2-25-16 I haven't seen any movement on the scale for a week and a half. Ok well that isn't totally true. I showed a gain. I have seen some of that gain diminish, but it hasn't gone back to what I was showing a week and a half ago. At eating very very low calories with a few days of going higher (but still significantly under maintenance calories. By several hundred calories, even). The body fat reading on my scale is showing a loss though, although I have no idea how much stock to put into that unless it consistently shows the loss. My hydration reading is up. Same concept.
I feel very different. I feel like I look very different.. but my progress pictures are subtle at best.
Still, I cling to the concept of science.
Except for the whole PCOS thing. I have sort of ignored this part of my health since it was mentioned to me in passing maybe 23 years ago with absolutely no instruction how to manage it, so I sort of dismissed it (after all, I somehow managed to get pregnant and have three children without medical intervention). Now that I am reading about it, I see that my issues are sadly common... working really hard and seeing nearly no progress. Having "Calories in/Calories out" really not add up to expected weight loss, having my TDEE* not match up to what the charts say it is supposed to be. Working super hard and ping ponging back and forth the same old 5 pounds with no real success.
(TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is your basal metabolic rate, for the most part, with your activity level factored in. When you are tracking by your TDEE, you typically do not "eat back" your exercise calories as those are more or less already factored into your allowance.)
2-29-16 I am taking a LEAP of faith (see what I did there? It's leap day.) that if I stay on this path, I will indeed see the changes I am working so hard for. On Saturday, I had an "eff it" day and ate whatever I wanted including sugar, high salt, and custard., I still stayed under 1500 calories so it wasn't like I binged, but it was very different than I'd been eating. Woke up the next day and showed a 2 pound loss on the scale. WHATEVER. Ate high carb/high salt yesterday simply because it was what had been prepared for everyone else and I didn't have the time to cook for myself. Showed a one pound gain from my lowest weight 2 weeks ago or so.
I am just not willing to give myself over to the panic "Oh no! i can eat starvation level calories and still gain weight because of my effing warped health." There HAS to be a way around it and I refuse to give in. I insist that I will lose another 20 pounds before my wedding no matter what I have to do. I am just not giving in.
I seem to do better weight loss wise when I drink a lot of water. I don't think there is anything magical about water drinking aside from the fact I think I eat more salt than I should. some of my recent common food choices are high in sodium, and I retain fluid easily. I simply think the water dilutes the salt and allows my body not to retain a ton of fluids.
Last Tuesday, we went to lift at the gym and I started the 5 x 5 program, but I don't think I read about it adequately. I just saw "Do these three exercises at these weights and reps" and did no warm up lifts and I pretty much killed my legs. I hadn't done squats in pretty much years and I jumped right in with weighted squats. I couldn't walk for days. Like.. needed pain killers, couldn't walk. Lesson learned because I could not go back to the gym on schedule. I was in terrible pain. Reset.
I read that people with PCOS tend to "need" far fewer calories than typical people. By "need" I mean "won't burn off as many calories by simply existing".. so if a typical person my age/height/weight might have a TDEE of 1800 calories, mine might be 1200. Which means that in order to lose weight, I have to eat less than that. And I also read that if you have Insulin Resistance on top of the PCOS, it might be even lower. So this means when I eat at an anorexic level of calories and people freak out and unfriend me on My Fitness Pal, I am still only losing (at best) 2 pounds a week at very very low calories. Don't hate on me. I'd love to eat 1800 calories and still lose weight. It isn't happening for me and I've been trying for a very long time. When I say I only lose when I do drastic, just believe me, ok? You can trust that I love food and I'd really like to be eating more of it.
(TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is your basal metabolic rate, for the most part, with your activity level factored in. When you are tracking by your TDEE, you typically do not "eat back" your exercise calories as those are more or less already factored into your allowance.)
2-29-16 I am taking a LEAP of faith (see what I did there? It's leap day.) that if I stay on this path, I will indeed see the changes I am working so hard for. On Saturday, I had an "eff it" day and ate whatever I wanted including sugar, high salt, and custard., I still stayed under 1500 calories so it wasn't like I binged, but it was very different than I'd been eating. Woke up the next day and showed a 2 pound loss on the scale. WHATEVER. Ate high carb/high salt yesterday simply because it was what had been prepared for everyone else and I didn't have the time to cook for myself. Showed a one pound gain from my lowest weight 2 weeks ago or so.
I am just not willing to give myself over to the panic "Oh no! i can eat starvation level calories and still gain weight because of my effing warped health." There HAS to be a way around it and I refuse to give in. I insist that I will lose another 20 pounds before my wedding no matter what I have to do. I am just not giving in.
I seem to do better weight loss wise when I drink a lot of water. I don't think there is anything magical about water drinking aside from the fact I think I eat more salt than I should. some of my recent common food choices are high in sodium, and I retain fluid easily. I simply think the water dilutes the salt and allows my body not to retain a ton of fluids.
Last Tuesday, we went to lift at the gym and I started the 5 x 5 program, but I don't think I read about it adequately. I just saw "Do these three exercises at these weights and reps" and did no warm up lifts and I pretty much killed my legs. I hadn't done squats in pretty much years and I jumped right in with weighted squats. I couldn't walk for days. Like.. needed pain killers, couldn't walk. Lesson learned because I could not go back to the gym on schedule. I was in terrible pain. Reset.
I read that people with PCOS tend to "need" far fewer calories than typical people. By "need" I mean "won't burn off as many calories by simply existing".. so if a typical person my age/height/weight might have a TDEE of 1800 calories, mine might be 1200. Which means that in order to lose weight, I have to eat less than that. And I also read that if you have Insulin Resistance on top of the PCOS, it might be even lower. So this means when I eat at an anorexic level of calories and people freak out and unfriend me on My Fitness Pal, I am still only losing (at best) 2 pounds a week at very very low calories. Don't hate on me. I'd love to eat 1800 calories and still lose weight. It isn't happening for me and I've been trying for a very long time. When I say I only lose when I do drastic, just believe me, ok? You can trust that I love food and I'd really like to be eating more of it.
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