The first week of my 16-week challenge to drop from ~20% to 10% body fat hasn’t gone as planned. I failed most days to do what I set out to do. Namely:

• On both designated lean days, I consumed additional calories.
• Of the five maintenance days, I snacked and went over maintenance in four.

These failures, however, are also tempered by some progress. And, perhaps more importantly, because I’m sharing them in my blog, I cannot reset the counter and start a 15-week challenge this week, as I’ve done so many times in the past two years.

Aiming for perfection, particularly when it comes to snacking, seems to be a lost cause; I can only aim for progress.

Here’s the hard data:

• Monday: lean day. I “cheated” with around 100 calories.
• Tuesday: maintenance day. I had two snacks, totalling 800 calories.
• Wednesday: maintenance day (I switched the lean day with Thursday because of a holiday). I had one snack, totalling 500 calories.
• Thursday: lean day. I “cheated” with around 400 calories.
• Friday: maintenance day. I had one snack, totalling 500 calories.
• Saturday: maintenance day. Didn’t snack, but easily overate by 1000 calories.
• Sunday: maintenance day. I managed to stick to it!

Assuming that I stuck to maintenance five days of the week during the meals (which is a good assumption), the extra calories amount to 6 snacks and about 3300 calories. The caloric deficit created by the two lean days was 4000 calories. Measured like that, progress was very small this week.

The output numbers look better: from 77.4kg at the beginning of last week, I went to 76.8kg. Waist remained at 94cm. The weekly average was better, 76.2kg and 92.5cm, vs 76.7kg and 93.7cm for last week.

What will I do from now on? Overall, I will focus on each week as a learning experiment in public about what works and what doesn’t. I know that an all-out effort focusing on weight loss will eventually stall, as well as setting a low priority for this goal that has already been going on for 2+ years. So I will dedicate a moderate and consistent amount of energy to this goal for the next 15 weeks.

Some more notes on what worked and what I want to change:

• The 5:2 pattern is great; two days a week to lean up is enough to make a difference but not enough to be consumed by it.
• I have decided to meditate for two to five minutes when I experience an urge to snack. My previous go-tos (motivational reading, distraction, resting, eating a mint) have been very ineffective. Meditation is something that I want more of in my life, so perhaps using it to help me through the hard bits can also have beneficial aspects in other areas of my life.
• I have decided to turn the lean days into full fasts, where I will only have water (sprinkled with lemon and salt) and coffee. I want to see if it will be easier to not eat at all rather than just have protein shakes – overall, the cognitive burden of eating just a little bit seems to be a huge obstacle, so perhaps outright fasting can skirt it. As with meditation, I am also interested in the benefits of fasting, long-term, and would like to incorporate that into my life.
• I will keep on practicing the art of maintenance, keeping it together during the week, then loosening it up somewhat (but not completely) in the weekend.

Will report again next week!