Food, Exercise, or other Reports
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@bmeadows380 congrats!! That has to feel good. I think the heat and humidity has been affecting my loss too...looking forward to what the fall brings. I did a maintenance break from thanksgiving through new years last year (and didn't track on any of the actual holidays). It was great, and I'll probably do it again. I hope it goes well for you and you get to enjoy the extra holiday food!
@conniewilkins56 congrats too! You'll hit the 250s so soon!
Today, I went to the office for the first time since early March. They are moving my team to a new floor. This was of course supposed to happen pre-pandemic, but has gotten pushed back. Feels silly...we still aren't actually going back to work (I doubt we'll be back at all this year)
Anyway I had to go in and pack today, so I biked to work! Now I biked to work and grad school every day for 4 years when I lived in DC. It was an easy 4 mile commute. But since we moved to the suburbs, I have been too intimidated and out of practice to really want to try. I did a partway commute a few times, but was so out of shape. I decided to try the full route today, made it there and back, only got a little lost, and it felt great to be out riding again! 8 miles each way, got to see my coworker friends (we went out for an outdoor restaurant week lunch), and feel great.
Biking is so much fun. It always makes me feel like a kid again. And I find it so satisfying? empowering? to get places under my own power. I'll definitely start up my bike commute when we eventually go back in!
I'm going to try the 2 month break this year too, except I think I'll take a page from NovusDies' guidebook on "Strategic Dieting for Longterm Weightloss Success" by eating at a small deficit the week leading up to Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day to give me extra calories on those two days to play with. That shouldn't be a problem since I'll be eating at maintenance during that period - my maintenance level is around 2200 calories, so shaving off even 500 a day for 6 days leading up to Thanksgiving to give me 3,000 extra calories for that day shouldn't be a problem for me at all.
We'll see how this works! I figure in addition to giving myself a mental break and my body a physical break from the stress of deficit eating, it will give me a long term practice period for maintenance; we'll see how well I do coming out the other end. Here's hoping that there isn't any regain, or that if there is, it stays under 5-10 lbs!3 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »@bmeadows380 congrats!! That has to feel good. I think the heat and humidity has been affecting my loss too...looking forward to what the fall brings. I did a maintenance break from thanksgiving through new years last year (and didn't track on any of the actual holidays). It was great, and I'll probably do it again. I hope it goes well for you and you get to enjoy the extra holiday food!
@conniewilkins56 congrats too! You'll hit the 250s so soon!
Today, I went to the office for the first time since early March. They are moving my team to a new floor. This was of course supposed to happen pre-pandemic, but has gotten pushed back. Feels silly...we still aren't actually going back to work (I doubt we'll be back at all this year)
Anyway I had to go in and pack today, so I biked to work! Now I biked to work and grad school every day for 4 years when I lived in DC. It was an easy 4 mile commute. But since we moved to the suburbs, I have been too intimidated and out of practice to really want to try. I did a partway commute a few times, but was so out of shape. I decided to try the full route today, made it there and back, only got a little lost, and it felt great to be out riding again! 8 miles each way, got to see my coworker friends (we went out for an outdoor restaurant week lunch), and feel great.
Biking is so much fun. It always makes me feel like a kid again. And I find it so satisfying? empowering? to get places under my own power. I'll definitely start up my bike commute when we eventually go back in!
I'm going to try the 2 month break this year too, except I think I'll take a page from NovusDies' guidebook on "Strategic Dieting for Longterm Weightloss Success" by eating at a small deficit the week leading up to Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day to give me extra calories on those two days to play with. That shouldn't be a problem since I'll be eating at maintenance during that period - my maintenance level is around 2200 calories, so shaving off even 500 a day for 6 days leading up to Thanksgiving to give me 3,000 extra calories for that day shouldn't be a problem for me at all.
We'll see how this works! I figure in addition to giving myself a mental break and my body a physical break from the stress of deficit eating, it will give me a long term practice period for maintenance; we'll see how well I do coming out the other end. Here's hoping that there isn't any regain, or that if there is, it stays under 5-10 lbs!
You'll do great! I think I gained maybe 1 or 2 real pounds last year (thinking back I did not log from Christmas to new years lol). The extra food waste volume, carb-induced water retention, and flying-induced water retention showed a jump of about 6 lbs when we got home in January, but it dropped relatively quickly, except for those 2 pesky ones lol.
I think I'll do Novus' tip as well this year...slight deficit before the actual holiday.
I enjoyed it last year, and it should be good timing for another break this year!1 -
Well, today I managed to eat a hamburger without having chips on the side. Admittedly, I was in the grip of intense emotions and didn't care one way or the other but I didn't want a migraine too, but now that I've done it once I can entertain the possibility of doing it again.
It's not that I'm stopping eating chips. I'd just like to get it to where my brain feels that it's optional, not required.2 -
I love that statement. I feel the same way about a lot of eating behaviors or things I associate with each other.AlexandraFindsHerself1971 wrote: »Well, today I managed to eat a hamburger without having chips on the side. Admittedly, I was in the grip of intense emotions and didn't care one way or the other but I didn't want a migraine too, but now that I've done it once I can entertain the possibility of doing it again.
It's not that I'm stopping eating chips. I'd just like to get it to where my brain feels that it's optional, not required.3 -
So, a question about exercise calories. For some reason, myfitness absolutely does not want to sync with my Fitbit for my steps/workout today, so I'm probably going to have to manually put in my exercise with the calories for now.
I know Fitbit counts both calories burned during exercise and your normal calories burned just by breathing :P So, my question is, how do I transfer that over for the workout calories? For example, I just did a quick 20-minute workout, and my Fitbit said I burned 260 calories, so, how many of those did I actually burn while working out?0 -
rieraclaelin wrote: »So, a question about exercise calories. For some reason, myfitness absolutely does not want to sync with my Fitbit for my steps/workout today, so I'm probably going to have to manually put in my exercise with the calories for now.
I know Fitbit counts both calories burned during exercise and your normal calories burned just by breathing :P So, my question is, how do I transfer that over for the workout calories? For example, I just did a quick 20-minute workout, and my Fitbit said I burned 260 calories, so, how many of those did I actually burn while working out?
When you figure this out let me know lol...I have a Fitbit Versa but I just put my exercise calories in manually on MFP...I only eat back about 25% of my exercise calories...0 -
I could probably go to the main boards and find out, but, I've kinda learned to avoid them, honestly. There are a lot of, uh, I don't know how to explain it. People who have different medical conditions that do a lot of posting there, and my anxiety kicks in and I start freaking out that I have something wrong with my kidneys, or I'm doing something wrong and it's actually hurting more than helping :P To keep my anxiety down, I've just been living on this group here. And I'm not saying there aren't medical conditions here, because I know there are, but it's not as in your face here as it is on the main boards1
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rieraclaelin wrote: »I could probably go to the main boards and find out, but, I've kinda learned to avoid them, honestly. There are a lot of, uh, I don't know how to explain it. People who have different medical conditions that do a lot of posting there, and my anxiety kicks in and I start freaking out that I have something wrong with my kidneys, or I'm doing something wrong and it's actually hurting more than helping :P To keep my anxiety down, I've just been living on this group here. And I'm not saying there aren't medical conditions here, because I know there are, but it's not as in your face here as it is on the main boards
We could start a “ boo- boo” thread on here where we could tell about all of our operations,diseases etc lol....1 -
We are going to a friend's house for dinner tonight, and he's making us some homemade pizza. Not ally I'd pass, but, I've kinda banked calories all week, and I haven't had any food like this in about three months, so, I'm going to let myself have a few slices.
But it will already be made by the time I get there, so I won't have a way to kind of figure out how many calories and stuff there are per slice. And there are so many different ones on the database that are barely filled out, or are wildly different
does anyone have any homemade pizza (pepperoni and cheese) entries that you use? Preferably one that includes carbs/protein/fat/fiber? 1 -
rieraclaelin wrote: »We are going to a friend's house for dinner tonight, and he's making us some homemade pizza. Not ally I'd pass, but, I've kinda banked calories all week, and I haven't had any food like this in about three months, so, I'm going to let myself have a few slices.
But it will already be made by the time I get there, so I won't have a way to kind of figure out how many calories and stuff there are per slice. And there are so many different ones on the database that are barely filled out, or are wildly different does anyone have any homemade pizza (pepperoni and cheese) entries that you use? Preferably one that includes carbs/protein/fat/fiber?
I don't, because I hate pepperoni. (grin) A lot depends on whether it's a thick or a thin crust, whether he puts sugar in his pizza sauce or not (I don't, but a lot of people do) and whether he's generous with the pepperoni and cheese or not.
What I would do is to go and look at the database at the calorie count of pizzas and get an idea for what (say) three slices costs, go eat the pizza, and afterwards say, "That pizza was in the same style as Pizza Hut" or "That was in the same style as Donato's" and use those calorie counts. That would be the best guess I'd have.
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@AlexandraFindsHerself1971
Thanks, that's probably what I will end up doing!
He knows that I'm counting calories and stuff, my husband told him when he first invited us over for dinner. So, I'm kind of hoping he left packages out for me to be able to input it myself, but, I'm also kind of seriously doubting it
I'm bringing a bunch of fresh veggies with me so that I have other things to fill me up, too, that way I don't just over eat on pizza and feel like crap tomorrow, even if I do have the calories to spend. I'd rather use them on good stuff, you know?
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What I'd do would be to eat a piece slowly, eat some veggies, eat the second piece slowly, eat more veggies, and see if you still are empty enough for the third piece. And work to actually enjoy the sensory experience of the pizza when you eat that first piece; we all know we can just stuff down six without noticing, but that's not good for us. I find that if I focus on the taste experience and eat slowly, I get full and then I'm okay to walk away from it, because I'm full.2
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I can only hope to get to walking multiple miles in a day i just started about 2 weeks ago walking and i walked a mile in 16 minutes or so then 2 days later i walked a mile again around the same time in the evening and it took me just over 30 minutes! Then each time since its taking me right at 30 minutes i cant seem to do it any faster now but for now im happy with 2 days a week walking my mile in another week i plan to try for 3 days...then id like to go for 1.5 miles ...i dont want to increase it too much too soon and loose my motivation...1
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I shoveled loose dirt for an hour tonight. Now, three hours later my lower back is beginning to discuss how I was bending over to the dirt to shovel it, but it's no worse than its discussion on standing in the grocery line behind the double coupon woman. And I'll go to bed on time, but there's nothing new about that.
I haven't been able to do physical work like that for years. I am very very happy about this!
(The people who replaced the sewer line from the house to the road left what looked like a giant molehill from the house to the road. We left it alone for two months to see if any of it wanted to subside, and today Younger Son and I leveled it out. We'll give it a couple weeks to get rained on and subside again, and level it again.)4 -
Husband and I went on a morning bike ride today. The weather was perfect, the trail was gorgeous, and we made it 24 miles (well technically 23.93). It has been probably 2 years since I biked this far! And, while I was tired, I could have kept going and easily gotten in another 10-20 miles without difficulty. There were small but frequent hills at our halfway point, and they were actually really fun! In the last 6 years of cycling, I have never once enjoyed a hill. I was feeling a pleasant burn in my legs, my lungs were doing great, and I felt strong. Now my legs are exhausted tonight lol, but it feels really good. This was the longest ride husband has ever done by a solid 10 miles. He did great - I'm so glad I've gotten him hooked on biking! My next plan is to get him ready for the 50 mile fall Cider Ride. (I obviously also need to prep a bit, but I've done the ride twice before, once with literally zero preparation, and know that I can push through to finish it regardless).3
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well, I don't regret the camping trip, and I was not ready to leave yesterday when it came time to pack, so in some ways, it was a success. But in other ways, it was a spectacular fail for me, too *winces*
The friend and I got to connect and talk and enjoyed each others company. I got more sleep other than the last night than I had been tending to get and that helped. However, it rained most of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, which had us both a bit ticked off because the forecast had said it would be thunder showers, not a almost constant, steady rain! Wednesday night into Thursday was the worst with extremely heavy rainfall most of the night.
So needless to say, I got zero hiking in. I got a good 7 mile walk in on Wednesday evening, nothing on Thursday or Friday, and then about a 6 mile hike/walk on Saturday. Saturday was pretty, but with all the rain the days leading up to it, I wasn't willing to risk the trails - they'd still be muddy even after a full day of sunshine because they are in the woods, and this is WV, so all trails lead up steep hillsides. So I stuck to a nature trail that meandered along the creek near the main road and walked back down the main road.
In addition to not being able to hike, I also ate at a rate I have not eaten in many months. Hunger brain just would not be satisfied, and my willpower to resist dropped to nothing. So I nibbled most of the days, while being pretty much low activity because of the rain. We're talking a whole package of Murray sugar free chocolate chip cookies in 2 days, a box of fat free cheese-its in 3 days, 3 servings of marshmallows at a time, grabbing fast food when I'd drive out to get ice, nibbling on the fruit I brought, and just pretty much browsing most of the trip. We didn't have any cell coverage, and while the park had wifi down at the furthest bathhouse, I just gave up logging period. I had a food scale with me but the batteries went dead the first day, and I did get new batteries for it, but the willpower to make myself log was gone, especially with having to go to the main bathhouse where the wifi was at - it was raining, so I wasn't walking it, and my campsite was in a mud hole as there was no gravel parking pad, so I didn't like getting my truck out more than necessary.
Without logging, I can't tell you exactly what I ate but I know it was over maintenance levels for me, and while I did a lot of puttering around the camp when I could, I definitely did not get enough activity in to mitigate the damage. I did weigh myself each day to keep my trend going, and I did watch that weight increase, and I've packed the water weight on again - I hit my all time low weight on 8/28 with 221.1 lbs; this morning was 229.6, so that's a 8 1/2 lb gain in 10 days, and with the way I was eating, there's a good chance that a pound or two or three is actual fat gain and not just water, though I also know I'm carrying a lot of water again because my lower legs are a little swelled ( you can tell where my socks were compressing my shins) and I'm carrying extra food in my system. It took 2 weeks after the early camping trip to drop the water weight, so I'm bracing myself for another 2 weeks to drop this water weight.
So on the activity and diet front, the camping trip was an epic failure for me. On the rest front, it was a help - camping with the friend is much less stress than camping with the family, even though the friend requires a whole lot more of my attention than the family does.
But I'm home now, what's done is done can't be changed, and I truly am not sitting here feeling guilty or beating myself up over it; it happened, and all I feel like doing is shrugging and then going on with my day. The only thing about that is that I know its not so much that I'm learning to let things be but that apathy is still overshadowing me and that's dangerous.
I'm back to tracking today and I've about decided to head to a closer state park today and get some hiking in that I didn't get last week. Mom and dad have commandeered my yard for a craft sale (sadly, they aren't doing any good, but they are persisting) so I can't mow the grass, and while I should probably think more on the lines of cleaning house or getting the wiring run in my shed or maybe starting work on the chicken house, the will to do any of those things isn't there but the hiking idea is at least tickling my apathetic brain's interest, especially as I just don't feel like taking a long walk here along the same routes I've been doing for months (not a lot of room for varying the walk). So I do think I'm going to pack a small lunch and head out to hike. That's better than wasting my day in front of the computer.....
Meanwhile, I'm already planning an early October camping trip
Hopefully the friend will get to go too - she severely strained her knee back in July and its been slow to heal so she couldn't walk much anyway; maybe by October it would be well enough that she could get out and about as well a little. October tends to be drier here, and I've never camped in the fall before; the latest I ever went was the 3rd week of September, but I figure I've got nice heavy quilts, an insulated camper now, and if I pick a campground with electric hookup, I can plug in a small electric heater for the night. Days in October tend to be anywhere from the mid 60's to the mid 70's, and sometimes will spike into the lower 80's when we get a heat wave, and I've never hiked in the fall either, so I just may take that October trip before packing up the camping gear for the winter. 5 -
Glad you are home safe and a little more rested than when you left!...maybe you could hold off on your next diet break to help make up for the past week...your good sense skinny brain will kick in again soon and the water weight will go down...welcome back!0
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Pizza: evaluate if thin, deep dish, in between, very cheesy, greasy, not so much.
Compare to store frozen pizza and known big chains. I personally use Dr Oetker's, Pizza Hut, and Domino's or Freshslice because they are nearby and people I know often order so I have them as ready references.
Fitbit: Integration does the exact same thing I am going to suggest that you do to log.
Look at your MFP maintenance calories based on the activity level you have selected. Not your "eating" calories but your "maintenance" calories.
The use Fitbit.com's dashboard or your phone app to see your TOTAL calories for the day.
Subtract one from the other, the difference gets transferred over as an exercise adjustment.
This will work most easily/perfectly right after midnight because MFP assigns your calories equally throughout the day while Fitbit assigns 1.0x BMR calories when you're inactive without anything detected.
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(But: I really want to look at things before midnight!)
Oh no... stop reading now your head will explode!
Really? You insist?
Well then.
You need to bring out all your fingers and your toes because we will have ta do some rithmetic!
MFP sedentary is 1.25 * BMR Calories. This gets split through 1440 minutes in a day. So at any point of time during your day you have been assigned a maintenance estimate of: 1.25 * BMR / 1440 * minutes of day to right now.
You can compare that number to Fitbit's TDEE at this exact point of time and the difference is the number integration would use.
HOWEVER. MFP will continue assigning 1.25 * BMR till midnight. Fitbit will NOT exceed 1.0 * BMR unless it detects movement. So you will lose about 0.25 * BMR calories per minute to midnight from that adjustment you performed earlier. (google MFP BMR or mifflin BMR for the number for yourself. 1.25 becomes 1.4, 1.6 or 1.8 depending on activity level)1 -
I got my hiking in yesterday! Only 2 hours worth and only 5 miles, but I was carrying a 10 lb backpack and it did include some hills.
Body is starting to let go of the extra water, too - I was down 2 lbs this morning. I'm planning to push mow the lawn this evening, so that might stall out the water loss.
Only 1 thing on the rather irritating front: I had intended to end yesterday under deficit. After the hike, I stopped at Wendy's and got dinner. Then on the way home, I checked and saw I had plenty of extra calories left, so I picked up a McDonald's apple pie. AT home, right before bed, I remembered the watermelon in the fridge, and took out a bowl of that. As I was munching on the watermelon, I sat down at the computer to get it into my food log for the day - and saw that I had forgotten the junior frosty I had at Wendy's. So when I put that in, I ended up over limit by 30 calories.
I know, I know - 30 calories isn't a big deal, but I was still irritated at myself for it.3 -
today is weight record day, and I weighed in at 224.5 lbs, which is only 0.4 lbs over my recorded weight 2 weeks ago. Meaning most of that 7 lbs of water weight/excess food weight from last week is gone - which has dropped off much faster than the water weight gain from my first of August camping trip. The weather patterns have changed here, however, and we are having early fall temps and humidity levels which is adding credence to my theories on humidity playing a huge part in my struggles with plateaus and the scale.
Monday I got some hiking in, Tuesday I push mowed for 2 1/2 hours, yesterday I push mowed for 1 1/2 hours, and today I plan to help the parents cut firewood, though I looked at my work calendar and realized I had a conference call at 10 that I've got to do, so instead of getting to help them from 9:30 like I planned, I'm going to have to wait until 10:30. And I have to quit by 1:30 to be ready for a 2 pm conference call.
The all time lowest weight I hit was 222.1 lbs, so I'm still 2.4 lbs above that. Some of that may still be some water, though some and maybe even all may be true weight gain from last week, too - 1,000 calories over maintenance for 5 days in a row isn't really that far fetched, especially as my activity was down to pretty much 0 during that time because of the weather. But I don't think I was truly over by that much every day, so its most likely that maybe 0.5 lb MAYBE a pound tops of that could really be fat regain; the rest is still water. Hopefully it will continue to drop off quickly and next week's weight in will reflect back to the 222 lbs - I still hold hopes of being 220 by the first of October and 2 lbs in 3 weeks really shouldn't be hard to achieve if this were a perfect universe lol With humidity levels dropping and fall weather coming in, my holding water will hopefully start to ease up so if I can behave myself, tighten up the sloppy recording and can get some willpower back over "hunger brain" I could do it.2
