March 25th June 10th, 2024: Weight Loss PVP: 10 or 12 lbs in 10 or 12 Weeks!

[Snarkyfishguts]

229 today. This week was a mental health week. I didn't do anything to lose weight, but nothing to gain weight either. I think I'm ready to start losing again though, so we'll just take it a week at a time and see what shakes off.

[TimovieMan]

15/03: 94.65 kg / 208.7 lbs

22/03: 94.15 kg / 207.6 lbs (-0.50 / -1.1)

 

This was a pleasant surprise on Friday, especially since I'm really only starting this challenge today.
This weekend saw moderate eating, but a high caloric intake. Friday involved fries, and both Saturday and Sunday involved too much crisps. No idea how that will translate on the scale next Friday.

More effort will be done as of today.

[Darciana]

Already dropped a solid 0.8lbs this week despite the weekend, which I'm thankful for.

Friday included a double dose of dairy (ouch) and some wheat in the form of pizza and cheese curds for dinner. Saturday a single dose of wheat in a bread roll (I was still quite ravenous after eating my [assumed] paleo-friendly meal) and then split a cheesecake slice with the Man (ouch again). Fortunately I behaved yesterday and only indulged in some orzo pasta at dinner but made it dairy free. Wheat doesn't bother me, but my previous high-wheat/carb/grain intake left me lethargic and constantly hungry. Dairy, however.... Well, it's over now. I can still feel a bit of bloat and I'm not quite down to my low weight (Friday morning) but I've bounced back down faster than expected.

This week I've done a mix-and-match style meal prep for dinner and everything is ready except mushrooms (I'm not a fan of leftover mushrooms so I'll cook those day-of) and the salad (which is just to put it together, really). Lunches are a large pot of paleo ham and potato soup which I can eat on all week. Breakfasts are my avocado "toast" (sweet potato) with egg.

Workouts are as usual - Lifting Monday-Thursday, cardio (10k training) Friday/Saturday (weather dependent), LISS Friday/Saturday (not cardio day), and rest Sunday. We have a baseball game on Saturday out of town so I'll end up breaking my diet that day. Will do the best I can, though, to minimize damage and get good movement in.

[Jarric]

15 hours ago, Sea-to-sky said:

starting weight 239.25lb
 

Joining in. As usual im not setting a goal loss amount due to energy unknowns and assorted possibility of spanners ending up in plans. Any weight loss is good for me. 
Currently on 1,220 calories, which i need to work to stick to better at the moment. More effort needed there. Meal planning and avoiding the temptations of sugar. Ho hum. 

Spring is definitely here, so hopefully more nice days now to tempt us all outside. 

 

 

I hope you don't mind me saying, but does that calorie nunber seem pretty low? If you're able to maintain it and you're not losing tons of weight every week it's probably fine, so please ignore me if that's the case, but I would normally expect that to be a pretty aggressive deficit and pretty hard to stick to?

[Jarric]

18/03 - 164.9lbs

25/03 -163.9lbs

 

Well I stuck pretty much exactly to my calorie target this week (target 18,000, actual 17,940), and I lost exactly 1lb, so it seems like this is working if I'm strict. Granted I gained 0.9lbs the week before, but this is still a new low for the year.

 

I did some actual meal prep on Sunday, so I have lunches sorted for the week - 2 portions of cauliflower curry (the forst vegan meal I've accidentally made in possibly ever), and 4 portions of spicy fennel and tomato curry. The main thing this week is to stay as on-track as possible in the early part of the week, before I consume my body weight in chocolate Easter eggs on Sunday.

 

I also want to make an effort to get in 3 cardio sessions this week - I still can't run and I don't have much enthusiasm to cycle, but I want to keep my cardio conditioning up and the calorie burn is a nice little boost.

[Sea-to-sky]

1 hour ago, Jarric said:

I hope you don't mind me saying, but does that calorie nunber seem pretty low? If you're able to maintain it and you're not losing tons of weight every week it's probably fine, so please ignore me if that's the case, but I would normally expect that to be a pretty aggressive deficit and pretty hard to stick to?

No, its a reasonable question to raise. I have M.E./CFS and my steps goal is 3,500. This on a good week, is something i can do 3 to 4 times a week. On a bad week i struggle to get more than 1 to 2 thousand steps a day and essentially spend a lot of time on the sofa as i just don't have the energy for anything else.

i am also playing with the added fun of meds that make me put on weight very easily. So am playing much of this by ear as my meds are most likely having some effect on my metabolism. 

the calorie number is what the app (lose it) spat out the other side. But judging by Nerd fitnesses TDEE calculator i am burning vaguely 1850 on a normal day, 2230 on a day i can exercise.

my exercise of choice at the moment is walking (which is not happening right now as I'm getting over flu and wont be up to starting walks again for a couple of weeks). 

Even if we take that number with a grain of salt, as my energy burn is so bloomin’ pathetic on a bad day. I am probubly 500/600kcal under what I'm burning. 
im loosing vaguely a pound to a pound and a half a week at the moment on that, which seems reasonable (considering i was expecting 1/2 a pound).

 

if my maths seems screwy please say as i am a total noob to this so am kind of trusting the apps quite a bit for the maths. 

edit: just gone into the app and somehow i managed to screw the maths by touching a dial i shouldnt have ? 

it is now saying 1440kcal. Hopefully that seems more normal range?  This is predicted to give 1lb loss a week. Which seems reasonable. 
Thanks you for pointing it out.

 

edit: ok, i have now fixed everything in the app and the maths is making sense. Hopefully that will ok now. 

[Sea-to-sky]

52 minutes ago, Jarric said:

before I consume my body weight in chocolate Easter eggs on Sunday

I approve of this plan. 

[Snarkyfishguts]

 

35 minutes ago, Sea-to-sky said:

No, its a reasonable question to raise. I have M.E./CFS and my steps goal is 3,500. This on a good week, is something i can do 3 to 4 times a week. On a bad week i struggle to get more than 1 to 2 thousand steps a day and essentially spend a lot of time on the sofa as i just don't have the energy for anything else. 
the calorie number is what the app (lose it) spat out the other side. But judging by Nerd fitnesses TDEE calculator i am burning vaguely 1850 on a normal day, 2230 on a day i can exercise.

my exercise of choice at the moment is walking (which is not happening right now as I'm getting over flu and wont be up to starting walks again for a couple of weeks). 

Even if we take that number with a grain of salt, as my energy burn is so bloomin’ pathetic on a bad day. I am probubly 500/600kcal under what I'm burning. 
im loosing vaguely a pound to a pound and a half a week at the moment on that, which seems reasonable (considering i was expecting 1/2 a pound).

 

if my maths seems screwy please say as i am a total noob to this so am kind of trusting the apps quite a bit for the maths. 

edit: just gone into the app and somehow i managed to screw the maths somehow by touching a dial i shouldnt have ? 

it is now saying 1400kcal. Hopefully that seems more normal range?  
Thanks you for pointing it out.

1400 sounds MUCH better. I'd even venture saying 1500 would be lovely!

[Sea-to-sky]

23 minutes ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

1400 sounds MUCH better. I'd even venture saying 1500 would be lovely!

I think i’ll see how 1440 goes for a couple of weeks. The lowest exercise level i can set it on this thing is 1.5miles a day. Which i am not even remotely doing right now ?.
i also have the fun of hormonal based meds in the mix which which make me put on weight very easily, so are most probably screwing my metabolism. 
all so complicated. Why cant they just invent a scan that tells you how many calories you should be eating to loose X lb a week. 

 

anyway, rambling. Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll see how i go for the moment ?
 

going to go eat a bowl of blueberries now, just because i have extra calories ?

[Elennare]

Here we go!

3/25: 172.5

 

Up a smidge from the end of last challenge, but oh well.  Easily within normal fluctuations, and I didn't really expect to lose anything over zero week anyway.

 

I got my plan together for this week, and immediately had multiple wrenches thrown into the works.  Didn't make it to the store, so today is going to be cobbling stuff together from what I already have (should be fine), and maybe I'm going on a business trip later this week.  Yeah, it's potentially this week, and still a maybe.  Fun fun.

 

On the up side, at least the not going to the grocery store was traded for spending some time with my kids and introducing them to the glorious dumpster fire that is the Masters of the Universe move.

[Sovalis]

Starting weight: 268.0 lbs

03/25: 265.8 lbs

 

I was at 264.5 on Friday before I ate all the game snacks Friday and Sunday. I know this is water weight from the salty potato chips so I am not worried. The big drop from 268 to this week’s weigh-in was definitely due to restricting my wheat intake and dropping the inflammation levels. This was confirmed by the InBody scans I did on Monday and Friday of last week which showed a huge change in the intracellular vs extracellular water numbers, an indication of inflammation. The fact that the number could drop so quickly is both great news and also a little concerning as it might (probably) mean(s) that there isn’t really a low tolerable dose of wheat for me which I am emotionally not quite ready to admit yet. 

[Shello]

Starting weight 261.2

 

I did manage to lose a little more after the end of the last 10 week weigh in but then gained a bunch of it back on my travels.  I seemed to have recovered nicely already as I'm 0.2 down from last Monday's weigh in.  I've made a few small but impactful (hopefully) changes for this challenge that I hope will translate to the scale.  

[Sea-to-sky]

Starting weight- 239.25lb

26/3 - 240.75lb

i haven't been sticking massively closely to my calorie deficit the last couple of weeks due to trying to get over this bug. Most likely this is water retention as shark week is imminent. 

[athousandwords]

Mar 26 - 175.2

 

Coming in a day late because I stepped on the scale yesterday and stepped right back off.

 

I was a little loose with calories and working out during Zero Week because I was sick most of the week and craving comfort foods, but it's nice to see I didn't go off the rails too much. I'm a pound down from where we left off after the last PVP, so I'm happy to be starting the challenge here.

[Darciana]

19 minutes ago, athousandwords said:

Mar 26 - 175.2

 

Coming in a day late because I stepped on the scale yesterday and stepped right back off.

 

I was a little loose with calories and working out during Zero Week because I was sick most of the week and craving comfort foods, but it's nice to see I didn't go off the rails too much. I'm a pound down from where we left off after the last PVP, so I'm happy to be starting the challenge here.

I hope you're feeling better now!

[Snarkyfishguts]

45 minutes ago, athousandwords said:

Coming in a day late because I stepped on the scale yesterday and stepped right back off.

I laughed out loud when I read this because I have definitely had those days, where it's just like "I'm not dealing with this nonsense today." I'm glad you took the extra day and hope you are feeling better! 

[DrFeelgood]

On 3/24/2024 at 3:38 PM, Snarkyfishguts said:

Oh I hope the ice cream is good. And I'm glad you had a good week 0 and feel relaxed and restored!

I hope I get to find out sooner rather than later!    I'm not cracking this thing until I reach Onederland (only to promptly leave it again, apparently).  

 

I've already bailed over 4 pounds since Sunday morning.  Funny how this time around I could just tell that I'd be able to bounce back right away despite it being the highest-calorie week I've had since last August.  In February when I had that big week I knew that it would take a lot of work and time to unravel.  Bodies are weird!

 

On 3/25/2024 at 8:43 AM, Sea-to-sky said:

the calorie number is what the app (lose it) spat out the other side. But judging by Nerd fitnesses TDEE calculator i am burning vaguely 1850 on a normal day, 2230 on a day i can exercise.

my exercise of choice at the moment is walking (which is not happening right now as I'm getting over flu and wont be up to starting walks again for a couple of weeks).

One of my rules-of-thumb for the most aggressive weight loss I've been able to sustain is to not go below 90% of BMR.  For the most part the online calculators work well enough for my conditions, but if you have medical issues that fall outside of the general calcaulations then you could have an RMR scan done to see how your individual metabolism is working.  I have a BMR formula baked in to my fitness-tracking spreadsheet, but the online TDEE calculator I like best is here:  https://www.freedieting.com/calorie-calculator

 

Their Extreme Fat Loss plan with the 7-day calorie zig-zag has worked gangbusters for me in the past, and every time I tried to go lower than that it would tank my energy levels and my mood which always halted my progress.

 

One other thing I'll add is that it took me a good long while to build a library of reliable foods that I could count accurately, and even now I still sometimes find myself undercounting a meal because MFP is all all over the map with it's existing database.  It helped me a lot to simplify my eating so I could really dial in good numbers.

[Jarric]

On 3/25/2024 at 1:43 PM, Sea-to-sky said:

No, its a reasonable question to raise. I have M.E./CFS and my steps goal is 3,500. This on a good week, is something i can do 3 to 4 times a week. On a bad week i struggle to get more than 1 to 2 thousand steps a day and essentially spend a lot of time on the sofa as i just don't have the energy for anything else.

i am also playing with the added fun of meds that make me put on weight very easily. So am playing much of this by ear as my meds are most likely having some effect on my metabolism. 

the calorie number is what the app (lose it) spat out the other side. But judging by Nerd fitnesses TDEE calculator i am burning vaguely 1850 on a normal day, 2230 on a day i can exercise.

my exercise of choice at the moment is walking (which is not happening right now as I'm getting over flu and wont be up to starting walks again for a couple of weeks). 

Even if we take that number with a grain of salt, as my energy burn is so bloomin’ pathetic on a bad day. I am probubly 500/600kcal under what I'm burning. 
im loosing vaguely a pound to a pound and a half a week at the moment on that, which seems reasonable (considering i was expecting 1/2 a pound).

 

if my maths seems screwy please say as i am a total noob to this so am kind of trusting the apps quite a bit for the maths. 

edit: just gone into the app and somehow i managed to screw the maths by touching a dial i shouldnt have ? 

it is now saying 1440kcal. Hopefully that seems more normal range?  This is predicted to give 1lb loss a week. Which seems reasonable. 
Thanks you for pointing it out.

 

edit: ok, i have now fixed everything in the app and the maths is making sense. Hopefully that will ok now. 

 

Thanks for sharing, I can understand the maths now. And 1440kcal sounds good; if that does consistently lose you 1lb/week that would imply a TDEE is about 1940 (averaged across more and less active days), which is in line with what the NF calculator gave you.

[Sea-to-sky]

59 minutes ago, Jarric said:

Thanks for sharing, I can understand the maths now. And 1440kcal sounds good; if that does consistently lose you 1lb/week that would imply a TDEE is about 1940 (averaged across more and less active days), which is in line with what the NF calculator gave you.

Going to have a bash with it for a couple of weeks. See how it goes. 
It was giving me maintenance calories projection of 2140kcal which seemed a bit high unless i can walk the 1.5miles a day every day (which i cant ?) so i tweaked it down by 200kcal. The 1940kcal seem more reasonable as meintinence for me and my exercise level, but if i loose more than predicted i will just shift the calories up a tad. 
 

Thank you for the input. I really appreciate advice as my personal calorie maths is especially complicated due to the M.E/CFS plus meds combo. Not really something these calorie predicting programs are built to accommodate. 

[Snarkyfishguts]

3/25- 229

4/1- 227

 

Down two pounds this week. I've stopped eating after dinner and have resumed walking. I've also stopped eating chocolate, and I didn't get a migraine this month, so yay?   

 

How do you deal with stress? I'm struggling in this department. I handle situations pretty well, and I am getting better about talking about my thoughts and feelings to family, but I'm still stressed out a lot. Is this something that requires practice, you think? Like practicing letting go of the "AUGH!"   

[Darciana]

+/- 0.0

No change in scale, but down 1 1/2 inches since March 7th. This is okay, this weekend was a bit hectic and I did eat out dinner Friday, all day Saturday, and crawfish boil at Kers and T's yesterday. I managed to bounce back up into the 150s this weekend so to be back down already is an accomplishment in itself. So far, I've lost something measurement-wise since I started monthly measurements in February so that's exciting and solidifies that, despite slow/no movement on the scale, things are happening (read: recomp).

This week begins the hectic 2-week non-stop run. I fortunately have Friday off work but I'll be grabbing perishables the moment the grocery opens to beat the madness rush (I hope) and then meal-prepping for the weekend since we're on call for the Fire Department. Then ball-and-chained to the FD Saturday-Monday followed by another week of work. Whew.

I have meals planned out so as long as I can get the necessary perishables on Friday, I'll be set with solid food choices.

I missed cardio this weekend due to weather and schedule conflicts. Unless I can get the groceries and get home in a timely manner, I may miss my chance to run Friday. If I suck it up and wake up early enough, I can squeeze in Peloton before my FD shift Saturday and/or Sunday since it'll be too dark to run outside.

 

 

[deftona]

April 1st Check In

 

3 lbs down!  Haven't been as strict on the workouts as I wanted to be but my eating has been mostly on track. It's amazing how good setting a date for my wedding has been for motivation, as has dress shopping. But I can't take full credit - the commencement of shark week has probably done the lions share of the work this week. I bloat so much  a week or so beforehand.

 

 

[Jarric]

2 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

How do you deal with stress? I'm struggling in this department. I handle situations pretty well, and I am getting better about talking about my thoughts and feelings to family, but I'm still stressed out a lot. Is this something that requires practice, you think? Like practicing letting go of the "AUGH!"

 

From an eating point of view? I try to remind myself that eating won't make me feel any less stressed. When you're craving a release from stress, or a distraction from it, then your brain my tell you that this is a hunger craving, but eating doesn't solve it and doesn't resolve the things that are causing you stress.

 

If you mean how do you deal with stress in general, that's harder! Short of resolving the stressful situation, there's a whole raft of stress management techniques out there but what works is pretty specific to the person and situation.

[Jarric]

18/03 - 164.9lbs

25/03 -163.9lbs

01/03 - 163.1lbs

 

Was quite surprised to see a drop in the scale today. I did make an effort to be sensible last week, but I also ate a ton of chocolate yesterday and finished the week about 1,500kcal over target. I'll take it though!

 

This week should be a bit more back to normal, though I've still got a couple of Easter eggs to work through I'll just have to take it easy with them.

[DrFeelgood]

03/29:  211.4  (-5.1)

 

Sunday's weight was nonsense, so I'm using Friday's for the week.  I'm not quite fully recovered from Week Zero, but I'm back down a fair bit and in good shape to continue the push once I get over yet another glutening.  I spent all of last week with terrible DOMS, but those are over now so I can get on with the main portion of my strength training.  Hopefully I'll see improvements all around the physique even if the scale isn't moving much.

 

That Ben & Jerry's did not survive the weekend.  It was fine but not really good enough to bother replacing.