Musing 5 - Weight Loss Rates

Everyone told me when I started that I would drop a lot of weight at first and then it would taper off.  Although in the last couple weeks, I do not feel like it is melting away, I have continued to see sustained net weight loss.

Here is the graph of my weight loss to give a visual:

As you can see, the rate of loss has stayed pretty consistent over the last 100 days at an average .5 lb per day.  This really surprised me when I plotted it out because I really thought I would see something that looked a little more logarithmic.

So...  What does this tell us?

1. At .5 lb rate of loss per day, I probably have a net caloric deficit of roughly 3500/2 = 1750 calories.  If you adjust for muscle gain, I bet my net caloric deficit is more like 1900 calories per day.  I take in about 1400 calories per day, so that probably means my daily expenditure with workouts is 1900 + 1400 = 3300.  That is right in line with the beachbody caloric needs calculator.  It says 3320. 
   
2. I can only assume that if I stay at 1400 calories per day, I will continue to see a similar rate of loss until I get down to a really low BF% (probably 5-7%).
   
3. I assume a P90X workout is between 600-1000 calories.  So if I want to maintain weight on workout days, I can consume 3300 calories.  On rest days, I can maintain at 2300-2500 calories.   That just seems like a lot of food.
   
4. Since I have not seen a flattening in the curve yet, I am assuming there is still quite a bit of fat to burn off.  It will be hard to tell how far the floor is until this chart starts to flatten out.  I am still guessing that I can get into the 190#s during this next P90X round.

This really validates for me that weight loss is predictable, controllable, and measurable.  Weight loss is science, not magic.

Also, it confirms that the 3500 cal/lb deficit math certainly works for my body.

It will be interesting to chart this with Sheri over her journey.  She is running at a similar deficit right now, so I would expect to see her loose at a similar rate unless the math works different for women.