Update - Weight loss question - Plateau



lischoux

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Feb 26, 2004
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Howdy all you fellow diet-nuts and health-fruits, all you dipped in doodle-dandy flab fighters and weight guerillas… It’s showtime !

So let me get you the results first (for those who do not want to read the whole thing but want the executive summary only).

“I have lost 7 kilos in 36 days”. My “plateau” is over and lasted about 3 weeks. After two days of intensive training and a couple of days dotted with numerous visits to the bathroom…(I’ll spare you the details) the weight came down from 85-ish to 82.9 kilos. Just to let all of you know that I appreciate your support and your comments.

This is how I did it (Yes I will get a t-shirt that will read “I lost 8 kilos in 36 days, don’t ask me how I did it” ).

Basics:
1) 1 kilogram of body weight (fat) equals roughly 8000 calories.
2) To loose weight you need to consume more calories that you eat.
3) 1 calorie = 1 calorie = 1 calorie no matter where it comes from.
4) Counting calories works, unless you don’t know what you’re counting and have no idea how much calories are in the food you’re eating and/or the amount of calories you consume
(References: http://www.trackyourdiet.com/; http://www.calorie-counter.net/; and the best site for all your big questions http://health.howstuffworks.com/diet.htm/printable - I also read the “Lance Armstrong Performance Program by Chris Carmichael” but it helped only a little with the diet. The cycling part was more useful)

I calculated my daily calorie consumption at 2000 calories (very conservative – I probably walk a lot and am not really sitting around all day but basically I wanted to get the worst case number). This means at rest, not doing any physical exercise, I consume 2000 calories a day.

So eating 2000 calories will get me nowhere but I will not gain weight. (Don’t get me started about negative or zero-calories as in celery etc… I just count them as 0). Food usually uses 10% of it's own caloric value to be digested but I did not count that number either.

When I started with the weight loss (e.g. February 12th I calculated that I needed to loose 15 kilos by May 1st which means that I needed a daily caloric deficit of about 1500 calories.

Example: Yesterday I ate a plate of pasta with meat sauce (1200 calories) a Ceasar’s Salad (300 calories) 1 muffin (150 calories) 1 Quaker Oatmeal to go (200 calories) and some carrots (about 30 calories). So based on the calories I ate (about 1900) I needed to get rid of:

1900(intake)
+1500(wanted deficit)
-2000(consumed)
-----------------------
= 1400 calories through exercise.

To work out I use my bicycle on a trainer at home. I have measured the power at each level of heart-rate activity (the Carmichael book really helped to determine the Zones) and found that (on average) I use 600-800 calories per hour (depending on the level of activity, sprint intervals, out-of-the-saddle intervals etc…). So to burn 1400 calories I needed to spin for (you guessed and/or calculated it) 2 hours.

I tracked the entire thing and calculated every scrap of food I took in. Sometimes I lost count and summed up what I had “en bloc” but always with a generous margin in order not to overdo it. Example: The famous “smoked meat” here in Montreal at Schwartz’s Restaurant… A plate of lean meat I calculated w/ 600 calories although it probably has a lot less.

Counting calories now is as natural to me as reading or breathing. I even drive my friends and co-workers nuts !!! It’s much easier if you stick to restaurant chains where you can find nutritional information. McDonalds for example or Subway have pretty decent tables. (Wow… Is a Big Mac really that heavy on calories ?) A lot of foods (not all here in Canada) in the supermarket have caloric info on them as well. Carefull about misleading service sizes !!!!

I adjusted some other habits as well. Although the big lunch is still a factor, I cut down on fat a lot. If you look at the calories and know that you just have 110 calories to eat, you think twice if they are going to be in form of 1 fudge covered Oreo cookie or 8 oz of low-fat yoghurt. I eat a lot of rice cakes (Quaker) as filler with (for example) a BigMac or a Subway turkey sandwich instead of fries or chips. I also try to have a couple of controlled snacks in between meals to be able to keep the digestive system and metabolism running. I used to eat a lot of pizza and stuff with a lot of cheese… Now I favor sandwiches with low-fat cheese and maybe some extra spices. If I eat pizza I try not to overload it with excess fatty toppings… Mushrooms rather than pepperoni, tomatoes rather than sausage…

I also take a 100mg dose of L-Carnitine (a substance found a lot in poultry that is supposed to help metabolize fat) maybe 2-3 times a week (if I don't forget), although I think that it makes a minimal difference (if at all) if I don’t take it. I take 100mg of both Magnesium and Potassium before I get on the bike to prevent cramps and 1 dose of multi-vitamin a day (3-4 times a week) to prevent any deficiencies in any major vitamin category.

And then of course there’s the mental thing… I like to eat. I like to snack. I like to chew… Well… Rice cakes have little calories… With a little salsa or hot sauce they are really good. There’s one flavor that tastes like Popcorn that I usually eat while hacking away on the computer at night or on weekends. Sometimes I indulge my cravings… There were days when I had hallucinations of deep-dish Domino’s Pizzas floating around the sky… Hey I ordered one and ate it (over 2 nights) and was quite happy. Since I don’t like to cook I don’t keep a lot of food in the house and I believe that’s a big factor. If you don’t have it… You can’t eat it. I keep a healthy amount of Special K cereal in the house but only a limited amount of milk (2%). So when I get a craving and only find dry Special K cereal… I may eat a handful but then I’m getting bored and take some chewing gum instead. The key is probably moderation and I think my obsession with the –1500/day calories has been the success factor. I’m always telling myself: “Eat this one thing more… and you’ll have to cycle for an extra 10 minutes tonight” and I usually do both (eating and cycling more).

Where do I go from here ? Nowhere… I just continue. If I stick to it I will end up RIGHT ON TARGET. My average loss is 1555 calories / day as of last Friday and I will go on.

I still need to measure my body fat percentage though...

If you want more info feel free to reply.

Originally posted by lischoux
Howy,

Just a(nother) question about dieting, weight loss and cycling.

I started a few weeks back with a diet to loose about 15 kilos in excessive weight. I am 178 cm and want to get down to 75 kg by the 1st of May. I started at 90 kg.

After 4 weeks of healthy progress (using the calorie counting method of 8000 calories = 1 kilo fat) loosing about 5.5 kilos... I reached a plateau. Actually the weight loss has stopped although I stayed at the same training intensity and length in any given week.

During the last 10 days I have not lost ANYTHING although my dieting method has not changed. :mad:

Without getting into a discussion of my diet, what and when I eat bla bla bla ... Plan A vs. Plan B, etc... I just want to know if anybody out there has heard of this "plateau" where your body actually gets used to the exercise and develops more muscular tissue from excessive fat, thus keeping the net weight stable ?

I read somewhere that there are cycles to weight loss. The first cycle being loss of weight in the first week(s) due to loss in excessive fluids, the next would be a loss of fat combined with an increase in muscle mass, thus not loosing weight, then another acceleration in weight loss due to the completion of the muscle buildup... I have no clue where I read it and was wondering if anyone has information about this.

Since this would actually explain why so many diets fail (e.g. people getting discouraged about the entire thing the moment the loss stops and they reach the "plateau") it would be interesting to determine if I could extrapolate from other eople's experience on the relative length of this muscle buildup (in function of my training intensity). :confused:

Thanks reader for any help/info ! ;)
 
I have done the similar thing. I calulated my caloric intake to about 1900/day and then any exercise I do allows me to eat something else. I have fallen a bit over teh summer but over 6 months last summer I lost about 40 lbs. I have put about 6-8 back on over the winter but I am back to religiously tracking caloric intake. My biggest problem is a cold beer or multiple cold beers.

Dwayne