I saw the meal prep thread and it looks good, I have a different set of problems and I've got a system that's working and would like to share it.
You can also follow your moving average by using web sites that keep the records for you, I just preferred my own system.
Unlike the other thread's busy OP, I have all the time in the world but little money. I have to closely budget food to about $10 per day.
Plus I have lots of time to hang around and eat too much, so I am approaching this differently using my computer database programming experience.
There's a saying in science, "If you can't measure it, you can 't control it" and one problem with weight loss is that the signals regarding whether you are being successful are contaminated with a lot of noise in the form of unpredictable oscillations in water weight.
On one hand, dehydration is very bad, on the other when your weight jumps 2-3 lbs in a day as you all have seen you feel like you have failed, when it is just water weight unless you ate 7000+ calories too many.
To filter out water weight noise, I've used a weighted moving average of 10 days.
The weighting was 10 days equally, but that gave too much emphasis to my weight 7-10 days ago.
I changed it to weighting each day to calculate the average, declining by one as each days passes, to zero for the eleventh day back.
So weighting is:
today=10
yesterday=9
day before yesterday= 8
...and so forth.
I'm also riding a bike for exercise, it's warm and sunny here; and lifting weights but not too much, I want the encouragement of losing weight more than adding mass. I'm more motivated to
become a better mountain bike rider than to have huge arms. Bicycling rewards light weight when climbing hills.
=========
In addition, I've studied low carb dieting and have been closely controlling my carbs, and now believe I am in ketosis ( you can see the note in the right column where I said "start induction" which is Atkins term for getting carbs under about 20-30 grams per day. )
I have fun weighing myself every morning, if I succeed and weight is below the moving average (NOT the weight I was yesterday) I feel success because it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to NOT lose weight as long as the moving average declines. I pay attention to weight only if the moving average goes UP because that means I stuffed my face too much.
It is usually pretty obvious when I fuck up why the moving average has gone UP on a given day. If I do a 50 mile, 4 hour bike ride, that can trigger water retention in the body as it tries to protect itself from stress ( it is hot here.)
But truthfully it is usually something stupid like eating too much peanut butter, drinking alcohol or slipping when over friends and eating carbs.
At this point I've monitored and analyzed my weight changes enough so I am rarely baffled at direction of weight change. This is good, because I feel the responsibility is all on me and there is little randomness to it.
======
Mentally, all this works together to provide what is called the "Effect of Mastery" (EOM) in cognitive psychology. This is when you feel confident you can do something because you have successfully enough done it before. EOM DECLINES when the scale's decisions look like a mysterious puzzle to you ( for instance as in the above when you gain weight after 50 miles of riding, until you figure out or read why).
If you feel like "No matter what I do I can't lose weight," well, you'll probably give up.
The below is written in Filemaker 11 for Mac, I have a lot of professional experience with it and have written some of the larger applications for that platform in the world.
It is a very simple database and is looked down on by sophisticated programmers, for some good reasons, because it doesn't work well over the Web. But for my in house system I know my employers made millions using it so you can 't argue with success.
If anyone has Filemaker and wants a copy of the database to use I'll send it free, PM me.
I also can answer questions about database design. The interface has some messy labels because only I am using it, but I can explain anything needed.
My diet consists of chocolate whey/casein powder mixed into unsweetened almond milk, broccoli, greens, green beans, vitamins, curry powder,olive oil, salt, butter, small amounts of garbanzo beans, green algae powder, and hard cheeses
Oh, the bottom line, over about 4 months of use I've found I can lose about 1/2 pound per week with very little hunger or tiredness. I'm not in any rush because I think it's easier on my body to lose weight slowly. In the past when I've lost 2+ pounds per week my mental stability suffers and I find some excuse to eat too much!
I mean, think of the size of a lb of butter, losing that volume off your body each week seems pretty intense, although I know people have done it.
======
You can also follow your moving average by using web sites that keep the records for you, I just preferred my own system.
Unlike the other thread's busy OP, I have all the time in the world but little money. I have to closely budget food to about $10 per day.
Plus I have lots of time to hang around and eat too much, so I am approaching this differently using my computer database programming experience.
There's a saying in science, "If you can't measure it, you can 't control it" and one problem with weight loss is that the signals regarding whether you are being successful are contaminated with a lot of noise in the form of unpredictable oscillations in water weight.
On one hand, dehydration is very bad, on the other when your weight jumps 2-3 lbs in a day as you all have seen you feel like you have failed, when it is just water weight unless you ate 7000+ calories too many.
To filter out water weight noise, I've used a weighted moving average of 10 days.
The weighting was 10 days equally, but that gave too much emphasis to my weight 7-10 days ago.
I changed it to weighting each day to calculate the average, declining by one as each days passes, to zero for the eleventh day back.
So weighting is:
today=10
yesterday=9
day before yesterday= 8
...and so forth.
I'm also riding a bike for exercise, it's warm and sunny here; and lifting weights but not too much, I want the encouragement of losing weight more than adding mass. I'm more motivated to
become a better mountain bike rider than to have huge arms. Bicycling rewards light weight when climbing hills.
=========
In addition, I've studied low carb dieting and have been closely controlling my carbs, and now believe I am in ketosis ( you can see the note in the right column where I said "start induction" which is Atkins term for getting carbs under about 20-30 grams per day. )
I have fun weighing myself every morning, if I succeed and weight is below the moving average (NOT the weight I was yesterday) I feel success because it is MATHEMATICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for me to NOT lose weight as long as the moving average declines. I pay attention to weight only if the moving average goes UP because that means I stuffed my face too much.
It is usually pretty obvious when I fuck up why the moving average has gone UP on a given day. If I do a 50 mile, 4 hour bike ride, that can trigger water retention in the body as it tries to protect itself from stress ( it is hot here.)
But truthfully it is usually something stupid like eating too much peanut butter, drinking alcohol or slipping when over friends and eating carbs.
At this point I've monitored and analyzed my weight changes enough so I am rarely baffled at direction of weight change. This is good, because I feel the responsibility is all on me and there is little randomness to it.
======
Mentally, all this works together to provide what is called the "Effect of Mastery" (EOM) in cognitive psychology. This is when you feel confident you can do something because you have successfully enough done it before. EOM DECLINES when the scale's decisions look like a mysterious puzzle to you ( for instance as in the above when you gain weight after 50 miles of riding, until you figure out or read why).
If you feel like "No matter what I do I can't lose weight," well, you'll probably give up.
The below is written in Filemaker 11 for Mac, I have a lot of professional experience with it and have written some of the larger applications for that platform in the world.
It is a very simple database and is looked down on by sophisticated programmers, for some good reasons, because it doesn't work well over the Web. But for my in house system I know my employers made millions using it so you can 't argue with success.
If anyone has Filemaker and wants a copy of the database to use I'll send it free, PM me.
I also can answer questions about database design. The interface has some messy labels because only I am using it, but I can explain anything needed.
My diet consists of chocolate whey/casein powder mixed into unsweetened almond milk, broccoli, greens, green beans, vitamins, curry powder,olive oil, salt, butter, small amounts of garbanzo beans, green algae powder, and hard cheeses
Oh, the bottom line, over about 4 months of use I've found I can lose about 1/2 pound per week with very little hunger or tiredness. I'm not in any rush because I think it's easier on my body to lose weight slowly. In the past when I've lost 2+ pounds per week my mental stability suffers and I find some excuse to eat too much!
I mean, think of the size of a lb of butter, losing that volume off your body each week seems pretty intense, although I know people have done it.
======