How bad is it?

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jelleigh
jelleigh Posts: 743 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
OK so I've been on vacation for two weeks and really off plan. My goal was to maintain during this time and I've been doing my best to log honestly but here's the thing : I'm in Thailand and most places I'm eating are tiny nameless places with no nutritional info. So I'm really just doing my best to guess at portions and use entries off MFP to get a close guess. We did make a few stops at chains like Hard Rock where I ate shockingly high cal meals (burger at 1700 cal! ).

My maintenance is around 2000. For the last two weeks I averaged 1700 and 2200 (some days really high, some days were lower but that is the weekly average). If that's accurate, then am I right that I should actually not have gained? I'm not counting burned calories in that and we did do a lot of walking, hiking, swimming. I'm worried that even though I "guessed high" for my logging I'm still way off and have done more damage than expected. I know what's done is done but I just want to prep myself so that I'm not totally disheartened when I step on the scale in a few days (I want to let a bit of time pass so I can drop the water weight from the def high sodium meals). Any experience with this? I've been living here in Thailand for 6 months so all my logging is a bit of guess work and I've lost 25 lbs so far but this vacation hasn't been the norm on food places.

Replies

  • bbell1985
    bbell1985 Posts: 4,572 Member
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    Just step on baby. What's done is done.
  • kkress92
    kkress92 Posts: 118 Member
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    Echo the above, and add that restaurant food is often waaaay higher in sodium than homemade, plus air travel can cause water retention, so not to worry too much if the scale jumps a bit. It will all settle out. It's unlikely that you've undone all your hard work. ;) Just get back on track and you'll be fine
  • jelleigh
    jelleigh Posts: 743 Member
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    Ya I know you guys are right. I just really really want to keep to my lb per week goal (on average of course) and being set back throws off my perfect score ! Lol.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,739 Member
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    Wait for jet lag to clear. No point in adding flight bloat and water retention to the tally.
    Wait for sodium to clear.

    weight yourself.

    Consider investing in a weight trend app or web site: www.trendweight.com, www.weightgrapher.com, happy scale iphone, libra android.

    Much easier on the system to be able to see your trend over time as opposed to be sitting there obsessing about time of the month, water weight, gym, sodium, food in your system, air travel, and everything else that can make your weight level swing around faster than the changes to your fat levels.
  • jelleigh
    jelleigh Posts: 743 Member
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    I was using happy scale for a bit (I'm a bit of a data junkie so the more the better for me ) and I liked it. But I currently live in Thailand (took a two week vacation from volunteer work to show visiting family around) and didnt own a scale till like two weeks ago and it's proving a bit unreliable . Until then I was using a pay scale at the local 7-11 once a week (can't bother to get up, dressed in same clothes, and bike down to scale on a daily basis). Since I live here I won't have any jet lag to get over but I will probably have the sodium water retention. I may try to switch back to daily weigh in but I have to figure out what's going on with my scale. I can get on it four times in a row and get readings that range up to 5 lbs! When I'm only trying to lose a lb per week, that kind of difference can really throw you off. ;)
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,739 Member
    edited February 2017
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    jelleigh wrote: »
    I was using happy scale for a bit (I'm a bit of a data junkie so the more the better for me ) and I liked it. But I currently live in Thailand (took a two week vacation from volunteer work to show visiting family around) and didnt own a scale till like two weeks ago and it's proving a bit unreliable . Until then I was using a pay scale at the local 7-11 once a week (can't bother to get up, dressed in same clothes, and bike down to scale on a daily basis). Since I live here I won't have any jet lag to get over but I will probably have the sodium water retention. I may try to switch back to daily weigh in but I have to figure out what's going on with my scale. I can get on it four times in a row and get readings that range up to 5 lbs! When I'm only trying to lose a lb per week, that kind of difference can really throw you off. ;)

    Yikes! But, it is a real issue. And it also applies to your weigh in at 7-11 when you think about it.
    Also, most scales these days exhibit fake consistency. i.e. they don't actually measure you twice at the same weight but if the difference between two readings is smaller than 0.x lbs (x defined by manufacturer) they will just spit back the previous number so that you will think of them as being more accurate than they can be.

    Best you can do is solid unyielding floor. new batteries. Clean sensors/pads at bottom of scale from any dust or debris making sure they can deform without obstruction when the weight goes on them. Follow any calibration/recalibration procedures....

    remember that water/food weights what it weights and a good bike ride (water evaporation due to sweating) and/or drink (after biking to your destination) can definitely obscure a 1lb a week change. Not to mention the standard issues discussed above.

    Take your wins where you can. First win is that you're debating how much you lost as opposed to how much you've gained :smile:

    Please remember that across scales the numbers are meaningless due to calibration inconsistencies. I guess you could walk your scale at 7-11 and measure yourself on both to get a general sense as to how different the results of the two scales are...
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Considering that I'm not logging food at all right now and I have had times that I have gone for over a year without gaining weight while not logging, I would say that it isn't very bad at all. Just guessing, I would say that you will see a large weight gain when you get home, but after two or three weeks you'll discover that you only gained a couple of pounds on vacation.

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