Ultimate Accountability Challenge March 2022

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  • makattack220
    makattack220 Posts: 219 Member
    Caroline_slowandsteady wrote: »
    @makattack220 that podcast looks interesting. I looked around her website a bit and couldn't find anything about the fat adapted vs. sugar burning issue. Can you summarize it for me? I do think that sounds like me, potentially.

    @Caroline_slowandsteady if you use the links I put in my post for the free resources (Six Steps to Jumpstart and How to Lose Permanently), read those - they are short - and they have the info in there👍 For further info/discussion, her podcasts are great and I linked her "podcast roadmap" she made for new listeners (has direct links to the podcasts). Episode 7 really focuses on this concept so maybe start there!
  • ideas2
    ideas2 Posts: 1,261 Member
    @Caroline_slowandsteady Maybe consider a different metric than BMI for how healthy your weight is. I believe the metric of waist to height ratio is more correlated to health than BMI is. If your waist is more than half of your height, then they might not be vanity pounds. But if it is less than half your height my suggestion would be to work on confronting the cultural attitudes about thinness/beauty and try to be more accepting of your healthy body while you practice maintenance for awhile.
  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    edited March 2022
    @Cowphilosopher - Chocolate milk is typically the perfect ratio of carbs to protein and a drink almost universally loved. My particular one I used for endurance training was a bit unusual, although I loved it. I told other runners about it and as far as I know I've never heard anyone else say they used it. 😆 So that probably says a lot. I would use Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard Whey protein powder (I preferred Strawberry but Vanilla also works good for this) and Mountain Berry Gatorade powder. Mixed with water, of course. By a matter of coincidence, the can of Gatorade powder came with a scoop which per the nutrition data worked out to double the calories of the protein powder, so it was very close to an exact 2:1 ratio (negligibly higher in carbs) and easy to do. One scoop of each. I would take it with me on runs away from the house (even events) in a 20oz shaker bottle containing just the two powders, and also take a 16oz bottled water. After my run/event I would pour the water into the bottle, shake it up, and drink. Easy-peasy. And I personally loved it. Might be something that only I like though. I certainly understand that it probably sounds weird, but to me a "berries and cream" recovery drink sounds just fine. Due to the sodium content (electrolyte replenishment from the Gatorade) this might not work for everyone. Also keep in mind the cumulative calories of the drink compared to your activity. Don't just drink it afterwards if the caloric burn doesn't well exceed the calories of the drink, or if the exercise itself did not warrant a need to replenish electrolytes (so many people overdo the sports drinks, way in excess of what they should consume). In those cases, you might be better with a small chocolate milk or (even better in some case) skip the recovery drink after a light-ish workout. Endurance training is hard and takes a long time to recover from, so all things that can help should be considered/utilized and keep what works for you.
  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 11,152 Member
    Caroline_slowandsteady wrote: »
    @MadisonMolly2017 Thank you so much for your kind response. I was really expecting you to lay down the law and tell me to get more serious about eating less! I think your answer to "Really lock in recording every nibble. ... You realize it’s just data & will work to your advantage to record all you eat !!" is exactly what I need to focus on now.

    I am not going to give up on pre-tracking my days or having a goal of 1350. But when I want to eat something that is over the goal, I am going to think about why I am eating it and if those reasons seem good enough, I will eat it and record it. For this month. And see what I learn.

    I am frustrated by this extra hunger because I have been losing weight - slow and steady - for almost 3 years now - and I have never been this hungry. And my diet has not really changed. (To answer your question @MadisonMolly2017, I am losing "baby weight" from my about-to-be 10 year old. I am not counting from my high weight when I was pregnant with her or immediately post-partum, but a few months in I pretty much stabilized around 170, and I am counting from the point at which I decided to work on losing weight (which was actually rather a high point in that stable range).)

    I think what happened was:
    1. This has been getting steadily harder for a while, as I look back at my records. Really since getting within the healthy BMI range. Which is why I joined UAC, but I haven't really seen much of a loss with UAC - still in that top of the healthy BMI range. @MadisonMolly2017 I love that you call them "vanity pounds" - I guess they are. I want to lose more because I weighed less pre-pregnancy, and because these extra pounds are almost all in my belly, which I think is bad for me and also - yeah, vanity.
    2. Then in January I had my covid booster which resulted in a flare of my autoimmune thyroid condition, with some weird hormone blips. I backed off trying to track or eat to a pattern while that was active. But I think I maybe tried to get back into it too soon. I do think some of the hunger initially was hormonal.
    3. Several weeks (a month?) ago I decided to tackle the hunger and also the constipation I was experiencing (which were both probably due to reason #2) by eating more fiber. I was noticing I was not usually that close to the recommended 25. I upped the fiber by adding more carbs and reducing fat to fit them in. I think that may have been counter productive? I do still think it seems like a good idea to eat fiber. But I think that is one of the things I need to collect more data on. I think I am definitely seeing a difference between adding in chia seeds, which does not seem to affect me much, vs. having a snack of oatmeal, which I tried, which left me starving and shaky. Oatmeal has never been a great snack for me. Also kashi cereal, which we have in the cabinet for my kids which I tried adding in because it has so much fiber but it also has so much sugar and salt and I don't think it's a great choice.

    @MadisonMolly2017 I love your idea that the choice is not between giving up and fighting harder. But I could just take a pause for data collection and then decide what to do next. I think that's my goal for March.

    @Caroline_slowandsteady
    Great!
    If my body is ever “really hungry”, I tell it, “Of course you can eat if you are hungry.” I don’t want it to think it’s in “starvation mode”
    However, I also ask myself if I’ve been eating when not hungry…and curb that!

    I don’t want to get lower than I can maintain.
    My extra weight is around middle, too. But my waist at narrowest part, as directed, IS less than my height, so I chock it up to genetics (looking at my grandparents.) I remind myself the number of people who maintain 5 years is dismal. If I keep 70 pounds off & have a bit of a belly - likely die to prednisone - I’ve still beat the challenge.

    I have oatmeal (to help with cholesterol, but honestly, I don’t think it helped, but now I enjoy it)) every morning now with 4oz nonfat Fage yogurt. No shakes

    The only time I get false hunger is after salty or foods containing sugar. What are your patterns? Maybe note these during your March Discovery Month. It’s like a science experiment in ourselves…well worth your time! 😘
  • donna25trinity
    donna25trinity Posts: 3,188 Member
    lesdarts180 wrote: »
    Wow, I just sat down at my laptop after being away from home for a day and a half and there are so many posts and so many questions.

    First one: @donna25trinity asked me a question about averaging calories. First, let me remind everyone that I am a little old lady so my calorie requirements are quite low, yours may be higher.
    I am maintaining now but when I was actively losing weight at a reasonable rate (22.5 kg in 9 months ie just over 1lb per week average) I used to reckon on keeping my normal intake at about 1,000 calories a day plus a small part of my exercise calories*. You get a lot of criticism here on MFP if you go that low but I needed to average about 1,200 per day and holidays and days out are bound to be higher. I took several holidays, days out, family celebrations. You can nearly always plan ahead for these occasions and “bank” calories in the same way you might save up for something special. “banking” beforehand is much more effective than going into “debt”.
    Saving 100 calories per day for 5 days is only the equivalent of a dessert or a glass of wine and a chocolate on each of those weekend days. You can’t just indulge without counting.
    If you are going to be very restrictive you have to make every food choice “work” – you need your protein, fibre, vitamins, whatever is important to you.

    *I agree with @SummerSkier that “exercise calories” are a mixed blessing, try not to get too hung up on it.

    Awesome thanks so much for that it makes perfect sense! I hve one more question for you @lesdarts180 and maybe @SummerSkier may also be able assist as well seeing u guys are at maintaince. My original goal weight was 58 kgs I got there in September so switched to maintaince but found it would fluctuate over a 3 monthly period from 57.5kg to 59.2 kgs so that's wen i decided to go back to a deficit and make my new goal weight 56kgs. My question is once I get to 56kgs I know the same thing will happen and the weight will fluctuate up and down by a couple of kilos so how do you deal with that? How do u accept that and not freak out about it? On the days it is higher do u feel the need to revert back to a deficit to get the weight back down? Lastly Is there a way u guys stabilise your weight so it's consistently close to ur goal weight? Hope all this makes sense. Thanks guys. Xo
  • LazyBlondeChef
    LazyBlondeChef Posts: 2,809 Member
    @donna25trinity It's pretty normal to fluctuate within a few lbs (or a kg or or two). I think it's just something we have to accept. Unless you eat exactly the same food every day and do the exact same exercise everyday it is logical that it will happen. That's why we need to have a maintenance range. If I ever get past my current plateau I will have a 5lb range (110-115) striving to stay at 112 on average.
  • WhatMeRunning
    WhatMeRunning Posts: 3,538 Member
    @daciasil21 very sorry to hear about the health issue and I hope you are ok and recover soon. Do keep in mind that being within your calorie limit is 100% defined by you and not by anyone here. So you could simply reset your calorie goal to what you wish to achieve to be healthy. It's health that is the goal here, not weight loss. It can seem like weight loss is the goal due to how that is the thing most work on to be more healthy. But not everyone must lose weight to keep themselves healthy.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 5,132 Member
    @donna25trinity I think over time you will find what works best for you. The scale drove me crazy so I actually stopped weighing a few years ago. How my clothes fit, tracking my food and how I felt became more important than a random # on the scale. Maintenance will never be static either so what works for several months may need to change. And going back to a small deficit for a few weeks is sometimes required. Changing exercise or macros or supplements can also effect the #. It's sort of why I just picked a # for my TDEE and stick to it. And not to say I never weigh myself but last time I was in the Drs offices (endo and primary) it had been 2 years and they both were astonished my weight was almost exactly the same over the pandemic. To me that was a big win because in my past they might have said the same thing but they did not know that I might have had to work like crazy for several weeks before the visit to get back to that #. Whereas last year I was just normal ongoing maintenance.
  • Caroline_slowandsteady
    Caroline_slowandsteady Posts: 842 Member
    @makattack220 I had looked at the website but didn't want to give up my email address to get free resources. I will listen to the podcast.

    @ideas2, I just measured and my waist circumference is less than half my height. Not much less, but less!

    @MadisonMolly2017, I also am considering the idea of not getting lower than I can maintain. I just had in my head from the beginning - I mean 10+ years ago - the idea that I would get back to my pre-baby weight, a weight that I had carefully maintained for 10 years before that.

    But maybe time to accept that by health measures, I have succeeded in accomplishing what I needed to, and the rest is more about balancing my own desire to shape how I look against my desire to eat delicious food.

    But, I'm not going to worry about that question for now. I'm going to focus on gathering data by accurately tracking every bite I take, and see what I learn.

    I am not sure that sodium has much of an effect on me. Also not sure exactly how to track it. I just looked back at the last few days and my sodium is under my goal (which is the MFP goal automatically set, I did not adjust it). But I did put some salt on things that I didn't track. And I am not sure that sodium is accurately put into every entry.

    I have been noticing the effect that restaurant food has, but I am not sure how much that is because it is higher calories or because of the sodium or what. I will keep gathering data.

    Thank you so much for the insight, all of you.
  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 11,152 Member
    @Caroline_slowandsteady

    Some options to consider as you track carefully & observe how myopic feel this month:

    1. You could always lose your final 10lbs over the next 5 years by decreasing your daily calories by 20 cals (or increasing your exercise…by 20 cals per day)

    Or in 2 years, 47 calories a day…

    2. You could redefine “delicious foods” over time. Then everything gets much easier.
    And I want it to be as easy as possible to maintain. Treats really aren’t a treat, I sadly had to realize. Now, 6 years later, a treat for me are a) raw pecans with cinnamon decaf tea & a pink lady apple. Peanut only PB with no palm oils or salt on a slice of while wheat toast. Homemade roasted sliced potatoes with 1T olive oil for the whole recipe/pan some garlic powder rosemary. Delicious blueberries. I’m Not being goody two shoes here. If you told me 6 years ago I’d feel this way, I would have laughed. But as I put self kindness & my health first, I gradually shifted from “delicious treats & restaurant foods” to foods that truly energize my body.
    Self Kindness. There were stumbles…I learned from them.

    3. Many folks who have maintained for awhile do eventually shift enough to get leaner. It’s not a race (as you known.)

    4. Work on resistance exercise to build your muscle mass and/or not lose it in the future as quickly. You will burn more calories & look slimmer - even at the same weight as you are today.

    5. Ask your doctor what he/she suggests. That’s what I did. He told me not to go lower than 150 (22.8 BMI) without checking with him first. My other Dr was the one who said anything under 24.9 BMI. She’s going off research.

    Just thoughts to mull over lightly…

    Congratulations on decreasing your weight & becoming healthier❣️
  • ideas2
    ideas2 Posts: 1,261 Member
    @Caroline_slowandsteady

    Yep.... congratulations at achieving a healthy weight! Your BMI and height/waist ratio both suggest that losing more weight would not really lower your risk for diseases or increase your lifespan or healthspan.
  • lesdarts180
    lesdarts180 Posts: 3,059 Member
    @donna25trinity I have a realistic range (48 – 51 kg) which I try to keep within and it does require constant attention. Do you use a weight tracking app? I use Libra (for Android phones) and it helps to smooth out the spikes. This time last year (when my son was dying) I lost weight and got too skinny, down below 48 kg for a few weeks (my BMI was still a healthy 20). Once the funeral was over and I started getting back to my usual routines – and going on a few short holiday breaks – my weight came up to a 49/50 kg. But by the end of the summer – and more holidays – it was over 51 kg (with a couple of spikes at 52). November was quiet, as was December until Christmas Day so I slowly eased back to 50 kg. I’m now just under 49 and happy with that. I have a short break planned later in March which will be 4 nights of dinner, bed and breakfast so will probably creep up closer to 50 kg again.
  • ideas2
    ideas2 Posts: 1,261 Member
    @daciasil21 If your clothes fit looser I wouldn´t call it a true plateau, but I understand your frustration of the scale not moving. Depending on what your health issues are, I would look at the glycemic index and insulin. Am I mixing you up with someone else or am I remembering correctly that you are on a medication that affects insulin? In most circumstances when insulin is going too low it is related to insulin being unstable, spiking and then going too low to compensate. During the peaks of high insulin it is making your body store fat. Although you don´t want your insulin to dip to really low levels, having not high levels for as many hours as possible allows you body to burn off more fat. Vegans usually have to have quite a few carbs to get their protein, but being mindful of the ¨slow¨¨ or ¨complex¨ carbs might help. Being in China I would imagine there are a lot of people around you eating white rice, but even brown rice is pretty high on the glycemic index.
  • Caroline_slowandsteady
    Caroline_slowandsteady Posts: 842 Member
    @MadisonMolly2017, @ideas2 thank you for the permission and congratulations. I feel kind of awed by it.

    @makattack220 I listened to the podcast and - yeah - sounds like me. Lurching from snack to snack. It's funny she said "snacking didn't really exist until 1980." Guess what year I was born? 1980! Been snacking all my life.

    Her solution seemed to be give up flour and sugar ... which I am not ready to do. Partly influenced by seeing my mom go on the Atkins diet in the mid 1990s, which she has "been on" ever since - except that she cheats frequently. It's resulted in really disordered eating for her. And if she doesn't eat snacks she is SUPER cranky!

    But I am going to listen to some more of that podcast because I do really like her - even though I am not at all a busy doctor! My sister is a busy doctor but she's never been overweight a day in her life.

    Anyway, going to continue with my mission this month of collecting data, and then at the end of the month I'll decide what to do with it.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 5,132 Member
    @daciasil21
    A few months ago I began exercising, and while the scale didn't move at all, my clothes began to fit looser. The suggested calorie restriction from mfp didn't really work out for me. Due to medication issues I need to eat a bit more than that to be ok. What do you all suggest I do to kick start losing weight again?

    It is very difficult to comment without really understanding why you have to eat more with medication. DO you have to eat more calories? The trick is the balance. You will continue to maintain unless you use more calories (NEAT and Direct exercise) or consume less. So sadly perhaps until your health issues stabilize you need to continue to maintain. Keep monitoring tho because I think you are probably either losing very very slowly or gaining very very slowly. None of us stay static completely. As for the clothes fitting better. That's a good sign. As long as they aren't a pair of jeans you have been wearing for several weeks. LOL. Those tend to stretch and fool us into thinking they fit better,
  • lesdarts180
    lesdarts180 Posts: 3,059 Member
    @daciasil21

    “I’m having some health issue so I might have to partially drop out. I still want to be accountable for exercise and the quality of the food but I think I need to back off from controlling the quantity to a degree. The doctor says I need to eat more.
    I lost 112 pounds so far but I had hoped to lose more weight and go faster.”

    “My weight has been at a standstill for several months.”

    It’s difficult to comment without a bit more information – would you feel happy to share your stats? Height, weight, goal weight etc. You have lost a lot of weight over the three years that you have been eating a vegan diet so congratulations on that!
    Did the doctor who asked you to eat more explain why? Do you need to concentrate on any particular food or macro? I totally respect your decision to eat vegan but you do need to pay attention to nutrition – vegan diets can be short on protein and some vitamins and minerals.
    Are you vegan for ethical reasons or just to lose weight?

    Lastly, the commonest reason for lost losing weight when you believe you are eating within your calorie goal is that you are underestimating your calories in or overestimating your calories out. I would say that 4,000 steps a day is pretty inactive – almost sedentary. If you are tracking your steps with a body worn device that is a minimum activity level. If you are tracking steps on your phone – and therefore not tracking all your pottering around at home steps – 4,000 steps is a 30 minute walk?

    Do you weigh your food accurately? Read the labels, check the database entries.
  • ideas2
    ideas2 Posts: 1,261 Member
    edited March 2022
    @daciasil21 My internet or MyFitnessPal must not have been working right when I wrote you about the glycemic index and insulin. I tried to edit my post because most of the places that I wrote ¨insulin¨ I really meant ¨blood sugar.¨ We can track our blood sugar easy enough but don´t know exactly what our insulin itself is doing- how much insulin is being put out to get those levels of blood sugar.

    Instead of try to completely re-write it now, just know my suggestion is to be mindful of eating the more complex, slower to digest carbs that are lower on the glycemic index if you need to level out the roller coaster of blood sugar. Those spikes and dips of blood sugar make us hungrier and those points of too much insulin tell your body to grow and store fat, instead of burn fat.
  • TerriRichardson112
    TerriRichardson112 Posts: 19,038 Member
    @daciasil21 Sorry about your health issues.

    👍🏻 Well done on losing 112 lbs. Losing weight more slowly is a good idea. A slower rate can be more sustainable. And I agree with one of the others who said that improving health and fitness was more important in the long run.

    Don’t give up on yourself. Consistently logging is a good habit to work on, and you can set your own goals.
  • donna25trinity
    donna25trinity Posts: 3,188 Member
    edited March 2022
    LazyBlondeChef wrote: »
    @donna25trinity It's pretty normal to fluctuate within a few lbs (or a kg or or two). I think it's just something we have to accept. Unless you eat exactly the same food every day and do the exact same exercise everyday it is logical that it will happen. That's why we need to have a maintenance range. If I ever get past my current plateau I will have a 5lb range (110-115) striving to stay at 112 on average.

    U r so right @LazyBlondeChef , it's def an acceptance thing isn't it! I hve given myself 3 months at a deficit and that will come to an end on 23rd of March at that point I am going to not keep pushing to get lower and instead i will switch to maintaince, be kind to myself learn to accept and hve a maintaince range as u mentioned. Thanks for your reply Xo
  • donna25trinity
    donna25trinity Posts: 3,188 Member
    lesdarts180 wrote: »
    @donna25trinity I have a realistic range (48 – 51 kg) which I try to keep within and it does require constant attention. Do you use a weight tracking app? I use Libra (for Android phones) and it helps to smooth out the spikes. This time last year (when my son was dying) I lost weight and got too skinny, down below 48 kg for a few weeks (my BMI was still a healthy 20). Once the funeral was over and I started getting back to my usual routines – and going on a few short holiday breaks – my weight came up to a 49/50 kg. But by the end of the summer – and more holidays – it was over 51 kg (with a couple of spikes at 52). November was quiet, as was December until Christmas Day so I slowly eased back to 50 kg. I’m now just under 49 and happy with that. I have a short break planned later in March which will be 4 nights of dinner, bed and breakfast so will probably creep up closer to 50 kg again.

    This is great @lesdart180 thanks for the detail very helpful and like u I think I need to be prepared that maintaining will be something that will also require constant attention. I hve heard on a maintainers podcast I listen to that maintaining weight can be in some cases harder than the weight loss part. Yep I use libra app to look at my average and trends and that has been really good to hve that data. It seems like u hve a really good balance with living ur life, enjoying ur food and eating in moderation. I did my 1st week of banking my calories for the w/e it made hving that yummy treat on Sat and Sunday really enjoyable. Xo
  • donna25trinity
    donna25trinity Posts: 3,188 Member
    SummerSkier wrote: »
    @donna25trinity I think over time you will find what works best for you. The scale drove me crazy so I actually stopped weighing a few years ago. How my clothes fit, tracking my food and how I felt became more important than a random # on the scale. Maintenance will never be static either so what works for several months may need to change. And going back to a small deficit for a few weeks is sometimes required. Changing exercise or macros or supplements can also effect the #. It's sort of why I just picked a # for my TDEE and stick to it. And not to say I never weigh myself but last time I was in the Drs offices (endo and primary) it had been 2 years and they both were astonished my weight was almost exactly the same over the pandemic. To me that was a big win because in my past they might have said the same thing but they did not know that I might have had to work like crazy for several weeks before the visit to get back to that #. Whereas last year I was just normal ongoing maintenance.

    Thats really awesome that u did that @summerskier glad I am not the only 1 that feels llike throwing the scale out. He he! I hve recently started taking measuements and trying to focus on those numbers more so than the scale because I am feeling really good in my clothes so I probably need to not allow the number on the scale to mess with my head as much as it does! Lol! I also take pics of my body and altho I am similar in weight the pics of my body looks so different, I am def more slimmer and toned looking in my recent pics. The Drs visit these days for u are def a huge win u must feel so free not doing all the stressing u once did only to get the same results. That's so amazing! Well done! Thanks for your reply good to know this is all part of the process. Xo
  • TerriRichardson112
    TerriRichardson112 Posts: 19,038 Member
    edited March 2022
    Monitoring my weight daily showed up the daily fluctuations, and allowed me to stop stressing over them.

    I usethe Happy Scale app. It was very comforting to see the downward trend over time. These days I have been practically flatlining on it. 😝

    Now that I’m in maintenance, I have an upper weight range, and the weight fluctuations are almost irrelevant. If I edge towards my upper limit I know exactly what to do to alleviate it.
  • Caroline_slowandsteady
    Caroline_slowandsteady Posts: 842 Member
    @makattack220 I listened to some more episodes of the podcast and then because of that read a bit of the obesity code. It has me really thinking about how much of my hunger is just the experience of dipping from "storage mode" into "fat burning mode" which is maybe a bit unpleasant but actually good for me? That feeling triggers a bit of a panic because when I was pregnant getting there would lead to vomiting that was very difficult to stop. But that was many years ago and I did think I was over it, but I think that shaky feeling is still hard for me to deal with and think I will survive.

    I am not yet ready to give up sugar and grain or to fast ... but thinking more seriously about those things than I have before. Also thinking about maybe snacking less or stopping my bedtime treat...
  • MadisonMolly2017
    MadisonMolly2017 Posts: 11,152 Member
    TerriRichardson112 wrote: »
    Monitoring my weight daily showed up the daily fluctuations, and allowed me to stop stressing over them.

    I usethe Happy Scale app. It was very comforting to see the downward trend over time. These days I have been practically flatlining on it. 😝

    Now that I’m in maintenance, I have an upper weight range, and the weight fluctuations are almost irrelevant. If I edge towards my upper limit I know exactly what to do to alleviate it.

    @TerriRichardson112
    This! ALL of it!

    And, I can predict what the scale will do now. I bet you can, too! It gives me a sense of control I haven’t had before.

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