Six week weight loss case study

girishmenezes

Just thought that I would share a short success story, which I hope may help someone. Naturally, the decisions I took are very specific to my weight, height, age and goals. It obviously isn't a statistically significant case study, so some of my actions could fall within the purview of broscience.

Objective: lose three kilos that I had put on over the Christmas holidays, retaining strength and minimise loss of lean muscle mass
Timescale: half kilo a week over six weeks

Cut calories down from 2,100 to 1,600 a day (2,100 is my requirement based on various calculators and tested over the last couple of years)
Ate back exercise calories 'usually'
No alcohol and sweets (a teaspoon of sugar in my coffee, honey in my porridge, etc was fine and tracked)
30% protein, 20% fat and 50% fat approximately (at least 20% protein)
Supplements: protein powder once or twice a day and multivitamins
Exercised three times a week, half an hour of heavy weights (chest/triceps, back/biceps, legs/shoulders) followed by 20 minutes high intensity cardio
Drank vast amounts of diet coke in the pub to keep my friends company.

Lost half a kilo a week on average. Plateaued over the last couple of weeks. Lost 2.7 kilos over the period. Felt that I had probably overloaded my system by the end.
Strength increased week on week. Body fat reduced 5% based on calipers, which indicates increase of muscle mass.

Decided to stop my diet at the end of the six week period and increased my calories back to 2,100 a day despite not hitting goal weight. This is because I was concerned that I may have overdone the pressure on my system. Started drinking alcohol and eating sweets, but tracked and included within macros.

Weight bumped up and down a bit, but then reduced by 300 grams to settle around my goal weight.

I still felt a bit overtrained and exhausted and so decided to give my body a break for a week during a week long work trip to Romania. Kept up the protein, maintained calories at 2,100 or under, but did no exercise whatsoever. Lost a further half a kilo.

Job done. Hope some of this can help someone.

minizebu

Congratulations on your success! But "job done" sounds a little too final. The job isn't done so much as there is a new job description now: maintenance. Good luck in maintaining your success. You sound like a determined person and I have no doubt that you will succeed in maintenance as you have in weight loss. Keep on trucking!

slimbettie

Good for you!