I mean, my "ideal" weight puts me into the 120's for my height. I would be ecstatic to be 160-150 with my health being better. Less weight will hopefully equal less pain. Nothing is going to cure my IC but I can maintain my current remission thanks to diet. Plus, I have to think about my mental health as well.

I also have digestive issues, though mine seem to be the opposite. I have to be very careful with my fat or I will be spending all day in the bathroom. Which is one big reason I am really trying to cut out fast food. I always react badly to it.

Garfield you're hurting my brain!

And you made me spend time trying to look at my own numbers... which highlight that YES I *am* eating way too many saturated and tran-fats (traced to logged cookies for the two highest individual values in the 12.5 and 10.5g range on the two days in question) for my own good.



Also explains my current weight... I am a little bit older and a little bit less active... and I am eating on average very close to what my TDEE was between 2016 and 2018. So I currently weight a little bit more than I did then close to the upper half of my 2016 weight.



When you think about it Garfield... that's actually fairly amazing given how much "hamster handling" is taking place... to essentially end up at the same place! Really: it actually a bit mind blowing.

So we now get back to you!

A bit of a false dichotomy you're presenting. It isn't either, OR. It is a continuum.

Sure. Right now things work *best* at 120g fats. BUT IT IS NOT THE ONLY OPTION.

How many grams of fat did you start with? I'll take a random stab at 1/3 of your 1500 Cal. So you started with less than 60g of fats and you've now doubled them.

Well 120 is BEST. But you can try 100g or even try 80g. Maybe it won't be as PERFECT as 120g. But it will probably be better than 55g or 60g.

And the dried prunes? A lot of them are covered with a thin sheen of oil for preservation and... I suspect to enhance their effect. They are not a bad little thingy and they do count as your BASIC fruit for the day (85g dry is two portions vs 85g fresh being one)

Decisions are not irrevocable. And issue management does NOT have to be 100% diet with no help from the pharmacy... nor 100% managed via pharmacy with no help from diet!

So NUDGE towards where you want to be. But do watch out for saturated and other not so great fats. Not all lipids are created equal and I really should start looking at MY saturated and trans-fat consumption!

I don't think you (you personally given what I know about your gastronomical adventures) will be too happy going "low carb" and being happy with your "diet" does play into sustainability just as much as managing any other condition.

So retract to 80g, or so, slowly... and use some but not excess fiber.... and see how things go

Girl fiber is supposed to be at around 26/28 I think without double checking. I think mainly because of total calories. So probably a bit less for you if you're below 2k.

Before you increased fiber for not so good results, and during the increase, how much was your lipid intake during the same timeframe?

Maybe increase lipids 20% from THAT and keep fiber normal as opposed to high or low and see how a week or two go? 🤞

Or go for 80g and then play with fiber to see if more or less is good.

And what type. Let's just say that it is REALLY NOT a good idea for me to have all bran buds -psyllium- without good and speedy access to a washroom the next day 🙀🙀🙀🤷🏻‍♂️

So with only 10% increase in lipids you saw improvements

So try 80g + soluble?

No idea what buds are made with but most of the action from them comes from the psyllium unlike other all bran product. If I have too much insoluble without enough lipids I would have trouble too.

Thankfully due to total calories I get to coast at 100g + unlimited fiber and only get in trouble when 8 reduce fiber to normal levels! 👍😹

The young ones around here will say this conversation has gone to the 💩er! 🙀😘

💩💩 2 U 2 Yooly!

Bella_Figura wrote: »

Am I the only person who constantly treats myself as a lab rat for dodgy dietary/exercise experiments?

I don't know if I can consider myself a lab rat for that kind of experimentation. However, I have been subjecting myself to an exceptionally long test. Let's put it in a more "scientific" format since this is a long-term test.
Hypothesis: Practicing "maintenance" early in the weight loss journey prepares the mind and body for the actual long-term maintenance through engrained habits.
Methodology:

• Based on the article I've shared elsewhere previously, the idea is to practice intermittent fasting with a completely scheduled day, with flexibility in the middle of the day for inconsistent events. (Incorporated on February 01, 2022.)
• Set calorie goal on MFP to be the maintenance value for a desired milestone weight goal after confirming said value does not go under the current weight's BMR.
• Follow a typical day around that maintenance value.
• Once weight drops to the milestone weight goal, readjust the calorie goal on MFP again to the ideal weight goal's maintenance value.
• Once the ideal weight goal is achieved, maintain the same settings and eating habits to see if weight averages around the ideal weight consistently, with a 1-2% error margin for a year.

Findings thus far:

• First 3 weeks, elevated hunger pains for reasons unknown.
• The following month, hunger pains signify a lack of sufficient protein & fat combinations in the previous meal or the time between meals exceeding 4 hours.
• Micronutrient adjustment after 100 days seems to have no correlation to fullness level.
• The last month, incorporating suggestions from the linked article above, has improved my sleeping pattern and productivity. In addition, healthy eating habits have now been solidified.
• At 250 days, I had not thought much about what I've been doing until I started writing this post.

Temporary Conclusion: It seems to be working?

PAV8888 wrote: »

Where are all my I LOVE @luxia2020 emojies?!!!!

YES. YES. YES.

Now let's build some extra resilience in the model... some defensive strategies... flesh it out... and we're ready to publish!

Funny you mention that, PAV! I was wondering how else to flesh it out before I decided to temporarily shelve it for now and post what I had thus far! Though, what did you mean by "defensive strategies?"

PAV8888 wrote: »

"defensive strategies"
How will you mitigate the damage?
What parts will you cling on to the "very end" going down with the ship and the music playing because they are the most important aspects of why things work?
--What if your next job is night shift? what part of "the plan" would you still be able to get to work?
--you built flexibility mid-day you said. What if your friends drag you out to after nine pm half price sushi? will you survive?
hey: I just stumble into these things: your clear thinking and plan above is already above my pay grade
But I am a believer in onions and fall-back positions due to being a "natural" pessimist... and then neutrally observing happy happy things happening.
If I were an optimist things would be better, right? But I am not.. so there's that and we each work within our hamster limits!

Haha, funny you say these things because my daily habits and personality are already "mitigating" the majority of these questions. I'm naturally a lazy, will-not-move-if-Earth-no-go-kaboom type of person. Therefore, I always plan for events and assignments with several weeks of buffer time once I receive notice. It's all for when "I don't feel like doing anything and just want to sit and stare into space." Which happens a lot. Unannounced, last-minute hangouts go in the days "I don't feel like doing anything." Schedules and stuff I set are guidelines to follow, but it's OK to deviate. At the end of the day, that's all they are: guidelines.
But, this is also why it's only "scientific" in quotes because it's too heavily dependent on my personality and beliefs. It's also reliant on I've learned how to adapt to my brain, so I'm less reluctant to make healthy habits, except for exercising. I prefer to rely on increasing NEAT movements since... I don't like exercising, period. Though, I admit that's harder to do since I naturally prefer to do things efficiently and effectively so I can waste more time doing "nothing."
If I had to "cling onto the very end" something, it would just be food logging since that's all I've been doing. There's just something about seeing that overall total at the end. Regardless of whether I go over for the day, food logging helps me plan my meals. I've had days where I've changed the meal plan several times in an hour, but seeing that number allows me to double down on how much to eat. I willingly commit to it and accept the consequences if I still want to eat something after a 15 to 30-minute buffer. As long as the weekly result is only two digits over the target, I still call that a win in my book! If I go over, I go over for a day. No big deal. I have proven that going over for a day isn't going to ruin my weight loss goal. It's even more inconsequential if my weekly target is still kept at the end of the week. Have to enjoy life somehow, am I right?!
As for your fun examples, I believe that "nighttime is for self-indulgence/care and relaxation." Therefore, under no circumstances will I ever subject to a night shift. Need more money? That's what the gig economy is for. And, like all freelance gigs, that's subjected to however I wish to allocate my time.
Realistically, my friends all know I leave the evenings to do my game dailies or catch up on my light novels to whine down, so they would never invite me out after 21:00. I guess it's a good thing I'm usually the one dragging people out instead!
However, I won't deny that if they invited before 19:00, chances are likely I'd be out until midnight. If there was miraculously a half-price sushi place still, I'd still go for my usual delicious selection of sashimi. Ever since I realized carbs make me hungrier quicker while not as satisfying as I hoped, I don't care much for them anymore.
You might ask, what if my friends want to hang out every day for the entire week? I always tell them, "Nah, I'm OK. I must recharge for a few weeks after the last social event." Perks of being an introvert!
Another thing I didn't mention is that I have another built-in flexibility in my schedule: dinner time. Unlike my other meals that are specifically blocked for an hour at "specific" times, my last meal of the day is blocked in a 4-hour window because the real goal is to finish eating by 21:00. It'll still count as long as I stop eating at 21:00 98% of the time. XD

Oh my! Now Bella, how is your higher order math (I don't actually grok math, I never did though I recall once learning something about matrices which I currently have no clue as to what they do!, and the other day I was looking at something I wrote in my 20's for a class I got a charitable pass at and I am fully blanking at what the symbols even stand for!).... anyway. MATH!

My personal observation (re fitbit for example) is that there is a larger error the more active I am. At the base calories level if I were to make a cut the eventual weight loss would be much closer to expected than it is when making it from an active day.

This may be related to being used to the particular type of exercise. Of course with a power meter and a bike you are much safer at estimating actual expenditure than by using steps as a proxy for movement.

I admit that you are a WAY WAY WAY more experimental hamster than I've even been. I was initially TERRIFIED PETRIFIED SCARED to even TOUCH anything that was working for fear of regressing.

I would have experimented on the way down. Not at maintenance. Just to give myself the cushion of having a target deficit while letting end results be actual vs slower vs no loss but not risking re-gain.

Also... remember to give yourself time. Time will pass and the numbers you get today are NOT permanent. They do change over time and are somewhat elastic.

So yes. You are a super adventuresome hamster. Me? Much more scared and timid! BEWARE OF PROWLING CATS! <--- WAIT A SECOND. I know WHY you're adventuresome! YOU are a CAT not a hamster! I forgot!!!!!

I absolutely LOVE looking at all the numbers & charts this group ends up discussing - strangely, even moreso when I've been in a bit of a funk toward logging and actively working toward losing weight!

I think I've finally identified the culprit - and I suspect it's also why I mentioned I got stuck right in the 225-230lb range the last time I lost this amount of weight - hormones. My body is adjusting in how it handles all the lady-things, and I'm starting to believe maybe there's some truth (for me) in some of the things I've read about fat stores, release of hormones as fat is lost, etc. Unfortunately, feeling like I'm only "losing" one week a month rather than three is INCREDIBLY demotivating - especially with 75-80lbs to go.

I've barely tracked this week - still eating the same things for breakfast/lunch, with the exception of maybe an extra cup of coffee. Dinner/dessert/snacks have been entirely intuitive - and certainly more than I had been eating for several weeks. Yet, I'm still within about 4 pounds of my last reported low weight. No stressing about the number of carbs or sodium. No counting. Treating the scale more as an "oh, ok that's interesting" than a "why is it not lower, I'm doing all the right things?!?"

I had planned to be totally back on point and somewhat strictly so until vacation, to maybe drop another BMI class before heading out. Clearly, my body is saying something different. With the exception of a few weeks in total, I've been in some level of restriction for 9ish months - almost to 23% of starting weight lost. Perhaps I'm overdue for a bit of a reset phase - it's the part I never successfully implemented last time, and got to 206 by brute force before burning myself out. I'm not interested in repeating that situation, as much as my hamsters want me to hurry up and lose this weight already - so perhaps some experimenting is on the docket for me, too. ☺️

Are you adopting some TIMID (not tiny which is what google had corrected to) onion strategies?