So over my time in Dominica, I gained a bit of med school weight. Probably around 15 pounds or so over 1.5 years of stress, stress-eating, and sedentary studying. Since my return, I got a gym membership and did some exercise off and on, but I wanted to set up a routine that didn't involve having to wait 20 minutes for some guy to finish huffing and puffing on a 15 pound bench press. The treadmills are typically free, so that's what I'm hoping to use.
I wanted to try and move myself from the 'Overweight' category on the BMI scale into the normal range. And yes, I know that BMI isn't that useful, but it gives me something to aim for. Calculated that to burn off one kg of body fat (~7700 calories), I'd need to run about 500 calories per day for about half a month. From past experience, I know that 500 cals per day is doable, and doesn't take up much time and isn't too tough on my knee. Then I came across a study suggesting that most treadmills actually overestimate the calories burned by ~20%. So, what displays at 500 on a treadmill will be closer to 420-ish. 7700/400=19.2 days. That pushes my goal to about 20 days unbroken, or more realistically, 1 month overall.
Except that after I weighed myself today, I found that my weight has dropped nearly 4 pounds since school ended. What gives?
The only thing I can think of is that I've stopped eating out with friends for lunch, and have mostly been sticking to veggies with occasional salmon. I've also been trying to further reduce my living expenses since moving to the new apartment (side note: Publix is overpriced) so I have been trying to eat less food.
If all goes well...I'll still technically be overweight, but hopefully my pants won't feel as tight :P
Also, I can't remember why I thought this was important and needed to be typed up. If you made it this far, congratulations, you have nothing better to do than read me rambling.
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