6 Weeks in...

6 weeks of a 24 week program in the bag...

On 2/15 I was 230.0, BMI 30.3 (truly borderline obese).
On 3/27 I was 217.0, BMI 28.6 (just overweight again).

Looking at my weight graph, I'm losing at a dead-on 2lbs/week rate.
This is a bit above my scheduled 875 kcal/day deficit, but as long as
I'm losing weight steadily I guess I'll go with it.

While this is apparently well into "starvation" mode, I don't feel
particularly starved at this level. I credit this to the "balanced"
fat/carb/protein WOE of cold cereal in the morning (with 1% fat milk),
a (relatively) low-carb snack at mid-day (200-300 kcal) (apple and
cheddar cheese, one serving of almonds, a tangelo, carrots and ranch
dip, etc), plus a reasonably-sized balanced dinner (about 1000 kcal).

This is a "weight loss regime" so I don't snack any more at all
outside of designated mini-meals. "A ~little~ hunger never killed
anyone" is my motto!

I've been getting irregular exercise but I still need to make space in
my day for it.

One of the more helpful things I've found is following John Walker's
_Hacker's Diet_ suggestion of graphing the daily weight losses with a
moving average -- this tends to average out the drop/plateau pattern
of the loss into a single nicely smoothed curve.

The calculation I use is pretty simple:

W = today's weight
A = yesterday's average
F = averaging factor (I use 0.25)

today's average = A + (W-A) x F.

This simple calculation changed this "plateau'd" daily weighing
sequence:

222.5 - 222.0 - 222.5 - 223.5 - 223.5 - 222.5 - 221.5 - 222.0

into:

224.3 - 223.8 - 223.4 - 223.5 - 223.5 - 223.2 - 222.8 - 222.6

Since my diet and hydration is really regular, seeing the average
weights gives me pretty good feedback on how the loss is progressing,
in that I can take the daily change in average weight (today's average
- yesterday's average) as a pretty close approximation of what's
really going on.

Well, so far so good apparently. I don't expect I'll be able to
continue this pace without more exercise to keep up my metabolism and
LBM, but I'll give the next update in another 6 weeks!

Heywood

230/217/185