Analyzing the 8 Weeks Prior to my Lowest Weight in a Year

I printed out some blank calendars from July - September, poured over all the foods I had logged, all the days I did cardio and how long, what training splits I was using and came to a conclusion about what were the most effective behaviors.

1. Logging all my food on FitDay.com helped me to see how many calories I took in as well as see that for the times that I logged the most consistently were the times I was focusing more heavily on my goals

2. An average of 1300-1400 calories per week seemed to be the most common of the "lower" calorie days, so if I aim for that range every day, I should be in a better position

3. No matter what the training split, I increased my cardio in the two weeks prior to weighing my lowest last year, typically doing about 30 mins every day (mostly after the weight training and around 6:30-7:00pm)

4. Overall, my protein intake was 100-150grams  on average in the 4 weeks prior to my lowest weights and for most of August I was doing 2-Day splits working Upper and Lower body, switching to 3 day splits in the two weeks prior to my lowest weight

Insulin Resistant? Perhaps

On the heels of my excited post about how I can eat 1900 calories, 50% of which can be carbs, and how I have been having low energy and heart palpitations and can't seem to motivate myself to get into the gym like I was motivated over the summer and fall, I ran into this article which reminded me of information I had already been exposed to before:

http://www.rheumatic.org/insulin.htm

I am going to adjust my food targets (not like I've actually been logging anything or sticking to any of it lately with all my carb enjoyment) to the following for weight loss:

1400-1600 cals per day

carbs (ideally 40%): 140g (560 cals) - 160g (640cals)
protein (40% - 45%) : 155g per day (620 cals)
fat (16% - 20%): 24g per day (220 cals) - 37g (340cals)

At this point, I am going to start reducing my carbohydrates, allowing for my morning All-Bran which has a low-glycemic index anyhow (doesn't spike the insulin so much) and my sweet potatoes every other day.

Average Workout, New Calorie Budget & Goal Date

I just revisited an old post where I dissected BMR, foods I need to eat etc. and then took a look at what I feel I can realistically contain my eating habits to and what I'm doing to burn calories each week.

I log every single workout in a little tiny spiralbound notebook. I also use the Technogym USB key to log my workouts while at the gym and receive feedback on how many calories I burned. Based on what I recorded for the last 14 gym workouts (not including the mornings I did Turbo Jam or the volleyball games I play recreationally once a week), my average workout burns 460 calories combining weight training and treadmill cardio.

Since it takes burning off 3500 calories to take off a pound, by my average workout, it would take me 4.37 days to burn off 1 pound through exercise alone. However, since my body would be maintained if I ate 2147 cals a day, if I want to eat 1350 cals a day, I save 797 cals/day just through diet.

Daily (and hopefully this makes sense because math was never my forte):

Diet (797) + Average Work (460) = 1257 saved per day.
3500 calories / 1257 calories saved = 2.78 days to lose 1 lb.

20lbs x 2.78 days = 56 days to lose this weight


New goal date: April 28th (because I like milestone dates)