[bensempress]

Aloha everyone,

I hope your weekend is treating you well The rain dried up and it's nice and sunny... looking forward to walking the dogs this afternoon!

Anyway, I was hoping to get some opinions from you all since you guys are successful at this calorie counting stuff. I lost my first 30 pounds or so about a year ago, then stayed at that weight until about a month ago when I decided it was time to really make that life long change- which has been pretty great but on the scale!

I started out eating 1600-1800 calories per day with 30 minutes of yoga 6 days a week, and 30 minutes of cirvuit training 6 days a week. The first week I went from 209 to 207, then I got sick week 2 and gained 1.5 pounds... the 3rd week (last week) I added 30 minutes of cardio to my daily routine and another 30 minutes of circuit training on Sat. and ate about 1600 calories a week for a loss of 3.3 pounds, weighing in at 203.8!

Well, this week I weighed in at 206.5- I gained and I don't know why! I still did 30 min. cardio 6 days this week, 30 minutes of yoga 5 days this week, 30 min. of circuit training 5 days and an hour of it today...

OK, so one day this week I went overboard and had a crazy day calorie wise (about 2,000 calories!!), but that shouldn't result in a weight gain of multiple pounds, should it?!

I guess I'm just looking for suggestions on where I can improve... maybe lower my calories, up them? I would like to STOP gaining (and those 2,000 calorie days won't happen again!) and starting losing... any advice or suggestions would be awesome, I'm feeling pretty defeated! After a month, I'm about where I started... frustating to say the least.

P.S. I have to say that you all really inspire me and if it weren't for you, who knows how motivated I'd still be right now? Thanks so much

[kaplods]

You're expecting each weekly weight loss to make sense - but weight loss doesn't always make sense on a weekly basis.

It's a bit like if you expecting (assuming you're going) to get a paycheck every week, not realizing that you're employer might be paying on a biweekly or monthly basis.

The problem with weight loss is that the "pay off" isn't always predictable. So, it can seem like the wrong behaviors or a complete coincidence is responsible for weight loss patterns.

Log everything, and you'll eventually learn your body's patterns - but you can't look at one recent change and assume it's causing a just as recent weight change - you could be right, but there might be no connection at all.

Remember that while the calorie "math" doesn't work out perfectly, it's impossible to lose weight on 1800 calories and gain (especially multiple pounds in a week) on 2000 calories.

Assume that you won't see a week's worth of work (or a day's work of undoing) at your weekly weigh-in. That weigh-in might reflect the past day or week - but it's more likely that it's reflecting the last month.

If you're writting everything down, and sticking with new patterns for three to six weeks - THEN you can start making some sense of the patterns. But on a daily or weekly basis, you're just guessing.

[mortonpixie]

Not sure how you're tracking things, but it might be a good idea to track your calorie deficit. Look up what your Basal Metabolic Rate is to get an idea of what you need. Also, you might consider investing in a heart rate monitor to get an idea of how many calories you burn with each activity. While yoga is wonderful for you, it may not burn as many calories. (totally not telling you to stop doing yoga!) You might consider doing a bit less of that and a bit more of cardio for example.

For me, I use a Polar chest strap type heart rate monitor with wrist watch. For my 40min run it says I burn about 400 calories. To survive and nurse a baby, I burn 2500 per day. So if I eat 2000 per day, I get a 900 per day deficit. 400 exercise + 2500 BMR - 2000. It takes 3500 cals to equal a pound, so I should loose about 1.5 - 2lbs per week with this set up. It's working so far!

My 3FC blog has a "Calorie Deficit" tab if you want to check it out. Also, here is a pretty good site to figure your BMR.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/bmrcalc.htm

[Gaterra]

I weigh myself everyday when I diet and track it. I have found that I go up and down and stay the same however the trajectory of overall weight loss is always down in the big picture. I weight everyday because it helps me to remain calm if I go through a period like yours. I have the proof in my hands that the diet works but not always the way I think it should happen but the way my body is designed to lose weight. When you look at my results over a long period of time there really is a pattern.

Remember weight loss is a slow motion event and making rapid changes to just a few results doesn’t make sense in the long run. Have patience my friend and I’ll work on the same thing as I’m up a pound today for no reason as well.

[jendiet]

i also weigh daily and avg the weekly weight. Then I compose a chart to see my trend of weight loss.