Stick to the plan

Hello and welcome back to Tobias Talks

280.6, 280.6! 280.6!!! This weight has been showing on my scales every single day for the whole week.

This means that the way I’m eating and exercising right now is right on my maintenance calorie level, if you don't know what maintenance calories, we’ve made a helpful guide all about CICO and calorie expenditure and activity levels, so if you haven’t read that yet, please do, as it will clarify a lot of the things I will be discussing today, you can find it here.

So, as I was saying, I’ve weighed the same all week, which means I haven’t done enough to drop weight, I’ve lifted weights in the gym twice this week already (Monday, Tuesday) with a 15 mins warm up on the elliptical trainer so I’m happy with that effort. I’ve also managed to eat 3 square meals a day, with only minimal snacking so that’s a plus too. Unfortunately, that is the end of the positives for the week as the weight is still staying where it is.

I know that the issue has been discipline, I have not tracked everything I have eaten, it’s that simple, I have tracked approx 60% of what I’ve eaten and that just isn’t good enough. For the average person, tracking 80-90% of what you eat should be enough to see results. But this week I want to guarantee myself some results.

I’ve gone back to the drawing board, I have used a TDEE calculator to calculate that my maintenance calories are 3500 a day, assuming I exercise between 3-5 times a week. So to lose 2 lb's this week I need to reduce my intake to 2500 calories a day, every day.

My goal for this week is clear, I’m going to track and weigh every single thing that I eat this week and I can guarantee right now, if I can do this. I will see the results.

The biggest issues for me personally, will be weighing meals, even something simple like a sandwich means I will have to measure and weigh each ingredient, the easiest way to do this is to weigh as you go, put the plate and bread on a scale and zero it, put butter on bread and measure it, should be about 10g. Then you add the cheese and read the scales again, saying 120g, so you know it's 110g of cheese. You can keep repeating this process, adding pickle or whatever you choose, until the meal is made. Then add it all into MyFitnessPal. As always, you can follow my account here.

Wish me luck, it may be a boring week, but I will do this!

Your Friend, Tobias