engineering it from my calorie tracking... that's why I'm focusing on 1200 cal net of exercise - that is maybe just a bit under my BMR, so I'm losing a lb a week or so right now.  Which is fine.  I'm feeling like, in maintenance, no sudden moves is best - I'm feeling around trying to find the right calorie/activity levels that will be stable long-term... it's clear that it's in the 1200-1500 cal/day range, and without getting totally obsessive and carrying a gram-scale everywhere I might eat, I probably can't get a lot more accurate than that anyway.  

So when I need to lose, I'll shoot for 1200 net, when I need to come up a bit I'll target 1500 net... and just track and see how it goes.  The difference is around .5 - .7 lb/week roughly, so I have a range to play with.

Oh- hunger level: really pretty good.  I'd say not much difference between having breakfast and not.  I focus on fluids (coffee especially!) in the am, and I also take my Calcium, D, K and pro-biotics... not that that's a lot of calories, but they kind of quell any hunger... 

101.4 lbs today, and slowly increasing my cals/carbs to 1500/100.  The goal is to be able to maintain at this calorie level while exercising 4x per week (ballet twice, rock climb twice = nothing major).  Part of this is to be able to go off plan on the weekends and not have to go back into WL mode to recover during the week.  I'd like to be able to indulge during the weekend and go right back to 1500/100 and keep my weight stable.  I don't know if it's possible, but I'll keep you posted.

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I've been playing with this as well. I find I need to follow the "net" method and that seems to work pretty well for me... On big cycling days (eg last sunday's Tour de Palm Springs - 100+ miles, 4000 calories burned)... I ate 3500 calories and was still around 0 (net) for the day...  It seems to be working for now - as long as I immediately burn the carbs, they don't seem to cause me cravings.

You're a lot braver than I am.  I'm purposely avoiding big climbing projects in Yosemite because I'm unwilling to eat and train for the 12-16 hour days they require.  I figure I'll see if I can be stable at a lower level of calorie consumption and burn.  Maybe next year I'll trust the process more and play with the bigger numbers, like you.  Good luck, Tom! 

178 after my revision, i wrote a post about it

116.2 today.  I'm retaining fluids after a high sodium day, so that will subside after I make those corrections today.  Happy Valentines Day to you Tom, and all you gorgeous ladies who hang out here with me.