I Stopped Training and Ate Pizza for a Week—Then I Lost Weight

I fully expected to have gained weight when I jumped on the scale this morning.

For the last two weeks I have been largely on the road. February 10 was my 57th birthday, and we spent the week at our place in Canmore. My idea of a birthday gift these days included a mountain hike up Ha Ling Peak and a full day out climbing frozen waterfalls.

Michelle and I capped off our birthday adventure with a very nice meal at Bridgette Bar in Canmore. It was honestly one of the best meals I have had out in a long time.

Last week I spent the bulk of the week in Toronto with no access to a gym and icy streets that made running a bad idea.

I did manage to work in a little bit of bodyweight work like pushups and squats, but really not nearly as much as I would have liked.

I am grateful that I had the opportunity to stay in an Airbnb rather than a hotel, giving me access to a full kitchen. While there were certainly a few times where I opted to join the rest of the guys for some pizza or burgers, for the most part I was able to stick with healthy staples like eggs, yogurt & granola, fruit, bread, and bagels.

The Key to Success: Data Over Delusion

I continued to log all of my food intake in Cronometer. Even when I was wildly off plan, I still logged everything. In the past I would have been more prone to simply write off the week and ignore what I consumed. Playing a bit of a game of burying my head in the sand and deluding myself into thinking it wasn’t as bad as it was.

Logging intake on weeks where I am off plan is actually far more important than logging when I am on plan.

By logging intake in real time, I remained very aware of the food choices I was making and therefore was much more intentional about them. Staying grounded in reality made the choice to allow a socially driven caloric surplus on a meal just that.

Awareness ensures that a bad meal doesn’t become a bad month.

The Weigh-In

This morning I reluctantly hopped on the scale, bracing myself for the bad news. However, the bad news did not come. As I waited for the scale to settle and give me the final results, I was fully prepared to be up a pound or two.

That did not happen, and in fact, I was actually down about 1/2 a kilogram. Now, don’t get me wrong; it is likely water weight and not fat loss that I am down, but I am pleased that I did not put on any weight.

Gemini’s Explanation

The Technical Why: High-volume ultra training causes chronic inflammation and glycogen-related water retention. When you stopped the high-impact running and heavy lifting, your systemic inflammation dropped (the "whoosh" effect). You didn't lose fat; you shed "training stress weight."

Additional Benefits

For most of January Garmin has been reporting a lower than desirable HRV and my sleep scores have been very poor. So much so that I wondered if I might need to do something to address these issues, though I was reluctant to take my foot off the gas.

In the last week, I have noticed that my HRV has become much more balanced and my sleep scores are improving. My travel inadvertently created a forced deload week for me that paid dividends.

Sleep Scores

Perhaps these last few weeks were actually what I needed to recover.

The Lessons

The lesson here for me is twofold.

First off, to do a better job of listening to my body and the data that I have available when it comes to looking at adding in rest.

Secondly, discipline isn't just hitting the gym; it's the data integrity of tracking when the gym isn't there. My 'success' this week wasn't the weight loss—it was the fact that I maintained the habit of awareness, which allowed my body to finally enter a state of deep recovery.