Tag Archives: water

Water Stability

Posted on by

image

So time for another blog post, and like normal it’s about my journey and stuff I’m figuring out by looking at the data I’m collecting and seeing if I can notice any trends.  The first chart is my weight tracking for the month of December, nice and steady loss that is right on track to lose 4 pounds in the month of December.  The red line is the trend line that keeps me sane, weights below that line is a good, on track, signal.  The steady drop in the blue line is projected weights, that I’ve added to help project my plan.

The interesting peak in the weigh loss measurements is the December 6th upward spike.  Remember back in November I had another spike and determined that I was dehydrated and drank lots of water to try and normalize it.  I figured the Dec 6th spike was similar and sought out a way to try and normalize my hydration.  I found an iPhone app called Water that will calculate how many ounces of water based on my weight an other environmental options and then keeps track of how many ounces I drink as I log each glass of water.

That seems wacky, obsessive compulsive, I know, but it was and is something I need to track.  Since then, I’ve drank at least 150 ounces of water a day, sometimes a bit more, but I’ve hit the goal each day. So what is the result?  Well one is the spikes have gotten less severe in my daily weight fluctuations, and other one is evident in this next chart.

image

What this chart shows is data from my daily weigh-ins.  My fancy-dancy scale uses a low-voltage charge in my bare heels to measure resistance, and coupled with the body weight measurement it calculates body fat percentage, water percentage, and bone mass.  What I find interesting in this chart is how the body fat and water percentages have normalize without being so spikey as to appear random.  My theory is that a steady hydration rate has normalized my “chemistry” to maintain near the same resistance to the scale over time. 

Some subjective comments on my journey to stay hydrated is that the first week or so I always felt thirsty, even as I drastically increased my fluid intake my thirst was always high.  Second my nasal cavities dried out something fierce, I still us a Bi-Pap to help my sleep apnea (something that I hope will go away as I continue to lose weight…) so I increased the vaporization to help moisturize my nasal passages, but during the day they would feel dry also, even while drinking more.

What I drank is worth recording, I drank mostly water, with usually a cup or two of coffee during work days.  My coffee intake actually went down, as I was concentrating on drinking water.  I don’t drink much soda, or even tea.

So that’s my post for this week.  I’d write more, but I’m going to go swimming in the water, and ride the water slides that I can now legally ride, because I’m now under 300 pounds.

A fountain of water… springing… down?

Posted on by

Alternate title: I didn’t realize I was thirsty…

Alternative Alternate title: Even when filled with living water, I still need to drink dihydrogen monoxide.

Although I’ve snarked before on the dangers of DHMO, the truth is two hydrogen atoms combined with one oxygen atom is the most important element to those that are living (plant AND animal).  [Sidebar: arsenic? really? ]  After my frustrations of the last week of Novemeber, I immediately enacted my plan of not over eating and drinking MOAR WATER!  The downside to this strategy, without being too detailed to my gentile readers, is that I am now taking lots of breaks during the day.

But that’s the only downside, everything else is upside. Well upside in the downwards direction. Gravity is confusing, when you’re losing weight.  But I digress.  A couple of pictures. help to tell the story of where I’m going with this:

image

That double upwards spike had me seriously stressing. Through all that time I was taking a good food log, and getting in exercise, the day before the first spike I had a 4 mile run (then ate pizza. *facepalm*)  In this time I’ve also added weight routines on off run days, which might be the culprit for some of the weight gain. The old adage muscle weighs more than fat, while technically incorrect, muscle is denser than fat and adding more muscle mass is better for my metabolism, but it’s impossible to put on 6 pounds of muscle (or fat) in a week.  The problem was/is water retention.  The cure, oddly, Drink MOAR water.

SpongeBob Narrator voice: THREE DAYS LATER:

image

Woo, thank you Sir Newton for inventing that gravity thing. Although gravity has nothing to do with the above chart, the increase in water intake (and, oddly, urine outtake) has reversed that scary trend in just four days.  People, if you’re breathing, drink water!  Especially when the heater starts working, and dries everything out… (Note: for further research weight loss bubbles as a result of colder temperatures?)

The other part of my last post, was the long dissertation on trend lines, and confusing math.  Let my break it down, The daily weigh-in numbers can act as either anchors or buoy to the trend line.  A weigh-in number below the current trend will drag it down, how much depends on how ‘heavy’ the weight (the more below the line, the “heavier” it is) and will pull the imagetrend line down. Similarly, a weigh-in number above the line acts as a buoy and lifts the trend up.  So in this chart, blue dots are the daily weigh-in numbers, and the red dots are the daily trend numbers.  Remember all that stressing about the fluctuating numbers on the scale each morning?  Well the trend numbers help with that. (I started using the trend after the scary spike!) If my numbers fluctuate a little up but stay below the trend, that’s good still on track.  If they spike above the trend line, then I’ll need to re-evaluate and make sure all the checklist (exercise, food log, water intake) items are in order.  A bit of freedom.

So, don’t freak out, I’m not stopping this journey train because of some wacky number.  I’m feeling too good about myself, and enjoying myself too much to get too grumpy. I’m just geeking out on the numbers, because that’s what I do. Also, I recognize looking at last post’s money chart, that I was due for a little plateau.  All signals are in the green, Houston.  Let’s light this candle.