My Philosophy on Diet and Weight Loss
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OsricTheKnight
Posts: 340 Member
I am mostly posting this to try to stop compulsively answering all the posts from people I want to help with the same message again and again, in the hopes that a central thread will be useful to some readers and perhaps attract some argument and discussion that could improve my approach or just frustrate me (I hear frustration burns calories 
.
First of all, I believe that if you eat the same number of calories as you burn, you will maintain your weight. Since most readers are female, I'll work this for women; here's a height/weight chart of "ideal" weights that might reflect your goals or something like them:
Possible Target Weight: Women
Assuming you want to aim at these weight targets with about 23% body fat, which would make you one good looking woman, your resting daily energy expenditure at your goal weight would be roughly as follows:
Possible TDEE (based on 1.3*RMR)
If you're like me you're thinking "I don't need to lose weight, I need to grow taller!" but sadly I don't know any scientifically proven program to make us all grow 5" so that we can have an extra treat per day.
So now, let's assume you're 50 lbs overweight, and you want to lose weight at a rate of 1lb/week. At 50 lbs overweight, your TDEE is higher:
Possible Overweight TDEE:
So you decide to focus on this number less 500 calories a week for weight loss. Let's narrow in on just one height: assuming you're 5'4", and you aim at a weekly intake of 1450 kcals/week. How will your weightloss go as you try to get from 179 lbs down to 129 lbs? If you start on Jan 1, 2016, your chart would look like this:
So you'd have reached your goal by the end of March, 2017! Sweet.
Wait, what? You're not happy that it took 64 weeks to lose 50 lbs and get from 36% body fat down to 23% body fat and the dream body you always wanted? You say you thought you were losing 1lb/week, you were perfect with your logging, and it was supposed to take 50 weeks?
The trouble is, as you lose that weight your TDEE goes down from the overweight TDEE of 1950/day to the goal weight TDEE of about 1750/day. So by the end, you're only losing 0.6lb/week - not quite, but almost half, of what you set out to lose. And I am assuming your logging is absolutely perfect. And that you have no parties, holidays, birthdays, or Christmas to deal with. A real weight loss chart shows this curve of slowdown, unless you constantly reduce your calories as your diet progresses.
The bad news gets a little worse. Most people, perhaps all of us, overestimate our TDEE and under-log food eaten. My own error (I have measured it) is about 250 kcal/day. Say you were like me - I log everything, yet somehow manage to eat an extra 250 kcal/day that I forget about. That'd be, say, a late night sandwich that somehow didn't hit the log - two slices of bread, a piece of cheese, and a slice of low-fat turkey. In fact I'm noticing that I just ate that writing this post, plus three peaches.
And, I believe in having a cheat meal on the weekend. I'm good with my logging all week, but on the weekend, one meal out at a restaurant - 1400 calories, nothing ridiculous, just one treat meal a week. So that's another 1400/7 calories on my daily balance, and I'm eating my 1450 logged, 250 by mistake somehow, and another 200 per day average due to my one day treat, so 1850/day.
Let the posts begin! I don't understand, I'm being so good, I've been logging all my food and I am not losing weight.. It's inconceivable. Except that with these assumptions - quite realistic assumptions I assure you your expected weight after 10 weeks would be 178 lbs. Look at it on the chart - look at the difference 250 calories of error plus a cheat meal makes:
I've only done it for the first 10 weeks, so that you can see the difference.
No, you say. That's not me, you say. You're a better logger - you manage to log your intake within 10% (which is pretty good, as the FDA allows 20% error on the labels). 10% error is only 145 extra calories a day, not 250. And for your restaurant meal, you keep it below 1200 calories. Like you go to milestones, and you have the 6oz filet mignon, which is only 230 calories. Though the garlic mashed potatoes are another 250. And the side of vegetables is the healthy part, so you need that 120 too. For a total of 600 calories, plus a drink - it's your night out for God's sake - one drink, a bellini is nice at 390 calories at milestones. So that's 1000 calories, and you definitely didn't try the hubby's appetizer.
So that's definitely better, but 3 weeks into this plan you still weigh 177.8 lbs, which vs the 179 you started at hardly seems like any loss at all, especially if it's that time and you're retaining a little fluid which could easily make the scale show a weight gain. And the slope on the graph doesn't look great for those first 10 weeks either:
So there you have it; that's why it's hard to lose weight. The nutrition facts are off by up to 20%, you forget to log the occasional thing, and everyone has weekends. Every damn week.
For me, I handle this by eating much less most days than MFP thinks I should. Because overall, I know I'm hitting a deficit of less than 1,000 calories/day. I know this because I use trendweight.com, a trending grapher, and the numbers don't lie: if my trend is a straight line down, for a few weeks, I can rely on the calorie deficit to be pretty accurate. Here's my last 4 weeks:
Right now it says my daily deficit is 838 calories. Since my bodymedia tells me I burn over 2,000 per day - often as much as 2,600 - that means I'm actually eating about 1600 calories a day. My logging, on the other hand, would claim that I'm eating more like 900-1200.
It doesn't matter. As long as the trendline is moving down fast enough, I can log to fake targets and keep up the progress. As I lose weight, the graph will slow down - I've seen that before. It looks like this:
If I don't like it, the answer is simple: eat less, or move more. The deficit number will get smaller and smaller. A 100 kcal diet snack looks a lot bigger when my deficit is only 800 calories, I have to remember to compare the treats I want in the moment to my total deficit to realize how huge they really are - two 100 calorie snacks is 25% of my progress! Ouch.
So that's my system: think about not only what you need to eat now, but how logging is lying to you because of inaccuracies you can't avoid. The trendline produces better results for me, because it measures the only thing I actually care about: my weight, and how fast I am losing it.
To lose more, I eat less.
To feel less hungry, I eat more, knowing I will lose less.
It really is just that simple. Even if you have a condition that makes your body burn less, the answer to losing more is to eat less. It doesn't matter why your body doesn't burn enough; all that matters is that you stop feeding the fat cells.
Your weight graph doesn't lie, at least not over the long term. Over the short term, the trendline gets rid of the lies. Here's 30 days from MFP's graph:
Here's 30 days of the same data with a trendline on it so that I can see if I'm making any progress:
It's really hard to believe the same numbers can give such different pictures.
For me, since I can't see changes in my body (I'm basically oblivious, that's how I got this fat in the first place), the graph is huge. Seeing every day that I am getting a diamond below the trend, slowly but inexorably carrying me toward my goal, is what helps me stay on plan for the day.
And it never ends. For me, my goal TDEE will be much lower than my TDEE now. It'll be about 1650 calories/day. Minus my 250 logging error is 1400. Minus my 2100 calorie cheat meal each weekend is 1100. So what I'm targeting eating now to "diet" is actually my maintenance plan. It never ends. I will never get to eat more.
This is as good as it gets. I'd better learn to enjoy it.
Osric
.First of all, I believe that if you eat the same number of calories as you burn, you will maintain your weight. Since most readers are female, I'll work this for women; here's a height/weight chart of "ideal" weights that might reflect your goals or something like them:
Possible Target Weight: Women
4'8 103 4'9 106 4'10 109 4'11 112 5'0 115 5'1 118 5'2 122 5'3 125 5'4 129 5'5 133 5'6 136 5'7 140 5'8 145 5'9 149 5'10 153 5'11 158 6' 162
Assuming you want to aim at these weight targets with about 23% body fat, which would make you one good looking woman, your resting daily energy expenditure at your goal weight would be roughly as follows:
Possible TDEE (based on 1.3*RMR)
4'8" 1495 4'9" 1495 4'10" 1560 4'11" 1560 5'0" 1625 5'1" 1625 5'2" 1690 5'3" 1690 5'4" 1755 5'5" 1820 5'6" 1820 5'7" 1885 5'8" 1885 5'9" 1950 5'10" 2015 5'11" 2015 6'0" 2080
If you're like me you're thinking "I don't need to lose weight, I need to grow taller!" but sadly I don't know any scientifically proven program to make us all grow 5" so that we can have an extra treat per day.
So now, let's assume you're 50 lbs overweight, and you want to lose weight at a rate of 1lb/week. At 50 lbs overweight, your TDEE is higher:
Possible Overweight TDEE:
4'8" 1690 4'9" 1690 4'10" 1755 4'11" 1755 5'0" 1820 5'1" 1820 5'2" 1885 5'3" 1885 5'4" 1950 5'5" 1950 5'6" 2015 5'7" 2080 5'8" 2080 5'9" 2145 5'10" 2145 5'11" 2210 6'0" 2275
So you decide to focus on this number less 500 calories a week for weight loss. Let's narrow in on just one height: assuming you're 5'4", and you aim at a weekly intake of 1450 kcals/week. How will your weightloss go as you try to get from 179 lbs down to 129 lbs? If you start on Jan 1, 2016, your chart would look like this:
So you'd have reached your goal by the end of March, 2017! Sweet.
Wait, what? You're not happy that it took 64 weeks to lose 50 lbs and get from 36% body fat down to 23% body fat and the dream body you always wanted? You say you thought you were losing 1lb/week, you were perfect with your logging, and it was supposed to take 50 weeks?
The trouble is, as you lose that weight your TDEE goes down from the overweight TDEE of 1950/day to the goal weight TDEE of about 1750/day. So by the end, you're only losing 0.6lb/week - not quite, but almost half, of what you set out to lose. And I am assuming your logging is absolutely perfect. And that you have no parties, holidays, birthdays, or Christmas to deal with. A real weight loss chart shows this curve of slowdown, unless you constantly reduce your calories as your diet progresses.
The bad news gets a little worse. Most people, perhaps all of us, overestimate our TDEE and under-log food eaten. My own error (I have measured it) is about 250 kcal/day. Say you were like me - I log everything, yet somehow manage to eat an extra 250 kcal/day that I forget about. That'd be, say, a late night sandwich that somehow didn't hit the log - two slices of bread, a piece of cheese, and a slice of low-fat turkey. In fact I'm noticing that I just ate that writing this post, plus three peaches.
And, I believe in having a cheat meal on the weekend. I'm good with my logging all week, but on the weekend, one meal out at a restaurant - 1400 calories, nothing ridiculous, just one treat meal a week. So that's another 1400/7 calories on my daily balance, and I'm eating my 1450 logged, 250 by mistake somehow, and another 200 per day average due to my one day treat, so 1850/day.
Let the posts begin! I don't understand, I'm being so good, I've been logging all my food and I am not losing weight.. It's inconceivable. Except that with these assumptions - quite realistic assumptions I assure you your expected weight after 10 weeks would be 178 lbs. Look at it on the chart - look at the difference 250 calories of error plus a cheat meal makes:
I've only done it for the first 10 weeks, so that you can see the difference.
No, you say. That's not me, you say. You're a better logger - you manage to log your intake within 10% (which is pretty good, as the FDA allows 20% error on the labels). 10% error is only 145 extra calories a day, not 250. And for your restaurant meal, you keep it below 1200 calories. Like you go to milestones, and you have the 6oz filet mignon, which is only 230 calories. Though the garlic mashed potatoes are another 250. And the side of vegetables is the healthy part, so you need that 120 too. For a total of 600 calories, plus a drink - it's your night out for God's sake - one drink, a bellini is nice at 390 calories at milestones. So that's 1000 calories, and you definitely didn't try the hubby's appetizer.
So that's definitely better, but 3 weeks into this plan you still weigh 177.8 lbs, which vs the 179 you started at hardly seems like any loss at all, especially if it's that time and you're retaining a little fluid which could easily make the scale show a weight gain. And the slope on the graph doesn't look great for those first 10 weeks either:
So there you have it; that's why it's hard to lose weight. The nutrition facts are off by up to 20%, you forget to log the occasional thing, and everyone has weekends. Every damn week.
For me, I handle this by eating much less most days than MFP thinks I should. Because overall, I know I'm hitting a deficit of less than 1,000 calories/day. I know this because I use trendweight.com, a trending grapher, and the numbers don't lie: if my trend is a straight line down, for a few weeks, I can rely on the calorie deficit to be pretty accurate. Here's my last 4 weeks:
Right now it says my daily deficit is 838 calories. Since my bodymedia tells me I burn over 2,000 per day - often as much as 2,600 - that means I'm actually eating about 1600 calories a day. My logging, on the other hand, would claim that I'm eating more like 900-1200.
It doesn't matter. As long as the trendline is moving down fast enough, I can log to fake targets and keep up the progress. As I lose weight, the graph will slow down - I've seen that before. It looks like this:
If I don't like it, the answer is simple: eat less, or move more. The deficit number will get smaller and smaller. A 100 kcal diet snack looks a lot bigger when my deficit is only 800 calories, I have to remember to compare the treats I want in the moment to my total deficit to realize how huge they really are - two 100 calorie snacks is 25% of my progress! Ouch.
So that's my system: think about not only what you need to eat now, but how logging is lying to you because of inaccuracies you can't avoid. The trendline produces better results for me, because it measures the only thing I actually care about: my weight, and how fast I am losing it.
To lose more, I eat less.
To feel less hungry, I eat more, knowing I will lose less.
It really is just that simple. Even if you have a condition that makes your body burn less, the answer to losing more is to eat less. It doesn't matter why your body doesn't burn enough; all that matters is that you stop feeding the fat cells.
Your weight graph doesn't lie, at least not over the long term. Over the short term, the trendline gets rid of the lies. Here's 30 days from MFP's graph:
Here's 30 days of the same data with a trendline on it so that I can see if I'm making any progress:
It's really hard to believe the same numbers can give such different pictures.
For me, since I can't see changes in my body (I'm basically oblivious, that's how I got this fat in the first place), the graph is huge. Seeing every day that I am getting a diamond below the trend, slowly but inexorably carrying me toward my goal, is what helps me stay on plan for the day.
And it never ends. For me, my goal TDEE will be much lower than my TDEE now. It'll be about 1650 calories/day. Minus my 250 logging error is 1400. Minus my 2100 calorie cheat meal each weekend is 1100. So what I'm targeting eating now to "diet" is actually my maintenance plan. It never ends. I will never get to eat more.
This is as good as it gets. I'd better learn to enjoy it.
Osric
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Replies
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Is there a tldr version.
I got over half way.
What was the point of the post?
That if you don't decrease your intake as you lose weight your weightloss will slow?
Doesn't mfp do that? Ever 5 pound or 10 it asks if you want to recalculate your food goal? Or is that a myth?0 -
TDEE - what does this stand for? Am I understanding correctly - if you eat 1400 cal meal on Saturday you somehow spread the extra cals over the week? I'm confused. What you eat on one day should effect that day but not the next week well unless that meal made you gain weight that you now have to re-lose. Otherwise good article - the explanations are easy to follow except for this one thing,
Gloria0 -
tl;dr:
Watch your weight, don't trust your logging.
One cheat meal a week plus 10% logging error could easily eat up all of your losses. You either must log like an obsessed maniac or use a trend chart so that you can see and adjust based on the reality of your actual losses.
Osric0 -
GloworminWA wrote: »TDEE - what does this stand for? Am I understanding correctly - if you eat 1400 cal meal on Saturday you somehow spread the extra cals over the week? I'm confused. What you eat on one day should effect that day but not the next week well unless that meal made you gain weight that you now have to re-lose. Otherwise good article - the explanations are easy to follow except for this one thing,
TDEE = total daily energy expenditure, an estimate of how many calories your body will burn in a day. If you eat your TDEE every day and the estimate is accurate, you will exactly maintain your weight.
We all tend to plan and think of our calories on a daily basis, but that's an arbitrary boundary because it is easy to plan and count day by day. But instead of thinking of your diet as a 1400 calorie per day diet, you could say "I plan to eat 14,000 calories every 10 days"; and then you add up your calories for 10 days, and subtract from your energy burn, and you figure out what you lose. I think most of us plan weight loss in weekly intervals, so it is really your total calories burned per week minus your total eaten per week that will rule your scale.
So when I say "eating a 1400 calorie restaurant meal on the weekend" = 200 calories per day, I mean that if you eat an extra 1400 calories, whether in tiny snacks every day or in one big meal on the weekend, you still have to account for those calories somewhere. You can look at it as only affecting one day - because that's just as correct.
Since that day's deficit is supposed to be 500 calories, and you ate 1400, it means you gained 900 calories worth of fat. So that day doesn't cause you to lose weight - you gain a bit. Then the next day would use 500 of the 900 calories of new fat you just put on, and the next day the last 400 new fat with 100 calories of old fat, and finally on the third day you'd be back to burning off only old fat - the weight you're trying to lose. It's easier to think of it as spread out over your whole week but it amounts to the same thing - you don't wind up losing a pound that week, because 900 calories of that pound are the fat cells you just added on your weekend meal.
Since most of us plan daily, but measure weekly, I think it's easier to account that extra 1400 calories on the weekend like 200 extra calories per day spread over the week.
Technically I should have subtracted the "on plan" meal I might have had instead. After all, if I hadn't gone out for dinner I still need to eat (normally about 400 calories worth). Even if I'd been that careful, it's quite easy to go 1400 over plan with a restaurant meal. If I'd eaten a 1,000 calorie appetizer and a 1,400 calorie meal (e.g. chimchurri garlic bread appetizer is 990, and the portobello mushroom chicken main is 1490, no alcohol), that totals 2480 calories, and let's say my diet meal for the weekend was supposed to be 1,000 calories, it's the same overage.
The short version: those cheat days really add up / really matter to your overall plan. I do them anyway, but I eat less during the week to make it possible.
Osric0 -
I came to part of this conclusion on my own. I eat to the goal of 1450cal/day tracked on mfp, but I assume I'm eating closer to 1600cal just by guesstimating error or label error.
I also have had a bunch of over days (not cheat days), and some restaurant meals. With my best guesses, those meals hover around 900cal though I could easily be way off.
Except I've lost 15lbs since mid June, which I guess is something like 13 weeks. ....but that's more than a pound a week, and eating (really) 1600cal, it should be less than that! Especially with over days and restaurant food, and that I don't weigh my food. (I'm not complaining!) so???? I don't know man, I figure I keep doing what I'm doing and if it stops working then I'll change...?
I could have a faulty scale, an inflated first reading, a deflated last reading due to... Water weight? Something? I don't know. Maybe that 15lbs was all water & I'm totally deluding myself. Maybe the first few pounds comes off easier. Maybe because I don't weigh weekly I don't have a good enough data trend for anything to matter. *shrugs* I guess I'll find out sooner or later!0 -
All the estimates and guesses and calculators out there aren't as reliable as a nice long chart of data accrued in the real world for your own body. I think one error people make (among others) is to not regularly track. If you're losing, great. If you're not, then regular data over that period can help pinpoint ways to change your current system.
Though I admit your list of weights for women is ballpark-ish, I think it overlooks that in reality, different women have different amounts of muscle at the same height. Not every woman at 5'4" will be 23%BF at the weight you list.0 -
Though I admit your list of weights for women is ballpark-ish, I think it overlooks that in reality, different women have different amounts of muscle at the same height. Not every woman at 5'4" will be 23%BF at the weight you list.
Agreed. I'm 5ft0 and don't feel comfortable at 115lbs/ 8st3- that would make me a UK size 10-12. Also 23% body fat is not comfortable for me. I prefer something in the range of 95-100lbs. I'm not heavily muscled- i could stand to gain some upper body strength but my legs are pretty strong from years of dancing.
And the TDEE is waaaaay over stated for me. I'd gain on that amount per day, unless i did a lot of exercise.0 -
Whitezombiegirl wrote: »Though I admit your list of weights for women is ballpark-ish, I think it overlooks that in reality, different women have different amounts of muscle at the same height. Not every woman at 5'4" will be 23%BF at the weight you list.
Agreed. I'm 5ft0 and don't feel comfortable at 115lbs/ 8st3- that would make me a UK size 10-12. Also 23% body fat is not comfortable for me. I prefer something in the range of 95-100lbs. I'm not heavily muscled- i could stand to gain some upper body strength but my legs are pretty strong from years of dancing.
And the TDEE is waaaaay over stated for me. I'd gain on that amount per day, unless i did a lot of exercise.
Yes, sorry I was picking numbers that might apply to "most" people, so I used the weight recommendation for the bottom end of "large frame" which falls in the range for medium frame but is too heavy if you are small-boned.
Still the overall approach works for anyone who figures out the right stats for them. The TDEE is based on lean body mass which then is skewed if the weights are wrong (too high, in your case).
Note however that for your height I can't find a recommendation that goes below 101 lbs. That is the low end of the small-boned range. Of course lean mass or lack of it could make a big difference.
Osric0 -
Whitezombiegirl wrote: »Though I admit your list of weights for women is ballpark-ish, I think it overlooks that in reality, different women have different amounts of muscle at the same height. Not every woman at 5'4" will be 23%BF at the weight you list.
Agreed. I'm 5ft0 and don't feel comfortable at 115lbs/ 8st3- that would make me a UK size 10-12. Also 23% body fat is not comfortable for me. I prefer something in the range of 95-100lbs. I'm not heavily muscled- i could stand to gain some upper body strength but my legs are pretty strong from years of dancing.
And the TDEE is waaaaay over stated for me. I'd gain on that amount per day, unless i did a lot of exercise.
It is really interesting to me how much the human body can vary. I am just under 5'4" and right at 23% body fat at 122 pounds. But the only way I'm going burn just 1755 is if I'm hospitalized. My TDEE is closer to 2200.
Great work, though, on the research and presentation. 0 -
Except I've lost 15lbs since mid June, which I guess is something like 13 weeks. ....but that's more than a pound a week, and eating (really) 1600cal, it should be less than that! Especially with over days and restaurant food, and that I don't weigh my food. (I'm not complaining!) so???? I don't know man, I figure I keep doing what I'm doing and if it stops working then I'll change...?
Obviously you should keep doing what's working for you!
Though I'd guess if you use a trending grapher like I suggest, you'll find that it doesn't think you have lost your 15 lbs yet. When your weight stops changing, remember that it's not a plateau until you've maintained for quite a while. Raw weight numbers go in fits and starts, not straight down like the trend.
Osric0 -
Mouse_Potato wrote: »My TDEE is closer to 2200.
Great work, though, on the research and presentation.
Nice TDEE = you must be working out. Sounds like you're in awesome shape ... I hope to get there someday!
Osric
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I thought it was a great post, well thought out and executed.
Some will say they already know this etc but how many new articles are up daily with people asking these questions or making these claims.
Good job0 -
This is why I eat 1200 calories on most days. 0
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trendweight.com is a bit overdamped in my opinion, the yellow line shown below is a similar moving average but less heavily damped. The clue was in the original always being above the data, which is flattering but an unlikely scenario of losing weight all the time without the trend catching up :
but +1 for the idea of following a smoothed average weight to imply a calorie deficit.0 -
Great post.
And I didn't know trendweight.com, it's nice, I like to play with these things. As soon as I registered, it showed all the times I weighed myself in the past two weeks. I was impressed, I never set my scale to register anything.0 -
This is a good post for newcomers. It might help them see the importance of accurate logging and such. I'm sure the numbers where just an example ( as everyone will be different. I'm 5'8 ,135lbs) but this thread can be useful also to show how a chart can be used to track progress.0
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OsricTheKnight wrote: »Except I've lost 15lbs since mid June, which I guess is something like 13 weeks. ....but that's more than a pound a week, and eating (really) 1600cal, it should be less than that! Especially with over days and restaurant food, and that I don't weigh my food. (I'm not complaining!) so???? I don't know man, I figure I keep doing what I'm doing and if it stops working then I'll change...?
Obviously you should keep doing what's working for you!
Though I'd guess if you use a trending grapher like I suggest, you'll find that it doesn't think you have lost your 15 lbs yet. When your weight stops changing, remember that it's not a plateau until you've maintained for quite a while. Raw weight numbers go in fits and starts, not straight down like the trend.
Osric
Thanks! Interesting, it sounds like a useful tool. I don't have a scale at the moment, so a trending grapher I think needs weekly weigh ins? If I end up getting one, I'll do that. But I really like seeing a bigger progress every 2 or 3 weeks so we'll see.0 -
trendweight.com is a bit overdamped in my opinion, the yellow line shown below is a similar moving average but less heavily damped. The clue was in the original always being above the data, which is flattering but an unlikely scenario of losing weight all the time
So I do think it'd be nice if trendweight let each person choose their moving average window size. Libra, a very similar app for Android, does that and it's handy.
However I do not think trendweight.com is "overdamped", if by that you mean "there ought to be at least one weigh-in where this person gained, they can't lose constantly". I use a bodymedia fit device to track calories out, and MFP to log, and my daily deficit by that mechanism is always significant, and my day to day eating is pretty consistent. Here are daily deficits for the last two weeks:
September 16 needs to be ignored, because it looks like I didn't log at all that day. Sept 9 I reviewed my food log and it is likely accurate (within my usual 250/day error). Sept 10 looks like I missed lunch, and I did miss a lunch recently but I am not sure if it was that day. Even if you ignore all three of those deficits, it is clear that I am in fact losing weight every day, and this is not "optimistic".
So why does your moving average show weight gain? The answer is simple: daily scale fluctuation is dominated by water. Here's NASA's daily weight in/out model:
As you can see, with 9-11 lbs of water passing through your body every day, any scale movement of more than about 0.5 lbs in a day is almost certain to be water weight.
So a relatively long term trend is needed to average that away and leave you with the important underlying signal, which is actually weight lost via the air you breathe.
(I'd never really realized it before - where does lost weight go? It's the carbon atoms in your exhale - O2 -> CO2 ... that's where your lost weight is going. Mind-blowing. The solids were never used by your body - they are the unusable waste products. The liquids you drank or were in your food. The air you breathe - that's how you lose weight. Whoah.)
Osric
[Edit: image credit: "The Hacker's Diet" by John Walker]0
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