Good morning!
It's the middle of the night in Denmark. 3:27 AM. I've been up for almost 90 minutes.
That's what I get for going to bed WAY too early.
Wife and I were tired yesterday. She's still feeling a bit under the weather, but will go to work today.
I was exhausted from exercising, I think.
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I went to the hospital yesterday, to have a little "blimp" (for lack of a better word) checked out. It's sitting on my cut, and it looked like it could potentially be trouble.
Fortunately, it turned out to be completely harmless.
And, to make it all perfect, I had a great chat with the doctor who saw me.
It turns out that he is a big fan of pretty much the same type of strength training that I do.
We talked about what I can and can't do, should and shouldn't do. Sadly, it's not ALL good news.
He told me that the blimp was in no way related to my walking. In fact, he'd encourage that I move as much as possible, but naturally without harming the healing process. Nothing radical.
I can walk (not run or jog), get on a bike or an elliptical. Once I get the girdle off, I can do strength training, but not exercises that will require my abs put to work.
The reason for this is that I - and everyone else - tend to build fluid around the abs when we put them hard to work. This is perfectly normal and there is no harm in this. This is how our bodies handle the stress factor of working out.
Right now, this is a bad idea for me, as I am trying to GET RID of the fluid. This is the very same reason I am wearing two tight girdles every day. To avoid having fluid buildup under the skin. Obviously, focused work that could risk this happening is a no-no.
I can, however, start going other things. Lifting with my arms. Pushing, pulling. I can start at normal weight (where I was) but with very few lifts, and then build up over maybe a few weeks.
I'm not ready for it yet, though. Not only do I NOT want to risk anything in regards to the cut, but I also don't want to do any hard exercise until I have my heart situation in order.
With this, I am not allowed to get my heart rate up high. I am still allowed to do light exercise, but that's about it.
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So, how did yesterday go, with my new calorie counting system and all?
Well, the numbers were fine, but I chose to not follow them.
After visiting the hospital, I met up with Wife and we went out for lunch. I made some dumb food choices, and the day ended in about 700 calories more than anticipated. It was entirely my own fault, and I knew what I was doing and what the result was.
I won't write it off as messing up, because it was entirely of free will, and with the attitude that I can just compensate. Sometimes life just gets in the way.
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Coming home, it bothered me a LOT that I had not followed plan, so I decided to fix it. I wanted to take a LONG walk - it requires quite something to walk off 700 calories - but as soon as I had told Wife that I was gonna go walk, it started raining. Hard.
I then decided to get on my stationary bike. Not more weight than I could handle it comfortably, and with a mission that focused on light exercise.
I decided to use the heart rate monitor in my phone (have you guys seen this? It's frickin' brilliant!
Check it out!), and my heart rate never went over 100. According to
Mayo Clinic's website, this is the upper limit for "normal", and thus normal.
Knowing the settings in Fitbit to register my exercise, I had opted to just bicycle at "light pace", which I figured would be what I needed, to compensate for the extra calories. Then, when I went to enter it in my Fitbit, I realized that "light effor" is only a 100 Watt burn. I know these levels reasonably well from messing with the bike at the gym. I don't do a lot of biking, but having to show it to new clients constantly, I get a good feel of how much 100W is. To me, 100W is absolutely nothing. I can easily go for 200W when I push though, and I seeing the intensity levels I could choose in Fitbit, I found it MUCH more reasonable that I had been going 150W most of the time.
To make sure to not cheat myself, I put 2/3 of the time at 150W, and 1/3 of the time at 100W. That way there was room for error, I thought.
The end result was that I had FULLY compensated for the extra calories. I had even saved up ONE extra calorie. Now, what should I go spend it on? :)
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So, using my new way to calculating my RDI for the day - based on my calorie burn average over the last 4 weeks - I get 2679 calories today. I can go as low as 2357, but no lower. Gotta keep my body happy and satisfied.
I have been thinking a lot about how the new number is lower than the 3300 calorie intake that my Über Smart Smartscale gives me. I think I see some of what is happening.
The scale evaluates simply by looking at my body, and at the activity level that I set. That level is based on god-knows-what. I know that there are three levels. One is supposedly "sedentary". This is what I read online, but there is no official word from TANITA, the producers. Level three is supposedly "Athletic", which is not where I see myself. This would be a ridiculously high number regardless, and not something I'd ever dare venture into. Then there is the mid level. This is where I think I would probably belong, but that would raise my TDEE to about 3800 calories daily. That's a LOT.
Right now, my own calculations give me 2600. It's somewhat lower than the 3300 I get from the scale.
However, there is ONE very important factor to consider in this.
The calorie intake I am allowed now is based on my calorie burn for the last 28 days, along with my calorie intake for the last 28 days. If I am low in exercise, or high in intake, it will adjust and compensate. This is what I LOVE about this way of doing it. It makes so much sense to me.
Right now, however, it's "punishing" me.
The last three weeks (well, until three days ago), I have been significantly less active than what I normally am. This will give me a somewhat lower average.
Looking at the 28 days calorie burn average today, it is at 2749 calories.
Before surgery, when I was going full blast on all engines, my average calorie burn for 28 days would be 3000-3100, depending on which day I look at. In a 7 day period it is often 3300-3400 calories! Then, of course, there will be lazy days, and thus the 28 day average becomes smaller. That's fine.
So, let's see my true average is 3000, when I am able to walk, work out and go to work.
I should then, in the future be able to get a 3000 calorie RDI on average.
We then have to consider that right now, on top of having been less active, I also have "over eaten" by following the number from my Über Smart Smartscale. By consuming 3300 calories, and not 3000, I have taken it 300 calories - sometimes more - over my optimal intake.
My spreadsheet that calculates all my numbers for me takes this into consideration, and compensates. All the extra calories that I have consumed since December 7th, will be compensated for over the next 28 days.
What this means is that I SHOULD see my RDI for the day slowly adjust to a higher number as long as I keep my exercise up a bit.
I like this way of doing things.
I can simply trust that I am following my calorie burn in general. All I need to do is to register my general activities (I only enter when I do something that I figure the Fitbit can't comprehend on its own, like bicycling, Circuit training, excessive standing - yes, that actually burns a LOT more calories than simply sitting - and what-have-you)
When I know what I have burned over the 4 week period, I can be fairly sure that it is an accurate number, and that it'll show a slow change when/if I change my habits. The calorie allowance will simply follow.
So, if I start feeling that I would like a higher calorie intake in general, I just need to be more active.
If I want to "pig out" for a party, all I gotta do is to register my food as fair as I can do (I do this anyways, party or not), and the excess calories will be compensated for over the next 4 weeks. Kind of like taking out a loan and pay it back in small, convenient payments.
The danger to this is of course to not borrow too many calories in the calorie bank. There is no extra room for more pig-out days, just because I don't have to immediately go nuts and compensate over the next couple of days. This just makes it a little less stressful, and my idea is that it won't make me feel like I'm chasing numbers constantly. I hope this will make me RELAX.
The system goes the other way too, of course.
If I generally stay UNDER my allowed calorie intake, I will be rewarded with a higher RDI in general. The RDI will slowly rise, to nudge me back to my maintenance level. I love this idea.
This also means that I can choose to do, say ONE fasting day per week, and it will give me a much higher RDI overall. Check it out:
Let's say 28 days with daily calorie burn/RDI of 3,000 - just to make it easy number.
This totals in 84,000 calories.
I then choose to make 4 of those days - one per week - a fasting day of 600 calories. That's 4 days where I save 2,400 calories, which gives me a savings of 9,600 calories.
When my system sees this happening, it will try to compensate for the low days, and up my RDI. The new result will be that if I do one fasting day per week, then I can consume 3,342 calories on the other days instead. Nice, huh?
I can then choose to either do this to up my allowance, or I can use it if I want to drop a kilo or two here and there.
This is easy too. I simply enter my weight adjustment goal in my spreadsheet, and it will deduct the calories needed for weight loss. This works for weight gain too.
I love the simplicity of this. It was hell to build, but it seems to be working. :)
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So, I should start seeing a higher RDI over the next weeks, if I keep my activity levels high. Yesterday's activities, biking and walking, will definitely help raising it a little. I burned 3500 calories yesterday! Of course, I also consumed 3500, so they are compensated for already, but the average burn will go up. If I just go a with my food numbers, then it will benefit a little bit.
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So, how about TODAY's numbers?
Well, I weighed in at 2:30 AM this morning (well, last night), so the numbers are in no way accurate, but I was thirsty and wanted both water and coffee, so I figured I might as well get it done. I didn't want to have to wait for hours to have something to drink.
I have decided to stop posting all the numbers. It's very time consuming to be writing it all down. Sorry about that.
However, there ARE some interesting things going on today.
First of all, I am up the two kilos that I lost yesterday. That's fine. It's not the weight number that really matters - AND the super early weigh-in doesn't give an all too accurate measurement of progress regardless. I'm fine with that.
What is much more interesting is that I, while I weigh the same as two days ago, am down a full percent of body fat.
I believe this is due to the fasting day, and the extra exercise I did that same day. I had a pretty high burn, 3256 calories, while only consuming 580.
Let's see if it keeps being like that. The result is that my general numbers are looking good. My muscle is back up from being low (due to less fluid, I think) yesterday. It's all good.
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Progress is a strange thing anyways, isn't it?
In this whole weight loss game, it's so easy to track progress to begin with. The main focus is to lose weight, as we know that most of what we'll lose will be body fat.
Then, coming closer to goal, we need to focus a LOT more on WHAT we are losing (Draglist, I know you're there right now, getting a grip on this), to ensure that we are actually losing FAT and not MUSCLE.
And then we reach goal. We're done. The suddenly progress is "NO CHANGE". It's a success story when you MAINTAIN your weight and body fat.
This one can be hard to get into my thick little noggin.
I still want to lose weight, even though I know it doesn't matter. I'll never reach the lowest weight I have been, and I know that this isn't an option, because I would have to lose all my muscles to get there.
However, there is ALWAYS that little spot in my brain that gets all giddy when my weight is lower, and that gets just a little bummed out when I gain. It doesn't matter if I tell myself that it doesn't matter a thousand times over, I still react like this.
I DO see a mental shift to be more focused on the body fat percentage. Before, I didn't look ALL that much at it. I do now. I do see that I want it under 10 at least, and that this has become a goal right now.
I also see that the other goals are to maintain muscle mass, and to make sure I get the 190g of protein daily. This is essential for me.
I will actually rather go over my calories and ensure my protein than stay within RDI and compromise this.
Right now, when I can't do strength training, I need to do what I can to maintain muscle mass, and protein is one way.
The only times I will stray from the protein rule is when I do a fasting day. I can't do a fasting day AND get 190g of protein. I can get some of the way, but there is no way I can get it, it's not physically possible. 1g of protein carries 4 calories, so 190g of protein would be 760 calories, and I would already have blown my fast day RDI then - and this is assuming that it would be pure, raw protein I was consuming. Not possible.
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Today, Wife is working. We were invited to my brother's house for a little Christmas get-together. I'll be going alone.
It's gonna be a little strange to be there. My brother is going through a divorce - after 27 years! - and this is the first time for me to go there after everything has changed. This all happened just a few weeks ago, so nobody has really had a chance to adjust to "the new".
I'm sure it's fine though. I'm sure he's gonna appreciate that I am coming. I don't want him to feel that he's standing all alone, so even if Wife isn't going today, I will go. Normally, I probably wouldn't. I like going with Wife for things like this. We go as a couple to most things anyways.
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Today, I'm thankful for:
- My new RDI calculator!
- Numbers, numbers, numbers!
- Going to see my brother! This doesn't happen often enough!
- Coffee at 3 AM.
- Wife. I'm looking forward to her waking up so I have someone to talk to. :)
- Kitty Cat for taking care of me when I'm up in the middle of the night.
Have a great Saturday and a great weekend! I hope you guys have a good time! Life is good!