As part of reaching my previously posted 808 Day Experiment II, I subscribed to a year length membership with Cronometer. I used it as a nutritional data resource in the prior 808 days, though mainly in a free, overall schema approach, not so much in a daily tracking capacity. Today, I use it daily NOT to track calories—I removed any direct references to calories—for all I'm interested in is hitting my predefined macros and nutritional requirements (mostly).

As I track things, I'm curious to see if my weightloss is comparable to my calorie-restricted diet. Since I now eat over double of the calories of past efforts, if I hold a conventional calories-in / calories-out dogma, I would expect to lose only half of pounds as I have in past Expeditions (after water loss considerations). In that context, it would be logically to have lost 18 pounds, since past losses were 40-43 lbs after each reboot. HOWEVER, what would it mean if The 13th Expedition's weightloss IS comparable to past efforts, that at 2300-3000 calories a day, there's not a statistically significant difference despite the substantially different approaches? Furthermore, does this new approach lend itself to sustainable weightloss, i.e. mitigates the threat of failure?

Not that my diet in recent years was low fat—it had a "low carb" focus with 30 net carbs total (whatever that means with soluble fiber), but, nevertheless had about 25% of the calories coming from carbs. Perhaps, the bigger indictment against it was my ignoring my body's dashboard lights about hunger and the temperature gauge of a plummeting body heat. My low calorie diet was just far too rigid, too, and by definition, it could not respond to changing condition. Once I hit my daily req's, I just had to grind it out. Whereas today, when there are days when I work harder—like today's lawn mowing, I fully expect that I'll wind up eating more. I fully respect my body's calling up more calories, "You need 'em, BOOM, here they are!" Nothing quite punches the hunger button like a butter pat as the creama in a coffee that's also kissed by a tablespoon of coconut oil.

But again, what does it say if my losses are basically the same as my past diet, but with more than double the overall calories, yet more than 50% less of calories from carbs? (I only grant the loosely tallied calories as a indicator of positive correlation, but it's the easiest way to explain things.)

Especially in a low calorie context, a diet's failure can be attributed to taking a turnoff from the drive "on a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair" down a slippery slope into an oasis to binge for months in Taco Town.

Climb aboard this 70/25/5 diet that sails on into the night...