Down 61 pounds in 10 months, but my spreadsheet says the math is weird

Temptation tax is real, and I pay it every night at my own stove. Cooking for five means school-lunch assembly, a spoon of peanut butter, whatever's left on a kid's plate, plus tasting the pasta sauce three separate times. Weighed all of it once out of sheer curiosity: 250–350 cal/day, gone before dinner even hit the table. Your 61 vs 78 over 10 months works out to roughly 200/day, so yeah — same kind of leak. My watch hands me huge burn numbers for standing and stirring, but that isn't cardio in any meaningful sense. Are you logging the bites and sips, or only what lands on a plate? My kitchen brain lies to me constantly.

First, 61.4 lbs in 10 months is fantastic—especially with daily logging. That 17-lb gap is super common. Watches are notorious for overestimating calories out, especially for strength, cycling, or when your HR is elevated for other reasons. Also, as you drop weight, your maintenance calories drop too, so the same intake creates a smaller deficit. Did you recalculate your TDEE/“calories out” every 10 lbs or so? When I updated mine, the spreadsheet started matching reality way better. Also, are you weighing food on weekends? That’s where my logging got sneaky. Keep going—you’re doing the hard part.

one thing that helped me stop spiraling: I tested my watch instead of trusting it. Ate the same three meals for 10 days, weighed everything including oil and coffee creamer, then compared my actual trend to a fixed deficit. My watch was ~15–20% high, and my maintenance had dropped about 250 cal after 50 lbs. Suddenly the missing pounds were boring math, not a mystery. Have you recalculated your current maintenance at this weight, or done a short controlled stretch to calibr

Fellow cafe owner here. My hidden calories weren’t the meals—they were the “is this batch still good?” spoon licks, the broken cookie, the foam I tasted while dialing in the machine. I started putting a small saucer by the pass and dropping every taste on it, then weighing it at close. Turns out I was eating 150–250 extra calories most days without ever feeling like I ate. My watch also way overestimates my shift “exercise”—standing and pivoting isn’t the same as walking. Could your gap be partly little kitchen tastes plus a generous watch? 61 lbs is still a huge win.

I had a similar 11-lb gap at 6 months. My error was using my starting TDEE in the expected-loss formula while my weight was dropping. When I recalculated weekly using current 7-day avg weight × 13.5 (my own multiplier, not a rule), the expected loss moved to within 4 lbs of actual. The watch still ran ~200 kcal/day hot vs my spreadsheet, especially on days I didn’t hit 7k steps. Are you using a fixed calorie-out estimate or updating it as your rolling average falls? Also, do your log days include the same number of weekend days as weekdays? My Fri–Sun entries were where the 17 lbs liked to hide.

Not saying your watch is perfect, but the bigger math issue is that your TDEE is a moving target. That 78-lb line assumes calories-out stayed at the starting value. If maintenance dropped by ~150 kcal/day over 10 months—plausible with 61 lbs lost, lower BMR, less NEAT—that’s ~45,000 kcal, or ~13 lbs of your 17-lb gap. Did you recalc the predicted trend using a rolling maintenance estimate every 10 lbs or so? When I did that, my spreadsheet “error” mostly disappeared. In the trials,

I nerd out on this too. My gap was ~12 lbs, and my trendline showed the break came when I stopped updating my weight in the watch/calorie app. It was still using my starting weight for calorie-out, so it overestimated by ~150-200 kcal/day. Recalculated every 5 lbs and the predicted line finally tracked. Sharp question: does your spreadsheet use a static TDEE or recalc as weight drops? Also, 61.4 lbs/10 mo = 1.41 lb/wk. 78 lbs/10 mo = 1.8 lb/wk. That's a 0.4 lb/wk difference—likely water/glycogen plus a lower NEAT as you got lighter, not a logging mystery. What does your 30-day trendline slope look like now vs. month 2?

I lost 70, regained 40, now back at it, so I feel this. The spreadsheet gap drove me nuts too. What finally helped: I stopped comparing daily and looked at 4-week blocks. My watch was overestimating my burn because my NEAT cratered—I was sitting more, fidgeting less, taking fewer steps, even though workouts stayed the same. Check your average daily steps from month 1 vs now. Mine dropped almost 2k/day, which is a few hundred calories I wasn't accounting for. Not saying that's your whole 17-lb gap, but it was a sneaky chunk for me. Also, 61 lbs in 10 months is incredible—don't let the math steal that.

yo 61 in 10 months is huge, grats. one thing i haven't seen anyone mention: your everyday movement probably quietly tanked and your watch won't ever flag it as a line. i pulled my monthly step averages from month 1 vs month 9 and i was doing like 2k fewer steps a day without ever deciding to. less fidgeting, sitting through loading screens instead of pacing, elevator over stairs, all that. not "exercise" so it never shows up as a row in your log, but it's real calories. worth stacking your monthly step averages side by side and seeing if there's a downward drift.

One thing I did not see mentioned: non-exercise activity can quietly fall as you lose. I had a similar gap, and when I compared my first month to month eight, my daily steps were down about 2,500 and my standing hours dropped too. The watch only saw workouts, not all that low-level movement. I started using a simple weekly average of steps and standing minutes, plus a 28-day weight trend, and the unexplained pounds made more sense. Are you tracking steps or any measure of daily movement outside formal exercise?