Is running making me fat?
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Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
So you're almost 500 calories over your target for the day. What do you expect to happen, then?
This is true although I do note that her base net calories are at the absolute minimum of 1200, so even if she only burnt 300 in exercise, her net would only be around 1800 which does not seem enough to account for such weight gain ?
That's true -- but it would depend on the original goal, I guess.
I don't do the MFP-NEAT format, because with training, it makes meal planning stress me out -- I like knowing *everything* for the day, and I know that my training is *typically* pretty normal, so seeing red numbers until the activity comes over from Runkeeper just makes me feel awful and makes me feel like I'm a failure by having to fuel back. So I go TDEE, and forget that other people, well, use the program as designed.0 -
wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
not to mention all that excess sodium can cause water retention. and if you are using homemade entries that are not your own ,you dont know what goes into the recipe so the calories can vary. also a chicken entry on here can vary by quite a lot. I learned the hard way when I started gaining weight back because I didnt use a food scale . if you weigh food you can make your own recipes and follow them when you have that food again. but pastas weight is dry weight not cooked weight. you get very little cooked pasta for say 300-400 calories. its possible that your pasta with sauce and meatballs could have been more that the listing you used.
2 pieces of chicken can vary in weight and calories even if they are close to the same size. labels are notoriously known for being off. also some of the entries on mfp even the green checked marked ones can be wrong also. I started losing weight again once I started weighing everything.many times I have had to go and correct incorrect entries. also an entry a person from say canada enters wont be exactly the same as one a person from the US may enter(if they enter them correctly that is).2 -
collectingblues wrote: »Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
So you're almost 500 calories over your target for the day. What do you expect to happen, then?
This is true although I do note that her base net calories are at the absolute minimum of 1200, so even if she only burnt 300 in exercise, her net would only be around 1800 which does not seem enough to account for such weight gain ?
That's true -- but it would depend on the original goal, I guess.
I don't do the MFP-NEAT format, because with training, it makes meal planning stress me out -- I like knowing *everything* for the day, and I know that my training is *typically* pretty normal, so seeing red numbers until the activity comes over from Runkeeper just makes me feel awful and makes me feel like I'm a failure by having to fuel back. So I go TDEE, and forget that other people, well, use the program as designed.
I have been considering a return to TDEE but I hate logging just 1 calorie for my workouts, as silly as that sounds. It is tough on days when I just walk or rest rather than train, to see those red numbers, even if I have had other days where I was below my goal. They really should change that colour lol.2 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
So you're almost 500 calories over your target for the day. What do you expect to happen, then?
This is true although I do note that her base net calories are at the absolute minimum of 1200, so even if she only burnt 300 in exercise, her net would only be around 1800 which does not seem enough to account for such weight gain ?
But she's guessing with her logging too. Random muffin, random pasta. Some may be fine, others could be way off.
Logging accurately adds all of about 5 minutes at worst to mealtimes a day for me. Sure it takes a few goes to get good and efficient at it but it's not hard or time consuming.
You're not getting the results you want. The way to pinpoint the issue is to decrease the variables as much as possible. The glaringly obvious one is your food tracking.
Yes, you have good points and I previously stated in a post that she needs to start weighing and logging her food properly. I was mostly questioning whether she needs to set such a low net once she is logging accurately really and whether that might be too aggressive. I am personally lax with my logging. I weigh chicken, nuts and yoghurt, but mostly I use the packaging and I just put large for any apples I eat. That said, it has never caused me issues when it comes to losing or maintaining my weight and I have been the same weight for months now, give or take a pound. For others, it is necessary because they do not have a good idea of portion sizes.1 -
Graelwyn75 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
So you're almost 500 calories over your target for the day. What do you expect to happen, then?
This is true although I do note that her base net calories are at the absolute minimum of 1200, so even if she only burnt 300 in exercise, her net would only be around 1800 which does not seem enough to account for such weight gain ?
But she's guessing with her logging too. Random muffin, random pasta. Some may be fine, others could be way off.
Logging accurately adds all of about 5 minutes at worst to mealtimes a day for me. Sure it takes a few goes to get good and efficient at it but it's not hard or time consuming.
You're not getting the results you want. The way to pinpoint the issue is to decrease the variables as much as possible. The glaringly obvious one is your food tracking.
Yes, you have good points and I previously stated in a post that she needs to start weighing and logging her food properly. I was mostly questioning whether she needs to set such a low net once she is logging accurately really and whether that might be too aggressive. I am personally lax with my logging. I weigh chicken, nuts and yoghurt, but mostly I use the packaging and I just put large for any apples I eat. That said, it has never caused me issues when it comes to losing or maintaining my weight and I have been the same weight for months now, give or take a pound. For others, it is necessary because they do not have a good idea of portion sizes.
I'm the same largely the same with portioned prepackaged stuff but when you're logging a pasta dish or rice based dish for example, what seems like a perfectly reasonable portion of rice or pasta can be waaaaaay off. Same for dishes with meat, you may be using a fattier cut than the generic user created entry, more missed calories. Eyeballing olive oil? Immediate calorie bomb.
There is also the flip side of that in that you could end up under-fuelling, though that's not the case here because OP has been gaining/isn't losing. I think it's fair to assume there's a lot of under-estimating happening.3 -
Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »Graelwyn75 wrote: »collectingblues wrote: »wildshrubbery wrote: »OP, you still haven't answered - how are you tracking your calories? Do you use a scale to weigh in grams?
I've been eating foods with labels. Today I had a particularly skinny lunch of a whole can of tuna (1.75 servings = 105 calories) on top of plain baby arugula with no fancy dressings for flavor that's barely 20 calories more.
And what's not labelled, I compare to what's saved in the database already. For instance this is Tuesday
So you're almost 500 calories over your target for the day. What do you expect to happen, then?
This is true although I do note that her base net calories are at the absolute minimum of 1200, so even if she only burnt 300 in exercise, her net would only be around 1800 which does not seem enough to account for such weight gain ?
That's true -- but it would depend on the original goal, I guess.
I don't do the MFP-NEAT format, because with training, it makes meal planning stress me out -- I like knowing *everything* for the day, and I know that my training is *typically* pretty normal, so seeing red numbers until the activity comes over from Runkeeper just makes me feel awful and makes me feel like I'm a failure by having to fuel back. So I go TDEE, and forget that other people, well, use the program as designed.
I have been considering a return to TDEE but I hate logging just 1 calorie for my workouts, as silly as that sounds. It is tough on days when I just walk or rest rather than train, to see those red numbers, even if I have had other days where I was below my goal. They really should change that colour lol.
But with TDEE your goal includes your exercise so you shouldn't be going dramatically in the red? Because you aren't logging exercise so rest day goal will be the same as activity day goal.1 -
wildshrubbery wrote: »That just sounds so painfully labor intensive, time consuming and obsessive, measuring weighing and calculating exact calories. Just logging everything seems borderline neurotic.
I have 2 toddlers. I'm just simply not going to weight every piece of food on a food scale and calculate the exact calories in it.
And you think it's the running that's making you fat?13 -
Every time someone posts they aren't losing weight, despite logging and exercising they are either, logging so badly they might as well not be doing it, or eating back more exercise calories than they actually are burning.
If you are going to all the trouble to log, might as well try and make it at least a little more accurate. Guessing on muffins and pasta is a no. It's not the same as guessing on mushrooms and celery.
I often tell myself not to complain about results I didn't get, due to effort I didn't put in. It's a good saying. Keeps me honest.6 -
wildshrubbery wrote: »That just sounds so painfully labor intensive, time consuming and obsessive, measuring weighing and calculating exact calories. Just logging everything seems borderline neurotic.
I have 2 toddlers. I'm just simply not going to weight every piece of food on a food scale and calculate the exact calories in it.
I've said this before, but -
It perplexes me why people who are monitoring their calories on a calorie counting site feel that actually using the site as designed is obsessive and neurotic. And they don't understand why they're not losing weight. It seems to me that in that case the obvious course of action would be to go to a different site that uses a different method for weight management that doesn't feel obsessive and neurotic and use that site as designed.12 -
Weighing using a food scale is not hard if you have the right scale. In fact, once you get used to it, it can be easier - for example, instead of messing about with measuring cups to make steel cut oats with milk, walnuts and apples, I put the pot directly on the scale, hit tare to set the weight to zero, and add each ingredient by weight. It takes literally seconds. For a muffin, you put the plate you were planning to eat from on your scale, hit tare, then your muffin. If you were planning to eat from a plate, you've done nothing extra that you weren't going to have to do already. Writing the amounts down in your log gets easier over time, since more and more foods will already be in your recent list, so you just have to select the amount.3
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janejellyroll wrote: »
I think it's unnecessarily pejorative to call it "obsessive" and "borderline neurotic" when it's just everyday behavior for a bunch of people here, most of who identify as well-adjusted (or if they don't, it's not related to how they accurately track their food consumption).
You're right for sure.
I'm thinking only of myself and it seems like a sort of escalation of food issues.
I started tracking because my stress levels peaked regarding food. Hopefully I'll feel like a more well adjusted individual when food doesn't seem like a thing that's getting out of control in my life, but something I can manage.
For myself I'd rather put a little less focus into my consumption and live with a 200 calorie margin of error.
There are so many core issues with my diet that I can correct before I even sweat that error.
And you may well be right that a period of weighing will be beneficial as it has become clear that I am defaulting to more packaged and processed foods with labels to get a more accurate calorie count, I could use a mental framework if the nutritional content of unlabeled foods.
Anyway I'm sorry for suggesting anyone else might be neurotic because *I* can't handle food like a level headed individual this week.7 -
Didn't want to take the time to read ALL the comments, so I hope this isn't a repeat; but, wondering if it could be a hormonal eg. thyroid issue. Easy enough to find out by a visit to your GP for some blood tests. I also agree with the above comment that weight loss is NOT about exercise, it is about food intake. Exercise is very beneficial for overall health, but unless a person is hardcore with the activity end of things the impact on weight loss is minimal for the most part. A trainer once told me that weight loss is 90% food & 10% exercise.0
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wildshrubbery wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »
I think it's unnecessarily pejorative to call it "obsessive" and "borderline neurotic" when it's just everyday behavior for a bunch of people here, most of who identify as well-adjusted (or if they don't, it's not related to how they accurately track their food consumption).
You're right for sure.
I'm thinking only of myself and it seems like a sort of escalation of food issues.
I started tracking because my stress levels peaked regarding food. Hopefully I'll feel like a more well adjusted individual when food doesn't seem like a thing that's getting out of control in my life, but something I can manage.
For myself I'd rather put a little less focus into my consumption and live with a 200 calorie margin of error.
There are so many core issues with my diet that I can correct before I even sweat that error.
And you may well be right that a period of weighing will be beneficial as it has become clear that I am defaulting to more packaged and processed foods with labels to get a more accurate calorie count, I could use a mental framework if the nutritional content of unlabeled foods.
Anyway I'm sorry for suggesting anyone else might be neurotic because *I* can't handle food like a level headed individual this week.
just to make you aware, packaged food calories can be out 20%3 -
wildshrubbery wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »
I think it's unnecessarily pejorative to call it "obsessive" and "borderline neurotic" when it's just everyday behavior for a bunch of people here, most of who identify as well-adjusted (or if they don't, it's not related to how they accurately track their food consumption).
You're right for sure.
I'm thinking only of myself and it seems like a sort of escalation of food issues.
I started tracking because my stress levels peaked regarding food. Hopefully I'll feel like a more well adjusted individual when food doesn't seem like a thing that's getting out of control in my life, but something I can manage.
For myself I'd rather put a little less focus into my consumption and live with a 200 calorie margin of error.
There are so many core issues with my diet that I can correct before I even sweat that error.
And you may well be right that a period of weighing will be beneficial as it has become clear that I am defaulting to more packaged and processed foods with labels to get a more accurate calorie count, I could use a mental framework if the nutritional content of unlabeled foods.
Anyway I'm sorry for suggesting anyone else might be neurotic because *I* can't handle food like a level headed individual this week.
Obviously we can't know your individual issues around food tracking or what you've experienced in the past. If you feel like it would be harmful for you personally, then it's fine to forgo it. But if you want to lose weight, you'll have to find another way to control your calories.
My experience, as someone who has also had issues around food in the past, is that accurate logging actually *decreased* my anxiety about food because I knew exactly how much I was eating and I didn't have to second-guess myself or eliminate certain foods from my diet entirely. That won't be universal, some people do find weighing to be a trigger.
Good luck.6
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