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Eat More, Lose More Weight?
Related: bike fit, calorie deficit, Everest Challenge, hard core, hunger, training
I wrote a few days ago about failure to lose much weight with a big caloric deficit. Overefforting can produce the opposite result of what is intended, e.g., eating too little might paradoxically cause the body to go into starvation mode, conserving energy. Whereas eating the right amount (more) might cajole the body into losing more body fat more quickly!
And so as I ate more over the last week (red dots are 14 day average), my body weight (green triangles) is now trending lower (as of August 7). I have seen this effect before and that’s just the way it works for me.
August 7 is also one month after I committed to intensive training for the Everest Challenge. While the absolute number look modest, I look and feel much leaner than one month ago, and my fitness has made major gains.
One simple metric: lying flat on one’s back, does the stomach bulge up, lie flat or drop below or well below the rib cage? A month ago it was slightly raised, now it is an abrupt slope down from the rib cage. This perhaps is more telling than numbers, since the body can exchange muscle for fat and as well burn off the “bad fat” (aka visceral fat aka android fat) from the internal organs. My body seems to burn off the bad fat, then evenly spread out the remaining fat everywhere, so I tend to look leaner in body fat terms than anyone would estimate (based on experience).
Still, I am 7 pounds heavier than last year and I can feel carrying 7 more pounds up the hills—less fun, less quick, just feels slow. It feels like some of that weight might actually be more muscle tissue, but unless that muscle tissue has the endurance, then it has no real value to the Everest Challenge.
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