Of refeeds and diet breaks
Replies
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I am happily continuing to whoosh off the weekend's water weight. Still a bit puffy which I dare not dream means when I'm eventually done whooshing it will be what I've been waiting for. We'll see. My body has a sick sense of humour.6
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Morning 4 of my diet break: weight is up again 187.0 lbs. Lowest weight was 185.0 lbs ten days ago. I figure even if I overshoot my maintenance calories by 500/day, that's only a pound of fat after a week.
Yesterday, I bought my first pair of smaller jeans since starting my weight loss journey. It was exciting when my prepregnancy jeans finally zipped, then buttoned, then slid off my hips without being unbuttoned or unzipped. My new jeans are two sizes smaller than those prepregnancy jeans and are skinny jeans. Even when I was much thinner, I never wore skinny jeans. Now after having been heavy and less heavy (I'm still overweight) I'm delighted to wear skinny jeans.
Boosted my the numerical success of buying smaller jeans, I'm feeling much more positive today about the diet break. (See above comment about only one pound of fat). Last night, I was getting slightly panicked about how I was going to feed myself and the baby at someone else's house. This morning, I packed enough puffs and fruit cups for the two of us, and I'm less nervous thinking about raiding my husband's aunt's pantry and fridge.
For those of you who have read and processed more about the refeed/diet break science - I think it was in Abbey Orr's podcast interview with Lyle (I think part 2), Lyle mentions that he doesn't believe in/recommend the two day refeeds for non-athletes. I could be wrong - I listened while on the treadmill and I don't always absorb 100% of information. I don't think it's harmful to continue doing it as a practice, but I'm not sure it's necessary for optimal results. I do plan on another diet break around Christmas.
Again with the overthinking.5 -
VintageFeline wrote: »
Sorry, height, weight, incidental activity (steps per day/active job) and any exercise. If you do exercise do you eat any of those calories back?
5'0" 190# Desk job, I try to keep active after work, but I don't do traditional exercise yet because I have hip problems. I plan on adding exercise when my hip can handle it.
@Leeg5656 What is your average weight loss per week when you eat 1200 calories/day?[/quote]
1# - 1.5#1 -
stanmann571 wrote: »Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
A few years back I coined the term exhibitionist introvert.
Not shy, certainly not an extrovert, but given a stage literally or figuratively, able/willing to take charge of the room. But with the social preference of intense private meaningful small group/individual relations.
hahaha! That's me at work. But it's "the cause" that's being the exhibitionist through me, while I want to remain invisible.
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I have to listen to that Abby Orr podcast.
I might not be an athlete, but I'm pretty active.
I'm thinking that as long as doing this is keeping me from binging, even if it's just a psychological benefit, I'm going to keep doing it, you know?
The scale is still frustratingly up for me. I am still trying to undo the mess my head became during the year I binged and how it all played out with how I felt about the scale. I used to be pretty chill about it. I'm not as relaxed as I used to be, and I'm reaching back into my memories of a healthier patterns to hold onto in dealing with this.
I think part of the reason it's extra up now (because it's not salt like I thought it was) is because I upped my activity. I got a new game on my phone and I sort of lose track of time while I'm on my treadmill playing it
I had 27K steps yesterday and 25K the day before, when I first installed the game. 6 -
Ooh! What game is it?0
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eponine1984 wrote: »Ooh! What game is it?
Nothing fancy. It's Word Connect. I just love word games.1 -
And I don't think the message was that two day refeeds were detrimental or anything, he just wasn't as gung ho about them as he initially was. I just don't remember the logic or reasoning. I need @anubis609 to listen and explain it in a way I can understand it.1
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eponine1984 wrote: »And I don't think the message was that two day refeeds were detrimental or anything, he just wasn't as gung ho about them as he initially was. I just don't remember the logic or reasoning. I need @anubis609 to listen and explain it in a way I can understand it.
I remember his as not being gung ho about short refeeds of one day or 5 hour refeeds, which used to be part of his plans.
The reason being that they weren't long enough.
The refeeds needed to be at least two days to have any effect.0 -
Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Interesting. I'm an INTP as well, what are the chances! Apparently 3% of the population have this personality type. I'm not exactly anti-social, but my social life happens in bursts when I feel like it. I'm solitary most of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy social interactions when the mood hits.3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »When I get my vet wrist slap for having fatties they always say put the food down and take it up when they walk away. The ones not getting their share will soon catch on. And it's true. Chilli naturally wants to hang back but when she's hungry she'll haul *kitten* to get to her food. There's also the feeding separately suggestion. Mine used to be on a twice a day schedule but Horatio needs fed more often (I say needs, I think he's largely playing me but whatevs, I'll spread the food over 4 meals, whatever vague hope of him not destroying everything I own I will pander to).
But yeah, I really want the chip feeders because that would solve a lot of problems.
Edit: I also feed exclusively wet. More filling and it's grain free so less filler an obligate carnivore has no need for).
All of mine but one would love to be fed exclusively wet food
Sammy, however, will starve before he'll eat wet food. Strange, I know. When his mother was weaning them, the other 4 happily went from their momma's milk to kitten wet food before moving on to dry, but Sam went straight from his momma to dry food and will not touch the wet at all. He loves cat treats, but only the crunchy ones - if I get soft one, he won't eat them. Go figure.
anyway, most of my cats would love to be on a wet food diet and I know that a good quality wet food is worlds better than dry, but with 6 of 'em, that's just not an affordable option, especially if I follow the feeding guidelines. And they are so darned finicky! The only thing I can get them to eat is Purina. I've tried all different kinds, getting the expensive stuff from the pet store that is supposed to healthier but nope, no doing - they will literally starve themselves before they'll eat it. And no mixing it in, either - I've tried that and they just pick it out!
Charming, my big, lovable goofball, weighs in at around 20 lbs - and he's not obese! He's just a BIG cat (stands nearly to my knee, and I'm 5'8"). If I follow the feeding guidelines for fancy feast, he'd need around 6 cans a day on wet food exclusively! And considering what they all are supposed to weigh, I'd be going through about 25 cans a day, which in my area would translate to no less than $100 a week in cat food - I love my babies to death, but that's far out of the realm of affordability for me. I just have too many cats.
I think when I get them into my main house, I'm going to have to try that - put only a little out in the morning, and perhaps supplement with canned food that evening (1 can per cat a day is much more doable). The hardest part is that I don't know when Little Bit eats because she's so skittish. I do try to put the food bowls in different locations, but Charming, the big glutton, just follows me around and eats out of all of them. And when I DO put wet food out for them as a treat, I have to keep a close eye on Lizzie - who is very obese
She's the one I'm worried about. She'll wolf hers down and then push her sister out of the way to get to hers, and that's because her sister, Dot (the cute one lol) usually takes about 3 bites then prances off to do something else or explore what everyone else has.
The spoiled bunch of them - I buy the 3.5 lb bags of food because if a cat food bag has been open for more than 12 hours, they deem that its unsuitable and will only reluctantly eat it. I'll put food out for them from a bag I opened the day before, and they'll sniff it then look up at me and meow, demanding something fresh. Spoiled rotten, ungrateful lot - and to think that if it wasn't for me, they'd most likely be dead by now as their momma wouldn't have survived much longer on the streets! lol1 -
eponine1984 wrote: »And I don't think the message was that two day refeeds were detrimental or anything, he just wasn't as gung ho about them as he initially was. I just don't remember the logic or reasoning. I need @anubis609 to listen and explain it in a way I can understand it.
In the context of 2-day refeeds, it wasn't really necessary for those who weren't lean, and that's if looking at the term "refeed" to be the actual carb load of 4-5g of carbs/lb of bodyweight. The primary reason being that carrying more body fat meant that leptin and hormonal signaling could still tolerate a deficit.
What Lyle has always recommended but now emphasizes a bit more for people carrying more body fat is to just include a couple of days between deficit periods with free meals, or a couple days just at or just below maintenance. Refeeds were geared towards those who were starting to feel the deleterious effects of a deficit at lower body fat.
As for structured refeeds themselves, as it applies to lean athletes, 2-day carb load refeeds weren't quite enough to bring leptin up as fast as it should, so the leaner you were, the more days at maintenance you should have, *almost* to the point that you were barely dieting. Which is what seems counterintuitive.
Just as a refresher for the thread to anyone lurking and trying to get a grasp on wtf I'm even talking about:
The "dieting period" is an extended period of time where the average intake is at a deficit, and this can be anywhere from 2 - 12 weeks, presumably with a lower carb intake; with leaner individuals on the shorter end of the time frame, larger individuals on the longer end.
The "free meal" is just one meal in the day where you don't worry about eating diet food. It's not an excuse to go to a buffet. You just eat one meal that you enjoy; e.g. instead of egg whites, broccoli, and chicken, you can have eggs, potatoes, and beef.
The "refeed" is a short 1-2 day period of bumping up carbs while keeping fat relatively low to stimulate down-regulated hormone signaling back up to something manageable - it is not to be misinterpreted as a fat bulk period since you can absolutely ruin weeks of hard work in this short time frame.
The "diet break" is a 1-2 week period where you are not in a deficit and maintenance calories are calculated at the new lower body weight achieved after the dieting period. This is to keep the body from fighting back as you start feeling bogged down by being in a constant deficit, also to entrain maintenance eating habits for long term fat loss success.
To set up your diet: calculate the calories needed to be in a deficit > set protein to ~0.8-1.2g protein per lb of lbm > set fat / carbs to taste preference to fill in the rest of the calories. The better way of looking at a deficit is to eat as much as you can that allows for fat/weight loss. Larger individuals can handle a larger deficit, but chronic calorie slashing has a rebound effect. Be smart about the approach. A larger deficit needs a shorter dieting period.
To set up maintenance: calculate calories needed to be in maintenance > set protein to ~0.8-1.2g protein per lb of lbm > set fat / carbs to taste preference to fill in the rest of the calories. The initial introduction to maintenance from a deficit will result in a weight spike up, but it will settle back down to something reasonable and will hover around an average weight.
*Adequate protein intake is constant and by default the most important macro to focus on as a goal for any diet whether you're in a deficit/maintenance/surplus. Your entire body is made of various proteins. Do not neglect this.
*Carbs produce a much higher leptin response without causing fat gain if fat intake is low enough. If you are insulin resistant, diabetic, have PCOS/Hashimoto's/menopause, etc., carbs may cause unwanted blood sugar spikes or your body may poorly partition them. If that is the case, a lower carb intake might be beneficial. If you are strength training and/or an athlete, carbs may be timed around workouts to fuel intense workouts, as a rewarding consequence of strength training and consistent physical activity, your body is better capable of partitioning diet nutrients.
*Fat is essential to regulating hormones, especially the sex hormones. The absolute minimum needed to survive is just getting a few grams of DHA/EPA from omega-3. Optimal intake should probably be around 0.3g/lb of bodyweight as a low, and more if you prefer. Bear in mind that carbs and fat have an inverse relationship. The more fat you consume, the less carbs you might want to have since carbs get preference for oxidation and any dietary fat will be shuttled for storage.
ETA: I realized this turned into lectured synopsis, but it doesn't hurt to bring it back up once in a while 16 -
how much does activity affect a person's weight? I"ve noticed that my weight will be up on the days following hard work. For instance: all week long, my scale has been reading 280.9 lbs. Yesterday evening, I loaded a pantry by myself into my truck, then came home and unloaded it (with help), and fifteen 40 lb bags of pellets along with a laundry sink, and all this after walking 2 stores for an hour each (I'm remodeling a house). After that, I loaded the pellets into the stove, and then painted for 2 hours or so, a ceiling and walls.
So yesterday, I had my usual 280.9 lbs. This morning? 282 lbs. And at the doctor's office, it read 289 lbs, but I was fully dressed with my shoes on and had had breakfast and drank a 16 oz coffee, so I think I can account for the doctor's scale.
Even though my activity wasn't strength training - I would think painting would be more aerobic, right? - would that account for some of this? Or am I falling for my own wishful thinking?
And I have serious doubts about the results I get from calorielab on how many calories I supposedly burned doing all this painting. 255-446 calories an hour for my 281 lb butt?0 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »how much does activity affect a person's weight? I"ve noticed that my weight will be up on the days following hard work. For instance: all week long, my scale has been reading 280.9 lbs. Yesterday evening, I loaded a pantry by myself into my truck, then came home and unloaded it (with help), and fifteen 40 lb bags of pellets along with a laundry sink, and all this after walking 2 stores for an hour each (I'm remodeling a house). After that, I loaded the pellets into the stove, and then painted for 2 hours or so, a ceiling and walls.
So yesterday, I had my usual 280.9 lbs. This morning? 282 lbs. And at the doctor's office, it read 289 lbs, but I was fully dressed with my shoes on and had had breakfast and drank a 16 oz coffee, so I think I can account for the doctor's scale.
Even though my activity wasn't strength training - I would think painting would be more aerobic, right? - would that account for some of this? Or am I falling for my own wishful thinking?
And I have serious doubts about the results I get from calorielab on how many calories I supposedly burned doing all this painting. 255-446 calories an hour for my 281 lb butt?
Depending on the intensity of activity, muscles and fluid will bounce around and it can affect weight either way. The only way to track activity as it plays with weight is if activity is consistent and you have a running average of what your weight is doing at that time.
For example: if you were extremely sedentary and just exercise / perform activity rarely, weight will bounce around and throw off your usual average. If you exercise consistently, your weight bouncing will stabilize in a range you can track consistently since activity is consistent.
Basically, you will have a "sedentary weight" average and an "active weight" average. These can be two different scale weights.
That said, scale weight is not the only metric that should be used when determining health. Mood, body measurements, your mood, outlook on life, energy levels, the mirror, etc., are all going to be factors in determining whether you feel better about including exercise.
And just to drive home the point of why activity is very much a positive factor to include regardless of diet, here's a recent tweet by one of the ISSN members and researchers on diet and activity, Jose Antonio:
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Aerobic improvements - increased blood volume and stored carbs - takes weeks to do.
Sore joints/muscles from unusual activity - inflammation, retained water the next day easily.
And did you eat normal stuff, or did the full day mess with that too?
Think about that entry of painting by a pro - no breaks, constant movement, up and down, ect.
Easily that much calorie burn.
If you take frequent breaks, not that fast movements - then no.
That would be equivalent calorie burn to walking 3 mph on the high end.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html
Did it feel like that much effort on average the whole time?
It's nice to compare activities like that to walking - especially if you have treadmill - jump on and change speed until it felt about the same level of effort, HR and breathing rate.4 -
Any activity over and above ones norm and engaging muscles in a different and/or more extended period of time can cause water weight fluctuations. And also just because bodies will do what they do!4
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Since we're doing cat life histories (we've already agreed cats are never a derail)...
The twins (also referred to as the kittens up until Toby came in, and still sometimes b/c it's ingrained now) are Mandy and Mario, who will be 13 on NYE. Both tabbies, Mandy is short-haired, Mario long-haired with we suspect either Norwegian Forest cat or Maine Coon in the mix. That boy can grow a winter coat like you wouldn't believe!! Their cat mum showed up at my house one day, very malnorished, probably not even a year old, trying to get food tins out of the rubbish. Started feeding her, she was very scared at first, but clearly wanted love. She stuck around, and I took her to my vet for a check up. She was lactating, but since she seemed to be camped out at my place 24/7, we assumed the kittens must not have survived. Fast forward two weeks, and I went down to the basement room (outdoor entrance) to check on her before going to meet a friend for coffee, and there was the most adorable little ball of fuzz beside her, all ears and paws. Just the one. Next morning, Milly needed to go for a vet checkup again (she had been having upset tummy issues), figured I'd take the ball of fluff too, fed Milly, went back up stairs to find a box to put ball of fluff in, Milly followed as she often did, and then disappeared. Vanished, gone. So took ball of fluff (Mario), everyone oohed and ahhed over the very healthy ~6 week old kitten. Got home, and there was Milly with another one. This went on throughout the day until there were four. Never saw her leave, never saw her come back, she was super stealthy about it. So, two boys, both long-haired, the other a ginger (Martin), and two girls, short-haired, a torbie and a tabby (Molly and Mandy, respectively). Milly got hit by a car two weeks later, while I was on holiday in Australia
. We kept Mario and Mandy (to go with the three cats we already had), and found a home together for Martin and Molly (who became Winston and Cleo).
Toby, youngest child, turned up at my old place about three years ago, still young, probably under a year old, scared, hiding under the house, and hungry. So I started feeding him, intending to tame him up and find him a home. Except he had other ideas, and only ever got to the point that he would let me sit near him while he ate. For the longest time he was simply referred to as Little Stray, and then Kitty, because everyone knows once you name a cat, its yours. He would hang out quite happily on my lawn a lot of the time, completely unaggressive towards the other cats. Mandy avoided him, but he, Mario and my landlords' (who I lived below) cat would all sleep in the sun out there in close proximity. Then earlier this year I moved from the city to my little coastal town, and couldn't just abandon a cat I'd been feeding for 2 and a 1/2 years, so started hand feeding him tuna, then acclimated him to a live cat trap I'd borrowed from the Cats Protection League over a week, nabbed him and took him to my vet to be neutered, vaccinated, microchipped etc. He stayed there a few days (much fun for them, because he well and truly displayed his feral tendencies) until moving day, then lived in my laundry for three months, until he decided to come out one day and join the family. It's been leaps and bounds since then, and he's pretty much a happy well-adjusted wee housecat now, albeit one who is scared of anyone that isn't me.
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amusedmonkey wrote: »Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Interesting. I'm an INTP as well, what are the chances! Apparently 3% of the population have this personality type. I'm not exactly anti-social, but my social life happens in bursts when I feel like it. I'm solitary most of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy social interactions when the mood hits.
We just need a 3rd INTP and that'll pretty much satisfy the 3% lol. That's accurately descriptive of myself as well.2 -
To set up your diet: calculate the calories needed to be in a deficit > set protein to ~0.8-1.2g protein per lb of lbm > set fat / carbs to taste preference to fill in the rest of the calories.
What does lbm stand for? pounds at maintenance, or lbs I should be and am trying to get to?Basically, you will have a "sedentary weight" average and an "active weight" average. These can be two different scale weights.
That said, scale weight is not the only metric that should be used when determining health. Mood, body measurements, your mood, outlook on life, energy levels, the mirror, etc., are all going to be factors in determining whether you feel better about including exercise.
I know it's bad, but I am sedentary usually, and on days that I do have an increase in activity, I do notice a difference!
body measurements are coming down, especially from the waist area, but I admit my mood, outlook on life, and energy levels are in the tank and have been for a long, long time. All that factors into the sedentary lifestyle - I have a deskjob that exhausts me mentally, and its a major battle to do much of anything once I get home of an evening. And knowing that I should power through it but don't have the willpower to win the battle makes things worse......Aerobic improvements - increased blood volume and stored carbs - takes weeks to do.
Sore joints/muscles from unusual activity - inflammation, retained water the next day easily.
And did you eat normal stuff, or did the full day mess with that too?
Think about that entry of painting by a pro - no breaks, constant movement, up and down, ect.
Easily that much calorie burn.
If you take frequent breaks, not that fast movements - then no.
That would be equivalent calorie burn to walking 3 mph on the high end.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html
Did it feel like that much effort on average the whole time?
It's nice to compare activities like that to walking - especially if you have treadmill - jump on and change speed until it felt about the same level of effort, HR and breathing rate.
I ate normal stuff yesterday, managing to successfully avoid Arby's on my way out of town. I definitely had breaks, but managed to get the ceiling and walls painted in about 2 hours - and that was going along the walls with a brush first as I'm painting paneling, so all the seams had to be hit with the brush before I could roll it. I was definitley sore when I was done, and my shoulder and upper arms, especially of my dominate hand, are tell me that today, too - its hard to swing my purse onto my should today as my arm is complaining about lifting the weight up like that lol
But it didn't affect my breathing rate or anything. I've always considered the calorielab values to be high, but sometimes I check because it would be nice to know what the equivalent expenditure is since MFP doesn't keep values for those kind of activities like the old calorie count website did. But I don't add them back in - its more for curiosity's sake. I set my calorie limit to sedentary and I never eat back any activity mostly because I don't usually have enough activity to account for it (I know, I know - bad!) and to catch the fudges on my logging. On the rare occasion that I will use the calorielab numbers to record activity, I usually divide the number by 4 or 6 or just use the 15 minute number.0 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Interesting. I'm an INTP as well, what are the chances! Apparently 3% of the population have this personality type. I'm not exactly anti-social, but my social life happens in bursts when I feel like it. I'm solitary most of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy social interactions when the mood hits.
We just need a 3rd INTP and that'll pretty much satisfy the 3% lol. That's accurately descriptive of myself as well.
I'm actually a J right now. I'm 49/51 P/J
Interestingly, on the internet, it seems that INTs are closer to 30% than the 6% the studies show.2 -
ETA: I realized this turned into lectured synopsis, but it doesn't hurt to bring it back up once in a while
Thank you for the synopsis. I have been logging food and losing weight since March. I am still trying to wrap my brain around all of the information in this thread. Trying to figure out the best long term strategy for maintenance for myself.
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stanmann571 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Interesting. I'm an INTP as well, what are the chances! Apparently 3% of the population have this personality type. I'm not exactly anti-social, but my social life happens in bursts when I feel like it. I'm solitary most of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy social interactions when the mood hits.
We just need a 3rd INTP and that'll pretty much satisfy the 3% lol. That's accurately descriptive of myself as well.
I'm actually a J right now. I'm 49/51 P/J
Interestingly, on the internet, it seems that INTs are closer to 30% than the 6% the studies show.
I'd be willing to bet that the majority of regular forum participants -- especially the more thoughtful ones -- are Intraverts by nature. The true Extraverts are out doing more social things.4 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »Everted introvert, if it makes any sense. I prefer to do my own thing but I'll be spontaneous and social if the mood calls for it.
On the Myers-Briggs scale I'm an INTP: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
Interesting. I'm an INTP as well, what are the chances! Apparently 3% of the population have this personality type. I'm not exactly anti-social, but my social life happens in bursts when I feel like it. I'm solitary most of the time, but I thoroughly enjoy social interactions when the mood hits.
We just need a 3rd INTP and that'll pretty much satisfy the 3% lol. That's accurately descriptive of myself as well.
I'm an INTP.
And my social life occurs in bursts as well. But only with small groups of people. So, when too many people chime in on an MFP thread, I just back away slowly and hope nobody notices me leaving...3 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »To set up your diet: calculate the calories needed to be in a deficit > set protein to ~0.8-1.2g protein per lb of lbm > set fat / carbs to taste preference to fill in the rest of the calories.
What does lbm stand for? pounds at maintenance, or lbs I should be and am trying to get to?Basically, you will have a "sedentary weight" average and an "active weight" average. These can be two different scale weights.
That said, scale weight is not the only metric that should be used when determining health. Mood, body measurements, your mood, outlook on life, energy levels, the mirror, etc., are all going to be factors in determining whether you feel better about including exercise.
I know it's bad, but I am sedentary usually, and on days that I do have an increase in activity, I do notice a difference!
body measurements are coming down, especially from the waist area, but I admit my mood, outlook on life, and energy levels are in the tank and have been for a long, long time. All that factors into the sedentary lifestyle - I have a deskjob that exhausts me mentally, and its a major battle to do much of anything once I get home of an evening. And knowing that I should power through it but don't have the willpower to win the battle makes things worse......Aerobic improvements - increased blood volume and stored carbs - takes weeks to do.
Sore joints/muscles from unusual activity - inflammation, retained water the next day easily.
And did you eat normal stuff, or did the full day mess with that too?
Think about that entry of painting by a pro - no breaks, constant movement, up and down, ect.
Easily that much calorie burn.
If you take frequent breaks, not that fast movements - then no.
That would be equivalent calorie burn to walking 3 mph on the high end.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html
Did it feel like that much effort on average the whole time?
It's nice to compare activities like that to walking - especially if you have treadmill - jump on and change speed until it felt about the same level of effort, HR and breathing rate.
I ate normal stuff yesterday, managing to successfully avoid Arby's on my way out of town. I definitely had breaks, but managed to get the ceiling and walls painted in about 2 hours - and that was going along the walls with a brush first as I'm painting paneling, so all the seams had to be hit with the brush before I could roll it. I was definitley sore when I was done, and my shoulder and upper arms, especially of my dominate hand, are tell me that today, too - its hard to swing my purse onto my should today as my arm is complaining about lifting the weight up like that lol
But it didn't affect my breathing rate or anything. I've always considered the calorielab values to be high, but sometimes I check because it would be nice to know what the equivalent expenditure is since MFP doesn't keep values for those kind of activities like the old calorie count website did. But I don't add them back in - its more for curiosity's sake. I set my calorie limit to sedentary and I never eat back any activity mostly because I don't usually have enough activity to account for it (I know, I know - bad!) and to catch the fudges on my logging. On the rare occasion that I will use the calorielab numbers to record activity, I usually divide the number by 4 or 6 or just use the 15 minute number.
How high would your HR and breathing rate get walking 3 mph?
4 mph for me is 90 HR, breathing isn't much extra because getting enough oxygen into lungs usually isn't a problem, it's the delivery of enough, and expelling the CO2, that are bigger reasons for increased BR.
Oh - LBM - Lean Body Mass, everything that is not FM - Fat Mass.
Water, muscles, bones, organs, digestive track, ect.
Just be aware purposely undercutting and just adding to a deficit isn't always the best response either.
Of all the exercise calorie estimates - there is at least one totally wrong answer - Zero.2 -
How high would your HR and breathing rate get walking 3 mph?
4 mph for me is 90 HR, breathing isn't much extra because getting enough oxygen into lungs usually isn't a problem, it's the delivery of enough, and expelling the CO2, that are bigger reasons for increased BR.
Oh - LBM - Lean Body Mass, everything that is not FM - Fat Mass.
Water, muscles, bones, organs, digestive track, ect.
Just be aware purposely undercutting and just adding to a deficit isn't always the best response either.
Of all the exercise calorie estimates - there is at least one totally wrong answer - Zero.
I honestly have no idea on HR and breathing rate as I have no way of truly knowing how fast I'm walking when I am walking as I'm never sure of the exact distance - that and I live in WV where everything is on a hill lol
I guess my normal gate is somewhere around 2.5 mph. When I do walk, it's outside and not on a treadmill. I don't have ready access to a treadmill for one, and for two, there's something about my walking gate that makes it rather dangerous - I've tried various models over the years, but every single one does the same thing to me - I'll be walking along and then suddenly, it's like the belt stops for a moment and I jerk and almost fall. I have to be holding on tightly to the hand rails to walk on a treadmill, which then takes a lot of my body weight, which then negates some of the effect of walking. It's happened enough times that I think I've developed a mild fear of getting on one.
I don't have a HR monitor and can't afford a decent one, and have a very hard time finding my pulse points. I can say that when I'm painting or working at the new house, I'm not getting my breath rate up, and it's not a constant effort - there's lots of starts and stops. Still, by the end of the day, I'm tired and my muscles are fatigued, so I've obviously put out some effort; I just can't figure out how to correlate it to anything. It's not a constantly 30 minutes of sustained effort.
so how does one figure out what lean body mass they are shooting for? Since protein is so important, I'd like to know if what I'm getting is adequate, especially as I struggle to get it in. AT my normal deficit of 1400 calories, I'm set for 88 g of protein a day. I currently weight somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 lbs. But I really struggle to get that 88g in!0 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »To set up your diet: calculate the calories needed to be in a deficit > set protein to ~0.8-1.2g protein per lb of lbm > set fat / carbs to taste preference to fill in the rest of the calories.
What does lbm stand for? pounds at maintenance, or lbs I should be and am trying to get to?Basically, you will have a "sedentary weight" average and an "active weight" average. These can be two different scale weights.
That said, scale weight is not the only metric that should be used when determining health. Mood, body measurements, your mood, outlook on life, energy levels, the mirror, etc., are all going to be factors in determining whether you feel better about including exercise.
I know it's bad, but I am sedentary usually, and on days that I do have an increase in activity, I do notice a difference!
body measurements are coming down, especially from the waist area, but I admit my mood, outlook on life, and energy levels are in the tank and have been for a long, long time. All that factors into the sedentary lifestyle - I have a deskjob that exhausts me mentally, and its a major battle to do much of anything once I get home of an evening. And knowing that I should power through it but don't have the willpower to win the battle makes things worse......Aerobic improvements - increased blood volume and stored carbs - takes weeks to do.
Sore joints/muscles from unusual activity - inflammation, retained water the next day easily.
And did you eat normal stuff, or did the full day mess with that too?
Think about that entry of painting by a pro - no breaks, constant movement, up and down, ect.
Easily that much calorie burn.
If you take frequent breaks, not that fast movements - then no.
That would be equivalent calorie burn to walking 3 mph on the high end.
http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html
Did it feel like that much effort on average the whole time?
It's nice to compare activities like that to walking - especially if you have treadmill - jump on and change speed until it felt about the same level of effort, HR and breathing rate.
I ate normal stuff yesterday, managing to successfully avoid Arby's on my way out of town. I definitely had breaks, but managed to get the ceiling and walls painted in about 2 hours - and that was going along the walls with a brush first as I'm painting paneling, so all the seams had to be hit with the brush before I could roll it. I was definitley sore when I was done, and my shoulder and upper arms, especially of my dominate hand, are tell me that today, too - its hard to swing my purse onto my should today as my arm is complaining about lifting the weight up like that lol
But it didn't affect my breathing rate or anything. I've always considered the calorielab values to be high, but sometimes I check because it would be nice to know what the equivalent expenditure is since MFP doesn't keep values for those kind of activities like the old calorie count website did. But I don't add them back in - its more for curiosity's sake. I set my calorie limit to sedentary and I never eat back any activity mostly because I don't usually have enough activity to account for it (I know, I know - bad!) and to catch the fudges on my logging. On the rare occasion that I will use the calorielab numbers to record activity, I usually divide the number by 4 or 6 or just use the 15 minute number.
How high would your HR and breathing rate get walking 3 mph?
4 mph for me is 90 HR, breathing isn't much extra because getting enough oxygen into lungs usually isn't a problem, it's the delivery of enough, and expelling the CO2, that are bigger reasons for increased BR.
Oh - LBM - Lean Body Mass, everything that is not FM - Fat Mass.
Water, muscles, bones, organs, digestive track, ect.
Just be aware purposely undercutting and just adding to a deficit isn't always the best response either.
Of all the exercise calorie estimates - there is at least one totally wrong answer - Zero.
^This.
Just to reiterate, while larger individuals can handle a larger deficit, doesn't mean that they should. If you're already feeling like dog crap from normal everyday life, slamming calories even further isn't going to help at all. In fact, it's more than likely going to backfire.
No one should, or should want to, white knuckle their way through a diet. Eat as much as you can that still allows for weight loss. By default, having more mass means you need more calories to sustain that size, so just eat *a little bit less* than that.
Let's say your maintenance calories are around 3000kcal/day, then if you want a 10% deficit, you would subtract 300kcal. 20% would be -600kcal, and so on.
A good rate of loss is around 0.5-1% per week, so if you weigh 200, then a 1-2lb loss / week is fine and well. 1-2lbs = 3500-7000kcal weekly deficit, and while you could theoretically cut 500-1000kcal from your daily average to give you a 2000-2500kcal/day diet, you could create the deficit through eating less or moving more.
Exercise calories are all estimates and it's going to vary, but there's no way you're not ever burning anything, so even if you were conservative in the estimate and used the lower estimated, that is still creating a deficit.
LBM = lean body mass, and you determine that by estimating your body fat % and subtracting that from your total weight. Again, we'll use 200lbs as an example.
If you weigh 200lbs and have 30% bf (which is 60lbs), you would have 140lbs of lbm. You use this number to determine appropriate protein amount.
There are visual body fat estimates online or you could also use the anecdotal formula of 1g of protein per pound of ultimate goal body weight (also known as reference bodyweight). If you weigh 200lbs and would like to weigh 125lbs, you would eat around 125g of protein, just to keep it simple.3 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »How high would your HR and breathing rate get walking 3 mph?
4 mph for me is 90 HR, breathing isn't much extra because getting enough oxygen into lungs usually isn't a problem, it's the delivery of enough, and expelling the CO2, that are bigger reasons for increased BR.
Oh - LBM - Lean Body Mass, everything that is not FM - Fat Mass.
Water, muscles, bones, organs, digestive track, ect.
Just be aware purposely undercutting and just adding to a deficit isn't always the best response either.
Of all the exercise calorie estimates - there is at least one totally wrong answer - Zero.
I honestly have no idea on HR and breathing rate as I have no way of truly knowing how fast I'm walking when I am walking as I'm never sure of the exact distance - that and I live in WV where everything is on a hill lol
I guess my normal gate is somewhere around 2.5 mph. When I do walk, it's outside and not on a treadmill. I don't have ready access to a treadmill for one, and for two, there's something about my walking gate that makes it rather dangerous - I've tried various models over the years, but every single one does the same thing to me - I'll be walking along and then suddenly, it's like the belt stops for a moment and I jerk and almost fall. I have to be holding on tightly to the hand rails to walk on a treadmill, which then takes a lot of my body weight, which then negates some of the effect of walking. It's happened enough times that I think I've developed a mild fear of getting on one.
I don't have a HR monitor and can't afford a decent one, and have a very hard time finding my pulse points. I can say that when I'm painting or working at the new house, I'm not getting my breath rate up, and it's not a constant effort - there's lots of starts and stops. Still, by the end of the day, I'm tired and my muscles are fatigued, so I've obviously put out some effort; I just can't figure out how to correlate it to anything. It's not a constantly 30 minutes of sustained effort.
so how does one figure out what lean body mass they are shooting for? Since protein is so important, I'd like to know if what I'm getting is adequate, especially as I struggle to get it in. AT my normal deficit of 1400 calories, I'm set for 88 g of protein a day. I currently weight somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 lbs. But I really struggle to get that 88g in!
It's probably easier for you to set your protein according to ideal body weight at this point (eg mid BMI range), at 0.6-0.8g per lb. That's how I do mine, since I don't actually know my lbm, other than a guess. Though I actually aim for 1g per lb of total weight. What are your protein sources now? We can make suggestions as to how you may be able to increase it a bit more, though obviously you'll need to cut some cals from either carbs or fat to do that, unless you can increase TDEE.4 -
So I'm onto Day 5 of diet break. Weight is of course up, I think still some residual TOM bloat, so I expect it to drop back another couple of hundred grams from that and then hold pretty steady.
Debating whether I feel unbloaty enough to wear new shorts today. Our run of golden weather is continuing (and meant to until at least the end of the month apparently).
Quad feels good today, so I'm about to strength train before heading to work.5 -
Part of me is quietly delighted that when I finally post in the Success Stories it's going to be the most meandering story to get from point A to point B. Like that time I got lost without satnav on holiday this year. None of this "I lost 100lbs in two months by running every day and eating lettuce!" nonsense. I shall be an extreme counterpoint.11
-
alteredstates175 wrote: »
ETA: I realized this turned into lectured synopsis, but it doesn't hurt to bring it back up once in a while
Thank you for the synopsis. I have been logging food and losing weight since March. I am still trying to wrap my brain around all of the information in this thread. Trying to figure out the best long term strategy for maintenance for myself.
You're welcome. If it helps in any way, a good long term strategy for maintenance is to have a goal of leanness or fitness that you envision in your mind + a diet with activities you enjoy that allow you to remain adherent towards that goal, while keeping up your mood/energy/outlook/happiness, etc.
If you have fat to lose, use that as a good start for a goal. Your diet will be priority, and your training will support your diet.
If you are aiming to perform better as an athlete, your training will be priority, and your diet will support your training.4
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