bergusson
Overview of Week 1
Heres where I analyse how the week went and how my weight progress has gone. From a progress perspective week 1 was a good week. 0.5kg lost is about perfect, of course we always want more the greedy sods we are but over time this will start to make a big difference. Nominally I have set the project at 16 weeks so if I average 0.5kg a week that’s 8kg and I should be close to where I want to be.
So what else happened this week, 5 Session in the gym, went for a walk every day with the dog and made some time after work for some shorter walks when I had to use lunch hour for the Gym workout, 1 afternoon out.
I found the calorie deficit really east to stick to, to the extent that my calories were are actually considerably under target. Now typically that’s a very bad thing, Naughty Dave. However ill give myself a couple of get outs here.
- As I was coming out of a considerable period over consumption, I would think I was sitting in a comfortable energy surplus.
- I knew I had an afternoon lunch coming up.
- As it was my first week I may have set my calorie target a little too high.
Setting your calorie target
My calorie intake target was 2100, roughly what I was on as ana average of when I’ve done this before. However since then we’ve had lockdown, I work exclusively from home. The result, I’m stuck at a sodding desk all day. My step count is way down from before so overall im burning quite a lot less calories.
When you’re setting your calories using the TDEE, its an estimate its not an exact science, normally I’d wait a few weeks to see how thing progress and if I’m losing too much – (yes that’s a thing) or not enough I’d consider a couple of things…
- Am I exercising as much as I thought I would.
- How has my hunger been
- Am I overly tired to the effect its impacting my day or my workouts
From there I would consider adding or cutting more calories, even in as little as 50 calorie bumps. it doesn’t sound much but it can bell that’s needed.
As I write this I’m well into week 2 and I’m working to a 2000 calorie a day target and once again ive a big night out (challenge 2) as it the 5th anniversary for LL and me. Once again im saving a few calories against this. I definitely won’t be able to do this and nor would I want to in week 3. But no more spoilers on next weeks check in!
Food Diary
So lets have a look at how the week actually went food wise.
In summary I didn’t eat nearly enough and this was only partially intentional. Certainly not a great example to set off the bat!
The red boxes on my little page says bad Dave. I’ve set a tolerance within the sheet, conversely Green is Good Dave yay. Weirdly I hit my step count but I need to try to get that closer 15000. My biggest challenge fail has been on my protein. Getting back on track and getting the right amount of protein into my meals Is something haven’t spent enough time planning. Due my lack of hunger as I transition from over consumption to under consumption I’ve simply not been eating the usual snack I would to bang up my protein.
Why am I worried about protein, not just for those wishing to build visible muscle protein is critical to us all. Most people don’t eat enough protein and as we age this has an increasingly negative impact on us. The muscles we use in our daily lives, be that moving furniture or getting up and down stairs, start to wither at a faster pace. Get your Damn protein in folks!!
On the flip side carbs were also low, so I would expect to see reduced levels of energy. Now one thing I noted is that I’ve not properly tracked alcohol calories so that would mess up my macros a little although the calorie count should be correct.
Booze Calories
MFP does not always assign a macro to the booze you find. As alcohol is actually a 4th macro (9 calories per gram) and none of the three we track. the empty calories should be reassigned, either as carbs or fat or as I will do, a 50/50 split. Sounds complicated but its not. once you find your drink in MFP just modify it or create a new food and split the calories 50/50 between carbs and fat.
Once of you’ve done that once ,that’s it it’ll be stored in your diary for next time you have same drink. Again nowhere near essential but for those doing a body composition change something worth noting.
How did my body change over week 1?
As you’d expect not massively so these graphs are pretty uninteresting right now. Over time of course I want to see a curve down or a curve up depending on what im measuring.
Three key measures for me are Waist, hips and Chest. Ill also measure arms and legs in the form of bicep and thigh but these change really slowly. Until I flip this and do a Bulk (another post for the future) its likely that and any gain I make in muscle will be disguised through fat loss. so legs and arms will be fairly static.
During a cut im Whilst im trying to build muscle in fact the key thing is I’m trying to protect it. As I lose fat the muscle I retain becomes more obvious and makes you look more toned and athletic. During a weight loss programme you can expect to lose 1kg of muscle for every 3kg of fat you lose. Again its essential to take your protein and get your resistance training in to minimise this loss.
If you’re not interest in all that bollocks and you just want to lose eight its still important to minimise muscle loss you don’t want to be weakened by your weight loss efforts do you folks?
The big three
Not much to say only week 1 and the biggest thing you can say is measuring is hard don’t get excited about small increases or losses this a long game baby. Measurement inaccuracies could explain any variation at all! over time though we will see this shift I promise!
Arms and legs
I’m not even going to talk about these. Move on nothing to see here….Not sure why I made these bigger than the other ones, think ill change that for next weeks check in!
Please remember to like/Share/Repost or Follow! common its free content. If there’s anything you’d like to get in touch about please leave a comment and of course if theres any topic you want me to cover please let me know.