My Weight Loss Journey: 2 Week Progress Report

It's Been To Weeks: Progress Report

Well, it's been an interesting two weeks. I was really doing great. Low carbs, resistance training twice per week but then I got off track after Father's Day. 

I had lost 4 pounds in the first week which was mainly water weight due to eating fewer carbs. But I was still happy. Going back to April 9th, when I was 213, being at 201 was so great!

But lately, I keep going over on carbs and the water weight is coming back. However, I do feel like I look better. I see little areas that definitely look better. I can't really say what it is, but my clothes fit better. The other day I took my belt in a notch was really motivational, so even though the scaled has crept back up, my clothes are fitting different. Another way I can tell is that my gut is much smaller. I no longer have to suck in my gut to see the numbers on the scale. 

It's amazing what a difference just a few pounds can make. 

In addition, I found a mile road race in August that I have signed up for, so I now have another layer of motivation to get back in shape and lose weight. While not a hard and scientific number, it is a rule of thumb that for every pound a runner loses, they speed up 1-2 seconds per mile. So if I can drop 10lbs by August 22nd, I should be 10-20 seconds faster than I am now. On top of that, with working out and doing speed work, I should get faster as well. 

I did a time trial today and ran a 12:18 mile. 8 weeks from today is the mile race. My goal is to run it sub-10. My Oh Shiz Goal is to run it sub-8 but that is going to be REALLY tough. But then again, like I said, that's my "Holy Shiz" goal. 

I may not get there in 8 weeks, but I will get there.

 Video Walkthrough of My Macro Calculator

I wanted to show you how my spreadsheet works for calculating my macros. If you like this tool I made, let me know and I'll be happy to share it with you.

Unfortunately, there is a size limit to videos I can post, so I had to give up the sound to get it to fit.

Basically, I walk you through entering your information in the green fields. At times, you may need to enter a result from a yellow field but most of the time, the cell that needs it, will pick it up automatically. 

You'll enter your age, weight and goal weight. If you know your height in inches, great! If not, and you're bad at math, I have a mini-calculator you can use. The next thing to enter is your gender and then your activity level. 

Once these are entered, you'll see your BMR or Base Metabolic Rate and your TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure. If the "For Weight Loss" field is red, you are too low. Simply click in the formula bar and adjust the default -500 to something lower like -300 or -250 so that you get to where your "weight loss" calories are higher than your BMR figure. 

You'll see your macors below. Botht the calories from each macro as well as how many grams you can from each macro. 

The way I did this was simple. I took my goal body weight and multiplied it by 1 for protein. I then took 35% of my current body weight to calculate my fat needs. What remains is what I can allocate to Carbs.