menstruation and weight fluctuations

[dreev]

@bluetulip

A daily schedule that allows fasting and exercise first thing in the morning

I don’t agree with this part. (To be clear, I’m only talking about myself now.) If I have to wake up and leave the house like a normal person but am not on my weight road, it mainly means skipping breakfast and probably lunch as well. Though I can typically get away with a salad or something if social convention demands I eat something. And definitely I stay hydrated regardless. When I get home, if I’m not on my road yet, that’s when I may have to do stairs and pushups or something before I can eat dinner.

Also, if I know I’ll want to have a normal lunch the next day then I’m reasonably well induced to not stuff myself at dinner the night before in hopes of waking up already on my road for the day.

@bluetulip

No water weight fluctuations greater than healthy weight loss rates

Yeah, agreed. I’m lucky in this regard. I do know menstruators who are also lucky in this regard. I just don’t know how to characterize what’s typical. I think I’d amend my original conjecture to predict that the kind of fluid retention that would thwart this is if you steadily retained more and more fluid for multiple days in a row. (I also know unlucky menstruators for whom this is exactly the case.) If the increase is, rather, over a single 24-hour period then, according to my very much untested theory, even if the retention then persists for days you should be able to counteract it via normal intermittent fasting without doing anything unhealthy. Assuming intermittent fasting generally is healthy for you, another big assumption that I don’t have the expertise to back up at all.

@zedmango

A specific example of Goodhart’s law for a weight loss goal would be inducing vomiting

I’d say the fact that that never occurred to me proves my point about robustness to Goodhart’s Law! Like @adamwolf says, if such thoughts are even crossing your mind, derail the goal and reply to the legit check to say you need out for health reasons.

PS: Couple other relevant forum links:

Fast-5 Lifestyle and Beeminding Weight Loss

Continuing the discussion from Best Practice for recording weight when away from home?: I’m a big proponent of Fast-5 and very upset that I let myself get away from it for a while. I did Fast-5 religiously for about 3 years. Lost over 50 lbs in about 9 months (242 down to 186). That was nearly 2 lbs per week weight loss. I went from a 42 waist to being able to wear a 36. Over the next few months gradually gained back about 8 and stayed stable at 193-195 for nearly the next 2 years with si…

And this one, which I see I’m repeating myself from here:

Beeminding outcomes [weight]

Hey all. I’ve been experimenting with using Beeminder to lose weight (https://www.beeminder.com/sohum/weight) and had my first derailment in a while, which prompted me to write this up [image] We’ve all heard the issue with beeminding outcomes instead of actions. The problem I’ve had with any of the actions you could try to beemind related to weight loss is that either they’re a pain to track (calorie count) or gamable (bites). My psychology is such that if we’re keeping track …

And here’s me originally articulating a slightly more extreme version of all this 3 years ago:

Is daily weight under your direct control?

This just came up in a conversation with Braden Shepherdson (@shepheb) and before that in a discussion with @dkapadia and @nepomuk and @chelsea at the last Beeminder meetup. I’ve been nervous to say this too publicly but now that I’ve articulated it, and with enough caveats, it seems reasonable enough. I’ll lay it out and you all can tell me the ways I’m being stupid. Here I go. If you’re ok with Intermittent Fasting and if you can trust yourself to stick to common sense heuristics like “drink…

I also just resurrected that thread to comment on a point about heavy vs light food, which seems like one of the stupidest parts of my whole concept. In fact, now I’m reminded of this public Facebook post by Eliezer Yudkowsky: "Proves Too Much" is the... - Eliezer Yudkowsky

I guess I’m making the claim that the Conservation of Mass Diet works as long as you adhere to it only via healthy actions. Which, yeah, I can see why this all sounds ridiculous to people. And yet it works for me. But I’m also appreciating that most of the debate is probably avoidable. I’m basically beeminding fasting and exercise as measured by my scale weight. You might as well beemind fasting and exercise directly, and just adjust the slopes of your yellow brick roads to keep your weight trending in the right direction, without having to worry about monthly fluid retention and such.