At Goal & Successfully Maintaining. So Why Am I Doing This All Over Again?
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goal06082021 wrote: »I've heard that you can copy meals out of your friend's diaries into your own, but I've never tried to do it so I don't know if that's true.
Yes, you can set a meal to be “public” “share with friends” or “private”. Do the database a favor and keep it to your friends or yourself.
There isn’t a way to share recipes though. It’s something requested rather frequently on the suggestions board it seems.
You are able to go back and edit meals, though. And you can always have extra entries in a meal that you delete. I’ll use a meal for frequent items that fall out of my history list sometimes; I have one called “use these chicken entries” that has all the USDA chicken entries I use, raw and roasted, so I don’t have to waste time searching. I’ll enter that meal if I need to, and delete the ones I don’t need, if something has fallen out of my recent history.
I entered a meal and we both searched the database for it, but neither of us could find it in the database.
So I uploaded it to my feed. He was able to drill down, “capture” and save the meal, and I deleted the post from my feed.
The meal was called Thaicoon Teriyaki Sushi Box Lunch Special
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Can't he just directly look at your diary and then copy from there?1
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Hmmmmmm. We’re having a math crisis here and my brain is shutting down.
I always eat 1/3 batch of pancakes.
BL only likes to eat 1/4.
If I eat 1/4, it’s not quite enough to fill me up, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make 1.16 of a recipe so we can each have a breakfast with the leftovers the next morning.
I mean, I haven’t even had my coffee yet when I start the batter…….advanced math is beyond my capabilities at that point.
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Can't he just directly look at your diary and then copy from there?
He has been, but so many recipes have a lot of ingredients. It’s tedious.
Saturday will be homemade fajitas with black beans and Trader Joe’s fire roasted corn. That’s over twelve ingredients right there.
I figure the easier I can make this, the more he’ll hang in there.
OTOH I’ve stopped entering meals for him. When he has to do it himself, he has a much better appreciation of, “oh, golly, that was 500 calories of pasta I chose to have”.
He was sitting down yesterday entering his lunch at weekly Kiwanis meeting, which is a buffet at the local Hilton.
When he entered his salad dressing he was shocked. 170 calories. So next week he plans to take a pill bottle with some Walden Farms dressing in it. We have a friend who has done that for years for trivia, and he always thought it was peculiar. Now he understands.
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@springlering62 I “captured” your breakfast today as a meal, edited it to delete the coffee, and entered it as breakfast tomorrow. See if that looks right as your pancake recipe.
You can capture a meal at once if you click on the ellipsis by the meal. Saves the time of doing it an entry at a time
You could enter the meal for the both of you as a full recipe, then have BL save it on his account too. When you enter the meal, it gives the option to alter the “serving” of the meal (I checked this morning). So, you could enter the 1/3 and BL could enter the 1/4 serving each time you enter it.
I couldn’t find the meal you had listed by search, either. You could try searching for some of my meals, I use the imaginary brand “SJK” or “SJK’s” or “SJK’s own” on my recipes and meals- search for those and see if anything comes up for you. You might have to see that you’re on the meals tab in the search field, at least in the iOS app.1 -
@springlering62 I “captured” your breakfast today as a meal, edited it to delete the coffee, and entered it as breakfast tomorrow. See if that looks right as your pancake recipe.
You can capture a meal at once if you click on the ellipsis by the meal. Saves the time of doing it an entry at a time
You could enter the meal for the both of you as a full recipe, then have BL save it on his account too. When you enter the meal, it gives the option to alter the “serving” of the meal (I checked this morning). So, you could enter the 1/3 and BL could enter the 1/4 serving each time you enter it.
I couldn’t find the meal you had listed by search, either. You could try searching for some of my meals, I use the imaginary brand “SJK” or “SJK’s” or “SJK’s own” on my recipes and meals- search for those and see if anything comes up for you. You might have to see that you’re on the meals tab in the search field, at least in the iOS app.
Oh ho! You are a genie-yous that works!
Re: the fractional breakfast, that won’t work, though. If I have .33 and he has .25, that leaves .42 for breakfast and that math don’t work for nobody, or leaves an odd man out and I have to cook again for one or the other of us. I guess I’ll have to copy the meal, make it 1.16 servings, increase the bisquick, eggs, etc to wierd amounts. Can’t increase the cake mix. It’s “fi-nite” unless I crack open a new box.0 -
Oh, gotcha! Do you have a standard recipe thats “close enough” in ratios, that you know makes a “1.0” to go off of? Like, you could make it for 100gm servings, and the meal “serving” equates to that 100gm?
Pancakes are hard though, you have to tweak the batter just so.
That’s where the meal function lacks compared to the recipe function, and it would be so nice to just be able to share the recipe.
I guess you could log one full serving of a recipe on your account and have him capture that, and then adjust? How does that work? The “slaw” entry yesterday on mine is a recipe if you want to play around with that and see what happens0 -
Just found this thread. Thanks for sharing your/your BL's journey. Way to go for both of you! It does sound like the training wheels are coming off for him as he's been learning from you!
My husband is low-carb and has had success with that. My stomach didn't appreciate that program after 6-9 months and I'm eating more plant-based and no meat. It's the first time in our 31 years together that our meals can be very different. Whatever works!
Wishing you both the best!2 -
Oh, gotcha! Do you have a standard recipe thats “close enough” in ratios, that you know makes a “1.0” to go off of? Like, you could make it for 100gm servings, and the meal “serving” equates to that 100gm?
Pancakes are hard though, you have to tweak the batter just so.
That’s where the meal function lacks compared to the recipe function, and it would be so nice to just be able to share the recipe.
I guess you could log one full serving of a recipe on your account and have him capture that, and then adjust? How does that work? The “slaw” entry yesterday on mine is a recipe if you want to play around with that and see what happens
Maybe I’m confusing you. Logging it is fine. We just change the quantity of complete meal (shown as 1 serving) to .26 servings for him, .33 for me.
What’s muddling my head is since in the course of 2 days, I'd prefer to eat .33 + .33 and he eats .25 and .25, it’s a PITA to convert the recipe ingredients to 1.16. It was so beautifully easy to make using exactly 1/3 a box of cake mix. At least the egg I can supplement with liquid egg white, lol. Greatest invention since sliced bread, btw.1 -
springlering62 wrote: »Oh, gotcha! Do you have a standard recipe thats “close enough” in ratios, that you know makes a “1.0” to go off of? Like, you could make it for 100gm servings, and the meal “serving” equates to that 100gm?
Pancakes are hard though, you have to tweak the batter just so.
That’s where the meal function lacks compared to the recipe function, and it would be so nice to just be able to share the recipe.
I guess you could log one full serving of a recipe on your account and have him capture that, and then adjust? How does that work? The “slaw” entry yesterday on mine is a recipe if you want to play around with that and see what happens
Maybe I’m confusing you. Logging it is fine. We just change the quantity of complete meal (shown as 1 serving) to .26 servings for him, .33 for me.
What’s muddling my head is since in the course of 2 days, I'd prefer to eat .33 + .33 and he eats .25 and .25, it’s a PITA to convert the recipe ingredients to 1.16. It was so beautifully easy to make using exactly 1/3 a box of cake mix. At least the egg I can supplement with liquid egg white, lol. Greatest invention since sliced bread, btw.
I see now! I don’t know how to fix that, other than scaling way up and freezing them, maybe? Or switching your portions to 1/4 plus a something to round out your breakfast— an egg? Extra fruit? Change is hard. Math is fun but not at breakfast.
Maybe make equal parts, and just steal a bite off his?😂
Love the extent to which you’re going for BL, definitely setting him up for success.4 -
springlering62 wrote: »...I leaned in hard on doc’s words and whispered sultrily,”and I want Beloved by my side for as many more years as possible.”
@mickirom - another one who refers to her husband as her "Beloved"!
@springlering62 - this is a really inspirational post. I love your before and after photo!
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BL is making progress. His hips are noticeably trimmer. (I know, it sucks, doesn’t it, ladies? Seems so much faster and more obvious for men! Although every guy here is going to dispute that. Maybe it’s like pregnancy.
Your’s lasted forevvvvver. Hers is like, “Congratulations ! Nine months already?!”)
BL, of course, wants his stomach to go down.
Y’all. It don’t work like that.
Repeat after me the famous MFP mantra: “You can’t control where your loss occurs...” no matter how frustrating, how hard you wish, how oftenyou knead punch or poke your fat ring (that’d be me), or try “targeted exercises”.11 -
I just read through this thread and I love it so much! Glad you guys are working together on this and best wishes for your BL's continued success!
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springlering62 wrote: »BL is making progress. His hips are noticeably trimmer. (I know, it sucks, doesn’t it, ladies? Seems so much faster and more obvious for men! Although every guy here is going to dispute that. Maybe it’s like pregnancy.
Your’s lasted forevvvvver. Hers is like, “Congratulations ! Nine months already?!”)
right? whats the meme? something to the effect of ...
husband stops drinking (soda, beer, whatever) loses 20 pounds in a month
wife cuts out soda, bread, carbs, sugar, everything but vegetables and fish and loses 2 pounds in 6 months
sounds about right
LOLOLOL11 -
My husband is low-carb and has had success with that. My stomach didn't appreciate that program after 6-9 months and I'm eating more plant-based and no meat. It's the first time in our 31 years together that our meals can be very different. Whatever works!
This is basically our dilemma too. The SO is now pre-diabetic and his dr has him on 100 carbs max daily until his next appointment. I am pescetarian and consume a LOT of fruit, veg and legumes.
I made him an account on here years ago when he first wanted to lose weight. The big problem is that he lives at his job site 50% of the time and eats cafeteria style so he has to guesstimate meals. He has no clue about portion sizes, plus he had a tendency to choose database entries with the lowest calories to make the numbers fit his calorie goal. Needless to say, it wasn't a success.
He's not logging this time around but at least he is more motivated to lower his blood sugar. Fortunately he's accustomed to weighing my food, at least the protein part of a meal. I've told him repeatedly that he has to weigh for accuracy, not eyeball portion size.
We went for semi fast food (local burger joint) last week. He commented that he thought he was close to his limit of 100. I pulled up some comparable database entries for his meal and the carbs totalled 114. Yeah, sorry dude, you're OVER from just that one meal. He still has a lot to learn.
I'm happy that Spring's BL is cluing in a lot faster!4 -
I just want to know. Was that Mr @ythannah who disagreed? 😂
So every Sunday morning we go to the local gourmet doughnut shop for Apple fritters. Last week we overslept and by the time we got there at 9:30, they were (gasp!!!!) sold out. Our NSV last week was that we just turned around and left, and just came home and made pancakes.
Today, BL set the alarm for 6 am on a freaking Sunday and we were standing at the door waiting for them to unlock. The young lady who always waits on us pointed to a giant mound of Apple fritters. “We’re ready for you today”, she grinned.
Well guess what he did when we got home?
He cut it in half!!!! “This way I can have fritter for four mornings and it won’t be as many calories”.
(He always buys an extra for Monday breakfast. )
A Win/Win, yet a No-No at the same time.
This prompted a discussion of under-eating, which I already see I’m going to have to go all Nurse Ratched about. (Personally, I prefer Hello Nurse.)
He volunteers Sundays at an aviation museum and generally takes a token sandwich in a bag, which he may or may not have time to eat between giving tours.
After some argument and whining (me, not him), he agreed half a fritter probably wouldn’t hold him til dinner time, so he scrambled some egg whites and got some cooked bacon out of the freezer.
BTW thanks to @Cheesy567 for the help sorting out sharing meals. We had our first go at it last night with nachos.
But even better, now that the Cheesy convo finally made me figure out how to look at food diaries, I can snoop his to see if he’s eating and he’ll never even know. Bwahahaha……..
We’ll forgo the “snooping” and call it “preemptive loving care”.
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I see you have some gym equipment in what looks like your garage. Do you have a recommendation for the single most useful piece or set of equipment for weight LOSS? Even better, do you have a specific suggestion for equipment or a website, book, blog, Pinterest, whatever to guide me in doing bodyweight exercises? My exercise goals will be different once I get to my final weight goal, but right now burning calories is my primary goal. I'm saving bodyweight exercises on my Pinterest page as I see them, but it's already too many and probably not at all balanced.
Tell your husband that lots of members are pulling for him! 1 -
I find it fascinating that your husband is learning so quickly. I told my husband in February that he needed to be getting some physical activity, because I don't want him to die. He did start riding our stationary bike and now he rides it for an hour almost every day. I'm really proud of him! His diet is a different thing. His meals are healthier and fewer cals than we used to eat. Unfortunately, he snacks on chips after I go to bed at night. He's learned how to use the food scale, because he measures food for me sometimes. The other night he said he weighed his chips before he ate them. That's progress, but it sure is slow progress!11
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springlering62 wrote: »I just want to know. Was that Mr @ythannah who disagreed? 😂
If his account was still active, I'm sure he would!
He never bothered with the forums last time, although he knows I participate.
Yay for securing the apple fritters!!3 -
I’m not trying to come off as a smart *kitten*, but the single best set of equipment you have is your feet.I see you have some gym equipment in what looks like your garage. Do you have a recommendation for the single most useful piece or set of equipment for weight LOSS? Even better, do you have a specific suggestion for equipment or a website, book, blog, Pinterest, whatever to guide me in doing bodyweight exercises? My exercise goals will be different once I get to my final weight goal, but right now burning calories is my primary goal. I'm saving bodyweight exercises on my Pinterest page as I see them, but it's already too many and probably not at all balanced.
Tell your husband that lots of members are pulling for him!
As long as they are in working order you can walk, power walk, run, squat, plank, dance, and with the addition of a cheap piece of rope you can jump rope.
The second best piece of equipment is a pair of professionally fitted shoes for whichever of the above you choose to do.
Having someone analyze my gait and put me in comfortable walking and running shoes (they’re different- who knew? Not me!) was worth every penny.
My trainer owns a competitive powerlifting gym, but will tell you straight up that walking- particularly power walking- is the best exercise you can do. She does seven miles at the crack of dawn before she even comes in to the gym.
My (very personal) third and fourth pieces of equipment are a quality mat if you like mat type exercises, and good but cheap earbuds for listening to podcasts. (Cheap because they go through the laundry, fall through grates, get lost until the cat manages to find and turn it into a cat toy, etc)
Sorry, I have a great gym and yoga study within easy walking distance, so the only online classes I’ve done are zoom classes by local instructors during lockdown. (It was very comforting to be able to have my usual classes and voices.) There’s lots of good threads here about various online sources, or you can ask over on the fitness and exercise board and people will reply quickly with suggestions.
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I find it fascinating that your husband is learning so quickly. I told my husband in February that he needed to be getting some physical activity, because I don't want him to die. He did start riding our stationary bike and now he rides it for an hour almost every day. I'm really proud of him! His diet is a different thing. His meals are healthier and fewer cals than we used to eat. Unfortunately, he snacks on chips after I go to bed at night. He's learned how to use the food scale, because he measures food for me sometimes. The other night he said he weighed his chips before he ate them. That's progress, but it sure is slow progress!
I know exactly what you mean. You reach a certain age and realize what a precious but limited resource they are and you get all maudlin.
That, and some of your friends are on Tinder or Match and you think to yourself,”ugh…..I think I’ll see if I can eke the known quantity out a few years longer”. 😇
I have hopes for Mr. Spring. He’s typically averages about 3-4,000 steps a day, but crowed to me yesterday that he’d gotten 17,000 three days in a row preparing our local 9/11 commemorative event. I think he’s eyeing increasing his steps on a regular basis, after realizing he wasn’t moving as much as he thought. It’ll be interesting to see if rode the golf cart giving tours today or elected to walk. 🤞🏻
Field of Flags event. A flag for each victim of 9/11. The procession was beautiful to behold. Flags will be up at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park through 9-17.21 -
That picture is so beautiful!!5
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Not sure I’d call it beautiful. Poignant, definitely, but beautiful? Each of those flags represents a life lost in the name of terrorism.
That’s not beauty.4 -
I still think visually that a sea of flags is beautiful, even though I agree the reason for this sea of flags is not.18
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BL always eats his salad first, which makes me nuts. Why eat a cold dish while your hot food cools?
But lately we’ve started eating our salads while the rest finishes up cooking. Guess what?! Having that salad first fills me up before the main course is served.
Sheer genius.
Sometimes rethinking ingrained habits is really effective.
BTW, our little salads are awesome, nutritious, quick to make and hardly any calories. Nothing elaborate. Half a bag of mixed greens and three ounces of cherry tomatoes, with some Walden Farms Honey Dijon dressing. A healthy sized , filling side dish for about 30 calories.
I am muchly amused by BL reading the packaging and marveling at all the vitamins in mixed greens.
Suddenly, my annoying salads are AOK.19 -
BL drove downtown yesterday to meet some relatives who were passing through town, for lunch. They selected a famous local landmark, renowned for delicious but extraordinarily greasy food. We’re talking, their claim to fame is serving food literally dripping with grease.
He carefully studied the menu before he left the house, and chose a plain hotdog and onion rings, remembering that the CookOut chain’s rings are pretty reasonable calories. Once he got there though, he quickly realized these rings were three or four times the calories and quickly changed plans.
He came home and proudly announced he’d had two “naked dogs walking” and a Diet Coke, for under 500 calories.
He flirted with the idea of chili dogs, but was miffed that “that would have doubled the calories”. He was surprised it’d be so easy to burn through his calories with a few tablespoons of their chili (probably because their chili is also famously greasy.)
Points for temptation avoidance and preplanning chutzpah!!!!
BTW, he worked almost next door to this famous venue for many decades, so I know this took a particular kind of manly willpower.
(Disclaimer: Photo stolen randomly from the internet and is not representative of his calorie consumption. 😇)11 -
Cookout onion rings are my favorite things, ever, because they're so relatively low calorie and still give me fried foods.
...I used to like hotdogs. Then decided I didn't like them enough for the calories. I just tend to find whatever the jr burger is in most places and throw on lettuce and tomato and am much happier.
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That is an amazing turn around for him. Kudos to his extraordinary dedication to his mission! Sir, we salute you!
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springlering62 wrote: »BL logged an hour fitness class using the MFP “add exercise” function. MFP calculated 794 calories burned. Huh?!
Adding a Tai Chi class was good for 450+.
No way, Jose. I’ve done that class with him many times and I can’t see it.
I think this explains some of the puzzlingly super high calorie burns reported by some of my MFP friends on their automated feeds.
MFP is set up for you to eat your exercise calories back. Many users buffer reporting errors by eating half of them. But if your exercise calories are wonky, you can see the problem.
If you feel like you’ve plateaued or aren’t losing fast enough, take a look at your calorie burns and ask here on the forums or one of your trusted, more experienced “friends” if the calorie burn looks accurate. You can PM any linked friend if you’re too shy to ask publicly. The other users here are so good about answering and sharing.
Better yet, invest in a fitness tracker. There’s tons out there at all price points, or you can buy used ones off Marketplace, etc. Borrow one from a friend or family member and give it a test run.
It’s pretty easy to connect and sync a tracker with MFP and let technology do the work* for you.
We are waiting for the Apple Watch 7 launch in a couple weeks to see how we’ll add to and shuffle our trackers. (Holding our breath to to see if the rumored sugar monitoring will finally be a reality.)
BL has pooh-pooh’ed the value of a tracker until now (he’s silently muttered “obsessive” under his breath at me more than once). Now he “gets” the value of accurately recording his calories.
(*some trackers require a break-in period to sorta learn your metabolism and habits before they become as potentially accurate as they may be. That’s my simple explanation.
Oh, and you’ll also discover trackers generally report far fewer calories than the calculators built into gym equipment. My own watch records 1/3 fewer calories burned than the treadmill at my gym, even when I do take the time to enter my age and weight prior to starting a session. My watch even calculates about 20% less than my own home stationary bike, which has been exclusively used by me.)
Yes, when I used the entry "Weight training, free weights" I was puzzled about the numerous posts that said lifting weights didn't burn many calories, because I sure got a lot from that entry. I asked about it, and switched to "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" which earns about 60% of the calories
I garden a lot and "Gardening, general" gives a hefty amount of calories, but I only use it if I've been doing heavy work like digging with a shovel. I use two other custom entries for lighter gardening.4 -
kshama2001 wrote: »springlering62 wrote: »BL logged an hour fitness class using the MFP “add exercise” function. MFP calculated 794 calories burned. Huh?!
Adding a Tai Chi class was good for 450+.
No way, Jose. I’ve done that class with him many times and I can’t see it.
I think this explains some of the puzzlingly super high calorie burns reported by some of my MFP friends on their automated feeds.
MFP is set up for you to eat your exercise calories back. Many users buffer reporting errors by eating half of them. But if your exercise calories are wonky, you can see the problem.
If you feel like you’ve plateaued or aren’t losing fast enough, take a look at your calorie burns and ask here on the forums or one of your trusted, more experienced “friends” if the calorie burn looks accurate. You can PM any linked friend if you’re too shy to ask publicly. The other users here are so good about answering and sharing.
Better yet, invest in a fitness tracker. There’s tons out there at all price points, or you can buy used ones off Marketplace, etc. Borrow one from a friend or family member and give it a test run.
It’s pretty easy to connect and sync a tracker with MFP and let technology do the work* for you.
We are waiting for the Apple Watch 7 launch in a couple weeks to see how we’ll add to and shuffle our trackers. (Holding our breath to to see if the rumored sugar monitoring will finally be a reality.)
BL has pooh-pooh’ed the value of a tracker until now (he’s silently muttered “obsessive” under his breath at me more than once). Now he “gets” the value of accurately recording his calories.
(*some trackers require a break-in period to sorta learn your metabolism and habits before they become as potentially accurate as they may be. That’s my simple explanation.
Oh, and you’ll also discover trackers generally report far fewer calories than the calculators built into gym equipment. My own watch records 1/3 fewer calories burned than the treadmill at my gym, even when I do take the time to enter my age and weight prior to starting a session. My watch even calculates about 20% less than my own home stationary bike, which has been exclusively used by me.)
Yes, when I used the entry "Weight training, free weights" I was puzzled about the numerous posts that said lifting weights didn't burn many calories, because I sure got a lot from that entry. I asked about it, and switched to "Strength training (weight lifting, weight training)" which earns about 60% of the calories
I garden a lot and "Gardening, general" gives a hefty amount of calories, but I only use it if I've been doing heavy work like digging with a shovel. I use two other custom entries for lighter gardening.
Oh god, the calorie estimate burns on 'hiking - cross country' and 'hiking - < 10lbs pack ' are INSANE. If I'm doing a lot of elevation changes and really rough terrain, okay, I'll take them but I probably did not in fact earn twice (or more!) the calories of walking at a similar pace, walking in the woods for an hour with some minor elevation changes and avoiding roots and rocks.1
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