[candogirl]

Hi guys! I have been counting calories for about two months now and so far it is going well. I have a diet software that keeps track of all my calories, fats, vitamins,... I have been looking through my reports and have noticed that on days that my sugar intake is high (usually above 50) I notice weight loss the next day and it tends to say gone too. If my sugar intake is high for 3 or 4 days running I loose everyday. One days where my sugar is where it should be the weight loss is less or non-existant. Is it possible that sugar is helping me? This sugar is not refined sugar from candy or anything, mainly from fruits and stuff.
This software keeps track of everything and just eyeballing the data I can't tell if there are any other trends that could be interacting. Sugar is the only one I can tell right off. I wish this software did more advanced statistics.
Would it be totally insane to load the data into a statistical software? My nutritionist already says I am making this too obsessive and complicated. I can only imagine what she would say if I brought in regression analysis.
Any ideas on the sugar thing?

[Glory87]

Since most of your sugar comes from healthy foods like fruit I don't see a correlation. Maybe it's not the sugar in the fruit, but the fiber? It makes you feel full and satisfied so your calorie counts are lower on the days you have multiple servings of fruit. I definitely agree with your nutritionist - sounds like you are doing a great eating well, just keep it up!

[zenor77]

Glory already said what I was thinking.

If you are losing, I wouldn't over analyze. You are doing great!

[Watercolor]

OMG, Cando! Regression analysis!!!!

I work for a bunch of epidemiologists. You go girl.

Write that SAS code. Hit that running man. I'm loving this!

[brookelizabeth]

lol

It's hard not to obsess!

I went to see my mom for a week and she is all over helping me eat healthy and walk. So, I ate sugar when not with her and thought that if I only gained 3-5 lbs I'd be happy. I love 2.5

The month before I zig zagged the heck out of my calorie range and didn't lose more than a few pounds.

I admit to being confused!!

[ennay]

It is virtually impossible to make correlations like that because the speed at which stuff travels through your body varies, water, waste, etc. The loss today may be because of what you did yesterday, or 2 days ago or 3 days ago.

If your calories are equal than any "correlation" means your body shed some substance that was not fat

Here is a weird little "correlation" for you. Chocolate in large quantities acts as a laxative for me (some combination of the fat, caffeine and sugar I think). So I "lose weight" the day after I ate an entire freaking easter bunny. That does not mean in the long run that binging on chocolate is good for my weight, even though probably every time I have a chocobinge I have a low weight the next day.

Dont over analyze...you will only drive yourself crazy and as soon as you think you have figured it out...bingo it will change.

The only analysis I find valuable is stuff that isnt related to the scale such as "if I eat fruit for breakfast I tend to go off plan later that day....hmmmm" or "you know...when i eat refined sugar my mood seems to be low" . That is when you are learning about what is treating you well.

[BlueToBlue]

what ennay said! I second all of that.

It generally takes more than a day for what you eat to impact your weight. So the drop you see on the scale today isn't from what you ate yesterday; it's probably from what you ate two or three days ago--or more likely, the combination of what you ate for the entire past week since it's impossible to create enough of a calorie deficit in a 24-hour period to result in a 1 lb (or even half lb) loss.

Any immediate changes you see on the scale are probably just water weight. For example, this weekend, in an anticipate of an upcoming trip where I won't be able to eat on plan, I dropped my daily calorie intake by about 200 calories. On Monday, my weight was 2 lbs lower than on Friday. Now, there's no way I lost 2 lbs over over the weekend with my calories just 200 lower per day (it takes a deficit of 7,000 calories to lose 2 lbs). The loss is a combination of the fact that I haven't quite ramped my calories up to maintenance level, so I was probably losing a small amount of weight every day for the past week or so, and the fact that when I dropped my calories, I starting losing water I was retaining.

You really can't get obsessive about daily fluctuations in your weight; in the end it is self-defeating. Take them all with a grain of salt. If you can't do that, consider weighing yourself just once a week.