Humans are funny.
The day I joined Tidewater Bariatrics, I sat down and figured out just how fast I could lose my excess weight. I figured I had 150 pounds to lose and made calculations for varying levels of weekly weight loss. They said the average per-week loss for a woman was two to four pounds; I figured if I could lose 3.5 pounds per week, I'd meet my goal weight of 150 by 21 April 2011 (42 weeks).
That wasn't fast enough for my liking and, as I sipped on a final glass of Outback Steakhouse Mango Tea, decided to look at a likely-unattainable goal of six pounds per week. That was better and would have me at my goal weight by 23 December 2010. I'd seen people on the Biggest Loser get rid of double digits in one week because of high levels of physical activity. I'd just have to work out more.
The first four weeks proved to match and exceed my hoped-for dream of six pounds per week. Then reality began to hit. Week Five was four pounds, Week Six was five, and Week Seven was a devastating two-pound loss. (NOTE: Two pounds is a wonderful loss... it was just devastating to my six-pound-per-week plan) It was during this seventh week that I achieved an all-time low with eating coupled with an all-time high for exercise - 7,066 calories in (which created an 18,480-calorie BMR deficit, plus 15,090 calories burned working out.
Based on pure mathematical calculations, I should have lost 7.5 pounds that week... but I didn't; I lost two.
Through the Biggest Loser and countless other articles and books I'd read on dieting, I remembered a situation dieters frequently get themselves into. Something called "starvation mode." I also knew every time a contestant on the Biggest Loser would absolutely kill themselves during the week and come up short on the scale, they were counseled to eat more food! When they did, the scale would drop massively the next week.
In my head, this would never happen to me. I wasn't eating too little... at fewer than 1000 calories per day, I wasn't hungry - ever. I wasn't over training... I was paying attention to what my body was saying. Everything was proceeding according to plan and following the mathematical calculations I'd worked out.
Then I noticed something else... I didn't want to eat anymore; nothing. I literally had to force myself to eat whatever was left of my daily minimum food prescription at the end of the day. At the end of Week Seven, I was exhausted and tired all the time. I would take a three-hour nap with the boys and still not have enough energy to get through the day - I wasn't interested in doing anything nor did I want to do anything. My workouts suffered as well; I just didn't have the desire or energy to put in a lot of effort.
Looking for answers, I started researching what happens to your body when you burn WAY more than you take in.
[Note on 8/30/11: Just realized this post had never been activated. It is not complete, but I have published that part which was finished... my apologies for the lack of an ending]
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