Food, Exercise, or other Reports
Replies
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I read this and all I saw was BLACKBERRY DUMPLINGS. (drooling)bmeadows380 wrote: »about a month ago, I went on a 5.25 mile walk in around 2 hours, and while I did make it home, it was questionable and I knew I had overdone it.
This evening, I walked 5.67 miles in 1 hour 46 minutes, and my legs were still going strong when I got home! My back was stiff and aching, but I'm fine - and today's walk was against some pretty good wind gusts, too - at one point, I had to tie my hoodie because I got tired of losing my ballcap. My face and fingers are still warming up, though - that wind was strong!
anyway, what a difference a month made!
And if my fitness tracker is to be trusted, I walked over 18,000 steps today. I think I earned my blackberry dumplings tonight.....
Seriously, though, this is fantastic! It's amazing what consistent effort can do.2 -
My knee brace report is promising. I have had one for over a week and the other for about 4 days. While wearing them I am noticing a burn in the muscle(s) around the knees which I am taking as a good sign that stabilization is might be improving.
A very good sign is that I am not experiencing any knee pain at the moment. I almost always have some after multiple 20k+ days and right now I am doing okay.
I find them cumbersome to put on so I am resistant to using them for short 1 mile walks but I should probably use them for a mile or more. The idea of putting them on for a .25 mile pee walk with the dog is not going to happen unless a doctor tells me it is necessary. Since it was my idea to try them I think I am on my own for now.0 -
the ace bandage under the knee brace worked during today's session! That knee was much more stable and I didn't feel like I was going to crumble to the floor as the knee gave out like it had threatened before. And this workout included squats and lunges. I couldn't get very low in any of them, but the knee felt stable. The other one, on the other hand, was complaining - the left knee never threatens to give way like the right knee does, but it does hurt when I try to squat too far. Over the years, I've found myself compensating by bending over at the waist instead of squatting, which probably has not been any good for my back.....
That knee is probably just going to be permanently weak; I think what it is is that when my weight hits that knee in a certain way, it wants to track like it did before when I twisted it - probably stretched the ligaments or tendons or something in that knee; I hear the same thing happens for folks who pop a shoulder out of joint; it becomes easier for it to pop back out later.
Today's workout was more resistance than cardio, so it didn't get my heart rate up all that high, so I didn't count quite half of it back. I'll also be cutting back just a little on my walking distance; at least, I don't intend to try for over 5 miles today; 4 miles will be plenty
bobsburgersfan wrote: »
I read this and all I saw was BLACKBERRY DUMPLINGS. (drooling)bmeadows380 wrote: »about a month ago, I went on a 5.25 mile walk in around 2 hours, and while I did make it home, it was questionable and I knew I had overdone it.
This evening, I walked 5.67 miles in 1 hour 46 minutes, and my legs were still going strong when I got home! My back was stiff and aching, but I'm fine - and today's walk was against some pretty good wind gusts, too - at one point, I had to tie my hoodie because I got tired of losing my ballcap. My face and fingers are still warming up, though - that wind was strong!
anyway, what a difference a month made!
And if my fitness tracker is to be trusted, I walked over 18,000 steps today. I think I earned my blackberry dumplings tonight.....
Seriously, though, this is fantastic! It's amazing what consistent effort can do.
the dumplings were fantastic, though I admit I couldn't get the calorie count below 190 per serving; I used splenda and almond milk, but other than that, there isn't much more I can do to get the calories down in the dumplings; that flour and butter just don't have anywhere to give in them. Though the next time I make them, I might try leaving the butter out; my mom makes great biscuits using just self-rising flour and milk; it should work for the dumplings too.
I'll try it out on Sunday; dinner is mine on Sunday (my mom and I swap out Sundays since we live right across from each other) and I'm planning stuffed peppers with more blackberry dumplings for dessert!1 -
I have a question about weighing meat....do you weigh it raw or cooked?....I weigh it after it is cooked because that is what I am consuming....not sure which way is correct....if I count the calories in 4 oz of ground chuck 85/15 I want to eat 4 oz...after 4 oz is cooked it really shrinks in size....I always bake my hamburger patties...if I make sloppy jos or chili, I pan fry the meat, drain and rinse it in a colander...this eliminates a lot of fat...then I weigh it...have I been doing this wrong?...I do chicken and pork and fish the same way...thanks for any answers!0
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@conniewilkins56 I think you can do either way. The USDA database has entries for both cooked and uncooked. I personally use the entries for raw myself, and I think the uncooked at 4 oz and the cooked at 3 oz entries line up, depending on how you cooked it, of course. For instance: when I look up the Purdue Chicken Thigh entry in MFP's database, it shows 250 calories for 3 oz cooked. The package shows 250 calories for 4 oz raw. Int his case, its bone in skin on, and I just weigh it bone and all and assume that's what Purdue is doing as well.
You may be getting more accurate results your way, other than the fat loss from rinsing (I don't think the entries take that into account, unless you find one that does) I just use the raw entry because I figure that builds in a fudge factor for me, and because I repackage my meats into individual sized portions and weigh them and mark the weight on the bags before I put them into the freezer.
Also, by weighing raw and marking the package with the weight, I can pre-plan my diary; I just look at what I intend to eat the next day as I take it out of the freezer and go and mark my diary for that day with the weight I had marked on the container.1 -
Oh, of course you plan your menu!..( friendly sarcasm there )....SMH....I change my menu all day long!... we eat a lot less meat than we used to but I still like my proteins!...my husband likes meat, potato, and vegetable ....this would satisfy him every night!...he is easy to please though so I mix up casseroles , salads etc....right now I am looking for a really decadent tasting dessert without robbing my calorie bank....you are probably right about weighing the meat raw most of the time...would be hard to do in a restaurant but not going out lately!0
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I've got a few extra calories for tonight - I'm going to get me a kroger mini ice cream sandwich and probably some fruit, since I'm out of blackberry dumplings
I loved this peanut butter pie recipe I found in an older Betty Crocker cookbook.
2/3 cup splenda or other sugar substitute (when using splenda, you might want to increase to 1 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar substitute (Swerve)
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup peanut butter
3 large eggs
1 unbaked pie shell
Note that the splenda and brown sugar are listed as a 1:1 ratio with regular sugar; if you using a blend like splenda brown sugar blend, you'll need to cut the amounts in half.
Beat it all together well and pour into the pie shell. Bake at 375 degrees F for 30-50 minutes. - the recipe says 40-50, but that's based on using the real sugar and corn syrup; I'd suggest start checking it at 30 minutes; the center may be a little soft but the rest should be set, like a pumpkin pie.
Serve it warm with a little chocolate syrup on top, or as in my case a melted hershey kiss
I made this recipe into little pie tarts by taking my pie crust (1 cup flour, 4 Tbsp butter, 4-6 Tbsp water, 1/2 tsp salt) and dividing it into 12 portions, then rolling them out and putting them into a muffin pan. The batter above was enough to lightly fill each cup. Then when I took them out of the oven, I pressed a single hershey kiss into each tart.
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That peanut butter pie sounds really good!...
Changing the subject here but my dad worked at Kroger’s for 22 years...started as a stock clerk in the 50s and moved up to manage one of the busiest stores in the Louisville/Cincinnati district in the 60s...I was a cashier for a while at Kroger’s in my late teens/early 20s....I guess that was the basis for my husband and I owning grocery stores on the West coast of Florida and in the Keys for so many years...we were fortunate to retire young because the grocery business is a killer!0 -
I weigh it the way it comes. So if it is raw I weight it raw, if it is a frozen vegetable I weigh it frozen.
I sous vide my fish a lot and because it is so low calorie I weigh it in the wrapper so I can just dump it in the bath. I might be overcharging myself 20-30 calories.1 -
I hit a personal best today. Just over 29k steps. If it wasn't so late I might be tempted to go out and walk a half mile to see a 3 but I am exhausted and 4:45a comes early.
lol. At dinner I realized I saw the remaining calories wrong (didn't have my glasses on) and I overate by ~130 calories. I was irritated because I had such an overfeed on Monday I wanted to stay on point the rest of the week. Thanks to boredom waiting for my wife's meeting to conclude I walked the dog again and when I got back in I saw a physical project I could do today instead of waiting for the weekend. SO as of now I am under 248 calories for the day. That is quite the reversal. They can be tomorrow's calories.1 -
@NovusDies
Okay, now I"m perplexed. Today is weight record day. The HappyScale trend this morning was 249.4 lbs, which is a 1.3 lb loss from last week, meaning my addition of 1400 calories a week (200 calories a day) resulted in more than a 1.5 lb slow down which makes no sense to me whatsoever! Even when I look and realize I was about 3000 steps less this week than last, even though since I started counting half calories instead of 1/3 calories, I ate around 1,000 calories more, I still should not have slowed down by 1.8 lbs!
so I'm not really sure what to do here. It doesn't help that last week's record was affected by TOM, so I may not have actually lost 3.1 lbs, though that was on trend with the week before when I lost 3.6 lbs without TOM's influence, so I can't figure why this week was only a 1.3 lb loss. I have been going by HappyScale's trend, which I now realize is a moving average, which means the historical data changes, which I don't like at all. For instance: I recorded my weight last week based on this moving average to be 250.7 lbs. However, when I look back in the log book in HappyScale, what was 250.7 lbs last Thursday is now showing 251.1 lbs today! I don't like that change like that.
However, I don't really want to go to real average either, because my average weight for last week was 252.0 lbs, while the average for this week was 250.2 lbs, which would actually be a 0.2 lb GAIN, which I know is clearly a distortion seeing as 1) I wasn't eating anywhere close to maintenance and 2) when I look at the last 2 week's records, I can clearly see it going down.
I guess what I may need to do is just go back to using actual weight recordings instead of the trend, and deal with the ups and downs of temporary water weight distortions. My actual weight on 4/9 was 253.8 lbs; my actual weight on 4/16 was 250.2 lbs or a 3.6 lb difference. I don't have actual readings for before that, but the trend weight loss was almost 4 lbs that week before that. Actual weight recording today was 249.9 lbs, which would be a 0.3 lbs actual loss.
Last week, I ate a total of 14,284 calories. My BMR calculation total for that week was 13,081, and since that was 3.1 lbs down from the week before, we assumed a 10,550 calorie deficit. And this is remembering that the loss from the week before that had been almost 4 lbs.
This week, I ate 15,214 calories, but seemed to only have a 1.3 lb loss, which is 4,550 calories more. And this is based on trend weights.
If I go by actual weights, then I had an actual loss of only 0.3 lbs, which results in a 1,050 calorie deficit for the week. So I averaged 2173 a day, and a deficit of 150 calories a day. So does that mean with my current activity level of 2 hours of exercise (I'm not even sure if you can count my hour+ walks and 30 minute low impact aerobics and 20-30 minute elliptical sessions as moderate activity), then my maintenance level should be 2323 a day, and to lose 2 lbs/wk, I need to be eating 1323 a day? *sigh* that doesn't make any sense to me, either.
So obviously, I"m not understanding how this works, and my spreadsheet isn't giving me the right information to work from. I went back and put in the last 2 weeks worth of actual weights instead of trend weights. I think I'm going to back into MFP and edit the last 3 records to be the actual weights instead of trend weights, and go back to recording actual weights and just deal with fluctuation anomalies. I'll also go back to a deficit of 1,400 calories and keep adding back 1/2 exercise calories and see where that takes me. and I need to leave all this alone and keep it all the same, no matter the outcome, until May 14th, which is the Thursday before my scheduled vacation, when I plan to start my diet break. Hopefully, but then I might have some reliable data I can make sense of to be sure I get to actual maintenance calories for that diet break.
*sigh*1 -
@bmeadows380
It is normal to have doubts. I still have them and my numbers keep confirming it is okay but it still feels unnatural to be eating this much more food. When the scale doesn't do what it should do it gives me an uncomfortable feeling that passes a little more quickly now but when I first started eating this much it lingered.
You have taken on a lot of exercise in a relatively short amount of time. You are going to have some inflammation that will throw off the numbers here and there.
What is your step average for the last 3 weeks?
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@bmeadows380
It is normal to have doubts. I still have them and my numbers keep confirming it is okay but it still feels unnatural to be eating this much more food. When the scale doesn't do what it should do it gives me an uncomfortable feeling that passes a little more quickly now but when I first started eating this much it lingered.
You have taken on a lot of exercise in a relatively short amount of time. You are going to have some inflammation that will throw off the numbers here and there.
What is your step average for the last 3 weeks?
@NovusDies
week of 3/23-3/29 average step count 9,515 (all values before this were below 9,000; this is where I ramped up the activity)
week of 3/30-4/5 average step count 11,916
week of 4/6-4/12 average step count 11,823
week of 4/13-4/19 average step count 12,119
so far this week is 12,550 steps, though that will change as we have 3 more days in the week (my tracker goes from Monday to Sunday)
So this is week #4 of the increased activity.
Actual weight 3/26: 259.3 lbs (week before increase in activity)
Actual weight 4/2: 257.6 lbs 1.7 lb loss
Actual weight 4/9: 253.8 lbs 3.8 lb loss (TOM began within 24 hours of this reading)
Actual weight 4/16: 250.2 lbs 3.6 lb loss (changed to 1,600 deficit goal from 1,400)
Actual weight 4/23: 249.9 lbs 0.3 lb loss
I have to keep going back to this article whenever I start to off the rails:
https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
And as the above article states, we women get the added pleasure of dealing with monthly hormonal swings to further complicate things, and I'm still a ways from that ending!
anyway, I would have expected water weight from extra activity to start dissipating by now since this is week #4.
Part of my concern, too, is past history with weight loss. The last 2 times that I had good success - 2012 & 2017 - I lost really well the first 4 or 5 months, then started slowing down, and by about 10 months in, I had plateaued and slowly started the regain. Thankfully, I was able to get going again in June 2019 dealing with only about a 30 lb regain, unlike the 2012 loss where I pretty much regained it all back, but I find myself worried about doing that again, though it's already lasted longer this time than before. I hit my peak on 6/1/2019 at 295.7 lbs, and started to slowly lose again from there, with it really kicking in around January of this year. So I'm approaching the 1 year mark for the restart of weight loss, and ending the 4th month of really good weight loss. I don't want to find myself stalling out now!1 -
the new knee braces made a big difference, though I pulled the old knee brace up over the new on on the bad knee. Today's aerobics session had a lot of lower body work with lots of squats, and while I can't get as low as the instructor does, even with the side to side work, my knee felt good and stable. Now I just need to work on getting my core stronger so my lower back doesn't ache by the end. That's usually what is killing me by the time I get back from my walks, too.
And today's cardio session was definitely a workout! It was interval training, and it got my heart rate pumping at an average of 130, which is better than I've been doing for a while.0 -
bmeadows380 wrote: »@bmeadows380
It is normal to have doubts. I still have them and my numbers keep confirming it is okay but it still feels unnatural to be eating this much more food. When the scale doesn't do what it should do it gives me an uncomfortable feeling that passes a little more quickly now but when I first started eating this much it lingered.
You have taken on a lot of exercise in a relatively short amount of time. You are going to have some inflammation that will throw off the numbers here and there.
What is your step average for the last 3 weeks?
@NovusDies
week of 3/23-3/29 average step count 9,515 (all values before this were below 9,000; this is where I ramped up the activity)
week of 3/30-4/5 average step count 11,916
week of 4/6-4/12 average step count 11,823
week of 4/13-4/19 average step count 12,119
so far this week is 12,550 steps, though that will change as we have 3 more days in the week (my tracker goes from Monday to Sunday)
So this is week #4 of the increased activity.
Actual weight 3/26: 259.3 lbs (week before increase in activity)
Actual weight 4/2: 257.6 lbs 1.7 lb loss
Actual weight 4/9: 253.8 lbs 3.8 lb loss (TOM began within 24 hours of this reading)
Actual weight 4/16: 250.2 lbs 3.6 lb loss (changed to 1,600 deficit goal from 1,400)
Actual weight 4/23: 249.9 lbs 0.3 lb loss
I have to keep going back to this article whenever I start to off the rails:
https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations/
And as the above article states, we women get the added pleasure of dealing with monthly hormonal swings to further complicate things, and I'm still a ways from that ending!
anyway, I would have expected water weight from extra activity to start dissipating by now since this is week #4.
Part of my concern, too, is past history with weight loss. The last 2 times that I had good success - 2012 & 2017 - I lost really well the first 4 or 5 months, then started slowing down, and by about 10 months in, I had plateaued and slowly started the regain. Thankfully, I was able to get going again in June 2019 dealing with only about a 30 lb regain, unlike the 2012 loss where I pretty much regained it all back, but I find myself worried about doing that again, though it's already lasted longer this time than before. I hit my peak on 6/1/2019 at 295.7 lbs, and started to slowly lose again from there, with it really kicking in around January of this year. So I'm approaching the 1 year mark for the restart of weight loss, and ending the 4th month of really good weight loss. I don't want to find myself stalling out now!
Your average RoL for the last 28 days which includes a week of sedentary is still 2.375 which is 188 calories too low per day.
Your average RoL for the last 21 days is 2.57 which is 285 calories too low per day.
How do your calories compare to "active" for which you clearly meet and possible exceed the criteria?
Trust it for 3 more weeks plus the amount of time to get past any TOM issues and know that even if you over-corrected by a little (which I doubt) your rate of loss will still be close to 2 pounds per week
You are doing AMAZING.
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Have you had a doctor examine your knees?...would cortisone shots be a help for the discomfort?...it’s hard enough to exercise without hurting while you are doing it!...I got shots a few years before my knees were replaced...the knee operations were rough...I also had surgery for a herniated disc in my lower back...no regrets!...I had an MRI two years ago and I have 10 discs in my neck and back that are in bad shape but they do not give me much pain...I hope you find some relief!0
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Today I did something I have not done in quite some time. I got up at 4:45, got on the elliptical and did 30 minutes of exercise, and then went back to bed. It was raining too hard outside to walk too and while I usually do more on the elliptical to make up for it I decided it was okay to do the minimums today. I am not really good a minimums lately though.0
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@NovusDies
Funny you post that I was re-reading the physiqonomics article again, which led to another one marked 8 Reasons You're Not Losing Weight, which has a brief blurb on the women's hormones causing really big fluctuations in weight loss. He recommended comparing monthly values, not week to week values, and suggested using the week of starting as the anchor week. So went back and compared my March 12 to April 9 and got the 9.4 lb loss for the month (based on actual recorded weights not the moving scale), and ended up with a 2.35 lb/wk rate.
So in other words, quit freaking out, put the deficit back to 1,600, keep my activity rate up, and chill until May 7th, which should be TOM week (if my body keeps to its current schedule, D-day should be 5/6), or even May 14th.
However, I am still going to go back to recording my actual weight instead of the trend weight. The guy at physiqonomics suggested the straight average, but I don't like using a straight average because 1 bad day can really mess up the average.0 -
I only use my actual weights. I cut through the noise a different way. Today my adjusted starting weight track was 209. My actual weight is 210.8. So I know that 209 should be the lowest I could weigh today. When I have very reliable data I very often match up really close to my adj weight column 5 or 6 times per month. I consider anything within .2 pounds a match and .4 is a close enough match. This is how I confirm my numbers over a long period of time.0
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conniewilkins56 wrote: »Have you had a doctor examine your knees?...would cortisone shots be a help for the discomfort?...it’s hard enough to exercise without hurting while you are doing it!...I got shots a few years before my knees were replaced...the knee operations were rough...I also had surgery for a herniated disc in my lower back...no regrets!...I had an MRI two years ago and I have 10 discs in my neck and back that are in bad shape but they do not give me much pain...I hope you find some relief!
@conniewilkins56 no, my knees don't bother me for normal activity; it just certain movements and positions that I have trouble with - squatting especially. Going down stairs sometimes. It's not bad pain, either - just a protest twinge or warning. If I've overdone it, like Saturday, the knee will swell making it tight to bend and my knees will twinge on things like stairs. Or some movements that my bad knee will get shaky on and feel like it might give way if I don't move to a different position soon. While I'm sure I'll be looking at knee problems as I get older because of twisting that one knee like I did coupled with being so severely obese for so many years, I'm hoping that losing the weight will have push that further in the future. I'm also likely looking at hip problems, too - my dad and 2 of his 3 sisters all have had to have hip replacements, and there are times my hips twinge on me, too. It's just part of the getting old thing of life lol
One very, very good thing that I'm noticing seems to have improved since I started the activity - the inner thigh muscle running from my knee to my pelvis hasn't been giving me warnings or trying to lock up like it had been. Up until the last few weeks, I had to be very careful how I moved from certain positions, especially in getting out of bed because of a fear of that muscle in both legs locking up. Because when that muscle locks up, its the most agonizing pain I've ever been in - twisted knee included! - and takes forever to get to to finally let go. Hopefully all this leg work in these videos are strengthening those muscles!
@NovusDies
I missed your other question on calories comparison. The previous week, my daily intake was near the active range, or somewhere near that 1.6 BMR multiplier. This week, after raising my calorie limit to 1600, it came in closer to very active, but still not hitting that 1.8 multiplier. The average for the week according to BMR x 1.8 should have been 2346, and I was averaging 2173, or 173 calories short.
I know that a 2 lb/wk loss rate should be .287 lbs/day. I was making a comparison by subtracting that number from the previous day's weight to try to predict what I should see, but I don't think that's working right. So for instance, I weighed 250.4 yesterday, so 250.4-0.287 predicts I should have weighed 250.1 today, but I was actually 249.9 lbs. What would be the better way to do this?
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To do what I am doing you need your average TDEE or at least a reasonable estimate that you can then modify as needed. I take my spreadsheet starting weight then subtract my weight change by deficit each day.
I am currently using a 1.9 multiplier so my TDEE yesterday was 3488. I ate 3172 calories of food. This created a 316 calorie deficit or a .09 loss. My adjusted weight was 209.1 going into yesterday. As a result of yesterday today it is 209. My TDEE is calculated daily against my adjusted weight. Eventually the margin of error will make me manually update it and then if my multiplier is right it will be correct for quite some time.
For the time being I am using MFP's NEAT + Exercise system as an experiment to see if I want to stay with a straight TDEE system or not. I am tracking my results there too. According to it I had a 751 calorie deficit which translates to .21 pounds of loss and my adjusted starting weight could be as low as 207.4.
Since my spreadsheet starting weight was under the influence of a diuretic that I am no longer taking I am just waiting to see how it all shakes out. I am continuing to drift lower on weight so as long as that is the case I am just going to wait it out.0 -
That is one of the problems with beginning a new phase. It is like starting over it a lot of ways and it just takes time and a little trust that what you are doing is close enough to right to be healthful while also moving you in the right direction. I DO NOT CARE FOR IT. My spreadsheet has answered my questions for so long it is not easy when I know it is not on point at the moment. I do understand there is nothing I can do about it though.0
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okay; so TDEE Is what I'm calculating when I multiply my BMR against that factor, where right now I'm in the neighborhood of something like 1.7 (its really easy for me to mix up all the acronyms). So my BMR yesterday was 1860, making my TDEE 3159, meaning I should be at 2159 if I want to lose 2 lbs/wk. I actually ate 2,154 calories total, which means yesterday, at least, I was spot on where I should have been - right? So that should be my .285 loss from yesterday to today. But instead of being .3 less today, I was .5 less today, but that .2 difference is likely just noise as I had a little water retention going on this week.
Today, based on this morning's weight, my BMR is 1858, giving me a daily TDEE 3159, still meaning I should eat 2159 calories today. Right now, if I can get the 60 minutes on the elliptical I plan to get this afternoon after work (cause its pouring the rain out there, so I'm not going to get to do a walk), coupled with what I've already done, I'm on track to be eating 2,062 calories today. Just a little short, but then again, my activity today because of the rain isn't going to be as strenuous - I'm going to be lucky to get 10,000 steps in today using the elliptical. Wonder if I can find a nice YouTube video to jog in place to....
I do understand that this is all based on whether I've gauged my activity factor correct. Since I"m tracking at 2.35 per week for the last month, I know that means that 1.7 lbs is too low, but 2.35 isn't a bad rate - that's still under 1% of my body weight and will be for the next 2 or 3 weeks.
Thanks for talking me off that ledge
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Wait - since I"m actually losing at 2.35 lbs/wk, I should be using .3357 lbs a day not .2857. Doesn't change the math outcome, though.1
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bmeadows380 wrote: »Wait - since I"m actually losing at 2.35 lbs/wk, I should be using .3357 lbs a day not .2857. Doesn't change the math outcome, though.
Or you could be more precise and just subtract your calories from your TDEE divide that number (your deficit that day) by 3500 and use it to update your weight.
I would not use your scale weight though because that will have noise in it more often than not. Use a fairly reliable starting weight then just keep updating it daily. If you are right your scale weight will occasionally meet your adjusted weight a few times a month. Mine historically matches up when I am at the end of my whoosh. If it doesn't match up after a second whoosh cycle (staying too high) I strongly suspect there is a problem. If my scale weight falls below my adjusted weight more than once and I am reasonably sure I am regularly hydrated I suspect I am losing ahead of schedule.
After you have 3 month of clean data with fairly consistent habits on your part it gets easier.
There is one flaw in this system outside of the margin of error on calories in and out. If you eat over maintenance your adjusted weight will be increased instead of decreased. For me that increase is always wrong and it always forces a manual correction. I can predict to lose weight at ~3500 calories per pound but gaining weight is less predictable and does not follow the same convention. My results seem to normally closer to 1 pound gained per 7000 calories over maintenance. There are many reasons for this. The chief one is that your NEAT can shoot up making your actual TDEE much higher than the one in your calculation.1 -
*sigh* This morning the scale had jumped back up to 250.1 lbs. Looking back at the last 8 days since I raised my calorie intake, I've pretty much been at a stand still the entire week. Last Thursday, I was 250.2, then I popped up to 251.3, which I expected since I was eating more food = eating more carbs = more water weight gain. That was the 17th. Since then, I seem to be see-sawing around that 250 mark. A tenth or two down one day, a tenth or two up the next, but not really moving at all. I've looked back through my history at my weight levels during various phases of my cycle, and I don't gain during ovulation week; my gains are always right before PMS, and besides which, yesterday should have been the last day for that window, or technically, maybe even Wednesday or Tuesday were the last day. So I can't blame that. Activity has been steady for the last 4 weeks - elliptical in the AM, cardio at lunch, walk in the evening. I would really think that my body would have adapted by this point.
The only thing different is I added 200 calories back to my deficit daily. While I expected a temporary spike, I'm frustrated because I really, really would have thought that after 8 days, my body would have adjusted to the new deficit and leveled out by now.
I'm trying to convince myself that the problem this morning was lack of sleep; I didn't sleep well last night as it took me forever to finally fall asleep, and I felt like it was a light sleep most of the night; I felt like I was awake off and on even after I did go to sleep, and I'm running on probably 5 hours or a little less right now. I know that can lead to water weight gain, and tomorrow, since its Saturday and I can sleep as long as my cat will let me, it will be down again.
I know my activity levels have dropped a little in the last few days because of the weather, and its going to be that way all through the dab-blamed weekend (if it wasn't supposed to be 50 degrees outside, I'd walk in the rain!), but exercise calorie intake drops with less activity, and I still got over 10,000 steps yesterday.
I know, I know - trust the process. It's me whining at this point; Ireally hate to be doing so well and then suddenly slam into a stone wall! Its just my brain is arguing that its the extra food intake, but I keep trying to hold it off a little and tell it that we added the calories back based on numbers and that the 200 extra calories just to get down to 2 lbs/wk should not have caused me to stall out completely as it was technically still not quite enough based on activity levels.
I'm holding the course for the next 3 weeks, but its going to be a bumpy 3 weeks on me emotionally, I think.2 -
@bmeadows380
I guess it is a difference in experience. With the 2 drops you have had in 2 weeks I would have expected myself to bounce back a little and hover. For me that hovering was almost always 2.5 to 3 weeks before I would whoosh and see another new low. After that I might see a second new low the next week before I bounced back and started another cycle. That is my normal.
I am not seeing a predictable pattern at the moment and I suspect that is because I am still getting accustomed to life after the diuretic. The whooshes still last 3-4 days but when they start is anyone's guess.1 -
@NovusDies I'm not used to whooshes except when I've been fighting water weight issues, and even then, it doesn't typically whoosh but gradually slide down. But the activity is a brand new factor in all this; I lost the initial 115 lbs on diet alone and was mostly sedentary before that. So I really don't know what to expect now that I've added in that factor. It's been a month, but who knows? maybe it will take another week or two to settle down.
From the report above, it does look like I had a small bump up when I really started the light activity from none at all, but there was no bump at all when I increased to active. I record once a week, which is why there are straight lines week to week. And whats interesting is that my cycle doesn't seem to be causing any increase in the weekly recorded weight; I might see a bump in the daily rate, but it seems to be smoothing out without in a day or two, quick enough not to register in my weekly recordings.
So this slow down doesn't match up with my past experience, and the only thing I can point to is the increased in calorie intake. But that may just be due to increased water retention with the increased carbs, and I know water weight takes time to fall off for me, so all I can think is that's the issue, and I have to give it more time. And its not going to kill me to stall for 3 weeks, despite how much my emotional brain wants to change now.1 -
My initial weight loss was fast and furious and unless I had alcohol or Chinese food it was always pointing down. About the time I was 90 pound down is when the cycle of whooshing began and that was while I was still sedentary with no major changes in diet.
If you were eating too little for your activity it would have driven your glycogen down further and not allowed it to replenish as much. Now that you are eating what we believe is an appropriate amount of food you might have just bounced back up. Before you connect the dots, because I know you will, it could mean that your scale drop had an additional water weight loss component but I would not let that be a factor at the moment. You need a consistent data period. You seem to be a lot like me and doing anything to keep adding to the uncertainty is worse than finding out you might have been losing 1.8 pounds per week for a few weeks. I still do not think that will happen but that is how I would view it. I find great comfort in knowing my numbers are on point.
Because I came off the diuretic and also went into maintenance on Feb 15th thinking it would be for 4 months and it was cut short by the virus my own numbers are not the cement I would like them to be. I am confident I am close just like I believe you are close but I may be losing under my target rate which is not a huge deal now that I am in vanity pound range but I still would not like it.
The broad strokes say that you should be eating active calories at the very least just like they say I should be eating something close to very active calories. Even when more time passes and we can tweak it further it will still have a margin of error but 'good enough' gets the job done.
I am torn on this MFP NEAT + Exercise trial. I do not care for it but I keep wondering if it will be easier to manage when I get to maintenance and my activity varies more through life events and changes. I like to eat by a TDEE system and that is what I have used for almost the whole time I have been losing. It is cleaner and I never have to worry about exercise calorie percentages. Time will tell.1 -
@NovusDies I definitely want to keep it simple and as clear as I can - change 1 thing at a time and see what that affect is instead of changing a lot of things and then trying to figure out what was the factor that I actually needed to change. Which is why I'm telling my emotional brain to calm down and wait 3 more weeks because right now, the only thing that I have changed is the calorie deficit value. I also have to tell it to be consistent in the percentage of exercise calories to count; today, for instance, because the elliptical session wasn't quite as demanding as it had been last night, my brain wanted to cut back to counting 1/3 instead of 1/2, but I again had to remind myself we need consistently so we can establish a pattern, so I made myself count the 1/2. Sometimes I'll switch between using 2.0 mph walk and 2.5 mph depending on who much effort I'm putting into it, though (I'm using walks instead of the elliptical values in the MFP exercise database).
But yes, my rational side understands that it is much better to find that making that one change reduced me to losing at 1 1/2 lbs or 1 lb a week on average over a month, so that I know what I can change to fix it, rather than letting the emotional side win (which almost won out yesterday morning lol).
Besides, even if I stall for the next month, perhaps it will get me in good stead and ready for the diet break. I'm probably technically past where I should be taking one, but I really want it to line up with that vacation week (if I get to go, anyway). I'll still have to record that week because I'm horrible at intuitive eating, but what the tricky part will be is figuring out how many exercise calories to eat back. I figure even if I come out of it having gained a couple of pounds, I'd rather have that than find out I was still undereating, since I know the whole point of a diet break is to replenish those glycogen stores and reset those hormones; and its not like I'd eat enough in 2 weeks to completely wreck my diet; even if I gain 5 lbs back (which I doubt will happen, at least, not 5 lbs fat), I can get it back off easily.
I"m just now playing around with the TDEE situation; Im comparing to the MFP NEAT+exercise system which is what I'm using right now and figure on keeping the calorie deficit to lightly active and then adding back the exercise percentage; it just makes it a little easier for me in using MFP, I think. I still have this fear of overeating on days where I'm not as active - such as being completely lazy on Sunday with no activity, but still eating 1600 calories though I was sedentary. I know rationally that I make up for it on subsequent days and its all about the weekly average, but its takes a while to get my brain working together 1
