It is the same thing every year- christmas approaches and everybody suddenly decides that all the things that weren't urgent are, now, suddenly, absolutely urgent and first priority. Which means I'm once more swamped with very urgent stuff, and blogging needs to take a back seat.
What does not take a back seat is my recondensing project. I am, at present, recondensing at a rate of half a pound a week, which is enough to get me to goal in time, but doesn't require me to reduce calories below what I need for optimum function. So, any silence on my blog doesn't mean I fell off the wagon, I'm just awfully busy.
See you when I've dug out of this here file stack!
Julia
2012/12/13
2012/12/05
Crunching the numbers
The troble with any long-time projects, at least for me, is that at the beginning the target date seems so far away that it is difficult to gather the momentum to start. I use to joke that no project of mine would ever get ready if the last minute before the deadline did not exist.
The biggest long-time project I have going on right now is getting back to being normal-weighted, meaning a BMI below 25. And there is also a deadline. I want to be there before turning fifty. That means I have fifteen months left to get there, and I am still 33 pounds above that magic limit.
Which means that I will, in these fifteen months, have to create a caloric deficit of...
115500 calories. That's right, one hundred fifteen thousand five hundred.
Divided by the about 450 days I have left until my birthday, that means I have to eat 256 calories less than my body uses up, every day. Any more, and I cannot reach my goal.
Which means being very mindful of what I put into my body, all the time. Doing the weekend binge- weekday fast thing must be absolutely out of the question, as must certain calorie-dense former favorite meals. 256 calories a day means that I will recondense at a pace of one pound every two weeks.
I don't mind it, of course, if the weight comes off faster, but that is the minimum I have to achieve to ensure success.
As losing weight also means lowering one's basal metabolic rate, that means I have to keep my intake consistently below 1400- 1500 calories at my present weight, going down to about 1100 to 1300 during the last stretch. I only hope my body will be fully adapted to eating only that much by then.
256.
I could blow a full day's loss by eating one extra hamburger, or having one extra glass of beer, or a piece of string cheese, or two handfuls of nuts.
And I cannot afford to lose another day to not losing.
Perhaps I should put that number up somewhere I can see it. The fridge door might be a good place, for starters.
Julia
The biggest long-time project I have going on right now is getting back to being normal-weighted, meaning a BMI below 25. And there is also a deadline. I want to be there before turning fifty. That means I have fifteen months left to get there, and I am still 33 pounds above that magic limit.
Which means that I will, in these fifteen months, have to create a caloric deficit of...
115500 calories. That's right, one hundred fifteen thousand five hundred.
Divided by the about 450 days I have left until my birthday, that means I have to eat 256 calories less than my body uses up, every day. Any more, and I cannot reach my goal.
Which means being very mindful of what I put into my body, all the time. Doing the weekend binge- weekday fast thing must be absolutely out of the question, as must certain calorie-dense former favorite meals. 256 calories a day means that I will recondense at a pace of one pound every two weeks.
I don't mind it, of course, if the weight comes off faster, but that is the minimum I have to achieve to ensure success.
As losing weight also means lowering one's basal metabolic rate, that means I have to keep my intake consistently below 1400- 1500 calories at my present weight, going down to about 1100 to 1300 during the last stretch. I only hope my body will be fully adapted to eating only that much by then.
256.
I could blow a full day's loss by eating one extra hamburger, or having one extra glass of beer, or a piece of string cheese, or two handfuls of nuts.
And I cannot afford to lose another day to not losing.
Perhaps I should put that number up somewhere I can see it. The fridge door might be a good place, for starters.
Julia
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