Weekly weigh-in: okay, this is getting a little annoying...

Today's numbers:

• Today's weight: 228.0 lb
• Change since last week: +0.5 lb
• Cumulative weight loss: 106.0 lb
• Average weekly weight change: -2.0 lb

I swear I tightened up my food this past week.

I'm not freaking out, mind you. And actually, I'm not dreadfully annoyed. Just ... peeved.

Plateaus do happen. And it is true that I'm still having trouble fitting in exercise with my new, much more complicated schedule. So ... this week, in addition to being more achtung about the food, I will also attempt to be more achtung about the exercise.

It has occurred to me before that, as I continue to lower my weight, the pace with which I lose that weight will start to decellerate. This is a well-known phenomenon. For any given weight, there is an amount of calories consumed/expended that represents the amount required to maintain that weight at equilibrium. When you're way over that weight, and consuming the amount of calories corresponding to that weight, you'll lose weight relatively quickly. When you're closing in on that weight, eating that amount of calories has a much less drastic effect.

Old-school diet-think responded to that issue by telling the dieter to cut calories even more, to maintain that fast weight loss. New-school, healthier weight management principles, however, understand that if your calorie consumption drops too low, you'll simply kick your body into famine mode. Not only will that cause your metabolism to slow down, resisting further weight loss with tooth and nail, but what weight you do lose will start being the damaging sort that depletes muscle tissue, leaves you feeling crappy and exhausted, and all sorts of other nasty unhealthy things. The new-school pundits have it that 1200 calories per day is the absolute minimum calorie consumption for healthy weight loss, and prefer weight reducers to stay at around 1400. Which is what I've been doing all along.

So as I continue onward, the slogging is going to get sloggier, and the plateaus are going to happen more often, and the weight loss is going to get ever more gradual. And even though I'm a little peeved right now, ultimately I'm okay with this.

Yeah, I will tighten up and get more achtung anyway. But I'm also going to dwell in the consciousness that I'm eating healthily right along, and in the long run that's the best thing for not only my weight management but my overall health.

Comments

[The Old Foodie.]

Hang in there MizD, dont, whatever you do, lose heart! You are an amazing inspiration, and incredibly brave doing this so publicly. I have given your blog address to a couple of my patients who are trying to lose weight - not to put pressure on you of course!

[mizducky]

Thanks for the encouraging words, Madame Foodie!

And I'm really pleased that you find my blog a helpful resource to pass along to your patients. Not only is that flattering as all heck, but the stuff I blog about is exactly the kind of stuff I wished I'd known about a whole lot earlier in my own weight-loss misadventures, so the more people who see it, the more vindicated I feel! The truth shall set you free, as they say ... :-)