Okay. Time to change things up. I've had a week with 4 of 7 days at maintenance level and only 1 day of cardio. No surprise, I basically maintained everything - maybe even gained a little. After the first 5 weeks, I modified my program to add more calories in because I appeared to be losing weight too quickly... and I have been moving forward at a snail's pace ever since.

One other change I made in that period was moving from the calorie counter on the elliptical equipment to the one on my Polar watch which seems to say I burn a lot more than I do.

The watch explanation
I think I finally understand what was going on with my watch and why the elliptical's calorie counter seems to be more on target. In truth, both are calculating incorrectly, the elliptical just errors in a way that is more accurate for my body composition.

Muscle burns more than fat, but the polar calculators don't take into account your composition when calculating burn. It asks for age, height and weight - that's it. So, even though someone who is 235 lbs and ripped will burn a LOT more than someone 235 @ 26% body fat like me, the polar doesn't know the difference.

The elliptical machine also accepts height and weight if you set up a training program, but I usually just hit "quick start" which uses default values. I am not sure, but I'm willing to bet that the default weight for the elliptical machine is probably around 165 lbs. It sounds odd to say, but a fat person at 235 just might burn about the same as a very fit person at 165... and that difference is why the calories burned on the elliptical machine are probably more accurate than the watch.

So, I could enter my lean body weight (180ish) into the watch to see how that affects the reading... it might be more accurate. I'm going to give that a try and see if it makes a difference.

New Plan
For the work I did today, I'm only counting 80% of the calories I see on my watch. That means that in order to burn 650 calories, I have to do 815 calories of work according to the watch. I'll try the new setting tomorrow and compare it to the elliptical defaults.

I don't want to change too many things all at once because I need to see how one change affects the whole. If I do the 80% trick, I will burn as much as 900 calories more per week with the same basic numbers on the chart. 1850 calories low days, 2500 high. Eat 2500 every day and burn 650 to get low.

If I'm still not burning the optimal 2 lbs per week, then I'll shift back to the plan that I used for the first 5 weeks which was 1750 low and 2500 high burning 750.

It's Not About Being Exact, It's About the Trend
I know I always sound number obsessed, but what I'm looking for is a counting system that produces the right trend. If I eat 1800 calories on a low day, it should produce less weight loss than eating 2500 calories and burning 700 even though the net is the same. That is the way the the body works, thanks to afterburn.

By having a set of rules and checks that behave in a predictable way, I can change the types of foods and exercises I use and still be reasonably assured that I will achieve the results that I expect!

Treadmill
Oh... before I go... Treadmill and running - whoof. That is just amazing. I can go all day on the elliptical, but 15 minutes on the treadmill at 5 mph and I had it. Wow. I have a lot of work to do. I'm actually a little concerned about runing at my current weight because of what it might do to my joints, but we'll see how it goes. I really want to hit the rowing machine, but I need my week 10 photo, first. I want to see the difference when I fill out!
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[11:11pm]
Lucky
I've found that I get really uncomfortable when I can't estimate the calories in a prepared meal. My wife brought home thai food tonight for dinner. I'm not a huge fan... prefer szechuan or japanese, but I like some thai dishes. Anyway, she brought me pad see-ew with chicken and a few rolls. I was starving and mowed down the whole box - even ate 8 oz of pineapple afterward. I got lucky and found a calorie estimate for the dish - and it was much better than I thought! Had I not eaten the pineapple, I would have been exactly at my calorie limit for the day... instead, I was about 90 calories over.

I'll take it!