trenman’s BodyBlog

I’m not a nutritionist or physiology expert but I do have a strong science back ground and I use my basic knowledge of these things to try to get a better understanding of my body as I try to impove my physical self. 
 So with that having been said I want to talk about some things I have noticed about my weight fluctuations over the last few months.  Actually it’s more of a life long thing but in the last six months I have been eating healthier and I have been able to get a better idea of what happens to my body when I eat certain foods.  When I’m talking about weight what I am referring to mostly is my body’s hydration level.  I think a lot of people only think of body composition in terms of fat and lean body mass and forget about water.  Which is a big reason why, I believe, so many people get discouraged when they try to loose weight and don’t see the numbers fall the way they would like them to.
 This was always my mindset when I didn’t really know that much about body composition.  I still don’t really but I have noticed a few things.  I recently completed a weight loss program that is comprised of 3 phases.
Phase 1:  Weight Loss.  This is the part where you calculate your BMR and design a balanced diet plan designed to put your metabolism in fat burning mode.  It is a balance of all of the food groups not a fad diet or starvation thing.
Phase 2: Stabilization.  After you loose all of the weight you set out to loose you slowly start to increase your servings of certain food groups to slowly slow down your metabolism.  That way you don’t wither away or shock it into storing fat, I’m not 100% sure if that is how that works but it sounded good.  So that is what I did.
  In my case I wanted to loose 20lbs so I dedicated myself to 10 weeks.  I wound up increasing my food intake because I was doing 4 to 5 days of cardio at 1.5 hours each session so I wound up loosing a lot more weight.  But the idea was 2lbs per week.  My numbers must have been off.
Phase 3: Maintenance.  The final stage and where I’m at now is maintenance.  I go in and talk to a nutritionist once a week and find out more about nutrition and how things affect my body.  As well as try to keep my weight where I want it.  I am interested in gaining weight but I’ve found that when I increase my eating I wind up feeling shitty and loose energy.  So for now I’m just trying to stay where I’m and keep my energy levels where they are so that I can keep exercising and pushing myself to set and reach new goals.
I told you all that so that I could say this.  I’ve been holding my weight steady around 175lbs for the last couple months now.  Some days I’m down to 173 and I’ve been up to 180.  The variable in all these fluctuations has been my diet.  I have bit of an affinity for junk food.  I don’t deny myself these little pleasures but I don’t worship them or go to junk food cabinet when I’m depressed or angry, although sometimes I want to.  No this was about 2 weeks of vacation and taking my kids out to dinner for father’s day, or they took me out.  Plus movies and popcorn.  Hey, what can I say, I work hard and I play hard.  Or as my nutritionist said when you go over your go over big, but you seem to bounce back well.
The bouncing back is what I’m getting at.  One of the big things that has changed over the last few years that has made more of a positive impact on my life then anything is the way I think about things.  When my weight goes up I don’t just assume that all is lost and that I am on this downward spiral back into obesity.  No, the first thing I look at is my diet.  I’ve realized that most of what I’m looking at when I look at the scale, in terms of change, is water not fat.  I weigh myself pretty often, not out of obsession but to better understand my body’s patterns.  I know that my digital scale that calculates my BF that my weight is lower and my BF is higher in the morning.  And throughout the day the weight goes up and the BF goes down.  Hydration is the variable here not fat.  I do this so that I know what to expect when I step on the scale after a day of eating heavy or not eating.  It doesn’t happen to often but the truth is I do have a tendency to let the numbers bother me because of all of the hard work I put in.  So rather then beat myself up over it I try to understand it. 
Last Monday I weighed myself in the morning and my weight was 178lbs.  I have been very strict with my diet, supplements, and water and now I’m down to 173lbs, that was after about an hour of cardio so I know that I’m basically in the ball park of where I was before the eating spree.  I also know that the numbers were up due to water not fat.  I am pretty confident that my metabolism will recover but to be sure I will stay strict for at least a 3 more days, I know that eating healthy is a lifestyle not a fad but by saying that I will be strict for a few more days it gives me something to shoot for.  I really do enjoy the buffalo wings and pizza but I don’t overdo them I have 3 kids that always seem to bring these things home from the grandparents so the temptation is always there.  I try to take things one or 2 days at a time.  Setting small goals and working towards them is one of my little motivational tactics.
So from now on when you see your numbers go up on the scale ask yourself are you gaining fat or have you been eating things to make your body retain more water.  A lot of food we eat is packed with sodium which I am told will cause your body to retain water.  So don’t beat your self up or get discouraged from your weight loss goals.  Just take things one day at a time and get back on track.
Good luck to all on reaching your fitness goals!
“Life isn’t about haw hard you can hit.  It’s about how hard you can get hit and still get back up.”

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