Food, Exercise, or other Reports
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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!
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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.
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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
