Weight Loss and exercise

~10000 steps - tracked 4.57 mile walk was 9253. Walked to the pool and back a couple of times (forgot the door fob and went back for it). Logged walk and swimming, with two different activity levels of swimming. Edited all 3 numbers to about half what mfp/mmw said.

2422 calories. Lots of protein, some veggies but a lot of sugar (as usual).

I will weigh in the morning. Not sure what to expect...

I have made 1,477 steps. I did not exercise except to try out a new feature of my sport watch. Then my leg began hurrting allot more. So I have a target of 2,090. I have consumed 2,161 calories. I have been using calories from desserts to meet my target. This time it was Graham crackers, my trial mix, and iHob hot chocolate. I did have a tastey PF Changs meal. It was suppose to be for two servings. I found that not too be the case.

@Tucson - have you see this?

https://www.verywellfit.com/walking-...-miles-3887154

A lot of people swear by that as being more accurate than all the whiz bang electronics.

Forgot to say my weight this morning was 157.6. Down about a half pound in two days; a pretty meaningless fluctuation. But staying pretty close to the middle of my range.

I weigh 173 now. I am not going to panic, but as time goes by, I am believing more that my watch underestimates calories burned. I may have to figure out how to adjust this value to make it much more accurate. No exercise for today.

@UpDownAround:

Interesting artcle. It seems to support the calories burned figure I get from my watch. This does not take into consideration how physically fit the person is. Also there are walks that can take a person uphill.

Near the end of a walk, when I am getting really tired, I struggle when I push myself to keep going. My heart rate is high compared to the slower speed I am walking. I wonder if I am burning more calories doing this compared to when I first started my walk?

Maybe I will keep tract of both what my watch is giving me, and what comes from these tables, to see what the error is between them at the end of a week. Even though it is possible for the watch to provide a more accurate calories burned, is this necessary?

There are still a benefits to using the watch. I can set goals which motivates me to get outside and exercise. Also, there are other measures that it provides me that allows me to see over time that I am improving my health. Lets not forget the value of a new toy.

BTW, something that has helped my weight loss - it has been one year since my last drink. There was the calories in the alcohol itself, the overly sweet malt beverages I would drink sometimes and the bad choices I would make after like making myself double cheese nachos and eating ice cream and oreos while they were heating up.

I weighed 157.2 today. That’s only a one pound weight gain since Wednesday. I had been going a bit crazy on food since Thursday. I’m very surprised. This weekend I was out of town. I ate McDonald’s, 5 Guys, Cracker Barrel, and a ton of junk food. Including an entire box of goobers, a package of cookies a ton of soda, and a bunch of other stuff. I’m surprised I only gained one pound. Anyways, I’m back on track today. I had 1,230 calories but it was probably closer to 1,200. I was eating constantly since 12. But every item I ate was only 100–250 calories. Dinner for example was only 330 calories. That works best for me eating throughout the day but low calories.

6.2 miles walked at 4.25 mph. Logged as 6 miles at 4 mph and used the chart and used a nice round number between the 140 pound and 160 pound entries, closer to 140. So a little low on the distance, the speed and my weight to be conservative.

It was the triplets' birthday and I had lots of snacks and dessert. 3100 calories. Even with the walking, that's 900 over. I am going to set my goal to 1400 for each of the next 3 days and maybe adjust back up if I manage to make a big enough dent from limiting eating and exercise. And depending on how much I weigh on Wednesday.

I made 2,129 steps today. I did walk several blocks at my townhome complex to fiddle with my watch. I did no acutual exercise. So my target is 2,090 calories once again. I have consumed 2,123 calories. This is the first time in many days I can place weight on my leg without it hurting very much. So tomorrow, I will try to walk for about a half a mile to one mile at a moderate pace, lets say at maybe 3 mph. This time I need to build myself up to those big cardio workouts that I have had. No more trying to break speed goals, heart rate goals, total steps for the day goals, distance goals, and goals regarding the time it takes for me to walk each mile. This will be the case at least for the near future.

No exercise today. Raining. I plan to paddle the next two afternoons; hopefully 3 hours of hard paddling each night and not increasing intake much for it.

Another day going way over. 2228 calories. I am going to crack down the next couple of days and then try to get back to normal.

I will weigh in the morning. Could be brutal, but I know the actual gain is probably only in the half pound range.

I weigh 174 today. I am thinking of light exercise by walking around my complex. Nothing much. Then I will know the condition of my leg. Recently I have been eating frosted mini wheats for breakfast. This is how lazy I have become.

Update: I forgot to post this message even though I had it typed up since this morning. I have been doing some errands placing more weight on my injured leg. It still hurts, but it is becoming manageable. I will walk up to a couple blocks before the day ends.

MFP 1,062. Apple Watch steps 2,723
Water intake 33.8oz

I weigh 160 this morning! That is the top of my range. Time to crank it back down - no excuses. I know it shot up way too quick to be "real". Water retention and more stuff in the gut, mostly. But I am doing all I can to reverse that by Friday.

Here is my calorie diary for yesterday. Target was 2090, and 1952 consumed. I came a over 100 calories short yesterday.

My weight today is 173 pounds. It looks like I have been losing weight. I was 176 not too long ago. I am going to make a calorie adjustment for my new base calorie consumption. So my new baseline is 2340 calories. I specified “lightly active” instead of “sedentary” for my new activity level on MFP. This is basically a 15% increase. I will see what kind of result this will bring to me. I have started out with a mini wheats breakfast and two Graham crackers.

I need to bring up my weight back over to 175. I may utilize my own “neuclear” option, that of slices of Cocos pies. I think each slice is well over 700 calories on many of their pies, and some even over 800 calories a slice. The reason I am thinking about this now is on top of gaining back several pounds, I will also be exercising more. Both will increase my needed caloric intake. I have walked a half a mile today. I may end up walking a mile today.

I paddled 8.6 miles in a little over 3 hours. Strava gave me over 1200 calories for that and I edited it back to 900. Over 100 calories to the mile is very believable on my slow SUP that glides poorly.

I had 2424 calories, which came in under my 1550 + 900 goal. Should be a slight deficit day despite some heavy lunch due to a birthday at work. Some really good strawberry cheesecake. Going to get back on track tomorrow. I plan to paddle again.

Friday is next weigh in.

A total of 1877 steps. I walked a half of a mile today, my first time in a couple weeks. My leg now is hurting me more at the moment, but it will be OK. I am using my new calorie baseline of 2,340 calories. My little walk burned about 49 calories. So this makes for a target of 2,389 calories. I have consumed 2,348 calories. This is close enough.

I will slowly improve the distance I walk, but will keep it at this distance for the time being. At this point, I am not interested in my walking exercise stats. I first need to get my leg back in shape. No more 14 and a half minute miles for me right now. No more running either.

Well, guess what? I weigh 172 now. I am losing weight without meaning to do this. Furthermore, I am losing this weight on Depakote! Many people would be envious of this ability of mine. I am not happy about this. 172 is much too low for me. I think it was a good decision on my part to increase my baseline to 2,340 calories instead of 2,095. I still will walk at a slow to moderate pace a half a mile to one mile every day.

Did I say that I am losing weight?

I will have to get more trail mix. I will pick up a couple PF Changs meals. I will check out TJs again. Mashed potatoe pancakes. I forgot about that one. Drink yogurt smoothies with protien powder on a more regular basis. Utilize side dishes. I will get this under control.

Meanwhile, I am trying to work in the other direction to offset the overages from the last few days.

I paddled 7.7 miles. I edited the 1152 calories Strava gave me down to 550 and still have about 200 left that I won't use.

1901 calories. One of my kids made tofu, rice noodles and veggies for dinner; little bit of estimation for that.

I will weigh in the morning.

3,559 steps. I walked about one mile at slow to moderate pace burnng 128 calories. This yields a target of 2,470 calories. I have consumed 2,388 calories. So I am short 82 calories which is not too bad. If I had my trail mix, I would of closed this gap. I would like to note here that the 128 calorie figure is actually a little too high. I decided on the second half of a mile to turn off GPS and go by the step counter. This should of worked. Maybe it did. But I am very suspicious about this.

My leg is not hurting right now. So tomorrow I will walk another mile around my complex. It has been over 100 degrees, so I did not spend that much time outside. I did get a sunburn, but not that bad. I think there is a heat advisory for Fri and Sat warning of temperatures up to 110 degrees. I will have to walk in the morning.

PS They say that even though temperatures are high in Tucson during the summer, it is a dry heat. This is b*llsh*t. Anything much over 100, particularly something as high as 110 degrees, is hot, hot, hot. I will need to stay inside for the afternoon. Oh yes, I have no A/C. Just terrific.

158.2 this morning. This seems more legit. I set my goal to 1600 per day to lose slowly if I log most of my exercise calories.

I weigh 173 pounds. I made a total of 4,818 steps. I walked for exercise 1.71 miles. This burned approximately 226 calories according to my watch. The first part of the walk, I used GPS. On the sevond part, I strictly used step count. The calories for the second part is in error. So after adjusting for this, I burned about 183 calories. So this makes for a target of 2,523 calories. I have consumed 2,445 calories. So I am short by 78 calories. I can eat one Graham cracker to make up for this difference.

My leg is no longer hurting, even when I walked close to two miles. So I am going to increase the distance to be three miles. This is at a regular pace. I am not going back to my regular speed until I am sure my leg has healed. Since I am going to do this by walking circles around my townhome complex, if it starts to hurt, I can immediately go to my house within about five minutes.

PS I found my condition to be worse than it was a week ago. Not walking during that time has effected my health. My heartbrate went into the 130s today where for this type of walk, I would of been closer to 110 bpm. All in one week. Interesting.

@Tucson - I think you will also find recovery to be quick. Walking would be nuts here. High only in the low 90s but dew point is in the 70s! Going to the pool to swim for a couple of hours.

EDIT - 4th of July party. managed 80 minutes exercise swimming, dodging around between people; at least I got some time in. Planning a long paddle tomorrow afternoon.

@UpDownAround: It had been over 100 degrees, with a day or two at 107 degrees. We are not at the high termpurature days of the summer that can go up to 115 degrees. I was walking in tempurature of 100 degrees. When it became more than this, I could not tolerate it. I will have to walk in the morning.

I made a whole 829 steps. No exercise. Target of 2090. I ate 2601 calories. That quiche and tomatoe soup are allot more in calories than I expected. The one slice of quiche alone is 680 calories. So I am going to have to split the 511 calories overage between the next three days.

@Tucson - the humidity is a big part of it. Right now the temperature here is 92 but the heat index is 102. We are under a heat advisory. Going paddling anyway; I will jump in a lot.

I wouldn't worry about the extra until I weighed a few times (soup is bad about giving so an initial spike from water retention; it is usually very salty). You were worried about being too light just a few days ago.

I weighed this morning after I had eaten a couple of things and before a pretty major gastrointestinal event. I was 158.2. I am good with that, especially given the circumstances.

I am going to try to go for a new personal best distance paddling; maybe even break 10 miles. Not sure that will happen in this heat and a pop up shower could ruin my plans, though if there is no lightning it could actually make it easier. Will do that about 80 minutes from now.

I weigh 174 today. I began running more, but my leg is not up to it. It is hurting again. I need dirt trails to walk/run on. In a couple days, I will be better. I will be more careful next time. I walked/ran for a bit over a half a mile burning only 69 calories.

@UpDownAround: Thanks for the input.

Update: I just realized that my base calorie target apart from exercise is 2,340 now, not 2090. So the 2601 calories that I consumed yesterday makes it an overage of only 261 calories. Not as bad as I thought.