Week 2 Weigh-In! | Day 15 of 90

The week 2 weigh in is here. And I am on my period. GREAT.

Weigh ins will happen every Friday and I will be comparing my Friday to Friday stats. Last week I did my Friday to Thursday stats but then today I realized that wasn’t truly a full week since I weigh myself in the mornings. Anyway, here are the updated results!

WEEK 2 WEIGH IN:

This week I lost 1.8 lbs and 0.3% body fat! YAY! PROGRESS!

If I am to hit my goal of 120 lbs and 20% athlete level body fat in the next 10 weeks, I need to lose about 1.05 lbs a week and 0.35% body fat per week.

Week 1, I definitely hit that in both categories. But week 2 I only hit it in the weight category, not body fat.

It seems strange to me, especially since I am doing cardio and weight lifting – which means I should be burning fat during my workouts and during rest. So could it have something to do with my period? Hmm.

I use a scale that utilizes BIA or bioelectrical impedance analysis for assessing my body composition. Maybe the extra blood and water retention somehow affects my body fat? I found a published article in the International Journal of Exercise Science literally on this topic: “The Effect of the Menstrual Cycle on Body Composition Determined by Contact-Electrode Bioelectrical Impedance Analyzers.”

The article says that “Manufacturers of BIA technology recommend to avoid testing women when they perceive to be retaining water during the menstrual cycle.” But…in the end, researchers found that “Regardless of the BIA analyzer used for the assessment, no significant differences in body composition measures were found between cycle phases.”

GREAT. So it’s not that…

Now, I need to figure out how I can begin to lose body fat at a faster rate while also retaining or gaining muscle mass. My workouts are balanced between cardio and weightlifting so I highly doubt it’s that. It’s not like I’m running half marathons everyday, so it’s gotta be the food, or when I am eating the food?

I’ve read a ton of articles defending both sides of the argument – “eating late makes you fat” vs “doesn’t matter when you eat.” But since I’ve been skipping breakfast and eating my dinners around 8pm or 9pm – maybe there’s something to the timing?

This Health article says that “your body is more prone to burn fat at certain times of day and store fat at other times.” Interesting. Supposedly the calories you eat during the day are used by your brain and your muscles. Excess calories get stored in your liver as glycogen. When you’re sleeping, your body converts the stored glycogen into glucose, and releases the glucose into your bloodstream to keep your blood sugar levels steady. Then once all the stored glycogen has been converted into glucose, the liver begins to burn fat for energy. The catch is that it takes a few hours to use up the day’s glycogen stores so that’s why late night eating doesn’t help if you also eat an early breakfast.

That’s the thing though. I don’t eat breakfast because I am still full from last night’s late dinner. So technically, shouldn’t my body be burning fat anyway, regardless of the time?

My dinner is around 8-9PM and I don’t eat lunch (my first meal) until 12 or 1PM the next day. So that’s a 15-16 hour fast. I mean – I’m not trying to do intermittent fasting, but I guess naturally I’m doing it because I’m just not hungry in the morning.

Hmmm…

Not sure exactly what to do here. I think I’ll continue to do what I am currently doing and check back again next week. But I’ll keep the whole eating late thing in mind…

Oh I also don’t take multivitamins or supplements (except for the collagen once in a while). Everything I consume is real food. I wonder if taking something extra would help? Will need to do some research. What do you guys think?

DAY 14 RECAP:

It’s the first time I have filled out the super unhappy face. Since getting my period 1 days ago, I’ve been getting these crazy headaches. And I’ve been feeling super sluggish. I took one rest day and then the next day I went back to working out. But I still feel not myself. It’s odd because periods never usually affect me, especially not when I am being super active like I’ve been lately. Perhaps it is something else. I don’t usually like taking medicine but just took an Advil. Need the headache to go away.

Breakfast was eggs with cheese, a sausage, and pico de gallo.

For lunch, one of my friends invited me and Sam over to try a restaurant he recently became involved in! The place is called “The Joint” – a seafood resaturant in Sherman Oaks, CA and OMG. IT WAS SO GOOD. We told our friend Benny that on a hungry scale of 1-10, we were only a 5. But ummm…we ended getting served on the 10!

See those scallops there? ONE OF THE BEST. I’ve only had scallops this good one other time in my life. At BOA in Beverly Hills. This one came with mushrooms on top and the scallops were seared to PERFECTION. AHHHH I need to go back and have more immediately.

These were the shrimp! Also very flavorful! I only had one because I ended up devouring the rest of the scallops.

Sashimi plate. But not your typical sashimi. These fishes have been “dry-aged” – which is a Joint specialty. What is that you ask? I didn’t know either. I thought they were going to serve us fish jerky that was going to taste super salty or something. But actually by dry-aging your meat (basically hanging your meat upside down in a controlled environment like a fridge) you remove the blood, moisture, and slime from the meat and you’re left with just the fat and the protein, so the meat ends up tasting way better. Apparently, the fish can be dry-aged up to 40 days!!! WITHOUT GOING BAD! That is insane. The chef told us that since he has perfected his dry aging process for fish, he runs a ZERO FOOD WASTE restaurant because he doesn’t have to throw out rotten fish. Whoa. That’s revolutionary.

Oh and taste wise, some of the best sashimi I have EVER had. SO buttery and so soft. Yea, that’s old fish I ate. And today I am fine. Weird huh!!!

Then we had dry aged cooked salmon. This was also very very good. But I liked the sashimi better!

For my veggie, I had green beans. These were excellent.

Sam and I ate so much that we could not even fathom having dinner. But then when 9:30PM rolled around we both were a little hungry.

I had cottage cheese with blueberries – first time I ever tried this creation. OMG you guys – this was actually SO GOOD! The blueberries exploded in my mouth like sugar bombs! SO YUMMY!

This is my week 2 reflection. I want to stretch more and basically try new food combos next week! Will go grocery shopping later this weekend and keep you posted!

Oh, also – ready to hear who the winners of the Fit Journals are!!??

Congrats to:

@lyricaldancer10

@janakolarxx

CASIDY_S from blogilates.com!

Yay! POPFLEX will be reaching out to you guys to get your addresses. If you want one, you can purchase one in my shop here!

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