When should I start a maintenance diet?
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Sigh. That isn't how it works at all. Two people already informed you of this, yet you keep insisting. You say you're glad for the help, but it doesn't seem like you're actually taking it on board.I actually quite appreciate your comments. I'm just saying adding 500-1,000 calories per day doesn't seem to be the solution for how my body is reacting to caloric intake when I was actually gaining over a mere 90 calories extra; and as previously mentioned, not everyone reacts the same to the same scenario. Re: "there are 52 weeks in a year, not 60", I would assume the auto calculation would have rounded the number to 1. Thanks for your help..and I do appreciate it.6 -
Put very simply, if you weigh however much yourself, then eat a potato, then immediately weigh yourself again, you'd expect your total weight to increase temporarily by the weight of the potato because it's now inside you.
That doesn't mean your fat stores increased.
LOL. I guess, since you put it that way. I don't quite feel silly yet. I've never really taken calories and weight loss seriously before. This is all new to me, so truly count me a beginner.1 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
Sigh. That isn't how it works at all. Two people already informed you of this, yet you keep insisting. You say you're glad for the help, but it doesn't seem like you're actually taking it on board.I actually quite appreciate your comments. I'm just saying adding 500-1,000 calories per day doesn't seem to be the solution for how my body is reacting to caloric intake when I was actually gaining over a mere 90 calories extra; and as previously mentioned, not everyone reacts the same to the same scenario. Re: "there are 52 weeks in a year, not 60", I would assume the auto calculation would have rounded the number to 1. Thanks for your help..and I do appreciate it.
I appreciate the input. I guess that doesn't mean I'm reqired to agree.0 -
In this case it's not really a matter of opinion, but fact. You can't judge fat loss day by day by on your intake the previous fat, that's not how it works: because our weight is determined by more than just our fat mass. The water weight and food waste in our bodies fluctuates daily in higher numbers than the fat we lose or gain.
I've 'gained' 2 lbs after a day eating below my calorie goal, I've 'lost' 2 lbs after eating 1000 calories over maintenance, but my long term weight trend has been consistent based on my total intake over that longer period. 3 years of logging have taught me that.5 -
Yup, putting aside ALLLLL the other complicated biological functions, it takes food up to 3 days to fully pass through the digestive system. You can't think of it in terms of "I ate X calories yesterday, I weigh X lbs today, therefore eating X causes Y" because the truth is wildly more complex.6
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Alatariel75 wrote: »Yup, putting aside ALLLLL the other complicated biological functions, it takes food up to 3 days to fully pass through the digestive system. You can't think of it in terms of "I ate X calories yesterday, I weigh X lbs today, therefore eating X causes Y" because the truth is wildly more complex.
Good to know. I ate out (over 1,062 calories for supper) on the weekend including a fully loaded potato and cheesecake, but walked a lot more. Despite the fact I still had calories allowed for a snack at night (not much) I decided to not attempt a snack later. I ate a cabbage leaf (6 calories), and ended up with no significant fluctuation the next morning, but it kind of killed my losing streak. So I kind of gave up on trying to figure "me" out. I enjoyed my meal.0 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Yup, putting aside ALLLLL the other complicated biological functions, it takes food up to 3 days to fully pass through the digestive system. You can't think of it in terms of "I ate X calories yesterday, I weigh X lbs today, therefore eating X causes Y" because the truth is wildly more complex.
Good to know. I ate out (over 1,062 calories for supper) on the weekend including a fully loaded potato and cheesecake, but walked a lot more. Despite the fact I still had calories allowed for a snack at night (not much) I decided to not attempt a snack later. I ate a cabbage leaf (6 calories), and ended up with no significant fluctuation the next morning, but it kind of killed my losing streak. So I kind of gave up on trying to figure "me" out. I enjoyed my meal.
One thing that actually DOES show up on the scale the next day is sodium - and eating out generally means a bunch of it! I can see a 4lb "gain" the day after a salty meal, but the key is to know the cause and know it isn't a 'real' gain but a bloat gain. I can tell when I have a sodium bloat on because of the way my rings fit - my fingers make it very obvious. I have one today because I had a soy sauce heavy stir fry last night, now my rings are tight. I also know that it is temporary and will go away.
You can figure stuff out about "you" looking at a day to day result such as what sodium, or higher carbs does to your body and on the scale, but the absolute main thing is to remember that this doesn't represent fat loss. Your body doesn't hit the middle of the night, tally up what you ate and what you burned and shelve the excess as fat. It's a complicated, sometimes unfathomable process and letting a day to day fluctuation on the scale get to you, or derail you is self defeating.
I don't have one, but it would actually be really helpful if someone who has kept a daily Libra or similar tracking of their weight over a period of time would post it for you to look at - I've seen a few around but can't remember who has one, but it truly shows the day to day changes which are not reflecting of fat loss/gain.1 -
Alatariel75 wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »Yup, putting aside ALLLLL the other complicated biological functions, it takes food up to 3 days to fully pass through the digestive system. You can't think of it in terms of "I ate X calories yesterday, I weigh X lbs today, therefore eating X causes Y" because the truth is wildly more complex.
Good to know. I ate out (over 1,062 calories for supper) on the weekend including a fully loaded potato and cheesecake, but walked a lot more. Despite the fact I still had calories allowed for a snack at night (not much) I decided to not attempt a snack later. I ate a cabbage leaf (6 calories), and ended up with no significant fluctuation the next morning, but it kind of killed my losing streak. So I kind of gave up on trying to figure "me" out. I enjoyed my meal.
One thing that actually DOES show up on the scale the next day is sodium - and eating out generally means a bunch of it! I can see a 4lb "gain" the day after a salty meal, but the key is to know the cause and know it isn't a 'real' gain but a bloat gain. I can tell when I have a sodium bloat on because of the way my rings fit - my fingers make it very obvious. I have one today because I had a soy sauce heavy stir fry last night, now my rings are tight. I also know that it is temporary and will go away.
You can figure stuff out about "you" looking at a day to day result such as what sodium, or higher carbs does to your body and on the scale, but the absolute main thing is to remember that this doesn't represent fat loss. Your body doesn't hit the middle of the night, tally up what you ate and what you burned and shelve the excess as fat. It's a complicated, sometimes unfathomable process and letting a day to day fluctuation on the scale get to you, or derail you is self defeating.
I don't have one, but it would actually be really helpful if someone who has kept a daily Libra or similar tracking of their weight over a period of time would post it for you to look at - I've seen a few around but can't remember who has one, but it truly shows the day to day changes which are not reflecting of fat loss/gain.
This is one of mine from a time period where I was intentionally losing pretty slowly (around a pound a month or a little less). The mostly downhill-ish line is the statistical trend, the vertical lines connect daily weights to the trend, so the line-ends farthest from that trend line represent the daily weights. Yup, they bounce all over. When I was focusing on losing faster, the trend line was a bit smoother downhill, but the dailies still jumped around.
Dunno whether that helps or not.4 -
Unless you're weighing yourself on a scientific to the gram scale, it is physically impossible for any body scale on the general market to pick up on the body fat differences of 90 calories. If we take 3500 calroies=1pound, 90 calories is less than 1/2 of 1 ounce. 0.025 pound.
Our bodies are made up of cells, many of these cells can take in water inside their cell walls and store it - or release it - including your fat cells. Water = weight. In fact, the vast majority of cells in our body can hold onto water. Then we add in where things are in the digestive process, and when we weigh ourselves, actual fat is about the last thing you can see on a scale, and that only over time.
I'm about 20 pounds over my ideal weight, and I have seen scale-weight fluctuations of up to 7 pounds, and it is normal to have a ~3 pounds up or down over a week, every week, even when I'm eating the same, working out the same, and every outside factor is as controlled as possible.
From what I'm reading in your responses OP, probably the best way to overcome yo-yo dieting is to gain a much better (scientific) understanding of how your body works, and probably stay off the scale for a good long time since it seems like there is a very unhealthy relationship with that number without understanding (or fully comprehending) what makes up that number.
Eat properly, move more, track your foods, and stay away from the scale. Let your clothes do the talking. Take progress pictures in the same outfit every two weeks (front, side, back).
it seems like you may have a pretty unhealthy relationship with the numbers on the scale, which may be triggering a number of unhealthy and unsustainable responses on your conscious mind. There are a lot of people where the scale really is the worst enemy they have to good, healthy weight loss!5 -
@GloriaBJN ... are you feeling a little 'beat up' yet by all the helpful 'advice' your thread has gotten you? I hope you haven't turned black and blue from it all because I do believe it is all meant to be helpful. ... That said ... (personal reflection here) ..
... I can remember back a long time ago when I first started using this site to help me lose weight. ... I honestly thought I knew somethings about how the body worked and about nutrition but have to admit thinking about calories was new to me. In the past, when I wanted to lose weight it was food and quantity of food that I thought about. So, when I started reading all about calories, and macros and all the other stuff available on here, I started to get confused also. And, like you, I found myself trying to relate what I'd just eaten the day before to what I saw on the scale ... and, also like yourself, I found that there just wasn't any reliable or clear picture on it. ...
... Since that long ago time, I have learned much more about how our body actually uses the food we eat and how different foods affect my mood, hunger or satiety, bloating, weight loss over time, and my own relationship with food. I've also learned about how much I generally eat to feel satisfied, what foods I like the best that fit into my 'healthy eating' habits. Most importantly, I've learned that weight loss is not something that happens quickly or is static. ... Also that for me ... It works to take 'maintenance breaks' often because if I don't I tend to lose my motivation to stay away from specific trigger foods that I still struggle to eat very little of. Not so much because of their affect on my weight loss efforts but for they effect they have on things like my fasting glucose measurements, bloat, cravings, overeating on stuff.
Good luck to you ... The only advice I can offer you is to keep trying whatever you can think of that interests you as you find your OWN method of eating to support your goal of weight loss. It will be yours and it will work for you. Never give up.3 -
HoneyBadger302 wrote: »Unless you're weighing yourself on a scientific to the gram scale, it is physically impossible for any body scale on the general market to pick up on the body fat differences of 90 calories. If we take 3500 calroies=1pound, 90 calories is less than 1/2 of 1 ounce. 0.025 pound.
Our bodies are made up of cells, many of these cells can take in water inside their cell walls and store it - or release it - including your fat cells. Water = weight. In fact, the vast majority of cells in our body can hold onto water. Then we add in where things are in the digestive process, and when we weigh ourselves, actual fat is about the last thing you can see on a scale, and that only over time.
I'm about 20 pounds over my ideal weight, and I have seen scale-weight fluctuations of up to 7 pounds, and it is normal to have a ~3 pounds up or down over a week, every week, even when I'm eating the same, working out the same, and every outside factor is as controlled as possible.
From what I'm reading in your responses OP, probably the best way to overcome yo-yo dieting is to gain a much better (scientific) understanding of how your body works, and probably stay off the scale for a good long time since it seems like there is a very unhealthy relationship with that number without understanding (or fully comprehending) what makes up that number.
Eat properly, move more, track your foods, and stay away from the scale. Let your clothes do the talking. Take progress pictures in the same outfit every two weeks (front, side, back).
it seems like you may have a pretty unhealthy relationship with the numbers on the scale, which may be triggering a number of unhealthy and unsustainable responses on your conscious mind. There are a lot of people where the scale really is the worst enemy they have to good, healthy weight loss!
Ha. Thanks for the encouragement. I love my scale. I'm early in the game.0 -
@GloriaBJN ... are you feeling a little 'beat up' yet by all the helpful 'advice' your thread has gotten you? I hope you haven't turned black and blue from it all because I do believe it is all meant to be helpful. ... That said ... (personal reflection here) ..
... I can remember back a long time ago when I first started using this site to help me lose weight. ... I honestly thought I knew somethings about how the body worked and about nutrition but have to admit thinking about calories was new to me. In the past, when I wanted to lose weight it was food and quantity of food that I thought about. So, when I started reading all about calories, and macros and all the other stuff available on here, I started to get confused also. And, like you, I found myself trying to relate what I'd just eaten the day before to what I saw on the scale ... and, also like yourself, I found that there just wasn't any reliable or clear picture on it. ...
... Since that long ago time, I have learned much more about how our body actually uses the food we eat and how different foods affect my mood, hunger or satiety, bloating, weight loss over time, and my own relationship with food. I've also learned about how much I generally eat to feel satisfied, what foods I like the best that fit into my 'healthy eating' habits. Most importantly, I've learned that weight loss is not something that happens quickly or is static. ... Also that for me ... It works to take 'maintenance breaks' often because if I don't I tend to lose my motivation to stay away from specific trigger foods that I still struggle to eat very little of. Not so much because of their affect on my weight loss efforts but for they effect they have on things like my fasting glucose measurements, bloat, cravings, overeating on stuff.
Good luck to you ... The only advice I can offer you is to keep trying whatever you can think of that interests you as you find your OWN method of eating to support your goal of weight loss. It will be yours and it will work for you. Never give up.
Thanks nsk. I don't feel beat up at all. There's so much to learn and I asked for the help. Mostly what works for me is eating things I love - in moderation. If I crave something, I find somewhere to slot that in, and if it's a heavy calorie counter I'm careful to portion control and balance that with low calorie filler foods. A food scale is my friend (lol) and I consider not cheating on the true calories of a food to give my best success, but I'm early in the game and likely will tire of it eventually. I largely ignore the macros, but they offer a good guide and often stear me towards my next entry. My off limits food tends to be potato chips. They go down way too easy and don't satisfy unless I get lots.2 -
@GloriaBJN welcome to MFP and the boards. May you stick around long enough to absorb, learn and be successful, and, some day, laugh at the cabbage leaf as much as I now laugh and smh at some of the stuff I said and did myself when I first started.
You’re absolutely right. We come into the world of weight loss without a clue, beleiving things we think make common sense, only to have our bubbles burst on the roller coaster ride that follows.
Anyways, thank you for the best snort-laugh Ive enjoyed in ages. And I mean that in utmost sincerity. 😘
PS: your responders here have been among the best of the best. Just sayin’. They all speak from the been there done that pay it forward perspective.
Hugs and success to you!3 -
My advice to you would be, take the time to really read through these boards. (Not just this thread, but so many others especially the ones that get "stickied," or put to the top of the topic area, for having really good advice.) There's lots of good advice out there (and some bad), but the best thing I've read is that we each have to figure out what works for us individually--calories in, calories out, but there isn't one way to get there--some people want/need a lot of protein, others a lot of carbs... we need to learn habits to maintain.1
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