After 3 weeks of slow losses (1.8lbs, 1.8lbs, 1.6lbs) I have to accept that the current formula is under performing. It’s not rocket science it’s pretty simple: in the last three weeks my calorie burn has been seriously curtailed. My target is 32,000kcals burned per week whilst my actual has been 27,900, 29,400 and 28,100. Cumulatively that’s 10,600kcals that hasn’t been burned, equivalent to 3lbs of weight loss overall. So rather than losing 5.2lbs I could have lost around 8lbs if I had have hit target.
So why did I burn so few calories? Well the first two weeks were sabotaged by a job assessment that deprived me of exercise time (note: I hit target 3 weeks in a row prior to that). In the 3rd week I was severely aching from a weights session that made it very painful to move around. I take that as a sign of my body wanting to rest. I compensated by reducing calories consumed but it wasn’t enough to get me into the -2lbs per week zone.
There’s good reason to believe that I can hit target in the next few weeks. The severe aching I’ve just worked through is the shock of a hard legs day after months without one – it’s a one-off. Moreover, to make my -2lbs per week target I’m going to increase my number of diet days to 6, with only 1 treat day (whereas before I had a treat day & a “normal day” + 5 hard diet days).
The combination of hardening up the diet and hitting my calorie burn targets through more/harder physical activity should put me within target threshold.
I want this done, I’m sick of it; I’m not talking about a silly crash diet I’m talking about a sensible 2lbs per week loss. Put simply I’ll do whatever it take, I’m not playing here I mean business.
Dr Martin James 