Hristo's FI Journal

[Hristo Botev]

low level sports

How dare you!!!

[chenda]

How dare you!!!

[7Wannabe5]

OTOH, in my experience, the parents in attendance at National Geography Bee competitions are quite civilized and almost at a stunned level of quiet during the events, although maybe slightly engaged in trying to pretend like they actually knew the answer. However, the terrible, terrible, ballet moms are thin layer of saccharin frosting over deep layer of bitter; it's hard to imagine a worse fate than being the chubby 10 year old daughter of a small town ballet mom.

My daughter played soccer for a few years, but she kind of played soccer like it was a board game, so did not continue past age 8 or 9. I don't remember the other parents being particularly terrible at that level, but also highly likely I was spaced out during the game, because trying to watch sports or action movies makes me sleepy.

[ffj]

My son played baseball and my most memorable experience was watching one of his games when a commotion broke out behind me in the field behind us. A dude had ripped his shirt off and was screaming at the ump on the field. Turns out he was a coach, the cops were called, he was detained, and the game forfeited. All over a call the ump made on one of his 11 year old players.

The next best one which I unfortunately missed was when one of my son's coaches in high school got in a fight with a parent on the team. A real fight, brawling. All because the parent thought his son should have been in the game.

Parents suck at these games, trying to coach from the bench, trying to intimidate the umps, becoming hysterical at every call. I've watched several times parents getting ejected from the game because the ump had had enough. Throwing fits if their kids gets benched or reassigned positions on the field. My son also played basketball but it was worse in baseball because people could hear what you were saying and it got personal real quick.

[philipreal]

That's one of the nice things about cross country/track. Very little up to the interpretation of a ref or the decisions of a coach, very little to get mad at.

[jacob]

- 6,421 actual* total calorie deficit for the week

* Again, this is mostly just a semi-educated guess.

Still no significant movement on the scale; clothes fitting a bit looser and I'm certainly feeling a bit fitter.

If there's any truth to the 3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat thing, then I should have lost 7 pounds of fat over the past 3 weeks. Have I? I honestly don't know as my weight fluctuates so much it is hard to tell, plus the fact that I have been weight training consistently.

Most people undercount their calories. I forget how long you've been exercising already, but if you still get sore (DOMS), then the body can and maybe will add in a couple of pounds of extra water (swelling muscles, extra glycogen which binds water, increased blood volume, ... it all adds up) in short order. This is an issue as long as you work out hard. As you get fitter then this effect diminishes insofar you don't up the intensity.

Increasing muscle mass is a slightly slower process that also adds mass. Ditto decreasing fat mass. If you eat anything with a lot of carbs then expect temporary water retention while that is being digested. Also the amount of uh... literal shit ... in the system varies on the GI-tract turnover timescale scale. So,

delta Weight = delta muscle in body + delta fat in body + delta water from exercise intensity + delta water based on eating carbs + delta food currently being processed in the GI tract + calories in from eating - calories out from activities.

(Conflating or ignoring the effect of some or most of these terms are the source of a lot of anecdotal internet debate. The 3500kcal/lbs is the scaling factor on the last two terms.)

It is any and likely all of these factors. I'll note that with the kind of caloric deficit you're posting, you should feel like you're starving. If not, you're likely undercounting what you eat. However, seeing that clothes fit better, something is changing in the first two terms of that equation. I wouldn't get overly focused on the other ones. Keep doing what you're doing and the sum-total weight on the scale should start dropping eventually, maybe even suddenly, as terms stop cancelling each other out.

[7Wannabe5]

Due to being a white suburban girl in the 80s, I am pretty experienced at counting calories, and it has been my experience that my FitBit overestimates caloric expenditure. Old school Brooke Shields era notebook calculation would put your daily expenditure at approximately 12X200 (FITB your current weight)=2400 basal metabolism plus 9X100 for mile walked = 3300 average daily expenditure. The factor of 12 used to calculate basal metabolism can also vary a good deal. For example, as an old woman I am now down to slightly less than 10 whereas the 12 factor was accurate for me when I was younger, which is one way I know I should probably focus on strength training. As a middle-aged man with a mix of muscle and fat, the 12 factor is likely pretty accurate, but you can determine your own basal metabolic factor by holding everything else the same for a few weeks of measurement. You could also experiment with only eating pre-portioned prepared food with clearly calculated caloric content for a period of time.

Another method which is kind of amusing, sure to succeed, and does not require calculating caloric input/output is based on weighing yourself and your food. The most caloric-dense food you could possibly eat would be something like a lb. of butter, which has around 3300 kcals. So, you make a spreadsheet table with date in first column, formula for your projected preferred weight loss in second column (for example, subtract 1/4 lb. per day starting with current weight), third column you fill in with your actual weight each morning, fourth column is the difference between your projected weight and your actual weight and this will also be the total maximum weight of food you can eat that day. Since you won't have a calculation for weight of food on Day 1, you can just choose a reasonable arbitrary weight such as 2 lbs. If you choose to mostly eat calorie-dense foods as you proceed on this plan, you will lose weight more slowly than if you choose foods containing a good deal of fiber and/or water, but it will work whatever choices you make in terms of both food input and exercise, as long as you stick to the simple rules. Although, of course, if you set your weight loss rate preference too high, you will likely end up having to do a number of fasting days, whereas with a reasonable rate setting, it is likely that your weight loss will eventually exceed your projections to the extent that you won't want to eat the total weight of food allotted many days.

[delay]

delta Weight = delta muscle in body + delta fat in body + delta water from exercise intensity + delta water based on eating carbs + delta food currently being processed in the GI tract + calories in from eating - calories out from activities.

That's certainly what I used to think! A balance like that works for conserved entities, like water in a pipe system.

However, the body is a living organism. The gastrointestinal tract can absorb from the food what it wants and shit out the rest. It can also choose the speed at which it moves food, and that impacts how thoroughly a piece of food is processed. This is easy to reproduce by fasting a few days and seeing how the gut responds.

[Hristo Botev]

Most people undercount their calories.

No doubt I'm undercounting caloric intake (I HATE tracking calories) and probably also overcounting caloric expenditure. That said, another indicator of progress is that the bodyweight exercises I work into my strength training program as accessory type exercises--dips and pull-ups--are getting much easier to do than they had been in the past. As in, with dips, I probably need to start loading them with a weight belt because it's nothing for me to knock out 3 sets of 10+ reps, which was definitely not the case a month or so ago, even though dips have been part of my regular strength plan for awhile. With pull ups, I'm definitely not to a point where I need to start adding weight, but 3 sets of 10 is definitely visible on the horizon for me, whereas a few weeks ago I was struggling to get just 2 or 3 solid reps.

[Hristo Botev]

May 4 - May 10:

- 12,706 steps per day average
- 3,080 calories expended per day average
- 2,098 calories consumed per day average
- 982 average calorie deficit
- 6,876 actual* total calorie deficit for the week

* Again, this is mostly just a semi-educated guess.

The weight scale is mostly sitting a little under 185 when I weigh in the mornings, so that's progress from the mid/low-190s where I started.