sijomial Member

On the food logging side - suggest you stop using cups and spoons as measures, weigh using a digital scale instead. (Calories are in relation to weight and not volume which is what cups measure. A spoon of very calorie dense peanut butter could be far more than you think.) On the exercise logging side - the circuit…

If you made your food and exercise diary public there would be far more data to go on plus making it easier to spot common logging/estimating problems.

On the basis that reasonable is good enough for purpose..... I'd use the exrx.net calculator and use net calories for a flat walk and flip it to gross calories for a hike that was significantly more intense for the same speed/distance. For me that would give a difference of about 80cals for your 2.5 mile example. If…

The goal isn't just weight loss but healthy weight loss. All sensible methods of calorie counting for weight loss take your exercise into account - it's just that with MyFitnessPal it's more obvious than TDEE calculators which roughly guess your average exercise expenditure up front. It's also good practice for weight…

Go to your goal set up and change the rate of weight loss you selected "years ago" which may well have been the fastest 2lbs/week hence the tiny calorie target. It's not the app choosing 1200, it is the choices you made when you first setup your account. If you set "maintain current weight" you will get a decent estimate…

Having a big event in the diary has given me a good training focus. Doing the Ride London-Essex 100 at the end of May raising money for the Alzheimer's Society.

My tip would be to look ahead not just 6 months, but 18 months, 24 months etc. etc. Common mistake people make is making a hard job even harder along with a focus on trying to fix a long term problem with a very short term mindset. Your true success isn't measured at the 6 months point but in the years stretching ahead of…

If you have no idea of your current maintenance needs you, like most people, will have to start with a reasonable estimate and then adjust based on results over a number of weeks. First decisions are do you want to eat the same level every day / how you want to account for your exercise? If yes and you want to estimate…

If losing weight fast is the success criteria then surely a concentration camp diet would be the "best"? It's a sad reflection on dieting culture that results over a short period of time are defined as best.

"Cardio" is an enormous range of intensity and duration. Shorter and/or less intense cardio shouldn't be any problem fasted but I wouldn't have tried yesterday's six hour bike ride without a lot of food before, during and after! It's part of the reason I mostly skip breakfast but when I need (or even just want) to eat…

"Would it be ok if I don't eat after my workout and start eating at 10am or 11am ?" Yes it would. Perhaps by a small amount it's suboptimal but whether that matters to you is your decision - very, very few people need optimal. There's really nothing complex about not eating for a time period if you think it might be…

On a kitchen scale in grams if that's what you are asking? Eating out.... Depends to a large degree how often you go out to eat. If it's rare inaccuracies don't have the power to significantly derail your progress. If losing weight is a "game" of thousands of calories it takes a lot of hundreds to impact the overall…

The phrase "skinny fat" is misused about 90% of the time! At 220lbs you are not remotely skinny so don't set off on the wrong path trying to fix a problem you don't have. Under-trained or under-muscled is not the same as skinny. 1. Is the calorie calculator on here accurate since I feel 1600 is WAYYY too little for someone…

“Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” ― Voltaire It's really not a problem that needs to be overcome.

If you want to log it in the Strength part of the exercise diary maybe just pick "squat"? Be aware the strength part of the diary has no calorie functionality if that's what you are looking for - hence the suggestions to log the whole of your workout in the Cardiovascular part of the diary. "I do log the entire workout as…

I’ve got a spare cartilage in a jar of formaldehyde hanging around somewhere if that’s any use for you? It's a bit chewed up though. :neutral:

FYI regarding "I wouldn’t call my workouts intense, I stay in the 130 bpm heart rate range." There's really no point in monitoring your heartrate during the training you describe - it's not cardio and your HR is a very poor measure of lifting intensity. I think your progress is good if as it sounds you are trying to bulk…

You can't separate it like that. Eating the right amount is part of health, eating an overall nutritious diet is part of health, getting to a healthy weight is a part of health. Your friends don't sound very help IMHO!! e.g. - I gained a load of excess weight very rapidly eating healthy home cooked food. Loads of good…

It seems like you want to use the TDEE method rather than how MyFitnessPal accounts for daily activity and exercise separately. Have a go at this well respected TDEE calculator to see its estimate - https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/ If your TDEE is 3,300 then Trainer #2 is giving you numbers for a fast cut and not a bulk!…

If you are exhausted going for a bigger deficit would only make that worse.

You have to eat over your total calorie needs (TDEE) to be in a surplus to bulk/gain weight. Trainer #2 is a dummy if he thinks you should work off BMR (your calorie needs in a fasted state and at total rest). Adding 300cals would suggest the trainer thinks doing your daily activity, exercise and processing your food is…

@Cluelessmama1979 No not better or personal - just refuting what is a false, and demonstrably false, statement that your wall of text also directly contradicts. You can't see the contradiction in listing nutritional information and then saying "There's no nutritional benefit"? Where does the protein, carbs, fibre and…

"Do I need to focus on diet and cardio to shred the fat and once I am at goal weight then focus on toning up and building muscle? Or should I be doing both at the same time?" It's your diet / calorie deficit from eating a bit less that is the driving force in you losing fat. Cardio isn't for fat loss - it's for health,…

Maybe you should glance at the nutritional label on some different forms of white bread nest time you shop because your stance comes across as a belief rather than being based on fact.

Net calories. The aim of calorie counting to control/adjust your weight is to manage your calorie balance and not just your calorie intake. e.g. My maintenance level today for a day with no purposeful exercise is about 2500 so eating that level means I'm in calorie balance. If I wanted a 1/2lb a week weight loss I would be…

If you took the word "only" out of your post (and you really should in such a short timescale!) then all you have is good news of positive steps to improve your health and nice results from the effort you have put in.

Nah - not lazy at all. Lazy would be sofa surfing not riding! I'm a bit unusual in that I prefer lone wolf riding for most of my rides as I get to choose when, where, how long, how fast..... I'm not an early bird rider at all which rules out a lot of club / social rides. As I'm retired I can go out in the middle of the day…

Lovely scenery in North Wales, but hilly. Komoot also sends a weekly suggestions email based on the rough area you ride in with routes or segments recommended by riders. Another free resource is Sustrans (sustainable transport...).…

"I know the only way to improve fitness is looking at 10 hrs week on the bike, really." Sorry Claire but good news, that's not even remotely true! That volume builds endurance but endurance is only one aspect of fitness. Long slow to medium effort rides it seems like you are doing are not a time efficient way to build…

A deliberate extended break at maintenance might help. Hungry all the time, feeling cold, feeling lethargic can all be signs people need a diet break. "Even on days My protein is at 90" - protein isn't universally the most satiating. Starchy carbs are my most satiating macro and that's not unusual as mashed potato often…