LesIckaBod wrote: »

Week 1 Weigh-In
Monday July 2
Previous Weight: 191.8
Current Weight: 190.2

Road trip started last Wednesday -- 1200+ miles in two days, and now we're here for the next 3.5 weeks. I got the fitbit scale working yesterday, and I'm astonished by the loss. I'd been mindful of eating and continued exercising, but I wasn't tracking calories just because of the difficulty measuring and finding accurate calorie data for some restaurants.

But... I will say that I thought of all the weeks to undertake that drive, this was a better one. I've been tracking my 3-week TDEE (@craigo3154 wrote out the instructions back in May - thank you!) and I had previously seen that my TDEE seems to increase hugely periodically, and I predicted I was reaching that phase again. I've found some more information about this effect here on MFP: Women - menstrual cycle, weight and fitness matters

craigo3154 wrote: »

LesIckaBod wrote: »

..
Thank you for your extensive answer -- and I did keep reading to the very end, too! I'm thinking about how you transitioned from a lower, weight loss calorie goal to the higher, weight management calorie goal, and how that might work for me. I think I was under the impression that if I just use my management calorie goal now, I'd be losing weight. (The idea being, if I eat like I weigh 140 lbs now, eventually I'll weigh 140 lbs).

I have another question. On MFP, when you add exercise, it gives you an additional calorie allowance as well. So, if you burn 200 calories, MFP would allow you 1700 calories for the day (1500+200). You said you were on 1500 kcal/day. I'm curious whether that was your MFP goal, and you counted yourself as at goal if you consumed less than 1500+(exercise calories) for the day, or whether you kept a hard line at 1500 calories.

I ask because I went to an InBody scale in early April and learned my basal metabolic rate is 1441 kcal. I'm using 1400 as my goal on MFP, and allowing myself the extra calories earned from exercise. I hear you about monitoring and evaluating choices and the effects they have, so I'll be watching to see what changes. I'm also going back to the InBody scale at the end of this month, so we'll see what difference 2 months has made.

@LesIckaBod. Happy for questions. I wish more would ask.

Exercise calories? Whether to include them or not in your daily budget? I don't and I recommend that you don't for 2 reasons.

1. Estimated from exercise calories are notoriously well out. How many calories you burn from an activity depends on not only the activity, but your skill level at the activity, your efficiency, your weight, the ambient temperature and humidity, etc....
2. Psychologically you can do end up adopting a mindset of "I'll do this activity as it will earn me X additional calories in my daily budget". If the "calorie" reward for an activity is too high, then you end up doing it for the wrong reason.

If you are working from a TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) that is calculated from anything other than "sedentary", then you should definitely not include activity calories in the daily budget as they have already been factored in.

BMR (basal metabolic rate), is the estimate rate at which the body burns calories just to keep the brain working, heart pumping and body warm (think coma). For weight loss, the real figure to be concerned with is TDEE. TDEE factors in activity which is what we really need to work with.

I set my daily goal to be inside my calorie budget without activity (and it was initially projected from MFP and cross-checked with SailRabbit. (www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/). These initial calculations are a GUIDE. Your tracking should give you a MUCH better idea of what your daily budget should be.

If I have a particularly active day (eg. >15,000 steps), then I allow myself HALF of the calculated activity calories as an extension to that day's budget. However it need to be an extraordinary day activity wise, (eg. normal 6km walk does not qualify).

You ideally want to be in the range of 500 kcal per day LESS than your actual TDEE. This gives you an estimated loss of around 1lbs per week. (1 lbs of fat is estimated to have around 3500 kcal - 3500 / 7 = 500. 500 kcal deficit per day, the remaining comes from burning body fat.
There is MUCH more to it than this, but this is a good rule of thumb and often tends to work).

How do you work out your tracked TDEE? This is where tracking comes in.

• Track your calories and activity for 3 weeks.
• Your true daily intake is the AVERAGE of 7 days. (3 days before, the actual day, 3 days after).
• Track your weight DAILY (same time of day each day).
• Your true weight can be taken as the average of 7 consecutive days weighing. (3 days before, the actual day, 3 days after - water fluctuations can really mess things up, so the average is essential).
• Take your starting true weight and subtract your ending true weight.
• Divide this true weight difference by the number of days recording for (this is the average daily loss).
• Take your total of true daily intakes over the period and divide by the number of days to give your average total intake.
• Your tracked TDEE is the average total intake PLUS the average daily loss (in lbs) * 3500.

Your target then becomes your tracked TDEE less 500 * lbs per WEEK targeting to lose.

If you are too aggressive with weight loss, then weight can stall as body shuts down passive activity to prevent starvation. If you are too lax with weight loss you can stall as the body is getting all it needs to maintain.

1% per week is the MAXIMUM anyone should target to get to BMR (body mass ratio) 22.5. It is possible to be more aggressive and not stall through starvation but you have to really know what you are doing and monitor EXTREEMLY carefully.

(For example, I averaged 1.5% per week for 2 months, but tracked everything VERY closely and revised daily TDEE every 2 weeks. Had to be VERY careful not to trip over into extreme metabolic adaption (metabolic damage). ).

Hope this all makes sense.

• First set till the point where you can do no more, wait 2 mins
• Second set of 60% of the number you did in the first set (half, then another 10%), wait 2 mins
• Third set of 50% of the number you did in the first set (half)

• What sort of habits/choices/routines do you have on "autopilot" to help you meet your MFP goals?

mthomas0228 wrote: »

LesIckaBod wrote: »

We haven't had daily questions in this group in a while, but I've had one on my mind for a while, and maybe you'd like to participate? Here goes:

• What sort of habits/choices/routines do you have on "autopilot" to help you meet your MFP goals?

My routine is to pre-log every morning. Every morning, I make myself a cup of tea, sit down with that & log into myfitnesspal to plan my day before eating anything. Occasionally, I will need to re-adjust things in the afternoon but usually I have a plan that I am able to stick to all day. This just makes it easier for me to function through my day without having to think about food. It takes the emotion out of eating, which for me which is big.