Weight Loss and exercise

An hour of 4.7 mph at 7.5 degrees on treadmill, broken into 30 minute sessions on either side of a 30 minute Express workout. I liked the 30 minute Express:



I am surprised (pleasantly, as it is usually uncrowded) the 30 minute Express isn't very popular. I was the only one on it during my trainer led session at 1:30 to 2:00 in the afternoon. I was the only one in that session. It could handle up to 20 people at a time.

I was at 167 at 3:30 in the afternoon. How much more do you guys weigh in the afternoon or at night then you do first thing in the morning?

I hope this works.

That can vary widely. Some nights I am up every hour or so, peeing another 8 oz and then just getting a few sips before going back to bed. that can be 3 pounds by itself. Sometimes it is pretty stable. But usually I only weigh at night after doing a big paddle or some other endurance type of exercise and it will be low.

10,194 steps. Exercised for 4.13 miles. Burned 410 calories. This makes for a target of 2610. I have consumed at least 2498. I sent over to my exs where she put together a plate for me. I felt that I was obligated to eat it, so I did. I suspect it was something like 300 or less calories. So I probably went over by about 200 calories. I may do some exercise to burn some of this off.

I decided to not pay much attention to my real time performance specs. I decided to run for pleasure. I ended up doing very good for some reason. When I decided to run for thirty seconds at a time instead of fifteen, my performance went down some. I only could do about 13 minute miles. Today I did a mile in 12:45 minutes. Not bad for just running for fun. Maybe I should do this more often? It turned out to be the best cardio workout I have had in about a week. Actually according to the watch it was the best cardio workout I have had so far. I think my improving health made it difficult for me to get an excellent workout. I have to try harder which I inadvertantly did this time.

Just below 156 pounds again this morning. I am probably being too conservative with editing down some of the burn numbers. In particular, I think the model of treadmill I have started using at the gym is probably more accurate than I give it credit for.
This calculator:
Treadmill Calculator
actually comes up with a number about double what I take, higher than the machine registers. It says I burned nearly 800. Actually it says I did, but I ramp up to my max speed (4.6 for the first half hour, 4.7 for the second) and taper off and the end, so for each half hour I really only spend about 26 minutes at top speed.

I wish there was some way to be sure how accurate that calculator is. Playing around with it, I can see that at 4.2 mph and 10 degree gradient it is roughly equivalent to the 5 mph running I used to do. That's probably a better idea for me than trying to start running for much distance again. I have cranked the speed up to 6 and run a little bit. With just a slight gradient, can get my HR up to 170. Then when I taper back to my fast walk my HR drops and settles at ~150. When I ramp up to my fast walk, it takes considerably longer for my HR to reach 150.

Here is a calculator that takes into consideration whether you are walking and running, and the slope. It is based on the MET approach.

ExRx.net : Walk / Run Metabolic Calculator

Sorry for the gollowing long post.

From the research that I have done, the pace on the treadmill is frequently and substantially off. They have not been calibrated, or kept calibrated. So of course the calculated calories burned can be way off too for this and other reasons. This also assumes their calories calculation is valid, which IMO is problematic itself.

How does the treadmill calculate calories burned? There are several models to go by each providing a different result. One method basically uses weight, pace, and time. IMO including BMI may lead to more accurate results. Either way is simple to calculate but IMO calculates values that are useless for what are obvious reasons, some outlined next. Another method uses a proprietary value in the calculation for a given exercise chosen. This is equivalent to their own MET value. I imagine this helps allot. I think a great many devices use this approach. It is reltively easier to investigate and implement. Another way includes the heart rate in its calculation. I believe this requires allot of research and difficult to pin down for a particular individual as to how heart rate is impacting the calories burned calculation. I think there is a “better” scientific basis to this, but there are just too many variables to make this approach reliable.

Then there is now a new state-of-the-art approach. The calculation basically uses your physical fitness level, which I imagine includes an accurate evaluation of an individuals metoboic rate. There appears to be a much better scientific basis for this “fitness level” approach that can be calculated. But this is IMO unrealistic. One would need to go to a lab to determine these values accurately.

So to summarize, lets assume that the treadmill determines pace and time correctly. Once again, I am finding that in many cases this can be far from being accurate. Next the determination of calories burned is based on this information, assuming the formulas used provide worthwhile results.

Anyway, for the above reasons, I no longer go by what a device calculates as calories burned. I think it is futile. It comes down to numerically evaluating “effort” placed in an exercised. I see that there is no numerically accurate way to determine the actual **effort** that you made during your particular days exercise. I think the only method that is worth using, and as only a guide, is the approach that uses a type of MET value. This has been a well examined and formulated approach. Still this approach has its problems. However maybe it can be calibrated for an individuals particular situation?

I think your intuitive analisys of the actual effort you place in a particular exercise may have more significance. You are in the best position to determine this. Perhaps use a value calculated by a MET based approach as a starting point? You have been essentially doing this but in the past with other sources of information. I think the trick is knowing your body well enough and choosing what guide to use. For that matter, ultimately, changes in weight over a period of time is what matters. Perhaps using changes in weight as feedback into your personal “equation” will allow you to more accurately gauge calories burned for future exercises?

FWIW IMVVHO (In My Very Very Humble Opinion)

That one calculates an even higher number than the one I linked to, though not much higher.

I feel pretty good about the mph because of my experience on walks that were GPS tracked. 4.7 is about the fastest I can walk and the reason I can't maintain that very long on "regular" walks is irregularities in roads/sidewalks, turns and inadvertent drops in speed; without the readout, it's easy to taper off a little without noticing.

I do wonder about fitness level also. It will be interesting to see if my HR drops if I keep doing the treadmill with similar settings. I am thinking of dropping speed to 4.5 and increasing grade to 10%. I think pushing the edge of the envelope on walking speed is asking for trouble with joints.

I was at 166 at 1:30 this afternoon. My stomach is still off from my the topamax. I seem to recall that’s how the topamax works. But I’m not sure. I also started Xanax. Which seems to be a good appetite suppressant. I went out to lunch today but I had the healthy sirloin steak dinner which only had 495 calories. Then I had a couple bai waters that had 12 calories each a pack of peanut butter M&M that had 240 a mini Babel cheese that had 70 and then dinner that had 320.

I was starting to injure myself when I was walking as fast as I could. This happened to my knees. I find that MET based calculator a bit on the conservative side for my purposes. I have been using it for some time with no real weight gain. I knew that one of the factors MET does not consider is ones metabolic rate. This changes per basically BMI, percentage body fat, and other factors. An “official” correction factor has been developed that needs to be calculated for an individual. Actually one of the formulas is technically less accurate than another that uses percentage body fat. However, for the scientific study involved, it worked well enough.

In your case, if you calculate this correction value, when multiplied with the MET value for an exercise, there may be an actual decrease in the calculated calories burned compared to what would be derived from the the MET value by itself. Once calculated, you can use the same correction factor for all of your MET related calculations. My correction factor is 1.17. So I multiply the value for calories burned from the calculator, that which I provided you the link to, by this correction factor to end up with the final value.

Personally I think this is currently the best, most practical approach available. In you case, this can be used as a starting point to end up with you finding something that works. This is the approach that I am taking.

All the above FWIW IMHO YMMV and any other applicable disclaimers.

I am at 242 "over" but I suspect that where my base is and how much more active I am even on days with no exercise, it is probably close to even. Tomorrow (which it almost is now) I have to pop right out of bed and hustle to make a trainer led abs session at 6am.

6223 steps. 2.28 miles ran. Burned 252 calories. This makes for a target of 2452. I have consumed 2459 calories. Good enough.

On my first mile, once again I was paying less attention to the stats as I was running for fun. But I still pushed myself a bit. I did not get the cardio workout value that I did yesterday, but it still was a good workout. Nevertheless, I still did get some good stats. I ran a 12:20 minute mile.

On the way back, I did intervals of running very fast, and then walking until rested, and then repeating this. I did not push myself that hard, but I was able to sustain intervals of an average of 9 mph for thirty seconds. Now if I can keep up a moderate walk between runs, and stretch out my running, I would like to see what I can do for the overall mile.

I am continuing to progress. Not too far in the future, I want to get a gym membership that comes with an exercise coach. I need to start working on my upper body.

I weigh 170 pounds. Here we are again. I am looking forward to my next weigh in. I do not know if I will exercise today. If not, I will have to find sometging to do.

High end donuts in the office this morning. Stupid, stupid, stupid - I had a couple. If only someone had polished off that last one before lunch so I wouldn't have walked past it. Likely to go over even though I have enough left for a really light dinner. Again I may have shorted myself a little for calories at the gym; not sure. Did the 30 minute express circuit, 40 minutes of treadmill and a half hour abs class. the abs class killed my lower back. I am going to paddle tomorrow; swapping messages with others and it looks like we will go late morning. And that other thing that keeps saving me is I am still aiming for a sizable deficit with my base at 1500 so I have more than a little wiggle room for a few extra calories.

Going to weigh on Sunday.

I was at 166.8 yesterday afternoon and at 1:15 this afternoon I was 166 exactly. I plan on weighing myself tomorrow afternoon and then Sunday morning around 8 or so and go by that weight for the week since I like to weigh myself in the mornings. Today was fine. I wanted a panera bread bowl which was 780 calories but my breakfast was only 330 calories and dinner was only 70. I also had a Bai water which had 12.

So yeah, 220 calories over right now. Probably done for tonight. I won't paddle all that long or hard tomorrow but I will paddle.

EDIT - A little more fruit, so more like 300 "over". Really probably a wash.

I did not exercise. So target is 2200 calories. I ate 2349 calories, so I am over by 149 calories. Not too bad. I will exercise tomorrow. What does not help is my McDonalds app lets me by all of their sandwiches except their artisan series for $1. I think I can also purchase a soft drink for $1. If I put in a mobile order and use Apple Pay, I get a medium fries for free. So an entire meal for $2. I find this attractive to me. Too attractive.

PS Now you have me thinking of doughnuts.!

Thought I'd join this thread. Quick backstory: I was a professional dancer and then an endurance athlete (hobbyist, but serious). I was a personal trainer at one point, I know all the ins and outs of nutrition and exercise, and was very healthy, physically, up until 2014 when all hell broke loose because of the bad reaction I had to psych meds. Very quickly I put on about 70-80lbs and the last few years I've struggled with. At first there was nothing I could do I had to focus on my mental well-being and dealing with the medication merry-go-round. Then in 2017 I started actively trying to get back to where I was, at least weight-wise, maybe not strength-wise, and I had lost nearly 30lbs before I lost my job and downward spiraled back into depression and put it all back on.

Fortunately, I will say that when I topped out at about 225, and got off meds, I haven't been gaining any, at all. My daily routine and attempts to eat healthy keep me very steady there. I have noticed that when I am extra careful with portions and healthier choices, that it starts to tick down the scale. Add on top of that regular walking, gets even better.

The problem I've had lately is that I used to be able to do this all on my own. I have plenty of motivation but my discipline for it, while I'm very disciplined in other areas, is very low, probably because I have to be so disciplined in other areas, it's like you can't push yourself on everything you are doing in life, right?

The last 3 weeks I have only had junk food once, and that was a stop at Wendy's in a hurry because I hadn't eaten and I felt disgusting and sluggish afterwards and felt adamant that I never wanted to eat there again. It just completely killed my productivity in the day, which means it's not useful to me to eat there. (Interesting how when it affects my bottom line my thought process totally changes. This is how I ended up quitting smoking so many years ago too!)

Yesterday I tried a kickboxing circuit gym. I had done kickboxing years ago and loved it. I enjoyed this gym so much I joined right on the spot. They were so supportive and nonjudgmental. I'm getting ready to go again this morning. They were great in allowing me to take it at my pace. They said just let us know when you need us to push you. At my level, which, even though there is muscle memory, there is no stamina or strength, so I'm doing the "granny" version of everything for a while until I feel some strength come back.

I have been doing good on my walking/hiking every day, but I really needed something with other people around to give me energy and keep me accountable.

My eating has been pretty healthy, but I haven't been consistently tracking, so I'm trying to track more carefully using my Fitbit app. I'm trying to stay between 1500-1800 calories a day, but I can go up to 2000 if necessary. According to the monitors I'm burning around 2500-2800 a day, and provided I eat the right foods, 1500-1800 calories does not feel like starvation. Plus I stay hydrated and drink tea, which helps fill me up.

I've also been adding a lot of spice and seasoning to my foods, and that has definitely helped get me fuller faster.

Thanks for this thread to share my journey.

Seesaw

Over 10,000 steps. My depression slowed me down allot. I managed to walk and run for about three niles. I have burned 283 calories. 149 calories overage carried over from yesterday, leaves me with 134 toward ny target, which makes for 2334 target. I have consumed 2326 calories, so I made my target.

I had to stop off at a salon to catch my breath. They kicked me out as an undesirable, like a homeless person just walked in. I have never been treated like this in all my life. This young twenty one something with a real attitude who had a very arrogant opinion of herself because she was working in an expensive salon wearing chic clothing. Where do these people come from? Very professionally immature. Here she is managing a business.

Soon I will head off to the gym. It's the only time I get to myself all day.

Yesterday, I hiked a couple of miles, went to my dog training class, and managed about 20 minutes at the kickboxing gym. I had intended to do tell full 30 minutes workout, but I had some scheduling issues that resulted in me only having had a granola bar a few hours beforehand and I started to get lightheaded while working out, so, considering I was also battling a migraine, I decided to stop while I was ahead.

I managed to stay within my calorie intake goal, around 1800. I had a craving for Taco Bell for dinner and understood that it's not that I needed junk food but that I wanted a certain flavor, so I stopped on my way home from the dog park and got some ground beef and other stuff and I made some nachos for dinner, except I used healthy ingredients and instead of chips I used a cut up cucumber. I tried that on a whim, never even heard of it, just wanted to swap out for a veggie, and it was actually good. It definitely tasted a little different but I actually quite enjoyed it. Absolutely covered the craving I was having and stayed on calorie budget.

Kickboxing gym is closed today, so it will be mostly be walking my dogs and hiking for exercise, which is okay because I'm a bit sore now from the kickboxing workouts.

I feel really good, like getting stronger already, but it was super depressing to look in the mirror before hopping in the shower yesterday evening. I wish I could black out all my mirrors for a bit so I can focus on feeling good and not on the huge belly I have right now.

Oh well.

Seesaw

Nice to see some new posters coming and and wanting to share to stay on track. Welcome!

I ended up going substantially over - nearly 500 calories - yesterday. I feel like I am playing a stupid head game with myself. I set my goal low, always go really conservative on my calories burned when I have been pretty active, then I go over goal with little or no consequence. yesterday after paddling I weighed 156.

Today is an exercise free day. Tomorrow I will be in the gym early and probably do 90 minutes of treadmill and circuit training.

I weigh 171 pojnds. My dpression is getting the best of me. so I will run around my townhome complex. I also see new posters here working on their weight. I think this is good for all of us here.

PS I apologize for the off topic post. I should of not added that to what was going to be my original post,

161.8. 5 pounds since last Tuesday. And 9 pounds since coming back from vacation if that was even accurate. Next step is to get below 160. Today I want to eat a can of chicken and dumplings and then we are having turkey for dinner. I’m having a couple lite lemonades from Burger King right now. I don’t know how many calories lite lemonade has. They are large and they kind of have a lot of ice so I put them at 60 calories each. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. I tried googling it but I couldn’t find it. The Coke Freestyle website didn’t have any info either. So my calories for the day is 1,070 and then whatever for the drinks.

Today was day 1 of using my Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred program DVD

It was a difficult work out since I'm out of shape but I managed to do it!

I am not sure of my weight. The last time I was weighed was almost 2 months ago and I was 137.6 lbs. I know I've gained some weight since then just not sure how much. I don't have a scale at home for a certain reason but I might end up getting weighed at my doctor when I see her this coming week. If not I'll weigh myself sometime during the week when I go to the gym.

No exersize. My target is 2200 calories. I have consumed 2130 calories.So I am 70 calories short. This is OK.