Rethinking my Plan

My body has decided that the major downhill roller coaster weight loss is at an end.  While I am sad to see it go, I am stopping the constant fretting about it here and now.  Writing things down has always helped me keep my mind on track though so this post is serving as my restructuring space.

Basically,  I have been going every other week with a loss, and then the loss being only 2-3 pounds.  That is fine, but I am restricting calories enough that this should not be happening and I should still be at 2 pounds (at least) a week.  This leaves me with only one conclusion: I have screwed up my metabolism and have been restricting too much.

I have decided to up my calories in an effort to battle this.  It's so counter-intuitive!  I found a very interesting read today that I am going to use as my guide.  In a nutshell, it states that your calories should not drop below your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and that the calorie deficit should come from a combination of exercise, and the difference of your RMR and your BMR. 

So, I found my RMR to be 1610 calories by using an online calculator .  My BMR is roughly 2658 (which includes light exercise 3-5 days a week). So I should be at a deficit of 1048 per day which is 2 pounds a week.

I have been following an exercise regiment too now which is why I am using the "moderately active" BMR.  I walk  close to 14k steps a day total.  This includes my morning 10 minute walk, 2 fast paced 15 minute walks that conclude with a 4 flight of stair climb, and another 4 flight of stairs mid-day, and then a 20-30 minute walk with the doggies after work which I have been doing every other day, but really need to focus and get it done every day.

I read that 1 mile = 100 calories, and that's about 7 miles, so it looks like I am burning 700 calories just on my walks.  I think I easily burn an additional 300 calories naturally (digesting, temperature changes, desk work, chores etc) so the 1048 deficit sounds fairly accurate. 

I am going to give this new regiment 2 good months and we will see if I am down 16 pounds by the beginning of December (2 lbs a week for the 4 weeks).  If not, I will re-evaluate.

Checking in!

As I expected, I haven't really felt the burning desire to blog anything as nothing significant has happened this past month. 

I felt like I was stuck hovering at 222 lbs for 3 weeks there.  It was hard! But I knew I was on target.  I did take a weekend "off" and forced (LITERALLY FORCED) myself to heat 2000 calories on each day to do a kick-start to the old metabolism.  It must have worked as the scale finally registered 216.4 on my Sunday weigh-in.

I do feel a little guilty about my calorie counts the past few days (hence, this post to be honest).  I don't have an accurate count for Wednesday - Saturday, and then I knowingly went over my allotment on Monday.  It went something like this: Wednesday, out to lunch with work.  Thursday, out to dinner with friends. Friday, all day conference foods (luckily, healthy).  Saturday, order in sushi dinner.  Sunday on target.  Monday 1469.  I am supposed to be at 1290 for this weight to maintain the 2 pound a week loss.

Well, my decision is, since my body really likes 1400 calories, that is where I will remain, and I will work on getting 300 calorie deficit worth of exercise in per day.  And I have started exercising! I take my morning 10 minute dog walk, then during the day I take 2 15-minute walks that are partially hilled, followed by climbing 4 flights of stairs.  Plus I do another 4 flights at lunch.  AND I even started doing my 30 minute walk + short bursts of jogging.  OK I did that ONCE so far, but I am going to to do it today, I promise, and every day henceforth.

If only my legs would stop being so dang sore LOL