Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

[burtonator]

OK. I started a thread about this two weeks ago about how I'm going to take a more scientific approach to recording my weight loss stats.

Of course with a sample/study size of one (me) it's hard to be very scientific but this will have to do for now

Here are my current stats

Weight Loss

I only lost .5 lbs in the last week. This is not as high as I would like.

I have my original weight... and I've been on Atkins for five(5) weeks now and lost .75 lbs per week on average.

This is probably a steady number as it's across 5 weeks.

I *want* to lose from 1-2 lbs per week. From everything I read this is a realistic goal.

I've decided that this mechanism for recording weight is far superior to the 'measure 1x per week' rule that ADDB recommends.

Weights are smoothed out over the last week. This means that you can get an accurate assessment for every day that you are on Atkins.

Over the long term it means that I'll be able to understand my weight loss on a per day/week basis and get a better feel for how fast and at what rate I'm losing.

One question.... do you guys have any more weight-in values you can share? The date you were at a given weight? If you just have them on a month basis that's fine.

I'm just trying to figure out what is the average per week weight loss that Atkins people are seeing.

I will publish the data (anonymously) when I'm done.

[Elizellen]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

I am not sure if this will prove anything as everyone's losses are going to be different, so I am not sure if you will be able to draw any conclusions from this, but here are some weight graphs and my fitday weight log from my first few years on Atkins.

I do not have records for the first 11 months or so as I recorded them on a website that has vanished and then started recording weights on fitday once a fortnight or more.

I did discover in 2008 that my scales were reading about 10 pounds below my doctor's scales, so I bought a new set and they read 10 pounds above my old ones, so my start weight and these charts are probably 10 pounds lower than the real start weight, but the trend would be the same.

The details do not show very clearly on 100% scale view but if you enlarge it to 200% you should be able to read the numbers.

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

Awesome. Thanks for these numbers.

Amazingly. You're tracking right where I am.... about .75 lbs per week in 2005.

These long term numbers are probably pretty stable.

Of course YMMV but seeing numbers from other Atkins members would allow one to gauge expected weight loss rate.

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

... and unfortunately if I have to lose 18 more lbs so that I can get down to 190 then it will take me 24 weeks or around 6 months to hit that goal.

I'm going to have to experiment with more exercise and see if I can't bump this up a bit more.

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

>> I *want* to lose from 1-2 lbs per week.>>

You can "want" all you want ... however, your body will lose at it's own rate.

We're not machines ... our bodies don't always do what we "want"!

>> I'm just trying to figure out what is the average per week weight loss that Atkins people are seeing.>>

To what end?

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

You won't lose every day, every week, or even every month!

According to my Fitday trend line, I "should have" lost all my weight a year before I did.

Good think I gave up thinking I could control the rate of loss ...

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

> You can "want" all you want ... however, your body will lose at it's own rate.

1-2 lbs is my goal. I'm going to work towards that goal.

If I can modify my diet or exercise more and bump up my per week weight loss and understanding these numbers helps then it's a clear win.

> To what end?

To understand the statistics as a aggregate.

If the mean per week weight loss of the average atkins user is much higher than mine then (with a low standard deviation) then I clearly have room for improvement.

I might be an outlier of course the simpler explanation is that I'm probably doing something wrong.

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

>> 1-2 lbs is my goal.>>

Why not more?

Point I'm trying to make is that having a "goal" is generally futile.

You're chasing a "goal" that you're not in control of.

If it makes you happy though... go for it!

Just don't forget that doing Atkins isn't a numbers game.

[JaxMama]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

For someone who is trying to stop being a scale slave, I went two weeks without a drop. i am interested in your approach though. Just don't let the scale get to you like it has me.

best wishes

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

> Why not more?

Because I've done the research and 1-2 lbs is a realistic goal.

Have you?

> Point I'm trying to make is that having a "goal" is generally futile.

Then why are you on Atkins? Just give up.

> You're chasing a "goal" that you're not in control of.

You're wrong. In this situation there are a number of variables that I have in my control.

> Just don't forget that doing Atkins isn't a numbers game.

Atkins is governed by the rules of science.

It's all about science, statistics, genetics, and mathematics.

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

> For someone who is trying to stop being a scale slave, I went two weeks without a drop. i am interested in your approach though. Just don't let the scale get to you like it has me.

Yeah. I totally agree. This is why when you weigh yourself day to day it can become annoying and it can seem like you're not making progress.

This is why I smoothed out the numbers across a week.

I'm very happy with the results.

[atkinsgal08]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

From you graph:

>>NO wheat quesadilla,>>

What were the ingredients?

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

.... btw. Thanks again for posting your numbers from fitday.

I managed to find my beginning weigh in number from November and used it to compute my weekly weight loss.

It was .75 lbs. Your numbers are also .75 pounds...

Very interesting!

[JaxMama]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

Burton, how much weight do you have to lose? I didn't see it under your name. Just wondering. I thought I was going to lose that much and be at my goal weight already. Didn't work. I am still 10 lbs away (from what I really want to me) although realistically I know I am just 5 lbs away. And in 2.5 weeks just lost 1 lb. Although I just posted last night I actually saw a change in my body for the first time since I started (33 days in). So for me I am loosing inches before weight (which everyone on here will preach). Although I am still a slave to the scale hoping to see that number catch up.

Best Wishes.

[burtonator]

Re: Thoughts after two weeks of rigorously recording my weight.

Hey... I have 30 lbs to lose. Lost ten so far.

I agree about the losing inches first.

I'm going to incorporate inch measurement into my metrics too so that I can overlap this with my weight measurement.

The only problem is that I'm very inaccurate at measuring myself on a day to day basis.

Even measuring myself two minutes later comes up with different values. I think that doing so on a week basis might yield better results.