Down .2

Same as yesterday, but discouraging. 

The difference is yesterday I came home from work and everything I put on made me look lumpy. I felt fat...after having felt better. 

I ate my 500 calories even though I wasn't hungry. I again came home from work with 1/2 my apple and my 1/2 cuke with my melba waiting in the cupboard. I didn't want it. I figured if I ate it at 4:30 though, I might want dinner in a couple of hours and could get it all in. I walked 2.5 miles (300 calories burned with a 6 incline according to my treadmill) and ate my dinner even though I WASN'T hungry...still.

The way I felt and looked to myself through my own eyes in the mirror had a significant affect on how I perceived that .2 drop.

I gave myself the 'rah rah' pep talk this morning that I gave myself before..."it has to be working because I'm not hungry and feel great and anyone on 500 calories has to lose weight quickly anyway; there will be a big drop soon." And I've seen it, so I do know it's true. 

But I had a client recently who is at about the same place I am in my journey. She was telling me that she'd gone to Weight Watchers in her most recent attempt to lose weight. She is Miss Any Client, as I've heard this story before. Indeed, I've lived it myself in other ways, with dietitians and doctors. 

So anyway, the familiar story is that she followed the program religiously. She was eating 1200-1600 and working out like a fiend. And at the end of the month had lost 3 lb. while most of the other people were reporting much bigger losses. The determination was that she must be doing something wrong. 

"You just need to exercise more and eat less." is what she was told.  

Been there. Done that. 

For those that read my history, you know there were 4-6 month stretches where I worked weights and cardio for a total of 3-4 hours a day at stretches, with 900-1200 calories. I was starving, grumpy...and still fat. Like this woman I'd lose perhaps 2-3 lb. in a MONTH of working my ass off and being miserable. No one can sustain that. And yet, people would tell me I just wasn't trying hard enough.

And I had questions then that I will have that I was reminded of as the situation was mirrored back to me. 

1. If anyone will lose weight by just cutting calories and moving more, disregarding the Hcg, how can I not be losing much more than .2 per day...essentially the 1-2 lb. per week...if I'm only eating 500 calories and burning 300-500 calories beyond the 1,900 FitDay.com tells me I burn just existing?  

2. That has prompted people to tell me "Maybe you are eating to FEW calories. Maybe your body thinks it's starving." Well, I've tried every calorie and exercise combo (and food combo...low fat, low carb, etc.) and got the same result, but my question with this is, if it is as simple as 'eat less, more more' why the hell should that matter? 

Now we have shows like the Biggest Loser where the people are starved and worked (what looks like) nearly to death. If the object is to burn more than you take in, why would your body stop losing if you ate too little, but not if you ramped up your exercise to the same threshold of more calories out than in? Why would my body think I'm starving if I eat 500 calories less than my body thinks I need, but NOT think I'm starving if I burn 500 calories than my body thinks I need? In addition, the more muscle you build, the more calories you require to exist. Muscle burns more calories than fat. So why wouldn't a program that builds muscle and restricts food make your body think you are starving? Why wouldn't you stop losing weight? I realize that some people actually would find themselves in this situation and would need to increase their calories, but the point of a reduction program is to reduce calories and increase exercise. 

A calorie is a calorie is a calories is not true. The simple 'calorie in, calorie out' equation is not true for everyone. I have met hundreds like myself in the last couple of years. Maybe we are broken. Maybe we were just built for survival. I don't know. But we exist and we have been ignored. 

I've also met plenty of people for whom this advice would be appropriate and they just want to eat what they want to eat and refuse to move. They frustrate the hell out of me. 

In any case, I'm not hungry and I feel good (albeit bored silly with my options), so I will still tell myself that at least I'm moving in the right direction. And I'll point out to myself what I tell clients...that I've lost just over 10 lb. in less than 3 weeks and in the past, that could have taken easily 3 MONTHS or more. So I'll stop bitchin'.