Progress Report:

Ok, here we are at one month.  Like a kid in the candy store I am eager to see how we have done.   Week 4 has been my best week so far.   I did not take a single day off.   Drum roll please…

Exercise:

Figure 1:  Runtastic Distance and Steps: This chart was created by Runtastic with steps from my FitBit.

During the fourth week, I had my best week of exercise so far.  I walked a total of 42.7 miles and averaged 6.18 miles per day.   I did not take a single day off.  I did add in 3 sets of push up and setups every other day with 20-30 of each per set.  This addition of some strength exercises should add some to my weight maintenance because the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn.  

Figure 2:  Runtatsic Distance with Steps for the Month: This image is data from Runtastic with steps from the FitBit Surge.

 This is a new image.  This is the 28 day average for the month.  I walked almost 140 miles during the last 28 days and average 5.09 miles per day.  I burned 13,225 calories which is almost 4 pounds just with exercise. I also walked almost 300,000 steps.  The point of this image is to show what it takes to lose weight successfully.  It is not just dieting.  

Figure 3: Runtastic Graph for Week: Above is another depiction of the exercise from the Runtastic Dashboard.  I use an iPhone for GPS to get the distance.  

I burned 4,308 calories this week.  That is over one pound lost for the week just through exercise.  My calculations and the Fitbit agree with this measurement.  

Figure 4: Fitbit Steps for Week: Above is a depiction of the steps from the Fitbit dashboard.  I use a Fitbit Surge to measure my steps.  

My best day for exercise was Sunday.  I did over 16,000 step!  With my sedentary job, 86,000 steps for a week is a huge accomplishment.  

Figure 5: FitBit Steps for the Month: This graph shows my steps per day for the entire month.  

I did miss my goal of 10,000 steps 5 days for the month.  Most of these were days off.  That is really not bad for a month.  Why 10,000 steps?  That is really just a notional goal.  I do not believe there is any research to back that goal up but more to come in another article.  

Figure 6:  FitBit Activity Minutes for Month: This graph shows the activity minutes for the month.

This graph shows that I met the activity goal of 30 minute per day for all but one day.  This is a better measure of my exercise program because it counts forms of exercise other than steps.  

Weight:

Figure 5: Fitbit Dashboard Weight For Week: This a graphical representation of weight progression over the past 7 days.

So how much weight have I lost?  I have lost a total of 11.4 pounds in 4 weeks and 2.9 pounds this week.  That is an average of 2.85 pounds per week.  The weight loss is gradual so you can see I am doing it by combining exercise and calorie restrictions.  The interesting thing is that over 1/3 of the weight loss is from my daily exercise.  This is pretty impressive.  

Figure 6: Lose It Weight One Week Graph: It is a measure with an additional day. It gives you an idea of the features on Loseit.com. I prefer the nutrition features in Loseit over the FitBit dashboard.

Figure 7: Fitbit Weight for Month: This a graphical representation of the weight progression over the past 28 days.

One point I want to make from the above graph is you can see the small blips or upticks in my weight during the month.  As I pointed out once in the past four weeks is that this represents water weight with dietary change.  For me this was salt intake while dining out at a required function for work.  The point of this discussion is to not get discouraged and get back on the horse the next day.  If a momentary lapse turns into a week, you will have a bigger deficit to fix.  

Nutrition: 

So how did I complete week three successfully?  I continued to take in 30-45 grams of fiber and averaged 100-128 ounces of water per day.  I maintained about 1400-1800 calorie per day.  I reduce my candy intake this week but I could use more protein.  

Figure 8: Lose-it Calorie Intake: A graphical representation of the calorie intake for the last 7-14 days.  I averaged about 1300-1800 calories which is a deficit on the average of 900 calories a day or 6,300 calories a week.  That is just under 2 pounds of weight loss from my diet.    

Figure 9: Lose-it Calorie Intake by Meal: This graph is a graph that show the percentage calorie intake by meal.  

The one glitch I can see in my diet is that too many of my calories are in snacks and too few are in my lunch meal.  I would decrease the snack and dinner and add more to breakfast and lunch if I were making a suggestion to others.  

Figure 10:  Lose-it Fiber Intake: This graph shows the fiber intake for the last 7 days.  

My fiber consumption was 30-45 grams per day this week. I can tell a difference if I have less fiber. I am considerably more hungry.  I did miss having a dairy one day with breakfast and that also resulted in a higher level of hunger.