Monday, May 31, 2021

why no weight loss?

I have never been more faithful to a new diet than I am right now. I monitor my blood pressure and blood sugar twice daily. I'm eating at a daily caloric deficit that varies between 500 and 1000 calories (assuming a basal metabolic rate of about 2550 calories per day, according to MyFitnessPal), and an accumulated loss of 3500 calories is supposed to equal a pound of weight loss. After initially losing around 9 kilos while in hospital, I'm down to somewhere between 119 and 120 kg. By my calculations, if I've been averaging a caloric deficit of 750 per day since leaving the hospital, then I should be at a caloric deficit of about 7500 calories by now, i.e., I should have lost another kilo.

Instead, I'm stuck. Despite the caloric deficit, I'm just not going below that plateau. There could be a few reasons why, and we'll have to see how things pan out before we can determine more accurately what might be going on. Some theories:

1. I did finally poop Sunday night, but there's plenty of accumulated poop left, and that's skewing my weight. I should take a laxative, get everything out, and see how much weight I've really lost afterward.

2. Once I add exercise to the regime (as I plan to do starting tomorrow), the weight will start dropping again. The body is simply clinging to its current weight because it's resisting attempts to lose. It just needs a little coaxing, is all. (While I'm at it, I think the reintroduction of exercise is going to drop both my blood-pressure and blood-sugar levels. Blood sugar has traditionally been way low after a long walk to Busan.)

3. I lost muscle weight while lying in bed in the hospital, and whatever weight loss I'm experiencing is being offset by the regain of muscle weight.

4. Patience, grasshopper. Weight loss isn't linear, and there's no reason to fret over a single kilogram. Every body is different, so my weight-loss pattern will be unique to me. I should expect the topsy-turvy, not a smooth, linear drop in weight. Thinking should be in terms of months, not days and weeks. I should check my progress again in a few months.

Any or all of the above notions could be in operation. It's hard to know. For the moment, I just have to ride things out and see what happens.

For the most part, except for a day like today when I had three keto gyros, I eat leafy salads and chicken breast—the diet of movie stars training for action roles. If I drink soda, it's always diet. Having studied up on nuts, I know to avoid cashews and embrace walnuts, almonds, peanuts (in moderation), and macadamias. To that end, I bought myself a bag of roasted, salted macadamias. I don't eat more than a quarter cup at a time, so I'm not worried about salt affecting blood pressure.

I'm learning about dessert alternatives like chia pudding (which relies on chia seeds' gelatin to create a pudding-like consistency), and I'm watching keto-recipe videos on YouTube, of which there is no shortage. I'm pondering the irony of being put on blood thinners—which make me bleed more easily—while having to do finger pricks to monitor my blood sugar.

I'll have more to say about my numbers once I start training tomorrow. I'll be very curious to see how exercise affects them. The body is supposedly a machine, after all.



1 comment:

John Mac said...

Yeah, I think you've pretty much answered your own question here. The important thing is you are eating right now and once the exercise kicks in I predict you will see the dramatic results you've been working towards.

How often do you weigh yourself? I've noticed my results vary at different times during the day. For consistency, I try to weigh in right after exercise/before showering. It's amazing how much water weight you can sweat out.