At Goal & Successfully Maintaining. So Why Am I Doing This All Over Again?

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  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,662 Member
    We did a grocery shop today, before BL heads out. Interesting experience. Both of us turning packages over, walking away from most.

    Me, because I’m on a mission to increase protein, and am label-looking in lame hopes of finding a magic bullet.

    Him, because he’s in the learning stage, and the more nutrition labels you familiarize yourself with, the better your chances of success.

    I call that the Wow Stage. As in, “Wow! That (insert thing I used to eat by the bag full) has how many calories?!”

    I still experience that, btw. I had a handful of Dunkin Munchkins last weekend, and nearly fell off the sofa when I went to log those suckers. My record Wow moment, though, was logging some wings I ate at a party catered by Hooters. Ye Gods.

    He’s still doing well. Declined dessert tonight because he opted to eat his whole half of the homemade pizza. He’s hanging in there, and also picking up some additional steps walking our new dog, Bean.

    BTW, he’s making suggestions for the grocery list these days. 😱 That NEVER happened before!

    After months of turning his nose up at my wraps, he has decided CarbSmart tortillas are the greatest thing since, uh, sliced bread. 45 calories for a generous sized flour tortilla, and I defy you to taste any difference between it and a “regular” flour tortilla.

    So when the package of CarbSmarts dwindles down, he reminds me. He also got mad Kraft discontinued their very good low fat Mayo, and sat down and researched a replacement. I’m ordering some Walden Farms to try at his request, since I need to replenish their honey mustard and honey balsamic dressings anyway, and we can only find them online. BTW, their chocolate syrup is pretty darn good, and he likes their ketchup and pancake syrup. Almost all their products are zero calorie.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    FYI - I found that CarbSmarts spiked my blood glucose suspiciously high, to the point that I wrote to the company about it. I don’t trust their package info. Has your husband been testing after eating them? It may just be a me thing, but take the stated nutritional info with a grain of salt.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,662 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    FYI - I found that CarbSmarts spiked my blood glucose suspiciously high, to the point that I wrote to the company about it. I don’t trust their package info. Has your husband been testing after eating them? It may just be a me thing, but take the stated nutritional info with a grain of salt.

    He doesn’t check his levels daily. Lets his doctor check his A1C. He says he hasn’t noticed any issues, though, and he has been eating a couple a day.

    I do often wonder about labeling, though. I love a particular brand of chicken sausage that was listed at 60 calories each for a couple years and suddenly jumped to 110. And it puzzles me how plain fat free cottage cheese can be 60/serving at one store and 90 at the next for same ingredients and serving size/grams. Ditto fat free yogurt and fat free half and half. There’s a 20% range between brands.
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 402 Member
    Thanks @springlering62 for this thread. I've really enjoyed reading through the journey and all the thoughtful advice.

    Congrats to your hubby on the NSV! I recently was able to get into some pants that were unwearable 3 months ago. It's a good feeling.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,662 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    FYI - I found that CarbSmarts spiked my blood glucose suspiciously high, to the point that I wrote to the company about it. I don’t trust their package info. Has your husband been testing after eating them? It may just be a me thing, but take the stated nutritional info with a grain of salt.

    I realized today we are actually eating the La Banderita Carb Counter tortillas. Changed over when our local Lidl began carrying them dirt cheap. Been very happy with themcdjx2s94ykpq.jpeg
    od9m6iuyj0x3.jpeg
  • SavageMrsMoose
    SavageMrsMoose Posts: 631 Member
    Absolutely love this thread! You an your husband are amazing!
  • ridiculous59
    ridiculous59 Posts: 2,910 Member
    Thanks for reminding me about that NSV thread! When I was losing I had it bookmarked and always enjoyed the positive posts, especially on those days that I was struggling. I haven't looked at it for a few years and just took a peek at it now. Yep, it's still the same and I've bookmarked it again :)
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,726 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    ...

    Anyway, this new dog will walk it off me in a matter of no time. I don’t understand how a dog with six inch legs can pound pavement for miles a day, and go berserk with joy at the thought of yet another walk.

    That’s how WE should be about exercise.

    Love that thought! Brought a needed smile to my face. Thank you for the observation.

  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,662 Member
    Lmao that MFP filters archaic terms involving roosters as profanity.
  • lesdarts180
    lesdarts180 Posts: 3,101 Member
    Ha Ha - I read the phrase "kitten-a-hoop" without registering it as a MFP correction, I just assumed it was a strange Americanism that I didn't know about. (I'm a Brit, but my American DIL and I frequently have conversations about the differences in language)
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 402 Member
    haha... I kept trying to replace kitten with various cuss words and none of them seemed correct. Thanks for clarifying! lol

    I love hearing about your husband's progress! Sorry about your daughter's reaction.
  • frankwbrown
    frankwbrown Posts: 13,183 Member
    @springlering62, fitness trackers are great motivators!

    I have a similar story to yours, @Lietchi .
    I started my weight loss journey in July 2020. I have a Garmin 6x Pro, which was expensive but nevertheless a good investment in my personal health. When I started, I had to rely on swimming and stationary cycling, because walking was just too hard for me. This past October, I managed for the first time to hit 300,000 steps for the month (I actually exceeded that my a good margin)!
    I love the challenges and badges Garmin give me. They provide me with a little extra motivation, and that's something I need apparently. This past week, I reached level 4.
    Unfortunately, my VO2max is fairly poor and hasn't changed much at all. It was only 23 last December, and it's only 28 now. That, despite the fact that I've been swimming 1 mile+ 5-6 days/week for 6 months now.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »

    Do you have a fitness tracker? Are you utilizing it to the best of your ability? What can it do that you have you haven’t taken advantage of?

    Yes, no, I don't know. I know it does quite a bit of stuff that I *shouldn't* take advantage of, because it's clearly not very accurate. (Sleep tracking is *hilarious*. Stress tracking, for me, is completely incomprehensible, though others say it has meaningful patterns for them.)

    I don't find my tracker particularly motivational, but I'm pretty sure that makes me a weirdo. I do sometimes find it affirming, which to me is a different thing from motivation: What I mean is that I enjoy seeing the after-stats for some things, like how many exercise calories I've burned in the past month/year, or what its wild guess at my VO2max is, how fast we rowed with a particular lineup in the boat. Sometimes it's guiding, as in helping me make a workout hit the benchmarks I'm going for in terms of speed, HR zones, distance, or whatever.

    I like it the device lot, but mainly because I'm a data geek. Before fitness trackers were the common thing, I was using a GPS-based device (early Garmin Forerunner, not a 24/7 wearable) plus a Polar chest belt & watch (HR stats, not steps), plus a specialized rowing strokes-per-minute counter, to track workouts, monitoring performance and fitness stats (speed, distance, pace, resting HR, HR recovery, etc.). It's nice to have those data better time-correlated, and get some other stats in that mix besides.

    I don't try to get any particular number of steps (my main exercise is not steps based, and I have cr*p knees), so steps can vary from under 3000 to well over 15000. It's academically interesting, but not motivating.

    I feel some motivation to create a "bias toward movement" in my life and habits, but the tracker doesn't reflect that terribly well. There are various kinds of movement it doesn't really see, and my reasons for some of that movement are not calorie burn, but rather life-improvement in other ways (flexibility or balance, for example).
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,662 Member
    edited November 2021
    Y’all’s feedback is truly interesting. BL is a retired analyst and spreadsheet master for an international beverage company. I don’t know why I didn’t expect him to glom onto the watch data. He’s been so disinterested until he got one on his wrist.

    In two days it’s already unleashing his inner statistician, which is good and bad. He’s already increased his steps pretty dramatically, but is downright angry that Tai Chi doesn’t get more activity points. (Dude, first of all, you have to “start” the workout. Second of all, you’ve got to find a similar workout category. Third of all, his supportive wife has been in this Tai Chi class many times and very nearly poked my eyeballs out from boredom. I don’t expect many calories burned although I can see how it helps with balance and joint movement.)

    It does become easy to obsess over digital rewards and challenges. I had to stop doing Apple Watch group challenges for months because I’d find myself heatedly screaming at anonymous teammates “put the damn watch on your wrist!!!!” And the individual challenge turned into floods of tears when I came down with Covid the last few days of one and dropped
    to a much lower score.

    I sincerely wish Apple, in their zeal to prod me to improve my health, would recognize the need to build in rest days.

    And their algorithms to encourage you to improve
    are laughable. They snowball with success.

    This is my challenge for November:

    3el9do7qvznm.png
  • goal06082021
    goal06082021 Posts: 2,130 Member
    Deanner03 wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »

    Do you have a fitness tracker? Are you utilizing it to the best of your ability? What can it do that you have you haven’t taken advantage of?

    I love my Apple Watch. I track my steps, exercise, etc., and try to close those rings every day.

    What I THOUGHT I'd use it for was the above items. What I REALLY end up using it for most often is to ping my phone because I can't find it.

    Find-my-phone and speech-to-text were the two main things I used my Pebble Round for. I'm still mad that Fitbit bought Pebble and, rather than continue to support existing Pebble users, told us all to pound sand with our $200 devices and cannibalized the firmware for their latest offerings.

    I don't even WANT a fitness tracker, I just want wrist-mounted texting, find-my-phone, and audio controls that looks just a tiny bit fashionable or professional. Apple watches are ugly and everything on the market for non-iPhones is uglier. There, I said it.
  • ridiculous59
    ridiculous59 Posts: 2,910 Member
    edited November 2021
    I used to use the Samsung Health app on my old phone and/or mapmywalk to track my steps, but like someone else said, it compelled you to always carry your phone, which was inconvenient for movement around the house or office. I spent most of my working day on a computer and I found that wearing a watch of any kind bothered my wrist so I had no desire for a fitness tracker.

    But then I retired. And my daughter bought me the most basic of Fitbit models for my birthday. I wear it all the time. Like I said, it's the most basic model so doesn't have all the capabilities that your fancy ones have, but it tracks my steps like a champ. Just about every day I reach my goal of 10,000 steps. Lots of days I hit closer to 20,000 (the days I walk my dogs AND walk with my friends). I like having confirmation that I'm doing something right. Especially on those days when I feel like my eating was a big fat fail. I can look at my watch at bedtime and despite consuming half a bottle of wine, an entire Ritter chocolate bar, and a plate of some kind of sticky wings, I can tell myself "Well at least you got 12,000 steps.......".

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