Food: In a week of low points, food was mediocre. I had my second “Come to Calories” moment with rising weight and needing to try to tally all those bites, licks, slurps, tastes, crumbs, and crumbles, but I was able to do that the late-middle of the week and drop calories the next few days. That let me come out still at just +3% of my overall goal, and still make my macros. That said, this was the highest week as a function of percent-goal since I started, for calories, fat, carbs, and protein (I mean, protein’s okay to be high so long as I stay within my calorie goal). At least sodium dropped with respect to the previous week, but saturated fats were high I think because this week was higher in chocolate consumption.
Exercise: I knew this week would be bad, and it was. I was at least supposed to get in another 400+ calories walking, but I was rained out on Friday. The issue was the NASA review panel and not being home (being at my pseudo-mother-in-law’s; pseudo because I’m not married, though we’ve been dating longer than a lot of marriages). Anyway, I normally get zero exercise during review panels, and I usually over-eat like crazy because they feed us buffet lunches and dinners and snacks, so I guess a very tiny consolation is that I did get something in with respect to exercise and didn’t go crazy-over on my calories. Tiny consolation.
Sleep: At least I almost succeeded in meeting my ≥8 hr/day sleep goal this week. The day I didn’t was because it was another driving day on Sunday (5 hrs in the car from southern Ohio to mid-Michigan) and then I had to review 7 15-page grants and get reviews in before I went to bed. So, bed at 3am, up at 9:30am. Otherwise, sleep was the high point this week, managing to “catch up” if such a thing is biologically possible. Only, of course, to f–k it up today (Sunday, as I write this, due to the trip home).
Measurements: Somehow, bodyfat fell a bit again, and I’m still practically a week ahead of my goal. Weight, however, has not gone down this week. The average was 214.9 lbs, vs 215.1 lbs the previous week, which is basically zero change. A best-fit line between the 14 days of this and last week is basically straight. That’s well above the 213.0 lb goal.
Points: I got the second-lowest points this week, coming in at +38, only higher than Week 01 at +31. Points were low because of failure to do much of any exercise.
Looking Back 1 Week: As I wrote in last week’s summary, this week was going to be hard, and it was. I wrote that it’s the continuation of a 2-week trip, the review panel, other work (which I didn’t do), no exercise equipment, and driving both Sunday and Saturday with Saturday being a 17-hr drive. It was challenging, and I did not meet that challenge.
But with that said, I didn’t grossly slide backwards. I usually do that on trips. Being able to carefully watch calories (even if I didn’t completely exercise that ability) helped me to remain focused on my goals, again even if I didn’t come close to meeting them. At worst, I am where I was two weeks ago.
Looking Ahead 1 Week: What really matters is where I go from here. I’m in a position where I’ve been many, many times in the past: I do well for several weeks, I make progress, and then I have a trip (or, excuses aside, I have a bad week or two where no progress is made or I slide back a bit), and I give up.
I don’t think I’m at that stage. I feel unhappy, but still motivated. I feel motivated to exercise (though I’m not today – more on that in the June 28 daily summary), I feel motivated to stick strictly to my food schedule, and I feel motivated to work on getting back on track.
That said, what does “on track” mean? Well, the most tangible and commonly-watched goal is weight. My stated goal this week, based on losing 0.75% of my bodyweight per week now, is to average out at a lower 211.4 lbs this coming week. I weighed myself today (Sunday) and was at 214.3 lbs. So that means I need to lose at least 3 lbs this week, and even then I won’t average 211.4, but I’ll at least reach it. I’m not sure that’s doable, unless I’m bloated from water weight. I think I could probably lose at least 2 lbs, and then 2 lbs the next week, so I could come close to averaging that week’s 209.8 lbs, but I’m not sure.
The question then is: ¿At what point do I re-assess the goals so that I’m not consistently behind them? I think the reasonable answer is, at the end of Week 13, so on July 19. Why? ‘Cause that’s half-way through this next block of 8 weeks of cutting weight, and it’ll be far enough away from right now that I’ll have a better idea if catching up was actually achievable. At that point, the goal is to be about 207.5 lbs, or just under 20 lbs below where I started. Which would be a new record for me (see next post on a 69-day weight update).
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