Quick Diet HowTo Community

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch…however, I do have some interesting observations to share this week. By the way, this is “Al’s Weight Loss Plan – Week 13″ — if you’ve been following along. I thought a catchy (and relevant) title would get your attention–this is important.

Here’s the beef, or should I say, pepperoni?: I lost another 1.6 lbs this week, for a total of 26.4 since I started my weight loss diet and exercise plan. Here’s how I did it (you can do it too): 2170 calories in pizza, 4895 in beer, and the rest; relatively good food. That’s an average of 1009 calories per day of pizza and beer!

Yes, really. Here’s this week’s pound-shedding revelation: exercise counts too. Keep track of your workout numbers in a spreadsheet, or by hand…whatever; just do it. Then, strive for roughly 280 exercise “burn” calories per day.

A brief explanation: let’s say you like walking. For a 150 lb person, this will burn 258 cals/hr. So, if you walk 1.1 hours, you’ll burn ~284 calories. There are a myriad sources on the Web for finding your favorite exercise burn numbers–one is, the Activity Database at caloriecount.about.com.

This week’s lesson learned: even of you go slightly over your target calories for the week, getting sufficient exercise will save your diet, and perhaps eventually, your life; you will lose weight. Of course, try to get back to your target calories next week.

Happy dieting.

This week’s active numbers:

• Average calories: 2396/day
• Average exercise: 49 mins/day
• Average exercise cals burned: 222/day
• Last week’s weight: 264.4 lbs
• Today’s weight: 262.8
• Weekly weight loss: 1.6
• Weight loss 2010: 11.2
• Average weekly weight loss: 0.9
• Total weight loss: 26.4

P. S. Tune in next week as I try to cut down on my beer consumption…

Surprise. Surprise. With more calories consumed this week, and less exercise expended, I still managed to lose one pound. How, you ask? Well, to be quite frank, I’m going to have to guess.

As I “proved” in week 40 (of last year’s diet journal), there exists a delayed effect on weight loss (and gain) from one week to another. That is to say: after a week of sufficient exercise and/or appropriate calories (to lose weight), you may not see the results until the following week.

I believe that is what happened here. Last week I logged an average of 41 minutes of quality exercise but lost only 0.2 lbs. This week I managed to get in only 31 mins/day, and lost 1.0 lb. Does that mean I’m going to have to work extra hard on my weight loss plan for next week?

Tune in next week to find out…

P. S. The not-so-surprising lesson (re)-learned this week: when you step on that scale, just remember that the numbers might look better next week

Happy dieting.

This week’s surprising numbers:

• Average calories: 2048/day
• Average exercise: 31 mins/day
• Average exercise cals burned: 171/day
• Last week’s weight: 265.4 lbs
• Today’s weight: 264.4
• Weekly weight loss: 1.0
• Weight loss 2010: 12.6
• Average weekly weight loss: 0.9
• Total weight loss: 24.8

If you want to lose weight fast–or, at all–you are going to have to count your calories. Period. Even if you manage to get more (and better quality) exercise this week as compared to last; if you consume more calories you might not lose any weight.

This observation is evidenced by comparing my numbers from last week to this week. Last week I lost 1.6 lbs after consuming 1906 average calories per day. This week I barely lost any weight–0.2 lbs–while chowing down 2000 cals per day (only 94 cals more per day than the previous week).

Here’s the thing: the amount and “quality” of exercise I managed to achieve this week was better than last week. As explained in week 9 of my weight loss plan, I have a “burn” ratio number that keeps track of the quality of exercise. So, here’s the comparison (a smaller number is better):

• this week = 0.166
• last week = 0.225

The obvious lesson learned this week is: even though you might workout more vigorously, calories count for a lot. 2000 is just too many–for me–to lose weight at my desired goal of 1-2 pounds per week; regardless of the fact that I got in 41 average minutes of quality exercise per day.

I hope this helps you in your weight loss efforts. See you next week…hopefully a little lighter, and definitely a little wiser.

This week’s insightful numbers:

• Average calories: 2000/day
• Average exercise: 41 mins/day
• Average exercise cals burned: 247/day
• Last week’s weight: 265.6 lbs
• Today’s weight: 265.4
• Weekly weight loss: 0.2
• Weight loss 2010: 8.6
• Average weekly weight loss: 0.9
• Total weight loss: 23.8