Getting fit at 50 and beyond...200+ pound club

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Replies

  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    Hi all!

    I hope you’re all doing well. I’m back on the wagon and would love to see how you are doing.

    Jill☀️
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    It's Friday!
    Would it be weird to sneak in some exercise and walk some stairs while I'm at work?
    I think I'll do it!
  • azalea4175
    azalea4175 Posts: 290 Member
    jm216 wrote: »
    It's Friday!
    Would it be weird to sneak in some exercise and walk some stairs while I'm at work?
    I think I'll do it!

    I don't think that's weird at all. If your work is like mine, we have fire stairs that require doors to access, so you may be surprised to find you aren't the only one!! good luck to you!
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    azalea4175 wrote: »
    jm216 wrote: »
    It's Friday!
    Would it be weird to sneak in some exercise and walk some stairs while I'm at work?
    I think I'll do it!

    I don't think that's weird at all. If your work is like mine, we have fire stairs that require doors to access, so you may be surprised to find you aren't the only one!! good luck to you!

    I'm trying to get up and move every time a want a snack...I just have to walk AWAY from the kitchen.
  • wanderinglight
    wanderinglight Posts: 1,519 Member
    Hello! I can't believe how much my weight changes day to day. It's totally common for me to be up or down 3-4lbs. It makes it hard to stay motivated because the trajectory feels all over the place. One thing that has helped is using an app that tracks the trend instead of the day to day. But I still get discouraged because it feels like I never see a steady downward progression.

    And something I've often wondered...how long does it take for an over-indulgent day to show up on the scale? Is it immediate? Or a few days later? Just curious what everyone's experience is.

    Anyway...I started June at my highest weight ever: 226.6lbs

    I'm tracking everything, and paying special attention to added sugars and getting enough fiber.
  • Cherizac
    Cherizac Posts: 2 Member
    Hi. I'm fairly new on here (tried it for a short time several years ago but didn't like the interface, started again recently because my son is using it to gain weight) and I'm getting discouraged. I started over a year ago at 306 and got myself down to 260 ish just by eating a plant based diet and journaling with my best friend, which kept me from binging. But I just can't get under 260. I'm doing 1300 calories, logging honestly, and I've upped my activity (from none to a little) but that damn needle just won't move. I'm semi disabled with chronic pain, so I"m trying to do chair yoga to help me gain a bit of mobility back. I was walking every day, even if it was just to the top of the street, but now it's too hot, so I'm just trying to up my step count inside the house. I just can't understand how just a couple months ago I was binging on cake and didn't gain but now restricing calories to 1300 I can't lose an ounce. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this except I guess I could use some support. I feel like I'm doing all the right things but there's no payoff. Just discouraged today, I guess.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 31,724 Member
    Hello! I can't believe how much my weight changes day to day. It's totally common for me to be up or down 3-4lbs. It makes it hard to stay motivated because the trajectory feels all over the place. One thing that has helped is using an app that tracks the trend instead of the day to day. But I still get discouraged because it feels like I never see a steady downward progression.

    And something I've often wondered...how long does it take for an over-indulgent day to show up on the scale? Is it immediate? Or a few days later? Just curious what everyone's experience is.

    Anyway...I started June at my highest weight ever: 226.6lbs

    I'm tracking everything, and paying special attention to added sugars and getting enough fiber.

    The weight of the food shows up on the scale immediately: How could it not? An apple in my stomach weighs as much as it did in my hand, or sitting on the counter. A pint of water is about a pound more on the scale as soon as I drink it, same weight it had in the glass.

    Temporary water weight related to digestion/metabolization (of sodium/carbs mostly) usually shows up for me within 24 hours, so I'll typically see it on the scale next morning (I'm a daily weigh-er, have been for well over a decade). It can be slower to dissipate, rate depends on circumstances, anything from 2-3 days up to two weeks (but usually more like the 2-3 days). This is just how a healthy body behaves. IMO, trying to game or defeat healthy water weight fluctuation is a poor health decision.

    Primarily, we care about losing fat, don't we? I know I do. Water retention and the portion of food weight that will become waste is not fat, so why worry about it? I vote for trying to understand and accept it, and recognize that fat loss will show up in longer-term scale weight trends, playing peek-a-boo on the scales within the week or two that it takes to clearly outpace the irrelevant water/waste fluctuations that can be several pounds from one day to the next. Being frustrated or stressed about it burns no extra calories, feels icky, so good to avoid, IMO.

    Full digestive transit, according to research, may take up to 50+ hours. That has implications for how long food weight that will be waste may hang around and affect the scale, and also IMO implications for how long it *might* take for fat weight to show up.

    Remember that in order to gain a pound of body fat, we need to eat roughly 3500 calories above our current *weight-maintenance calorie level* not just that much above our current MFP calorie allowance. In theory, that could be done as 100 calories above maintenance every day for about 35 days, or all in one chunk of 3500 calories above maintenance in one big meal or day.

    There's some decent science that the "all at once" excess in particular may have a slightly lower than theoretically expected impact on fat gain. (Body temp may increase a tiny bit, resting heart ditto, stuff like that, so calorie expenditure is bumped up a little bit by the excess; perhaps, also, it might exceed the body's ability to absorb calories or nutrients during the digestive transit time).

    The "increased burn" piece of this is because the relationship between calorie intake and expenditure is not static. It's dynamic: Eating more tends to rev up the body a tiny bit. It can happen with smaller increases, but smaller effect, probably. Bodies are better at storing in cases of continuing small surplus, I believe: I think of it as getting better at what we consistently train them to do. (In this case, we're training them to store calories as fat, by repetition - this is more a metaphor than literal, AFAIK, though).

    Stephanie Buttermore has some videos on YouTube about days of massive calorie intake, with the science, if you're interested: A couple of cases where she eats 8-10,000 calories in a day, several times her maintenance calories, then monitors the impact for several days, in one case including many lab tests.

    However, I wouldn't count on this effect as a free pass for so-called "cheat days". Most of the excess calories are likely to be stored as fat.

    Like I said, I've weighed daily for many years. Over those years, there have been days when I ate 3500 calories or more above my maintenance calories, either all in one day, or in a couple of days over a weekend. I've even done it multiple times since starting calorie counting almost 6 years ago.

    My experience is that I don't gain as much fat as I might estimate, but I will gain. It's hard to tell how long it takes the fat to be stored, because it's absolutely obscured on the scale by water weight weirdness during the most probable times that it would take to complete. (Note that our bodies are normally storing and burning fat in teensy amounts all through a typical day, too. A high fraction of our calorie burn during sleep comes from stored fat, for example.)

    From experience, bolstered by the "up to 50 hours for digestive transit" idea, my tentative conclusion would be that it takes a couple of days for fat gain from a big calorie overage to show up on the scale. It's literally impossible to know, IMO, though, with limited-precision home-based instruments like a bodyweight scale.

    If you haven't read it, this is a good article that may put the water/waste fluctuations in better perspective:

    https://physiqonomics.com/the-weird-and-highly-annoying-world-of-scale-weight-and-fluctuations

    Apologies for the essay.

    TL;DR:

    Short term multi-pound gain/loss over a few days is mostly not fat, but rather water/waste. Water/waste changes may obscure fat loss on the scale for day to up to a couple of weeks (how fast one is losing fat affects that timespan, among other factors). Fat storage/burn is usually small increments from consistent daily averages, and hard to see on the scale amongst water/waste changes, but it will show up in the trend over weeks to months. I don't personally enjoy arguing with normal reality, so I strive not to stress about this. The majority of our days determine the majority of our progress, and accurate effort pays off eventually.
  • azalea4175
    azalea4175 Posts: 290 Member
    Cherizac wrote: »
    Hi. I'm fairly new on here (tried it for a short time several years ago but didn't like the interface, started again recently because my son is using it to gain weight) and I'm getting discouraged. I started over a year ago at 306 and got myself down to 260 ish just by eating a plant based diet and journaling with my best friend, which kept me from binging. But I just can't get under 260. I'm doing 1300 calories, logging honestly, and I've upped my activity (from none to a little) but that damn needle just won't move. I'm semi disabled with chronic pain, so I"m trying to do chair yoga to help me gain a bit of mobility back. I was walking every day, even if it was just to the top of the street, but now it's too hot, so I'm just trying to up my step count inside the house. I just can't understand how just a couple months ago I was binging on cake and didn't gain but now restricing calories to 1300 I can't lose an ounce. I'm not even sure why I'm posting this except I guess I could use some support. I feel like I'm doing all the right things but there's no payoff. Just discouraged today, I guess.

    perhaps you need a few more calories. have you checked your base metabolism rate? there are several BMR calculators online for free, it might be worth looking at. Also, maybe check your fiber consumption too, that will help with satiety. I've been there, so I can relate. let us know how we can support you!! hugs
  • wanderinglight
    wanderinglight Posts: 1,519 Member
    @AnnPT77 That was incredibly kind of you to write so much in response to my kinda throwaway question. Thank you! That was both fascinating and eye-opening.

    It's interesting to try and understand more about it, because sometimes I'll have a day when I overeat and because it doesn't show up on the scale the next day it's easy for me to say that it didn't matter. Might as well have another day like that because it didn't affect the scale. But actually knowing that it may show up on the scale two or three days later makes it easier to keep it as a one-day thing and not let it become a habit.
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    Thanks Ann for your amazing input!
  • azalea4175
    azalea4175 Posts: 290 Member
    Ended June down 2#. Very stressful month, and I'll take it. hoping July isn't as stressful as June was. Also excited the pool is opened in a town a few towns over, so i can go back to aqua jogging :)
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    azalea4175 wrote: »
    Ended June down 2#. Very stressful month, and I'll take it. hoping July isn't as stressful as June was. Also excited the pool is opened in a town a few towns over, so i can go back to aqua jogging :)

    Aqua jogging! That sounds like fun. Congratulations on your 2 pound loss.
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    I tried a little shuffle dancing in the pool. The kids found it very entertaining. 💦
  • cpnknight
    cpnknight Posts: 200 Member
    Hello again chaps and chapesses.
    It has been a while since I have been active on here.
    The hard work I put in was badly damaged by my absence and I have regained nearly half the weight I had lost.

    It is blatantly obvious to me now that this calorie tracking lark is going to be like an obesity medication that I will have to be on for the rest of my life.

    Still, a fresh start is called for and a fresh start it will be.

    It is Sunday morning at 08:25, The Scaly beast has been awakened from its hibernation and the dust cleaned off.
    What will be its verdict?...

    Starting Weight...326 lbs
    Target Weight...200 lbs


    I am aiming for a loss rate of 1-2 lbs a week and have given myself the, very modest, target of dropping below 300 lbs by Yuletide.
  • wanderinglight
    wanderinglight Posts: 1,519 Member
    cpnknight wrote: »
    Hello again chaps and chapesses.
    It has been a while since I have been active on here.
    The hard work I put in was badly damaged by my absence and I have regained nearly half the weight I had lost.

    It is blatantly obvious to me now that this calorie tracking lark is going to be like an obesity medication that I will have to be on for the rest of my life.

    Still, a fresh start is called for and a fresh start it will be.

    It is Sunday morning at 08:25, The Scaly beast has been awakened from its hibernation and the dust cleaned off.
    What will be its verdict?...

    Starting Weight...326 lbs
    Target Weight...200 lbs


    I am aiming for a loss rate of 1-2 lbs a week and have given myself the, very modest, target of dropping below 300 lbs by Yuletide.

    Welcome! I like that way of thinking of it -- that tracking calories is a daily "medication" that one needs to do. And yes, it's for the rest of our lives but I'd rather take this medication every day than the actual meds that will surely come from being overweight. :)

    You can do this!
  • Fattleass
    Fattleass Posts: 223 Member
    I'm 5'11
    SW 278.5
    GW 185.0

    had gastric sleeve surgery on July 8,2021
    July 15,2021/268.5
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    cpnknight wrote: »
    Hello again chaps and chapesses.
    It has been a while since I have been active on here.
    The hard work I put in was badly damaged by my absence and I have regained nearly half the weight I had lost.

    It is blatantly obvious to me now that this calorie tracking lark is going to be like an obesity medication that I will have to be on for the rest of my life.

    Still, a fresh start is called for and a fresh start it will be.

    It is Sunday morning at 08:25, The Scaly beast has been awakened from its hibernation and the dust cleaned off.
    What will be its verdict?...

    Starting Weight...326 lbs
    Target Weight...200 lbs


    I am aiming for a loss rate of 1-2 lbs a week and have given myself the, very modest, target of dropping below 300 lbs by Yuletide.

    Welcome Back! We’ve missed you. ❤️❤️
    We all fall off the wagon… glad you’re back on.

    Jill
  • jm216
    jm216 Posts: 3,724 Member
    Fattleass wrote: »
    I'm 5'11
    SW 278.5
    GW 185.0

    had gastric sleeve surgery on July 8,2021
    July 15,2021/268.5

    Congratulations on your surgery! Welcome to the group. 👍👍👍

    Jill
  • azalea4175
    azalea4175 Posts: 290 Member
    Cherizac wrote: »
    how are you doing? did you find out how to balance calories vs body needs to you are able to lose again? I'm curious what you found out.

  • zagadee
    zagadee Posts: 22 Member
    Hello Beautiful people 😃
    Am new here trying to find a partner who we can support each other on this journey I need motivation I have been on this journey for all my life am 50yrs now hope anyone can understand.
    We can motivate, support, encourage, advise each other I stay in Georgia Augusta.but still we find ways to uplift ourselves throughout
    Thanks