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Base Weight

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    • Base Weight

      So I am planning a quick overnight hike (about 25 miles) next weekend on the NCT through the Manistee National Forest (weather permitting). The weight of my pack (not including food/water/fuel) should be about 14 lbs. But since I've lost 18 lbs in the last 18 weeks, can I say my base weigh is negative four pounds???
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      1. Eat thee sensible meals every day. Breakfast is usually whole milk plain yoghurt (NOT Greek), with pomegranates and muesli. Sometimes eggs and sausage. Otherwise no specific diet. Keep sample size small.
      2. Eat nothing else. No snacking. Ok, an ocassional "dessert" is not counted as a snack.
      3. Walk on the treadmill for 30 min every night after supper. I started at 3.7 MPH and 1.75 miles. Now I'm up to 4.0 MPH and 2 miles.
      4. Weigh yourself every morning when you first get up to get consistent data to assess your progress. Plot on a Spreadsheet graph that has a target line marking one lb per week. If your data is below that line, you are on target. If not, see step 2.
    • My weight crept up a little this summer, 5-6 lbs. I was keeping track but didn’t get concerned until it was staying at the high end of acceptable.

      So, I’ve been watching my diet, sporadically keeping track of calories, decreased alcohol, and I’m down 3 lbs.

      It doesn’t sound like much, but it freaked me out, thinking all the hard work that I’ve done over the years was being undone!
      Lost in the right direction.
    • LIhikers wrote:

      Here's a question for the Base Weight thread.
      What items constitute base weight ?
      I have no idea what my base weight is when backpacking.
      I have always thought it was your pack and everything in it except consumables (food and water) since they vary.
      I guess fuel really is another consumable, but since I use a canister there is less variance so I go ahead and include it.
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Funny thing about weight loss... I stayed on the same number for 5 days(?) despite eating healthy and keeping my calorie count low(ish). Yesterday was so stressful that I didn’t care what I ate, had chicken nuggets, half a sandwich, and a small bag of potato chips for lunch. Then for dinner, ate a double bacon cheeseburger and cheese curds from Culver’s. This morning, I weighed less, :huh:
      Lost in the right direction.
    • Traffic Jam wrote:

      Funny thing about weight loss... I stayed on the same number for 5 days(?) despite eating healthy and keeping my calorie count low(ish). Yesterday was so stressful that I didn’t care what I ate, had chicken nuggets, half a sandwich, and a small bag of potato chips for lunch. Then for dinner, ate a double bacon cheeseburger and cheese curds from Culver’s. This morning, I weighed less, :huh:
      Who knows, perhaps grease and dairy products might have had a short term impact. :/
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Astro wrote:

      Traffic Jam wrote:

      Funny thing about weight loss... I stayed on the same number for 5 days(?) despite eating healthy and keeping my calorie count low(ish). Yesterday was so stressful that I didn’t care what I ate, had chicken nuggets, half a sandwich, and a small bag of potato chips for lunch. Then for dinner, ate a double bacon cheeseburger and cheese curds from Culver’s. This morning, I weighed less, :huh:
      Who knows, perhaps grease and dairy products might have had a short term impact. :/
      I weighed before my “morning constitutional” and expected to weigh more from fluid retention from the salty food.

      I have experienced the same thing in the past. When I plateaued, increasing my calories for a day or two got me over the hump. Metabolism is a weird thing, especially for women. I believe our bodies are made to hold onto weight in low-calorie/famine situations. Eating fewer calories can result in burning fewer calories and burning them more slowly...but increase calories for a short period and you jump start the matsbolism. At least, that’s my theory, for what it’s worth. ^^

      The challenge is not continuing the trend of eating double bacon cheeseburgers. Damn it!
      Lost in the right direction.
    • A very interesting thing, (at least it is to me)...yesterday, I asked a lactation consultant what are the minimum amount of calories required for breast-feeding moms. The answer is that there isn’t a minimum amount. Even in famine-stricken countries, mom’s continue to produce milk for their babies. Sort of illustrates why our bodies behave the way they do, I guess.
      Lost in the right direction.
    • Traffic Jam wrote:

      Funny thing about weight loss... I stayed on the same number for 5 days(?) despite eating healthy and keeping my calorie count low(ish). Yesterday was so stressful that I didn’t care what I ate, had chicken nuggets, half a sandwich, and a small bag of potato chips for lunch. Then for dinner, ate a double bacon cheeseburger and cheese curds from Culver’s. This morning, I weighed less, :huh:
      This is my weight loss program includes weighing yourself every morning (after I pee) and charting your progress. Since your weight can fluctuate a few pounds from day to day for apparently random reasons, you need to see long term progress to know if the weight loss is real. Or as we say in science, there is a low signal to noise ratio in the data. This is also why I think exercise is important. It's not the calories you burn while exercising. It's actually depressing to calculate how few calories you burn on your workout. It's the calories you burn when you are not working out. Since your metabolism slows when you are fasting, you need to exercise to get it back up again. I am also amazed at how much my modern lifestyle favors comfort and convenience and how that always equates to fewer calories burned. I don't know that I've ever seen this discussed but I wonder if weight gain in the US over the past 50 years has a lot to do with our obsession with comfort and convenience. Your body uses a lot of energy to heat and cool itself. Just putting yourself in a temperature controlled house should cut way back on your calories burned. I would guess that a lot of the calories burned when hiking are due to just being out of the environment 24/7. I wonder if that has ever been studied in a controlled scientific experiment.