Minor Set back today! (Darn miserable scales)

Poobah1972

Good day everyone,

So this morning didn't start of rosy for me, however I've since got it back together. So what happened?

My fiancé weighs in every 4 weeks... And this morning was her lucky morning. She is now down a total of 22 pounds since January 4th, which is pretty great for a beautiful 4ft7" curb climber. Hehe

So, even though I kept saying I wasn't planning on stepping on a scale for months yet. Out of the blue, I'm standing there in the bathroom, grab the scale stick it on the floor and step on it. It pretty much instantly rocketed up to about 430 pounds and was fluctuating up and down from there with no sign of settling.

Why that's a problem...?

Well for one I just estimated a starting weight of 450 pounds. So losing less then my diminutive better half, with a much larger calorie deficit daily wasn't all that impressive. However I immediately knew that I just sorely under estimated my beginning weight. Now who's to say how accurate that scale was, I was to upset at that moment to try and step on it again, or walk down stairs naked to the basement with it to try it on a solid floor. But let's just assume it's close and move on with the story.

So off to the shower I went, and got ready for work the whole time wondering thoughts "Woer's woer's me"... Darn me etc etc. Down stairs for breakfast, and my wheels started turning, on what the next best steps would be. My fiancé doing her best to console me, and let me know how good I was doing and how proud of me she was. (Thank you Babe!).

So off to myfitnesspal to post a quick new flash on my wall... And I have to say a real big thank you to everyone that was so encouraging and caring enough to turn my frown upside down.

By the time I got to work I already hatched the idea to figure out a more accurate starting weight, and I was off to the races making a spread sheet that Utilizes all the following information in a per day calculation working backwards through time.

• Age - (increases by the day)
• Weight - (changes by deficit daily)
• BMR - (Miffun-st jeor) = (10 * We KG) + (6.25 * height[cm]) - (5 * age [years]) + 5
• TEF - BMR x 0.1
• EEE - I'm using a basic 50 here, to account for the fact I live in a 3 story basement walk in with a flight of stairs from the parking lot just to get to the basement walk in.
• NEAT - (Generally 250 - 500) I'm using the minimum recommend 250
• TDEE - Sum of BMR, TEF, EEE, NEET
• Calories - Total per day consumed as per MFP Food Diary

The end result of weight loss during this time, worked out to be 58 pounds. Pretty much what I had roughed out on a back of a paper napkin a few months ago before I started fasting on Sundays. Note I added 10 pounds of water weight loss during the first week which practically cured my sore back and is pretty much what I'm use to if not more following a low carb diet.

So I'm pretty confident my starting weight on January 9th was 487.67 pounds give or take 5 pounds.

• Going forward, I will continue to weigh in every 4th week on Monday.
• I will be bringing that scale down to the basement.
• I will try not to care if it gives me an unexpected number. (I'm doing great, that's enough)

As a side bonus I learned a few things about the above acronyms I wasn't completely familiar with.

And better yet, I realized I can use the spreadsheet and do a forward projection, assuming no change in Daily calorie intake, or exercise...

According to the spreadsheet... It may be possible to loose 192.68 pounds by the end of December this year.



Will it happen? Hell yeah, but maybe not in that time frame? I don't know, but at the very least it's a interesting tool as I input actual daily Calorie intake as time goes on. Will it be fairly accurate? Or it could it give me interesting data points to adjust my actual TDEE or Calories per day as I enter maintenance in the long run. No matter what Happens I sure ain't going to eat less. Heck that calculation doesn't even in include actual exercise.... So who knows.

What a great day everyone!

And thanks to all those keeping me strong.

EDIT: FYI, I ran a number of TDEE calculators available online, and they were all very close to what my formula's were spitting out. And I noticed I made a descriptive error on my NEAT description, it has nothing to do with exercise, just regular life (shopping, walking to the bathroom, whatever. That might be one number that might be lower then I estimated? But if it is it's not by much.

PAV8888

You may want to play with the body weight planner (NIH) expert mode if you want to play with forward projections.

neat is everything except deliberate exercise.

I would not account for tef separately. The attwater tables used for caloric calculations may already account for it. And in case it may fall within the margin for error.

The measurement issue with monthly measurements is that you don't have a very good idea of how representative that particular day is.

Also a singular event may acquire disproportionate importance for some people.

As long as you can maintain equanimity all is good!

Usually yielding surfaces show a slightly lower scale weight than unyielding surfaces.

Poobah1972

PAV8888 wrote: »

You may want to play with the body weight planner (NIH) expert mode if you want to play with forward projections.

neat is everything except deliberate exercise.

I would not account for tef separately. The attwater tables used for caloric calculations may already account for it. And in case it may fall within the margin for error.

The measurement issue with monthly measurements is that you don't have a very good idea of how representative that particular day is.

Also a singular event may acquire disproportionate importance for some people.

As long as you can maintain equanimity all is good!

Usually yielding surfaces show a slightly lower scale weight than unyielding surfaces.

Interesting...

So I decided to bring the scale down to the basement after work today... And stepped on it just to help clarify this mornings reading, fully clothed after a full day of eating and drinking after my 36 hour fast. And I got 2 solid and locked in weights. 439.2 and 439... Which sounds reasonable I figure.,

So all in all I'm going to stick with the 430 number from this morning and let the chips fall where they may in 4 weeks from now (The scale is not leaving the basement).

I feel pretty good all in all, now that I've found some confidence in what the scale is going to do.

As for the spreadsheet, I noticed a few minor mistakes that slightly skewed day to day by a few hundreds of a pound.

I did fallow instructions for calculating TDEE that did include the addition of BMR + TEF + EEE + NEAT - but who knows maybe that was a bad website? However...

My fiancé was anxious to see what it would say for her... She actually weighed in on her starting date, so I just filled in all her daily calorie history, adjusted for the female BMR calculation.. And it was accurate to less then 0.2 pounds from January 4th to today March 29, 2020 (her actual weigh day). So I think that's pretty amazing, or flat out lucky. But its what happened.

Even better we now know when my fiancé reaches goal, at 4'7" she will be able to eat 1300 calories or day with no worries, not including exercise. We had feared it could be as little as 1000 (obviously we didn't do enough research on that before). Currently her goal is 120, but she may well be able to get to 100 eventually, and then she may be alright with 1250-1275 calories. Time will tell, but she's stoked.

Another interesting bit of information we learned is Fasting is much bigger deal for those with less weight to lose. For me at this time, it basically acts like an 1 extra day of weight lose in a week... Or if I loose 0.5 pounds on a normal day I lose 1 pound on a fasting day. Over time, the ratio get's better, but it will be a good year or year and half before 1 fast day equals 3 regular days. For my fiancé right from the beginning she was losing .13 lb on a regular day and .48 pounds on a fast day, and that ratio improves greatly over time. Granted one shouldn't even be fasting if once one reaches 18-20% body fat... And who knows how we will need to modify our calorie intake as we have have less available fat reserves to utilize during the week and during fasts.

We will just have to listen to our bodies and make adjustments as time goes on.

PAV8888

Not sure if you took it into account. Girl Mifflin has an adjustment compared to guy, I think -161 instead of +5

In any case a consistent error can easily be accounted for, so accuracy within reason is more than good enough!!!

Smartest thing ever: remain engaged and adjust!👍

Poobah1972

Just a small update to the spreadsheet this morning that I found informative.

I added new column to my weight loss tracking spreadsheet. And it really helps put things in perspective for those that might be concerned I'm losing weight to quickly. (it also makes me feel better).

So basically It is calculating weekly weight loss percentage. As you all know the general rule of thumb is no more then 2lb or 1% of total body weight. And generally known to be less then 2lb when you don't have much to lose, and potentially much higher then 2lb when you have lots to lose.

For the first 2 weeks of my new "WOE and L" (Way of Eating and Life). my Weight Loss Percentage (WL%) was .0.79% to 0.78%. Well within acceptable range for someone of my size.

Once I started fasting Sundays the percentage jump to 1.05% for about 5 days (which coincided with the 1 week in which I extended a fast to 48 hours), however since has dropped to 0.98% and has since fallen to 0.96% and it will continue to drop very slowly... eg. By December I'll be 0.94 to 0.95.

As far as LB's lost I'm currently around 4.16 per week... And by the end of the year I can expect to be around 2.8 lb per week (and if I'm lucky break the 300 lb mark).

All this to say I am within the 1% golden rule. And remember eventually (probably sub 300 pounds) I'll likely need to eat more to maintain energy and health. So I suspect both WL% and LB/week to both drop substantially at that time.

Granted I may not meet those numbers, but It's a good information to have, and decent proof I may not be as crazy as I look.

PAV8888

I think you're doing good and that you're exploring and thinking both of which are critical, in my opinion.

Close to 1% on your way to 300 does not sound crazy to me, AS LONG AS IT REMAINS SUSTAINABLE FOR YOU, and as long as you're willing to revisit and adjust IF NEED BE with an eye towards sustainability, especially when you get a few months down the road!

Keep experimenting with your food and ways of eating. Keep looking for what you consider to be good caloric bargains... keep looking for long term sustainable changes and adding tricks to your bag!

Poobah1972

Thanks Pav8888 I appreciate your confidence and advice. ( I do put a lot of thinking behind this adventure ).