Food, Exercise, or other Reports
Replies
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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
The above sentence (as @NovusDies either surmised or amplified) was supposed to say: 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 AND YOUR LOGGING.
I...err... got distracted!
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@PAV8888 I still consider you and @NovusDies and anyone who has succeeded in what I"m trying to do in a healthy, reasonable method to be authorities, or at least mentors. You guys are trying to keep me from making some mistakes that I don't have to, and give good advice on things to try, and I do appreciate it. Especially since I'm not a spreadsheet person who will crunch the numbers into the nitty-gritty; I'm too lazy for that......unless its for something completely unusable that just catches my fancy.......
I'm really, really looking forward to dropping from an 11W in womens to a regular 11. I have a nearly impossible time finding shoes, because the few stores that do carry women's 11's pretty much carry narrows only!
and I did notice that a pair of summer type shoes that were tight last year fit me last weekend well enough that I could wear them for hours without them pinching my feet!
I have been at it long enough to at least begin to realize the best timing for me to eat. Especially lately, since I've been working from home. I thought it would be harder working from home, but I'm finding its actually been easier, perhaps because I can eat when my body signal's me to eat, and maybe because my head knows everything is available and I'm not limited to what's in my lunch box.
What I have learned is that I need to hold as many calories for evening as possible - I am not someone who can eat a large breakfast, a medium lunch, and a small dinner. I'm going to blow it if I have a large breakfast and don't have at least 500 calories left when evening gets here. With the activity, I'm finding that the first thing elliptical session goes easier if I have a piece of toast with peanut butter and my coffee first - pre-fuel instead of fasting. Probably should have been a no-brainer, but @PAV8888 gives me way more credit for intelligence than is probably due lol
I'm also trying to remember to fuel with something carb before I start the aerobic session, and follow with protein after. And if I am feeling the munchies coming on, sometimes I can stave them off by taking a walk or hopping on the elliptical instead of snacking. That's a nice by-product of all the activity!
Thankfully, I've been able to ramp up my activity with few blisters, and that one time was because I made the mistake one day of walking in an old pair of cheap tennis shoes instead of my walking shoes. Lesson learned! And now that I broke down and bought a new pair of walking shoes, walking has become even easier.
I'm trying to pay attention to heart rate to gauge the intensity of my exercise, but that's still a work in progress. The aerobic sessions can get me hot and sweaty and breathing heavy, but the heart rate still stays in the low 120's. Of course, there's room for error there, since I'm using a wrist tracker and not a chest band.
I need to be vigilant about logging. I realize there's going to be a measure of error there, and I try to over-compensate to be on the safe side, especially when using boxed or canned goods because I go by the package and don't weigh it out all the time, either. I've also learned that I need to account for everything and not let myself fall into that trap of under-estimating things, like the calories in that little pat of butter, or little swirl of salad dressing, or in that half-cut tea......I've sabotaged myself before by getting lax and trying to eyeball and ignoring some things; and its a trap I could easily fall into again. I also realize that as the weight I need to drop gets smaller, the deficit will get smaller and the logging will have to become tighter. Which is also why I don't think I'll be able to actually get down to that 155 lbs I'm "supposed" to be by BMI; the incredibly slow weight loss for that last 20 lbs would require more vigilance to maintain that deficit than I have the patience for; we'll have to see when and get in range. Right now, my sites are set on 220 lbs!
In any case, I want to very much come out on the other side of this with new sustainable habits and better health so I keep that darned weight off, so I am trying to look at some of those NSVs too, when I can quit being distracted by weight loss and speed
I have been rather surprised at myself at how quickly I was able to ramp up the activity, from 30 minutes walks to hour walks, getting from 2.75 mph to 3.2 and sometimes 3.5 mph. Today, for instance, I walked 4 miles in 1 hour 13 minutes and am not tired at all. I'm guessing now that the 5.5 mile walk I did 2 weeks ago wouldn't be nearly as strenuous today as it was then. I'm looking forward to the aerobic ability to increase, though that isn't improving nearly as fast as the walking improvements have come. And the bike - I'm looking forward to being able to ride further without murdering my legs or my lungs, though I have surprised myself in how far I have been able to go after only a couple of rides.
The activity is definitely still in the experimental stage, and learning how my body responds is going to be trial and error. I've never been an overly active person, though I never had trouble doing hte things I wanted to do, whether it be hiking, playing a little softball, or any yardwork or building activities I wanted to do. But there were some things that I might be able to do at a lower weight that I just never thought I'd ever be able to do. I also know that it doesn't really matter if I was active in the past or not; I'm now 40, not 20, and ability and stamina aren't the same anyway. Maybe that's actually a good thing, because I don't have a former self to compare to.
today, I made myself count back half the exercise calories predicted by MFP. It resulted in 530 calories more in exercise calories. At first, my brain rebelled at adding that many back. But then I stopped the hissy fit it was having to make it think a little. I had a 40 minute elliptical session this morning that was light, yes, but still variable in intensity. I counted it as a 2.5 mph walk. I had a 36 minute aerobic session. And I just got back from a 1 hr 13 minute walk that I counted as 3.0 mph because MFP doesn't have an entry for 3.25 mph. All together, that's a whopping 2 1/2 hours of purposeful activity, and resulted in over 15,000 steps for the day. As much as my brain might want to try to deny it, the fact is that is I am most definitely in the active category and probably more than likely well into the very active one. And I'm trying to get this same sort of activity in, ranging from 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours of purposeful activity, 5 days a week, and that's not counting the housework and yard work chores that get done on Saturdays. Despite my incredulity about it, the numbers are telling me that I am indeed being very active - not lightly, not moderate.
And that 530 extra calories today are lining up with the calculators, and are probably still being somewhat conservative. MFP tells me that in the active category, I should be eating 2,000 a day; 530 extra calories added to my deficit is a little under that 2,000. And that's the active category; I may find after working with the numbers for a while longer I need to up that even more. Its really hard to wrap my mind around that - a little over a month and half ago, I was barely getting 2,000 steps in on most days!
I'm not so deep into it that I'm using spreadsheets to count my own numbers; I'm too lazy for that So for now, I'm just working with the estimator and trying to watch the trend weight and keep it at a reasonable level. While the eating in a deficit isn't new, figuring out the activity factor is definitely new and will take a learning curve before I get it figured completely out. And getting over the fear of an actual diet break will have to be tackled soon, too, though perhaps making myself learn to eat more exercise calories back may help in that arena?
It's easier for me to take it slow and steady if I can see progress; I start to get myself screwed up in the head when the water weight issues begin playing with my brain and covering up the actual progress - hence the whole "only eat back 1/4 to 1/3 of your exercise calories because you aren't burning as much as you think you are" when in actuality, I'm apparently burning more than I think I am. And learning to forgive myself and realize losing control once in a while isn't the end of the world; long term counts, not short term blips.
So @NovusDies, I guess this might count sort of like an anniversary log? lol Though I guess its more like a day to day thing But it beats my weekly log on another thread - that's my "whine" thread usually Not that I don't whine here, either, but you guys are all very good sports! 1 -
Hmmm.... one thing to think about @bmeadows380
I lost less weight than you and Novus.
The most dangerous part, for me, is the "slide into maintenance" with the "terrifying" +/- x lb range (in my case 2.5 to 3 trending weight lbs UP since I'm still at the top end of the normal weight range (I'm 172.25 cm and not getting taller 😹)
After losing 72.5 lbs my first year on mfp and finding out from dexa scans that my fat to lean mass ratio was starting to dip below 2:1 (from an initial 10:1), I deliberately decided to go very slow and ease into normal weight and maintenance.
So one year slowly losing about 11lbs
One year maintaining with option to lose, so -2.7lbs
Half more year of keeping at it... all with the same level of logging / method of managing food intake as when initially losing...
And only then starting to loosen logging / method of managing food intake.
(Loosen, not abandon. I still log, and weigh food and myself. But I might spend less time looking for entries. Guestimate more. Even had time periods of not logging due to other things happening)
I will say that in understand why so many of us regain during the first two years.
And I do believe there is a hormonal component in addition to going back to previous behavioral patterns
I "felt" a marked change in terms of food thoughts / how I viewed my daily allotment of calories a few months before I switched to looser monitoring.
From feeling "I can make it within my allotment if I keep being careful and making good choices" it became, "hey this is not so bad, unless i screw up I should be fine".
All this to say... monitor and achieve weight loss in ways you can see yourself continuing to apply for a good few years down the road.
I don't consider it onerous, honestly, to manage my calories. Not any more.
(In fact it boggles my mind when people tell me that counting points is easy and calories difficult. Or that eating mindfully and never taking seconds is easier, or.... )0 -
@pav8888 What I need to figure out how to control before I get to maintenance is the attitude of "okay, so I didn't do well today, or I've regained 5 lbs; that's fine, but it stops here" when it doesn't actually stop until 30 lbs later. My self control seems to have this switch that flips on and off for no reason that I can figure out.
It boggles my mind, too, on the points or counting carbs, or whatever being easier. And eating intuitively is what got me to 380 lbs to begin with! Its precisely that I can't trust myself to accurately judge what is a proper portion size or to know when my body is full; I've already discovered that there is a big disconnect between my "head" hunger and my "body" hunger. It's not always easy to see the difference, but once in a while, I can tell the difference; my stomach will be pleasantly full, but my head will be insisting it wants more and more and more.....and then give it an hour, and it will be craving again.
I have found it interesting that my food choices have changed, though, without me needing to think about it. There are things that I would have craved before that simply don't appeal or only vaguely now. Like donuts. Before, if someone put filled donuts in the breakroom, it was a fight with myself over them. Now? I see em, but there's no desire for them. And I don't crave candy bars. I still have to watch Little Debbie Cakes and McDonald's cookies, though.
I'm going to be in the red today, because I wanted Mexican. I did try planning for it, but it's not the kind of restaurant that has calorie counts, so I had to guess. I had 1 chicken tamale in mole sauce, and 1 chicken enchilada, which was nothing more than grilled chicken in a taco sized corn tortilla, with only about 2 or 3 tablespoons of cheese sauce. But with no real idea how to charge it, I went with heavier items.
I would have been fine with that, except I also picked up a nachos grande with chicken, beef, sour cream, and cheese sauce for the family to share, since my enchilada dish actually came with 3 enchiladas, and I intended to take the remaining 2 to my sister for her dinner tonight. However, once I got to mom's I couldn't stay out of the nachos myself. Trying to estimate that intake was very challenging, so I picked an entry and figure, meh, don't worry about it.
However, I did get 10,000 steps in today even without getting my evening walk in - I got my 40 minutes of elliptical time and 30 minute aerobics video in, and walked about 3/10s of a mile home from the garage after dropping my truck off for service, then walking back to pick it up,t hen walking that 3/10's two more times going up the Mexican restaurant across from the garage and home again. I didn't keep track of the time it took for those short walks, so I didn't bother even trying to count them, so technically, with 10,000 steps in for the day, I was still probably active and therefore probably accounted for those extra calories anyway, and even if I didn't quite get them all, I'm still well into a deficit at any rate.
And having red days now and then is probably good for me anyway; helps perhaps loosen up the guilt that comes with allowing the red
I could probably get another elliptical session in or more cardio if I pushed it, but I'm not going to push it because I was right on the timing of TOM's visit, so I'm feeling extra run down today anyway. I'm going to veg the evening away, and just make sure to keep myself out of the pantry except for what i have left in my diary.1 -
I'm beginning to think that I'm still not eating enough calories back, but I'd still like a few more weeks worth of data to compare to. I started using the HappyScale app on March 5, 6 weeks ago. However, I was also coming off a water weight spike, so I know the initial weight of 267.6 was higher than what was really going on. As I started getting active, the water weight loosened, so the scale dropped pretty quickly afterwards.
However, this morning, the trend for the week is sitting st 251.9 lbs, which is 2 lbs down from what it was on Thursday, and this is in spite of over indulging on Friday, Saturday, and going clear up to maintenance and even over on Sunday. Now granted, I'm coming off TOM week, which would show a nice bump down anyway, and I didn't have ham on Sunday, which usually would result in water weight gain, but still, the trend in HappyScale is showing my predicted loss rate as being 2.7 lbs, and when I look at the average loss over the last 6 weeks, that's a 15.7 lbs difference averaging to 2.6 lbs per week loss rate, which I know is still too fast.
So I'm not sure whether to start adding back to my current deficit right now, or wait a few more weeks knowing that the initial week was artificially high because of the water weight problems. I'm definitely proving to myself, though, that the water weight problems in February were screwing up my results, making me think I was losing at a slower rate than I really was.
And I already know that if we start going back to the office in May, that things will change again and I'll be scaling back the activity I've got going right now because of lack of time for it.
Is 6 weeks enough time to establish a true trend, especially as that 6 weeks has covered 2 TOMs, or do I really need to wait until I've had 10 or 12 before making changes? I have started eating half my exercise calories back, so I've made that adjustment, but if that's still not enough, I"m going to have to raise my calorie limit back up, and I'm trying to decide if I should go ahead and do that based on the data I have currently, or give it a few more weeks for a few more data points.0 -
@bmeadows380
So the right advice from me to you is that you have enough deficit that even if you over correct you will still lose some weight so eat more now.
However, what I have done in your situation is take a the middle ground. I decided what I suspected was correct but needed a little more data to confirm then split the difference between that and my latest adjustment. When I decided to go that route I also believed that within 2 more weeks I would have clean enough numbers to make more definitive choices. I delayed the inevitable though so consider my 'right advice' first.1 -
@NovusDies
Now i have to crunch numbers to figure out how much to raise my deficit lol
Let's see: If I"m running 1/2 lb too fast on my rate a week, that's 250 calories. That's per week, I think, so rough 50 calories a day, right? Meaning I need to go back to the 1450 I was at before and continue to eat back half my exercise calories? I want to stay at sedentary and just eat my exercise calories back instead of changing my activity level to lightly active; I feel this method captures my activity better and covers those days where I"m not as active.0 -
@bmeadows380
You have confused daily with weekly on your numbers. A half a pound a week is a total of a 1750 calorie deficit or 250 calories per day.
I still haven't changed my activity level from sedentary inside MFP. As long as my exercise calories are not too low I see no need. My current working theory is that I can eat 80 percent of my exercise calories. I am not totally convinced that is true but I should have new data either later this week or next so we will see how it shakes out.0 -
@NovusDies yikes - adding back 250 a day?!!!!! that's going to be a fight and half with my brain.....
I'll be very interested in knowing your results on the 80% thing; I think I'd find it easier to add back 75-80% of exercise calories rather than raise my daily deficit 250 calories. Or split the difference, maybe, adding perhaps 100 calories to my deficit and eating back 65% or something like that.0 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »@NovusDies yikes - adding back 250 a day?!!!!! that's going to be a fight and half with my brain.....
I'll be very interested in knowing your results on the 80% thing; I think I'd find it easier to add back 75-80% of exercise calories rather than raise my daily deficit 250 calories. Or split the difference, maybe, adding perhaps 100 calories to my deficit and eating back 65% or something like that.
lol. I know that battle. I added 250 and then a little over a week later I had to add another 250 because I still wasn't eating enough.
Keep in mind that my results are not going to be your results. My exercise numbers come from my Apple Watch while you are entering yours manually.
How you accomplish it is really a matter of ease of self management. You can play around with it to see what feels the most comfortable. I am running a really odd system right now until I feel like my numbers are really firm. Since I am only trying to lose 1 pound per week I can set MFP to lose 1.5lbs and then eat all of my exercise calories because the math comes out the same as eating 80 percent and set to lose 1 pound. It is a sloppy system which I will not keep for long but in the short term it is easy to see on the screen.
I have an calculated average TDEE that helps guide what I do. I have always used TDEE over NEAT but I am not sure if that is my future right now. Until I make my final decision I will run everything side by side.
Here is my current summary section:
Other than the actual weight each column represents a what-if. SS is my spreadsheet 1.88 multiplier, Active and Very Active are based on normal multipliers, Apple and MFP are self-explanatory. So right now my low weight most closely match my projected SS weight which was highlighted in yellow. If it drops below that I compare to the other what-ifs. I have no reason to believe that Apple is correct. I think if my weight were really able to drop that low I would have seen evidence of it before now. If I had to guess my weight could potentially be slightly lower than my SS projection but not low enough for MFP to be correct. It is probably in the middle.
I determine each by entering the calories I have eaten each day and the exercise value I have been given. Those numbers are used to determine what my loss by deficit is for the day and it is deducted from the previous day's weight in that section. So they all have their own weight columns and this is the cumulative result since Jan 10.
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I am coming off of a very emotional high calorie junk eating week....I guess what I want to ask is this: if you still have a substantial amount of weight to lose as I do ( started at 350 and now 75 pounds lost since May 28 )...why is it necessary to eat back exercise calories?...I am almost half way to my goal and with my occasional binges, I don’t think I should add back more calories to my day....I am not active but I have reached 6000 steps daily a few times....I will be adding water exercise back into my routine when the pool is open....won’t eating more slow my weight loss down?....when do you know you are under eating?...God knows I know how to overeat!....all of your spread sheets and number crunching boggles my mind!...thanks!0
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@NovusDies
One thing in this: as much as my brain balks at the idea, the data points I'm getting are lining up with your theory that I am actually active, not lightly active. The difference between sedentary and lightly active was around 280 calories for me according to MFP. (I'll pause while you finish with an "I TOLD you so!" lol) I left my setting at sedentary, and since I increased to half exercise calories, I'm eating back in the neighborhood of 300-400 calories on exercise. That ought to cover that 280 calorie difference between the two levels, but if I"m still losing at a 0.5 lb rate too fast, and need another 250 calories a day to slow it down to 2 lbs a week, that should mean I really need to be getting 500 calories a day extra minimum, or more, since 650 calories is the difference between sedentary and active according to MFP. I think, and all based on MFP's numbers.
So despite my brain's stubborn refusal to admit it, I guess I really am in the active category right now. Course when I stop to think about it that I'm doing purposeful exercise at least 2 hours a day, 5 days a week......
It goes back to the fat brain thing - my brain still thinks of me as being fat and sluggish and can't seem to get that reality has changed drastically.
When I look up BMR calculators and follow the formula, at my current weight today, my BMR is 1866. My deficit is currently set at 1400 based on sedentary, which is actually ~1.3 multiplier rather than the sedentary 1.2, putting that 1400 calories around 150 calories above actual 2 lbs/wk loss rate based on that BMR calculation. I'll try to keep track in my own crude spreadsheet (I couldn't resist lol) my actual calorie intake versus what's predicted to see where I end up to maybe help myself build up to that calorie range I should be eating at my current activity level.1 -
conniewilkins56 wrote: »I am coming off of a very emotional high calorie junk eating week....I guess what I want to ask is this: if you still have a substantial amount of weight to lose as I do ( started at 350 and now 75 pounds lost since May 28 )...why is it necessary to eat back exercise calories?...I am almost half way to my goal and with my occasional binges, I don’t think I should add back more calories to my day....I am not active but I have reached 6000 steps daily a few times....I will be adding water exercise back into my routine when the pool is open....won’t eating more slow my weight loss down?....when do you know you are under eating?...God knows I know how to overeat!....all of your spread sheets and number crunching boggles my mind!...thanks!
Eating back the calories you burn in exercise will keep your weight loss at the same rate if it is the right amount. Remember that calories are units of energy. The more you burn the more you need. You want to keep your deficit around the same amount so if you do not eat your exercise calories you will create more deficit which will accelerate your loss. On paper that might seem like a good thing but in reality it can come with multiple complications such as:
1) Creating a restrict - binge cycle.
2) Being miserable
3) Lacking energy to exercise comfortably-ish which can impede your ability to establish a habit
This assumes you stay above your safe loss limit of 1 percent per week. If you do not it can create health problems.
You are doing amazing. I know you have had your setbacks but your progress is made more amazing because of them.
With that said there is no reason to worry about the occasional more active day. It is only if is a regular occurrence that you will need to eat more calories. A 6k step day is great but if you are eating enough calories for 4k the extra will generate a little more loss but it should not be enough to threaten your balance.1 -
@bmeadows380 I do not care who is right(me). I only care you are making progress on your own terms and it will benefit your health.
Somewhere out there is a post where I said something like "Welcome to being active." So now that you are accepting it:
WELCOME TO BEING ACTIVE!
The idea was pretty foreign to me too (fat brain).
Also:
WELCOME TO BEING A CRAZY SPREADSHEET PERSON!
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conniewilkins56 wrote: »I am coming off of a very emotional high calorie junk eating week....I guess what I want to ask is this: if you still have a substantial amount of weight to lose as I do ( started at 350 and now 75 pounds lost since May 28 )...why is it necessary to eat back exercise calories?...I am almost half way to my goal and with my occasional binges, I don’t think I should add back more calories to my day....I am not active but I have reached 6000 steps daily a few times....I will be adding water exercise back into my routine when the pool is open....won’t eating more slow my weight loss down?....when do you know you are under eating?...God knows I know how to overeat!....all of your spread sheets and number crunching boggles my mind!...thanks!
Eating back the calories you burn in exercise will keep your weight loss at the same rate if it is the right amount. Remember that calories are units of energy. The more you burn the more you need. You want to keep your deficit around the same amount so if you do not eat your exercise calories you will create more deficit which will accelerate your loss. On paper that might seem like a good thing but in reality it can come with multiple complications such as:
1) Creating a restrict - binge cycle.
2) Being miserable
3) Lacking energy to exercise comfortably-ish which can impede your ability to establish a habit
This assumes you stay above your safe loss limit of 1 percent per week. If you do not it can create health problems.
You are doing amazing. I know you have had your setbacks but your progress is made more amazing because of them.
With that said there is no reason to worry about the occasional more active day. It is only if is a regular occurrence that you will need to eat more calories. A 6k step day is great but if you are eating enough calories for 4k the extra will generate a little more loss but it should not be enough to threaten your balance.
You are right ( of course! )... “ my setbacks have made my progress more amazing”....Because in the past, after a set back I throw in the towel and give up for long periods of time...THIS time I get back up and keep whittling away at my extra pounds...my setback this time packed on between 5 to 9 pounds and was so not worth it...it will take me over a week to get back where I was....but here I am continuing on.....lol.....I am such a little soldier!1 -
@bmeadows380, as mentioned you probably know way more math than I do, but I don't, personally, see much usefulness at looking past 4-6 weeks beyond using it as a "sanity" check for my most recent 4-6 weeks.
i.e. you have data for 4-6 weeks. That's your most recent dataset, and therefore the most likely to be applicable to generate predictions in regards to TODAY's situation.
Do you still look at the "older" data? Yup. That's the sanity check aspect.
If your current data are substantially "off", then you should double check and think it through to see what has changed / if there might exist a systemic error somewhere.
But beyond that, what does it matter what I was doing.... in December? Or even January or February? It is April now. The season, weather, things I eat have changed. Things have happened. My time in and out of the house has changed. Etc. So yes. The most recent weeks SHOULD be considered more applicable / subject to verification when they deviate too far from the established pattern.0 -
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conniewilkins56 wrote: »I am coming off of a very emotional high calorie junk eating week....I guess what I want to ask is this: if you still have a substantial amount of weight to lose as I do ( started at 350 and now 75 pounds lost since May 28 )...why is it necessary to eat back exercise calories?...I am almost half way to my goal and with my occasional binges, I don’t think I should add back more calories to my day....I am not active but I have reached 6000 steps daily a few times....I will be adding water exercise back into my routine when the pool is open....won’t eating more slow my weight loss down?....when do you know you are under eating?...God knows I know how to overeat!....all of your spread sheets and number crunching boggles my mind!...thanks!
*laughs* I pretty much started this thread because of my resistance to adding back exercise calories, and now look where I"m at! lol Still resisting adding back exercise calories.....
But in all seriousness, as much as my emotional side wants to lose weight "fast" and loves seeing it coming off 3 or 4 lbs a week, the logical, sensible side says that being "healthy" at the end of all this should be a more important goal than even losing the weight, and as I lose weight, the less reserves my body has, so the more of an impact that deficit will have on my body. Its necessary to eat back your exercise calories just as its necessary to not undereat your BMR - because you still need to fuel your body for its daily needs. So actually, as you lose weight, the weight loss NEEDS to slow down; hence why I'm working on trying to get my current rate slowed down to no more than 2 lbs/wk.
It's all about sustainability, and like NovusDies said, if you restrict too deeply, you're just setting yourself up to binge/fail. It's about working with your body and compromising to reach your goals - its about making the process as painless as you can so you can keep going when the going gets tough. NovusDies has made some excellent posts along those lines.
And hey, you've already won a big battle, though, so gives yourself some credit and lots of hugs - you've learned that when you fall off the horse, you get back on! If you keep trying, there's hope that you'll get it figured out and obtain your goal; if you quit trying, you're guaranteed to fail.@bmeadows380, as mentioned you probably know way more math than I do, but I don't, personally, see much usefulness at looking past 4-6 weeks beyond using it as a "sanity" check for my most recent 4-6 weeks.
i.e. you have data for 4-6 weeks. That's your most recent dataset, and therefore the most likely to be applicable to generate predictions in regards to TODAY's situation.
Do you still look at the "older" data? Yup. That's the sanity check aspect.
If your current data are substantially "off", then you should double check and think it through to see what has changed / if there might exist a systemic error somewhere.
But beyond that, what does it matter what I was doing.... in December? Or even January or February? It is April now. The season, weather, things I eat have changed. Things have happened. My time in and out of the house has changed. Etc. So yes. The most recent weeks SHOULD be considered more applicable / subject to verification when they deviate too far from the established pattern.
Well, I've seen it suggested elsewhere to look at 3 months of data to smooth out those fluctuations more, especially since I'm female and my hormones are a *kitten* lol And when I started the whole exercise thing, I was struggling mightily with water weight issues that the exercise seems to have had a major impact on for the better, so the data at 6 weeks is still skewed a little by that. Meaning up until the last month, I've been having a whale of a time establishing that pattern!
Course, at the same time, I see the point in not insisting on too far back because I've seen that as the weight goes down, the numbers change, and realize that I can't really compare what I am doing at 251 lbs to what I was doing at 291 lbs. And looking back 6 weeks, I'm definitely seeing my data is off - I set my deficit 6 weeks ago based on the slower loss, and thus cut it on down to 1400, but now realize the problem wasn't the weight loss; the problem was issues that were masking the true loss rate. Now I've swung too far the other way lol Give it another 6 weeks, and I'll have a much truer picture, I think - and just in time for that diet break I need to build into the picture. Really, it should be done now, but I'm still keeping out hope that my vacation at a secluded cabins int he middle of the WV woods is still going to happen, and I'm hold that diet break for then. Course, I also plan on hiking all over those hills, so I may not actually end up at maintenance......but we'll cross that bridge when we get there!
And I suppose if I get it ironed out now - the numbers that are real for my body and not just the estimates, that as I lose weight and the margin gets tighter, I'll have a truer dataset to work with. Cause up until now, since I had so much to lose and had such a large deficit, there was room for guestimation, estimation, and some "slop"; I know, though, that as I close in on the last 20 or 30 lbs and that loss rate has to be slowed down to 1 lb/wk or even the dreaded 0.5 lb/wk, I'd better have accurate data because it becomes mighty easy to accidentally wipe out a day's deficit.
Interesting thing, though: back at the beginning of the year, based upon the very slow progress I had been making since June and sitting at around 275 lbs or so, I had told myself that my goal was to get into my 220's or even be at 220 by the end of November just in time for the holidays, or try to get at least 50 lbs off in 2020.
I'm currently sitting at just above 252 and have lost almost 25 lbs in 4 months - if I can find and keep to the proper moment, I'm going to blow that initial goal out of the water and likely be the by the end of summer. It's really mind boggling for me to think that I could actually find myself knocking on the onederland door by Christmas this year! When I started all this, I never even dared in my wildest dreams to think I'd ever get below 200; I had thought I'd be lucky to be in my 270's. I hoped for my 250's, played with the idea of being in the 220's, but get back below 200? Shoot, at this point, i can't even remember the last time I weighed less than 200 - elementary school probably?
Talk about sending my fat brain insane!
3 -
I like 3, 6, and 12 week data for self management and I look at running numbers.
3 week helps me catch sudden changes in habits. If I am feeling low energy and my 3 week suggests an acceleration of loss I can easily justify a temporary adjustment to calories.
6 week smooths that out a little more and lets me fine tune the correction.
12 week helps me deal with my sometimes very large swings in water weight that can throw off 3 and 6 week data. It also a better view of my adherence trend.
If you look at my 3 week rate of loss right now you would think I was losing 2.73 pounds per week. My 6 week shows 1.9 pounds per week. My 12 week shows .97 which is my desired rate of loss right now. Unfortunately they are all wrong. I was losing too fast in January when I was being stubborn but I had a little over a month of maintenance from 2/15 - 3/22.
Things will iron out for me pretty soon. I just need a little more distance from 3/22 and the water weight gain from maintenance. The other thing throwing off my numbers at the moment is that I no long need a daily diuretic which I was still taking in Jan and Feb. From what @cheryldumais says it can take a couple of months for the water weight to return to normal.
I am not pushing really hard for 1 pound per week right now. Because I do not have much left to lose I am not interested in another period of losing too fast and I do think my numbers are a touch low on calories. I think 'a touch low' is somewhere around 100 calories per day but that is my instinct not data. Using my previous numbers I am aiming for .8 per week until I get clear of the noise.
At the stage I am in my priority has shifted towards activity and fitness. Weight loss is a secondary concern. Losing too fast means not having enough energy to feel good doing what I want to do and potentially compromising muscle. Half deficit days and maintenance days will be used more often as well as taking full deficit breaks on a regular basis.
It is very interesting to be in the home stretch. It very seldom feels real. I have lost just more than 57 percent of my body in 2 years. It is a crazy notion. Based on my long history of failure this is an extremely unlikely turn of events. It was far more likely to need an over-sized casket in a few years. I understand that probably creates some dramatic effect but I do not really feel that either.
2 -
It is very interesting to be in the home stretch. It very seldom feels real. I have lost just more than 57 percent of my body in 2 years. It is a crazy notion. Based on my long history of failure this is an extremely unlikely turn of events. It was far more likely to need an over-sized casket in a few years. I understand that probably creates some dramatic effect but I do not really feel that either.
maybe dramatic for folks who start with a whole lot less to lose, but having started at over 200 lbs overweight myself and a 50+ BMI, that doesn't sound dramatic to me at all.
That's what I appreciate so much about this group and it staying active. Because sometimes in the outer forum world, you see a lot of comments on how bad it is to be at a 30 BMI or 20 lbs still overweight, or not being able to bench press 50 lbs or run for 2 hours, etc. It kind of stirs up the guilt when I think that I'd love to be at a 30 BMI and am currently at a 39 BMI, I'm using 2 lb weights in my aerobics videos, am not doing a regular gym style resistance program, and can't run 0.25 mile, let alone 4 or 5, or can barely bike 3 miles, let alone 15. ITs just nice to talk to people who understand my situation and remind me that I shouldn't be holding myself to the standards of other people; improvement is key, not perfection.
NOt to mention being able to talk to people who understand the perils of trying to exercise when you've got 10 lbs of empty skin hanging on your arms, belly, and thighs........ (trying regular jumping jacks feels like having bags of rocks handing on me and bouncing up and down whenever I jump - worse than the girls on my front bouncing around!)1 -
That is why I like to think of what I am doing now as re-tuning myself. I am making slight adjustments that I hope will lead to significant improvement. It also takes the pressure off of me mentally. I am not training for anything I am just re-tuning. It stays within my philosophy of pushing myself not shoving myself.
I have no idea if the concept of training myself for some kind of event will ever be a thing for me but I am not there now. I also do not fully understand yet what my limitations will be. I know I need to push against perceived ones as much as I can but eventually I will hit a limit. My knees are only going to let me walk so many steps in a day without screaming bloody murder but I will do what I can to set that number of steps as high as I can. I am currently trying a knee brace. I should have just bought two to try because having one this morning meant one knee felt better and the other felt worse so that was stupid on my part.
One of the very first threads I created here was about not jumping ahead. I spoke primarily about food but it applies to all of it. We each need to focus on the challenge that is right in front of us and not add challenges from further ahead. We will each have our own challenges and some that we will have in common with some others (like being stubborn about activity calories).
The benefit of having vague goals is that it helps me keep the focus on myself as the current benchmark. My goal is to get better than I am until I run out of road. If I had to stop here I would consider it mission accomplished. I never had a goal weight in mind so I could stop here but I think I can do more so I push forward. Same with fitness. I think I can have better stamina and strength than I have right now. I do not know how much better but as long as the answer is some better I push forward. That might sound like I am not strongly committed but I think anyone who has read enough of my posts knows that I am very strongly committed. I am just committed to today and how I might make tomorrow's version of myself slightly better than today's.
The skin issue is not one to be taken lightly. Mine changed my center of gravity. Because of gravity it created a well for my heart to pump blood through. Also because of gravity the smallest injury bled profusely and took a very long time to heal. I had to protect it which was problematic since my legs and knees were constantly banging into it when I walked.
I struggled with the aesthetics of the skin too. It made it much harder to appreciate how much weight I had lost because I still had an enormous belly that hung even lower as the fat level decreased. I struggled with the decision to have an early skin removal knowing a second one would be required later but it was the right decision for me in my situation.
I do not feel comfortable sharing a lot of this in the main forum. I do not feel entirely comfortable sharing it at all but here it serves a purpose to specifically help others that may face some of what I have faced. I hope that by sharing my imperfections too it helps people understand that I didn't get near the end because I have done everything right. I have gotten here because as long as I didn't give up I didn't have to do everything perfectly.2 -
I find it easier to talk from the anonymity of a keyboard and computer screen, and I probably say a lot of things that are TMI. But I'm apparently gabby that way
I never really thought about the loose skin issue; I mean, I could see it in the mirror, of course, thought it was unsightly hanging on my stomach like it is and there's the huge thighs and the bat wings, but I hadn't thought of it in terms of activity. It doesn't bother me walking at all. But I hadn't really tried more intense activity before, like running or jumping jacks, so its rather surprising when it makes itself known like that! I haven't noticed bleeding problems or problems with injuries to the skin, but that's a heads up to keep a lookout for.
It is hard to appreciate how much I've lost because of the skin making my waist bigger. When I take my body measurements, I take 2 waist measurements; one at the actual waist, and the other at what I call high waist, which is really over the belly fold. There's about a 9" difference between the two. Though even losing weight, I"m going to have big hips and thighs; we call them the "Smoot" hips because it runs on my grandmother's side of the family; I have aunts who are tiny waists but huge hips.
Its funny how in the selfies I took, I could see it there, but in the video the preacher's wife took for the lifestream service of me playing the piano from the side, I cringed because I still saw my fat face. I've got loose skin under my chin, too, partly due to my age and partly to due with my thyroid being gone, but I know the rest is due to the weight loss. I think that and my arms are the two areas that bother me most. I can use spanx and cover the belly and smooth out the thighs, but I hate how my arms bulge and sag in short sleeved shirts and how my face to me still looks fat. That's another thing I"m finding tough - as I get into smaller shirt sizes, the sleeves are becoming an issue because they are narrower than the old ones and are tight on my arms since I have a lot of loose skin on my arms. I may have to start slitting sleeves on new tops and making myself learn how to insert grommets into clothing!
I struggle mightily with judging myself, and that's in all areas of my life. It's my best friend's pet peeve about me. Its really hard for me to give an inch to myself; I always seem to have that bar set out of reach. It doesn't matter how far I've come, how far ahead in the pack I am; my mind finds someone further ahead and compares. And if it can't find someone to compare to, then my mind looks at the medical advice standard and says "you're supposed to be here". I already know that even if I would get down to below a 25 BMI, my brain would then probably focus on body fat percentage and tell me that it doesn't matter if I"m in a healthy BMI range; true healthy wouldn't have X% body fat. Or judge my fitness level and what I can't do instead of seeing what I can do. Its a trait that I can acknowledge exists, but I've spent all my adulthood trying to figure out how to battle and overcome it with few victories on that front.
That's part of the reason for all my posts - I need other voices to help drown out the perfectionist in me!1 -
I do not like how my arms look in shirts either but I am not allowing that to sideline me... apparently that is what corona viruses are for.
@bmeadows380 I guess my question for you is what are you doing about your unfair self criticism? I do not think it is something for which you just accept. Appreciating your own awesome should be on your self improvement list right along with weight loss and improving fitness.1 -
Later edit: I see the topic has changed in the meanwhile! Still going to ask for your advice though
You are keeping really active!! These days, with social distancing and everything, I struggle to get 10k steps in on a regular day. Nonetheless, that is my aim.
Since you were talking about steps and levels of activity, I was wondering how I should set my activity levels for the MFP calories. I have an office job, and my "usual" lifestyle gets me less than 3k steps/day.
Right now, in my "new and improved" lifestyle, I get an average of 7k steps/day and I do dumbbell workouts 3 times/week for 30 minutes (light weight, I am not strong yet). Which category of "active" would that put me into?
The reason I ask is that I am seeing the weight drop faster than I expected (about 2lbs/week for the past month). I am also losing much faster than I was during my previous attempts at weight loss. Which is great, of course, but I am worried about going too fast too soon.1 -
Later edit: I see the topic has changed in the meanwhile! Still going to ask for your advice though
You are keeping really active!! These days, with social distancing and everything, I struggle to get 10k steps in on a regular day. Nonetheless, that is my aim.
Since you were talking about steps and levels of activity, I was wondering how I should set my activity levels for the MFP calories. I have an office job, and my "usual" lifestyle gets me less than 3k steps/day.
Right now, in my "new and improved" lifestyle, I get an average of 7k steps/day and I do dumbbell workouts 3 times/week for 30 minutes (light weight, I am not strong yet). Which category of "active" would that put me into?
The reason I ask is that I am seeing the weight drop faster than I expected (about 2lbs/week for the past month). I am also losing much faster than I was during my previous attempts at weight loss. Which is great, of course, but I am worried about going too fast too soon.
@cremorna1
Every thread in this forum is always first about helping each other. I don't care what the topic is or how far from the topic it has temporarily drifted. I don't even care if the question you need to ask has absolutely nothing to do with the topic.
To your question: I would definitely say at least lightly active. What is your target rate of loss right now? What was your total loss between today and exactly 30 days ago? If you do not weigh daily I would just need the amount loss and the dates.0 -
Thanks for the openness!
My MFP target weightloss is 1 lbs/week. With the "sedentary" option, I get 1600 calories a day. With "slightly active" I get 1820.
The change in weight during the past 30 days was 11 lbs from 218.5 (18 March) to 207.5 (16 April).1 -
(In fact it boggles my mind when people tell me that counting points is easy and calories difficult. Or that eating mindfully and never taking seconds is easier, or.... )
I found it easier to count points than calories, at least at first. I think part of it was that just counting to 35 was easier than counting to 2000. Also WW had this weekly bank of flex points I could dip into. Helped cover some mistakes or plan for special occasions.
But I’ve never thought there’s anything magical about their point formula. Seems to be there to disguise the fact that they’re calorie counters so they can get copyright protection.
And @PAV888 somewhere you mention your quest for the tasty fake brownie. I’ve been in a lot of WW meetings. I used to think the funniest thing was the quest for the low point chocolate cake. Like seeking the WW Holy Grail.2 -
Thanks for the openness!
My MFP target weightloss is 1 lbs/week. With the "sedentary" option, I get 1600 calories a day. With "slightly active" I get 1820.
The change in weight during the past 30 days was 11 lbs from 218.5 (18 March) to 207.5 (16 April).
Your 30 day average rate of loss is 2.56 pounds per week. This makes your average daily deficit about 1280 calories. Your target deficit is 500 calories so you are more than doubling it.
I am not a huge fan of making big changes on 30 days of information. There is always the possibility of a shift in water weight inflating or deflating the outcome. If you are not feeling fatigued I would definitely up your calories to 'Slightly Active' which, if the numbers hold, will drop you back down to 2 pounds per week. In 2 weeks and then in another 30 days we should run your numbers again.
If that is way too low of an adjustment the two things to watch out for are low energy and difficulty controlling hunger. One of both may not be happening daily it may be intermittent.2 -
Later edit: I see the topic has changed in the meanwhile! Still going to ask for your advice though
You are keeping really active!! These days, with social distancing and everything, I struggle to get 10k steps in on a regular day. Nonetheless, that is my aim.
Since you were talking about steps and levels of activity, I was wondering how I should set my activity levels for the MFP calories. I have an office job, and my "usual" lifestyle gets me less than 3k steps/day.
Right now, in my "new and improved" lifestyle, I get an average of 7k steps/day and I do dumbbell workouts 3 times/week for 30 minutes (light weight, I am not strong yet). Which category of "active" would that put me into?
The reason I ask is that I am seeing the weight drop faster than I expected (about 2lbs/week for the past month). I am also losing much faster than I was during my previous attempts at weight loss. Which is great, of course, but I am worried about going too fast too soon.
Don't worry - I started this thread for this sort of purpose anyway, and you can see that I've done a lot of talking about trying to get to a good rate per week, so ask away!
On another group I poke around in, there is an 8 week challenge called Marching into Spring going on. Usually, I avoid those sort of things (don't need the extra stress), but I decided to give this one a whirl. My 6 week numbers are this:
Week 1 - March 12 - 262.4 lbs (-5.2 lbs)
Week 2 - March 19 - 259.8 lbs (-2.6 lbs)
Week 3 - March 26 - 259.3 lbs (-0.5 lbs; birthday weekend and refeed experiment)
Week 4 - April 2 - 257.6 lbs (-1.7 lbs)
Week 5 - April 9 - 253.9 lbs (-3.7 lbs)
Week 6 - April 16 - 250.7 lbs (-3.2 lbs) - challenge met! Might as well change it up to 250 lbs for next week
Week 7 -
Week 8 -
Now the March 12 loss rate is bogus because that's incorporating a whoosh of water weight that I was finally getting rid of. The 3rd week is explained as to the slow rate it had. But I'm seeing that definite increase in loss rate which aligns with the increase in activity I've been getting!
My loss this week is still over 3 lbs/wk rate, and that's even after eating maintenance (or what I THOUGHT was over) on Sunday and being more relaxed Friday and Saturday. But I'm not sure how much is actual weight loss and how much is water weight loss due to TOM. This is the HappyScale trend, too, which may have smoothed that out.
Here's what I am looking at (to see if I"m doing this right!)
I went back and entered my recorded trend weights into my spreadsheet and let it calculate the daily BMR based on that, and then figured out what my daily calorie intake should have been based on 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 activity modifiers. I counted up a week's worth of calories and figured that to lose 2 lb/wk, I should have eaten between 13,932 calories (for a 1.6 activity modifier) to 16,548 calories (for a 1.8 modifier). Weekly BMR total was 13,082.
So what I did was this, using the 1.8 setting:
(Week intake+week deficit)/week BMR = activity multiplier
(16,548+7000)/13,082 =1.8
And this is assuming 7,000 calorie deficit for 2 lbs/wk rate, based upon the 500 calories for 1 lb of fat.
My actual weekly intake was 14,284 calories this week, based upon MFP, including all exercise calories that I ate back. The actual loss was 3.2 lbs. If 500 calories per day is a 1 lb loss per week, then my daily rate was actually 1,750 calories, or 12,250 calories for the week. So using my formula above, I get
(14,284+12,250)/13,082 = 2.0 as my activity multiplier (what is that? Extremely active? lol)
So I under-ate by
(16,548 - 14,284)/7 = 323 calories a day?!!!!!!! And that's to get back down to the 2 lbs/wk loss rate! And that over and above the 1/2 daily exercise I'm already adding back!
Assuming my math above is right, I guess I have 2 problems going on here, then. 1) my deficit is too much and 2) I'm still not eating back enough exercise calories.
OF course, I'm looking at the last 2 weeks, but I had already done an average over the last 6 and found that the 3 lbs/wk is the longer term average, too.
So I finally went in and upped my deficit to 1600 calories a day from the 1400. MFP says sedentary is 1,350 for me and lightly active is 1,600. I wasn't exactly at sedentary before, anyway, but I went ahead and raised it by 200 calories.
Also, I had been counting back 1/2 of a 2.5 mph walk calories for my elliptical workouts because my elliptical is old and cheap and rarely gets my heart rate above 100 even when I'm using higher resistance, so it doesn't match with MFP's elliptical entry - there is no way I burned 94 calories this morning doing 11 minutes (half the time as I actually did 22 minutes) on the elliptical if my heart rate didn't even get over 100. But at the same time, counting back 11 minutes of the 2.5 mph setting gets me 63 calories. But counting it as a 3.5 mph is definitely too high because I know that I easily get my heart rate above 110 when I take my daily walks, and I'm walking at around 3.25 mph. So I"m going middle of the road and will start using the 3.0 mph entry for the elliptical walks, counting back half of my time.
I'm going to continue using the MFP low impact aerobics setting at half the time as well.
For my daily walks, I am averaging a speed of 3.28 mph. MFP, however only has entries for 3.0 and 3.5. I don't really want to go figure out a manual entry because its going to change as I lose weight. I had been going conservative and counting back 1/2 the time for 3.0 mph entry. What I'm going to start doing now, however, is continue using the 3.0 entry, but count back 75% instead of 50%.
IN other words, I"m raising my daily calorie limit and sticking to counting back 1/2 time on exercise calories. I'll keep this for a few weeks and see where my loss rate gets to. This should carry me into my diet break, and I"m hoping it will help me figure out my actual BMR and TDEE so I can have a much closer idea to what my maintenance level actually is; I want to make sure I'm eating maintenance or even a little surplus during that diet break and not still be in a deficit!0
