The Journey So Far

To summarise, I've been losing above average weight every week flawlessly for almost 6 months.  Never a weekly gain in that time.

After 21 weeks, I had entirely transitioned off the Optifast shakes, designing my own meal plans.  I was curious about a reduced-carb diet, but my kitchen was full of carbs (bananas, all-bran cereal, whole wheat bread, whole wheat english muffins, 1% milk, etc), so I took a more relaxed approach about carbs. 

I found my body reacted _very_ well to a reduced carb diet.  As I mentioned before, Optifast provides you with a 67.5g/day carb diet.  With that, there was an expectation of a mild ketosis.  However, according to some ketosis-test pee strips I got, plus my above average losses, I was often in Moderate ketosis.  I wasn't even working out, but I was easily losing 2-3 times what the program suggested we'd see.  Understandably though, the program probably advertises minimal results, so you aren't discouraged if you don't hit the big numbers.

I generally don't tell many what I'm losing, especially people on the program.  One one meeting, another participant asked the question, and the numbers I heard were all less than my numbers.  I did not speak up, because I did NOT want to make them feel their success was anything less than spectacular.  Someone that lost 15kg has as much to be proud of as someone that lost 24kg, and there was no mention of what weight they were starting from either.

Thus far, I've hit a number of milestones really only known to myself.  Lose It! tracks my losses, my predicted calories/day, and has offered me up dates to each goal that are, to say the least, optimistic, and tend to slide out.

For note, the program recommended against daily weigh-ins, likely on the basis that weights can fluctuate daily as you retain more water or your body chemistry starts coping for the different nutrition sources.  Eventually, knowing I understand and expect fluctuations, I started doing the task daily.

A list of my goals, after starting June 26:  (note, round numbers based on pounds.  being focused on the journey was more important than being a metric purist.)

1. -5%, mid-July, wasn't doing daily weigh-ins yet
2. -10%, August 09, 2020
3. -15%, Sept. 12, 2020
4. -20%, October 11, 2020
5. -25%, November 16, 2020
6. -30%, December 15, 2020
• This alone represented a number I haven't seen in probably 15 years.
7. -1/3rd of my body mass, January 16, 2021
8. -35%, February 5, 2021
9. -40%, April 8, 2021
10. -44%, a spectacular round number for me, June 14, 2021.  
• This would be the number I hovered around for several years in my mid-20's and when I moved to Toronto.
• Once I hit this number, I think I can finally enjoy eating whatever I want, as long as I keep working out daily and guilting myself with counting calories.  :)
11. -50%, an unachievable stretch goal.  
• Astoundingly unlikely, but hey, nice to have goals.  
• I haven't seen this number since I was 18, doing casual 500km weekends on the bicycle.
• For note, this is a little less than the "recommended, no longer overweight" mass for my height and age apparently; talk about fat shaming.

Though it fluctuates, I was losing about 5% of my body mass every 4 to 5 weeks, until I started working out regularly.

One issue both my dietitian and my kinesiologist expressed great concern about was that I wasn't eating enough; I was still limiting myself to 900-1100 calorie days, despite working out.  I also came to understand that some of the weight I was losing was actual muscle, not just fat.  And if I kept it up, I was going to damage myself.

I was actually having a hard time increasing my calorie intake, until the kinesiologist recommended making protein shakes.  Well boy howdy, that was a serious game changer right there.

I've slowly increased my intake to roughly 2000-2100 calories per day, as I've increased my activity levels.  I'm usually burning 900-1400 active calories daily now.

I'll probably post later about what my meals tend to look like.

My weight loss has slowed considerably, but my scale tells me that since late February, right after I started taking the protein shakes, my Fat Percentage is solidly coming down and my Muscle Percentage is solidly going up.  And my measurements continue to shock me every month.  I may not be losing weight, but I'm replacing fat with denser stronger muscle.  And muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does.  Win-win!

Next:  Depression