Hare Watch 2012 - January 9th Update
Jan. 10th, 2012 02:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jakebeWeight Last Week: 190.7 pounds
Weight This Week: 190.6 pounds
Trending Change: -0.1 pounds
Avg. Calories/Day: 1678
All right, so I'm going to try to get back to being serious about watching my weight, exercising on a regular basis and eating food that's better for me. Hey, it's a new year and that's practically a tradition once you sleep off the blinding hangover. The difficulty with the concept, though, is that you really have to work to identify what you're going after. Losing weight is a pretty simple thing: you just burn more calories than you eat. Getting down to the particulars can be really tough, though. How many calories should I have if I want to maintain my current weight? That is so damned hard to figure out, and I'm still not sure I've got it right. The best thing I can think of to do is count my calories, collect data on weight, and see if I can establish some sort of correlation.
Anyway, that's what I'm posting up there. My weekly weights are measured on Sunday morning, but I really do weigh myself every day and enter it into the Hacker's Diet tracking website. It's a great little thing if I haven't recommended it already. It takes all the data you give it and stretches out a trend for you; the idea is that your weight will fluctuate from day to day, and the best way to establish a trend is to gather as much data as possible and see where it goes. Over time, your trend should start to go down as more and more data points get lower.
You can see that just starting to happen here, though not as much as I'd like. The weight for my trend up to January 1st was 190.7 pounds, and by the 8th it had slipped a tenth. At this rate I'll lose a pound every ten weeks, or five pounds a year. That's nowhere near quickly enough.
Still, the year is young and I only have nine points of data in my little graph! I'm going to stay the course for now just to see if around 1700 Calories per day is enough to get me to lose weight. By the end of the month, I should have a good idea of how my calorie count correlates to my weight, and judging by that and some basic math, I can come up with a hypothesis on a good maintenance count.
The exercise didn't quite get off to the start that I had hoped. I set myself a goal of running at least three times a week but I only managed two. As typically happens, the front of the week was pretty good but I ran out of willpower somewhere in the middle and just couldn't bring myself for that last, success-clinching run closer to the weekend. It didn't help that I'm working with a new stride (barefoot-style, baby!) that's insanely calf-intensive. My legs were very sore pretty much all of last week.
Getting back to exercise on a regular basis might be a difficult proposition this week. The end of it will be spent in a non-stop party setting, so going out for a run regardless of what's going on around me will be pretty difficult to do. The only thing I really should worry about is Saturday, with a planned two or three mile run, but if I get up early enough I should be able to spare an hour or so for it.
So there we are! The first week of the new year sees a really small drop for weight, and things will be hard to manage next week. Still, I'm hopeful I can minimize any damage out there. If you're going to be at the convention this weekend (you know which one) and you see me eating something that's terrible for me...leave me be. I know what I'm doing, and even if it's probably not good it won't make me feel better to be harangued about it! That being said, a gentle nudge to make better choices next time wouldn't hurt.
Weight This Week: 190.6 pounds
Trending Change: -0.1 pounds
Avg. Calories/Day: 1678
All right, so I'm going to try to get back to being serious about watching my weight, exercising on a regular basis and eating food that's better for me. Hey, it's a new year and that's practically a tradition once you sleep off the blinding hangover. The difficulty with the concept, though, is that you really have to work to identify what you're going after. Losing weight is a pretty simple thing: you just burn more calories than you eat. Getting down to the particulars can be really tough, though. How many calories should I have if I want to maintain my current weight? That is so damned hard to figure out, and I'm still not sure I've got it right. The best thing I can think of to do is count my calories, collect data on weight, and see if I can establish some sort of correlation.
Anyway, that's what I'm posting up there. My weekly weights are measured on Sunday morning, but I really do weigh myself every day and enter it into the Hacker's Diet tracking website. It's a great little thing if I haven't recommended it already. It takes all the data you give it and stretches out a trend for you; the idea is that your weight will fluctuate from day to day, and the best way to establish a trend is to gather as much data as possible and see where it goes. Over time, your trend should start to go down as more and more data points get lower.
You can see that just starting to happen here, though not as much as I'd like. The weight for my trend up to January 1st was 190.7 pounds, and by the 8th it had slipped a tenth. At this rate I'll lose a pound every ten weeks, or five pounds a year. That's nowhere near quickly enough.
Still, the year is young and I only have nine points of data in my little graph! I'm going to stay the course for now just to see if around 1700 Calories per day is enough to get me to lose weight. By the end of the month, I should have a good idea of how my calorie count correlates to my weight, and judging by that and some basic math, I can come up with a hypothesis on a good maintenance count.
The exercise didn't quite get off to the start that I had hoped. I set myself a goal of running at least three times a week but I only managed two. As typically happens, the front of the week was pretty good but I ran out of willpower somewhere in the middle and just couldn't bring myself for that last, success-clinching run closer to the weekend. It didn't help that I'm working with a new stride (barefoot-style, baby!) that's insanely calf-intensive. My legs were very sore pretty much all of last week.
Getting back to exercise on a regular basis might be a difficult proposition this week. The end of it will be spent in a non-stop party setting, so going out for a run regardless of what's going on around me will be pretty difficult to do. The only thing I really should worry about is Saturday, with a planned two or three mile run, but if I get up early enough I should be able to spare an hour or so for it.
So there we are! The first week of the new year sees a really small drop for weight, and things will be hard to manage next week. Still, I'm hopeful I can minimize any damage out there. If you're going to be at the convention this weekend (you know which one) and you see me eating something that's terrible for me...leave me be. I know what I'm doing, and even if it's probably not good it won't make me feel better to be harangued about it! That being said, a gentle nudge to make better choices next time wouldn't hurt.
