50extra - My weight loss journey with all the embarrassing details
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@50extra Do you have a step goal you try to reach each day?
Also, do you use a trending app/website for your weigh ins?
Keep working at it! It already sounds like you are well on your way to reaching your goals this shift!0 -
@WifiresGettingFit No I don't have a step goal that I need to hit. Just focused on calorie burns. If I do 11-12k steps a day my calories are right at the low end of where I would like them. The more I get outside and walk the more I can eat!1
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The rest of the day I was pretty inactive at work. There is simply too much work to do right now to get outside and walk around too much. We were lucky enough to leave work an hour early and decided to go out for a bite to eat.
Eating out definitely blew out my calories for the day but it was a good time and it was worth it. I have no idea how many calories i ate but I accounted 800 for the beer and then guessed at 1500 for food. Since I don't even know what half of the stuff was I was eating, it was really hard to guess how many calories it was.
Using these numbers I consumed 3978 and burned 3568 making me at a 410 calorie surplus for the day. Not great, but also not terrible given the circumstances.
The only reason my surplus wasn't much worse was the fact that I walked home from the restaurant. It turned out to be a 4km walk and gave me enough of a calorie burn to make everything look not too bad. That is the first time this shift that I haven't maintained my MFP calorie deficit.
I was able to 6:22 of sleep last night but I am still feeling a little bit groggy today. I might try to get that number up to 7 hours tonight.
This morning I woke up on time but made the conscious decision to skip my walk. I wanted to get that extra 45 minutes of sleep today. I am hoping that tonight I can go for one of the long walks, I may get dropped off somewhere outside of the city and walk home but I will plan that tonight.0 -
It's great that you are choosing to walk home, when it isn't necessary. That's an easy way to get in some movement without necessarily needing to have it be formal exercise.0
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Well I am starting to sound like a broken record over here. The rest of the day yesterday again involved sitting in front of my computer screen for hour upon hour. My step count was dismal by the end of the day so I got dropped off on the edge of the city on my way back to the apartment. I ended up taking a detoured route back to the apartment and walked almost 8km. The unfortunate part was because I barely moved all day at work my final steps were only around 11000.
Calories burned yesterday were 3554 and calories in were 2118 for a deficit of 1436.
The scale hasn't moved in four days, in fact its up 2.5lbs from before. Other than the one day out for beers my calories have been in check so I am definitely waiting for that whoosh soon here.
This morning I got up and went for a 30 minute walk, I was lucky that I left the apartment as early as a did because it started pouring rain 10 minutes after I got back.
I am contemplating trying a change in my diet for a week or two just to see if I can get the scale going in the right direction. I know it eventually will if I just stick to the plan but I am impatient and want it to go down everyday
I will see... If I do, I will eat heavy protein for 5 days, then protein and carbs for two. Rinse and repeat. Many years ago I ate this way and lost fat at an unbelievable rate, so it might be worth trying again over here.
I'll check back in tomorrow with my decision.0 -
Short and sweet today.
Got dropped off even further outside of the city and walked home last night. Ended up walking about 7.5kms. It was a nice walk but my body is telling me I am an idiot now. My right calf muscle is all jacked up from getting a muscle cramp, my left Achilles tendon is strained and I got a blister about the side of a dime on my left foot. I am thinking it was from wearing work boots for 12 hours and then walking for over an hour after that with sweaty feet.
Because I was able to move quite a bit yesterday I had a good deficit. Calories in were 1859, calories out were 3830 giving me a 1971 deficit.
Today will not be the same as yesterday. I am thinking about taking a full rest day because of how my feet are. It's pouring rain here this morning but even if it were nice out I wouldn't have went outside. All I can see in my exercise plans today is possibly a short ride on the exercise bike.0 -
I use topical magnesium on my muscle cramps, it usually clears them right up, plus make sure you are eating plenty of salt since you are working out more!0
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Thanks for the tip, my problem is I would have to walk into a pharmacy with this printed off Местный магний. That is the google translation for topical magnesium. I might be scared with what I got from them!
Salt definitely can't be my problem, I am over on salt every single day because I eat a ton of salty chili while I am over here. I'm pretty sure that my problem is dehydration. Unfortunately this shift I have been drinking much more coffee than water. Yesterday was the first day that I focused on making water a priority but I fear it was too little too late. I almost got the calf cramp the other day when I was out for an hour and a half walk with no water... And it came back last night.
Going forward I am just going to have to pay more attention.
And I did decide that I am going to try switching up my diet a bit starting tomorrow. This will only work if I can hitch a ride to the grocery store tonight. I guess I could walk there but I don't feel like carrying heavy grocery bags 4kms home.2 -
Ended up going out for beers last night. I'm not sure how many I had, or if I ate something when I got home so its going to be hard to track calories.
Today is painful, definitely didn't exercise this morning, probably wont tonight either, I need some sleep.0 -
I guess to keep this page consistent I should throw some numbers into yesterdays update.
So after adding in the beers from the night and not exercising my calories in were 3222 and my fitbit calories out were 3043 giving a calorie surplus of 179. Not great, but it could have been worse had I eaten any crappy food.
Yesterday morning and last night I didn't work out. In the morning I was hurting from the night before and last night I did some cooking and went to bed. The good news is now I am meal prepped for the next four days.
Calories in yesterday were 1634, calories out were 2753 giving me a deficit of 1119. For the first time in several days the scale is starting to show me results from my calorie restriction. When I stepped on it today i weighed in at 225.6. I am hoping that tomorrow morning it will be down again.
You will notice that my enthusiasm for working out has dropped some. I'm to the point in the shift where I am tired all of the time and just want to get home. I've been on shift for a bit over two weeks now and as I have mentioned we work every day anywhere from about 10 hours to 15 hours. Normally the day is 13. It doesn't take long to get be plain worn out. The good news is I fly out of Siberia in two weeks today so at least I am on the backside of the shift now.0 -
@50extra I can see how working such long hours day after day would wear you out - it sounds exhausting - I admire your effort to work out.0
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Recovery is part of the process, taking an early night and getting extra rest when you need it is just as important as the workouts!0
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@totaldetermination some days I have the effort, some days I don't, I wish I could be like @tcunbeliever and be able to nail off workouts most days!
Last night was one of those nights that I just didn't have it in me. Between the shifts, the rain and the sore Achilles tendon I just laid in bed.
Yesterday was my most sedentary day so far this shift. I only managed to get in 2136 steps all day. Pretty embarrassing but it is what it is. The only saving grace was my calories were minimal, I took in 1447 and burned 2136 for a deficit of 689. This is much lower than I want but its still on track for over 1lb a week loss.
This morning I stepped on the scale and continued the whoosh that I was expecting. It read 223.3lbs, that's the good news, I'll comment more below.
After I seen that the scale finally moved it put a little energy in me. Even though it was already 6am I quickly got ready and went outside for a 32 minute walk. My right calf still hurts and my left Achilles causes me to not be able to take full steps but I will push through it a little bit by just walking slower. I already have almost 2000 steps today then I did yesterday and its only 8:30.
So most of that was good news, now the bad.
I was supposed to be in Siberia for another two weeks. Turns out I have to take a business trip to the Ural mountains again next Tuesday I believe(I was just there two weeks ago) for a meeting. To get there its a 3.5 hour ride down terrible roads, followed by an 18 hour overnight train. These aren't the nicest, or most comfortable trains and it makes for a long day.
After my meeting in Chelabysnk I have been called into Moscow for a week and Moscow is most definitely the place where my healthy eating goes to die. Meal prepping is near impossible as is avoiding going out for dinner with the big wigs. I am going to do my best to keep the calories in check but given previous experience, my hopes for this aren't very high. The place I am staying at has a recumbent bike so maybe I will be able to hop on there a few times.
My summer holidays kick off on about July 12th, last year at that time I weighed 214.8. I really, really, really want to be there this year again!
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Do your best with dinner choices, drink the beer s-l-o-w-l-y so you have fewer of them, ditto for eating slow so you can hob nob and not get totally off the rails. If it were me I would skip all eating until dinner, but that's not a plan that works for everyone. The travel sounds pretty miserable, I don't like being cooped up in a vehicle or train. However, it must be kind of cool to see the world a bit!0
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Yeah I am going to have to figure something out. I like the idea of not eating until the dinners but definitely see a problem with drinking 5.4% beer on an empty stomach. Regardless, it doesn't matter. I am not going to gain back the 9 lbs I have lost this shift in 6 days, plus I am sure every night wont be a night out, hopefully only one or two.
The travelling is kind of cool sometimes. I love seeing the world and have been to 33 countries I believe so far. Luckily work has only taken me to the US, Russia, Belarus and Germany so all of the other ones were for fun. What travelling during work does is helps break up the monotony of sitting at a computer desk all day. I get to go to these places and have high ups in the company treat me like I'm god since it's my call if we spend hundreds of thousands or sometimes millions of dollars with them. The long days will be kind of painful but it will make the rest of my trip go by a touch faster which is always a good thing.
But, I gotta get off of here for now, going to go trudge around in the sand pretending to look at equipment to get a quick 1000 steps in before the days over. Happy Hump Day!1 -
I don't know what the cuisine is like there, but maybe you could load up on veggie options and have fish instead of other higher calorie meats. If you know what restaurants you might go to, you could check out the menu ahead of time online, if that's an option. Google translate is a godsend sometimes!
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Well....quite a bit has changed since yesterday, and definitely for the better!
I will do a rundown first.
I was tired as I was driving to the apartment last night and had a small moment of clarity, told the driver to pull over so I could walk home. It wasn't too far but an extra 4km sure helps with the deficit. Ended up eating 1517 calories yesterday and burned 3286 for a deficit of 1768.
This morning I didn't wake up to my early alarms and missed going for my morning walk. I was very disappointed because today was the first day where the sun was shining with bright blue sky. The grey sky and rain is getting irritating and is mentally draining. I am a sun person.
Oh a quick note... Some of my deficits are pretty big and my calories are very low but never lower than MFP suggests. Please note that this is only for another four days, then I leave on my business trip. I will continue to try and stay within it but its near impossible to judge size/calories of food in the restaurants.
So, after my business trip I was supposed to fly into Moscow for a week of meetings. I was just told that they are cancelled and that I am allowed to fly home so I am super pumped! It's always nice to go home early. I am not going to tell my wife about it and surprise her and the kid. The best part is that they are going down to the lake for the Canada day long weekend and I get to go too. I am going to take the secret so far that if they leave for the lake on Thursday and I happen to miss them I will hop in my own vehicle and drive down there without saying anything. I could very easily just spill the beans but that wouldn't be any fun. It's a big waste of money doing this because its a 6.5 hour drive but the extra money I will spend on fuel is worth the extra surprise factor!
So today has been a good day.
On a side note, I still have some significant pain in my left Achilles tendon. I have found that if I slow my pace to around 11 minutes a km from 10 minutes a km I can't even feel that there is a problem. It is when I take long fast strides that it acts up. So for the rest of my walks I will just have to slow it down a bit, no big deal because doing something is better than doing nothing!0 -
Oh yes, one more thing.
I think I am going to swap out my Fitbit Blaze for a Polar M430 watch. I don't like the fact that the Blaze isn't waterproof and I find that I always forget to put it back on when I am at home. Since I am not very motivated to stay active at home sometimes, I hope that if I have a watch on reminding me to move all day everyday it might help.
Plus going into the summer I will basically not be able to wear my Fitbit for a month straight. We are going to be at the lake for four weeks and pretty much everyday we are on the boat and swimming in the water.0 -
I hope you make it home before they load up for the lake!!! 6.5 hours in the car is time well spent on conversation if you are travelling together!!!0
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That's awesome that you get to surprise your family!0
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Yay for a good day and for getting to see your family earlier!0
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How wonderful that you get to spend extra quality time with your family.
and what a great surprise !!0 -
Yeah I am pretty excited for it all and it sounds like my wife and daughter aren't going until Friday morning so that works out perfect. I can load up my ATV first thing in the morning and we can all drive together.
Yesterday turned out to be a successful day again. The power got shut off at the base again so I was done working at 5pm and decided to get get dropped off on the outskirts of the city for a walk. Instead of taking my usual route I ended up walking around the whole one side and walked for an hour and 50 minutes and did a touch over 10kms. The good news is every time that my achillies started to act up I could just slow the pace and the pain would subside. The only ill effects I had other than sore feet was that blister is still there. It's much better than it was but its still there.
Calories were at the minimum again as I planned it. Today they will be low too, but tomorrow and Sunday I will bump them up by a little. Calories in yesterday were 1442, and calories out were 3990 for a nice little 2548 deficit!
I had an absolutely terrible sleep last night and didn't even come close to waking up on time to go outside this morning. I'm hoping that the huge deficit yesterday will help make up for the lack of calorie burn that I most likely going to have today.0 -
Small update again today. Didn't do much walking last night, only for 10 minutes or so. Ended up having a few beers at night with my chicken and blew my deficit out.
Calories in yesterday 2581 calories burned 2806 for a small 225 deficit.
Even with the beers, the scale was at 221.8 this morning. I will miss my goal of hitting the 219 mark but I figure I did pretty good seems how my trip was cut over a week short.0 -
Yesterday was a great day for diet and exercise!
My truck was picking up parts in a different city so I walked to another guys apartment in the morning to get a ride and got a few thousand steps in which always makes the calorie burn for the day a bit better. Then on the way home I got dropped off 4.5kms from my apartment and walked that too.
Diet was on point for what I am doing. My calories in were 1423 and my calories out were 3598 for a massive 2175 deficit.
The scale has been rewarding me for days now. As of this morning I was 220.8. That's almost 12 pounds in less than three weeks! A year ago, I would have never agreed that simply walking burned as many calories as it does. It truly does blow my mind and I still have a hard time believing the burns, even though the scale is directly correlating to what my fitbit says that I am burning.
Speaking of fitbit. I think mine might be on its way out unfortunately. I turn it off every time I am in a vehicle because it gives me fake steps. When I got dropped off last night for my walk it wouldn't turn back on. The heart rate light was on but the screen itself wouldn't. I ended up reading what to do at my apartment and was able to reset it and then it seemed all normal. Then this morning I get in the truck and try to shut it off and it freezes. I had to reset it just to be able to shut it off. The battery was pretty low so I am hoping that a good charge will fix it up. Might make the decision to buy the Polar watch easier if it does in fact stop working.
So today is the last day of the super low calories for me. I have my trip to the Ural mountains tomorrow morning. Will try my best to log throughout the trip. Not sure what internet coverage is going to be at the hotel because it usually is pretty spotty but will try to update as I go. Success always comes to me when I continue to use MFP, every time I stop I slide in the wrong direction. I have been saying it for a year and half, but this time home I will try to keep tracking, even if I am trying to eat at maintenance.0 -
I hope you have a safe trip and are able to keep in touch with us!0
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yes - best to keep tracking if you can. For me its not so necessary when I'm 'doing well'. but it brings accountability / awareness the moment I start to slide. Forces me to be aware of and think about what I'm doing.
Knowing that you're sliding is one thing. Having to write about it regularly is another.0 -
Yeah I agree, its the writing about it that makes it worse. That being said, the last couple of days I didn't track. This was partly because half of the stuff I ate I didn't even know what it was, and the other part was I didn't feel like it. Both of my days would have been well over in calories and not enough steps.
I'm in Moscow now for the day/night and continue my trip home in the morning. One three hour flight to Frankfurt, a couple hours there and then the 9 hour flight and I am home sweet home! My wife is making this surprise difficult as she re-booked a few of her patients and is going to try and get away on Thursday afternoon. I might have to spoil the surprise
I will talk to her tomorrow morning and see if she is planning on driving to the lake with just her and our daughter, if she is i will tell her that she should wait for me. If she is travelling down with her parents then I will keep quiet and just show up a couple hours after her. A little disappointing but oh well.
I haven't tracked food today because again I don't know what I have eaten. Some sort of noodle soup, some sort of pastry with possibly meat inside of it, or mushrooms? No idea, or how big it was. I will get back to tracking when I get back to eating normal food, please don't judge me on the beer consumption this weekend!0 -
I hope you have a safe trip home!0
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Hey everyone, I figured I would check in real quick before I bath my daughter and go out and sit by the fire. I'm down at the lake and have been since I got home.
So the nutrition and exercise are hit and miss. The first morning I got up nice and early and went for a 6km walk down to the water. It's beautiful in the morning here.
Calories are really high drinking beer but my steps are way up there too. I'm not looking to lose weight here but to be able to maintain would be a nice change from the last 20 years or so.
The second morning I walked down to the water again but took a different route and went 7kms. I think I had almost 19k steps that day.
This morning / today steps are much lower. I got up at five and was going to head out for a walk but we had a couple visitors. Now I think a nice fast run would be a nice change but I just didn't want to risk it.
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