Weight Loss and exercise

159 this morning. I am not going to go overboard, but definitely going to cut back today. Looking at the forecast, tomorrow afternoon is a maybe for paddling. I went way over 2 days in a row; could actually gain a pound. Still barely in maintenance range.

Going to come in at or a little under goal (currently 1600) today. Paddling is almost a sure thing tomorrow; texted a few others and meeting at 4 unless it is crazy bad out and it shouldn't be.

Hiked 7.7 miles today in an urban hike and came in at 17,000 plus steps on my phone app. Phew I’m lucky to get up to 6,000 to 7,000 steps most days. Tired now. 😴

1344 steps. My target is 2200 calories. I have consumed 2248 calories. I think (+ or -) 100 calories should not make much of a difference. However, I need to do all of this as accurately as possible. In this way I will not compound the error made by perhaps an inaccurate calories burned or the inaccurate assessment of calories consumed.

I think the way I calculate calories burned should be a consistent factor. In this way, I can adjust it by a percentage to find what works for me. So the only real variable that may be difficult to assess should be calories of prepared food. For instance, this will be true for my exs meat and potato burrito, or Minudo soup, which is made from the stomach of a cow.

PS Both beef stomach and menudo soup are listed in MFP. Amazing!

Haven't exercised in many months, I'm going to start again though. Hope it's okay if I join in on this thread.

I will begin with 90 jumping jacks a day and some reps with weights. Just starting off slow, that's all I can handle right now. My big problem is commitment, I need to stick with doing it, I tend to sporadically go to the gym one or twice then not again for weeks or a month. I want to get into a routine of at least doing a little exercise 5 times a week

No exercise again today; the forecast let up in the weather did happen but was short lived and it was still too windy at the open water of the lake.

Ate too much again, thinking the paddling would turn it into a deficit. This could actually put tomorrow's weigh in over 160!

Time to turn it around.

14633 steps. Four miles of exercise. Burned 396 calories. Target of 2596 calories. Consumed 2630 calories, which is an overage of 34 calories. This works for me.

I am changing my exercise routine. I have first started to run for fifteen seconds and walk for 45 seconds. Then I tried to walk for 1 minute, and run for 30 seconds. This was better becaused it improved my running stats. However, I am not quite prepared for this, but sometime soon. So I went back to my original run for 15 seconds, and walk for one minute. I can work on my running speed with this approach.

I ordered some running shoes from Amazon. The pair was too short even though I liked them. So I sent them back for a size larger with the same model of shoes. Well, I ended up with a pair that is substantially different. It does have the correct name of the model on the shoe. So shat happened? I like the original ones much better.

160.8! I had a feeling this would happen when I had another overage. I got burned counting on paddling and then being unable to go. This time I am going with the knee jerk drastic reaction. Not totally fasting. but my old intermittent fast level of 600 or so calories. Two days at most as a jump start and then a strict 1500 for a while.

Actually, I think I will go to 1000 just for 2 or 3 days. It is unhealthy to eat that level for more than a few days, but it isn't when you are offsetting some very recent high calorie days. As long as the average across several days is in the healthy range, it's fine.

@UpDownAround: I think 1000 will be a good target. It is not that extreme, and as you said, it is more important what the calorie intake averages out to be over several days.

I weigh 172 pounds today. I am still tryng to decide if I will exercise. Maybe I will not walk at all, but instead go to a fitness club where I can start working on my roll of fat above my belt. However, I may have lost my free fitness club membership since I have not been there for a couple years.

I am about to join a fitness club with one of their special promotions - $0.25 to start, $10 a month and an annual charge of $40, but you have to commit to 12 months.

Yeah, the free for life memberships usually require you to renew during a specified time like a specific month or even two week period. You can't renew early and can't renew late. They want to lose those members by attrition. I had one to a gym that was near me and closed; I can't remember if the chain went out of business or just nearby ones but it was fruitless for me to try to renew at that point.

4319 steps. I ran 1.96 miles. A new speed record of 6.13 mph. I have burned 242 calories. This means a target of 2442 calories. I have consumed 2479 calories. This is an overage of 37 calories which works for me.

I am having a new problem which I have already commented on briefly in the pasr. I am not getting as much of a cardio workout. My heart rate maxes out before this, even when I can go further. I decided to now go for endurance. This will prolong the cardio workout before maxing out my heart rate. So my first goal is to pace my running in order to cover two miles nonstop, except for a couple jntersections. I am not going to try for any personal records right now. I am going to slow down a bit.

PS I think I lost my glasses when I bent down at an intersection to recover from a run. I hope this does not turn out to be true.

Once again I had trouble with some late snacking. I did not go over, but came closer to even than planned. This morning I did my trial visit at a gym near my office. I will join and start going most MWF mornings that i will be working in the office as I am doing the single location option and going to one near my office. The one closest to my house isn't very convenient and the one near my office is the second closest.

This morning I did 45 of minutes of elliptical with HR=140 and then did a set of chest presses and heavy rowing (weight lift style rowing). The elliptical claimed over 500 calories, mfp calculated about 450 and I logged about 350. Everything I read says ellipticals are the worst about getting calories right. Kind of odd though; it has a HRM built in through hand grips and asked for age and weight. While I logged it, I am planning to largely ignore it in terms of how much I eat today. We will see if plans go better today.

I supect I will be paddling today or tomorrow. Not sure how much longer the Wednesday night group will keep paddling since it is getting dark earlier but the other group I meet up with often has earlier paddles. i am going to get neoprene shorts and vest to extend the season some, but it still won't be long until SUP paddling will be infrequent.

I keep changing my mind about how to handle dropping some again. Today I consumed 1850, which is 1500 plus 350 for the exercise. After some discussion on an exercise forum, it seems likely that machine is fairly accurate except that I need to subtract ~80 calories for my normal awake but sedentary burn for 45 minutes. It's a high end machine that measured my HR, had my weight and provided the resistance so it likely computed watts and converted that, which is very accurate. The machine read over 500, which means that 420 would be about right and the 350 is just a little more conservative.

Anyway, I think I had a deficit of 200+ and will look for a bigger deficit tomorrow, assuming I do actually get out and paddle and get a chance to paddle hard.

8606 steps. I exercised 3.03 miles. I have burned 314 calories. This makes for a target of 2514. By the end of my day, I will have consumed 2567 calories. This is an overage of 53 calories. This is good enough for me.

At ny current burn rate, I am burning 104 calories per mile. I have burned about 80 calories per mile in the past. Ever since I started running, and recently, running more during each mile, and doing this faster, look at how ny calories burned per mile has changed. The burn rate went up from 80 calories a mile to 104 for today. This is a 25 percent difference. Nice.

Now I need to work on pacing myself for longer runs. My next goal is to run two straight miles without a stop and keep my heart rate from maxing out at 178 bpm just for the first mile alone. Not healthy.

BTW my new record for the running part is now 7.5 mph for a quarter of a mile. The distance will improve over time. Right now this will not be my focus.

I weighed 157 pounds this morning. I was looking at the past few days late last night and almost followed up my last post; the math just isn't there for the perceived gain to 160. I was using 1600 as my base on those days and that is a small deficit, so days i was over the surplus wasn't as large as the overage and days I wasn't over I was chipping away at it. The last few days I have had the base set at 1500 to try to chip away faster and I have stayed close to goal. Anyway, crunching all of that, the potential gain from my high calorie days is somewhere between a half pound and a pound.

I found another post in the thread on elliptical that threw me for a loop. there is a MET calculation for it that comes out significantly ( as in 40%) lower than the machine reports. It calculates a little over 300 for what the machine reported as over 500 and I logged as 350. I will probably be cutting back the cardio to half an hour with higher intensity and doing more strength training soon (meeting with trainer to design program on Friday) and just start using the mfp strength training entry for 211 per hour.

Still hope to paddle this afternoon. I have my gym bag in the car also in case it gets stormy this afternoon.

I weigh 171 pounds now. This is after eating 18 ounces by weight of food. This is also before going to the restroom. So it appears my actual weight would be around 170 pounds or even less. I will see what happens over the next several days.

@UpDownAround: I would go by MET values instead of what is displayed by the machine. I have read in more than just one source that those exercise machines can be way off. This is so much so that there are some who recommend ignoring it. For instance, the callibration of distance on a treadmill can be way off, so calories calculated from this will also be way off. This still assumes that the calories burned dislayed by the machine would be accurate if the distance was accurate. This part is debatable too.

The watch you had was measuring calories burned probably by a simple formula, basically using your weight and pace and time. Also the type of activity was used somewhere in that calculation, which is basically some sort of MET value. Their own MET type value may not be correct for your particular situation. For that matter, the determination of pace is very problematic with fitness bands. But anyway, I digress.

I find that the plethora of documented MET values by specific activity and how that activity is performed are much more useful. Limiting this to your specific situation and the exercises that you perform can make this simple for you to use. IMO This will be much more accurate than anything displayed by an exercise machine.

I am painting myself into that old familiar corner - I won't have reasonable dinner calories left unless I paddle. The good news is that it's pretty much a certainty that I will paddle today and that I will go to the gym in the morning. Also I still have my base set to 1500. I do need to get down to see a weight below 155 just so I will stop being so paranoid. I worry a lot about gaining significant weight back in the long run, but have a really hard time with the day to day discipline. I almost wish I had still been 160 or been 159 or so this morning. I would not have snacked so much if I felt like my weight was really back up at 160 again. I need to learn to have discipline without panic.

I agree. Also IMO I do not think a couple hundred calories up and down each day will not make that much of a difference at all. So technically you do have a little latitude to work with. This should help out with ones frame of mind. Personally I think you may need to make out a menu for the day with some built in latitude based on in part what you snack on during the day. Anything to help you manage the paranoid feelings by helping you feel that you are in control.

I have walked and ran for 4.31 miles. I have burned 412 calories. So my target is 2612 calories. By the end of the day, I should have consumed 2605 caloriez. I had to resort to Cocos Dutch Apple pie to consume in calories what I have burned. I am still going to be a couple hundred short. I may not be able to eat more than what I already planned to eat. Buttered popcorn has just “popped” into my head. Orville Redenbacker. Good stuff.

PS As a*n*a*l as I have become over exercise and diet, soon you will probably find me ordering body fat calipers. LOL I see Amazon has them. They are inexpensive too!