Mind Blown!

PAV8888
PAV8888 Posts: 13,587 Member
edited March 2019 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
TL;dr: What is blowing my mind is that over the course of almost three years, in spite of major day to day eating differences, my AVERAGE calories eaten as logged varied by about *7* Cal (2911 to 2920)... so less than a 0.25% variation!?!

This makes me curious about similar or dissimilar experiences!!!

In more detail:
So, I was looking into something else today and my mind was blown by the realization of how TIGHT my AVERAGE CALORIES FOR THE YEAR were in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

And this in spite of some serious spread between minimums and maximums.

Nov 2014 to Nov 2015: Min 1292 Max 5623 AVG: 2560 Steps 17970 W: -72.5lbs
Nov 2015 to Nov 2016: Min 1900 Max 5281 AVG: 2913 Steps 19597 W: -11.1lbs
Nov 2016 to Nov 2017: Min 1465 Max 5108 AVG: 2911 Steps 19104 W: -2.7lbs
Nov 2017 to Apr 2018: Min ?? Max ?? AVG: 2920 Steps 18813 W: -0.3lbs

Between not actively trying to lose weight and MFP making it much harder to get your logged information back out of their databases I have stopped carefully analyzing my data. My "high confidence" data end November 2017, and my "fairly confident" data extend to April 2018... past that things have gotten pretty lax by my previous logging "standards" ;-)
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Replies

  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member
    Thank you for sharing your experience. I will tread carefully in this new zone of smaller deficit. It's interesting that you mention emotional eating as well as being up at night. I haven't been sleeping well for the last couple of weeks and my desire to eat emotionally has increased. Hmmm....Lots to learn! Thank you again!!
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,587 Member
    nowine4me wrote: »
    @PAV8888 I think you’ve hit on something that’s new to me too. Several years into “maintenance” (which is really gaining and losing 10#), I am becoming more keenly aware of WHY I eat. Being tired and/or cold are big factors, anxiety, bored etc.

    I find myself reaching in the treat drawer and able to ask myself why? I have started asking myself if I’m hungry. It took a while to get here, but I thinking I’m turning a corner on becoming a more normal eater.

    Well you're a step ahead of me especially when I'm tired and cold which often tend to happen together at around 2 or 3 a.m. have been known to exceed a thousand calories at that time!!!

    However, as i mention often, it is not one-time events that tend to change my weight trend over time but rather the accumulation of sequences of events... at least to my experience so far. So one night or day at plus 1000 not that big of a deal. Several? well then yes then there is a more lasting effect!
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,587 Member
    edited March 2019
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Or maybe the standard deviation is higher in some years so it felt subjectively different? (I'm assuming you calculated the standard deviation . . . ! ;) ).

    Kindly Grammy, can I send you some slightly combed data for your perusal and divination?

    I had to take stats a few times before I could grok standard deviation and I can't fit well under your curves without some help!

    Also not sure what the couple of years of standard deviation I came up with actually show, except that it is about 1/5 to 1/6 of total calories eaten and it appears to have grown smaller as the deficit became smaller! :blush:

    2014-2015 SD 485 (Nov 20 to Nov 19)
    2015-2016 SD 457 (Nov 20 to Nov 19)
    2016-2017 SD 434* (Nov 20 to September 2)
    2017-2018 (no data)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Or maybe the standard deviation is higher in some years so it felt subjectively different? (I'm assuming you calculated the standard deviation . . . ! ;) ).

    Kindly Grammy, can I send you some slightly combed data for your perusal and divination?

    I had to take stats a few times before I could grok standard deviation and I can't fit well under your curves without some help! Also not sure what the couple of years of standard deviation I can come up with actually show :blush:

    2014-2015 SD 485
    2015-2016 SD 457
    2016-2017 SD 434

    Sadly, I think you've invalidated my hypothesis. Appears, if I'm understanding your numbers correctly, that your daily calories tended to vary a little less each successive year - days got a bit more consistent - but the year-to-year consistency difference doesn't seem huge, subjectively speaking. That does seem to be in a context where your average calories went up a tiny bit each year, though, even as the distribution around the mean got a little tighter.

    In 2014-15, on roughly 68% of your days, you consumed 2075-3045 calories
    In 2015-16, on roughly 68% of your days, you consumed 2456-3370 calories
    In 2016-17, on roughly 68% of your days, you consumed 2477-3345 calories

    (Assuming I did the arithmetic correctly, never a safe bet: My math is usually better than my arithmetic.)

    So, your distribution bell curve is getting taller and narrower, but not by much.

    As I understand it. And I'm a poor statistician. Well, not a statistician at all. ;)

    I don't remember the methods for determining whether the year-to-year differences suggest that the years were significantly different from one another or not, without looking it up. And statistics is way too boring to me to do that: Sorry. ;)

    Please don't feel slighted. I wouldn't look it up even if it were my data. :drinker:
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,587 Member
    edited March 2019
    Well we would ideally use more and more complete years.

    Maybe some lurking MFP statistician, researcher, PhD, or lurking prof, will throw us a statistical bone here???!!! :blush:

    In any case, Ann, it does feel as if I have less desire for extremes which, if you think of it, is consistent with a lack of restriction resulting in a lack of additional binging impetus.

    And the lack of weight change is pointing to lack of restriction... so internal consistency... or something!!!!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    edited March 2019
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Well we would ideally use more and more complete years.

    Maybe some lurking MFP statistician, researcher, PhD, or lurking prof, will throw us a statistical bone here???!!! :blush:

    In any case, Ann, it does feel as if I have less desire for extremes which, if you think of it, is consistent with a lack of restriction resulting in a lack of additional binging impetus.

    And the lack of weight change is pointing to lack of restriction... so internal consistency... or something!!!!

    That's a good thing. I wish I could get there, but refuse to stress about it. There are occasional glimmerings of possible progress, but they're dim and distant. So I keep budgeting for the inclination, to the best of my ability.
  • IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt
    IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt Posts: 695 Member
    That’s impressive! Although, if anyone were to have such perfect data around here, it would be you. :)

    I did something similar for my FitBit data, 4 years and my activity factor was surprisingly consistent from year to year, despite some months being very active, some months being sedentary, and even long months of injury where I stopped purposeful exercise. Add to that losing weight, which I would have presumed would lead to an increase in average activity, but that’s not the case per the numbers. It makes me wonder if I can ever implement and maintain a higher level of activity long-term. :/
  • psychod787
    psychod787 Posts: 4,088 Member
    I follow the adventures of PAV, even if he does not realize it. I wish I had your eye for math! I am much like 7-11... not always doing business, but open! Lol
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,587 Member
    psychod787 wrote: »
    I follow the adventures of PAV, even if he does not realize it. I wish I had your eye for math! I am much like 7-11... not always doing business, but open! Lol

    But you lift!!!
    IdLikeToLoseItLoseIt wrote: »
    It makes me wonder if I can ever implement and maintain a higher level of activity long-term. :/

    For me that involved an extremely deliberate decision to move from a starting point of less than MFP's level of sedentary to being what MFP would call very active plus a little bit. I ended up trading all my veg watching TV (and eating) plus my sci-fi reading time for MFP forums and walking!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    Mulling this overnight (because I have an incubating kind of brain, not because I'm obsessed with you, PAV, charming though you may be), and in light of your PM, it occurred to me that there might be a couple of other primary-school stats things that could be fun, if easy. (Warning: About to wander off into the weeds!)

    One would be to calc the standard deviation of steps by year (since steps seem to be a big part of your exercise, calorically speaking**) and see how its magnitude with respect to the mean varies or doesn't over the years, then kind of eyeball how that variability relates to intake variability; or better yet (but harder), graph calorie consumption as (or as if it were ;) ) a function of steps or vice-versa, to see how the line slopes. The problem with the function graph notion, in my mind, is whether steps would possibly correlate not with same-day intake, but potentially previous-day intake, or even something even more complicated.

    I think you're demonstrating something here that (IIRC) research has shown, that Da Homeostasis Is Real. ;)

    ** I wouldn't really suggest this for calories from exercise that aren't quantifiable well in non-calorie terms; I think (gut feel, no proof) that the inevitable error in the calorie estimates would be large enough to make any differences in calorie/exercise pretty meaningless in practice.

    Heh. ;):flowerforyou:
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    @PAV8888 your steps didn't go down enough to completely allow for the smaller weight loss, but considering the inherent inaccuracies in all the data we collect, I'm looking at that data as essentially being consistent in intake, activity, weight maintenance. Would you agree?

    Another possibility I'm curious your thoughts on - is it possible your logging has become more relaxed and the consistency is more in what you logged as opposed to what you ate? Do you typically eat the same foods a lot? Now that I'm maintaining, I know my logging has gotten a little less exact, and I'm pleased that despite not being as anal about it, I've managed to stay in my maintenance range. I have had some rare instances of "portion creep" but they have been in very specific foods that tend to be triggers for me anyway.

    It's interesting that the idea of homeostasis comes up. It seems often when homeostasis is elevated by the diet industry, it's the idea that the body will stay the weight it is, regardless of a person eating or exercising a bit more or less, and you really have to push it to extremes to force it to change.

    But the homeostasis suggested here is a possibly subconscious consistency in behavior. That a person will tend to eat and exercise enough to maintain over the long term without realizing it in the moment. So it's more perhaps appetite, energy level, mindless activity, and especially habit. That we just get used to eating the same amount of the stuff we eat. I guess that idea falls down when you consider how many people slowly gain weight as they get older, though I'm sure I could explain that away if I think about that more :lol:

    I must ponder this further :sunglasses:
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    <snip good stuff, for length>

    It's interesting that the idea of homeostasis comes up. It seems often when homeostasis is elevated by the diet industry, it's the idea that the body will stay the weight it is, regardless of a person eating or exercising a bit more or less, and you really have to push it to extremes to force it to change.

    But the homeostasis suggested here is a possibly subconscious consistency in behavior. That a person will tend to eat and exercise enough to maintain over the long term without realizing it in the moment. So it's more perhaps appetite, energy level, mindless activity, and especially habit. That we just get used to eating the same amount of the stuff we eat. I guess that idea falls down when you consider how many people slowly gain weight as they get older, though I'm sure I could explain that away if I think about that more :lol:

    I must ponder this further :sunglasses:

    That's pretty much what I think, that (over-)simplification: Homeostasis in this context is mostly just habit, but more impressively polysyllabic. We have habits of movement, and habits of eating. We can manage each of them, but it takes some mental/emotional bandwidth (not to mention committed intention) to make the shift.

    Further, they (movement and eating) mutually influence each other, in ways with deep evolutionary roots.

    PAV's little math/statistics exercise here is bringing some of that stuff into sharper focus.

    To the bolded: I think that, in societies or circumstances wealthy enough to enable it, it's natural to indulge more (in ways natural selection designed us for), and to accept more comforts and conveniences that mean we tend to become less active.

    In our mainstream first-world modern situation, it's pretty normal for young people to have jobs that involve more movement, and a tendency for people to move into (often better-paid, higher-status, more sedentary) jobs as they age (the waiter becomes the restaurant manager, still bustling but not as much; the carpenter becomes a planner-estimator with more desk time; the college-bound work menial jobs, mostly, during their education years, then maybe move to desk jobs; etc.)

    In our early lives (teens to 20s, maybe beyond), we're building our future social lives: Going out and doing things we still have youthful energy and enthusiasm for, like clubbing, dancing, recreational sports leagues. These don't end with age, but many people tend to leave them behind as their jobs get more demanding or they have young families, and get out of the habit.

    Beyond that, 20s-30s and maybe beyond, we're still working on building comfort for our future selves: Remodeling and redecorating the home, planting the ornamentals, whatever.

    Later, it's more about "enjoy what we have".

    All of those trends (which are not universals) trend toward lower daily life activity. Lower daily life activity (unless intentional exercise or a continuing very-physical job are in the mix) tend to lead to lower strength, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility. It gets easier and easier to rest, for habit to continue toward less movement, alongside eating habits staying the same, or even self-indulgence increasing as we can afford to eat out more, or buy richer foods.

    I think that's how the common incremental weight gain mostly happens. (It's still about habits, basically.) Remember that 100 excess calories a day is 10 pounds gained in a year. It doesn't take much. ;)
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    edited March 2019
    So it's a case of your environment being slightly louder than your natural tendencies, slightly nudging you out of homeostasis into middle age spread :smiley:

    Yep, I only gained 20-25 lbs, and that crept on over 10 years. When I figured out what a teeny tiny little surplus that was, it was eye opening!
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    edited March 2019
    kimny72 wrote: »
    So it's a case of your environment being slightly louder than your natural tendencies, slightly nudging you out of homeostasis into middle age spread :smiley:

    Yep, I only gained 20-25 lbs, and that crept on over 10 years. When I figured out what a teeny tiny little surplus that was, it was eye opening!

    I think it's natural tendencies as well: Tendencies to indulge, tendencies to conserve energy, both of those installed by natural selection; and a tendency of reduced activity (more conveniences, purchased services more than DIY) to be seen as higher status. I guess that last is still environment, but the part before the semicolon is IMO wired in. What changes as we age, with those, is that we're more able, on average across the population, to indulge and conserve.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,030 Member
    I'd add - pretty far off topic now, sorry, PAV :flowerforyou: - that I think one of the things that has kept young people active longer, a tendency for the growing brain to seek stimulation, activity, and experiences, is now being co-opted by virtual or video experiences in preference to more physically-challenging ones.

    (My teacher friends report new crops of kids decreasingly skilled at interacting with physical artifacts. Example: One taught a simple machines unit to middle-schoolers for many years. Gradually, successive classes arrived less capable. Things that had been obvious to the early ones - how to make wheels and axles out of straws and metal brads and cardboard to make a breath-pushed "sail car" for a competitive challenge - became a complete mystery to later classes, who needed extensive help.)
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    I'd add - pretty far off topic now, sorry, PAV :flowerforyou: - that I think one of the things that has kept young people active longer, a tendency for the growing brain to seek stimulation, activity, and experiences, is now being co-opted by virtual or video experiences in preference to more physically-challenging ones.

    (My teacher friends report new crops of kids decreasingly skilled at interacting with physical artifacts. Example: One taught a simple machines unit to middle-schoolers for many years. Gradually, successive classes arrived less capable. Things that had been obvious to the early ones - how to make wheels and axles out of straws and metal brads and cardboard to make a breath-pushed "sail car" for a competitive challenge - became a complete mystery to later classes, who needed extensive help.)

    Interesting and not in a good way! Fortunately my brother is a civil engineer, so my little nephews have been constantly surrounded by building blocks and toy vehicles and a fascination for how to take them apart and put them back together. My oldest nephew is six and has just started with video games, and my brother always insists that screen time is offset by equal "hands on" time, and it really helps. Unfortunately not all parents would even think to guard against that, or have the time or inclination to strategize about it. What's a shame is I think the virtual world can be a powerful engine for education and experience, but it HAS to be accompanied by actual activity and experience to not become limiting.

    Hi Pav8888 <waves>!

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