Can you kindly look at my food diary for logging errors?
Replies
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Sorry, did I read that correctly, you've lost 20lbs since the beginning of January? I don't see the issue then, that's 2.5lbs a week, at the high end even af gaat as recommended weight loss goes.
As has been said, trackers are only estimates, true real life results trump estimates.1 -
PS if you like numbers, you might like Libra or Happyscale to track your weight trend.3
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cmriverside wrote: »
Edit: Just saw your edit! You actually used to be on my friend's list on an old account that I had like 10 years ago here. Congrats on keeping the weight off for this long.
Really? I was on your FL? I've taken most people off mine who stopped logging on and I don't add people any more. "Friends" used to be a lot more fun when they posted friends' forum activity in the feed. Now...meh. I don't even go to the feed.
The weight, yeah. That's a thing I still need to watch. I have a fancy spreadsheet like yours - over 3000 days logged on it with very few blank entries. On my birthday week I just don't log, but that's the only intentional freebie I really take. I gain five pounds usually every winter and lose it in the spring. Jump on the scale. Log food. Do dishes. Such is my very exciting life.
Yeah, MFP used to be a hopping place. I enjoyed all the debates and learned a lot.
My birthday was last week and I tried to fit as many freebies into that cheat day as possible... but I ended up giving my husband all the good stuff! He ate the best he ever has!1 -
Sorry, did I read that correctly, you've lost 20lbs since the beginning of January? I don't see the issue then, that's 2.5lbs a week, at the high end even af gaat as recommended weight loss goes.
As has been said, trackers are only estimates, true real life results trump estimates.
I know 20lbs soundss amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
I have happyscale and love it!0 -
Sorry, did I read that correctly, you've lost 20lbs since the beginning of January? I don't see the issue then, that's 2.5lbs a week, at the high end even af gaat as recommended weight loss goes.
As has been said, trackers are only estimates, true real life results trump estimates.
I know 20lbs soundss amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
I have happyscale and love it!
It seems like you're still speaking as if MFP, a TDEE calculator, or your tracker are right, and because your actual observations differ, your math must be off.
That's only one of the possibilities. Your math could be wrong (via logging of food or exercise, or maybe even how you've set up the spreadsheet, or any combination of those). The other possibility is that your calorie needs vary from population averages. In that case, your math can be more right (for you as an individual) than the statistics. That is not a zero probability thing.
You imply that you like numbers and calculations, so I'm going to belabor this in a spoiler, which you (or others) may read, skip, argue with if you/they think otherwise, whatever.
Consider:
* Individuals' Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)/Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) can differ. There's presumably a normal distribution, in statistical terms - a bell curve. According to estimates I've seen, this normal distribution has a relatively small standard deviation, i.e., it's a pretty tall, narrow bell curve, i.e., a lot of people are pretty close to the average BMR/RMR. (BMR and RMR are close numbers, pretty much what you'd burn flat in bed in a coma, except RMR allows for a tiny bit of extra stuff like, oh, I dunno, the act of digesting and that sort of thing.) See:
https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
MFP, TDEE calculators, and fitness trackers use research based formulas to estimate your BMR based on the few points they know about you (age, weight, height, basically, though some use body fat percent, and some trackers will accept things like a custom heart rate max that affects exercise estimates but AFAIK doesn't affect BMR/RMR estimate). These BMR/RMR estimates are pretty much population estimates for similar people. (They don't know where you, the individual, are on the bell curve, so they guess you are at the number at the peak of the curve, pretty much.)
* MFP and TDEE calculators add some calories to account for daily life activity like job and home life (MFP) or that plus exercise (TDEE calculators). Those estimates come from multiplying BMR/RMR estimates by an activity multiplier. There are as many different activity multipliers as their are activity level descriptions, i.e., not very many, usually 4-6 or so depending on the calculator. Actual humans exist on a continuum of activity levels, not a few fixed levels, right? Therefore, we will vary from those estimates, too, even if our BMR/RMR estimate was close. (If it wasn't right, the error gets multiplied!)
* Then there's exercise. MFP has you add exercise when you do it, the TDEE calculators average it into activity level, and trackers estimate it from things that aren't actually measurements of calorie burn, but proxies to which they apply research-based statistical formulas to make a calorie estimate. (The trackers are measuring things like heart rate, arm motions, altitude changes, distance covered, etc. They're not measuring calories.)
MFP uses an exercise estimating methodology based on METS (Metabolic Equivalents). Loosely, in an ideal case, some scientists measure the calorie burn of a bunch of people doing an activity, then do some math to derive (loosely!) how many calories per hour per unit bodyweight the average person burns doing that activity. That can be used to estimate how many calories non-studied people might burn doing the same thing, based on their bodyweight and the duration. You can learn all about that here:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
There's a theoretical flaw, IMU, in how MFP has implemented this in the app, but it tends not to matter very much arithmetically for normal half hour to hour per day kinds of exercise, may matter more for long, non-intense things like long, slow walking. I'm not going to go into details, because even I'm getting tired of typing.
METS are probably a better way of estimating some exercises than others, because not all exercises vary greatly directly with bodyweight, and because some exercises are harder to quantify objectively with respect to intensity.
TDEE calculators are even more approximate, because they typically average in exercise based on general descriptions (X days a week, moderate vs. intense, etc.). Also, many people input exercise they plan to do (good plan) but don't do the exercise (less good follow-through).
The trackers pretty much are just using the arm movements, heart beats, pace, distance, blah blah blah, in conjunction with things like body weight/age/height and some research-based statistics to estimate exercise calories in a somewhat nuanced way (a lot depends on the tracker). Some trackers use METS in some situations. Some trackers ask you to tell them what type of exercise you're doing, others guess. Lots of potential for variability, and the basis is still averages from populations like you, pretty much.
The bottom line is that it's all statistical estimates using averages from research on groups. But you're in individual. You can vary from the population averages, for possibly non-obvious reasons.
Is that for sure? No. Most people are close to average, by definition. A few can be noticeable off, either high or low. A rare few may be surprisingly far off average, maybe for reasons that aren't obvious. (Those are the people out in the narrow ends of the bell curve, where it peters out - far from the average at the peak, loosely speaking. They exist, but they're rare . . . also by definition.
It's kind of surprising, given all of the above (plus that food labels are legally allowed to be off by something like 20%!) . . . but a person can actually use calorie counting methods and come up with very workable estimates. However, it's important to reality-test the starting estimate from calculators, trackers and what-not against our individual reality. Again, the results will be close for a lot of people. If they're further off, it may be possible to adjust by some average percent of error (using one's own experience data to estimate that error factor), or variations on that theme.
/End rant.
I haven't looked at your diary yet, but I will. Having more experienced people look is a reasonable idea, so I don't know why some others are criticizing. Personally, I may not be a big help, because I've eaten in an unusual pattern for decades (vegetarian, large amounts of veg/fruit/dairy) so I don't know much about commoner eating patterns.
I agree that eating lots of fruit/veg is nutritionally helpful, and can be more sating, at least for some people. I'd advice you to ramp up veggies/fruits gradually, and get adequate hydration and fats alongside, because massive fiber increases all at once can cause digestive distress, potentially including constipation. No one wants any of that. Gradual increase lets your body (and your gut microbiome) adapt.
Best wishes!1 -
Diary review: As expected, no big insights from Ms. Weirdo Vegetarian over here.
If I wanted to be most exact, I'd weigh relatively calorie-dense things like mayo, oil, milk rather than using volume measures. In case you haven't figured out the easy method: Put the whole jar of mayo/oil, carton of milk, hunk of meat/cheese - whatever - on the scale. (Leave the top off if it has a removeable top.) Zero/tare the scale. Dip out, pour out, spray or cut off the amount you want to use, leaving the part you don't want to use on the scale. Read the negative number on the scale. That's the amount you took out: Log that.
You should be able to find gram-quantified entries for most of these things in the MFP database, though it may take a bit of searching. Once you find one and use it, it'll stay in your recent/frequent list for easy access, as long as you keep using it regularly.
Also: Pancakes. Are these pre-made pancakes, like toaster pancakes? If not, is there no oil used? (Maybe there isn't, if a nonstick pan, but cooking oil is a common thing to overlook. Others are condiments, dressings, beverages, marinades, bites/licks/tastes while eating or cleaning up, . . . .).
I'd weigh things rather than using "per piece" from a package, too. Maybe you're already doing this, and translating a weight into a number of pieces to log it, but I'd expect more fractional pieces in there if that were the case, not sure. Packages can be surprisingly far off, so weight may be more precise. (I usually find it easier, too, but YMMV.)
Sorry, that's all the feedback I've got. There's not huge overlap in what you eat and what I eat, so I can't quick-react to whether the calorie entries are plausible magnitudes, or not. We do both eat the Costco cauliflower rice . . . but you seem to eat 1/2 cup, and I eat the whole freakin' multi-serving bag at once (around 455 grams, which is around 5 servings according to the package, little over 100 calories). I'm mentioning this not to criticize you, but to underscore how differently we eat . . . and because I think it's kind of amusing, TBH, how big the difference is. Again, not me right, you wrong, because I don't think about eating that way. Just different, and that's fine. Differences make the world interesting, IMO.
Best wishes!1 -
Sorry, did I read that correctly, you've lost 20lbs since the beginning of January? I don't see the issue then, that's 2.5lbs a week, at the high end even af gaat as recommended weight loss goes.
As has been said, trackers are only estimates, true real life results trump estimates.
I know 20lbs soundss amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
I have happyscale and love it!
It seems like you're still speaking as if MFP, a TDEE calculator, or your tracker are right, and because your actual observations differ, your math must be off.
That's only one of the possibilities. Your math could be wrong (via logging of food or exercise, or maybe even how you've set up the spreadsheet, or any combination of those). The other possibility is that your calorie needs vary from population averages. In that case, your math can be more right (for you as an individual) than the statistics. That is not a zero probability thing.
You imply that you like numbers and calculations, so I'm going to belabor this in a spoiler, which you (or others) may read, skip, argue with if you/they think otherwise, whatever.
Consider:
* Individuals' Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)/Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) can differ. There's presumably a normal distribution, in statistical terms - a bell curve. According to estimates I've seen, this normal distribution has a relatively small standard deviation, i.e., it's a pretty tall, narrow bell curve, i.e., a lot of people are pretty close to the average BMR/RMR. (BMR and RMR are close numbers, pretty much what you'd burn flat in bed in a coma, except RMR allows for a tiny bit of extra stuff like, oh, I dunno, the act of digesting and that sort of thing.) See:
https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
MFP, TDEE calculators, and fitness trackers use research based formulas to estimate your BMR based on the few points they know about you (age, weight, height, basically, though some use body fat percent, and some trackers will accept things like a custom heart rate max that affects exercise estimates but AFAIK doesn't affect BMR/RMR estimate). These BMR/RMR estimates are pretty much population estimates for similar people. (They don't know where you, the individual, are on the bell curve, so they guess you are at the number at the peak of the curve, pretty much.)
* MFP and TDEE calculators add some calories to account for daily life activity like job and home life (MFP) or that plus exercise (TDEE calculators). Those estimates come from multiplying BMR/RMR estimates by an activity multiplier. There are as many different activity multipliers as their are activity level descriptions, i.e., not very many, usually 4-6 or so depending on the calculator. Actual humans exist on a continuum of activity levels, not a few fixed levels, right? Therefore, we will vary from those estimates, too, even if our BMR/RMR estimate was close. (If it wasn't right, the error gets multiplied!)
* Then there's exercise. MFP has you add exercise when you do it, the TDEE calculators average it into activity level, and trackers estimate it from things that aren't actually measurements of calorie burn, but proxies to which they apply research-based statistical formulas to make a calorie estimate. (The trackers are measuring things like heart rate, arm motions, altitude changes, distance covered, etc. They're not measuring calories.)
MFP uses an exercise estimating methodology based on METS (Metabolic Equivalents). Loosely, in an ideal case, some scientists measure the calorie burn of a bunch of people doing an activity, then do some math to derive (loosely!) how many calories per hour per unit bodyweight the average person burns doing that activity. That can be used to estimate how many calories non-studied people might burn doing the same thing, based on their bodyweight and the duration. You can learn all about that here:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
There's a theoretical flaw, IMU, in how MFP has implemented this in the app, but it tends not to matter very much arithmetically for normal half hour to hour per day kinds of exercise, may matter more for long, non-intense things like long, slow walking. I'm not going to go into details, because even I'm getting tired of typing.
METS are probably a better way of estimating some exercises than others, because not all exercises vary greatly directly with bodyweight, and because some exercises are harder to quantify objectively with respect to intensity.
TDEE calculators are even more approximate, because they typically average in exercise based on general descriptions (X days a week, moderate vs. intense, etc.). Also, many people input exercise they plan to do (good plan) but don't do the exercise (less good follow-through).
The trackers pretty much are just using the arm movements, heart beats, pace, distance, blah blah blah, in conjunction with things like body weight/age/height and some research-based statistics to estimate exercise calories in a somewhat nuanced way (a lot depends on the tracker). Some trackers use METS in some situations. Some trackers ask you to tell them what type of exercise you're doing, others guess. Lots of potential for variability, and the basis is still averages from populations like you, pretty much.
The bottom line is that it's all statistical estimates using averages from research on groups. But you're in individual. You can vary from the population averages, for possibly non-obvious reasons.
Is that for sure? No. Most people are close to average, by definition. A few can be noticeable off, either high or low. A rare few may be surprisingly far off average, maybe for reasons that aren't obvious. (Those are the people out in the narrow ends of the bell curve, where it peters out - far from the average at the peak, loosely speaking. They exist, but they're rare . . . also by definition.
It's kind of surprising, given all of the above (plus that food labels are legally allowed to be off by something like 20%!) . . . but a person can actually use calorie counting methods and come up with very workable estimates. However, it's important to reality-test the starting estimate from calculators, trackers and what-not against our individual reality. Again, the results will be close for a lot of people. If they're further off, it may be possible to adjust by some average percent of error (using one's own experience data to estimate that error factor), or variations on that theme.
/End rant.
I haven't looked at your diary yet, but I will. Having more experienced people look is a reasonable idea, so I don't know why some others are criticizing. Personally, I may not be a big help, because I've eaten in an unusual pattern for decades (vegetarian, large amounts of veg/fruit/dairy) so I don't know much about commoner eating patterns.
I agree that eating lots of fruit/veg is nutritionally helpful, and can be more sating, at least for some people. I'd advice you to ramp up veggies/fruits gradually, and get adequate hydration and fats alongside, because massive fiber increases all at once can cause digestive distress, potentially including constipation. No one wants any of that. Gradual increase lets your body (and your gut microbiome) adapt.
Best wishes!
Thank you for writing this out. It does make sense and a seed is definitely planted in my mind but man, do I want to be average. I have believed that because I have 100lbs to lose, that carrying around my weight all day means that I burn more for so long that it is really hard for me to consider that I might actually only be burning like 2300 a day. But I am considering it-- I just need to let it simmer for a while, cause it hurts my feelings a little bit.
And meanwhile I am praying that a whoosh comes out of nowhere... or that I discover this huge logging error... anything that puts me in that bell curve! 1 -
Sorry, did I read that correctly, you've lost 20lbs since the beginning of January? I don't see the issue then, that's 2.5lbs a week, at the high end even af gaat as recommended weight loss goes.
As has been said, trackers are only estimates, true real life results trump estimates.
I know 20lbs soundss amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
I have happyscale and love it!
It seems like you're still speaking as if MFP, a TDEE calculator, or your tracker are right, and because your actual observations differ, your math must be off.
That's only one of the possibilities. Your math could be wrong (via logging of food or exercise, or maybe even how you've set up the spreadsheet, or any combination of those). The other possibility is that your calorie needs vary from population averages. In that case, your math can be more right (for you as an individual) than the statistics. That is not a zero probability thing.
You imply that you like numbers and calculations, so I'm going to belabor this in a spoiler, which you (or others) may read, skip, argue with if you/they think otherwise, whatever.
Consider:
* Individuals' Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)/Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) can differ. There's presumably a normal distribution, in statistical terms - a bell curve. According to estimates I've seen, this normal distribution has a relatively small standard deviation, i.e., it's a pretty tall, narrow bell curve, i.e., a lot of people are pretty close to the average BMR/RMR. (BMR and RMR are close numbers, pretty much what you'd burn flat in bed in a coma, except RMR allows for a tiny bit of extra stuff like, oh, I dunno, the act of digesting and that sort of thing.) See:
https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/
MFP, TDEE calculators, and fitness trackers use research based formulas to estimate your BMR based on the few points they know about you (age, weight, height, basically, though some use body fat percent, and some trackers will accept things like a custom heart rate max that affects exercise estimates but AFAIK doesn't affect BMR/RMR estimate). These BMR/RMR estimates are pretty much population estimates for similar people. (They don't know where you, the individual, are on the bell curve, so they guess you are at the number at the peak of the curve, pretty much.)
* MFP and TDEE calculators add some calories to account for daily life activity like job and home life (MFP) or that plus exercise (TDEE calculators). Those estimates come from multiplying BMR/RMR estimates by an activity multiplier. There are as many different activity multipliers as their are activity level descriptions, i.e., not very many, usually 4-6 or so depending on the calculator. Actual humans exist on a continuum of activity levels, not a few fixed levels, right? Therefore, we will vary from those estimates, too, even if our BMR/RMR estimate was close. (If it wasn't right, the error gets multiplied!)
* Then there's exercise. MFP has you add exercise when you do it, the TDEE calculators average it into activity level, and trackers estimate it from things that aren't actually measurements of calorie burn, but proxies to which they apply research-based statistical formulas to make a calorie estimate. (The trackers are measuring things like heart rate, arm motions, altitude changes, distance covered, etc. They're not measuring calories.)
MFP uses an exercise estimating methodology based on METS (Metabolic Equivalents). Loosely, in an ideal case, some scientists measure the calorie burn of a bunch of people doing an activity, then do some math to derive (loosely!) how many calories per hour per unit bodyweight the average person burns doing that activity. That can be used to estimate how many calories non-studied people might burn doing the same thing, based on their bodyweight and the duration. You can learn all about that here:
https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/home
There's a theoretical flaw, IMU, in how MFP has implemented this in the app, but it tends not to matter very much arithmetically for normal half hour to hour per day kinds of exercise, may matter more for long, non-intense things like long, slow walking. I'm not going to go into details, because even I'm getting tired of typing.
METS are probably a better way of estimating some exercises than others, because not all exercises vary greatly directly with bodyweight, and because some exercises are harder to quantify objectively with respect to intensity.
TDEE calculators are even more approximate, because they typically average in exercise based on general descriptions (X days a week, moderate vs. intense, etc.). Also, many people input exercise they plan to do (good plan) but don't do the exercise (less good follow-through).
The trackers pretty much are just using the arm movements, heart beats, pace, distance, blah blah blah, in conjunction with things like body weight/age/height and some research-based statistics to estimate exercise calories in a somewhat nuanced way (a lot depends on the tracker). Some trackers use METS in some situations. Some trackers ask you to tell them what type of exercise you're doing, others guess. Lots of potential for variability, and the basis is still averages from populations like you, pretty much.
The bottom line is that it's all statistical estimates using averages from research on groups. But you're in individual. You can vary from the population averages, for possibly non-obvious reasons.
Is that for sure? No. Most people are close to average, by definition. A few can be noticeable off, either high or low. A rare few may be surprisingly far off average, maybe for reasons that aren't obvious. (Those are the people out in the narrow ends of the bell curve, where it peters out - far from the average at the peak, loosely speaking. They exist, but they're rare . . . also by definition.
It's kind of surprising, given all of the above (plus that food labels are legally allowed to be off by something like 20%!) . . . but a person can actually use calorie counting methods and come up with very workable estimates. However, it's important to reality-test the starting estimate from calculators, trackers and what-not against our individual reality. Again, the results will be close for a lot of people. If they're further off, it may be possible to adjust by some average percent of error (using one's own experience data to estimate that error factor), or variations on that theme.
/End rant.
I haven't looked at your diary yet, but I will. Having more experienced people look is a reasonable idea, so I don't know why some others are criticizing. Personally, I may not be a big help, because I've eaten in an unusual pattern for decades (vegetarian, large amounts of veg/fruit/dairy) so I don't know much about commoner eating patterns.
I agree that eating lots of fruit/veg is nutritionally helpful, and can be more sating, at least for some people. I'd advice you to ramp up veggies/fruits gradually, and get adequate hydration and fats alongside, because massive fiber increases all at once can cause digestive distress, potentially including constipation. No one wants any of that. Gradual increase lets your body (and your gut microbiome) adapt.
Best wishes!
Thank you for writing this out. It does make sense and a seed is definitely planted in my mind but man, do I want to be average. I have believed that because I have 100lbs to lose, that carrying around my weight all day means that I burn more for so long that it is really hard for me to consider that I might actually only be burning like 2300 a day. But I am considering it-- I just need to let it simmer for a while, cause it hurts my feelings a little bit.
And meanwhile I am praying that a whoosh comes out of nowhere... or that I discover this huge logging error... anything that puts me in that bell curve!
The whoosh could happen. I'm cheering for you!
Also, it's a slow route, but adding muscle mass helps. During relatively aggressive loss, you may not be able to gain much muscle, but you can at least hang onto more of what you already have as you lose fat. Many people don't realize that overweight people tend to have more muscle mass (in pounds/kg) compared to slim people of similar activity level, built just by carrying our extra weight through the world every second of every day. How to retain, maybe gain muscle while losing weight and after? Strength exercise, ideally progressive.
Muscle burns very slightly more calories at rest than fat does, pound for pound. The more significant factor, I suspect, is that a person with more muscle is going to find any sort of movement easier and more fun, so be more likely to do it, even without conscious thought.
But speaking of conscious effort: Most people burn more calories via daily life movement than they burn from formal exercise. That, too, can be consciously increased. Here's a thread where many MFP-ers share their ideas about how to do that, without taking big chunks of extra time in our day:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1
Not all of those ideas work for everyone, but some likely would work for each of us. A thing that can happen when we're carrying more fat than ideal is that we get used to moving less (because it's harder and less pleasant to move, basically). Working on changing those habits can pay off, though it's also a somewhat longer-run bet.
Other than that muscle gain idea (slow!), there's not much you can do to change your basic metabolism. But changing your activity level is quite possible, via daily life activity as well as intentional exercise. You can be on the good side of the bell curve peak - i.e., burn more calories than average for your age/size/etc. - in TDEE by increasing daily life and exercise activity, even if BMR/RMR is pretty fixed, mostly by genetics and body composition.1 -
@AnnPT77 Thanks for the diary review. The reverse weigh is genius and may resolve an issue my husband and I have when he cooks. He is Asian makes AMAZING stir-fries with a ton of veggies.. but I can never eat them because I know the sauces can add up and I don't want to make him sit there with the food scale. So for the last 2 months he cooks his food and I cook mine... but he is a much better cook than me. So if I could weigh the sauce container before and after.. that would totally help.
I mainly use cooking sprays for everything and I haven't been logging that. And for tortillas I haven't weighed those individually so that is something to change.
I am in a season where my NEAT is naturally low but that is changing next week. I try to park far away, move, clean stuff. I sweep AND mop the whole house even though I have one of those electric cleaners. But I am in my last semester of nursing school so a ton of time is spent sitting and studying and I only leave the house like twice a week. For the next 6 weeks, I will have clinicals 4 days a week so I'll be doing a ton more. I hope that will get my NEAT up!1 -
Could you help when your husband cooks by managing the food scale? My husband has been doing more cooking as he us home before me. I am better with numbers, data. (He gets overwhelmed.) So I do some of the prep in advance if possible. Cut chicken into 6 Oz pieces after grocery shopping and froze in packs of 2 for example.
I highly recommend a small dry erase board in the kitchen for making notes while cooking, prepping.2 -
@AnnPT77 Thanks for the diary review. The reverse weigh is genius and may resolve an issue my husband and I have when he cooks. He is Asian makes AMAZING stir-fries with a ton of veggies.. but I can never eat them because I know the sauces can add up and I don't want to make him sit there with the food scale. So for the last 2 months he cooks his food and I cook mine... but he is a much better cook than me. So if I could weigh the sauce container before and after.. that would totally help.
I mainly use cooking sprays for everything and I haven't been logging that. And for tortillas I haven't weighed those individually so that is something to change.
I am in a season where my NEAT is naturally low but that is changing next week. I try to park far away, move, clean stuff. I sweep AND mop the whole house even though I have one of those electric cleaners. But I am in my last semester of nursing school so a ton of time is spent sitting and studying and I only leave the house like twice a week. For the next 6 weeks, I will have clinicals 4 days a week so I'll be doing a ton more. I hope that will get my NEAT up!
The scale trick works great for oil sprays, IMO. They may be zero calories per label, but that's for (usually) a 1/3 second spray or something like that. Maybe you spray that little, but I don't. It's usually longer, maybe up to 2-3g even for a small pan (up to maybe 30 calories, which is small, but not zero).0 -
Just a couple more ideas—
If you are eating fast food on your « cheat » days, you can usually find the nutritional info online, so log that chick fil a sandwich.
If you are logging carrot cake, and don’t know the amount, look at several entries. Choose one in the middle or maybe you find the one you actually have (eg Costco carrot cake).
No way could I keep to 1200 calories a day on the regular (I find 1400 tough!) and I am guessing you are over by 100-200 calories a day. Probably most of us are anyway.
I find when I eat more vegetables, I eat better in general, but for me the important thing to focus on is protein. It might be something else for you, but what will make you most successful?
It’s all a work in progress, and good luck with your nursing degree!0 -
If you have lost 20 lbs in 8 weeks, you are doing great. Even if the initial loss was water weight, the fact that you haven't gained it all back says that you were also losing fat. There is always a slowdown when the water in your system rebalances.
I would watch out for the calories burnt that your watch gives you. Mine registers driving and petting the dog as steps because my watch moves and when driving my HR goes up. I enter exercise manually and only eat back the calories from deliberate exercise.0 -
Hey guys,
Being a little more vulnerable than I'd like to be here but my calorie deficit is not adding up to my weight loss. I have been consistently losing but I am about 8lbs up from where I should be based on my deficit and apple watch energy burned. I've been holding my breath for some kind of whoosh where I catch up, but its been a month and the "catch up" number is growing. I know it has to be a logging error somewhere.
So before you look:
- I am 5'5, 248lbs, female, sedentary, I take a 30 minute walk a day and that is it for exercise. My Apple Watch says I burn 2900 calories a day.
- My calories are set to 1200 a day. I have one ginormous cheat day a week that I log as 3000-4000 calories. I've set it to 1200 temporarily because I wanted to be sure I was in a deficit and compare my info to what the scale said to set my future deficit.
- I weigh most everything, but I eyeball my lower calorie vegetables. When I create recipes I also follow this rule and since I am the only one who eats my meal prep, I just divide the recipe by however many days I eat it.
Anyways, I saw that I've been logging chicken breast at 4 oz for 120 calories. But when I look it up on google, I see that it should be 180 calories... I thought it might be helpful to have some more experienced loggers take a look.
Some of the difference is likely due to there being different calories in the same weight of cooked vs raw meat. Here is my standard answer on finding accurate entries in the MFP database:
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
For cooked chicken breast: "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"
These are the values I get for 4 oz/113 grams of cooked and raw chicken breast, respectively:
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered, as is any MFP entry for meat that does not include something along the lines of "cooked" or "raw."
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)1 -
-
Diary review: As expected, no big insights from Ms. Weirdo Vegetarian over here.
If I wanted to be most exact, I'd weigh relatively calorie-dense things like mayo, oil, milk rather than using volume measures. In case you haven't figured out the easy method: Put the whole jar of mayo/oil, carton of milk, hunk of meat/cheese - whatever - on the scale. (Leave the top off if it has a removeable top.) Zero/tare the scale. Dip out, pour out, spray or cut off the amount you want to use, leaving the part you don't want to use on the scale. Read the negative number on the scale. That's the amount you took out: Log that.
You should be able to find gram-quantified entries for most of these things in the MFP database, though it may take a bit of searching. Once you find one and use it, it'll stay in your recent/frequent list for easy access, as long as you keep using it regularly.
Also: Pancakes. Are these pre-made pancakes, like toaster pancakes? If not, is there no oil used? (Maybe there isn't, if a nonstick pan, but cooking oil is a common thing to overlook. Others are condiments, dressings, beverages, marinades, bites/licks/tastes while eating or cleaning up, . . . .).
I'd weigh things rather than using "per piece" from a package, too. Maybe you're already doing this, and translating a weight into a number of pieces to log it, but I'd expect more fractional pieces in there if that were the case, not sure. Packages can be surprisingly far off, so weight may be more precise. (I usually find it easier, too, but YMMV.)
Sorry, that's all the feedback I've got. There's not huge overlap in what you eat and what I eat, so I can't quick-react to whether the calorie entries are plausible magnitudes, or not. We do both eat the Costco cauliflower rice . . . but you seem to eat 1/2 cup, and I eat the whole freakin' multi-serving bag at once (around 455 grams, which is around 5 servings according to the package, little over 100 calories). I'm mentioning this not to criticize you, but to underscore how differently we eat . . . and because I think it's kind of amusing, TBH, how big the difference is. Again, not me right, you wrong, because I don't think about eating that way. Just different, and that's fine. Differences make the world interesting, IMO.
Best wishes!
I concur with these measuring recommendations - everything in grams and make sure oil spray is indeed the short burst recommended on the can
0 -
20 pounds in 7 weeks == 2.85I know 20lbs sounds amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
You were expecting 2.58
Sounds about dead on to me. I think you're making a mistake discounting 7 pounds of the loss, which you state was water. How do you know that was all water? And how do you know you haven't gained back most of that water as time went on, especially after carb heavy cheat days?
Remember that your TDEE estimate will drop as you lose weight. Have you factored that in? MFP doesn't automatically adjust that for you, so your net calories calculation will be off a little if you haven't. 20 pounds could be 100 calories per day difference from when you started.
I looked at your diary. The coffee creamer jumped out at me. You may be over-estimating that. You say 4 tbsp for 80 calories. For the longest time I went by the serving size on my coffee creamer, and then I actually tracked it, from opening the bottle to finished, how many cups I had. And it turned out I was getting around 2.8x as many servings from the bottle than the bottle said. Which sounds unusual of course, since often the quoted serving sizes are too small. Of course YMMV depending how much you personally add. End result, I found it was about 0.37 tbsp per coffee for me. With a typical 3 coffees per day, my diary was adding about 50 calories more than I was using, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That's a potential difference of 5 pounds in a year, just from the creamer!
I also don't think you can count a cheat day as being X calories over means Y pounds gained. We see this from people on YT tracking huge cheat days and their stats before and after, and it's also my experience. I assume the body adjusts to what you're doing most of the days. One outlier day like that means more calories burned processing, more body heat generated, more NEAT going on, etc., so it doesn't all end up as fat.3 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Hey guys,
Being a little more vulnerable than I'd like to be here but my calorie deficit is not adding up to my weight loss. I have been consistently losing but I am about 8lbs up from where I should be based on my deficit and apple watch energy burned. I've been holding my breath for some kind of whoosh where I catch up, but its been a month and the "catch up" number is growing. I know it has to be a logging error somewhere.
So before you look:
- I am 5'5, 248lbs, female, sedentary, I take a 30 minute walk a day and that is it for exercise. My Apple Watch says I burn 2900 calories a day.
- My calories are set to 1200 a day. I have one ginormous cheat day a week that I log as 3000-4000 calories. I've set it to 1200 temporarily because I wanted to be sure I was in a deficit and compare my info to what the scale said to set my future deficit.
- I weigh most everything, but I eyeball my lower calorie vegetables. When I create recipes I also follow this rule and since I am the only one who eats my meal prep, I just divide the recipe by however many days I eat it.
Anyways, I saw that I've been logging chicken breast at 4 oz for 120 calories. But when I look it up on google, I see that it should be 180 calories... I thought it might be helpful to have some more experienced loggers take a look.
Some of the difference is likely due to there being different calories in the same weight of cooked vs raw meat. Here is my standard answer on finding accurate entries in the MFP database:
Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both USER-created entries and ADMIN-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. A green check mark for USER-created entries just means enough people have upvoted the entry - it is not necessarily correct.
To find ADMIN entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP. All ADMIN entries from the USDA will have weights as an option BUT there is a glitch whereby sometimes 1g is the option but the values are actually for 100g. This is pretty easy to spot though, as when added the calories are 100x more than is reasonable.
https://fdc.nal.usda.gov
Use the “SR Legacy” tab - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.
For cooked chicken breast: "chicken, breast, cooked, roasted" gave me https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/?query=chicken, breast, cooked and from that you can see the syntax for the MFP entry to use is "Chicken, broilers or fryers, breast, meat only, cooked, roasted"
These are the values I get for 4 oz/113 grams of cooked and raw chicken breast, respectively:
Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was USER entered, as is any MFP entry for meat that does not include something along the lines of "cooked" or "raw."
For packaged foods, I verify the label against what I find in MFP. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)
Thank you!!! This is super helpful. I wondered why the green checks all said something different. My food with labels are really straight forward but like for tonight I was looking up salmon and I had to cross check myself.0 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »
20 pounds in 7 weeks == 2.85I know 20lbs sounds amazing but the first week, I lost 7lbs of christmas water. So... 13lbs in 7 weeks. So 1.86lbs-- which is still great... but my math is all off.
You were expecting 2.58
Sounds about dead on to me. I think you're making a mistake discounting 7 pounds of the loss, which you state was water. How do you know that was all water? And how do you know you haven't gained back most of that water as time went on, especially after carb heavy cheat days?
Remember that your TDEE estimate will drop as you lose weight. Have you factored that in? MFP doesn't automatically adjust that for you, so your net calories calculation will be off a little if you haven't. 20 pounds could be 100 calories per day difference from when you started.
I looked at your diary. The coffee creamer jumped out at me. You may be over-estimating that. You say 4 tbsp for 80 calories. For the longest time I went by the serving size on my coffee creamer, and then I actually tracked it, from opening the bottle to finished, how many cups I had. And it turned out I was getting around 2.8x as many servings from the bottle than the bottle said. Which sounds unusual of course, since often the quoted serving sizes are too small. Of course YMMV depending how much you personally add. End result, I found it was about 0.37 tbsp per coffee for me. With a typical 3 coffees per day, my diary was adding about 50 calories more than I was using, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That's a potential difference of 5 pounds in a year, just from the creamer!
I also don't think you can count a cheat day as being X calories over means Y pounds gained. We see this from people on YT tracking huge cheat days and their stats before and after, and it's also my experience. I assume the body adjusts to what you're doing most of the days. One outlier day like that means more calories burned processing, more body heat generated, more NEAT going on, etc., so it doesn't all end up as fat.
I assume the first week was a lot of water based on what I weighed at the start of December and how much I gain when I have my cheat meals. I had a huge cheat day for my Bday last week (wednesday) and I just got back to my precheat weight yesterday. But I am not a scientist-- so maybe I am not counting that 7lbs fairly and I just need to wait and watch more.
I do weigh the coffee creamer and measure out 60 grams = 4tbsp. I am one of those who likes a little coffee with her creamer and so I had to scale it way back. I probably drank 500 calories a day just in creamer before. But I wish I was over estimating!
And your point about more calories meaning more activity is valid. I definitely have more energy on my cheat day and the day after and I am much more active on those days.
0 -
Another comment on meat: In some countries meats gets pumped up with water (and other stuff) that doesn't have calories. When you cook it you end up with a pan full of water, and oil spatters everywhere. So if the packaging says you bought 100gr of chicken breast at x calories, then that's including 10-20gr of water. Or 90-80gr of actual chicken breast. Here the calorie information on the packaging will be more correct than on the USDA database/google. Also, sometimes some additives are added to meat that do have calories, and often more than the actual meat. Again, here the packaging calories will be more correct than anything online. Provided the calories are provided uncooked.0
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