[AnnetteW]

I'm putting this in it's own thread as I think it's really important and don't want it lost.

I think this calorie tracking device is the coolest invention in the world, and tracking the outcomes is starting to make so much sense to me.

You know how we diet, do what we're supposed to do, and then don't understand why we crash, or why we have extra energy, or this or that...well, I'm starting to see it just based on the numbers.

Okay, so yesterday was a good lo-cal day for me and a high burn day. I had a 1500 deficit. What I'm starting to see with my tracking is that if I have a high deficit for a day or a couple fairly high deficits for a few days, if I don't give myself enough food, I burn out (duh.)

In my 2nd week data, I can see three deficits in a row over 1000 calories (I'm considering that a moderate deficit, just for a word to use. Yes, it is high, and it's my goal, but it's not as high as 1500.) Right after that, I crashed. I seriously woke up one day, did a cardio workout (which felt great at the time, as I was on a caffeine high) but the rest of the day I didn't move.

It took 2 days to recover from that. I can see that in my step count, plus looking at my "calorie" grid online, I seriously was "straight line" all day.

So once again, I see that I had 3 pretty high deficit days in a row. That's now warning me...I'm going to eat more calories today, aiming for 4 full meals and high protein, so I don't crash tomorrow.

I hope this will work. If this does work, it will be a great way for me to track the days ahead of me, not only the ones behind me. Who knows, maybe I work on a 3 day cycle. There's so much I could learn from this.

Now I need to track "notes to myself" in my Excel file on how I feel physically.