My 1st Quebec Experiment was a semi-failure. I decided to do it without much thinking, without any preparation and was in conflict with the family summer vacations… In other words, it wasn’t planned nor properly executed.
But overall, I liked the idea and now I’m ready to start another one. The subject or challenge is again related to body weight and it is:
To be at 15% body fat in 3 months.
Looking at my latest BKI, this goal means loosing 7% (rounded) of fat. On the personal scale, it means loosing 13 lbs (again, rounded) of fat. On a weekly basis, I have to loose just a little more than 1 lb (1.08) of fat per week. Not bad. At the end of this experiment, my body weight should be 146 lbs (given that my lean mass will stay constant).
How I will realize this?
This time, I’m not planning on using any specific diet (the last one was using a low-carb diet). I will just control portions:
Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.
I will reduce portions enough to get a calorie deficit around 500-1000 per day. If I achieve this, I will loose 1-2 lbs of fat per week (1 lb of fat is 3500 cal).
How I will make sure I reach the targeted number of calories? It’s all empiric. The thing is, I don’t count calories. It takes too much of my time. But, it’s easy to determine I eat less. Smaller portions is obvious. Skipping a snack or 2 and staying away from “empty”, high calorie food, such as most deserts is even more obvious. In the end, the scale will tell me if I’m on or off track.
Cutting 1000 calories per day is easier said than done. In order to put all chances on my side, I will also make sure I burn around 1000-2000 calories per week with my training. This accounts for roughly 1/2 lb of fat per week.
Reaching the target calories burned during training is simple to determine… For me, at least! I use my Polar HRM in every training session and the watch monitors my calorie expenditure. Of course, the watch uses some formulas to calculated calories. So it can be wrong to some extend. But if the watch tells me I’m burning 1750 calories per week (which is exactly 1/2 a lb of fat), I’m certainly moving around a little!
Until next post, Lift Consciously 