Paceline 2023 Weight Lost Challenge

[smontanaro]

Originally Posted by tuxbailey

Yup. You bookmark/subscribe the this thread, or bookmark the spreadsheet.

Given that the idea is to record your weight daily, it seems reasonable to just keeps the spreadsheet open in a browser tab.

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by smontanaro

Given that the idea is to record your weight daily, it seems reasonable to just keeps the spreadsheet open in a browser tab.

I won't be recording daily I don't think.. that's actually not a great think to do if you are trying to lose weight.. there is always an initial loss and then a plateau as you replace that fat with muscle.. at least for most people and chasing a number every day or two is bound to get some folks down and disappointed.. I'll probably try and do weekly and just watch how my clothes fit.. (gotta get that new to me Rapha jersey a little looser! )

[bigbill]

Originally Posted by fourflys

I won't be recording daily I don't think.. that's actually not a great think to do if you are trying to lose weight.. there is always an initial loss and then a plateau as you replace that fat with muscle.. at least for most people and chasing a number every day or two is bound to get some folks down and disappointed.. I'll probably try and do weekly and just watch how my clothes fit.. (gotta get that new to me Rapha jersey a little looser! )

I used NOOM and it had me weighing myself each morning. I would see ups and downs by a few pounds but plotted on a graph, shows a downward slope. My big weight loss was from diet, not exercise. If anything, exercise works against weight loss when you are maintaining a 1,000-calorie deficit a day to achieve a two-pound-a-week loss.

I could ride myself thinner, and I've done that in the past, but it won't change my eating habits unless I address that as well. Right now, I am at a good weight to ride lots of miles and work my way towards a lower target about ten pounds away, but if I stopped riding for some reason such as illness, injury, or a Ph.D. program, I'm not going to look like Jan Ulrich in the winter.

[kiwisimon]

I read two books on NYE and NYD.
My conclusion from those and what I aim to avoid as much as I can is that extracted sugar and modern wheat is the problem.

but I knew this years ago and ignored it cause I was active. That lead to bad habits. Bad habits lead to excuses and at 55 I'm carrying 70 more pounds of excuses than I did when I was playing rugby and racing bikes on a team.

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by bigbill

I used NOOM and it had me weighing myself each morning. I would see ups and downs by a few pounds but plotted on a graph, shows a downward slope. My big weight loss was from diet, not exercise. If anything, exercise works against weight loss when you are maintaining a 1,000-calorie deficit a day to achieve a two-pound-a-week loss.

I get what you're saying, 100%.. but I still won't weigh myself each day (and I don't recommend most folks do either), I'd rather see weekly numbers and feel my clothes change from a psychological point of view.. and you are right, diet is a big deal.. really glad NOOM worked for you, just not sure it's what I need after looking into it.

[AllesWirdGut]

I'm in again this year. I was in the best shape of my life two years ago and have pretty steadily fallen off the wagon since then due to some big personal life events. Last year was probably my worst one on the bike ever, and my diet wasn't great. My big thing has been yo-yoing between weeks or months of eating clean and working out a lot and then weeks or months of backsliding to the same place. So, my goal for 2023 is consistency and a more sustainable approach.

[smontanaro]

Originally Posted by fourflys

I won't be recording daily I don't think.. that's actually not a great think to do if you are trying to lose weight.. there is always an initial loss and then a plateau as you replace that fat with muscle.. at least for most people and chasing a number every day or two is bound to get some folks down and disappointed.. I'll probably try and do weekly and just watch how my clothes fit.. (gotta get that new to me Rapha jersey a little looser! )

I think how often you take your vital signs depends on your personal preference and what you do with the data. In my case, I do much better with the daily habit. I've been weighing myself (and getting O2 saturation and pulse) daily since early in the pandemic. If I was to, say, just weigh myself each Sunday, I would invariably fall out of the habit, then miss a day (or two, or three), which would create a bigger gap in the data. I also plot the data, both raw and seven day moving averages. I think the moving average probably gives you a better idea of what your weight trends are than just looking at numbers and comparing this week with last week or last month. That said, I don't get too bent out of shape if I miss a day (or a week). I don't travel with my scale or pulse oximeter.

I agree clothes fit is also a decent measure, especially since most of us tend to gather pounds around our middles. I was pleased as punch when my 36" jeans began to get harder and harder to keep up and I began to use my 34" jeans.

[RWL2222]

I relied on fun and adrenaline, and that was the base and motivation for fitness. Anything with a ball or a wheel, water, or downhill speed (but not fear). That’s harder now. If I could do anything to stay fit, it would be snorkeling/diving and riding dirt.

[vqdriver]

i'm in again!
finally had some success during the pandemic and was able to keep it off. the last few lbs are tough tho...

[GoJavs]

I'm in there for the first time because I'm attempting to get to heights (or, eh lows) that I haven't seen in decades. I had a great start -7.5 off lbs in December, but I feel the stall coming. It's usually right when I hit 170 lbs when the wheels come off.

Here we go! Good luck everyone.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by fourflys

My goal is to be no more than 200# when I retire this summer (around 215-220 now).. gotta look good in the uniform.. where I go from there is just buttah for me..

In!

HA, ya know, all my old uniforms shrank!!

Congratulations on your retirement in advance..Well done sir, 'fair winds and following seas'...and fondly remember the good parts and forget the bad parts..I know I did..

[marciero]

Im in again this year. A good 20lbs would be nice, which is what I did last time, which was...three years ago? I'm doing the weigh every day thing -just for the sake of routine and as a practice, I dont expect monotonic behavior.

[Red Tornado]

Originally Posted by kiwisimon

I read two books on NYE and NYD.
My conclusion from those and what I aim to avoid as much as I can is that extracted sugar and modern wheat is the problem.

but I knew this years ago and ignored it cause I was active. That lead to bad habits. Bad habits lead to excuses and at 55 I'm carrying 70 more pounds of excuses than I did when I was playing rugby and racing bikes on a team.

Glad it's not just me. At the "height" of my cycling fitness, I bounced around between 155-160 lbs (5'10" back then). Now I'm 5'9" and hovering in the 215-220 range. Not sure if I will ever attain my old weight again; for now priority #1 is getting below 200.

[smontanaro]

A few things have occurred to me over the past couple weeks as I've been logging accusations from my scale about my fitness.

• Salt intake matters. A lot. I can generally tell when I've consumed more than my fair share of NaCl. As my wife is a vegetarian and I generally consume a "meat light" diet, excess salt usually comes in the form of highly processed or restaurant food. When that happens, I suck down water light I'm anticipating a drought, generally without letting much go (sort of like I'm a reservoir – my apologies for making light of the folks on the West Coast suffering with atmospheric rivers). My weight spikes and takes a couple days to regress to the mean.
  
• Beware the slimmed down clothes. My wife is an expert with a sewing machine and recently resized a number of t-shirts which fit like tents. Now they fit like they are supposed to, which means I have no room to grow. This is good, right?
  
• Weight training messes with simple single-axis fitness measures. Clearly, considering just weight as a measure of progress isn't ideal anyway, but still, it's convenient. I started stretching routinely about two years ago, and over time have added weight exercises I can easily do in the house, the usual: planks, push-ups, curls, etc. I've always had a twig-like upper body. I still do, but the twigs are now a bit bigger, and I just know there's a six pack hiding under the excess fat I'm carrying around my middle. I don't know how much muscle weight I've added, but it interferes with simple attempts to measure rprogress by weight on the scale. I have no convenient way to measure my body fat percentage, so I guess I'll just have to go by what the mirror and the fit of my clothing say, and not worry too much about my stated end goal.
  

[John H.]

The other thing to know about the winter is that some people tend to bloat up and hold more H2O weight in the winter. Especially when humidity and temps are going up and down. Can see a 5 lb increase in short order. And you are thinking "I didn't consume an extra 18k of food that I didn't know about

Originally Posted by smontanaro

A few things have occurred to me over the past couple weeks as I've been logging accusations from my scale about my fitness.

• Salt intake matters. A lot. I can generally tell when I've consumed more than my fair share of NaCl. As my wife is a vegetarian and I generally consume a "meat light" diet, excess salt usually comes in the form of highly processed or restaurant food. When that happens, I suck down water light I'm anticipating a drought, generally without letting much go (sort of like I'm a reservoir – my apologies for making light of the folks on the West Coast suffering with atmospheric rivers). My weight spikes and takes a couple days to regress to the mean.
  
• Beware the slimmed down clothes. My wife is an expert with a sewing machine and recently resized a number of t-shirts which fit like tents. Now they fit like they are supposed to, which means I have no room to grow. This is good, right?
  
• Weight training messes with simple single-axis fitness measures. Clearly, considering just weight as a measure of progress isn't ideal anyway, but still, it's convenient. I started stretching routinely about two years ago, and over time have added weight exercises I can easily do in the house, the usual: planks, push-ups, curls, etc. I've always had a twig-like upper body. I still do, but the twigs are now a bit bigger, and I just know there's a six pack hiding under the excess fat I'm carrying around my middle. I don't know how much muscle weight I've added, but it interferes with simple attempts to measure rprogress by weight on the scale. I have no convenient way to measure my body fat percentage, so I guess I'll just have to go by what the mirror and the fit of my clothing say, and not worry too much about my stated end goal.