What Works?

Something works. This is good news. I'm honing in on what works, for weight loss specifically. I may not always be willing to do what it takes, but I'm more and more facing the facts of what it takes. Here's a hint: It's not hoping. It's not wanting.

Here's the results from this week:

I am down significantly.

You will note, looking at last year, I had another period where I went down significantly, last May.

So what works?

Tracking works.

Atkins works.

I went back and looked at my posts from last May. What was going on that allowed me to lose? I started tracking in earnest, using Weight Watchers online. Every mouthful. I actually burned many fewer calories in May than in April last year, and yet I lost weight. Sadly, I don't have access to my actual food diaries, because I am no longer using Weight Watchers to track, I'm using My Fitness Pal.  But I know that along with the tracking, especially at the beginning, goes the planning.  The mindfulness. The being prepared. The knowing how you stand for the day and for the week, and therefore what you need to do now to get to where you want to be.

I started tracking in earnest in My Fitness Pal in October, and it automatically shares some the data both ways from my movement tracking armband device (BodyMedia), and with BodyMedia, you can export to your own datafiles to explore to your (my) numbers-geek heart's delight.  So I know I was on a relatively calorie restricted diet except for specific holiday days, and during the Christmas-New Year's week.  Letting off the brakes for a week made me shoot up in weight, but I was drifting up anyway, in spite of fairly diligent tracking.

I cut calories starting New Years, and I cut carbs way down. I managed at less than 100 grams of carbs a day - that is 2-3 times less than the typical American diet, I'm told. While I got the sudden peak off, I was not actually going back down to the maintenance weight level I've been at for a couple of years. So a week ago, I decided to go full Atkins. Their induction period is 20 grams of net carbs a day (subtract grams of fiber from total carbs) and as a general rule, I have a really hard time staying in that cap - I am more often in the 20-30 grams of carbs a day.

But here's the thing on very low carbs: I am less hungry during the day. If I start out at the very low carb level, I eat less all day. I do get hungry - like stomach rumbling actually hungry - but I am not fighting off cravings and urges all day. So perhaps the weight loss is driven by lower total calories, but who cares? If it's easier to stay at lower calories by eating this way, then its the way I should do it.

Also, there is little doubt that there is a big water impact. On Monday, I dropped 1.1 pound. Tuesday, another 1.4 pounds. Wednesday, I stayed the same as Tuesday. But Thursday, I popped back up 1.8 pounds! Then Friday, 2.6 pounds back down, to lower than Tuesday-Wednesday. And today, another massive drop, 1.8 pounds, to the lowest weight the scale has shown since last September! This is 5.1 pounds lower than Sunday! Clearly there are water effects going on here, but this is very typical of what happens on Atkins. If it stays off, it may have been water but it was long-term water, weighing me down and slowing me down.

With my daily weighing and weekly averaging, I manage to stay not too impressed with a daily value, but the weekly value is also down 1.5 pounds. Hooray!  And, I feel good, and can manage for a while at least the planning and cooking required to do this. And it is not a matter of fighting off cravings all day, though I certainly am thinking about food a lot, to keep the planning piece going.

I know, if I decide food is taking too big a piece of my attention, I'll back off, and there will be consequences.I believe it is much harder for me to lose the weight now than it was during the Big Loss. I am older, and also we know that your body remembers being fat and it wants to retain that. This magic number of 150 pounds has been crossed in a downward direction at least seven times before in the last 25 years. Studies say it will get harder each time.