Month: July 2005

In my previous post I showed you a 12-day weight track starting June 20th and ending July 2nd.

Here’s a 12-day track starting July 4th (click to enlarge).

Look at the two carefully. You’ll notice two differences:

First, if you observe the trendline, you’ll see that I lost more weight in this period. Previously I lost about 3.5 lbs, but this time I lost about 4.5 lbs. (And, as the next couple of days that aren’t on this track revealed, it was more like 5.5 lbs.)

Second, you’ll note that the daily ups and downs have levelled out dramatically. The line of weight readings (the dark one) approximates the trendline much more closely, without the dramatic departures shown on the previous weight track. Now the daily weigh-ins are all within about a pound of the trendline.

Why?

Both of these phenomena have the same cause: Fiber. In the July 2-4 period I ramped up the amount of fiber in my diet. There was already a good bit in it, but I got serious and ramped it up to the point that I am consuming something like 45-60 grams of powdered fiber a day, in addition to the fiber in my food (probably another 10-15 grams). Another change is that during this period I switched between pure psyllium husks and a mixed fiber supplement, which is better.

As I reported previously, fiber fills you up real good and decreases appetite. As a result, I ate less food in this period (without hunger) and lost more weight (an extra two pounds). Now I have the data to prove it, so I wanted to share it with you.

Unexpected was the fact that the ups and downs would even out the way they did. On this track I had to wait a lot less time before hitting a new weight low. Indeed, sometimes I hit a new weight low more than one day in a row before an upturn.

That’s motivation!

. . . And another reason to use high levels of fiber when dieting.

There is debate in dieting circles about how often you ought to weigh yourself. One popular theory holds that you should only do it once a week.

Why? Because there are a lot of ups and downs in your weight from day to day (and even within the day) depending on how much food and water you have in the system at the time. Since dieters who are successfully losing weight tend to lose only one or two pounds a week, these losses are likely to get, uh, lost amid all the daily fluctuations. Then the dieter will get discouraged, feel his is not losing an weight, and quit.

To solve this, the solution mentioned above wants the dieter to weigh himself as infrequently as possible so that there is more of a chance of him seeing an actual loss when he (finally) steps on the scale, motivating him to keep going.

Forget that!

I’m firmly on the side of the dieters who weigh themselves daily. Indeed, I weigh myself multiple times a day.

How do I overcome seeing all the ups and downs? I keep track of them. What I do is take my lowest weigh-in of the day (typically early in the morning, before I start eating and drinking) and log it in Microsoft Excel. I then use the charting feature to graph what my weight’s doing, as in the chart above, which shows a twelve-day track of my weight starting June 20th (click to enlarge).

As you can see, it has significant ups and downs. But the nice thing about tracking your progress in a charting-capable program is that you can hae it add a trendline that will filter out the ups and downs and give you a better sense of your progress.

As you can see from this chart, I lost about three and a half pounds over the twelve day span of the track.

There are still lots of ups and downs. Note that I had a major low on June 27, but I didn’t get back to that level again in the period. If I’d weighed myself on that day and then again seven days later (not shown on this chart), my weight would have actually registered an increase, but the increase would have been illustory because it was due to food and water in the system, not actual weight gain. I would have then felt unrewarded for my week of dieting and would have had to live under that cloud for another week until I could weigh myself again.

I’d find that discouraging!

And so, for me at least, it’s much better for my morale to indulge my tendency to microanalyze phenomena and weigh myself daily, using the marvels of modern technology to look past the ups and downs and give me a better representation of my progress.