Glad you are back!...you can do this!

Nice jello and nice plan (I would still use 0% Greek yogurt or skyr or Wendy's chili as a topping! And sriracha, of course).

What BMI range are you playing in, out of curiosity?

lauriekallis wrote: »

Tonight I'm celebrating a friends birthday with her. We are in total lock down so we'll sneak her into my backyard and have a fire (that will help keep the secret...lol) throw some potatoes into the flames and drink tea with whiskey and beer until they are done, add some butter, chives and....cottage cheese (to make them health food)...follow that with birthday cake after midnight (her birthday is the 16th). I know it will hurt tomorrow when I find myself 5 pounds heavier. But alas, this is the game of life.

Woohoo - only up two pounds this morning (and went about 162 calories over maintenance yesterday - not bad considering the rich rich cake!)

@conniewilkins56 I am posting here in response to your other posts because this has more to do with numbers.

You mentioned you tend to get 4K steps a day before swimming. And you were wondering about your activity level.

I remind you that activity levels are just shortcut labels for Activity Factors. Numbers used to multiply your BMR in order to estimate your TDEE. And they are based on population averages.

MFP sedentary doesn't have any real meaning except that as a label it defines an activity factor of 1.25.

So at MFP sedentary we expect a person is burning 1.25 x BRM Calories in a day.

In your case this would be 1.25 * 1680 = 2100 Calories using 244lbs as your current weight, 5ft 8" as your height, and 69 as your age and the mifflin formula that MFP uses for BMR.

MFP lightly active labels an activity factor of 1.4, defining a caloric estimate of 1.4 x BMR Calories = 1.4 * 1680 = 2352 in your case

4.5lbs lost * 3500 = 15750 as your effective scale validated caloric deficit between February 23 and May 17. I prefer to use weight trend numbers as opposed to scale numbers, but scale is all you gave me!

4000 steps is an interesting number. Most people who use exercise trackers and whose numbers track close to the population averages start seeing burns higher than 1.25*BMR at about that level of steps.

If you asked me point blank I would say that at about 5,000 steps I would define someone as "lightly active", using the activity factor of 1.4, and would not be surprised to learn that someone exceeds the "sedentary" activity factor of 1.25 when they move around more than 3500 steps.

i.e. somewhere between 3500 and 5K we reach the limits of "sedentary" and are solidly in "lightly active", for most people.

Anything that generates these 4000 steps would NOT count as a separate activity for the purposes of logging. So swimming would be counted separately. Grocery shopping or driving would not.

I captured your food intake log from MFP and put it through a couple of excel macros. MFP no longer allows 84 days to be captured in a single transaction. So I randomly split the time period based on what MFP would give!

During the 37 days that included February 23 you logged an average intake of 1641 Calories a day.
183g carbs, 59g fats, 75g protein, sodium was 3256 (cough, cough, cough), sugar 53.5g (wow low!), and fiber 24.43g (near enough to female suggested levels but not very high)

The 47 days that include March 17 you logged an average intake of 1501 Calories a day. 154g carbs, 64g fats, 74g protein, sodium was a bit lower at 2973, sugars lower at 44g, and fiber lower at 21g (I would increase that if I were you! )

So you went closer to a lower carb/higher fat diet, probably for more satiation, and dropped calories by about 150 Cal a day. Just on the face of this I would expect that more weight movement took place during the immediately past 47 days of the 84 day time period than during the first 37 days.

Your intake average over the 84 days was 1563.
4.5lbs lost = 15750 Calories or an effective deficit of 187.5 Calories.

Adding up the two we have a derived TDEE estimate based on food intake logging and weight loss equalling 1751 Cal a day during the past 84 days.

A TDEE of 1751 is significantly lower than the MFP sedentary estimate of 2100, which we would expect you to hit fairly easily based on your 4000 steps a day PLUS the swimming which you regularly do.

So. Based on the way your currently log your food intake and on your scale results you're burning a good 17% fewer calories (if not 20% once you include swimming) than a person tracking closer to the population mean.

Statistical estimates are just that with most people being near average, some people being higher or lower than average and a very few people being much lower or higher than average.

On the fact of it, you are not holding the long end of the caloric expenditure stick! This is one area where you would probably have appreciated having a less efficient body! Foot tapping and random twitching are your friends: after years of trying to be efficient... move around more whenever you can!

Options:

1. reduce food intake below 1500 to generate a larger deficit. DO NOT reduce below 1315 which would be 25% below your current TDEE. Since doubling down on eating less is NOT an option I've ever chosen for myself, this would NOT be my preferred option.

2. proceed as you're doing currently. You're losing and I bet you're losing more during the past 47 days than you were losing before... so keep on going as you are.

3. increase activity without increasing intake. This could take the form of longer duration or higher intensity. OR even the introduction of random movement (see above). Do not underestimate the power of NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis). Moving around the house all day (do you take phone calls when sitting down or when pacing?) is probably more calories burned than an intense hour of exercise that leaves you on the couch for the rest of the day!

4. take a diet break which will delay weight loss for a while. (but did you not take one already during the past few months?)

5 perhaps even attempt a reverse diet to explore the upper limits of your maintenance calories... which is something that I would approach with extreme extreme caution and is NOT an option I see myself choosing in your position for fear of what I could unleash!

6 start playing with more involved strategies for example high carb weekend refeeds at maintenance so about 1750-1800 Cals and lower carb weekdays with total intakes of about 1300. Again these are fairly involved strategies and not necessarily things I would do myself, so I am having a hard time advocating them!

That's all I have for you! Well. Of course: eat even more fiber!

Activity level - and the difference in daily calories burned - feels like a big challenge to correctly estimate. What are people's thoughts of the calories burned number that Fitbit arrives at? I know people have mentioned that it can be off when you spend lot of time waving your arm around - or the occasional loss of measurement because it slips too far down your wrist. But other than that - when it is in place and tracking real movement. Is it a fair estimate of how many calories you are burning in a day? I just tried that NIDDK body planner you linked to in another thread, @PAV8888, and that sets my calories far higher than I'm eating now, even when I am modest when estimating my activity level. And certainly much higher than my fitbit ever suggests. I wish I could eat the calories it suggests and maintain or lose but history has me certain I would be significantly gaining at either level. If the fitbit calories burned number is somewhat accurate it would simplify things - except of course we would need a crystal ball when planning the days menu. But maybe it would be okay to eat "yesterday's" calories burned? At least we could plan in the morning? That might even be kinda of fun. If I know I have an indulgent night coming up on Saturday - I would work harder on Friday? )

PAV8888.... thank you SO much.....your numbers always baffle me but I get the general idea.....I am doing ok but with some effort I can do better, right?....I started today by increasing the bike up another minute, aiming to go from 20 min. to 30 by the end of next week....3 X a week at our gym....I also used my water weights for most of my 30 min. of water aerobics.....I have to alternate days of water jogging because of the stress on my knees....I might try another low intensity activity....

I was down another pound this morning weighing 242.5 so the fat is moving again!...my numbers will most likely get much better again...

I can easily increase the fiber so that isn’t a problem...sodium is a killer....I take blood pressure meds
( cut in half since I started MFP ) but still take 3 pills a day...I also take a water pill one day a week to get rid of fluid retention....there is so much sodium in everything...I don’t add salt to my food...

I can work on NEAT....I don’t pace or fidget so I will try that...my Fitbit doesn’t pick up steps if I push a grocery or shopping cart so I miss some steps...

I will try to reduce my calories that I eat by a small margin....if I feel anxious about less food I will move it back to a larger amount to eat....

Diet breaks have been a failure with me as it sets off binges...I know I eventually need a successful break because maintenance could be a nightmare in the future....maybe mid summer I will try one again...I don’t want to stop the momentum I have going currently....does that make sense?

I have a lot to think about all of the information you gave me....I need to read it all again a few times....but I love that you took the time to do this for me!...I hope it helps Laurie, too...you are both great people....btw I am “Nannie”.... never Gramma!....never!

PAV8888 wrote: »

I would go with the estimate that appears closer to reality unless there is a real reason to believe that there would be an advantage to doing otherwise! In your position I would go with the Fitbit calories and validate how close they track to my results over time periods that extend to weeks and months. Yes, short term there may be "wilder departures" but long term the law of averages tends to work out and a more solid picture emerges

This will be my focus for the next little while. Most of last year I was filling in my own table to track weekly averages...then stopped ??? why ??? not sure why.

I looked at Trendweight - and will try and set that up later today. That would certainly help. I do weigh myself almost every morning - can get that back to every morning again. I did for almost 12 months but that has slipped a bit lately because of some early "Nan" mornings (that I'm just getting used to) where I remember to weight myself after gulping down my breaking fast supplements and tea and then don't want that extra weight.

Thank you for the inspiration your input brings to my day (battle)!

You are not a mess lol....you, Novus and a few others are my idols lol.....when I get my blood test results in June, I will share them with you.....my doctors nurse told me the last two times I had blood work done, that the doctor did a happy dance all around the office!....I love my doctor who has lost 80 lbs on MFP!

PAV8888 wrote: »

I would go with the estimate that appears closer to reality unless there is a real reason to believe that there would be an advantage to doing otherwise! In your position I would go with the Fitbit calories and validate how close they track to my results over time periods that extend to weeks and months. Yes, short term there may be "wilder departures" but long term the law of averages tends to work out and a more solid picture emerges

I'm thinking it doesn't really matter if Fitbit's estimate is accurate - so long as it is consistent? If I use that - and set a deficit based on that (I'm going for the previous day calories burned idea - just for the heck of it) and track my weight - I will simply adjust the deficit to try to get a result that I am happy with. It might not be actual calories burned - but if I keep using the same reference and adjust accordingly, I should get the results I'm hoping for - without worrying about entering exercise into MFP and guessing about how many minutes at which intensity etc?

Anywhich way it is something different and will keep me entertained until I get bored/tired again.

You're correct. What matters is estimation consistency and the less decision making and more consistency the easier it will be to come up with adjustments.

Weekly average good.

If connected, don't log manual exercise on MFP. Doing so will override detection with your manual correction.

Ensure same time zones. Expect weird result issues when changing time zones.

If inactive later in day MFP Fitbit adjustment will decrease at the rate of at least 0.25*BMR/1440 per minute of in activity to midnight.

MFP assigns at least 1.25 * BMR to every minute to midnight. Fitbit 1.0 * when nothing is detected

You're funny on the naturally slim people balancing their other days In my world it's called setting up for -250 a day, and going over! Love it (NOT) when people tell me "well YOU don't have to worry about your weight"

No matter what logging strategy, in the end we have to validate against the scale

In your case though you've been logging for a while. So you don't have to wait to run... retroactive numbers!

Trendweight is probably already populated with your weight (?) Fitbit export can be used to get up to a month of data at a time to get your TDEE.

Remember that the whole "complicated" "adjustments" between MFP and Fitbit only have a single purpose in the end, that of making MFP calories burned at midnight equal to Fitbit TDEE.

So between past food logged, past Fitbit TDEE numbers, and past weight ins you can already validate how closely it would work for you.

Well Laurie... as I discussed with Connie... all the estimates and predictions are based on population means: most will be right on, some will be off, a very few will be a LOT off and play havoc with the grocery bill!

I may have screwed up with a zero or two and I am pretty sure that caloric expenditure prediction is NOT a normal distribution (but my knowledge of stats is not enough to move beyond that!)... but if it were a normal distribution and we took the three standard deviation tail end which would leave us with just the 0.135% of the population of outliers who are able to *save* on their grocery bill because they don't burn as many calories as the rest of the population... it would still amount to over 10 million people out of the 8+ billion people around this part of the solar system!

STILL... any consistent logging discrepancy can be compensated for.