If you’ve been following along with my tracking food journey, you know I’ve now completed 5 weeks of food tracking. I wanted to show you what happens when you track your food and find your calorie number.
To read how to find your calorie number, click HERE <=== (How Many Calories do You Need to Lose Weight?)
Just a quick recap from the last blog, I had an off week from days 21-28. My days were all over the place, my food was inconsistent, and the scale stayed the same.
But I was still happy with my progress because I looked leaner and stronger in all of my lifts, so I wasn’t upset.
Side note: Fat loss maintenance, meaning not gaining the weight back that you lost, is just as important as losing fat in the long run.
I gave myself some grace and just committed to start again on day 29.
What Happened This Week with Tracking Food?
I have been hovering at 200lbs very consistently, which is a 2lb drop from last week.
In the past 5 weeks, it was a 5lbs drop, and that is WITH an off week.
Not bad!
NOW, that may not sound overly impressive, but I want to stress something here…
I did not, nor do not live, a life of deprivation; I wasn’t starving during these past 5 weeks. I still would go out to eat every week; I would still have a few drinks when I was out with friends. I didn’t eat only chicken, brown rice, and broccoli (yuck, lol). I would eat a lot of good/healthy food, but that wasn’t what I ONLY ate.
Could I lose weight faster? Oh, most definitely! But my goal was to realign myself with a way of LIVING (not just dieting) that allowed my body to lose weight while still LIVING a life.
For me to do this, I just had to start food tracking, tracking my workouts, and commit to the numbers.
As you can see from my progress, it worked and is continuing to work.
Tracking Food While Taking Time Off
I’m actually going to take a week off from working out, but not from food tracking. I haven’t had anything longer than 3 days off in 6 months, so my body is due for an extended break.
What will my diet look like?
During this break, I’m going to back my cals down since I’m not working out to about 2000/day, give or take, which to make this easier for me is about one less meal a day.
I’m not concerned about weight loss during this week but about letting my body rest and letting all the minor aches and pains of 6 months of dedicated training heal up to get ready for the next phase in my training.
After this week, I’ll go back to my numbers of an average of 2600/cal a day + 75min of exercise 5xweek.
Tracking Food – Why am I Sharing This With You?
We have a process here at RTC for losing fat/weight; it’s about finding your numbers and sticking to those numbers until you get where you want to go.
I wanted to demonstrate what happens with food tracking to you with a real person, not just a theory.
With weight loss, this is part of what we do for our members at RTC. First, help them find THEIR numbers so they know exactly what they have to do each week to get where they are to where they want to go. From there, we teach them how to do it safely and effectively and hold them accountable to that new standard, soon to become their new normal.
Lastly, tracking is not something you have to do forever. Most of our most successful members-only track once, maybe twice a week, to make sure they are where they think they are; it’s more of accountability at that stage.
But this is something we have all of our members start with OR… build up to.
Give it a shot; it’s not near as bad or take as long as you think. 🙂
If you’re in the local area at want in-person help and accountability on getting to YOUR goals, click on the Get Started Button below and let’s chat.
In Health and Awesomeness,
Travis Merritt, BS, CPT, (and other letters behind the name) is the Owner of Rowlett Transformation Center in Rowlett, TX.
P.S. And if you’re looking for something more tailored to your goals, we’re here to help. You can take a look at our Personal Training Programs HERE or click the Get Started button below to book a free chat with our expert coaches!
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