Food, Exercise, or other Reports
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Wow, you two are so detailed about your numbers! I'm an accountant and I don't love numbers that much.
I think you also must be way better trackers than I am. I probably estimate too many things, and I think I forget things sometimes.2 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »Wow, you two are so detailed about your numbers! I'm an accountant and I don't love numbers that much.
I think you also must be way better trackers than I am. I probably estimate too many things, and I think I forget things sometimes.
*laughs* I can't help it - I revel in the detailed minutia of things. Which is a lot of the reason why i can't seem to ever get a storyline completed; I get so caught up in background details I lose track of the story, being fascinated by learning all kinds of things. for instance: I've been known to completely develop a fictitious religion in one case, and in another, had a detailed right up on precession of the equinoxes and how time flowed in a fictitious alternate world! lol
I've been like that since I was a kid; my cousins and siblings would want to play school, and I'd sit down and make them plan out a whole schedule, find the right books (my aunt was a school teacher); they'd get board and go play something else while I reveled in the details of what I was creating in my mind. I"m weird that way!2 -
bobsburgersfan wrote: »Wow, you two are so detailed about your numbers! I'm an accountant and I don't love numbers that much.
I think you also must be way better trackers than I am. I probably estimate too many things, and I think I forget things sometimes.
Numbers keep me relaxed and help me trust the process.
As far as your system goes it only really matters if it works. I feel the same way about mine. I am loose with some aspects of logging but as long as it works I don't care. If it stops working I know what I need to do to tighten up. I think it is helpful, or at least it was for me, to practice really precise logging for long enough to see the areas where that level is probably overkill. I do not log mustard for instance. However another person might eat enough of it in a day that they probably should log it.0 -
still sitting stock still at 250 lbs, which is statistically a 0 lb loss for the last 11 days - I was 250.2 lbs on 4/16 when I raised my calorie limit.
4/9-4/15 total net calorie intake: 11,925
exercise calorie intake: 2,359
total week calories: 14,284
total step count: 83,443 (average of 11,920 per day)
daily calorie limit before exercise: 1400
weight loss for the week: 3.6 lbs
4/16-4/22 total net calorie intake: 11,658
exercise calorie intake: 3,356
total week calories: 15,014
total step count: 93,923 (an average of 13,417 per day).
daily calorie limit before exercise: 1600
weight loss for the week: 0.3 lbs
so after increasing my daily calorie limit, my net calorie intake for the week actually DECREASED 267 calories, and that's because Easter Sunday was in that week. My exercise calorie intake increased by 997 calories, which resulted in a total week increase of 730 calories, give or take 100 or so as there was a day or two that I ended up with a small snack after I had closed out my diary. My weekly step count increased by 9,850 steps.
if 2 lbs/week loss rate is 1,000 calories, 730 calories is a 1.46 lbs/wk rate, so if I'm looking at this right, my weight loss rate, before we take into account the increased exercise, should have dropped to around 2.1 lbs/week. And that's before taking in consideration that my average step count increased by 1,497 steps a day!
At my current weight, MFP says my deficit to lose 2 lbs/wk at sedentary before exercise is 1,320 calories a day. Lightly Active before exercise should be 1,590 calories a day to lose 2 lbs/wk, and Active should be 1,960 calories a day to lose 2 lbs/wk.
I've been told that 7,000 steps a day is considered lightly active for sure, and 10,000 steps a day is considered active. So if I'm in the active category when it comes to exercise, my current deficit setting of 1600 is really technically undercutting where I should be. But I'm also adding back half of my dedicated exercise calories a week which ought to be making up that deficiency.
Even if raising my deficit per week AND counting back half exercise calories results in some double counting when it comes to activity levels, I wouldn't think that it would be enough to completely erase my entire deficit and result in a stalled weight loss. I mean, I was seriously under-counting the week before, obviously, to have a 3.6 lb loss rate for that week and somewhere in the 3 lb/wk average for the 4 weeks before that. But I still would have ended up increasing my calories to probably the tune of 200 calories a day if I had chosen to leave my deficit at sedentary settings and count 75% of my exercise calories instead of half, because my exercise calorie intake across both weeks was an 400 calories at 50% counted; that would have increased that to 600 at 75% counting, which gives me the 200 calories I increased my calories deficit by daily anyway!
I'll copy this on Thursday and put in this week's numbers then, but as for weight loss, it's not looking like there's going to be any loss this week, either. My weight on 4/16 was 249.9 lbs; my weight this morning was 250.0 lbs, which is a statistical 0 lbs. Yesterday was a completely sedentary day - I might have hit 2,000 steps for that day, but I also stayed under the 1600 calorie deficit, which is a tad bit over MFP's calculated deficit I should be eating for a 1.5 lb/wk loss rate, meaning I was still clearly in a deficit yesterday, even without exercise.
I'll hold to what I'm doing now. I figure my TOM will start somewhere around 5/5, but I think that is far enough out from the 4/30 weigh in day to not skew the numbers badly; however, I will weight until 5/14 so I have a full 4 week cycle to compare to. All I can hope is that perhaps with TOM will come a whoosh, and my 5/7 weigh in will be a good number of lbs to catch me up to where I should be.
*sigh* I'm being as accurate as I can on my calorie intake, weighing and recording everything, including condiments. I'm being conservative in my exercise calorie calculations. I know there's no way to be completely and totally accurate, but I should be minimizing my slop, and definitely should not be anywhere near killing my deficit completely. My body just seems to be contrary, I guess!
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bobsburgersfan wrote: »Wow, you two are so detailed about your numbers! I'm an accountant and I don't love numbers that much.
I think you also must be way better trackers than I am. I probably estimate too many things, and I think I forget things sometimes.
Numbers keep me relaxed and help me trust the process.
As far as your system goes it only really matters if it works. I feel the same way about mine. I am loose with some aspects of logging but as long as it works I don't care. If it stops working I know what I need to do to tighten up. I think it is helpful, or at least it was for me, to practice really precise logging for long enough to see the areas where that level is probably overkill. I do not log mustard for instance. However another person might eat enough of it in a day that they probably should log it.
lol I figure the numbers could help me relax and trust the process too, if my body would get with the program and match the numbers!1 -
This morning had a nice bright spot first thing - scale showed 248.0 lbs. Here's crossing my fingers and hoping thats a sign my body is finally getting settled down, maybe?2
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@bmeadows380 Eventually, hopefully, you will crunch the numbers so often these scale stalls will feel like business as usual to you. I do not care for them but I did the math enough times that it broke my anxiety over it.
I walked 8 continuous miles this morning. That is a (recent) personal best. It is to rain later so I skipped the elliptical and did 6 miles by myself and with neighbors and then 2 miles with the dog. I plan to do at least 30 min on the elliptical later. My knee braces are definitely keeping my knees from hurting. My feet feel pretty rough at the moment though. I bought some new socks designed for runners and they did help until after the 6th mile but after that I am not sure much was going to help. I also could have never done that in my old shoes so equipment matters. I ordered some trail shoes for hiking and for push mowing the front yard. I do not want to wear my new shoes when I mow and the old ones hurt me too much. The mowing and running the bag all the way to the back of the property to empty 3-4 times ends up being just over 4 miles of total walking.0 -
@NovusDies 8 miles?!!! You've got me beat! My personal best so far is 5.67 miles. I'm now trying to average 5 miles though sometimes, like today, I have to cut that a little short because of time limits. But I do want to get a minimum of 4 miles a day when I can, without the elliptical.
Equipment definitely matters! I'm using my month old cross trainers for walking in, and today, I put the new braces on, pulled the old ones over top of them, then put on a pair of lycra workout out pants because they were better fitted, and the knee braces actually stayed in place the whole walk. My legs and back felt way better when I got home than they usually do, though I can't honestly say it was completely because of the knee braces; I usually do my walking of an evening after work after getting an elliptical session and a cardio video in during the day; today I switched it up, so it might also have to do with starting the day with the walk instead.
I liked walking in the morning, except I don't like it pushing my work day so late. I'm working 9's, though I do get one 8 hour day this week, so I'll probably use that today. By walking in the AM, I have to wait until daylight, and right now, that's 6:30 AM. A 1 1/2 hour walk means my work day isn't going to start until 8 - 8:30 am, which puts my work day end at 6 pm, counting my 1/2 lunch and the 1/2 hour I usually take for the cardio video. I think I'll stick to the evening walks instead, unless, like today, I want to beat the weather. And of course, when the company goes back to working in the office, my whole workout regime is going to change, anyway!0 -
and if today's scale reading is anything to go by, I'm going to be lucky to show a 1lb loss for the week tomorrow, as my weight was up 0.8 lbs this morning from 248.0 yesterday to 248.8 today. I was feeling a little swelled this morning, so I made sure to wear my constriction socks today; hopefully that will help any lingering water retention in the lower legs, though since I've lost weight, I'm not having nearly the trouble with that that I was.0
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bmeadows380 wrote: »and if today's scale reading is anything to go by, I'm going to be lucky to show a 1lb loss for the week tomorrow, as my weight was up 0.8 lbs this morning from 248.0 yesterday to 248.8 today. I was feeling a little swelled this morning, so I made sure to wear my constriction socks today; hopefully that will help any lingering water retention in the lower legs, though since I've lost weight, I'm not having nearly the trouble with that that I was.
You seem to put a lot of pressure on the weekly numbers even when you weigh daily. In an ideal world I would always get the lowest weight of the week on Fri morning but my body doesn't cooperate with that as often as I would like. I consider Fri morning to be the end of the previous and beginning of the next numbers week but I have each day compare to the week before it.
You can't gain fat weight in a calorie deficit. Water and waste fluctuations are meaningless outside of being annoying or if they are extreme enough to require medication or medical assistance.1 -
The weird thing is, my lowest weight day seems to have shifted lately and isn't lining up like it used to. I picked Thursday as my weigh in day because Mondays were my heaviest and Friday tended to be my lightest, so I figured I'd pick a day in between to get a closer average value. But since I started the walking and cardio videos, that seems to have shifted, and now I can't predict the lowest day.
To me, that weekly number is my progress point. If I'm shooting for a deficit of 2 lbs/wk, then I except to see somewhere in that neighborhood, barring extenuating circumstances. If that particular day is up but the rest of the week before was trending downward, then it stinks that I'll be recording the higher number, but not a hugely big deal. What's been messing with my head, though, is that for the last 2 weeks, there's been no trending down. Daily weights for the last 13 days have been sticking stubbornly up, so that there was no weight change at all in the first week, and might be nothing more than a pound in this week.
If I look at day to day comparisons:
Wednesday: 4/29: 248.8 4/22: 250.4 difference: 1.6 lbs
Tuesday: 4/28: 248.0 4/21: 250.1 difference: 2.1 lbs
Monday: 4/27: 250.0 4/20: 248.8 difference: -1.2 lbs
Sunday: 4/26: 249.8 4/19: 250.6 difference: 0.8 lbs
Saturday: 4/25: 250.7 4/18: 250.3 difference: -0.4 lbs
Friday: 4/24: 250.1 4/17: 251.3 difference: 1.2 lbs
Thursday: 4/23: 249.9 4/16: 250.2 difference: 0.3 lbs
If I compare 4/16 to today, I've lost 1.4 lbs in 2 weeks, when based on my numbers, I should have at least lost that per week.
I know in my head that I can't gain fat in a calorie deficit, and I know that adding back 200 calories a day has not wiped out my deficit. Its just beyond frustrating when the scale refuses to show that and acts like it did, and has been stubborn for 2 weeks now. It does leave the irrational side of me wanting to conclude that I'm eating too much.0 -
I picked Friday initially because on paper it made the most sense. I seldom eat out during the week so I do not normally have sodium related upticks. If I bank enough calories for a maintenance day the uptick from that is usually resolved by Thursday.
In practice it works pretty close. It is very often on Thurs, Fri, or Sat but only every 3 weeks.
Actually that is not 100 percent accurate either. I will sometimes get two back to back low weight weeks but then there is 3 weeks before the next one.
You have reasonable evidence that you are doing fine because Tuesday showed a decent loss. You upticked after it which is annoyingly common and most likely in some frustrating amount of time it will show up lower still.
It is perfectly fine for your irrational side to be screaming like a banshee. Keep beating it down with the impossibility of what it is trying to suggest.
OR you could try this:
Write down on a piece of paper what happens if you are not losing weight for the next couple of weeks. What really happens? What is there to panic over a little lost time? You would have to go back to eating 200 calories less, and?
Make it worse. What happens if your 200 calorie adjustment resulted in gained weight? Your 200 calorie surplus will end with a .8 pound gain in the next 2 weeks. Is that an insurmountable setback?
We often get so caught up in something we allow the negative possibilities to grow out of proportion in our minds. One of the ways to deal with them is to shine a light on them.
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I had another thought.
When you have consistent logging habits that have not changed it becomes a data point. That is true even if the logging is not even as correct as it could be as long as it is off by around the same amount consistently.
If your weight reflects a loss that was expected that is a second data point. The fact that it showed up on the wrong day is irrelevant. The fact that it didn't stick around for long is also irrelevant.
This does not mean the new low is absolutely correct but it is as much confirmation as you get when you go this route.
If I create enough deficit for a pound of loss I expect to eventually see it on the scale. I have no reason to doubt it will show up because it always has before. If it does not show up the moment 3500 calories of deficit are created then it is owed to me. If it does not show up after another 3500 calories are created then I am owed 2 pounds and so forth. If a new low shows up and it is some or all of the weight that is owed to me I do not question the validity of it. That is what is supposed to happen. That is what always happens.
Of course if you go more than 3 weeks without getting most of what you are owed then you might have a problem.0 -
well, three weeks will be next Thursday, though I'll give it 1 more to get a 4 week cycle.
The worst that can happen is getting off track again. It's always there, that little voice that says "ah, one day off won't hurt," or "you don't have to be exact on this," or "its okay, you can just get back to it tomorrow." I've been there before and it ain't pretty - pretty much all of 2018 and half of 2019 was there, and its really hard to push that part back into my brain when it gets control. And Sunday proved to me that my brain is used to all these extra calories; when I took Sunday off and ate at my normal deficit with no added exercise calories, my brain was NOT a happy camper and it took a lot of my will power to force myself to stay away from the fridge and the pantry. The scale going down gives me the strength to beat back that lazy, gluttonous sloth that wants to take control and is constantly screaming for cake! cookies! pie! bread! no limits! Frustration tinged with disappointment and a touch of despair weakens that guard - I've had it happen before. It's one thing if its a purposeful diet break, but even then, I fear having to get re-started after giving myself permission to take a break. I have a really hard time getting started on things, and once I get started, I don't quit because restarting is even harder!0 -
I guess we are different in that regard. The moment the NSVs turned from minor improvements to major resurgences of freedom and ability I was hooked and the numbers on the scale were not unimportant but less compelling and definitely not a driving factor. NSVs created a gravitational pull that keep sucking me towards wherever this ultimately leads.
I enjoy a day or three of unrestricted eating but after that I get sick of it. I also have a firm realization now that total food freedom equals a fat prison for me. I do not want to go back. Not ever. I am getting FAR more than I have given up.
There is nothing abnormal about your 2 weeks. It looks to me like you have confirmation of 2.2 pounds lost since 4/16 and you are due more after your latest uptick resolves. It may or may not happen in the morning but it will happen.
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I'm singing from the roof tops with the robins in the rain this morning! My body FINALLY whooshed after THIRTEEN stinkin' days, and I weighed in this morning at 246.2 lbs, down 3.7 lbs from 4/23 and down exactly 4 lbs from 4/16!
I know, I do a lot of whining, so today's a nice change for once lol
Next week will likely be up or holding again because of TOM, and 5/14 will be my 4 week re-evaluation period. I'm giving thought to going back to the 1400 calorie deficit, which is closer to my sedentary setting, and then adding back 75% of my calorie intake to see how that works out. But I may need to wait until into June to do that because my vacation plans were bumped back to the 1st of June and that was when I had planned to take a 2 week diet break, which means that will need to start on 5/28 and will end on 6/11. So I'll probably wait until 6/11 to try the switch. I know my brain will throw a fit on me then - after getting used to 2 weeks at maintenance, its going to be a bear to make it go back to a deficit.
@NovusDies I wish I was like you in some respects. A single day of unrestricted eating for me makes it very hard to go back to a deficit the next day, and a couple of days in a row even harder. The glutton is still alive and strong within me and is just pacing its cage, looking for a chance to re-take control. The sad part is, it doesn't really even take full food freedom, either - just letting it have excess calories can do it. Its a very tough battle in me between the side that wants to eat what it wants and do what it wants and the side that doesn't want to be that obese ever again, and it takes everything I've got to support the latter side against the former.
That's why though I know I need to take the diet break to reset my hormones, I fear it, too as I know how difficult it will be to get back to a deficit. I may need to ramp back down slower and cut down by 500 calories the first week after and delay returning to my full deficit until 6/18. It will be hard seeing no results for pretty much a month, but it might help me win that battle easier if I do so. I want to be down as far as I can by the time I see my doctor at the end of September; it would be really nice to hit my 220 lb goal for this year by October and maybe a little lower when I hit the holiday season, as I already know loss will trickle if not stall completely in November and December. 26 more lbs off by the end of September is completely doable, I'd think, as long as I can get back on track.
October 1st is also a good date to shoot for because that will be the 16th week following the June diet break, meaning it will be time for a second break then, and I can schedule a third to start December 17th or the 24th to get me into the new year with a new goal.
I have a hard time quantifying NSV's. I don't really notice myself feeling better or having more stamina, even though I'm sure I do. Maybe that's because it changes so gradually for me. But if someone hears that I lost 128 lbs and says "oh, you must feel so much better!" I honestly have to say that no, I can't really say I feel any better; I don't really feel like I'm more flexible or breathing easier. Before I started losing weight, I did what I wanted; I cleaned house extensively, kept my lawn going, trimmed with a push mower (and my house at the time was on a hillside which meant going up and down the hill the whole time), dug ditches, did building work, went on hikes - I never really saw my weight as an impediment to doing what I wanted to do. And my health stats were fine. I just hated what I saw in the mirror, I hated not being able to find clothes except online, hated being so fat and feeling so ugly.
128 lbs later, I'm still doing the same things and can't really quantify if those things are easier or not. The only true NSV's that I can really see are the monthly measurements that I take and my clothing size changes. Maybe its just tied to my typical pessimistic viewpoint; I have a difficult time counting little things and adding them up - my tendency is to see all the things that went wrong or where I could have done better and have a very difficult time seeing the brighter spots.
So anyway, it really is the lbs off part that keeps me energized enough to strengthen my resolve to keep going against the other side that wants to slack.2 -
@bmeadows380
I had a feeling you were about to get a new low today. Congrats.
You have a pretty serious case of fat brain. You also tend to focus on the details and fail to see the bigger picture.
You are also amazing that you can push through your pessimism to get things done. You have the ability to keep that side of you from consistently winning. You can identify when your thoughts are not being helpful. In that way you are very much like me.
From here on out your weight loss will probably come in whooshes like the one you just experienced. This means waiting 13 days or more will likely become normal. You will adapt to it because that is what you do.
Eventually this part will be over and the next part, the longer part, will begin. In maintenance your scale will dance around the same 5ish pound range for hopefully the rest of your life. Everything leads to that point. You need to start laying the groundwork for that now.
You are succeeding. You may see it as postponing failure but there is a part of you that knows that is not the case or you wouldn't bother trying.
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@bmeadows380
You are succeeding. You may see it as postponing failure but there is a part of you that knows that is not the case or you wouldn't bother trying.
or I'm just a glutton for punishment
Oh I know I have a problem seeing the forest for the trees; its why I often miss the big picture and that I've arrived or accomplished what I set out to do. Course, it doesn't help that my overly self-critical side is always moving the goal posts.
I've been overweight since a child and obese since at least a teenager, so we're talking the last 30 years of my 40 years on this earth. Fat brain is definitely ingrained and will take a long, long time to overcome!
I'm not used to the whoosh cycle; didn't even know that would be part of the process. Course, I haven't been this light since junior high, maybe, some 25 years ago? And certainly my previous weight loss efforts never got even close to this far along, so I really didn't know what to expect.
Each stage certainly takes a lot of adaptation. Slowing down to 1 lb a week will be difficult, I already know. I also know it will take logging for several years after I reach maintenance to make sure I stay there; I know I have no sense of portion sizes at all-that's a lot of how I ended up as big as I was to begin with. The battle with the brain will be a lifetime.1 -
Congrats on the whoosh!!!! So happy for you!2
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Just for comparison for myself:
4/9 weight: 253.8 lbs
4/9-4/15 total net calorie intake: 11,925
exercise calorie intake: 2,359
total week calories: 14,284
total step count: 83,443 (average of 11,920 per day)
daily calorie limit before exercise: 1400
weight loss for the week: 3.6 lbs
4/16 weight:250.2 lbs
4/16-4/22 total net calorie intake: 11,658
exercise calorie intake: 3,356
total week calories: 15,014
total step count: 93,923 (an average of 13,417 per day).
daily calorie limit before exercise: 1600
weight loss for the week: 0.3 lbs
4/23 weight: 249.9 lbs
4/23-4/29 total net calorie intake: 10,945
exercise calorie intake: 3,162
total week calories: 14,657
total step count: 96,534 (an average of 13,791 per day)
daily calorie limit before exercise: 1600
weight loss for the week: 3.7 lbs
4/30 weight: 246.2 lbs
total weight loss in 2 weeks: 4 lbs
rate: 2 lbs/wk
Hmmm. In comparing this week to last week, my exercise calorie intake went down by 194 calories, but my total week calories went down 357 calories while my step count increased by 2,611or an average of 374 steps a day.
So this is telling me I was short by 357-194=163 calories for the week? Part of the downturn is probably the rest day on Sunday, though over all with the increase in steps there should have been a little more in calories in. Means I have to make myself be consistent in using the 2.5 mph value for the elliptical work, I suppose. I have a hard time judging that workout.
Anyway, I know 2 weeks isn't enough data, but it looks right now that I'm where I was trying to get. We'll get 2 more weeks in (I want 4/16 as the starting date as that's when I raised my calorie limit) and see where I stand.
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