The Party’s Over - New Year, New Goals, New Plan
Like a lot of you, I hit the "resolution reset button" on Jan 1. Too much holiday eating and drinking (and a short dry spell in the gym) didn't do my fitness plan any favors. It is definitely time to get back to business. I updated my plan (via the Goals page in MyProfile). I set my weight loss target at 2 lbs per week and my calorie intake goal to 2000.
I'm 11 days into the plan and I'm down about 8 lbs. So far, so good! Even though the first 4 or 5 lbs is mostly retained water and glycogen, it still looks great when I get on the scale. The good news is that things are moving in the right direction.
My calorie intake in hovering right around 2000 per day (blue line). I'm burning about 3000 calories per day (gold line) and my body weight is moving in a nice southeasterly direction, which is down and that is a good thing. (green line)
This is Energy Balance at work and I should be at my 15 lb goal sometime in February. What's great about using a tool like Graphite is that it puts me in control. I'm driving the weight loss process by monitoring and adjusting my calorie intake and expenditure. I'm not starving myself (more about this in a minute) or killing it in the gym. It's Energy Balance at work, pure and simple.
Speaking of not starving. We get a lot of questions about nutrition, diet plans and what to eat of optimal weight loss. My personal philosphy is to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet and simply manage the number of calories I consume each day. I use the term 'manage', because it's not about hitting a specific number on the button each day. Some days I'll be a little over and some days I'll be a little under. The key for me is to give myself enough flexibility that I don't feel like I'm starving or depriving myself.
It's also important for me to enjoy a variety of the foods I like. Take a look a my Meal History log from January 12th below. Does this look like starvation? I can't think of too many commercial diet plans that would include New York Strip, Cabernet, Subway, Lay's Potato Chips, Eggs, and much of the other food items I ate that day. It's all about healthy choices, balance and calories. This day isn't typical. I'm not sitting around eating top sirloin (or red meat for that matter) every day, but having the flexibilty to enjoy the good stuff from time-to-time makes this approach one that I can stick with.
