Kevin I have been using my fitness pal. Very similar to Lose It but I can put calories burned in straight from my garmin. Will look into the Withings scale.
Matt and Kevin I agree Santa Wife got me a very nice digital kitchen scale and I have been weighing and measuring everything.
Both thanks for the help. I need all that I can get.
I was able to go from 350 lbs in Sept. 2009 to 242 lbs and 8.3% bodyfat in April 2011. It was a combination of cycling, running, and watching what I eat. Watching the macro-nutrients is key. I know you need the carbs to fuel the workouts, but if you can cut the carbs and fat, the extra weight WILL come off. Then bring the carbs back when you get the body fat to a more reasonable level.
Sam thanks for the encouragement and suggestions. Awesome job on dropping the weight.
So scale issues seems to be the battery seemed to be working well today. Scale says 278.4 up 3.7 lbs from last week but still down 6 lbs for the last 2 weeks. Likely the scale was a little woogidy last week. So please overall but have a big challenge today with office x-mas lunch party
My party approach has been to write down what I am going to eat at the party before I get there and then log it in Lose It. When I get to the party, I make a conscious effort to spread the food over the length of the party. When I'm done, I'm done. Can be hard to pass up temptation, but the feeling of accomplishment afterwards makes up for it. I took the same approach for Thanksgiving dinner too, and will do it on Christmas too.
@Dewey. Always glad to help. I have to start getting myself back towards race weight, but I'm not sure what that is anymore, I think it's more of a body composition thing. The fitness center I go to does a free assessment every 6 months, and I also plan on sticking with going to get the body comp. checked with a bod pod every few months.
Not sure where you said you're at with the body comp. I'm at about 12.5% right now.(Knee Surgery, and just not racing, not paying that close attention to what I'm eating.) After the holidays, I'm planning on going back towards the 8% body comp, as my mileage and intensity go up, those extra few pounds need to come off so that my knees will like me better.
Other thoughts/suggestions:
I know the scale is an indicator, but don't rely heavily on it. Pay more attention to the way your body looks. You're gaining muscle with these EN workouts.
Stay well hydrated. For me as I approach a lower hydration status, my body seems to retain more( food, liquids )
but have a big challenge today with office x-mas lunch party
Honestly Dewey, this is where the rubber meets the road. Pass on the brownies and cake and tortilla chips. Don't ration, don't try to make this easy...because it won't be easy no matter what you do. Before you go in, say you won't eat anything but celery and carrots. Drink some huge glasses of water. Period. This is the way it's gotta be for a while.
Dewey, You can do it Brother...picture your slimmed down self riding your bike past the beautiful scenery of Lake Placid during the race. You got this...
Kevin, Sam, Matt and Nate. You guys rock thanks for the suggestions on how to not over do it today. I'm fining my second 24 oz water bottle in the last hour getting ready to go up stairs. Would log the food into MFP but not sure what we are having up there. Might go take a look then log before eating. Thanks again guys.
Overall steady dieting but x-mas was a little off with Santa cookies and what not. Still did not think I was that bad but today's weight was 283.7. Up 5.3 from last week and down only 0.7 over the last 3 weeks.No change in the clothing fit test. Still plugin away but a little discouraged.
When do you weigh in? Same time every day? Weight varies quite a bit over the course of the day. I usually go with first thing in the morning just after voiding. That seems to be most reproducible.
Hi Kevin, Weighing in on Mondays' in the AM ~ same time each week. I had a body fat scale but it is on the fritz. May get another now that x-mas is over. Food log has been steady within budget or just over (20-30 cal) per day except for x-mas eve and x-mas day. Just think we had spiral ham yesterday that was salty. Maybe responsible for the change. I guess in the end the number is still less so that is progress. If thinks stay the same for the next week then I will talk with Penny again and adjust the plan. Thanks for the response and help it is much appreciated.
All last season I weighed daily in the morning when I was at home (skipping any day I was traveling and did not have my home scale). Sure there was a lot of fluctuation, but daily weighing kept the pressure on. There was never a time I could splurge and think that weighing was several days off. Now in the offseason I have gone to weighing weekly on either Wednesday or Thursday, depending on which day I'm home. I may go back to daily for the OS.
I have a body fat scale that I have used for years. Not sure that it is completely accurate--but it is directionally correct. I would assume that others are different, but the best time (for mine) to take the body fat % measurement right before dinner fully hydrated and fully recovered from my workout.
I also like to weigh in daily. After a while it gives me a good idea about how my body reacts to food and how hydrated I am. I find it very helpful as long as you understand that your body changes daily and don't freak out
Ditto on what others have said. I do think the daily weigh in is very helpful. Particularly if you have a 5-pound "float" from one week to the next. Adding a pound a day for five days probably means something different than a sudden swing of five pounds all in one day.
Is your daily intake 20Kcal over budget vs a projected 500 Kcal deficit (net debt of 480) or an absolute overage of 20Kcal?
Did you log Christmas and Christmas Eve? Even if the numbers are bad and you know it, I found it really helpful to log everything and start to get a sense of what the cost of everything really is.
Thanks All for input. I have weighed daily before but my weight varies so much, up to 7 lbs a day, that I had stopped. May go back as y'all suggest to help keep focus. I did weight today and was at 280.3 so a change of 3.4 lbs from yesterday.
@ Kevin 20-30 Kcal over the 500 Kcal deficit. I did log X-mas and X-mas eve to see the numbers and was expecting no change in weight from last week. Net deficit for the week was 150 kCal.
Thanks again to all for help and suggests it makes a big difference in my struggle.
In a perfect world where you know exactly how many calories you burn and how many you eat, a 500 calories deficit will allow you to lose 1 lbs/week. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. If you are not getting the weight loss you are looking for, try increasing your deficit. I find that I have to show around a 650 calorie deficit to lose 1 lbs/week. You are not really increasing your deficit but adjusting for errors in calorie intake vs burn calculation.
@ Blake sorry to take so long to respond but work has been slammed. I agree completely and I am still working on trying to figure out where I need to be calorie wise to get that 1 lb/wk loss.
To all have weighed every day this week and the number has dropped ~ 2 pounds per day. It is amazing to me how much my weight varies from day to day and week to week. Cloths still a little tight. I will try to get another Bod Pod reading in a few weeks and see where I am.
SO folks weigh in today 279.7 down 4.3 lbs since starting 4 weeks ago. So 1 lb/week seem to be on track. Now just need to keep following through. Also was scheduled to start the OS today but still not able to run due to knee issues. Have been biking a lot last 3 weeks so will test FTP tomorrow to get a little motivation. May try to push up and try for 1.5/week loss to see how I feel. Last several day have been forcing calories at times to hit targets.
1) I would think 1.5/week would be fine as long as you are well above your basic metabolic requirements (in other words you are taking in your full bmr and then creating your caloric deficit by burning an avg of 750/day.)
2) I've been experimenting over the last week to judge my weight fluctuation. I did one day where I weighed myself 5-times. I woke up at 142.5. I was at 144.0 after lunch. I was at 140.0 after workout #1 (bike 1-hour). I was at 143.4 after dinner. and I was at 142.5 after workout #2 (run 30-minutes) and just before bed. Total swing during the day of almost 4-pounds. Second experiment was to let myself go a little bit over New Year's. Weight went from 142.1 last Weds to 142.5 on Thurs to 144.4 on Fri to 144.8 on Sat to 145.0 on Sun to 145.0 on Monday. (All weights were first thing in the morning.) I took Saturday and Sunday off completely. I did log my calories through the week. I went back on diet Monday and did a hard bike. Weight first thing this morning was back to 142.5. So, depending on daily diet (likely salt intake, fluid status, etc) my morning weight fluctuates about 2.5 pounds. During my diet holiday, I didn't go crazy, but was easily 500Kcal above my metabolic requirements.
1 pound per week is great. The scale is going in the right direction and that is what matters. Don't worry about the daily fluctuations for your weight because there are many factors that can affect this. Look at these changes to see how different things make changes to your weight. The daily weigh in should be like looking at your pace on your Garmin to know if you need to speed up or slow down to make your goal.
Remember that your calorie deficit is not only generated by what you eat but also but what you do. Spend a few extra minutes on the bike, take the stairs, or even clean house (You would be amazed by how many calories you burn cleaning house as well as the brownie points with the better half.) to gain this extra burn.
I restarted my diet on 12/26. Monday was my first weigh in and I lost 5.8 lbs. I have no illusions that I will keep this rate. I always lose a lot the first two weeks but over the long run, it usually slows down so I have around a 1.5 lbs per week average. This means I will have weeks that I break even or even gain. We are in this for the long haul as it took a long time to put it on, and it will take a long time to take it off. Some weeks will be better than others.
Well all down 0.6 lbs from last week with a total loss of 5.3 in 5 weeks. Last week dropped daily intake by 50 cal and seemed to handle OK. Nailed FTP work-oust on bike with good recovery and no real tiredness. So will drop another 50Kcal and see where I'm at. Overall seems to be going good.
Dewey, what is your daily calorie intake and current deficit?
One observation is that a change of ~50 is small enough that between measurement error and materiality, I'm not sure it's going to show up. If you forgot to log one apple then you're off by more than 50 cal.
But it kind of depends on what the deficit is already, since if the current deficit is large then an extra 50 makes you more likely to hit the current deficit consistently. In an above thread you mention a weekly deficit of 150 cal. I'd suggest that for significant weight loss that you should be lookng at a materially larger deficit. In my own experience I was running a deficit of about 400 or more per day during my most significant calorie-reduced timeframe (at the time that was roughly 20% of my estimated RMR). Your RMR is probably a lot higher, and it wouldn't surprise me if you could target a SIGNIFICANT calorie deficit for a while to get a bunch of weight off and fundamentally change body composition. An average of 1lb/week is hard work and you should feel good you're able to get that done. But if I step back and think about your first post that started this whole thread, I think that 50lb in 2012 is going to be a long and hard road, and in order to hit it it isn't going to be from losing 1lb/week, for 50 weeks, but rather by setting yourself up to lose at a faster rate.
I am not a doctor and my starting point was 205 not 280, so please take this input with caution. I'm only trying to be helpful because I know that losing weight is really hard.
Matt no worries I'm looking for all the input I can get. I agree with you on trying to get some of the weight off faster so I'm trying to increase my deficit but taking a more controlled approach. My RMR is ~ 2350 Kcal base on a bodpod assessment. Estimating an activity factor of 1.3 or so based on my work I get ~3050 Kcal/day. I was running ~ 500 Kcal/day deficit (2450/day) at the start and am trying to push that up a little by increasing the deficit by 50 calories a week to see how the deficit effect me, my workouts and my recovery. Currently at a deficit of 600 kcal/day. I want to get to ~1.5 lb loss per week (daily deficit of 750 kcal) for 2-3 weeks and see how things are going and if all is well will try to push for 2 lbs/wk (1000 kcal/day). The 150 kcal/wk was during x-mas when I had went off script for a day or two. (Santa had to have some cookies. it was for the kids, really it was).
Weekly update. things still going well. Weight down to 278.4 for a total loss of 6 lbs. Averaging 1 lbs per week but seem to be ~ 0.7 or so last 2 weeks. Dropping base intake to 2300 kcal for a total daily deficit of ~ 650 kcal. Still feeling OK with the reduced cals and able to hit workouts though not doing the running portion of the OS and am doing FTP workouts every other day on the bike.I am a little hungry at times but getting used to the feeling and it is expected. No ravenous hunger though. Finally got a diagnosis on my knee as femoropatellar syndrome (runners knee) and still not able to run and likely no significant running for 3-4 months. So I will continue to try to build the bike engine.
Great job Dewey! To substitute for running, I would try pool running. Although it feels a little goofy, it works the hip flexors pretty well which I think is the main limiter for most runners. When I was in college we used to do pool running sessions 1xweek even when healthy. If you can lay a hand on some PowerCranks (but please God, don't pay full price for them) they can help too.
Comments
Matt and Kevin I agree Santa Wife got me a very nice digital kitchen scale and I have been weighing and measuring everything.
Both thanks for the help. I need all that I can get.
You can do it Dewey!
I was able to go from 350 lbs in Sept. 2009 to 242 lbs and 8.3% bodyfat in April 2011. It was a combination of cycling, running, and watching what I eat. Watching the macro-nutrients is key. I know you need the carbs to fuel the workouts, but if you can cut the carbs and fat, the extra weight WILL come off. Then bring the carbs back when you get the body fat to a more reasonable level.
Just keep at it!
So scale issues seems to be the battery seemed to be working well today. Scale says 278.4 up 3.7 lbs from last week but still down 6 lbs for the last 2 weeks. Likely the scale was a little woogidy last week. So please overall but have a big challenge today with office x-mas lunch party
@Dewey. Always glad to help. I have to start getting myself back towards race weight, but I'm not sure what that is anymore, I think it's more of a body composition thing. The fitness center I go to does a free assessment every 6 months, and I also plan on sticking with going to get the body comp. checked with a bod pod every few months.
Not sure where you said you're at with the body comp. I'm at about 12.5% right now.(Knee Surgery, and just not racing, not paying that close attention to what I'm eating.) After the holidays, I'm planning on going back towards the 8% body comp, as my mileage and intensity go up, those extra few pounds need to come off so that my knees will like me better.
Other thoughts/suggestions:
Honestly Dewey, this is where the rubber meets the road. Pass on the brownies and cake and tortilla chips. Don't ration, don't try to make this easy...because it won't be easy no matter what you do. Before you go in, say you won't eat anything but celery and carrots. Drink some huge glasses of water. Period. This is the way it's gotta be for a while.
Just my $0.02
When do you weigh in? Same time every day? Weight varies quite a bit over the course of the day. I usually go with first thing in the morning just after voiding. That seems to be most reproducible.
Do you have a body fat scale? Any change there?
How does the food log look?
Is your daily intake 20Kcal over budget vs a projected 500 Kcal deficit (net debt of 480) or an absolute overage of 20Kcal?
Did you log Christmas and Christmas Eve? Even if the numbers are bad and you know it, I found it really helpful to log everything and start to get a sense of what the cost of everything really is.
@ Kevin 20-30 Kcal over the 500 Kcal deficit. I did log X-mas and X-mas eve to see the numbers and was expecting no change in weight from last week. Net deficit for the week was 150 kCal.
Thanks again to all for help and suggests it makes a big difference in my struggle.
To all have weighed every day this week and the number has dropped ~ 2 pounds per day. It is amazing to me how much my weight varies from day to day and week to week. Cloths still a little tight. I will try to get another Bod Pod reading in a few weeks and see where I am.
2) I've been experimenting over the last week to judge my weight fluctuation. I did one day where I weighed myself 5-times. I woke up at 142.5. I was at 144.0 after lunch. I was at 140.0 after workout #1 (bike 1-hour). I was at 143.4 after dinner. and I was at 142.5 after workout #2 (run 30-minutes) and just before bed. Total swing during the day of almost 4-pounds. Second experiment was to let myself go a little bit over New Year's. Weight went from 142.1 last Weds to 142.5 on Thurs to 144.4 on Fri to 144.8 on Sat to 145.0 on Sun to 145.0 on Monday. (All weights were first thing in the morning.) I took Saturday and Sunday off completely. I did log my calories through the week. I went back on diet Monday and did a hard bike. Weight first thing this morning was back to 142.5. So, depending on daily diet (likely salt intake, fluid status, etc) my morning weight fluctuates about 2.5 pounds. During my diet holiday, I didn't go crazy, but was easily 500Kcal above my metabolic requirements.
1 pound per week is great. The scale is going in the right direction and that is what matters. Don't worry about the daily fluctuations for your weight because there are many factors that can affect this. Look at these changes to see how different things make changes to your weight. The daily weigh in should be like looking at your pace on your Garmin to know if you need to speed up or slow down to make your goal.
Remember that your calorie deficit is not only generated by what you eat but also but what you do. Spend a few extra minutes on the bike, take the stairs, or even clean house (You would be amazed by how many calories you burn cleaning house as well as the brownie points with the better half.) to gain this extra burn.
I restarted my diet on 12/26. Monday was my first weigh in and I lost 5.8 lbs. I have no illusions that I will keep this rate. I always lose a lot the first two weeks but over the long run, it usually slows down so I have around a 1.5 lbs per week average. This means I will have weeks that I break even or even gain. We are in this for the long haul as it took a long time to put it on, and it will take a long time to take it off. Some weeks will be better than others.
Blake nice comparison for the daily weigh in. Use it as a guide but do not put too much stock in it. Good luck on you weight loss goals
One observation is that a change of ~50 is small enough that between measurement error and materiality, I'm not sure it's going to show up. If you forgot to log one apple then you're off by more than 50 cal.
But it kind of depends on what the deficit is already, since if the current deficit is large then an extra 50 makes you more likely to hit the current deficit consistently. In an above thread you mention a weekly deficit of 150 cal. I'd suggest that for significant weight loss that you should be lookng at a materially larger deficit. In my own experience I was running a deficit of about 400 or more per day during my most significant calorie-reduced timeframe (at the time that was roughly 20% of my estimated RMR). Your RMR is probably a lot higher, and it wouldn't surprise me if you could target a SIGNIFICANT calorie deficit for a while to get a bunch of weight off and fundamentally change body composition. An average of 1lb/week is hard work and you should feel good you're able to get that done. But if I step back and think about your first post that started this whole thread, I think that 50lb in 2012 is going to be a long and hard road, and in order to hit it it isn't going to be from losing 1lb/week, for 50 weeks, but rather by setting yourself up to lose at a faster rate.
I am not a doctor and my starting point was 205 not 280, so please take this input with caution. I'm only trying to be helpful because I know that losing weight is really hard.