Stop telling me you lost weight by walking and cutting out beer.

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  • msophia94
    msophia94 Posts: 4 Member
    sijomial wrote: »
    I lost weight by cycling, strength training and swapping mid-priced wine for twice as expensive but half the amount good quality wine.
    Oh and by cutting 3,500 cals from my weekly calorie needs.

    I've lost a few weekends to beer though if that counts? :drinker:

    Think your first step would be to tighten up your food logging - lots of estimating and using poor measures in your diary such as spoons, scoops, cups, half this, half that.
    Weigh those things on digital scales, maybe eat less prepared food where you are only making a very rough guess like your burritos......
    You might find this game of numbers much easier and less annoying, with less plateaus, if you knew your numbers better.

    PS - just looked at your exercise diary, your calorie burn estimates are also dreadfully exaggerated. Maybe a fresh start is in order on both the CO and CI sides?
    I wear a Fitbit tracker, its making the exercise calorie estimations but even still on average I'm eating about 1500 calories while weighing my food. even if I sat on my couch ten hours a day which I can assure you I don't because I have an incredibly labour intensive job I should lose weight according to my TDEE
  • msophia94
    msophia94 Posts: 4 Member
    asthesoapturns wrote: »
    If you aren't asking how they achieved their weight loss, they can keep their mouths shut, but if you're asking, and that's the answer their giving, then it's not fair to be annoyed. Not to come across as an *kitten* but that IS how I've lost what I've lost. Not drinking excessive calorie heavy *kitten*, portion control and walking. And it was easy once I made the decision to do it, just time consuming.


    I can promise you Ive never once asked how anyone has done it.
  • asthesoapturns
    asthesoapturns Posts: 313 Member
    msophia94 wrote: »
    asthesoapturns wrote: »
    If you aren't asking how they achieved their weight loss, they can keep their mouths shut, but if you're asking, and that's the answer their giving, then it's not fair to be annoyed. Not to come across as an *kitten* but that IS how I've lost what I've lost. Not drinking excessive calorie heavy *kitten*, portion control and walking. And it was easy once I made the decision to do it, just time consuming.


    I can promise you Ive never once asked how anyone has done it.

    Then they're rude as hell. To quote a drag queen, water off a duck's back. Don't dwell on it. I have absolutely been told what I can't eat after someone's found out what I lost. Yeah. Thanks, what I've done works for me.

    Depending on how long you've been at it you may just need to be patient. I was losing 10lb a month for the better part of a year. Now it's dropped off a lot, doing the same stuff, just because that's where I'm at. Frustrating, but predictable. You may also look at if you are under fuelling YOU. I don't lose weight at 1200 cal. I plateaued hard. Once I couple hundred calories back, presto started losing again. As a rule I don't eat all of my exercise calories back, I don't entirely trust the estimates but how accurate any of it is varies from person to person.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    msophia94 wrote: »
    Full disclosure, I've hit a plateau in my weight loss and it had made me more than a bit salty. However I've always thought this was annoying but now just need to put it out into the universe. I am so sick of people saying they've lost forty pounds -or whatever- just by walking a few miles a day and stopped drinking their calories. I walk anywhere between ten and thirteen miles a day on average. I never drink beer, or soda, or any other 'devil drink' you can think of, I don't have mindless calories to cut out of my day. I do strength training six days a week and worked incredibly hard for every pound I've managed to lose. I get that when you look at me you think I don't move very much or that I am guzzling the calorie laden drinks when no one is looking, I understand that people think that telling someone to walk is a helpful tip to start a weight loss journey, but respectfully that doesn't work for everyone. I can't be the only person out there that rolls their eyes every time someone says 'start walking and don't drink your calories', can I?

    •Well, we don't know how much beer *they* were guzzling down before. (A few beers on an almost daily basis could easily be equivalent to a pound per week). Or soda (some people regularly consume ginormous wads of sugar-water calories). (And drunk people also make stupid food choices at bars, which have insanely calorie-dense food..they may be one of these people and conveniently have forgotten that bit).
    •And maintenance calories are a LOT more for someone heavier. There's a reason it's often larger males that lose a bunch by merely cutting out the beer. (although they are usually also athletic ones in my experience, not new walkers - which means it would take some awareness, but not a huge amount of it, to keep under TDEE..cutting out obvious stuff usually is enough in that case).
    • I don't know anyone in the 'I lost all this weight by just adding walking and cutting out beer/soda' category, but if someone is far into being obese, they could lose quite a bit doing this. (much higher level of maintenance calories + much higher calorie burn for even a super-low-burning activity + they may have been consuming loads of alcohol/sugar water previously to get to that point in the first place).
    • If physically fit/near normal weight and/or smaller and/or not very active, you'll have to be pretty on-point on calories (easy changes like these won't cut it).
    •*** And.. if that was someone's response to me, I probably would respond way more snarkily/meanly than merely rolling my eyes at them. (If the words "well, if I was as fat, lazy, and a lush as you are/were, then maybe that would work" applied, I'm not sure they wouldn't automatically come rolling out of my mouth.)(Note: at my heaviest 158 lbs, I was a runner, hiker, trail runner/orienteerer, mountain climber...so stupid non-applicable advice from someone heavier than me and non-athletic playing know-it-all would have annoyed TF out of me too). ***
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
    lorrpb wrote: »
    When I suggest that people "start by walking," it's in response to a question about how to start EXERCISING. Walking is one of the best ways to start exercising, especially for someone who's unfit and overweight. Not sure why you would have an issue with that. :wink:

    True.. but in the OP's case, it seems this was given as unsolicited advice (rather than a question about *starting* to exercise) with the implication that she must currently be sedentary AF.
  • Beautyofdreams
    Beautyofdreams Posts: 1,009 Member
    Are you using a fitness calculator to determine your TDEE or your actual data from MFP? I have found that the majority of fitness calculators overestimate my TDEE. To use several different calculators at once you can go to Gym Goal and see the variation in estimated calories. There are members here that have spreadsheets that they use to calculate their monthly TDEEs, maybe one of them could chime in?
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,400 Member
    I'm taking your post as a rant and frustration which many of us run into. If you've been doing the same things for awhile then why not think about changing your exercise up? Also, analyze what you're eating and make some changes. See if that helps. People that exercise a lot and watch their intake can get into a rut. Try something new. Also, people that just start a diet and exercise regime (even bland) can lose weight seemingly effortlessly. By all means not all. Good luck, I hope things start moving soon.

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