Help me!!!
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I have an apple watch...That counts active and total calories....I don't need to buy a Fitbit do I?
Nope just link it with MFP although you might want to ask some Apple Watch users for advice - I’ve seen some posts taking about how the syncing isn’t quite as straightforward as Fitbit’s
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okay, I'm going to figure that out!0
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Does anyone know how to connect your apple watch with MFP?
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Your constipation is contributing a little to the weight gain since the extra waste in your system has weight. Try cutting back on the new foods that made you constipated, and if you want to eat more fiber, increase your fiber intake slowly instead of all at once.
I took a look at your diary, OP. There's really not enough logged recent days there to generalize, from what I can see. Therefore, I'll add this:
Constipation can indeed add scale weight, and if it persists in a severe way, it can be a major medical problem. I'm not meaning to scare you, but feel like you need to realize that.
I agree with apullum's comment about slowly increasing fiber. That's a better strategy for various reasons, one of which is the constipation issue.
Alongside that, there are other factors that can increase the likelihood of constipation. Two of those are lack of exercise, and inadequate hydration (water consumption, mostly). Here on MFP, most people aren't having a problem with those, though it can happen.
A third common factor in constipation is people not eating enough fat. We need fat for a variety of reasons: One is smooth digestive throughput, but others include absorption of fat-soluble essential vitamins (A, D, E, K), cellular health, and hormonal balance (particularly for women). Too often, people cutting calories are eating too-low fat because fat is relatively high in calories. But it's important to come at least close to your MFP default fat goal, especially if you have a tendency toward constipation. Nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado, and that sort of thing are particularly healthy sources of fat (monounsatured (MUFA) and polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids). Chia seeds and flax meal can be contributors to that, with reasonable portions.
Since you have limited data in your diary, I wanted to mention the "get enough fat" factor, because I can't tell whether you typically are getting enough, or not.
Beyond that: I agree with those saying 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a loss rate for you. Too fast loss is unhealthy (risks muscle loss, hair loss, and worse), and can be counter productive (reduced energy level leads to fatigue, causing reduced daily-life activity and maybe exercise under-performance, and leading to a lowered all-day calorie burn, so slowed weight loss vs. expectations).
So: Slower loss rate target you can stick to, log all the days (even over days), phase in the fiber increase over a couple of weeks or so, get enough water/fats alongside the increased fiber.
Best wishes!
Do you think 64 oz is enough?
I work out at least 3 times a week.
Probably, though it's individual. For a lot of people, thirst is actually a pretty good guide. If your urine is a pale kind of straw color, not dark yellow (more concentrated), you're fine.
I actually meant, mostly, to be emphasizing "eat enough fats": That's the thing that is more commonly a problem among people reducing calories. Try to hit your MFP default fat goal as a minimum, or come close.4 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
Is that 600 calories what OrangeTheory itself advertises? A lot of fitness companies advertise some number as burn up X an hour with X representing someone continuously doing the exercise without break, at a maximum intensity.
If you regularly do a particular exercise, you can use accurate food logging to backwards estimate how much you really typically burn for the exercise.
So, they strap a heart monitor to you and count your calories you burn. 600 was just a figurative number that I sometimes reach if I go all out.
Okay, that's possibly more accurate than an advertised amount. Heart monitors work okay for cardio activities that involve a steady heart rate and activity pattern - like running or cycling at a regular speed. It looks like OrangeTheory is HIIT exercise, so a heart rate based burn won't be accurate.
You can always use the number for now and know that if you start stalling down the line, you might need to figure out a better idea of what you were burning in the class.1 -
Your constipation is contributing a little to the weight gain since the extra waste in your system has weight. Try cutting back on the new foods that made you constipated, and if you want to eat more fiber, increase your fiber intake slowly instead of all at once.
I took a look at your diary, OP. There's really not enough logged recent days there to generalize, from what I can see. Therefore, I'll add this:
Constipation can indeed add scale weight, and if it persists in a severe way, it can be a major medical problem. I'm not meaning to scare you, but feel like you need to realize that.
I agree with apullum's comment about slowly increasing fiber. That's a better strategy for various reasons, one of which is the constipation issue.
Alongside that, there are other factors that can increase the likelihood of constipation. Two of those are lack of exercise, and inadequate hydration (water consumption, mostly). Here on MFP, most people aren't having a problem with those, though it can happen.
A third common factor in constipation is people not eating enough fat. We need fat for a variety of reasons: One is smooth digestive throughput, but others include absorption of fat-soluble essential vitamins (A, D, E, K), cellular health, and hormonal balance (particularly for women). Too often, people cutting calories are eating too-low fat because fat is relatively high in calories. But it's important to come at least close to your MFP default fat goal, especially if you have a tendency toward constipation. Nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado, and that sort of thing are particularly healthy sources of fat (monounsatured (MUFA) and polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids). Chia seeds and flax meal can be contributors to that, with reasonable portions.
Since you have limited data in your diary, I wanted to mention the "get enough fat" factor, because I can't tell whether you typically are getting enough, or not.
Beyond that: I agree with those saying 2 pounds a week is too aggressive a loss rate for you. Too fast loss is unhealthy (risks muscle loss, hair loss, and worse), and can be counter productive (reduced energy level leads to fatigue, causing reduced daily-life activity and maybe exercise under-performance, and leading to a lowered all-day calorie burn, so slowed weight loss vs. expectations).
So: Slower loss rate target you can stick to, log all the days (even over days), phase in the fiber increase over a couple of weeks or so, get enough water/fats alongside the increased fiber.
Best wishes!
Do you think 64 oz is enough?
I work out at least 3 times a week.
Probably, though it's individual. For a lot of people, thirst is actually a pretty good guide. If your urine is a pale kind of straw color, not dark yellow (more concentrated), you're fine.
I actually meant, mostly, to be emphasizing "eat enough fats": That's the thing that is more commonly a problem among people reducing calories. Try to hit your MFP default fat goal as a minimum, or come close.
I was doing keto previously and I'm not about the non-fat chemical *kitten* storm, so i am FULL FAT baby. It's not hard for me to get it in.1 -
quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
That seems high even for OTF. How are you calculating that? I usually get about a 350 bump at the most. Remember, exercise calories are a factor over what you would have normally burned just doing normal activity during that hour, otherwise you are double counting. A fitness tracker would be a good idea.
I use the heart rate monitor they gave me! I do work really hard for that.
Right but that’s going to give you the entire amount of calories you burned in that hour, not just the amount extra you burned during the class. For instance, the OTF tracker said I burned 444 for Monday’s workout. But my MFP calorie adjustment from my Fitbit was more like 300.
Actually, it's worse than that. The HRM gives you an estimate of the gross calories burned. Its estimates are likely to be closer to reality for steady-state workouts, but IMU OT isn't necessarily that. HRM are not that great at estimating variable-intensity workouts, and usually pretty terrible at estimating strength workouts.
Heart rate is a proxy for calories, not a measurement. They correlate in limited ways. What burns calories is the work being done, in pretty much the physics sense of "work".
Working hard is a wonderful thing, and I applaud you for doing it!
But the thing is, how hard it feels, or how fast your heart beats while you do it, are not not great indicators of calorie burn. Let's say we have two people, same size, walk a mile a 3mph (moderate pace) on the same course, and one is very unfit and the other a marathon runner, all other things equal. They do the same amount of work (moving an X pound body over that course at a certain speed, for the same amount of time/distance). They're burning approximately the same number of callories.
The unfit person will feel like they're working really hard, and their heart rate will be high. The marathon runner will feel like it's very easy and slow, and their heart rate will be quite low. If there are any "efficiency" differences between them, those are small in the overall calorie picture.
But the same HRM, if given the same settings and no other history, will estimate different calorie levels. (A fitness tracker with gps could theoretically do a little better, but may not necessarily do so in practice - depends on the algorithms.)
And that's steady state. It gets worse for interval or variable-intensity exercise. The unfit person's heart rate stays high for a long time after higher-intensity effort ends. The marathoner's heart rate drops quickly during less intense periods, then climbs more gradually in high intensity segments, ending at a lower peak rate.
OP, I think people usually use Concept 2 rowing machines as part of OT workouts, so maybe you can relate to this. The C2s have decent calorie estimates, after one uses their online weight-adjustment calculator. I'd have to row around 12,000 meters in a full 60 minutes, which if I went continuously would be about a 2:29 per 500m pace, to burn 600 calories (I think that's still gross calories). Because you're a little heavier than me, you'd need to row a little less (i.e., a little slower pace) than that in 60 minutes for the same number of calories. Could you do that? Would you be working about as hard as you do in the full 60 minutes of OT? (That's not a perfect guide, either, for reasons noted above . . . I'm just trying to give you a different way to evaluate it.)
Overall, the best bet is to estimate your exercise as carefully as you can, and look at your 4-6 week weight loss results to see how realistic the totality of your data was (which includes intake, exercise, and the base calorie estimate from MFP).4 -
Gosh, I don't know. All I know is that my heart rate is 150-60 and above the entire hour. Like high intensity like running 7mph for 2 minutes at a time then switching to 5 mph. So how do log my exercise correctly? Should I round down?0
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Imagnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
Is that 600 calories what OrangeTheory itself advertises? A lot of fitness companies advertise some number as burn up X an hour with X representing someone continuously doing the exercise without break, at a maximum intensity.
If you regularly do a particular exercise, you can use accurate food logging to backwards estimate how much you really typically burn for the exercise.
So, they strap a heart monitor to you and count your calories you burn. 600 was just a figurative number that I sometimes reach if I go all out.
Okay, that's possibly more accurate than an advertised amount. Heart monitors work okay for cardio activities that involve a steady heart rate and activity pattern - like running or cycling at a regular speed. It looks like OrangeTheory is HIIT exercise, so a heart rate based burn won't be accurate.
You can always use the number for now and know that if you start stalling down the line, you might need to figure out a better idea of what you were burning in the class.
maybe i just DONT eat my calories back just in case. and if i lose more weight than planned so be it. HAHA1 -
Imagnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
Is that 600 calories what OrangeTheory itself advertises? A lot of fitness companies advertise some number as burn up X an hour with X representing someone continuously doing the exercise without break, at a maximum intensity.
If you regularly do a particular exercise, you can use accurate food logging to backwards estimate how much you really typically burn for the exercise.
So, they strap a heart monitor to you and count your calories you burn. 600 was just a figurative number that I sometimes reach if I go all out.
Okay, that's possibly more accurate than an advertised amount. Heart monitors work okay for cardio activities that involve a steady heart rate and activity pattern - like running or cycling at a regular speed. It looks like OrangeTheory is HIIT exercise, so a heart rate based burn won't be accurate.
You can always use the number for now and know that if you start stalling down the line, you might need to figure out a better idea of what you were burning in the class.
maybe i just DONT eat my calories back just in case. and if i lose more weight than planned so be it. HAHA
It is an understandable temptation, but losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. You don't want to crash and burn on it. Potentially, you'll eventually accumulate fatigue where you can't do the workouts anymore. Or so tired that you feel constantly miserable. Or you'll lose muscle mass along with fat.7 -
magnusthenerd wrote: »Imagnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
Is that 600 calories what OrangeTheory itself advertises? A lot of fitness companies advertise some number as burn up X an hour with X representing someone continuously doing the exercise without break, at a maximum intensity.
If you regularly do a particular exercise, you can use accurate food logging to backwards estimate how much you really typically burn for the exercise.
So, they strap a heart monitor to you and count your calories you burn. 600 was just a figurative number that I sometimes reach if I go all out.
Okay, that's possibly more accurate than an advertised amount. Heart monitors work okay for cardio activities that involve a steady heart rate and activity pattern - like running or cycling at a regular speed. It looks like OrangeTheory is HIIT exercise, so a heart rate based burn won't be accurate.
You can always use the number for now and know that if you start stalling down the line, you might need to figure out a better idea of what you were burning in the class.
maybe i just DONT eat my calories back just in case. and if i lose more weight than planned so be it. HAHA
It is an understandable temptation, but losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. You don't want to crash and burn on it. Potentially, you'll eventually accumulate fatigue where you can't do the workouts anymore. Or so tired that you feel constantly miserable. Or you'll lose muscle mass along with fat.
So if I don't know how much I'm burning...how do I know how much to eat back?0 -
You look good!! Good luck hugs0
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Imagnusthenerd wrote: »magnusthenerd wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »kshama2001 wrote: »@MichelleSilverleaf I'm 200 so I have about 40 to lose ....I'm ure its not actual fat gain, I havent been eating crazy, I just cant get the scale to go down!!!
With only 40 pounds to lose change your weekly weight loss goal to a pound a week and enjoy the extra calories. Otherwise, it is quite likely that this will happen:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
I love that you said "only" 40 pounds!!!!! Makes it sound easier than it feels haha!
Maybe I can up my calories to 1500..... Just to not feel like a failure at the end of the day...
1500 PLUS exercise calories.
So,
If I burn 600 cal at OrangeTheory, (this crazy class that I love to go to) I can eat back those calories?
Is that 600 calories what OrangeTheory itself advertises? A lot of fitness companies advertise some number as burn up X an hour with X representing someone continuously doing the exercise without break, at a maximum intensity.
If you regularly do a particular exercise, you can use accurate food logging to backwards estimate how much you really typically burn for the exercise.
So, they strap a heart monitor to you and count your calories you burn. 600 was just a figurative number that I sometimes reach if I go all out.
Okay, that's possibly more accurate than an advertised amount. Heart monitors work okay for cardio activities that involve a steady heart rate and activity pattern - like running or cycling at a regular speed. It looks like OrangeTheory is HIIT exercise, so a heart rate based burn won't be accurate.
You can always use the number for now and know that if you start stalling down the line, you might need to figure out a better idea of what you were burning in the class.
maybe i just DONT eat my calories back just in case. and if i lose more weight than planned so be it. HAHA
That would be the one estimate that's 100% guaranteed to be wrong.
Let me requote myself from above:Overall, the best bet is to estimate your exercise as carefully as you can, and look at your 4-6 week weight loss results to see how realistic the totality of your data was (which includes intake, exercise, and the base calorie estimate from MFP).
If you're truly confused about it, with no better idea, one common tactic is to start with eating back around half of the exercise calories, hang in there for the 4-6 week results, then evaluate.
That 50% is also inaccurate , but more likely to avoid under-fueling. What you super-much don't want to do is target a really aggressive weight loss rate, plus not eat exercise calories. That's the "maximum health risk" route. Bad plan!
If you seem to be losing rapidly (especially after the first couple of weeks of probably water-weight weirdness), and you start to feel fatigued and/or weak without any other obvious explanation (which is a danger sign), then eat a little more. Other than that, stick with it for 4-6 weeks (at least a full menstrual cycle plus a little, for premenopausal women). You might see some minor pseudo-plateaus in there, even a little day vs. day gain sometimes, but don't worry about the day to day fluctuations. It's the month-to-month trend that matters.3 -
@annpt77 OKAY i hear ya now. If i wanted to lose 40 pounds, its going to take me 40 weeks?
At a pound a week, yup. (But you really should slow down even more for the final 10 or so, much as you hate to hear me say it.)
Think of it this way: Losing 40 pounds slowly is better than aiming to lose it quickly, undereating, getting fatigued, moving less, possibly having health/appearance compromises from over-restricting, maybe overeating in compensation, feeling bad, giving up for a while, resuming (if one even does resume at all) . . . . etc.
If you look around here on MFP (Success Stories part of the forum, say), I'll admit there are a few people who managed fast loss . . . but there are a lot more of the slow'n'steady among the successes; and we see a boatload of people show up in the forums (or as MFP friends) with aggressive plans who are all enthusiastic, then . . . disappear. Can't tell you how often I've seen that, in going on 4 years here (most of 1 year losing, rest maintenance).
Besides, slow loss is good training for long term maintenance. Start now at finding the habits that will keep you at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. It will pay off.3 -
Weight loss can be frustrating if you are focusing too much on a scale. Maybe sign up for a 5K? that can be your goal. Maybe you can even choose a minor goal (drinking enough water every day) for your goal, think small & big changes will happen. Just remember Patience + Consistency = Results0
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@annpt77 OKAY i hear ya now. If i wanted to lose 40 pounds, its going to take me 40 weeks?
At a pound a week, yup. (But you really should slow down even more for the final 10 or so, much as you hate to hear me say it.)
Think of it this way: Losing 40 pounds slowly is better than aiming to lose it quickly, undereating, getting fatigued, moving less, possibly having health/appearance compromises from over-restricting, maybe overeating in compensation, feeling bad, giving up for a while, resuming (if one even does resume at all) . . . . etc.
If you look around here on MFP (Success Stories part of the forum, say), I'll admit there are a few people who managed fast loss . . . but there are a lot more of the slow'n'steady among the successes; and we see a boatload of people show up in the forums (or as MFP friends) with aggressive plans who are all enthusiastic, then . . . disappear. Can't tell you how often I've seen that, in going on 4 years here (most of 1 year losing, rest maintenance).
Besides, slow loss is good training for long term maintenance. Start now at finding the habits that will keep you at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. It will pay off.
I think that's what I have been doing wrong all year. crash diets and then failing and then binging and then restarting. I need to slow my roll and not overdo it. I gained 40 pounds not overnight, but over the course of my early twenties. I just need to get back to basics.6 -
@annpt77 OKAY i hear ya now. If i wanted to lose 40 pounds, its going to take me 40 weeks?
At a pound a week, yup. (But you really should slow down even more for the final 10 or so, much as you hate to hear me say it.)
Think of it this way: Losing 40 pounds slowly is better than aiming to lose it quickly, undereating, getting fatigued, moving less, possibly having health/appearance compromises from over-restricting, maybe overeating in compensation, feeling bad, giving up for a while, resuming (if one even does resume at all) . . . . etc.
If you look around here on MFP (Success Stories part of the forum, say), I'll admit there are a few people who managed fast loss . . . but there are a lot more of the slow'n'steady among the successes; and we see a boatload of people show up in the forums (or as MFP friends) with aggressive plans who are all enthusiastic, then . . . disappear. Can't tell you how often I've seen that, in going on 4 years here (most of 1 year losing, rest maintenance).
Besides, slow loss is good training for long term maintenance. Start now at finding the habits that will keep you at a healthy weight for the rest of your life. It will pay off.
I think that's what I have been doing wrong all year. crash diets and then failing and then binging and then restarting. I need to slow my roll and not overdo it. I gained 40 pounds not overnight, but over the course of my early twenties. I just need to get back to basics.
Hallelujah: Preach, sister!
I think your odds of success have gone up significantly.
Best wishes! 6 -
I just started trying to lose weight again, I started at 198 and now I’m 202.
Has anyone had this issue where dieting backfires on you?
I just started incorporating fiber (chia seeds, flax meal, ) into my diet to try to stay fuller but it’s stopped me up pretty much.
How many calories should I be eating a day?
I’m lost.
You are putting food in your mouth, but it's not leaving your body. That food has weight. It is not uncommon for constipation to cause weight gain. It is not fat gain.
Likely you added too much fiber too suddenly, possibly cutting back on fat at the same time (fat helps grease the tract, as it were), and possibly not getting enough liquids either (liquids help loosen stools, which can counteract bulking from a sudden increase in fiber). Address the constipation issue so you can have meaningful data on whether you are achieving a calorie deficit and weight loss that is, presumably, at least partially attributable to fat loss.1 -
collectingblues wrote: »@quiksylver296 I ate 1900 yesterday because i am trash lol
You're not trash, but if you're eating almost 1000 calories over your goal, yes, that means you're not going to lose weight. The deficit needed for 2 pounds a week would be 1000, so you pretty much negated that.
Would you be willing to open your diary so people can help you?
She had 1900 calories for the day. How do you get 1000 calories over goal from 1900 calories for the day?0
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