Confused by numbers :D Help?
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Abit off topic but I've got 4 weeks left on T25 and plan on doing insanity next how did you find it?I've done insanity twice now and one thing i noticed is that my body would slim down but the scale didn't budge much while I was doing it...something to keep in mind, measure yourself and take pictures to compare.0 -
I've done insanity twice now and one thing i noticed is that my body would slim down but the scale didn't budge much while I was doing it...something to keep in mind, measure yourself and take pictures to compare.
I took pictures 10 days ago when I started. I will take some today again.
I've done Insanity twice before, too. But never finished it. I only did the first month combined with other stuff like running and stretching. I always saw the results right after two weeks, this time it's different.0 -
sauronseye wrote: »
For another thing, weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to figure out a comfortable way of eating that puts you at a deficit over time. Losing 0.5 or even 0.25kg per week on average would get you to your goal and might do so in a more comfortable way.
Online calculators give you numbers with which to start. You make adjustments over time as you collect your own personal data.
I know, I know, it's not my first rodeo. I am just more determined and serious this time. There's an event in July that I really want to be fit for so I am giving my best. Of course, I am going to keep working out and maintaining my fitness once I get the desired result because I want this to be a permanent change.
I am actually quite comfortable with how much I eat at the moment. I am not depriving myself and if everything that the good people after you wrote is true, I am actually doing pretty OK with MFP and should see the results soon.
I can feel that my thighs are firmer and my upper arms seem firmer as well, I am bendier and I can do yoga poses I couldn't have imagined doing before. I generally feel much better, I sleep better, and I am more energetic. I've never done weighing the food before, this is my first time even though I did have an MFP attempt in 2015. which failed miserably so I am trying to do it right this time. I am also on a budget so I can't buy fancy stuff which limits me a bit. Potential overeating worried me as I didn't quite understand the way MFP actually works, but it's all good now.
Thanks for your input!
maybe1pe and cwolfman13 thanks for clarifying! I am at peace now.
One observation:
I understand that you want to lose some weight. It would be best to do this slowly, as you have relatively little to lose, as others have said (and this is true even though you're short).
You say your goal is to be fit for an event in July. You can be much fitter by July at your current weight. You can be actually quite fit at your current weight (whether you can get to "actually quite fit" by July is an open question, because that end-point is fuzzily defined, but you can get much fitter than you are now for sure). The fitness is all about your workouts and other physical activities.
It's difficult for someone who's very obese to become very fit. It's possible for someone who's moderately over-fat to be quite fit. I've known several good athletes who were a little heavy - say maybe 20 pounds up from where they should be. I was kind of fit even while obese: My happy weight is around 120 pounds (55 kg) - and 5'5" (165cm). At 183 pounds (83kg), which is technically obese, I was competing as a masters rower, and not utterly failing. ("Masters" means "old people" BTW, not "excellent athletes"). I didn't distinguish myself, but kept up OK with the pack, medaled a few times (place medals, not participation
) - about the same performance as I accomplish now, at just above goal weight. When obese, I did fine keeping up in spin classes, was strong, had a low resting heart rate, etc. I wasn't that high a weight because of muscle mass (120 looks fine on me because I'm built like a 14-year-old boy, not a 62-year-old woman). I was quite, quite fat.
I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't lose weight. I'm not saying that it will be unhelpful to fitness to lose weight (it will help). But I'm saying that you can go a long way by July with your fitness goals if you work at them, even it you don't reach goal weight by then.
Losing weight alongside fitness activities should work fine. Losing weight extremely fast, however, could interfere with those fitness goals. Moderate weight loss rate is a better route to fitness goals.
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Thanks for the input, Anne. And congrats on your success and your medals!
I don't think 17kg is 'not a lot'. It might seem to be little to people that have much more to lose, but to me (and the majority of people who have never been even close to obese), it is. I don't fit in 90% of my wardrobe. I am not rich, I am not even middle class. I can't afford to buy new clothes all the time. My knees started to hurt from the extra weight (when you walk, the force on your knees is the equivalent of 1½ times your body weight). I'm a practical person who wants to be healthy, fit and look good. I am not interested in staying fit at this weight. I want my clothes to fit and I want to be able to get into the dress I already own because I can't afford to spend more money on clothes.
I see where you are coming from but being fit is not my only goal, I definitely want to lose weight. If it's doable, I want to do it. I've been overweight for too long and I don't like it. I don't like how I look, I don't like how it feels, and I can't stand seeing pictures of myself because my belly's coming dangerously close to the size of my boobs, and I have huge boobs. Even my face is fat now and I look different than I looked only a year ago.
For me, this is the tipping point, I just can't go on like this. Yes, I feel much better than I did a month ago, but I want to look better as well. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
BTW thanks for converting the values to the metric system, I still struggle with imperial.
edit: I went to the vet's today to get something for my pets and I weighed myself using her scale and it turns out that I did lose weight. 0.7 kg to be exact! 2 -
Determining your BMR or TDEE is a moving target. For me, I set MFP at "slightly active" and use the calories it gave me. I have found that if it eat back the extra exercise calories I'll gain weight, if I don't I'll lose weight as expected or faster. So I settled for 50%.0
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Snowflake1968 wrote: »
No. It means you think the post is BS.5 -
sauronseye wrote: »Thanks for the input, Anne. And congrats on your success and your medals!
I don't think 17kg is 'not a lot'. It might seem to be little to people that have much more to lose, but to me (and the majority of people who have never been even close to obese), it is. I don't fit in 90% of my wardrobe. I am not rich, I am not even middle class. I can't afford to buy new clothes all the time. My knees started to hurt from the extra weight (when you walk, the force on your knees is the equivalent of 1½ times your body weight). I'm a practical person who wants to be healthy, fit and look good. I am not interested in staying fit at this weight. I want my clothes to fit and I want to be able to get into the dress I already own because I can't afford to spend more money on clothes.
I see where you are coming from but being fit is not my only goal, I definitely want to lose weight. If it's doable, I want to do it. I've been overweight for too long and I don't like it. I don't like how I look, I don't like how it feels, and I can't stand seeing pictures of myself because my belly's coming dangerously close to the size of my boobs, and I have huge boobs. Even my face is fat now and I look different than I looked only a year ago.
For me, this is the tipping point, I just can't go on like this. Yes, I feel much better than I did a month ago, but I want to look better as well. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
BTW thanks for converting the values to the metric system, I still struggle with imperial.
edit: I went to the vet's today to get something for my pets and I weighed myself using her scale and it turns out that I did lose weight. 0.7 kg to be exact!
Regardless of whether you think it's quite a lot or not, it's really not. Safe, sustainable rate of loss is considered 1% of your body weight per week. And sure, your doctor may have told you a higher percentage is okay, but in general doctors weight management training is pretty abysmal.
Sure, you can hit your target weight in July. But that doesn't mean you're going to look the way you want to if you went too fast, and sacrificed too much muscle (heart is a muscle, too!). The advice you are going to find here is to weigh your food, pick a safe and sustainable rate of loss, eat back a portion of your exercise calories, and give it time to see if its working. You may not hit the number you want come July, but you'll be a lot happier with how you look.0 -
Snowflake1968 wrote: »
Doesn't woo mean woohoo, like good job, or I agree? I hope so, or I've been insulting a lot of people.
'Woo' is a slang for 'not proven scientifically'. Like juice cleanses and detox in general, for instance.
ashliedelgado I doubt that a GP, a neurologist, an orthopaedic surgeon, and an ENT specialist would all agree on something that is potentially harmful to me. They all told me the same thing, 1kg is OK, anything more would be too fast and dangerous. I don't know what kind of experiences you have with physicians, but these people are experts in their respective fields and never advised me anything that was hurtful.
I am in no way an expert in the area of medicine but I am scientifically literate and able to critically discern facts from fiction. If I don't understand something - I'll ask. That is why I came here and opened this thread. I've no experience with how all this works and have a mediocre knowledge of nutrition.
If I hit the target - great. If not, well, I did my best and will keep doing it.
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Snowflake1968 wrote: »
@Snowflake1968
You have been insulting a lot of people.
It's woo as in bull s**t, bro science, WTF....5 -
sauronseye wrote: »Thanks for the input, Anne. And congrats on your success and your medals!
I don't think 17kg is 'not a lot'. It might seem to be little to people that have much more to lose, but to me (and the majority of people who have never been even close to obese), it is. I don't fit in 90% of my wardrobe. I am not rich, I am not even middle class. I can't afford to buy new clothes all the time. My knees started to hurt from the extra weight (when you walk, the force on your knees is the equivalent of 1½ times your body weight). I'm a practical person who wants to be healthy, fit and look good. I am not interested in staying fit at this weight. I want my clothes to fit and I want to be able to get into the dress I already own because I can't afford to spend more money on clothes.
I see where you are coming from but being fit is not my only goal, I definitely want to lose weight. If it's doable, I want to do it. I've been overweight for too long and I don't like it. I don't like how I look, I don't like how it feels, and I can'and seeing pictures of myself because my belly's coming dangerously close to the size of my boobs, and I have huge boobs. Even my face is fat now and I look different than I looked only a year ago.
For me, this is the tipping point, I just can't go on like this. Yes, I feel much better than I did a month ago, but I want to look better as well. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
BTW thanks for converting the values to the metric system, I still struggle with imperial.
edit: I went to the vet's today to get something for my pets and I weighed myself using her scale and it turns out that I did lose weight. 0.7 kg to be exact!
I understand that it's a lot of weight in that sense - clothes fit, how you perceive yourself, etc. Where I'm coming from is that our bodies can only metabolize a certain amount of fat per day per pound of fat on our body, and that amount is not huge. The closer we get to the line - the closer to the maximum - the more risk there is that we'll lose more than necessary from lean tissue, and the more risk there is that energy level will suffer, which drains effectiveness from our workouts, and makes our fitness goals slower/harder to accomplish.
For a while, when a bit heavier than you are (around 155), I unintentionally lost too fast (a little less than 2 pounds a week) for a brief period because of an incorrect calorie needs estimate. I corrected as soon as I realized, but got weak and fatigued anyway. It took more weeks to recover from that and be back to a proper energy level and strength again.
I'm not saying you shouldn't lose weight - I completely support your goal - I'm just suggesting you be cautious. I understand that your doctors said it was OK. I think sometimes doctors encourage larger calorie cuts thinking their patients won't really be able to stick with them full time, so will net out a higher number. I'm not sure. All I know is that 1200 (plus exercise) was way too low for me, and I paid a price for doing it for a fairly short time.
Weight loss is a wonderful thing - by all means, work on it. I'm not saying you should only work on fitness. I'm saying I'd encourage you not to sacrifice fitness to accomplish rapid weight loss. You can lose a really meaningful amount of weight in a couple of months, even at a moderate pace. Fitness will also make you smaller/tighter, help your clothes fit better, and generally improve how you look and feel. Fitness and weight are related, but not one and the same thing.
I just like to see people stay strong and healthy while achieving their weight loss goals.3 -
sauronseye wrote: »Snowflake1968 wrote: »
Doesn't woo mean woohoo, like good job, or I agree? I hope so, or I've been insulting a lot of people.
'Woo' is a slang for 'not proven scientifically'. Like juice cleanses and detox in general, for instance.
ashliedelgado I doubt that a GP, a neurologist, an orthopaedic surgeon, and an ENT specialist would all agree on something that is potentially harmful to me. They all told me the same thing, 1kg is OK, anything more would be too fast and dangerous. I don't know what kind of experiences you have with physicians, but these people are experts in their respective fields and never advised me anything that was hurtful.
I am in no way an expert in the area of medicine but I am scientifically literate and able to critically discern facts from fiction. If I don't understand something - I'll ask. That is why I came here and opened this thread. I've no experience with how all this works and have a mediocre knowledge of nutrition.
If I hit the target - great. If not, well, I did my best and will keep doing it.
The problem, though, comes down to math and the room to create the deficit to lose that amount of weight with the TDEE you likely have at your current size.
To lose a kilo a week, you need to eat approximately 1,000 calories less than you're burning daily while still keeping up your activity levels.
Can you do that without hitting a wall? I don't think so. There's a danger that comes with underfueling activity and the rebound that happens from that isn't pretty. Some of us have been there and can tell the tale of our struggles that happened from trying to diet too aggressively.
Just don't do it.
It's okay to want to be fitter and be a smaller size. Just do it in a smart way, okay?7 -
Also if you have several illnesses aggressive weight loss might not be the best thing of course it depends on your illnesses. Are you on any medications that can slow weight loss.0
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Snowflake1968 wrote: »
@Snowflake1968
You have been insulting a lot of people.
It's woo as in bull s**t, bro science, WTF....
Well I guess I’ll stop using that! Lol thanks for the education.4 -
Snowflake1968 wrote: »Snowflake1968 wrote: »
@Snowflake1968
You have been insulting a lot of people.
It's woo as in bull s**t, bro science, WTF....
Well I guess I’ll stop using that! Lol thanks for the education.
dont feel bad. when it first came out, i thought the same LOL0 -
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I just like to see people stay strong and healthy while achieving their weight loss goals.
Oh, I am strong, don't worry. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday and I told him about my goals and how I want to be 'fit, lean, and strong' and he replied 'you're already strong, fit and lean you shall be'.
It's true, I am quite strong already, I don't necessarily like it, but that is the matter of things (I always wanted to be more of a Grace Kelly type of girl, but that's not happening ).
Funny thing is, that same friend advised me not to weigh food and not to count calories at all because he thinks it makes people miserable, unhappy, and leads them to a path of eating disorders. And he's a certified trainer.GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
...
It's okay to want to be fitter and be a smaller size. Just do it in a smart way, okay?
Thank you for your words and for worrying. I promise I'll be smart about it.Also if you have several illnesses aggressive weight loss might not be the best thing of course it depends on your illnesses. Are you on any medications that can slow weight loss.
None of the issues I have interfere with losing weight. I am taking antihistamines but that's about it.
Thank you, everyone, for taking your time to reply to this thread!2
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