Food, Exercise, or other Reports

bmeadows380

I realized I had co-opted the 10,000 step thread as a personal reporting for my exercise efforts and thought that might not be a good thing to be doing, so I started a new thread instead.

I figure to use this to talk about anything I've been successful at today, whether it be exercise improvements or woes, calorie counting efforts, or anything that I'd just like to muse about out-loud. I almost called it an accountability thread but didn't quite go that far because I'm the sort of person who starts to stress when I have deadlines or have to answer to someone else with this sort of thing; accountability partners make it worse for me; not better. I suppose its because of my innate need to please and fear of failure; its much easier on me if the only person I'm answering to is myself; shoot, I"m hard enough on myself anyway!

But, if you want an accountability partner, go ahead and use this thread if you want. Or if you just want a place to talk about your experiences, that's fine too - this isn't meant to be just my own place. You know me - I like to talk!




So, my fitness tracker says I got 12,298 steps in so far today; however, about 2,000 of those came from playing the piano and don't count. I did get a 4 mile walk in today and that's where the majority of the remaining 10,000 steps came. What I find interesting is that yesterday, when i took that 5 1/2 mile walk, I was really struggling there near the end to get home, though I did make it. Today, the 4 mile walk wasn't a problem - I was fine getting home and still have energy to do some house chores tonight.

First off, I'm kind of amazed at myself that I was even able to take a 4 mile walk today after that walk yesterday - I expected to be paying for that extra long one yesterday by being tired and sore today, but I'm not. So I'm a bit excited to think that perhaps that means my stamina is increasing and my leg muscles are getting stronger.

Secondly, I walked that 4 miles today in 1 hour and 15 minutes, which averages out to a 3.2 mph walking rate, which has surprised the heck out of me! Yesterday's walk also averaged out to around 3 mph - I actually quadruple checked those numbers because I couldn't believe it; it didn't feel like I was walking that fast!

So not only has my stamina increased in the lost month's efforts to get more active, apparently, my innate walking speed has increased because when I first started, my average speed was somewhere between 2.5 and 2.75 mph. It's nice to sit back and look at my progress and realize I'm making some!

tomorrow is back to work, so no time for hour long walks. But my plan is to get up and get a 30 minute elliptical session first, because while that doesn't get my heart rate up much even when I increase the resistance, I'm still moving. And I need to go to the bank and post office tomorrow, which will be a 2 mile walk at lunch time. I also hope to have time tomorrow evening to fertilize my yard and get some flower bulbs transplanted, so hopefully, I can get all that done and keep the activity up.

Tuesday and Wednesday are going to have to be indoor exercise days, though.

I also really need to get a body weight routine going and start with some sort of weight training. I have a hard time doing this on my own, though, because I never know if I"m doing them right. I'd really prefer to start weight training with a trainer for a few weeks, but that's out right now, or course, and I can't afford it anyway.

I found one at nerdfitness:

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/beginner-body-weight-workout-burn-fat-build-muscle/

Is anyone in the know to be able to tell if this is a good one to start with?

bmeadows380

Today ended up a very good day. I got my elliptical session in this morning - 30 minutes. It's not a very stringent workout, I know - its a cheap machine that was given to me and even at higher resistances, it doesn't get my heart rate up much, but I'm still moving and I am still working my leg muscles, so I figure it counts as steps and gets me going in the morning.

I vacuumed my house at lunch time.

Then this evening, I needed to go to the post office uptown and circled around my bank at the other end, making a 2.3 mile circuit and doing it in 39 minutes - which calculates to 3.5 mph! I knew I was moving faster as I felt the stretch more in my legs and I was breathing a little harder - not so hard that I couldn't talk, but hard enough that I probably couldn't have sang, which I read somewhere is the rate you want. I was really surprised, though, when I came home and calculated that rate - I couldn't believe I had gotten myself moving that fast!

Then, to finish the evening off, and because I wanted a slice of the homemade bread I made this weekend along with a slice of the low calorie yellow cake mix I made (Pillsbury classic yellow sugar free mix substituting a 5.3 oz container of Chobani fat free greek yogurt for the oil and baking in a bunt pan for 16 slices at 99 calories a slice), I did 28 minutes of a beginner low impact workout video on Youtube - and did it completely through no pauses!

I counted 1/3 of the walk calories and a little under 1/2 of the video calories and did not count anything else today, which gave me around 182 calories more. My fitness tracker shows me having a total of 11,811 steps today, but it counted steps while I was doing the video. Still, I hope that all that workout effort translates to being lightly active instead of sedentary today?



When I checked my heart rate on the fitness tracker, my average rate for the walk was 123 bpm, and 132 bpm for the workout video. Using the formula 207-(age*0.7), I have a maximum heart rate of around 179. My resting heart rate is around 70 normally, which gives me a heart rate reserve of 109 and a minimum target heart rate of 125 bpm, which the site that I got the formulas from says is the target heart rate I should shoot for for moderate exercise and for those who have just started regular exercise. So for me, 50% effort is 125 bpm, 60% effort is 135 bpm, and 70% is 146 bpm.

So sadly, my 3.5 mph walk did not quite get my heart rate up to 50% effort, though I was keeping a fast of a pace as I could walk. The exercise video just missed the 60% effort mark. From what I've read elsewhere, 40-50% is beginner level, 50-60% is intermediate, and 60-70% is advanced intermediate, with 50-60% considered very light effort and 60-70% considered light effort.

According to the chart below, the walk was not even into zone 1, despite the effort I put out, and the exercise video was zone 1 almost zone 2.

A bit discouraging, but I'll keep chipping away at it. I'd like to get to the point where I can average the 60-70% heart rate mark for the best benefit, but its obviously going to take time to work up to that. But I see some improvement: back in February when I started walking, the best I could average was around 2.75 mph; I am now easily staying at 3.0 mph and pushing my way to 3.5 mph!

And of course, my fitness tracker isn't exact, either, so I may have been just over the thresholds anyway - with the effort I was feeling, I think I might have indeed been doing a little better.






I got the formulas here and this is apparently an up-to-date formula and the old 220-age formula is not recommended any longer:
https://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Your-Target-Heart-Rate

The effort scale I got from here:
https://www.lifespanfitness.com/fitness/resources/target-heart-rate-calculator




Zone 1 - Healthy Heart Zone: 50% - 60% of your Max Hr

Easiest, Most Comfortable Zone

Exercise Benefits: Body fat decreases, blood pressure lowered, cholesterol lowered, muscle mass improvements, decreased risk for degenerative diseases, safety high.


Zone 2 - Temperate Zone: 60% - 70% of your Max Hr

Cruise Zone – you can train for extended periods of time in this zone 75% - 85% of all calories from fat as fuel, 6 – 10 calories per minute

Exercise Benefits: Gain muscle mass, lose fat mass, strengthen heart muscle, fat utilization zone, training your fat mobilization, fat transportation, your muscles to burn fat, your fat cells to increase the rate of fat release, increase in the number of mitochondria in the muscle.


Zone 3 - Aerobic Zone: 70% - 80% of your Max Hr

Transition Zone – from two health zones to two performance zones still feels comfortable, you will break a sweat, but no anaerobic burn sensation

Exercise Benefits: Improved overall functional capacity with increase in the number and size of blood vessels, increased vital capacity, respiratory rate, max pulmonary ventilation, pulmonary diffusion, increase in size and strength of the heart, improvements in cardiac output and stroke volume.

conniewilkins56

Whatever all this mean, I think you did a great job lol

bmeadows380

@conniewilkins56 lol Thank you!

What it all means is just that when you are doing aerobic exercise, one of the great benefits is that it can strengthen your heart as well burn fat, build a little muscle mass (not like weight lifting but still, you are using muscles, after all!) and can help blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The higher the intensity, the more benefit.

The intensity level is based upon how hard your heart is working when you exercise. It's calculated based on your age. Your resting pulse rate is the number of beats per minute when you are resting - doing nothing but sitting or laying in bed. If you take your blood pressure when you first get up of a morning and are using a digital monitor, the resting pulse rate will be shown on the monitor. The maximum heart rate is the hardest your heart can beat period - of course, you don't want to get to that number

Heart reserve is just the difference between the max and the resting rate, or the extra energy potential the heart has to handle increased demand when you get to moving, working, etc. You don't want to use all that reserve potential, but you do want to push your heart to use a portion of it because it exercises the heart and makes it stronger. Your heart is a muscle, after all, and needs worked out just like all your other muscles to make it stronger and healthier.

So for beginners, they are recommending using 40-50% of that reserve capacity; for light exercisers, you want to shoot for 50-60%, and eventually, you'd like to be using 60-70% for maximum benefits. And the other benefit is that your body burns fat while you are working out, and the higher the intensity, the more you burn.

Weight lifting is ideal for building muscle and strengthening what you have, but aerobic exercise has great benefits too and works those muscle out.

conniewilkins56

I need to exercise so badly....I don’t know why I can’t push myself...you are very motivating...I think it’s great you are becoming so much more active!

bmeadows380

mid-day update. Got my elliptical in this morning, but I'm not counting it in my exercise log. I was on it for 30 minutes, and after 3 minutes at 1 resistance, jumped it up to 5, then 7, then 5, then 6, then 4, then 2 to end. Heart rate was only 108 and firmly in zone 1 for me.

I just finished up a 30 minute aerobic workout that was a mix of boxing and leg workout (if I dig out a body weight routine this evening, it will definitely be limited to upper body - I've got my squats in for the day!). Heart rate for this one was again 132, or just barely shy of that 60-70% rate.

After logging in my weight this morning, my HappyScale trend is down to 257.1 lbs. Last Thursday, my weekly record was 259.3 lbs. That's a 2.2 lb difference in 5 days, so I'm losing just a little fast than I really should be, and definitely faster than the 1.75 lbs I had been working toward. So, I'm going to add back in about half of the aerobic workouts now, and stick with 1/3 of the walks while still leaving out the elliptical as that's more for just getting my step count up. I really had no idea how much exercise calories to use, so we'll stick with this value for the next month and see where I am this time next month and this time in May.

I'm not going to get a walk in today because of rain and because I need to go to the store on the other end of the county tonight, but if I have time after I get back, I'll look up that upper body resistance workout to max the lower body one I did in my aerobic video today.

bmeadows380

got a 20 minute elliptical session in this morning, a 30 minute areobic session in at lunch, another 30 minute elliptical session in this evening, followed by 1 set of different upper body free weight beginner strength exercises. And all because it was raining and cold and I couldn't walk outside again.

But tomorrow is to be pretty, so I just might get a walk in then!

NovusDies

bmeadows380 wrote: »

@conniewilkins56 lol Thank you!

What it all means is just that when you are doing aerobic exercise, one of the great benefits is that it can strengthen your heart as well burn fat, build a little muscle mass (not like weight lifting but still, you are using muscles, after all!) and can help blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. The higher the intensity, the more benefit.

The intensity level is based upon how hard your heart is working when you exercise. It's calculated based on your age. Your resting pulse rate is the number of beats per minute when you are resting - doing nothing but sitting or laying in bed. If you take your blood pressure when you first get up of a morning and are using a digital monitor, the resting pulse rate will be shown on the monitor. The maximum heart rate is the hardest your heart can beat period - of course, you don't want to get to that number

Heart reserve is just the difference between the max and the resting rate, or the extra energy potential the heart has to handle increased demand when you get to moving, working, etc. You don't want to use all that reserve potential, but you do want to push your heart to use a portion of it because it exercises the heart and makes it stronger. Your heart is a muscle, after all, and needs worked out just like all your other muscles to make it stronger and healthier.

So for beginners, they are recommending using 40-50% of that reserve capacity; for light exercisers, you want to shoot for 50-60%, and eventually, you'd like to be using 60-70% for maximum benefits. And the other benefit is that your body burns fat while you are working out, and the higher the intensity, the more you burn.

Weight lifting is ideal for building muscle and strengthening what you have, but aerobic exercise has great benefits too and works those muscle out.

Actually during the first part of exercise you are burning glucose (if you have eaten recently) and then glycogen. It is only in prolonged exercise you move to fat. It doesn't make any difference though because as you know you burn fat whether you exercise or not. It is the total sum of your energy in - energy out that determines how much fat is used to make up the energy deficit.

While exercising if you push too far on fat only it backfires on you and you hit what I call the "pit." It makes me feel bad for hours. It is something I have to be careful of because most of my early morning exercise is all fasted and I typically burn 600ish calories.

bmeadows380

@NovusDies thank you for the clarification! I'm not up to date on exercise standards and had only just started looking into the heart rate thing. My fitness tracker puts heart rate in as fat burning zone, cartio traning zone, and peak training zone, with cardio higher than fat burning. But I don't pay attention to the different zones, on the heart rate itself.

I'm noticing that my energy levels are dropping as the week goes along. Monday was easy to get the aerobic session in; yesterday was hard. Monday I blew through the elliptical session; this morning it dragged. But I do the elliptical sessions before breakfast.

NovusDies

Getting your heart rate up is good for your fitness and it improves things like cholesterol.

Your energy may be dropping because you are not eating enough. My understanding of glycogen (and I am no expert) is that while in a calorie deficit it never replenishes completely. It will replenish some and that happens when you sleep at night. It stands to reason that the higher your deficit the less glycogen is replaced and that makes exercise more of a struggle.

That is why we mistakenly think of sleep as regenerative when it comes to energy. It is not. The power drain continues but some of the energy is moved around so that you can get at it faster.

Since glycogen is made from carbs I have been eating more of them to help balance me out better. I have also been saving and eating more calories for dinner. In the past my dinner was seldom more than 250 and often 0 because I would just skip it. The problem with skipping now is by the time I exercise the next morning I would have been without food between 2pm and 5am.

It keeps getting easier though so I feel like I am adapting and I may be able to go back to my normal way of eating. If not, I can keep doing the 600ish calorie dinner thing.

As you keep pushing forward your numbers will help guide you and you will also be able to tell when you need to eat a little more.

What we are going through I call "re-tuning" and it comes with some negatives. We are getting stronger and building stamina but there are energy hurdles as our body tries to adapt to a sudden change in expenditure. Like you I ramped up pretty fast which is probably not ideal but it happened and now I work though the downsides of it.

bmeadows380

I have trouble getting enough sleep during the work week, especially Monday night - I might have gotten all of 3 hours that night. So I"m running on a sleep deficit until Saturday, when I can sleep in. I figured that was part of hte problem, but its hard to bust an attack of insomnia and work starts when work starts, so I can't just snooze until I get my 6 hours plus.

I eat higher carb anyway - approaching 50% most days. I make an effort to hit my protein level too, so fat is the macro that tends to suffer. First thing of a morning, I hit that elliptical with little in my stomach, so couple that with lack of sleep, and I see where the slow down is coming.

I try to have something carby before the aerobic workout, but I also don't want too much on my stomach then, either.

Evenings are my hard time, so my calories are saved until then, and I often don't eat dinner until 7 or 8 pm, and usually have my last snack around 10 before bedtime, so at least I still have something for mornings.

I strongly suspect my biggest problem is the sleep thing, something I"ve struggled with for years. I"ll keep plugging away at it.

NovusDies

Sleep is a big factor too. I have suffered from insomnia since I was a teen. It can definitely make a person feel sluggish.

You are smart so you will figure out how to make it all work.

bmeadows380

what I need is for there to be about 30 hours in a day Then I could spend those 10 hours for my job, get my dinner made, all my exercise done, get the chores done around the house, get my slow down free time, studies I want to do, and still get 8 hours sleep a night

bmeadows380

okay. I did a 30 minute elliptical session to start my day. Got in a 29 minute aerobic session that got my heart rate up to an average of 131 at lunch. And I just came back from a 3.8 mile walk in 1 hour 7 minutes (3.411 mph, so I just put in 18 minutes at 3.5 mph since MFP doesn't let you do increments). I can declare that I was active today! Especially since all that has got me up to over 14,000 steps today!

Here's hoping that this helps my strategy to wear myself out so I'll sleep well tonight.....

NovusDies

I hit 23,308 steps yesterday was was 500ish below my personal best so far. My new shoes are really making the difference but I pushed a little too hard so I am scaling back a little today.

My Apple Watch April goal is a staggering 100 minutes a day of exercise. I am thinking I am not going to be going for that particular badge. I can do that a few days in a row but then I need a light day. That sucks because I have earned Jan, Feb, and March "awards" so far.

bmeadows380

I"m a little light today. Had the usual warm up elliptical session this morning which I don't count as its not real intense, but the aerobic video was a mix of aerobics and resistance with more emphasis on resistance. It was a pretty good leg workout, but wasn't really heart pounding, either, so I only counted 1/4 of it. I have a 4 mile walk planned for this evening; which will definitely put my step count above goal and then some!

@NovusDies I was about to say that 100 minutes of exercise is insane, but then I stopped to think about my 67 minute walk + 20 minute elliptical session + 25 minute aerobic session yesterday, and I realized I had over 100 right there. Huh? Whadaya know?

Oh, I see - 100 minutes a day for the entire month. Nope, you're right - that wouldn't be happening for me, either. I"m trying to keep my activity up during the week, but I need a slower day too to reset, and I plan to do nothing more than take a walk on Sunday.

bmeadows380

got a 4.5 mile walk in this evening, so I'm good for the rest of the day! The thing is, it was at about a 3.3 mph rate. There isn't an entry for 3.3 or even 3.25 - its either 3.5 or 3.0 mph. I had to choose between counting 3.5 at 1/4 of the time (20 minutes) or 3.0 at 1/3 time (27 minutes). I went with the 3.5 - it was lower.

In any case, it pushed my step count up to 14,000+, so I call it a good day!


Tomorrow won't need a walk - I plan to push mow my lawn, and its fairly good size!

NovusDies

bmeadows380 wrote: »

got a 4.5 mile walk in this evening, so I'm good for the rest of the day! The thing is, it was at about a 3.3 mph rate. There isn't an entry for 3.3 or even 3.25 - its either 3.5 or 3.0 mph. I had to choose between counting 3.5 at 1/4 of the time (20 minutes) or 3.0 at 1/3 time (27 minutes). I went with the 3.5 - it was lower.

In any case, it pushed my step count up to 14,000+, so I call it a good day!


Tomorrow won't need a walk - I plan to push mow my lawn, and its fairly good size!

I think at 14k you are on the line of very active but you are definitely active+ so calculate what your calories would be at that activity setting and let that guide how you enter your exercise.

I am bad at taking it easy. 21,261 steps and 106 minutes of exercise. It won't last though. I can't do 30 straight days with 100 minutes. Not with these knees. Even if I took ibuprofen daily which I refuse to do.

bmeadows380

well, the step counter reads 14,000 steps. Except it counts all that aerobic exercise as steps, including all the punches in the boxing segment. Which was exercise, of course, but not exactly steps. So in reality, I might be closer to the 10,000.

When I check my alternate account, it seems that the difference between sedentary and lightly active is around 290 calories; counting back 1/4 to 1/3 of my exercise calories like today actually gets fairly close - I earned 226 exercise calories today, with a margin of error to cover the inexactness of the counting.

21,000 steps easy?!!! I couldn't keep up with you on my best day! lol My knees aren't shot, but at the same time, after 30 years of being obese and having twisted my right one 4 times in the last 20 years, I have to be very careful with them. They don't hurt, but at the same time, they don't have an easy range of motion. I especially have to be careful with the squats in the aerobic exercises - I can't get down nearly as far as I should because my knees won't forgive the force.

I don't squat easy at all. If I need something on the floor, or am gardening, I've got the bad habit of bending at the waist instead.

On the plus side, I'd been having trouble with lower back pain when standing for too long or sitting for too long. During today's walk, I realized that I wasn't having that trouble any more. Or at least not even close to the same degree it was in the past! The long walk today did have my back muscles tight by the end and my neck, but the lower back was fine. Before, it would hurt so bad that I couldn't hardly move.

Another thing I have to really watch is the muscles in my inner thigh. I"m not sure which one it is, but it has a very bad tendency to charlie horse on me, especially if I'm going from a prone to standing position off a bed, the couch, etc - think lifting your left up to slide it over the bed's edge in preparation to standing. Usually, it will give me a warning twinge and I know to immediately change the position of my legs or else, but sometimes I get no warning and those muscle lock up and put me in the worst agony I've ever experienced - including the twisted knees! I have to lay on the floor and spread into a split, stretching my legs out from my hips as far as I can to get it to let loose, and sometimes it takes a while for them to release. And often, I'm stuck in that position for a bit of time because as soon as I move to stand up, they lock up again - I can't get out of that split position without them locking. And once I get them to let go so that I can get up, I'm sore the rest of the day. This started around 5 years ago, now, and I'm not sure what is causing it. My mother has a time with calf charlie horses, but I can get out of those when they happen pretty easy; this inner thigh lock is a different monster all together.

bmeadows380

My monitor only shows 8,000 steps in for the day, but that is definitely not reflecting my effort. I push-mowed my lawn and it took 1 hour 47 minutes to do so. While my yard has flat areas, there is a steep bank between me and my neighbor that I forced the mower up several times, and banks in the front that I pulled that mower up and down. Plus, my push mower's body has about had it (it's 10 years old, after all, but the motor is still great and fires on the first pull!), so the deck is lower to the ground which results in it being stiff to push. Plus, the fitness tracker only seems to count when my arm is swinging. I set it to treadmill because that seems to continue to count the activity's heart rate even if my arm isn't moving, which is much better than the walk setting - I found this out on the elliptical; if I set it for a walk but use the handles, the fitness tracker says it doesn't monitor movement and shuts down. If I set it for treadmill, it seems to do a little better, but I've still learned to let the arm with the tracker swing free to get the step count. It's not exactly the best position to be in while using the machine, I know, but to get it to count its what I have to do.

anyway, so while it did record my activity the entire 1 3/4 hours, I don't think it caught all my steps such as when I was pushing the mower, or pulling it with the hand that had the tracker. And that was a lot of muscle use anyway! My upper arms got a workout from pushing and pulling that thing too.

I also got a 27 minute bike ride in. My bike is a single speed cruiser with coaster brakes. I walked the last 9 minutes or so because there's a fairly steep hill going back home and with a single speed bike, I know I wasn't going to be riding up that hill. But I was amazed at how much time I actually spent peddling the other 18 minutes. I figured I'd be walking at least half of that or cruising and really only peddling a fraction of that time, but I wasn't able to cruise much at all and only had to get off and walk twice for a very short distance. I covered 3 miles in that 18 minutes and I was quite happy with the ride.

My legs aren't used to the motion of peddling, so I'll have to keep the rides short and work up. However, all the walking I had been doing the last month paid off in mowing the yard and riding the bike- I wasn't straining or huffing and puffing to get the mowing done, and my legs weren't jelly when I finished mowing or riding the bike! The upper part of my thighs were definitely sore during the ride but aren't bad now, though they'll probably will be so tomorrow. But I think in this case, the aerobic videos I've been doing has helped because they incorporated a lot of leg work including squats and lunges which works those upper thigh muscles - I know because when I first started them, I couldn't hardly sit down for 3 days afterwards!

I was happy with the ride as well because I didn't have any trouble being wobbly and handled the speed bumps in the street fine. It gives me something else I can do alongside all the walking or when I have limited time. The walks get more more calories for now because I can go for a much longer period, but the biking burns more calories. I'd probably burn even more calories if I could stand up and ride, but those days are long gone, so I sit the whole time It'd probably do better with a geared bike as well, but I can't afford a new bike and have never ridden one with gears or hand breaks, so for something that is only done occasionally for now, I'll stick with what I have. Besides - I grew up riding single speed bikes with coaster brakes, and even though its been around 25 years since I last rode one, the muscle memory was still there - that is, when I need to slow down, my brain automatically shifts that foot backwards; I'm kind of afraid of trying to switch to a hand brake bike because of the precious few seconds it would take for my brain to remember it needed to squeeze the handles instead of slamming that foot back, and in some situations, that few seconds could be the difference between getting stopped safely or having an accident!

NovusDies

@bmeadows380 I meant that I was supposed to take it easy and I didn't.

We are at 2 different stages. You are moving far more than I was when I was in your shoes so you you may be moving more then me when you get to where I am now. You will probably be limited more on time than physical ability. I am limited on both which is why I get up at 5am to get what I can.

10k steps would earn you active calories not lightly active calories. I don't distinguish between steps I get from the elliptical and steps I get walking. The elliptical steps are worth more anyway on calories.

Saturday I hit a personal best of over 25k steps. Instead of taking it easy on Sunday I went over 20k steps again and combining that with the landscaping and cleaning the garage I am in some serious pain today. My hamstrings are on fire. If I do not really take it easy today I may be forced to take it easy tomorrow and potentially more. I did the elliptical this morning and walked 3 miles so other than taking care of the dog and watering the lawn I think I really will take it easy today. My morning routine has already yielded 11k steps so hopefully I won't get much more than 15k for the whole day.

bmeadows380

yesterday was my take it easy day, especially after all the stuff I did on Saturday. I walked for an hour, but it wasn't at my normal brisk pace, either.

Today, on the other hand, I got in my exercise and then some! I spent 3 hours digging and planting bulbs and transplanting others, including 15 minutes or more (I didn't pay attention to length) of digging out at least 15 feet of ditch, trying to get the water to run better in front of my house. And digging up a few rocks in my yard that I'm tired of hitting my mower on.

I went from all that digging to mowing my neighbor's yard for him, push mower, all on a hillside. That was 40 minutes. After that, I moved some dirt to my plot outside my garden boxes, planted my peas, then went for a 23 minute bike ride and 9 minute walk for the last stretch home.

I only counted about 1/4 - 1/3 of all that, and I still ended up with 442 extra calories today! So my excesses from yesterday have been covered lol

I know I'm going to be hurting tonight when I go to bed; my shoulder and left bicep are starting to complain (I'm left handed). I figure if my legs do like they did on Saturday, they might ache in bed, but hopefully will quickly loosen up after I get up tomorrow.

@NovusDies congratulations on the 25,000 steps! Though I would really recommend listening to your body and taking it easy. But I can also understand wanting to keep the momentum going, too!


I know I've been fully active the last couple of days for sure! I've been pushing the last month to get my steps up to 7,000 a day, and reset my goal from 5,500 to that. But I'm still leery of changing my activity level to lightly active; I think like cmriverside in her first answer to this post:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10727064/steps-activity-level

which is keep my activity level to sedentary for now, and eat back a portion of my exercise calories. I like this approach because I don't have to adjust for lighter exercise days: if I don't exercise as much, I just don't get extra calories back to spend.

However, I'm still working on figuring out how many exercise calories to eat back. I know I'm erring on caution right now, limiting it to 1/4-1/3, but would like another month or more of steady activity to go by. since I really started trying to be more active at the mid-late part of February, I figure I'll keep going the way I'm going and look at the mid-May numbers and loss rate. May 14th would be 12 weeks and is right before my vacation (if we get to go; its an isolated cabin in a state park, but right now the parks are closed and I don't know when they'll re-open). I should also be finished with TOM by then, another good reason to use that date to compare with.

NovusDies

I didn't mean change your activity level just reference what it would be to help guide you on logging your exercise. I am a little worried you will make my mistake which was to keep downplaying my activity and then suffering some really hard days because I wasn't eating enough.

Having been obese most of my life it did not seem possible that I was truly active. It didn't feel like I was doing enough to get there. I knew before my surgery I was at lightly active calories because my spreadsheet confirmed it. I knew I was more active so I assumed I was "moderately active" and I ate accordingly. Remember the surgery altered my weight and my body composition so in January I started a new phase which required me to figure out my average TDEE again.

I was sure moderately active was appropriate even when my Apple Watch said otherwise. I knew they over-reported for some people and I assumed I was one of them. I thought active people had to be those that had active jobs requiring manual labor. I assumed 'very active' was like a bike messenger. I wasn't either of those things so moderate seemed right. I was wrong. The labels, in my opinion, do not make good common sense because I am very nearly at very active calories and I get there by getting an average of 16-17k steps.

They say that anything over 12.5k steps is very active but that assumes a portion of them are at a brisk pace. 16k steps with some at a moderate pace seems to come out the same calorie amount.

My personal step average is up past 18k now but I have not seen evidence yet that my TDEE has increased again. With my hamstrings causing retention and a little different eating this coming weekend it may be a couple of weeks before I whoosh again. My whoosh last week confirmed I was at least very active. If MFP's numbers are right my activity is in excess of very active but nothing has confirmed that yet. That is why those labels do not make sense to me. What is after 'very active'? 'Very very active'? 'Insane to be moving this much active'?

bmeadows380

Having been obese most of my life it did not seem possible that I was truly active. It didn't feel like I was doing enough to get there. I knew before my surgery I was at lightly active calories because my spreadsheet confirmed it. I knew I was more active so I assumed I was "moderately active" and I ate accordingly. Remember the surgery altered my weight and my body composition so in January I started a new phase which required me to figure out my average TDEE again.

I was sure moderately active was appropriate even when my Apple Watch said otherwise. I knew they over-reported for some people and I assumed I was one of them. I thought active people had to be those that had active jobs requiring manual labor. I assumed 'very active' was like a bike messenger. I wasn't either of those things so moderate seemed right. I was wrong. The labels, in my opinion, do not make good common sense because I am very nearly at very active calories and I get there by getting an average of 16-17k steps.

@NovusDies I can completely relate to this ^^ Since I spend so much of the day during the work week sitting, I have a really hard time considering myself lightly active, let alone active. Especially when most of the activity I"m getting isn't even getting my heart rate up much at all, like the elliptical sessions. It is hard to believe when I see the calorie quotes for my activity that those are anywhere remotely right. Plus, I also know that its not constant activity, either. Such as all the gardening work I was doing on Monday. I was doing a lot of digging, for sure, but it wasn't 30 minutes non-stop, either.

And I know some of those steps aren't true steps, either - like when I sit down to play the piano; an hour's playing can get me as much as 3000 steps! Of course, I've learned that and discount those in my mind, but it does make me wonder how many of my daily steps aren't real steps. Then again, I also know the counter is missing actual ones, so perhaps it all comes out in the wash? And like you, I'm thinking lightly active as someone who's on their feet all day, like a cashier, and active being more like a postal delivery person. And I'd consider a carpenter or other construction worker as very active, or someone who spends a few hours daily at the gym doing HIIT or something. It is really hard to wrap my mind around the idea that I should be considering myself lightly active at the very least.

It didn't help me at all, either, to be having so much trouble with water weight back in February as it kept masking what was really going on. I have noticed that in recent weeks, my trouble with that seems to have diminished - a positive side effect of the activity, I'm hoping?

Plus, I know that right now, all this activity is easy to get in, but once I start going back to the office, and once the heat of summer gets, I don't know if I will be able to sustain it. I've tried walking before, and always seem to do really well in getting daily walks in until the heat of summer - then the ability to keep myself going dies because I can't stand the heat. And I've been trying to get myself up at 5 am for the last 2 weeks with no luck, so once I start back to the office, the morning elliptical routine will probably also die out. I don't have good air conditioning and my house gets incredibly hot in summer sometimes, which will put a damper on aerobic workout videos since I'll have to do my activity of an evening after I get back home. (Not having that commute time morning and evening is a real boon toward my activity levels!) Of course there will be some yard work this summer, but its not a daily thing, and with my work schedule, I'll be riding mow my yard more often than not.

So when my activity is go hit and miss, I also have a hard time considering myself to be active. That and I keep seeing the advice posted on here that MFP drastically over-estimates calorie burn and that you can't earn that many calories with activity, and though I know I'm heavier so I'm going to burn more, its hard to believe that I might actually be burning as much as 300-400 calories extra a day!

But I am taking your advice into consideration, and I do appreciate your insight! I am trying to give myself some time to evaluate actual loss to know where to adjust. TOM should be here this weekend, probably by Friday if my body keeps to the routine it has for the last couple of months, which will lead to less activity for a couple of days because that always makes me more tired than usual, and also results in some water weight gain, which my luck will show up tomorrow and skew my record day numbers.

I am trying to keep from getting on the "more is better" band-wagon, though that can be very tough mentally to reign in when I see weight loss at a good clip. rationally, I know that I need to slow it down; that since I now have less than 100 lbs to lose, I need to keep to that 1.75-2lbs a week for health sake, but after struggling for so long to see any decent loss, I find myself falling into that trap.

I know I need to probably up my calorie intake for my exercise: right now, if trend sticks, I'll be on track for a 3 lb loss since last week, which is obviously too much. Of course, next week will be a whole lot slower if not a stand still with TOM and Easter dinner (Easter will be a maintenance day absolutely, and I might find myself over, too - too many good foods to eat!).

I guess one place I can improve is to start counting half of my activity time instead of 1/4-1/3 like I was. On the days where I get my hour long walks and my aerobic video in, that will get me the calorie difference between sedentary and lightly active, at least. Then I can give a few weeks more and see if I need to adjust again?

bmeadows380

@NovusDies Okay; this is the point where I'll stand here and take it - you can shout the "I TOLD you so!" now lol

Today is weight record day, and even though I'm feeling a bloated this morning, the scale dipped even lower than its been all week this week, driving that HappyScale trend that I'm now recording down to 253.9 lbs, which is a whopping 3.7 lbs down from last week's reading. Perhaps this is in part a whoosh, but I think its also hammering home to me that I'm not eating enough of my exercise calories back, and that on these days where I'm getting my planned activity in - the elliptical, walk/bike, and aerobics in and steps over 10,000, I'd better make sure i'm eating back at minimum that 280 calorie difference between sedentary and lightly active, and probably more than that, as I'm pushing closer to the active range than I thought I was.

But I just have a very difficult time grasping the reality of being an "active" person!

Next week will definitely be a slow down, because I'm going to be up this weekend on the intake. I've been craving Mexican from the place uptown, and its pretty difficult to even guesstimate the calorie content of that food. And of course, Sunday is Easter and I fully plan to eat at maintenance that day - in fact, I already have the recipes built in and the plan for the day all laid out. I'll probably have to still get some activity in that day because I'm not even sure I'll be able to keep to maintenance and will probably go over that, too. But apparently, I have a surplus of calories I need to be eating back anyway!

NovusDies

@bmeadows380 I wouldn't do that. It makes me feel a little better that you have been as hardheaded about this as I was. lol.

It doesn't feel right. I can see it in my numbers and I still expect it to somehow be a mistake and I have been eating too much. This has Fat Brain written all over it. That and I still say the labels for activity are stupid. Even though I earn the calories for 'very active' I still consider myself moderately active because that feels more accurate given my sedentary job. If the multiplier corresponded to language that seemed more appropriate I probably would not have been as stubborn as I was.

When I have been not been eating enough and losing at a pace that is .5lb per week above my target I eat 2 days at maintenance to help compensate so it sounds like this weekend will be good timing for you.

bmeadows380

@NovusDies I'm known for being hard-headed; just ask my best friend or family! lol

I will keep an eye on calories in on Sunday, but I'm stuffing that critical person in my head in a closet and putting a bookcase in front of the door to muffle them out for that day. I know that there will be a twinge of guilt; its the same twinge that hits whenever I don't live up to my own expectations, no matter how ridiculously stringent and out of reach they are (no one is harder on me than me), and letting that line get into the red will result in a twinge, but my rational brain can reign in the emotional one and I'll enjoy that food anyway.

Sometimes, that critical person in my head has her uses, such as when I grab a Hershey kiss and think "I don't need to worry about counting this in my dairy; its only 20 calories and I've done well today and besides, I'm under-eating my exercise calories, anyway" and the critical person responds with "you better count that kiss! Not counting here and there leads to sloppiness and that's how you plateaued last time! Put it in - do you have room for it? Can you make room for it without undercutting your protein and fiber goals?" or when getting a half-cut sweet tea without ice at Arby's. Critical person says "That calorie count is way off in MFP for that tea, and you know it - its 44 oz sweet and you know darn well thats going to be more than 180 calories. Even if you half cut it, that value is given assuming a full cup of ice, which you are not putting in, so that more like 3/4'ing it and not half cutting it. And you can tell by the taste that the server put more sweet than unsweet, so this tea is definitely more than 100 calories - more like 200. Do you really want to waste 200 calories on that sweet tea? You already had the slider - switch to an unsweet tea and save those calories for something else!" In keeping me accountable for things like that, that critical person is very useful, though sometimes I bullheadedly ignore her and do it anyway. I may feel guilt, but my rebellious side refuses to let it stop me.

But many times, that critical person is too critical and too demanding in making ridiculously stringent expectations that are impossible to meet and doesn't give me an inch at all or any compassion or mercy when I fail to meet one of her expectations - such as being honest in recording and seeing that red line. Rationally, I know its okay to be human and to go over once in a while, but the little kid in my head that wants to please and obey all rules still feels like a failure and cowed by the overly-critical person. I can use the rational side of myself to push past the critical person, but that twinge of guilt is still there regardless - I guess that's her parting shot.



I'm with you that MFP's description of their labels doesn't line up with how I define that activity. I liked the way the calculator that PAV8888 sent in the doom thread does it: it broke the activity factor into 2 parts, one for normal, work day activity, and one for leisure:

Physical Activity at Work or School
very light - sitting at the computer most of the day, or sitting at a desk
light - light industrial work, sales, or office work that comprises light activities
moderate - cleaning, kitchen staff, or delivering mail on foot or bicycle
heavy - heavy industrial work, construction work, or farming


Physical Activity at Leisure Time
very light -almost no activity at all
light - walking, non-strenuous cycling or gardening approximately once a week
moderate - regular activity at least once a week; ig, walking, bicycling, including to work, gardening
active - regular activities more than once a week, eg intense walking, bicycling, or sports
very active - strenuous activities several times a week

If you use very light/very active as your settings, you end up with a 1.9 activity factor which sounds like it lines up with your factor of 1.88 you mentioned.


For me, when I use those labels, I easily set my work activity level at very light since I'm sitting in front of my PC most of the day, but when I look at the leisure activity level, since I'm not really doing what I'd call intense walking or sports, but am doing it more than once a week, I think I need to choose either moderate on my lighter days to active on my heavier days.

That combination of very light/moderate or /active gives me a multiplier of 1.6-1.7, which results in a maintenance calorie intake of 2,996 to 3,183 and a daily intake need on my active days as 1,627 to 1,791 (moderate or active).

to me that makes a lot more sense than MFP's labels, though I think their values end up somewhere in the same neighborhood.

Though looking at the numbers, my head is still rebelling at the idea that I am moderately active, let alone active active. My head is agreeable to eating back some of my exercise calories, but the thought of going over my calorie limit 227 to 391 calories? THAT I struggle with 100-150 extra calories day, that critical person in my head will allow for; any more than that, and she starts squawking.

I think what also comes into play too is that in the forums here, the folks that I considerable knowledgeable and practical constantly caution that you can't out exercise your diet and that you don't earn much back from activity, so my mind hears that and decides that the calculator that says I've gotten 500 calories from a day of gardening can't possibly be right. Of course, what's not being said is that the heavier you are, the more you burn, so while someone at 150 lbs may not get that much from that activity, me at 250 calories very likely did.

But the need-to-please kid part of me kicks in, the part that wants to obey what it sees as authority, and joins in with the critical person and fights at putting back that many activity calories.



I just need to kick the rebellious part of me off her lazy butt and tell her to push the critical person into that closet and give the need to please part of me a lollipop or something to distract it and then enjoy the darn piece of cake for dessert, because if I get my walk and aerobic session in for the day and more than 10,000 steps, then I've earned it, and not only earned it, my body needs those calories!




And boy do I have a lot of people running around in my head......way more than that Pixar movie portrayed, anyway!

NovusDies

I see what you are saying but the labels come out with the same multiplier. You get to active whether it is from work or leisure and I do not consider what I do for exercise on the same level as construction work. It certainly doesn't compare to the summer I spent helping on a cattle ranch when I was a teen and in better shape. Every muscle in your body feels like jelly at the end of the day and you pray you will be restored enough sleeping at night to go again the next day.

I have to have numbers I can rely on because the voice in my head keeps saying you know @PAV8888 said you were more active so you know you can eat more. Even though it turns out he was right (shocking I know) it punched a hole in my accountability over the holidays. Having a strong suspicion that my numbers (based on moderate) were low made it easier for me to blow past them. That averaged out to be a good thing because there were enough days I was in a steep deficit to bring me back in line. Apparently I have some minor ability to intuitively eat but no one should have been eating rice krispie treats like that! Also, that cycle of eating too little one day and then on the next day eating more than I needed for both days is one of the bad habits that contributed to my weight gain in the first place. I was terrible about skipping meals during my gaining years. I am probably one of the few people that has ever woken up and realized he got so busy the he accidentally didn't did not eat anything the day before. My hunger signals were bad about extremes. Either they were barely noticeable or they were roaring for more. At least for now all this activity seems to have given them a normal voice.

bmeadows380

sounds like my best friend. She and I were roommates for a time (neither of us had significant others, we got along, and splitting the bills seemed reasonable) and she worked a lot of retail fast/food type jobs where she was on her feet the entire day. She's also the sort who has trouble delegating the work, so would often take on even more. She wouldn't take breaks unless forced, and rarely ate all day long. But then she'd stop at Wendy's on her way home and get a super-sized triple cheese burger with a large frosty and super-sized coke. And she'd drink a 12 pack of coke a day. But she couldn't understand why she was obese.

PAV8888

Pav8888 is no more than someone who just started a few years ahead of you and got curious about some of these things all in the service of his "eat the most you can while still meeting your goals" hamsters.🐹

I have competing hamsters🐹 in my brain, not silly humans!🤷‍♂️

The all-you-can eat hamsters get pummeled on by the more sane supervisor hamsters that evaluate the actions of all the other hamsters 🤦‍♂️🐹

@NovusDies don't be surprised too much if your body (when your hamsters don't override it) returns correct signals to you! Not right away, but after having substantially normalized I can tell you that, if I actually don't let other issues override, if I am not too tired, too cold, pissed off, worried etc) the signals from the body are sometimes more correct than the logging.

Last couple of days I've been fairly un-hungry, yet logging weight loss calories. Heart rate and scale (both increasing) say un-hungry feeling is more correct than logging. Opposite has happened (hungry when logging said I shouldn't be). Not often, because generally my logging is on point, but often enough to notice. Didn't act on it during weight loss... but at maintenance I am starting to trust it more and more.

Remember that all this stuff about activity settings and maintenance calories is predicated on a couple of issues: how close one tracks to the mean and the models <-- most models have deviations from the mean and most do not explain more than 70% of the variance (and I am sure @bmeadows380 would be able to better figure these concepts out than the almost failed stats for art students dude in this conversation!!!)

So they're just models, our own long term numbers come first.

Happy scale and Libra, trendweight will all show inflection points correctly. the rate of change is there too. But they will lag.

Because they are deliberately taking into account the past 10 days or so (or whatever algorithm they have)

So they should be interpreted in view of other data (on paper deficits, known information about water retention, etc)

During a continuous steep deficit they may lag a full lb and not show a sudden reversal or double reversal for a few days, for example.

Beyond that, in terms of activity. @bmeadows I would trust my numbers more than a prediction.

I will also tell you that my hamsters were much more active during the time periods of intense restriction than during time periods of less restriction / maintenance.

I deliberately went out to break the red issue till I now view red as caution not failure or hard stop.

I am still set to a deficit; and almost always eat above it. By about 400 to maintain, by about 100-150 to lose slowly, by about 450+ to start gaining. This emphasises to the hamsters that they, not an app, are in charge and responsible to set their priorities 🐹

If you approached me with just the following information: generally about 5000 steps, trying for 7500, I would spit out 1.4 as an activity setting. Mfp lightly/moderate
Centered around 7500 probably 1.5
Centered around 10k 1.6 MFP active
Centered around 12k 1.7
And so on.

I.e. 8k steps exhausts moderately active, 12k ends active 16000 ends very active

they're ranges, right? And differe amongst people.

But again, my predicted activity setting, your setting is not solely relevant.

Because logging comes into play.

Because deviation from model mean comes into play

Because type of activity comes into play: walking in house, or up a hill on grass?

Btw: gardening can be hard, or not so hard work. So again varies by person (but can be a lot of calories under the right conditions, and very few on a very hot, tiring, sweaty, but unproductive in terms of total labour output day)

Keep in mind that larger deficits affect hormones, neurotransmitters and even brain chemistry.

Food ideations are not uncommon. I certainly spent a lot of time trying to invent the best low cal veggie/fruit based chocolate brownie! It is amazing how at maintenance or a surplus I never think about coming up with one, and how often i do think about it in a deficit, even a small deficit!

The relative size of deficit is what drives my often mentioned 25% off TDEE while obese.

In the semi-starvation experiment food intake for the six months was 1560 Cal a day on average--not incredibly low, right? What matters were the within normal weight starting point and that this was an approximately 50% deficit off original maintenance calories.

And while response is individual, I wouldn't count against some adaptive thermogenesis (and a response of less weight loss than expected) at larger and more persistent deficits.

@bmeadows380 you should also look at how the projections go in the body weight planner and how the calories needed to lose a lb increase as time goes on.

And both mental fatigue and hormonal tanking are behind refeeds/diet breaks which Novus has planned lately and Meadows stumbled into the past couple of years!

I am here to cheer lead and to push @bmeadows380 to keep thinking about more than the speed of loss and size of the deficit.

Play with food combinations, timing of snacks, substitutions such as a savoury meal when craving chocolate or the reverse.

I used to eat a meal after eating chocolate cake because the cake was not food, right? Not here to claim it's the best nutrient breakdown, but I've had several ice cream, or dessert only meals, and stopped. Because it was enough calories and I wasn't actually hungry hungry. Sure, maybe they weren't as filling or cheap in calories as chicken and broccoli... but they were enough for a few hours. And stopping kept me within daily/weekly calories!!!!

As Novus likes to say, the process and making things (relatively) easy is important.

Use the numbers as a tool--don't let them use you 🤔

Ok. You both have this under control!

@bmeadows380 I think it was about at your weight that I was starting to ramp up my walking from (the by then) about 7500 steps every day to 10k and then up so that my first 12 months on mfp I ended up *averaging* 17970 a day and being at an AF of almost 2 (all deliberate outdoors walking)

I will tell you that it took a lot of shoes and a lot of blisters (which resulted in some interesting walk around the blisters walks).

@NovusDies most New Balance walking shoes that I bought during that time frame didn't last even three months before being worn out.

One thing to keep an eye on is that shoe width and length may change with weight loss.

I've ended up from a nine and a half EEE (which meant that I was buying EEEE shoes) to a 9-Wide (or even wide fitting regular) at normal weight.

NovusDies

Logging is an interesting variable in the equation. Over time I realize that precision is important but so is consistent habits. I tend to over report calories to buffer for the calories I am sure I miss or I just don't log. It all comes out to a very dependable number even if it is not totally accurate.