Please review my workout and diet, need advice

daveredvette

I have been on MFP couple years and learned a lot but struggling now to lose weight. Little history about me, I was in military for 30 years and struggled to meet their ht/wt standards. I always like to run and not much weight lifting. I retired couple years ago and trained for Ironman triathlon and watched what I ate during training for Ironman. My weight stayed around 200-203 lbs. Felt good.
Do to knee injury long distance running is done, now I want to look toner and lose weight.

Please let me know if i am doing this right. In 2020 I stayed around 210 lbs, tried to watch eating.

In September 2020 I started lifting weights on regular bases. Stayed consistent to date.

Male, 55,
HT: 71", WT: 212 BF: 28% calculated BMR: 1810 calories: eat 1750 (still can't seem to lose)
Goal WT: 200

Workouts: Monday PUSH(heavy weight), Tuesday PULL(heavy weight) Wednesday Swim
Thursday PUSH (lighter weight) Friday PULL (lighter weight) Saturday Swim

Since lifting I do feel stronger and tighter in spots. But weight is not going down.
I am doing this right?

sijomial

The simple (and perhaps unhelpful !!!) answer is no you aren't doing it right if you want to lose weight and your weight isn't going down.

Suggest you start by tightening up your food logging to get a better handle on your calorie intake, don't use cups or spoons or scoops (badly inaccurate for caloies for many things). Beware generic entries such as "a banana", or "half a potato" will have a wide variance. Invest in kitchen scales and especially for high calorie items like your rice and potato they can be very revealing.

If you were truly eating 1750cals your weight would be dropping quickly.

On the other side of the coin I wouldn't suggest using the database here for walking estimates as it's inflated (double counting your base calories).

If you are happy with the results of your training your routine is fine, don't know your training history or detail of your routines to comment further but look at the kitchen as the cause of the not losing weight problem rather than hoping exercise is the solution.

daveredvette

sorry didn't mention I use scale for chicken and meats. Didn't think about for bananas and the potatoes. Will look into that info. I don't measure my vegetables, figure they could be unlimited.

I use my Garmin watch to track walks and swim for calories, sometimes it double enters and I have to delete one. I try and only eat 1/2 of calories burned, make up over eating other days.

(sijomial) far as my BMR calculations and calories, I am on track?

thanks for helpful input on calories

heybales

Where is there double-logging for Garmin?

Garmin sends a workout over to MFP if you have accounts linked.
Garmin sends a daily burn over to MFP also.

MFP does math correctly - there will be a workout, there will be an Adjustment.
That's not a double entry though.
Or perhaps you are getting hit with a bug and truly getting 2 workouts?

If not double workouts, You can have a positive adjustment because you were more active than the level you selected on MFP, and still do a workout - they both count.

Garmin for walks will be good estimate - no need to make the deficit bigger.
Swimming it depends if it got the distance correct.
Strength Training on Garmin is inflated, MFP database entry is more accurate there - it's small amount but true and counts.

But the food side is your issue - everything counts.
I'd suggest nailing the food side to see how much you are really eating since you have no idea.
Weigh everything, measure volume on only liquids.
Confirm the database food entry matches the label in hand - it's probably there in the list.

sijomial

daveredvette wrote: »

sorry didn't mention I use scale for chicken and meats. Didn't think about for bananas and the potatoes. Will look into that info. I don't measure my vegetables, figure they could be unlimited.

I use my Garmin watch to track walks and swim for calories, sometimes it double enters and I have to delete one. I try and only eat 1/2 of calories burned, make up over eating other days.

(sijomial) far as my BMR calculations and calories, I am on track?

thanks for helpful input on calories

The free foods thing is a device by some methods such as Weight Watchers to influence people's dietary choices but if they have calories they still count in the sense your body still counts them even if you don't. Rice, potatoes and bananas are all pretty calorie dense. You will be amazed how often cups and spoons crop up in the diaries of people not getting the results they expect.
If you are calorie counting then count everything with calories that passes your lips including oils, sauces and drinks.

Not clear how you are using your Garmin but if you are using it just to estimate exercise burns they will be gross calorie estimates, like the database here and elevated for the same reason. At your weight and walking at 3.5mph your net calories are about 77 per mile as per this calculator (net option) - https://exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs
I used a phone app to measure the miles I walked the other day and the calories estimated were ludicrously high, 521 versus a more realistic 254. Some caution is needed as well as undertanding the limitations of the devices/metrics being used.

Your BMR calculation doesn't help you much unless you are at total rest and in a fasted state - not sure why you even bother estimating it TBH. This site does it for you and then multiplies in by your activity setting and then exercise is separate and added afterwards.
e.g. My BMR is about 1570 but yesterday my total calorie needs were about 3,500 and today about 2,500, it's those numbers I would be taking a deficit from if I was trying to lose weight.

My advice would be make a fresh start with your logging and after a few weeks you will have much better data to work from.

daveredvette

I looked up my current foods and changed to OZ or grams. I just weight a sweet potato 300 grams and I can see where calories can be different than choosing full or half.

tuckerrj

Yep, servings like "a banana" are wholly insufficient. Within the last month I've bought bananas that weigh 3.5 oz (87 calories) up to 6 oz (150 calories) each. A loosely packed cup of rice weighs approximately 6 oz. Pack it tightly and it' nearly 8 oz. Quite a margin for error. When I'm in a weight loss phase, I weigh EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth that has calories. It does make a difference.

chriscarley

following this...and fairly new at this, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but do you change the percentages of fat, carbs and protein to lose weight? The carbs percentage seems high to me

heybales

chriscarley wrote: »

following this...and fairly new at this, not sure if this is the right place to ask, but do you change the percentages of fat, carbs and protein to lose weight? The carbs percentage seems high to me

If this is your question in general then you should start a new topic unless there is one discussing it in general, which this one is not.

If you are suggesting to the OP (original poster) that they need to change the ratio to lose weight because carbs are high - that is not true at all.
That may help someone personally with satiety and therefore adhere to calorie goal, but it's the calories for losing weight.

daveredvette

heybales wrote: »

Where is there double-logging for Garmin?

Garmin sends a workout over to MFP if you have accounts linked.
Garmin sends a daily burn over to MFP also.

MFP does math correctly - there will be a workout, there will be an Adjustment.
That's not a double entry though.
Or perhaps you are getting hit with a bug and truly getting 2 workouts?

If not double workouts, You can have a positive adjustment because you were more active than the level you selected on MFP, and still do a workout - they both count.

Garmin for walks will be good estimate - no need to make the deficit bigger.
Swimming it depends if it got the distance correct.
Strength Training on Garmin is inflated, MFP database entry is more accurate there - it's small amount but true and counts.

But the food side is your issue - everything counts.
I'd suggest nailing the food side to see how much you are really eating since you have no idea.
Weigh everything, measure volume on only liquids.
Confirm the database food entry matches the label in hand - it's probably there in the list.

my garmin was inputting the same swim workout twice, (probably bug in system) and I would delete one of the swim entry's for that day.

daveredvette

I normally only wear my Garmin watch during swim, bike or walk exercises. Track performance and calories.
Yesterday I wore the watch all day. I now see how it works with MFP and tracks my movement and see calories used throughout the day.

daveredvette

tuckerrj wrote: »

Yep, servings like "a banana" are wholly insufficient. Within the last month I've bought bananas that weigh 3.5 oz (87 calories) up to 6 oz (150 calories) each. A loosely packed cup of rice weighs approximately 6 oz. Pack it tightly and it' nearly 8 oz. Quite a margin for error. When I'm in a weight loss phase, I weigh EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth that has calories. It does make a difference.

thanks for input
I weighed the banana i ate this morning 75 grams(no peel) and also slice of bacon 36 grams uncooked.

Not sure if I can delete all food entries and start over

heybales

Well, I also assumed it was one of their daily activity trackers and the daily stuff would be correct for syncing.
That could have been wrong, so thanks for confirming.
I use a 310XT for just workouts, and a simple VF3 for daily stuff.
If all I had was 310XT then no entries for daily calories as Garmin Connect doesn't even make up a sedentary figure to send over, it's got 0, so I'm glad it doesn't send that.

If you have daily tracker, and decent to have on you for doing so - it's a good system.
Distance and calorie burn for daily stuff I've found to be really good.
The GC site for the figures linked with MFP I've found to be very strange - I think I see what they were attempting, but they misunderstood how MFP works so their side eating goal is flaked up.
Sometimes they'll send to MFP a daily burn and a workout, but they haven't increased their daily burn by the workout calories yet. Some lag time, then a sync later increases the daily burn correctly. Very odd. Likely my use of double devices.

People do report that double-workout from time to time being sent. Which will foul up the math MFP does to not double-count it - causes it to not be counted at all then.

heybales

daveredvette wrote: »

tuckerrj wrote: »

Yep, servings like "a banana" are wholly insufficient. Within the last month I've bought bananas that weigh 3.5 oz (87 calories) up to 6 oz (150 calories) each. A loosely packed cup of rice weighs approximately 6 oz. Pack it tightly and it' nearly 8 oz. Quite a margin for error. When I'm in a weight loss phase, I weigh EVERYTHING that goes in my mouth that has calories. It does make a difference.

thanks for input
I weighed the banana i ate this morning 75 grams(no peel) and also slice of bacon 36 grams uncooked.

Not sure if I can delete all food entries and start over

Ahh, make a note on the day you starting getting more accurate logging, when looking at stats just don't go prior to that day.

Also a suggestion related to how you use the Garmin.
If used as daily activity tracker and it sends a daily burn figure over since you've worn it - you can leave the workout calorie burns on MFP alone as the math is done correctly.

If you really don't want to use it as main watch and have on you - and only the workouts sync over, I'd adjust your activity level to match whatever it seems your non-exercise days are like.
And then you'll need to adjust the calorie burn of the synced workout on MFP. That should not sync back and change Garmin's workout, never has for me.
But since MFP is an add-on system rather than replace-only system like Garmin, the advice that was given about adding NET calorie burn for a workout applies.