I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step.
If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another.
In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult.
I know that small attempts, repeated,
will complete any undertaking.
~ Og Mandino
Kind of a long quote this morning, your reward for offering suggestions and encouragement yesterday. Heh. Thanks to those of you who commented and e-mailed privately.
It's an appropriate quote, as I do like the daily walk for more reasons than just weight loss. Am I disappointed that my experience hasn't matched that of my husband? Certainly. He's equally baffled and urging me to get another TSH.
"Always I will take another step." I've mentioned previously that some kind of strength training probably is in order. I could easily add a 20-minute weightlifting session three days a week. Lord knows I have a few extra hours to spare. As I said yesterday, I have more time than money.
I've been researching (again, I've been there, done that, many times) BMR and RMR and calorie requirements and blah, blah, blah, which all seem to indicate I'm not eating enough. Frankly, I'm afraid to add more. If I can't lose weight with the current calorie deficit, how can adding calories help? It makes no sense to me, but I'm not rejecting it out of hand.
There are many websites on the internets that can tell you how many calories you need to maintain your weight, and it seems to make sense that eating the number of calories you need to maintain your ideal weight would, eventually, lead to achieving that goal. These online calculators take into account activity level, age and gender.
Maybe I just need to dive into the deep end of the pool, trusting the information and experience of thousands of others, instead of thinking I have all the answers.
'Cause clearly, I don't. Or I'd be skinny.
Anyway … after seven weeks, I'm a daily walker and will continue to be one, for the mental and physical rewards, if not for the reward of reducing my girth. That will come if it's supposed to.
4 comments:
I feel your pain comrade! It is such a bloody confusing thing. The conflicting information just makes me want to scream sometimes.
I sometimes listen to a podcas called Fat2FitRadio.com and they advocate what you mentioned - eating the number of calories NOW that you would need to maintain your goal weight, so eventually you become that smaller person. they've had a lot of success stories amongst their listeners. their logic is, you're better eating more and losing really quite slowly than the yoyo lose/gain cycle.
Here's one episode on that topic if you're interested - http://www.fat2fitradio.com/2009/12/fat-2-fit-83-eat-more-weight-less/
sorry wrong link!
http://www.fat2fitradio.com/2008/01/how-to-set-your-last-weight-loss-goal-ever/
I think those calculators and formulas are a bunch of hogwash. I've had the same experience as you, where the numbers are just not making sense. I think the missing pieces of the puzzle are 1) more individual variability than we are led to believe and 2) we can't track the out part of CICO as easily as the in. You can get a pretty good idea of how many calories in your lunch, but do you really know how many calories your individual body burned doing such-and-such activity? (answer: No.)
Today I have two recommendations. These are things that worked well for me in the past.
1. (I am into numbered lists today) Try a diet/refeed pattern. It's a protocol used by bodybuilders, but I found it brought me results too. Eat at a fairly strict deficit for 10 days, and then eat at a significant overage for two days - you want to create a big DIFFERENCE in your intake. (Some people don't like this because of the starve/binge aspect, but if I remember correctly you're not prone to those EDs). You might have to monkey around a little with the interval that works best for you.
2. If you want to add strength training, I highly recommend the Cathe workouts. That's where I got started with weights, and I love the structured workouts that march you along without wasted time. Before that I'd sort of do some biceps curls and a couple flyes and think "So... now what?" Email me your address and I will send them to you, seriously.
That was probably the longest comment I've ever posted :)
I'm glad you're not giving up the walking.
You're singing my song sister.
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