Outperforming the outperformance: Blowing the lid off the Doc's head

Intro

So I had my visit with team Quilici in some 90 days today. It was a lot of fun while it lasted. Now I know how it feels to be Julio Jones and blow up the combine. Unfortunately, reports of my god-like mastery are going to be greatly exaggerated as a result of a few clerical blunders. I intend to set the record straight in this blog entry.

The Official Story

So, after spending my customary 20 minutes in the waiting room, I was directed to room 1. This is where team Quilici weighs the patient, measures blood pressure, and takes your body temperature. My weight was 237.5 today. This was very close to the reading my Tanita at home gave me earlier in the morning.

The nurse practitioner who saw me immediately thereafter could not conceal how impressed she was. "It looks like you've bee loosing a lot of weight recently; 65 pounds in the last three months. You are making very rapid progress! Much faster than expected."

Of course, I rejoiced at the sound of those statements, but I wanted a bit of clarification. "What is considered normal progress? What would Dr. Quilici have projected in terms of weight loss? What did you estimate my weight would be?"

She answered, "40 to 50 pounds is considered great in 90 days. You are moving much faster than the rest of our patients. Your BMI is already down to 33. If you keep going at this rate you're going to be all done by your next visit in 90 days."

So, at first blush, it would seem that I blew the lid off their projections. 50 pounds was considered the top. My score was 65. I shredded the roof by 30%.

Ah! But there was more. I produced my BodPod documentation from the California Health and Longevity institute. I showed her that my actual fat loss was greater by at least 4 pounds, as I had actually added four pounds of lean weight to my frame.

She was very impressed. Normally, they expect lean losses mixed with fat losses. They just hope the lean losses are not particularly great. They certainly don't expect lean weight gain. We settled on the figure of 69 pounds of pure fat loss in 90 days. I walked out of there feeling like Superman.

You see! This is proof positive that I really am better than all these weak bastards. Better by 38-72%

Bringing it down to earth

Not so fast there Mr. Roof Shredder! It didn't take too long for me to figure out that the math had to be wrong. The first crack in the picture occurred when I back-checked my weight figure. Can it be true that my weight 90 days ago was 237.5 + 65 =302.5?

No way Jose! That was not the figure 90 days ago. I remember as clear as a bell that the score stood at 281.0 the last time I stood on Dr. Quilici's scale. Somebody must have made a clerical mistake. Somebody recorded my weight at 302, when it was 281.

There is more proof. The Bod Pod clearly documents the fact that I lost approximately 18.569 total pounds of body weight over the past 42 days. That actually consists of 22.636 pounds of fat and 4.068 pounds of lean gain. In order for the 69 figure to be true, I would have had to have lost some 46.364 in the 48 days prior to my first Bod Pod.

No way Jose. It didn't happen like that.

I called Quilici's office to verify, and they did indeed have my weight as 302 on March 28, 2011. That's not the only clerical blunder. They had my top weight at 325, not 330. I know for a fact my weight was right around 330 before I began the liquid diet. Might have been a tad higher than that. There is no question that it was higher than 325.

The Correct Score

On Quilici's scale, my weight dropped from 281.0 down to 237.5 between March 28 and June 28. This is a difference of 43.5 pounds. However, we should still factor in the 4 pounds of lean weight I gained during the past 42 days. Ergo, I lost 47.568 pounds of fat weight in the 90 days between March 28 and June 28.

This is a wee bit to the high side of his projections, but my losses are within the normal range according to Dr. Quilici's predictions. I am inside the pocket.

This is an average of 0.5285 pounds of pure fat per day over the course of 90 days. This required an average caloric deficit of 1,849.86 kcal each day for 90 days. That is a total of 166,488 missing kcal during this period. That's pretty impressive, really.

All of this is in pretty close accord with the numbers I have been calculating and publishing during this time.

Projections

The Nurse practitioner is not quite correct when she says I'll be all done by my next visit on September 29. Follow my reasoning.

• The Bod Pod had me at 240.082 last Friday.
• The Bod Pod stated that I had 91.454 pounds of fat on my frame last Friday.
• Dr. Quilici's scale and my scale closely accord.
• The Bod Pod is 0.85 pounds lighter than either my scale or Dr. Quilici's scale.
• According to our scales, I have lost another 2.582 pounds
• The Bod Pod would probably call it 3.432 pounds.
• I haven't slacked off the workouts, so I'll bet that was all fat weight.
• The fat loss figure could be a little higher than 3.432, but we'll go with that estimate.
• Ergo I should now have 88.022 pounds of fat on my frame.
• Another 47.568 loss will put my fat weight at 40.454 pounds.
• If my lean weight is, say 152, my total weight will be 192.454.
• 40.454/192.454 = 21% body fat.
• I will be about 4% shy of my final goal as of September 29.

Nevertheless, things are going pretty well. I have dropped a total of 92.5 bricks of butter. I am pretty much on track for victory here.