Retroguy2000 Member

More stress means more water retention. Have you recently suddenly started working out a lot? That's going to cause water retention.

The EPOC effect is small, about 6%-15% of exercise calories, which frankly is noise for most people wrt calorie tracking especially given the inherent inaccuracy involved with estimating the exercise calories in the first place. The OP said her MFP is set to Active, which is a BMR multiplier of what, 1.6? Any reduction in…

Because it's relevant to the topic, and to all of us. Here are a couple of reads for you: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/oby.23308 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S216183132300217X No, I am not talking about adaptive thermogenesis after long term high calorie deficits. I'm talking about…

You'll get all kinds of anecdotes about eating back X% or Y% and it worked for this or that person. What the research is saying, is that if you do a lot of additional exercise, the body compensates by decreasing NEAT while you rest and recover, or by becoming more efficient. So you shouldn't eat back 100% of exercise…

The "Health and Weight Loss" subforum is more active, and you'll get more help there about weight loss. You'll probably be asked for more info, so people can help more. e.g. your target weight, and enough stats for people to estimate TDEE and BMR. If you're new to lifting and your calorie deficit isn't too high, you can…

Think about some of the food and drink you've had less of in recent months. Maybe you've had fewer desserts, fewer cookies, fewer chips, smaller portions, less full sugar soda, etc.? Assuming some water weight loss, you're looking at a daily deficit of about 500 calories compared to before. That's about 1/6th of a gallon…

It gets easier over time because it ends up copy and paste for most days. With your salad, you can weigh the individual items for an exact calorie amount, then save the meal for easy retrieval later. Or if you can't weigh, do you best to estimate, then save the meal. That becomes your recipe for the future, and it only…

That's a good point. OP was probably more around 2500kc per day. If the new estimate of 1500kc is accurate, that's 2 pounds per week. Plus several pounds of water weight, that all adds up.

Do you know what your calorie input is now compared to before you started? Have you started lifting or doing high intensity cardio? Yeah, probably several pounds of that was water. It's why I recommend not counting the first week when you look to track your weekly loss rate, since that will skew the result.

If you take a slow and steady approach, with periodic refeeds and diet breaks, and keep your protein high and lift weights, you should be fine. You'll lose mostly fat, retain most of your muscle, and your metabolism will remain fine.

Every day is probably best, but wrt weight loss it's just an adherence thing. If it helps you keep total calories under control, great. 16:8 is popular, so 16 hours fasting. I'd recommend you time whatever windows you choose to allow some calories before intensive workouts, or your workouts will probably suffer.

Maybe people are too picky. I don't really care what brand or flavor I use, they're all much the same. They're all generally quite sweet with artificial sweeteners (I've seen at least one with stevia if you prefer that, I didn't). Some mix easier than others but they all mix easily if you're using a shaker bottle or…

Yes, under Cardiovascular - Walking, various speed options. As yirara said though, beware of double counting. If you estimate your TDEE based off being Very Active which includes a lot of steps in general daily activity, then separately log, "I walked 10K steps today", that's double counting. Use this option for additional…

There are many good reasons to lift, but increased calorie burn from higher muscle mass is very low on that list. A sedentary pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day.

Dr. Mike at RP is a great channel. Tons of great info there, especially about muscle building.

2kg sounds like noise, and if it's rapid gain it's probably mostly water and fat. If you aren't gaining strength, that's your program. Could be many things. Have you been successfully doing progressive overload and now stalled, or worse, going down, for a couple of weeks? When was your last deload? Maybe you need a week of…

I'll say yes, because anyone who loves Manchester United is used to losing, so it should come relatively easy.

It's not perfect, I can't say I never have a binge, but what I find helps is: 1. Regular exercise of any kind. It is a known thing that exercise helps to promote healthier eating patterns. 2. Regular daily breakfast of oatmeal (in milk ofc) with some blueberries, plus some protein powder separately. This sets the tone…

It sounds like you're eating around maintenance. There could be a bunch of things going on there, including a combination of: 1. You have estimated your regular daily activity too high, e.g. perhaps you are more Lightly Active instead of Very Active or whatever terminology your online calculator uses. This will inflate…

It is wise to focus on compounds, as you say. From what I've seen and read, the Smith machine has its uses, but it's not ideal for deadlift type exercises because of the bar path and reduction in need for stabilizer muscles. If it's all you have, then I suppose you have to make do. It's not a deadlift per se, it's a Smith…

I'll reply later re the workout. Strongest Man on Earth and former World's Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper recommends cross training shoes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMoVpperw0Q

Very nice. Those bread foods look so tempting. I'd hope to see more meats and fish to keep the protein up though. Were you more active than normal, more steps? On my latest trip to visit family, instead of just not doing much activity as normal, I went out for a walk every day and did a short daily resistance workout with…

Are you a new lifter? If so, a moderate calorie deficit + frequent lifting + high protein. Say 250-500 daily deficit. If not a new lifter, a small calorie deficit + frequent lifting + high protein. Say 200 daily deficit. Or, do a higher deficit to lose fat faster, but don't expect to gain muscle during that time. Retaining…

I have private food entries for Food 4g which is 100 calories and 4g of protein, and Food 1g which is 100 calories and 1g of protein. If I have an estimate for an infrequently used item or meal, I just use those and enter 7.5 of Food 4g or whatever if it's 750 calories, for example. I only track calories and protein btw.

Protein powder is likely the cheapest way to get additional protein, both in terms of dollar cost and also total calories added. I know technically it's called a nutritional supplement, but I don't consider it to be a supplement. It's just part of my diet, along with other protein sources, and I take whatever amount of…

Protein powder. Instead of drinking all that liquid with no protein powder, mix a little bit of all that liquid with powder. Problem solved.

Most of your weight loss will come from diet. While additional exercise is helpful, it is not necessary to lose weight. If you can do some exercise, it doesn't need to be "sweating and blood pumping". Zone 2 cardio is ideal, such as walking, cycling at moderate pace, elliptical, etc. More strenuous activities burn more…

Bear in mind that anecdotal evidence is not proof that eating back 100% of (assumed correct) exercise calories is sensible. And I realize you aren't recommending that. If your calorie target is Z, that comes from the chosen base daily activity setting in MFP (X), added to the estimation of exercise calories (Y). In your…

Just your weight, which is all that's relevant.

The notion of eating back 100% exercise calories is fundamentally flawed because the human body practices energy conservation. You'll have probably felt this yourself. If you do some high intensity cardio or lifting, you may be very sedentary for hours later, and you may subconsciously fidget less, etc. If it's low…