Food, Exercise, or other Reports
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I mentioned this elsewhere, but boy, changing it up to record 80% of my exercise calories instead of 50% like I had been doing was an unexpected battle with my brain, especially when it showed a 608 calorie burn for my nearly 2 hour, 6.5 mile walk yesterday! It wasn't too happy with counting 221 calories for the 30 minute elliptical session this morning, either. Its just really hard to accept that I could be burning that many calories in one session.
Tomorrow will be a maintenance day, but counting it is going to be extremely difficult. I"m going to my brother's for my niece's 1st birthday, and his menu is filled with high calorie items that I have no idea the calorie counts on, especially as he's making it all himself. I'll have time to get a good walk and maybe even a cardio video in before we leave to go, at least, so that will give me a buffer. And I know I better brace myself now because that's going to result in a weight spike the first of next week. So I figure I'll just find entries for restaurant food to approximate what he's got, maybe using a measuring cup to guess at a serving size, and keep it in moderation but enjoy myself.
Something new I've noticed in the last 2 or 3 days: I'm getting antsy sitting at my computer, especially in the mornings. I"m finding myself fidgeting more, bouncing in place and itching to move. Its a rather novel feeling, that's for sure! I'm more used to the afternoon blahs where I just want to nap! I still get the blahs in the afternoon, but the antsy feeling in the AM is new.1 -
Luckily I'm able to get up and move around at work. I noticed on the weekends, I used to be able to sit on the couch all day but now it's pracically impossible - I'm always finding something to do - clean the garage, putter in the garden, rearrange the kitchen cabinets..1
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it just seems impossible to me that I eared 1000 calories in activity today - 1000! It just seems like way too much! But I did 1/2 hour on the elliptical with variable levels from 1 to 7. I did 30 minutes aerobics at lunch. I then worked building my potato towers and general garden work for 3 hours. And I just got back from my regular 5 1/2 mile walk and was up to 3.4 mph on the speed.
I counted 75% of those calories by counting the elliptical as a 2.5 mph walk, only counting 30 minutes for the garden work as I really had no idea how much I would have burned doing that, and right at 75% of the cardio and walk, which all added up to 1,000 calories.
I'm probably going to end the day with 200 of them left uneaten, but as I said earlier, tomorrow I'm going to my brother's for my niece's 1st birthday party, and none of what he will be serving will be low calorie. I'll try to estimate the best I can and will get my cardio and walk in first thing in the morning to give me more room to play in, but I'm not even going to attempt to stay within my deficit; at best, I'll try to stick to maintenance plus exercise and will still log my food, though I'll have to use restaurant entries to try to estimate what I'll have eaten, so that extra 200 that I may end up with today can be used tomorrow. Or not - it is only 9:30 and all that activity has me hungry, so I may end up grabbing something else before bed.
AND my plans have been changed on me. My father's brother in law passed away last year and left all his wood working tools to my dad. My dad has been itching to get to Tennessee to get those tools, but circumstances has kept them here much to his frustration (my father never allows something like reality have any input in his plans and gets quite frustrated when it intrudes). My brother was going to go with them to drive the truck and trailer back, and they were planning to go down this Thursday and come back on Saturday.
Except my sister in law went into early labor this week. She's only 6 months along. They got it stopped but she's still having some pains and the doctors have put her on complete bed rest. As I noted my brother and his wife currently have a 1 year old, so with my sister in law on forced bed rest (the doctor said it was serious enough that if she did anything other than go to the bathroom, he would put her in the hospital for the sake of the baby), my brother obviously cannot go to TN.
SO, looks like I'll be going to TN in his stead (my father absolutely is in no shape to be able to drive and mom's afraid of driving with a trailer and not comfortable driving that far herself). I'm looking at this situation and trying to figure out how the heck am I going to calorie count on this trip, especially since that's going to curtail my extra activity for those 3 days? In short, to make it easier on myself, looks like my diet break will be starting this coming Thursday. That will give me some 1,000 calories extra to play with to make up for the lost activity calories. That just means that the vacation will occur during the 2nd week of diet break instead of the 1st, and I'll have to push the diet break out 2 extra days to cover the entire vacation.
so come Wednesday @NovusDies I'm going to need help figuring out what calorie count to be using for this maintenance experiment! lol1 -
hmmm. This diet break thing is going to be a lot harder than I thought. I told myself that today, since there was the birthday party, I was going to allow myself to eat at maintenance. Since I have 100 calories give or take left over from yesterday, that means I can eat 1,100 calories into the red.
I got 2 walks in today and one cardio video session to earn me another 800 calories meaning I had 3200 calories to eat today. If I use a TDEE calculator at very active settings, that comes out roughly to that 3200 number. (Really?!!! My maintenance calorie level if I keep my current exercise routine up is 3,200 calories?!!!!!)
Two problems though. 1) my guilty side of my brain is fighting as it doesn't like being over in the red, especially that much. it might tolerate 200 or even 300 but 1,000 is causing it to kick.
2) on the other hand, the glutton side of my brain has taken those 1,100 extra calories and wants to keep right on going!
So right now I'm fighting the 2 opposite sides of my brain. I'm being firm with myself - I AM going to eat those 1,100 calories because I am hungry now and should have a decent dinner, and I AM going to stop at 1100 calories and not continue snacking into the night.
I truly hope this is something that I can reign in pretty quickly when I start my diet break or else its going to be a 2 week battle. The thing I really fear is ending the diet break and telling the gluttoness side of me that we are now going back into deficit......
And my hand hurts. I tripped today during my walk and took a header into the gravel
Thankfully, my knees are find, even though I hit the one I'm having trouble with when I fell; the thick jean capris plus the knee brace was good cushioning and I was able to get up and keep going and was soon back into my rhythm. I scraped up my hands, though. Not badly, but still drew the blood. 0 -
I will come back and catch up a little later today. I have a couple of errands to run.
I have been feeling completely run down for days now. I am strongly suspecting that my watch is unable to detect activity calories from around the house stuff like landscaping, cleaning, hanging plywood on the walls in the out building, etc. When I was carrying things up and down the backyard hill I set my watch to detect outside walk but I do not think it accounted for the calories of the heavy objects I was carrying. My diet/deficit break began yesterday due to feeling poorly. I think I have a reasonably good idea of my maintenance goal but to make sure I break this run of low energy days I will eat 250 over for 3 days and then settle back to the goal line in for the rest.
It was the charity food event on Saturday that broke my back on the energy. There was so much movement getting the food sorted and distributed and I never slowed down. Due to the virus they are limiting volunteers to those that show up ready to work hard so I had to push (more like shove) myself to move at a high energy level. Afterwards I crashed down hard.1 -
I've noticed that my fitness tracker does that - it won't count pushing mowing the lawn, vacuuming the house, pushing a grocery cart, etc. That's an irritating feature of these things. I know they have to be on the wrist for the heart rate monitor feature, but wish they'd have figured out some other way to detect activity other than swinging my arms! Mine needs a manual start for activity - I'm not sure how well the ones that are supposed to auto-detect activity will work.
I've also noticed there are times where I think the heart rate monitor is off. This morning, I took my walk early - 5.4 miles in 1 hours, 34 minutes, or 5.4 mph, which is nothing strenuous or much different than I've been doing. However, the heart rate monitor said that the last 27 minutes, my heart rate stayed well above 154 bpm. I seriously doubt that was what was really going on, but when I got to thinking about it, I realized that by the end of the walk, my hands were swelled - I don't like walking with them bent and my arms pumping that way, so they were hanging down by my side as I walk, and it was rather humid this morning, too. So, I figure as my hands swelled, it made the monitor fairly tight on my wrist which then through the heart rate reading off.
Anyway, @NovusDies hope you get to feeling better soon! That kind of work would crash anyone and I hope today is a lot less strenuous for you!
I got the walk that I normally take at the end of the day in today in the morning instead because of the rain forcast for today and into tomorrow. I just finished up my cardio session (which technically was more resistance and less cardio today). I'm debating on whether to go on another walk this evening since the forecast has since changed and now the rain is supposed to hold off until later tonight, or just hit the elliptical.
And here is a first and an absolutely odd feeling: I'd like to get at a minimum of 15,000 steps in today; I'm currently sitting at 12,374. However, I'm looking at my planned food diary for today and realized that I'm actually considering NOT getting the steps in because I don't want the extra calories added to my day to have to try to figure out how to eat! I have never had that problem before! Usually, I'm scrounging for as many calories as I can get in, even squeezing out an extra couple of minutes of exercise to get just that many more back, but right now, I'm sitting at a 122 calorie surplus and know that getting more exercise in will push that up to at least 200.
I know: I can bank them, or just let then sit and consider them an offset for Saturday's high count, but it is just so weird to find myself in that sort of quandry!
Course, the afternoon is still young and I might find myself wanting to snack after all
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@bmeadows380
First off I would be happy to help with estimating your maintenance calories. We won't get it exact but a good ballpark is all that is needed.
Have you considered setting your calorie goal to maintain on days you intend to maintain? This might keep you from seeing too much red.
It doesn't bother me to formalize things like maintenance days and diet/deficit breaks but that might also be tripping you up a little mentally. I am always in weight management mode. I always have rules that I live within and except on very rare occasions I have a calorie budget. That calorie budget can be set for loss, maintenance or, as it is for the next 2 days, aimed at a slight gain. Perhaps if you can think of at as all falling under the same umbrella it might help you. Unless I am very mistaken under that umbrella is where we will hopefully spend the rest of our lives.
I am not sure you fully appreciate the changes you are undergoing. You aren't just losing weight you are losing the habits and mindset of the person who gained it. You are struggling to sit still and you are not that interested in eating food you had not originally planned to eat. Those are favorable changes.
I do not believe that the differences between a person who gained weight and a person who never has is a giant chasm under normal circumstances. I believe we make many of the same choices but those that lead to significant weight gain are repeated much more often by those of us who gained. There is nothing wrong with eating too many calories or having a lower than possible activity day until you make that your normal.1 -
@NovusDies
Thank you! A good ballpark and probably do like you are doing, look at a small surplus as well to make sure I'm not in any deficit at all; it's only 2 weeks; its not like even gaining back a real lb of fat is going to derail me completely. I'll also plan to eat back 100% of whatever exercise calories I earn (which may change up my need to add the surplus, you think?)
Changing my calorie goal to maintenance is a good idea; at a minimum it should help with the "need to follow the rules" part of my brain and might simulate my routine enough to keep from setting the glutton off because I think a lot of it is the red versus green or going beyond what is allowed in my mind and not so much what that number is.
Oh, I'm sure I don't see the changes beyond weight just like my fat brained, overly critical self can't appreciate the physical changes, either - which is why the rib cage actually being prominent really took me by surprise I'm so used to the old me that I have a hard time really seeing the new person emerging from behind that curtain. From the physical perspective, if it wasn't for the wad of hanging skin on my belly, I think I'd really not recognize myself; the skin is hiding just how much I've lost on on my stomach; I'd likely be having something of a shaped waistline if it wasn't for that. The hips, however, are a lost cause lol
It's like what I was saying to the organist at church yesterday who commented on my weight loss (though I think the top I had on had a lot to do with the comments as it was more shapely than I normally wear). I truly cannot remember being this weight before; I've been overweight and obese 3/4's of my life. I'm so used to being what I was that I often forget I'm not that person anymore.
Meanwhile, I'm going to have to get that second walk in; I'm practically bouncing here and need to burn off some excess energy! Which I'm surprised I have considering I was up at 5 AM this morning so I could get that walk in. This might be a sign that my TSH has dropped too low again, though......1 -
Boy - I was trucking tonight! Going by the fitness monitor's time and GPS tracking, I got up to 3.64 mph this evening! Woo-hoo! personal best! I knew I was moving faster than normal. Course that has me 313 calories left even after I factor in my cod dinner with butter and panko, baked potato with butter and sour cream, sweet peas, and 1 container of yogurt and 2 servings of Halo Top that I have planned for this evening. With many calories left, I may splurge and make a single serving no bake cookie; chocolate sounds really good 1
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Oh, I I forgot to say that with the 5.4 miles in this morning added to the 4.74 miles this evening, I have walked over 10 miles today! And I'm not overly sore!
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Congrats on your gain in speed!...you really are too critical of yourself because you are doing so good and from your pictures you are an attractive young woman!..
....I was chubby in middle school but in HS and college I slimmed down...I was in marching band and I walked everywhere or rode my bike...I was also on diet pills most of my first two years of HS...probably higher than a kite and didn’t realize it...( I was a teen in the 60s)...my parents and my doctor wanted me to lose weight....my mom was always on a diet and didn’t need to be...My way of losing weight was to not eat...after college, a “starter” marriage and a baby that weighed 10.9 lbs my weight piled on...I did everything to lose weight except eat right...I lost weight again on some kind of diet, remarried and my husband and I proceeded to gain weight until I lost weight again, had another 9 lb baby and gained again,lost,gained etc....
The amount of energy you have is so cool...last year I could barely get thru the day without a nap...now I rarely take one...I really miss walking like I used to...I don’t have a lot of stamina on dry land...I wish you were my neighbor so we could really be pals...I am in awe of you and Novus and I would be your best cheerleader!...
I can’t wait to hear about your vacation,hiking and maintenance!0 -
I only made it to -86 calories today which is short of my goal. I would finish getting to the -250 but my fat macro managed to get pretty high today which, as usual, has left me feeling slightly nauseous. I am over my calories so I hope it is enough. I will plan better tomorrow. It is kind of unnatural to be eating above maintenance at home when it is not a holiday. However, I do not have enough confirmations to know this is maintenance so shooting higher when I feel like I have probably been in a deficit higher than I wanted seems appropriate. I do not want to continue feeling rundown.
I know I might be adding a little extra time to getting down below 200 but I feel so off I can't care about that at the moment. I have learned that on weeks that I am working that hard around the house to increase my activity level and eat back all my exercise calories. The weekend before I was smart and ate maintenance an extra day. I am not sure why I didn't think of that last week. I like to learn my lessons the hard way apparently.1 -
I only made it to -86 calories today which is short of my goal. I would finish getting to the -250 but my fat macro managed to get pretty high today which, as usual, has left me feeling slightly nauseous. I am over my calories so I hope it is enough. I will plan better tomorrow. It is kind of unnatural to be eating above maintenance at home when it is not a holiday. However, I do not have enough confirmations to know this is maintenance so shooting higher when I feel like I have probably been in a deficit higher than I wanted seems appropriate. I do not want to continue feeling rundown.
I know I might be adding a little extra time to getting down below 200 but I feel so off I can't care about that at the moment. I have learned that on weeks that I am working that hard around the house to increase my activity level and eat back all my exercise calories. The weekend before I was smart and ate maintenance an extra day. I am not sure why I didn't think of that last week. I like to learn my lessons the hard way apparently.
I'm learning, or at least on days my reasonable side wins out, that longer, slower and steadier wins over fast and unsustainable, especially when you're feeling tired. And then there's the lessons we apparently don't seem to keep grasp of as we have to learn them over and over and over lolconniewilkins56 wrote: »Congrats on your gain in speed!...you really are too critical of yourself because you are doing so good and from your pictures you are an attractive young woman!..
....I was chubby in middle school but in HS and college I slimmed down...I was in marching band and I walked everywhere or rode my bike...I was also on diet pills most of my first two years of HS...probably higher than a kite and didn’t realize it...( I was a teen in the 60s)...my parents and my doctor wanted me to lose weight....my mom was always on a diet and didn’t need to be...My way of losing weight was to not eat...after college, a “starter” marriage and a baby that weighed 10.9 lbs my weight piled on...I did everything to lose weight except eat right...I lost weight again on some kind of diet, remarried and my husband and I proceeded to gain weight until I lost weight again, had another 9 lb baby and gained again,lost,gained etc....
The amount of energy you have is so cool...last year I could barely get thru the day without a nap...now I rarely take one...I really miss walking like I used to...I don’t have a lot of stamina on dry land...I wish you were my neighbor so we could really be pals...I am in awe of you and Novus and I would be your best cheerleader!...
I can’t wait to hear about your vacation,hiking and maintenance!
Funny you should mention the critical part - my best friend and I were talking about personality types and she brought that up as well We were talking psychology and family members and how parents influence their children....
Well, apparently not all that attractive; I never have managed to attract any interest on a romantic level; or I apparently wasted my youth being obese. I can count on one hand the number of times I might have been flirted with just a little; I don't have much experience with it, so I wouldn't recognize it if it was tossed my way, and at my age now the goods ones are pretty well gone!
my thoughts on the habits I was taught as a kid are that I was raised by farmer's kids and my mother cooked liked an old fashioned farmer's wife, except I was raised in a small town and thus did not have the activity that is required to burn off that kind of eating style and never had any examples on food choices or proper serving sizes. I was more active as a child, though I never played any sports or anything. I was always being told to lose weight by my doctors - I can remember my pediatrician showing the chart for height and weight for normal and where i was. That's where I first learned to dread going to the doctor. But really ballooned up after graduating college and moving to Pittsburgh for my first job. I became a lot less active but ate a lot more since I now had my own decent income and hadn't learned control as a child. This has been a long time of un-learning some bad habits and learning new ones to replace them!
I am going to really watch that itch to move, though - I hope its just energy levels spiking due to activity, but I'll need to watch my heart rate, my sleep patterns, my mood, and if I start to feel heart palpitations then I'll know its not energy, its my TSH is too low and needs adjusted again lol
I'd love to have you as a neighbor! Alas, I can't take heat and humidity, so I can't move to Florida, and I don't think you'd tolerate the weather in WV very well either 1 -
I think if you assume no one is looking at you with interest you tend to miss the ones that are. People of all different weights still pair off. There are a lot of lonely people out there that are not obese too.1
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I appreciate this, and you for saying it, but I don't know how many times people have "consoled" me and tried to tell me that plenty of fat people find love, but my experience is pretty much identical to bmeadows. I've been overweight since I was little. I was morbidly obese by the time I graduated from high school. I've been on one date in my entire life, and he never called me again. There was only one other guy who showed interest until he figured out I was quite a bit younger than he was. I know my opinions are based on my experience, but men are not attracted to morbidly obese women. I would argue that most morbidly obese people in relationships were not morbidly obese when the relationship began. (And if it's not the weight, it has to be looks and/or personality, and that's a depressing thought.)I think if you assume no one is looking at you with interest you tend to miss the ones that are. People of all different weights still pair off. There are a lot of lonely people out there that are not obese too.
You could be right. I might have missed someone who was looking at me with interest, but if so, that guy never did more than look. Sure, I could have scared someone off by being totally oblivious, but it's not ALL up to me to make something happen. If there had been a LOT of guys showing interest, I wouldn't have missed every one of them, and I'm guessing the same is true for bmeadows!
BTW, @bmeadows380, I saw your photos, and even in the before photos I think you were very pretty!
Anyway...I came here to rant about my weight gain and got totally sidetracked by this conversation. Rant averted.......for now.2 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »
I appreciate this, and you for saying it, but I don't know how many times people have "consoled" me and tried to tell me that plenty of fat people find love, but my experience is pretty much identical to bmeadows. I've been overweight since I was little. I was morbidly obese by the time I graduated from high school. I've been on one date in my entire life, and he never called me again. There was only one other guy who showed interest until he figured out I was quite a bit younger than he was. I know my opinions are based on my experience, but men are not attracted to morbidly obese women. I would argue that most morbidly obese people in relationships were not morbidly obese when the relationship began. (And if it's not the weight, it has to be looks and/or personality, and that's a depressing thought.)I think if you assume no one is looking at you with interest you tend to miss the ones that are. People of all different weights still pair off. There are a lot of lonely people out there that are not obese too.
You could be right. I might have missed someone who was looking at me with interest, but if so, that guy never did more than look. Sure, I could have scared someone off by being totally oblivious, but it's not ALL up to me to make something happen. If there had been a LOT of guys showing interest, I wouldn't have missed every one of them, and I'm guessing the same is true for bmeadows!
BTW, @bmeadows380, I saw your photos, and even in the before photos I think you were very pretty!
Anyway...I came here to rant about my weight gain and got totally sidetracked by this conversation. Rant averted.......for now.
It has been my experience that guys are hardly a brave lot when it comes to women. Better looking guys than me sat at home dateless while even heavy I was seldom ever turned down because I was bold and unafraid of a 'no'. So the issue with carrying more weight is that it narrows the field and if some of the interested were also timid it ends up not going anywhere.
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I am feeling better today. I may have felt too good because I ended up walking 7 miles this morning. I still plan to eat over where I believe my maintenance line is by 250 calories today.
I am starting to think about my return to the gym. Mine reopened last week. I think the prudent thing is to wait until after my break. I have a few more projects to do around the house and with my energy crash I need to be more mindful. It is no fun feeling so drained and it would definitely interfere with my ability to reform my gym habit.1 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »
I appreciate this, and you for saying it, but I don't know how many times people have "consoled" me and tried to tell me that plenty of fat people find love, but my experience is pretty much identical to bmeadows. I've been overweight since I was little. I was morbidly obese by the time I graduated from high school. I've been on one date in my entire life, and he never called me again. There was only one other guy who showed interest until he figured out I was quite a bit younger than he was. I know my opinions are based on my experience, but men are not attracted to morbidly obese women. I would argue that most morbidly obese people in relationships were not morbidly obese when the relationship began. (And if it's not the weight, it has to be looks and/or personality, and that's a depressing thought.)I think if you assume no one is looking at you with interest you tend to miss the ones that are. People of all different weights still pair off. There are a lot of lonely people out there that are not obese too.
You could be right. I might have missed someone who was looking at me with interest, but if so, that guy never did more than look. Sure, I could have scared someone off by being totally oblivious, but it's not ALL up to me to make something happen. If there had been a LOT of guys showing interest, I wouldn't have missed every one of them, and I'm guessing the same is true for bmeadows!
@bobsburgersfan *hugs*
That's exactly been my experience. Well, not EXACTLY - I've never even been on a single date or even asked or even gotten far enough along in a conversation to even lead up to being asked. And when you get to 40 years of age and that's been the case all your life, you can't help but start making certain assumptions. I've had people tell me the same thing - "there are plenty of overweight people or fall in love" or the classic "you don't know that you'll never get married; there are plenty of people who get married later in life. Why I know so and so who was 50 when she got married!" And while I know plenty of single people never been married - my mom's side has a lot of life-long bachelors, and there are a few never married older ladies in my church - I've also wanted to tell those folks who try to tell me that and ask if those same single people never dated or even had any interest. I know the members of my family who are still single at least dated a little while, and I know for sure that is the case with most of the single ladies in my church.
I've come to the same conclusions as you - if they were interested, why didn't they speak up? What kind of unconscious signal was I giving out that I wouldn't be interested? I've had a grand total of 3 guys show a small amount of interest - 1 was a guy who wasn't all there mentally and was old enough to be my father (isn't THAT flattering), one was a supervisor in an Arby's, and another was a cashier at a convenience store near me. They've been the only guys to really even flirt a little, but I apparently also have personality issues that seems to scare them off if I do pick up on the slight interest. Though I've come to the conclusion the guy at Arby's was just being pushed into it by a co-worker; I talked a little with the 3rd guy but he quickly found an excuse to extricate himself from the conversation, so all I can figure is that not only do I have the problem of being obese as a hindrance, I apparently have social skill problems on top of that, so I apparently don't have an attractive personality to fall back on, either (and yeah, if I let myself think on it too much, it is a rather depressing thought).
I know it doesn't help that I grew up in a small town and attended an even smaller church school, so the pool when I was a teenager was limited, and with the school being so small, the cliques were much more pronounced and I wasn't in any of them; I joke that I WAS the nerdy group. My family is introverted and I never really participated in anything much in school or the community so I didn't know many of the kids my own age beyond those in my church, not like my brother did. And I had been the butt of the guys' teasing and jokes from Junior High on until at least 10th grade, so that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, especially in a teenager. I just figured I'd get to college and things would change, except while the being the butt of the jokes ended thankfully, even though I was going to a public college in a field dominated by guys so I spent a lot of class time being the only girl, and even participated in a few extra-curricular activities, I still didn't have any opportunities. In fact, most of the guys I dealt with were leery of me except for when they needed help with homework or studying for a test.
I graduated college, moved the Pittsburgh metro area, worked in a field primarily with men, but still no luck. It didn't help, though, that my industry is older and most of the men I was working with were usually 20 years older than me (didn't help much in trying to establish credibility in my field, either). And most of the guys I dealt with were already married or even re-married by that point. It seems that college is your best bet of finding someone if you desire to be married, and I apparently blew it during those opportune years.
Now I've moved back home to a rural community with a small population. There isn't much going on here socially and I don't go to bars. There aren't many people my own age going to church these days, and the guys who do are already married with children. There is no one available at all in my current church, and no, I'm not willing to change churches just to try to find a wider demographic. I have acquaintances but no close social ties to anyone other than the one best friend who is even more introverted than I am. I don't have any clue where you're supposed to go to or what your supposed to do to build those networks, either. Folks around here just don't seem to be all that interested in social functions and like I said, I'm not interested in bars.
So yeah, being 40 and unmarried when being married was something you had greatly desired is hard; its even harder when you've had absolutely no opportunity at all. My best friend tells me I"m too picky and I keep coming back to her "how can I be too picky when I've never even had the opportunity?" I just figure if there were a few guys who were interested, something about me put them off. My brother tells me I'm intimidating, whatever that means. My mother tells me I'm too independent.
*shrugs* I just figure I'm too weird in personality and my interests and hobbies are too far out of the mainstream. My social skills are apparently broken; I can have a casual conversation with many folks, but I don't have the skills in getting beyond the shallow aquaintenanceships; I figure since I even irritate myself sometimes, that I tend to become an irritant to folks after a while - shoot, I do it here all the time with my long-winded whines! lol
But there are much worse things out there than being single - I've had plenty of examples of that over the years and plenty of people in my family that regret the romantic entanglements they've had, and being single sure beats being trapped in a bad marriage, but I also know that good, happy marriages can be found and I know a few couples that fit that mold - happily ever after may be rare as hen's teeth, but it IS possible. I just know that the old adage "there's someone out there for everyone" simply is not true. And while I can't completely let go of the hope, I also know that at my age, the odds aren't good.bobsburgersfan wrote: »
BTW, @bmeadows380, I saw your photos, and even in the before photos I think you were very pretty!
Anyway...I came here to rant about my weight gain and got totally sidetracked by this conversation. Rant averted.......for now.
well, at least I distracted you from your rant, right?
(and we'll have to agree to disagree about the photos - I'm no great beauty, even when I have makeup on lol) 1 -
I've been lurking around, reading you all and cheering on your progress. Now that the conversation is becoming interesting, I'll give my 5 cents
I have a couple of friends that have met their now husbands on online Christian dating sites. I know there's always a risk there, but it may be worth a try. That widens the pool quite a bit Food for thought. 1 -
so anyway, on to less whiny, "woe is me" topics as I doubt you guys care much to listen to my pity parties.....
I had a new low this morning - 240.6 lbs, which is down 10.5 lbs since April 14th or 5 weeks ago and is trending about around that 2 lb/wk loss rate. I'm currently set to the 1400 calorie and eating back 75% of my exercise calories.
So I've got my daily weight recordings, calorie intake, exercise calorie intake, and total daily step count for the last 2 months in my spreadsheet. So how do I use this data to figure out what I should be eating during my diet break?
I'm guessing I'm looking at around 3200? When I use my spreadsheet and Anne's directions for calculation maintenance here:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10638211/how-to-find-your-maintenance-calorie-level/p1
I get a loss rate of 2.1 lb/wk if I look back at the last 5 weeks. My average daily calorie intake for that period was 2177 which gives me a weekly average of 15,239. So (2.1*2500) + 15,239 = 22,589, and 22,589/7 = 3227.
When I look at the calculated value of my BMR for today, I"ve got 1819, and when I look at a very active factor of 1.8 I get 3274, which is in the same general neighborhood.
So should I am to eat say 3300 - 3400 calories a day, attempt to keep my activity levels up, but don't eat back any exercise calories - this would be the TDEE method, right?
OR should I use the sedentary factor (1819*1.2) which for me is 2182 and then add back 100% exercise?
OR, are my options
1) TDEE method - maintenance at 3300-3400 calories; no adding back any extra exercise and try to keep activity levels the same, meaning make sure I'm average 15,000 steps a day during the diet break.
2) NEAT method - maintenance around 2200-2300 and eat back 100% exercise calories?
I'm leaning toward method 2 simply because from today through the weekend, my activity is going to be sharply down from usual because of the weather and then is trip to Tennessee. I'm hoping that next week the weather cooperates and I can get back up to my normal routine, but the week after that is vacation week and who knows how much activity I'll actually be getting since I plan to do some hiking but am not sure what the weather forecast is.
I suppose though, even I'd just use method 1, aiming for 3400 calories a day for the next 2 weeks, that even if I can't get up to the 15,000 steps daily, it's not going to translate in a bunch of weight gain when I go back to deficit, and I suppose if my activity goes well above the 15,000, I could just tack on extra calories to compensate.
I just don't want to find myself still in even a mild deficit during this break; I know I need to be at maintenance or even into a small surplus to get the full benefits of the break.
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