I made it! :)

I managed to have a calorie deficit of 5000 cals, in fact I did even better - I ate 5630 calories less than I needed!

AND the weight went down, - 0,9 kg! NOT BAD! :)

Yet, when I see the stats on my Tanita scale, things don't look quite as good:

Weight: 77,1 kg - down 0,9 :)

Body fat percentage: 38,9% up 0.9% :(

Body fat in kg: 29,9919 kg up 0.2 :(

Muscle mass in kg: 11,2615 down 0,27 :(

Water weight in kg: 33,5385 down almost 1 kg :(

Seems like all I've lost is muscle and water, and gained fat. :( That seems kind of strange, though, when I've been so good. 

I guess I can't really trust Tanita blindly, either. It changes too much from day to day, and these last results sound impossible considering that I have such a high calorie deficit. Oh, well, I'll just have to look at the results in the long run instead. I have been working out, both running and shredding. I am getting fitter and I am losing weight. Hopefully the fat percentage and the muscle percentage will reflect that soon enough. Patience, my dear, patience. (this is quote from one of my favorite shows when I was a child - the musical Rock 'n' roll wolf - I still love it to this day! :) Just too bad I'm not the most patient type. ;)

New challenge

I wanted to do a new 1 week 1 kg challenge this week, as I didn't have any plans and it seemed quite doable. But then I was invited to a friend's birthday party, and I realized that such a goal would be totally unrealistic this week. My friend is originally from Azerbaijan, and his family was visiting and they were making traditional, Azerbaijani food for us. Now, how often do you have the opportunity to taste real, authentic traditional Azerbaijani food, made by Azerbaijanis who also happen to be excellent cooks? Not very often, and there was just no way I was missing out on this or trying to restrict my food for that particular day! 

The food tasted wonderfully, probably one of the best meals I have ever had (and I've even been to a 2 star Michelin restaurant!). I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it was SO worth every single calorie, no question about it! Incidentally, I think the food was quite healthy, however there was a lot of it, lots of different dishes to try, each better than the previous.

So, no regrets there. What WASN'T worth it, though, was that I let myself lose on eating other things, too, just because I had let myself lose for that particular event. I had already let my guard down this weekend and binged on way too much candy, so I was heading down a dangerous path. I needed a new challenge to get back on track, and I decided that the rest of the week (Wednesday through Sunday), I'd lose 0,7 kg. The rules are the same as last time, I'll reach my goal if I manage a deficit of 5000 calories throughout the rest of the week. If the scale follows, that'll be great! :)

At first, my mind was stuck on the idea that a challenge had to last an entire week. I'm glad I got past that notion, though. There is nothing wrong with having a challenge for just a day, for that matter. I think this will make it easier for me to stay on track in the weeks where I have plans that make weight loss hard for a day or two. I don't see any problem with letting myself lose (within limits!) for a couple of days, the problem is getting back on track again. Hopefully this will help!

I'll be using my weight yesterday as a starting weight, because I am all bloated today, so it wouldn't be a good starting point.

Here are my starting values as reported by my Tanita scale yesterday morning:

Weight: 78,2 kg

Body fat percentage: 38%

Body fat in kg: 29,716 kg

Muscle mass in kg: 11,5356 kg

Water weight in kg: 34,5644 kg

Good news, bad news and motivation?

Well, I've changed my mind about Tanita. I now officially HATE it! (split personality? me? No, I'm sure you're thinking about one of the other me's :P). I had my weekly weigh-in today. The scale showed 0.4 kg down and I was feeling pleased with myself. That is, right up until the point where I started punching in all those other numbers, and found out that I had GAINED 0.25 kg of pure fat since last week! :(


Now I'm in a bad mood. So much for motivation! I have to say I doubt it, though. When I sneak weighed-in a couple of days ago, Tanita said I had lost 0.3 kg of fat. So that would have to mean that I have gained 0.5 kg of fat in a couple of days, while eating much less calories than I should. Sounds unlikely.

I guess Tanita isn't as trustworthy as I thought. And that I'll have to look at the longer trends, and not from week to week. I know, I know, it's what everyone says you should do. It's pretty annoying, though, as I bought this thing specifically to be motivated on a weekly basis. I bought it so that when my weight wasn't moving, I could still see a difference. And here my weight IS going down, and Tanita makes me lose my motivation. Oh, the irony!

Here are my stats this week:

Weight: 80.7 kg (down 0.4)
Fat percentage: 40.5% (up .5)
Fat in kg: 32,562 (up .25)
Muscle mass in kg: 11,3104 (down .1)
Muscle fitness level: 3 (no change) (higher is better, my goal is 8)
Visceral fit:7 (no change) (lower is better)
Base metabolism in kcal: 1490 (down 16)

I can see that this obsession with those numbers isn't very good. I went from being happy to miserable in no time. Now, I'm thinking "what's the point" and "I'm never gonna make it so I might just as well pig out". I'll really have to work on my motivation today!

Well, at least there is a good lesson in there somewhere: Don't use external factors that you can't control as motivation. But it is SO hard! How much I weight is a very tangible goal. And the fact that I've done really good this week, made mostly healthy choices, it's all a means to reach my weight goal. I know I'll get a healthier body in the end, but I also want assurance that I'll reach a healthy weight! Is there anyone out there who's cracked this and found good ways of motivating? In that case, please share the secret!

Starting point

When I started out in January 2011, I weighed more than I have ever done in my entire life - 86 kg! I started working out and following a Weight Watchery regime on my own. (I'm Norwegian, and here the concept is called Grete Roede, after the woman who started this type of weight loss classes). A year and a half ago, I attended these classes, but this time I'm doing it on my own.

Well, we're now at the end of March, and when I weighed in this morning I'm down to 81,1 kg. I'm getting married sometime in the late summer of 2012, and my goal is to weigh between 55 and 60 kg by then, and of course have a healthy percentage of fat on my body.

I love following different fat loss blogs, and I hope that by writing my own I'll be more motivated to stay on track! :) And hopefully people can learn along with me about good and bad weight loss strategies.