Celebration/Questions

[Sqthreer]

Summary: I had recently set a goal to get my weight down to 185 from 202 by April this year (from the end of January).

 

Today, two weeks later, I am down to 188. That means 14 pounds in 14 days. I'm quite pleased by this result. Not so much about the number but the changes I was able to make to achieve this number, and what I learned about my capabilities.

 

The question I have is: why did I lose so much weight so quickly?

 

Some relevant recent history:

 

Pre-February I was hovering right around 200 for the prior three months after steadily bringing my weight down from 260 in March, 2014. The reason I was hovering wasn't so much because of a plateau but because I had slipped back into my crappy eating habits and must have at least improved my metabolism enough to maintain a weight instead of gain it.

 

My eating habits since my renewed strife have been to only eat when I feel hungry and to stop when I'm satisfied enough. My exercise habits were riding my bike an average of 75 miles a week for commuting, short walks almost every day, moderately intense 20-30 minute strength training every other day (usually in a fasted state) and a quick five minute light body weight routine every day.

 

I have had plenty of energy this whole time, no injuries or weakness, no starving or fullness AND I've had very regular and healthy poos every morning (a luxury I rarely get to experience). My mood has been excellent, I feel virile and sexy and manly and I have had NO anxiety whatsoever. It's been a pretty good fortnight. 

 

If anyone has any theories or can provide insight into what would physiologically be happening for a person to lose an average of a pound a day in two weeks, please let me know.

 

In conclusion: Yarooh for genuine accomplishment!

[JPrev]

Congratulations on the amazing progress over the year!  That took a lot of dedication.  As for 14lbs in 14 days, don't underestimate the amount of "water weight" you can lose.  For some people it can be anywhere between 10-25lbs.  I'd imagine the 14lbs you've lost are roughly half fat and half water weight.  According to a random calculator I found, the 75 miles you bike per week could roughly burn a little under 3lbs of fat calories over 14 days.  If we assume you're operating on large deficits on top of that, you may have lost in additional 2-4lbs or so of fat. 

 

Realistically, maybe you've lost somewhere between 4-7lbs of fat these past two weeks.  It doesn't seem that unreasonable for the remaining 7-10lbs to have been a combination of water weight and other stuff.  At this point though, we're talking about super guess-timated numbers.

[Sqthreer]

That's what I was assuming, without knowing much about the subject. I figured from my continuous visual scrutinization of my body that there's no way all that loss was from fat, hah.

 

Is water weight loss primarily from exercise or diet? I have read that excess sodium can increase water retention, which would make sense regarding the food I was eating between November and February and why semi-drastically changing what I eat since then would have had such an impact on it. 

 

Also I forgot to mention above that the first ten pounds were lost in the first five or six days, which feels like it validates the water weight theory.

[Castiel]

The other thing to remember, is that weight changes don't happen evenly. The nice even numbers we talk about shooting for are averaged. As I've been gaining weight, I've found that I seem to weigh the same amount for a couple weeks, and then suddenly, seemingly overnight, I am 5lbs more, but it evens out, and sometimes is slower or faster.

[Sqthreer]

Yeah I have learned not to give too much significance to the actual number. Going for 185 was a fairly arbitrary choice, it was more about having something specific to work towards so that I would work toward something at all. Just seeing the number go down over the past year has been a huge motivator, but I know that once I work the good habits into my life in a way that's second nature I'll eventually ditch the scale and guide myself intuitively.

 

I appreciate the input guys

 

And on the even brighter side, water weight is weight nonetheless. One of the best things about being 70+ pounds lighter is feeling 70+ pounds lighter. I love feeling spry and nimble haha.