January 30, 2008

Moderation is my Kryptonite

I've been worrying recently that my weight loss is progressing to quickly. I decided to ask my fellow bloggers their opinions because almost everyone of them are triathletes or fitness buffs. When there is someone as dedicated to fitness and health as triathletes are they almost always have a ton of knowledge to accompany their dedication. Almost everyone of you said just go with the weight loss as long as I'm not bonking or becoming weak. Well, my endurance has been fine, & I'm gaining strength relatively quickly. So the first day I continued to follow the WW's plan to the T. Then Then yesterday I got an email from someone who had some interesting #'s to show me:

I've lost 43 lbs in 11 weeks. Each lb is 3500 calories. That's a total of 147,500 calories I've lost. Divide 147,500 calories by 77 days is an average loss of 1,915 calories a day. I'm no nutritionist, but I think I know enough to admit that is too much.

So yesterday I added 1000 calories to my diet. I was planning on continuing to keep up that amount of added calories to my diet each day, but last night I just didn't feel right about myself. I realized all my life my biggest problem is moderation. I have always been an extremist about every thing I do. I either don't work out at all, or I workout 15 plus hrs a week (I worked out 18 hrs 44 minutes last week). I either eat way to much or way to little.

I'm not sure if this is a good plan, but what I have decided to do is gradually add a little more calories each week until I have stopped losing weight. Hopefully at that time I will be at my goal weight. By doing that I'll be exercising moderation, while hopefully still accomplishing my goal. I have no idea if this will work well with me. But it seems like a sound plan when I try & rationalize it in my own mind. But then again I've always been very good at convincing myself there are very rational reasons for any of my extreme decisions. So essentially I don't know if this will work, but I'm going to try it.

My greatest fears at this point are:
1) Not eating enough & my body thinking it's starving. Thus my metabolism slows down.
2)Adding too many calories & gaining weight. I have a tendency to say "screw it" when that happens & giving up very quickly when I see something in my life not working just the way I want it to.

So my thinking is if I gradually add more calories I'll avoid getting frustrated by no weight loss, but Ill also be adding more food into my diet to avoid my body into thinking I'm starving. I sure hope this works.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Cody,

Dont think about it so much. Maybe a smarter thing to do would be get rid of the scale. Then eat as much as you need to to keep up witht the training that you want to do. This way the food is just fuel for the workouts. It is not something that needs to be managed all by itself. Just some advice from a fat guy.

Unknown said...

Cody,

Dont think about it so much. Maybe a smarter thing to do would be get rid of the scale. Then eat as much as you need to to keep up witht the training that you want to do. This way the food is just fuel for the workouts. It is not something that needs to be managed all by itself. Just some advice from a fat guy.

Anonymous said...

As a recovering Clydesdale (my last two races of 2007 were as an age grouper), my recommendation would be to not worry about your weight for a while and make sure you have enough nutrition to train the way you want to train. Your weight will move to its natural equilibrium point and then hang there.

If thine scales deceive thee, cast them out.

Paul (in Florida)

Chris said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chris said...

Cody,
Man, your story is identical to my own. Pretty scary actually.

I would have to agree wit the two gentlemen that you should stay the course as long as you are not bonking or feeling very weak during longer, tougher workouts. I think that your body will let you know when you are giving it too little nutrition. Trust your body to tell you what it needs.

Mike said...

Whatever you decide to do - Good Luck!

Bones said...

Wow Cody, Great job on the weight loss. I don't have much experience but everything I've read says that kind of weight loss isn't good for you. Either you crash and burn or your body goes into starvation mode. I'm currently losing my winter/post IM weight and am in about 1000 calorie per day deficit which has put me right at 2 lbs per week loss. I feel fine but can tell that my training level is lower, so I'm amazed that you can even walk around at your deficit! As I get closer to race weight I'll start adding calories, just like you are planing on doing. Great minds think alike!

See you at the races!

Gotta Run..... said...

Just came across your blog. Amazing weight loss results!! Do you have a WW consultant that you can bounce this question off of. Training at the level you are does require more calories than the average person. Just make sure your fueling yourself well.

As for the scale....stepping on that monster should happen once a week. This way it will not rule your day to day feelings about where you are.

JB-from-EPT-Age-grouper said...

My friend you are doing great, just look at the "pipes" in the picutre you have, up top. I dont remember seeing those at the races. There is great advice coming from your friends, especially the one from Jusume! You look great Cody, stay the course. By the way my wife is on her third week on WW so far she has lost 8 pounds!

skoshi said...

wow, Cody, sounds like you're doing great, but I echo Bones in regards to losing too much weight too fast. Take what you've made for yourself already, and moderate, so you don't lose too much too fast. You'll get where you want to go, no doubt. Talking to a WW consultant sounds like a good idea to me. Congratulations. I probably won't recognize you at the next race!