Tuesday 7 February 2012

Calories, colds and confusion

After the dramas of Saturday night/Sunday morning I seem to have caught some sort of chill or bug.

I imagine waiting in the cold and snow for over an hour isn't that good for you when you have a thin coat, an off the shoulder dress, leggings and heels on. Then walking through snow up to your ankles with the snow touching the bare skin on your feet. Oh and add to that around only three hours sleep, I guess it was pretty inevitable I was going to get ill.

Not to worry though I'm not going to blog about how sorry I'm feeling for myself. Instead I'm in confusion over fitness, health and weight loss...again.

I guess you could say I'm a bit nerdy when it comes to my weightloss this time round, I am keeping a food diary and exercise log. However, I am also making a note of how many hours total of exercise I've done each week compared to the number of 'points' used (based roughly on the old Weight Watchers points system). This way I can try to look for patterns when comparing it to my weight each week.

From looking at this I have actually got more confused about how this all works, rather than discovering more and identifying how to move forward.

The week I've used 'less' points I'd imagine I would see a bigger weight loss, but this hasn't been the case. The week I've done more exercise I lost the least amount of weight (I also look at my BMI and body fat as obviously exercise can increase weight by building muscle).

Then looking at the week I consumed more points (still within my allowance) and did the least exercise (4 hours compared to my highest of 5 hours 5 minutes) I lost the most weight.

As per previous blogs I had a 'bad' week last week, where I only managed 2.5 hours of exercise and didn't stick to my point plan for three of the seven days. I was absolutely dreading my weigh in. Feeling poorly did not help my mood either.

So what happened when I go on the scales? I put on. Not surprising after the food and alcohol I consumed and lack of exercise I completed. However I only put on 0.08 of a pound, my BMI only went up by 0.1 and the same for my body fat.

My original plan for this week was to get back on track and work hard again on my exercise. Now not feeling well has meant my exercise routine is not happening. I am pleased to say my diet has been good so far though.

However right now I feel a little lost. What sort of level of exercise should I be looking to achieve? When I consume food, should I make sure I stick to my points, but use my full allowance and not have lots of 'spare' points?

This is now Week Six, but where do I go from here? How do I keep a good health/fitness vs fun/social balance? How can I ensure I keep losing weight and reach my goals?

Right now the only thing for sure is that there's too many questions and not enough weight loss!

2 comments:

  1. If you exercise, you need to make up most of those calories by eating more. Otherwise your body goes into 'starvation mode' and starts building up more fat reserves. At least, that's how I understand it. Here's an article that explains it better than I can: http://mysymfitness.com/nutrition/avoid-starvation-mode-to-lose-weight/ (Ignore the ad copy at the end....looks like a LP to me!)

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  2. Thanks for the tip Shannon! I'll make sure I check that article out x

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