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

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  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,352 Member
    I would never have said that I find my Fitbit motivating. Informational, yes but not especially inspiring. After being out of commission the last couple of weeks, I'm actually surprised at how annoyed I am that I haven't hit my hourly OR daily step goals!
  • sheahughes
    sheahughes Posts: 133 Member
    Replying to a couple comments here so please bear with me...
    1) @springlering62 regarding the friends requests, I've gotten more blank profile pic requests in the last month than I have in 2 years and I think it is because I am trying to be more active on the forums

    2) regarding the fitness trackers, I've had a couple Garmin Polar watches, one without HR (but used with chest strap) and another with HR, a couple fitbits (starting with the old school clip on your hip ones) which invariably ended up in the washing machine or drowned in the swimming pool (water resistance on the earlier watches was pretty terrible) and then a couple Garmins which are hands-down my preferred although pricey - my current VenuS cost me $650 AUD but it is worth it in the long run, they tend to last 5 or more years for me compared to less-than or just over 12 months on the fitbits. The only thing I don't like is having to stop tracking my activity/sleep to charge it! I see they now have solar charging options available but they were out of my price range.

    I like being able to track with GPS, I have the PulseOX turned off for extended battery life and I loooove hitting my step goal - I have been known to walk laps of my kitchen on stormy nights to get to 10000. I used to have the ever-increasing auto-goal as mentioned above but oh my goodness, there are only so many steps a person can do in a day and when it was trying to get me over 32K at one point (when I was a trolley collector/cleaner) I turned it over to the good old set point of 10k. These days I reach it at least 4 times a week, which is great considering I get 2.5-3k steps during my 9-5 job.

    I wish that Garmin would become compatible with an app called EquiLab, which you use on your phone to track your horses steps/strides/jumping etc so I could use my phone with my Pivo pod (its a video pod that tracks the horse with auto zooming etc) so I could gather ALL the data from my rides but I am happy to just count my hr/exertion levels while riding with my phone in the pod capturing all my crappy posture and good moments.

    I've found the call answer/decline feature pretty handy, my son called the other night while I was riding with gloves on and a silent phone but I was able to answer without trying to unglove in a hurry so that is cool too.

    3) regarding the WLAF mentioned, I always wondered why I was all rugged up and no one else was, now I know it's a *thing* and something to count as a victory when the scale drops a bit.
  • luxia2020
    luxia2020 Posts: 55 Member
    I just wanted to jump in and say a big thank you for this thread! I just found it and felt compelled to binge read all eleven pages before I go to bed for a good giggle before bedtime! Thanks to this, I feel more comfortable about how I've only been able to log for the past 100 days. I'm still unsure how to fiddle with the macros, so I feel more satiated works, but progress is progress! I need to keep reminding myself of that!

    I used to own a Fitbit watch. Then I found the allure of a Samsung Galaxy Active Watch. The thing does what my old Fitbit did and tells me what weird messages my friends have sent me without me needing to grab my phone off the charger from across the room. In addition, it works with Samsung Health to track everything finally in one convenient app while syncing with MFP! Perfect. However, is it a good motivator to get me moving from my sedentary lifestyle? That's much harder to say. I move when it tells me to move, but needing to move past even 1,000 steps on a typical day seems like an enormous challenge. Maybe it's time I write in workout sessions like someone suggested on an earlier page as I've started doing with everything else. :/
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,437 Member
    @sheahughes i salute- and thank -you for being more active on the forums. The one thing that kept me going was reading these boards, knowing I wasn’t alone, absorbing other peoples’ experiences, knowing they had the same frustrations as me.

    The Success Stories threads are still motivating for me, but, in maintenance now, the “I’m Back” posts are even more motivating.

    And I feel ya, hon. I can’t count the days when I’ve done laps inside the house, climbed on the exercise bike at 11pm, or done a hoochiecoo dance wearing nothing but the watch to close a ring.

    @luxia2020 does your tracker give you the option to automatically share workouts to your diary? Or you can log them by hand, although using their calculations seems to be less accurate.

  • pridesabtch
    pridesabtch Posts: 2,464 Member
    Thank you for this thread, I love reading it. You are honest and kind spirited with many helpful tips.

    If I'm scrubbing floors by hand I may count housecleaning, but it is very, very rare. House keeping is not my strong suit.

    Cooking I just laugh as I imagine them doing squats or jumping jacks while chopping veggies.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,437 Member
    edited November 2021
    pridesabtch wrote: »
    Thank you for this thread, I love reading it. You are honest and kind spirited with many helpful tips.

    If I'm scrubbing floors by hand I may count housecleaning, but it is very, very rare. House keeping is not my strong suit.

    Cooking I just laugh as I imagine them doing squats or jumping jacks while chopping veggies.

    Agree. If it’s something unusual like that (and it’s a hoot that we both get on hands and knees and scrub- you must have the same irritating cloudy engineered flooring as me!) but I’ve seen entries for “making beds”, “washing dishes” etc. To me, if you’re going to invest that much energy into fooling yourself, take a walk or something. Generally, those are the users who post for a few days or couple weeks and then you never hear from them again.

    And for you meal prep pets, who do a weeks worth of meals in one blow, I’m not talking to you, either.
  • luxia2020
    luxia2020 Posts: 55 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    @luxia2020 does your tracker give you the option to automatically share workouts to your diary? Or you can log them by hand, although using their calculations seems to be less accurate.

    I can choose to share workouts with MFP or log it manually. I just have it set to share steps but not adjust my calories automatically since my previous attempts ended pretty miserably because those "extra calories" really messed with my head.
  • Cheesy567
    Cheesy567 Posts: 1,186 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    pridesabtch wrote: »
    Thank you for this thread, I love reading it. You are honest and kind spirited with many helpful tips.

    If I'm scrubbing floors by hand I may count housecleaning, but it is very, very rare. House keeping is not my strong suit.

    Cooking I just laugh as I imagine them doing squats or jumping jacks while chopping veggies.

    I actually do sometimes do squats, lateral leg lifts, calf raises, or something like that while cooking. Why not? I still don't count it as exercise . . . . 😉

    “Coffee squats” to pass the time while it’s brewing 😄
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,826 Member
    Speculoos (or speculaas) is one of those things I take for granted, having easy access here. Luckily I do NOT have a sweet tooth 😁
  • dralicephd
    dralicephd Posts: 402 Member
    springlering62 wrote: »
    It’s all about meeeeeee today!
    I came home with gingerbread Lebkuchen, iced stars, chocolate dipped speculoos (yeah, spelling) cookies, peppermint bark, marzipan minis.

    My husband makes lebkuchen and pfeffernuesse every Christmas. mmmm.... I have a feeling that during the couple of Christmas weeks, I'm just going to have to move to maintenance calories. There's no way I'm missing out on those babies. :)

    Anyway, it's probably best to bring the hubby to the store with you during the holidays. Extra support is definitely needed in the yummy season. :)
  • ZoneFive
    ZoneFive Posts: 570 Member
    Lebkuchen. I will cross state lines for lebkuchen, so either I can't have it in the house, or I give it to my husband to dole out to me, or I just admit Christmas is here and I won't be sticking strictly to my daily routine. (I can ignore a lot of other things, but Contessa lebkuchen is not one of them.)
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,204 Member
    You had to bring up marzipan, didn't you? Mmmmmmarzipan.
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 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. And no.

    I currently have the Fitbit Charge 3, two upgrades from my original Flex. I like having the heart rate function in addition to step counting. I do aim to hit my 10K daily steps and there have been a few times I've been at 9900 ish and pacing the house just before bedtime to hit that goal. So it's somewhat motivating. On the other hand, recreational outdoor walking is about to end for the season and I won't get 10K again for a while and it doesn't bother me.

    There are various things you can log on Fitbit like food and water intake that I don't bother with. There's a "female health" logging/tracking area that doesn't apply since I don't have periods.

    I gave my old Flex to the SO and he liked it for a while but it kept falling off at work so he abandoned it.
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,437 Member
    “Somebody commented about my food diary! Can people see what I’m eating?” BL was in a bit of a panic.

    “Your diary is open to friends. They can see what you’ve eaten and what exercise you’ve recorded to your diary.”

    I didn’t tell him that I set his privacy settings this way, so that his bestest friend (me!) could monitor his diary. 😇

    “Someone posted ‘Yum!’ to my feed when I closed my diary. Why would they do that?!”

    “Maybe they liked your manly steak and potato for dinner. Maybe they liked that you enjoyed a slice of cherry pie? It’s not threatening. It’s just….yum.”

    You can choose your privacy level for your food diary from locked to everyone, to viewable only by friends, to public (anyone can see it).

    https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings

    Why would you want your diary to be visible?

    Members often ask for help, or complain that they’ve “plateaued”. If their diary is open to see, other users can do a quick review to see how and where they can tighten up on logging, if macros are out of kilter and changing them might perhaps cure the nibblies , or if there are substitutions that might help cut calories.

    Sometimes folks simply like to look at diaries of successful losers for ideas, or new foods or products to try.

    My diary is open, for better or for worse. Having mine open makes it simple for BL to copy or save meals straight from my account to his. This afternoon I made a loaf of bread. He simply copied the meal/recipe off of my diary, and then logged it, adding his portion of the loaf.

    Do you ever look at peoples diaries, and why?
  • sheahughes
    sheahughes Posts: 133 Member
    Sometimes I like to peek at a diary, it is really interesting to see what counts as a regular meal for someone on the opposite side of Australia (or the world). I've checked out diaries and then googled products, occasionally I have made a purchase based off someone's diary.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,826 Member
    Aside from people posting in the forums asking for advice, I look at my friends' diaries occasionally. Not so much for inspiration, but to get a general idea of their calorie intake, exercise burns,...

    My own diary is public, just in case anyone is interested, but at least half of it is in French or Dutch so probably not that interesting to most 😁
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/46417228#Comment_46417228

    I never look at others' diaries, nor is mine open to anyone.

    I've never been interested in weight loss so my diary isn't much use to someone who is. I log primarily for a) sodium and b) protein so unless you're a sodium-restricted Canadian pescetarian who leans heavily vegetarian, my diary isn't very helpful. And vice versa.

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member

    I've looked at someone's diary once because they asked for feedback. Otherwisw, nah. Mine stays closed because I log weirdly and nor most of what I eat, and I really am not interested in what other people are eating.

  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member

    Yeah, speaking of logging weirdly... I'm a lazy logger and I just add something in whatever meal it was last logged in whenever possible. So the other day it looked like I didn't eat any lunch because all my lunch foods were in my recent snacks, and that's where they got added.

    On trips I just log my morning protein for the sake of "logging in" to maintain my streak so there have been days at a time where it looks like I only ate 130 calories of protein, when in reality I was scarfing down 4000+ calories of restaurant food.

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    edited November 2021
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/46424194#Comment_46424194

    Yeah this is exactly the sort of thing I mean. I log wherever I last put the food/can find it closest. There's a lot of stuff I don't log at all - always my morning coffee, but when traveling or out for an event, that's it. I don't tend to log a lot of condiments, spices, or fruit veg anymore (personally). I'm pretty dialed in for the main part of my diet and let a LOT slide.


    This works for me but it is basically shorthand. if someone tried to use my diary as an actual eating guide they would DIE and I'd feel bad. If they'd took it literally they'd think I was going to die.

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