What do all of you do ...?

koalathebear

So ... I managed to get back on track after the slight but entirely expected and predicted deviation in December during the holiday season...

Alas, as many people would know, Australia's currently being devastated by horrific bushfires. I'm in Canberra and although (given that we are not in the firezone) what we are experiencing is in no way near as awful as the people who have lost their homes and indeed their lives - Canberra is getting the smoke.

As an illustration, from being one of the loveliest, least polluted and cleanest cities around, we now have the worst air quality in the world:


If you look at this this website, you'll see that with a hazard level of 5696 in some areas (200 being the point at which air quality is considered hazardous), many parts of Canberra are 28 times the hazard level ...

Government is recommending we all stay inside, problem is Aussie homes are frequently really badly insulated so inside is still very smoky - eg, our house (when unfiltered) had air quality levels of 500+ ... P2 masks are sort of helpful but not really if you read what the Government says here ...

Exercise is a no-no because all the gyms are smoky, our houses are smoky, outside is smoky (no walking the dog)... I pretty much can't afford to do anything right now that will exert me ... So I have to stick within my calorie budget unboosted by exercise ... I'm not sure how long the smoke will last ... The bushfires will be with us for a long time... My fitness woes are nothing compared to the bigger problems out there - but they do present a challenge to maintenance for me.

ahoy_m8

koalathebear wrote: »

So ... I managed to get back on track after the slight but entirely expected and predicted deviation in December during the holiday season...

Alas, as many people would know, Australia's currently being devastated by horrific bushfires. I'm in Canberra and although (given that we are not in the firezone) what we are experiencing is in no way near as awful as the people who have lost their homes and indeed their lives - Canberra is getting the smoke.

As an illustration, from being one of the loveliest, least polluted and cleanest cities around, we now have the worst air quality in the world:


If you look at this this website, you'll see that with a hazard level of 5696 in some areas (200 being the point at which air quality is considered hazardous), many parts of Canberra are 28 times the hazard level ...

Government is recommending we all stay inside, problem is Aussie homes are frequently really badly insulated so inside is still very smoky - eg, our house (when unfiltered) had air quality levels of 500+ ... P2 masks are sort of helpful but not really if you read what the Government says here ...

Exercise is a no-no because all the gyms are smoky, our houses are smoky, outside is smoky (no walking the dog)... I pretty much can't afford to do anything right now that will exert me ... So I have to stick within my calorie budget unboosted by exercise ... I'm not sure how long the smoke will last ... The bushfires will be with us for a long time... My fitness woes are nothing compared to the bigger problems out there - but they do present a challenge to maintenance for me.

You have my complete sympathy and best wishes for a speedy improvement in air quality and danger abatement to you and your countrymen. Getting outside for exercise and fresh air is a dependable stress reducer, so it really is a double whammy to have that option off the table during a stressful time. Hang in there. Stay safe.

katsheare

@koalathebear I lived in the SF Bay Area about a decade ago when there were fires, not with us but near enough that the skies were hazy and everything smelled smoky. You and your countrymen have my absolute sympathy!

Stay safe, do what you need to do to stay well (physically and mentally), and please do report back regularly - want to be sure you're okay!!

Sylphadora

I don't decrease my calories the day after I exceed my calorie budget because the contrast between overindulging and a deficit makes me feel deprived. I find it easier for my mental health to go back to maintenance. It's not like I go supercrazy when I go over my budget.

Last time I went over my calories was on New Year's Eve and on Jan 1st I just went back to eating normal. It put mental distance from the overindulging. On Jan 2nd I had already put the guilt behind, but if I had restricted on the 1st to compensate for the overeating on Dec 31st, on Jan 2nd my mind would have still been fixating on the "damage" I did on Dec 31st.

Of course this is something I did because it was one day of overeating among lots of days of normal eating. It's like a drop in a glass of water. If I were to go over my budget several times in a week or several days in a row, I don't think it would work. Going over budget by 500 or even 1,000 cals once in a while is not going to do much harm if it's an isolated event and not a frequent occurrence.

koalathebear

Bushfire season is done (for now) thankfully so the good air is back, so we can go back to exercising again like usual - which is a relief.

I've switched myself on MFP back to weight loss mode though. I know a lot of people say that the "If every day were like today... You'd weigh x kg in 5 weeks" is useless but I have always found it quite helpful /early earning to tell me if a particular day was good or not. I still want to log my weight every week but the problem is maintenance mode seems to want to maintain you at whatever the current weight is in MFP even if it's not the weight you actually want to maintain eg my maintenance weight is around 54.6 kg. My weight has fluctuated since maintenance started going up to as high as 57kg over the holiday season and when I went to the coast with family and friends and ate more - and then popping back down again when I returned to normal habits, but if I am on maintenance mode in MFP, it will try to maintain me at 57kg, which isn't what I want.

I've also learned that while exercise is really good at boosting my exercise calories so that I can maintain a deficit through exercise, it only works to a point. Ultimately my body is more inclined to drop weight from a calorie deficit through cutting food intake rather than exercising more. By way of example, if I eat over 2,000 calories a day, even if I do a tonne of exercise, I will still gain weight/not drop weight.

Whereas even if I don't do exercise, but eat calories within the 1200 - 1400 range, then I will drop weight.