Originally Posted by
annerj
+1
What I got out of the article when I glanced at it was that the 3500 calories = a pound, calorie in/calorie out, etc just don't work the same on everyone.
I recently had a great example anecdotally. Four of us went to Europe for a 2 week vacation. We ate all meals together (basically the same foods), did all activities together (biking, hiking, lots of walking) etc. Of the two guys (within a year of age, within an inch of height, nearly same build, etc) one of us (the other guy) dropped 8 pounds and I gained 2. There was NOT a 35,000 calorie difference in or out between the two of us.
So true... I came back from a very light eating, heavy activity vacation several pounds up and almost freaked out. It took two weeks to level out appropriately. I've started wearing a monitor (Fitbit) 24/7 to track the in/out and I'm logging pretty much everything (all nutritional, water intake, type of activity, sleep, mood, BP, energy level, allergies).
In analyzing my first 60 days of downloaded data, I'm finding that my overall loss seems to tie more to my sleep quality, mood, BP than it does to calories in/out. Sodium intake vs. water intake also seems to have a short-term effect. And my calories burned seem to be higher when my mood is better regardless of my activity level.
My conclusion - being happy and getting enough sleep influences everything more than I realized!