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Good morning!
First off, I think I need to post a TMGI (Too Much Geeky Information) warning today. :)
Yesterday's fast went GREAT! I ended the day at 580 calories, mission completed!
It wasn't hard at all - not even with Wife coming home early wanting home made country cooking - chicken fried chicken (wait, isn't that simply "fried chicken"?!?).
I asked her to simply boil mine, I skipped some of my ham and had the chicken with a tiny portion of mashed potatoes, and thus made it to goal with no trouble.
...
The weigh-in?
I'm down 1.9 kilos in weight (not that this concerns me all that much, but it's still nice to see it not going up), and my body fat is down with 0.8% - almost 900g.
Check out the new numbers:
Weight:
Day after surgery: 82.4 kg
26.12.13: 83.8 kg (up)
27.12.13: 81.8 kg (down)
Average 7 days: 83.3 (down)
Average 28 days: 82.6 (down)
Bodyfat:
Day after surgery: 07.5% (6.18 kg)
26.12.13: 11.3% (9.47 kg - up)
27.12.13: 10.5% (8.60 kg - down)
Average 7 days: 10.6% (up)
Average 28 days: 09.8% (steady)
Muscle weight:
Day after surgery: 72.5 kg
26.12.13: 70.7 kg (up)
27.12.13: 69.7 kg (down)
Average 7 days: 70.8 kg (down)
Average 28 days: 70.9 kg (steady)
Fluid Percentage:
Day after surgery: 68.5% (56.44 kg)
26.12.13: 64.4% (53.97 kg - down in %, up in weight)
27.12.13: 64.9% (53.15 kg - up in %, down in weight)
Average 7 days: 65.0% (down)
Average 28 days: 65.7% (down)
Abdominal fat:
Day after surgery: 5
26.12.13: 5 (steady)
27.12.13: 5 (steady)
Average 7 days: 5 (up)
Average 28 days: 4.6 (steady)
There are definitely room for improvement on many things. Of course, doing a fasting day like yesterday messes with the numbers too, but it doesn't change the fact that too many wrong things are going down, and too many wrong things are going up, when I look at the 7 days averages. The 28 days tells a different story, but I know I gotta watch it, or they'll start agreeing with the 7 day trends.
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Today's plans are slightly changed. I need to go to the hospital. I have gotten a little fluid pocket that looks like it could be a slight concern. I think it isn't, but I want to make sure. So, I'm heading over there on the early train to have it looked at. Let's just hope that they won't cut me like last time. That sucker HURT!
This is WAY less fluid, in a very small area, but I need to make sure it isn't infected or anything. This is merely to be certain.
...
I am not sure that this is related to my walking, but I have walked a LOT more focused the last two days. It should be okay to do, but I will make sure to ask tomorrow. I need to make sure about my exercise. I need to make sure what I'm allowed and what I'm not allowed to do.
I'll keep you posted. Don't worry - I'm not dying or anything. This is - if anything - a slight hiccup.
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Here is another geeky numbers observation for you guys. I find this one not only interesting, but simply amazing!
I checked my stats from yesterday 25.12.2013 and held them up against one month earlier, 26.11.2013. What I have concluded is really interesting, and almost freaky!
Remember, these numbers are all an average of the prior 7 days. I don't have the 28 day data this far back so it'll have to suffice.
Weight:
26.11.2013: 83.4 kg
25.12.2013: 83.5 kg (up 0.1 kg)
Body Fat:
26.11.2013: 11.3% (9.4 kg)
25.12.2013: 09.8% (8.2 kg - down 0.8 kg, even if the percentage today matches the one on 26.11.13 - we're talking averages here!)
Muscle:
26.11.2013: 70.3 kg
25.12.2013: 71.6 kg (up 1.3 kg)
Fluid:
26.11.2013: 64.4%
25.12.2013: 65.7% (up 1.3%)
TDEE:
26.11.2013: 3293 calories
25.12.2013: 3348 calories (up 55 calories)
Abdominal Fat:
26.11.2013: 5.3
25.12.2013: 4.7 (down 0.6)
Wow. There is simply not ONE number that isn't better today than it was one month ago.
Now, check this out: I am always VERY rigid with entering all my foods in my calorie counter, and I think I'm pretty accurate.
If nothing else, then over the course of the month the inaccuracies would even out, and if there are things I don't register correct, I will probably keep making the same mistakes, and thus it is in a way already calculated in my error margin (did that make sense? I hope so...)
So, I did the math on how many calories I have actually consumed from the 26th of November to the 25th of December.
The number of total calories consumed is 83,666 calories. The average per day is 2,789 calories.
So, the higher numbers of calories I have eaten since I had surgery are pulled down by the lower numbers before surgery, and quite some from the days at the hospital that I ate practically nothing. But still - it's the AVERAGES that count, I believe. What is consumed is consumed. Right?
So, get this...
Knowing this number, I started wondering how many calories I burn as a daily average through that very same period. I turn to my fitbit, run statistics on all the data, and these are the numbers:
Total calories burned: 83,595. The average per day is 2,786.5 calories. My calories consumed and calories burned vary with 2½ calorie per day!!!
Again, there are ALL kinda of activity dates here. There are a couple of weeks that have workouts. There are days with TOTAL inactivity being at the hospital. There are a couple of weeks where I recover from surgery. There are days with long walks, and there are days with little to no movement.
And yet - My calorie intake and my calorie burn are even by LESS THAN THREE CALORIES PER DAY, and they show better numbers!
The up in numbers is small, and this is a good thing. I think this is about as close to maintenance mode as I can possibly get.
Does this mean that I can reliably trust my Fitbit to give me the right numbers, if I consider the averages? If so, then this is TRULY brilliant! This would mean that I can set up the Fitbit to give me a daily calorie allowance based on my activities over the last week, and I can simply use this number as a guide line for how much I can consume on a daily basis. I can then take away a bit if I want to lose weight, add a bit if I want to gain (if I am looking to build further muscle while bulking) or simply use the number to maintain. The fact that the number is maybe slightly on the lower side is probably good. It's a very tiny difference, though. If I truly lost 0.8 kilo of body fat over the 30 days, then the number is technically 186 calories low, based on the monthly averages. Maybe that's simply a good "low" to go with, for a nice, slow fat loss that won't do any muscle damage whatsoever.
I have always liked the idea behind the Fitbit. I enter my weight and body fat percentage daily, and it registers all my activity. I wear it 100% of my time, except for about an hour per week where it's charging. At this time I always sit by the laptop, so I don't really have any movement at that time.
So, I have completely - COMPLETELY - re-done and over-geeked my spreadsheet to test this out. Check it out:
Every day, I enter all my numbers:
Weight, Body Fat Percentage, Muscle Mass, Fluid Mass, TDEE and Abdominal Fat.
I now also enter yesterday's calorie burn and yesterday's calorie intake, along with a monthly goal for weight loss/gain in kilos.
The spreadsheet will then give me all the usual info, but also this VERY cool information:
It will give me - based on 28 days averages - TODAY'S recommended calorie intake, minus a deficit (or plus a surplus) for wanted weight change. And here is the kicker... if the RDI is less than the calorie deficit that my body can handle without tapping into my muscles for energy, then it will instead give me the max deficit my muscles can handle, based on my calorie burn for the last two weeks (I'm a little afraid 28 days is too far back for this particular use), adjust accordingly and give me my lowest allowed calorie intake based on this.
In short - entering the numbers will give me a solid RDI, based on my exercise level the last month, my calorie intake the last month, my weight loss/gain wishes, and with respect to me keeping the muscles. If the number is too low and may damage muscle mass, then the number will adjust as high as needed.
Cool, huh? I hope this new tool works out to be good. It could be a match made in Valhalla. :) ...and if it doesn't work out, then at least if was fun building it... :D
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Another thing I hope to see from this new approach is less of a binging urge. After I have started consuming more calories, I have stopped binging, and especially the whole candy thing has gone away. This is SO nice.
Going with this, I will have room to save up or recover from over-eating much more relaxed.
What I see from the past was a constant over-eating, and then spending an entire week compensating, only to be doing it again. No more of that. It doesn't work for me. It's very stressful and just makes me want to binge more.
Instead, using this, all compensating will happen over the next month, as will all calorie saving.
Example: If I was to over eat by 2800 calories today, those calories would be compensated for over the next 28 days by simply reducing my RDI by 100 calories. Alternatively, I can compensate for it simply by moving to burn an extra 100 calories per day, and the RDI will remain the same.
On the other hand, if I simply ate 100 less calories over the course of a month, I would slowly be allowed more and more calories per day until it evens out either by me eating more or me moving less.
If this works, this TRULY is the perfect "Calories In, Calories Out" system. I love it!
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So, entering the data from my Über Smart Smartscale from this morning, along with my Fitbit calorie burn from yesterday and my calories consumed from yesterday, my new spreadsheet tells me to consume between 2159 and 2756 calories today. This is where my optimal calorie intake is.
It's quite a chunk less than the 3300 calories I have allowed myself, and probably more reasonable. The 3300 calories seem to have me gain weight, so this sounds more right.
Of course, it's gonna be a lot harder to read results from this. I'm working with averages, not day-to-day numbers now. A result may not show for quite a while. I'm gonna try it, though, and see where it takes me.
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Today, I'm thankful for:
- New numbers!
- Wife!
- ROAD TRIP (well, train to the hospital, but one can't be picky!)
- Morning coffee!
Life is good!
EDIT:
So, I've been to the hospital. No infection and no general concerns. I did have a small fluid buildup in a new spot and it was red and irritated. They drained it, and that's it. That's what I hope it would be, but better safe than sorry.
I'm on my way home to enjoy the afternoon walking, and having lunch somewhere out on the town.
The doctor I talked to a very interested in my story, and is a big fan of strength training so we had a good talk about that, about what I'm allowed to do and what I shouldn't do. I still have to consider the other doctors so there is still no strength training right now or the next several weeks, but I am allowed to do my walks. The fluid buildup is not related to the walking. Phew.
END OF EDIT.
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180.6 lb
Lost so far: 161.2 lb.
Still to go: 0 lb.
Diet followed 100%.
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losing 29.3 lb a week
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