Charting Plateaus

Roman Encampments on field and plateau at Masada near the Dead Sea in Israel

A few weeks ago I touched on the topic of plateaus in my weight loss goals. Anyone who has attempted to loose or gain weight eventually encounters a period of time where every effort seems to make no difference in breaking through a plateau of a particular weight. I am currently experiencing a four week plateau that bounces around 184 lbs.

I know fully the reason I reside here at 184 lbs - I have reduced my calories enough of late to loose weight. Very simple. From the hacker's diet I know we are basically chemical energy extraction and storage machines and my consumed calories about equals the burned calories with the result that I plateau. Interestingly, the Hacker's Diet spreadsheet chart tracking weight points and weighted moving average clearly shows the plateau forming and thus the topic of this blog.

Note that starting around March 27th, the blue dots representing daily weight start to appear above the red line of the weighted moving average. Visually, this indicates that I am no longer pulling my weight down and if the points continue to appear above the red moving average line, my weight will start going up. Even without counting calories, I can see that the line is going in the wrong direction and I need to eat less to cause the line to resume its downward trend.

I have already started this week to reduce calorie consumption, but after several weeks of specifically measuring daily calories, I have decided I have a good feel for what constitutes the correct consumption amount and I will try for the next few weeks to track only the weight (as suggested in the Hacker's Diet) and observe but not measure calorie consumption. I'm calling this an experiment within an experiment. Can I loose or maintain weight simply by mindfully observing what I eat, but without specifically measuring every calorie? The weight tracking, however, is the feedback mechanism with which I can determine if I am indeed appropriately controlling consumption.