Math of Weight Loss

I'm roughly halfway to my first weight-loss goal of losing 20 pounds.  I'm down below 200 pounds, and once I'm under 190, that's pretty much my first step towards being fit and in shape again.

Weight loss has been slow, but steady for me.  So far, so good.  Near as I can figure, I'm losing a couple of pounds a week.

The biggest part of this is due to diet.  I started with what was probably about a 4,000 calorie a day diet with
a lot of fat and other things that were just bad for me.

I'm dialing in the diet the trainers gave me.  I know I'm doing things that aren't optimal, such as substituting V-8 for fresh vegetables, or a glass of orange juice for fruit.  I'm also pretty much done with chicken breast and am drinking protien shakes, instead.

Throw in some almonds for snacks and maybe an extra protien shake to stave off hunger and it works out to 1,630 calories a day per my calculations. 

I also cheat a bit on the diet.  So, there's an impact due to eating a serving of tater tots or a hot dog every few days, but for the most part, the core diet is what I'm talking about.  I stick to it, not perfectly, but well enough.  Also, this diet is a vast improvement over my old one.

Now, to calculate how many calories I'm burning in a day.  There's a formula for me that goes:

66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

When I work the math, it comes out to about 1930 calories a day.

Also, because I'm exercising regularly, we add another .40 times that total for a grand total of 2700 calories a day, give or take.

So, if I'm eating about 1,600 or 1,700 calories a day and burning 2,700 calories a day, that means I'm burning about a thousand more calories a day than I'm taking in.

There are 3,500 calories in a pound.  Which means that every 3 or 4 days, I should lose a pound.

Rather surprisingly, though it shouldn't be, that's almost exactly what I'm encountering in the real world.

I might be working out just a bit harder (which burns more calories), but I depart from the diet every few days and that adds more calories. 

All in all, though, the formula appears to hold water. 

Now to just keep it up.  I'll feel pretty good when I'm below 190.  That's my first fitness goal.

When I reach that, I may work one more normal meal into the diet every week. 

The workouts should increase in intensity, too.  The runs should be longer, with shorter breaks at higher tempo.  My body should have accumulated a few pounds of lean muscle mass that will help metabolize meals and burn fat. 

Ultimately, I'd love to be back down in the 175 area.  Less than that, and I start looking pretty scrawny and there's just no need for it unless I'm training for triathlons again. 

Mostly, I just want to look better and be healthier overall.  I still have a spare tire right now, and at 175, I should pretty much be fit and trim. 

I also would like to really improve my performance in the Navy fitness tests.  My pushups and curl-ups are great.  They'll certainly improve with all the weight training I'm doing.  But my running has become an embarassment.

It's not 100% my fault:  I had that bout with plantar fasciitis that lasted way too long.  So, it isn't 100% my fault, but it's 80 or 90%.  I could have been doing a lot to improve my fitness, and used my injury as an excuse to let myself go.

I'm still dialing in the diet.  It's still working well and I function great with just one cup of coffee in the morning.  Used to be I needed about 3 cups in the morning, and diet coke throughout the day. 

I think that also explains why my weight would fluctuate so much.  At the end of the day, I'd weigh maybe 210.  By morning, I'd weigh 204.  Caffeine is a diuretic and I was probably losing WAY more of my water weight every night than I do, now. 

Also, as a person gets more fit, they actually add water-weight.  Right now, my weight might fluctuate a couple of pounds throughout the day, but nothing like that.

So, at this rate, 2 pounds a week, I should be at or near my first fitness goal weight sometime in mid September.  I have yet to reach the 1 month anniversary of working out.  That comes on the 13th.  All indications are that in this first month, I'll have lost right about 10 pounds, give or take, which is perfectly acording to plan.

Thank goodness for protien shakes.