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Day 1 of a planned 5 day "no solid food fast"
As I start to (try) lose weight again, I decided to look at the data that shows what happened when I gained weight (during my "bulking" period while weight lifting), and when I lost weight:
🤾🏾♂️ Losing Weight (15lbs): July 11th (182lbs) to August 2nd (167lbs) – [23 days recorded]
Average Calories: 707
Average Carbs: 18
🏋🏿 Gaining Weight (13lbs): August 3rd (163lbs) to August 26th (176lbs) – [23 days recorded]
Average Calories: 1,687
Average Carbs: 83
(Note: Because I was fasting and exercising a lot, I actually lost 4 pounds in one day from August 2nd to August 3rd)
My analysis:
⏳ Consuming an average of 1,600 calories a day is not a lot. To ‘maintain’ my weight, It ‘appears’ that I can only consume about 1,200 calories a day. (People will tell me that I ‘should’ be able to consume 1,600 calories a day. The numbers prove that this simply-is-not-true. This is why I advise people to log daily and analyze your *own* numbers)
🍴 Actually, the calories may not matter anyway… Assuming my ‘maintenance weight’ is 1,200 calories a day, when I gained weight, I ‘only’ consumed 400 ‘extra’ calories a day. Over 23 days this comes out to 9,200 total ‘extra’ calories. Could that really account for a 13lbs gain in weight? For example, A pound of fat is approximately 3,500 calories, so during this period I should have gained only 2.6lbs not 13lbs.
🌊 Is “water” the reason for the difference? I am sure ‘water weight’ is a factor. However, keep in mind we are looking at a 23 day period in both situations. I find it hard to believe that I only lost 3lbs of ‘true fat’ from July 11th (182lbs) to August 2nd (167lbs) and gained only 2.6lbs in ‘true fat’ August 3rd (163lbs) to August 26th (176lbs), and that the rest of the weight was only ‘water’.
🍽️ However, looking at the carbs, it makes more sense. To gain weight, I consumed approximately 5x more carbs a day than I did to lose weight! Lets assume that my ‘maintenance carbs’ are 40 carbs a day. This means, to gain weight, I consumed 2x the carbs I would normally consume.
🍩 I believe, my body will create insulin when my carbs are high. The insulin creates fat. Fat makes me gain weight.
🤸🏾♂️ The weight loss can also be explained by my body being forced to burn fat when my carbs are low. When my body burns fat I lose weight.
My Conclusion:
💥 To lose weight I need to consume less than 700 calories and less than 18 carbs a day. Basically, I need to do what worked last time 😊
Let’s see what happens this time…
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