Weight Loss and exercise

My weight is 172 pounds. Today I will stipulate that my earlier shortfall of calories have been met by yesterdays overage. I am going to exercise today. I have measured my body fat with a caliper. Earlier, using photos on the Net, I had determined it to be about 20%. I am now using the Jackson Pollock 3 “point” method with the caliper. The more “points” that are used on the body, the more accurate this method is. For any more accuracy. I would require another person to help me. The percent body fat calculated in this way is 21. I think body fat measurements are more useful than tape measurements of the body. My $5 caliper with some practice makes this doable.

For my particular case, I think this figure is a bit misleading. I do have a comparatively small measurement of fat at my thighs. However, most of the fat is in my abdomen, and the rest at my chest area. The problem is that Risperidone has arificially increased my breast size. I think this is causing erroneous results when the model of a man is used in the calculations. The Jackson Pollock 4 point method does not use a chest measurement. However, I now need the help of another person.

I just weighed myself a few minutes ago. My weight was 162.6 and it is early afternoon. So I am most likely below 160. I’ll see tommrow morning. I usually wear bigger size 8 pants or size 10 but today my smaller size 8 fit again. My hoodies are bigger then when I got them in the summer too.

Struggling a little bit because I really want a day of doing absolutely nothing, but then I end up hating those days...like I've had enough days of doing nothing for a lifetime, plus, it's not like I'm doing nothing with someone, which is far different than doing nothing alone. Nothing with someone can be relaxing and fun...nothing alone is literally nothing. I end up asleep.

Don’t worry about day to day weight differences of a pound or two unless have health concerns such as kidney disease or congestive heart failure where increased weight is a health concern. Focus on long term goal of healthier habits such as cutting back on empty calories such sweetened drinks, eat less fast food, and gradually increase walking on a daily basis. Short term goals are good to help make changes for the long term and can include this week make a goal of fast food once or twice and healthier or homemade foods more often. Add fruit once per day if previously not eating it all for a goal on the second week.

Was doing great yesterday until I had one of my usual issues - snacking after dinner. I think I ended up only 300 over goal and goal is a deficit so not terrible. Lots of estimation on consumption and burn. I feel pretty sure I will still be in maintenance range when I weigh back at home on Tuesday.

I agree about the long term habits. Don't cut things you plan to eat again once you hit goal; just be careful about portions and having things too often. The only thing that has worked for me is tracking as accurately as possible. If you eat less calories than you burn, you lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn you gain weight. All strategies end up adjusting calories whether you count them or not. No diet counteracts physics. No diet lowers or increases metabolism enough to make a significant difference. Knowing the score works better for me - total calories in the right range, making sure I get enough protein and a few veggies in there.

After losing over 65 pounds, I have now maintained a BMI below 25 for over 7 months. It has been around 35 years since I was last at a healthy weight and in good shape for more than a brief period at the end of a crash diet and even then it wasn't really a true healthy weight.

How I eat is the major determining factor for what I weigh. How much exercise and what kind is the major determining factor for how fit I am. Trying to exercise away pounds usually fails. "Eating healthy" (which has about a million meanings depending on what you believe) will not improve your fitness.

A word of warning to those working on loss - maintenance has been almost as hard as losing, maybe harder. If you crash diet to lose, then maintenance is harder still because you don't know how. I just slowly allowed larger portions of some things and other things more often. I didn't have to change what I eat. But it's a commitment for life. I know I can get away with splurges and make up for them, but it could easily get out of hand; I used to binge. I don't get much positive feedback anymore. People were cheering me on and encouraging me when I was losing and congratulating me when I hit goal. Now this size and fitness level is the norm and almost no one else realizes how hard it is to maintain. Don't get me wrong - I love the new me. I enjoy a lot more things and have better odds of living a long and healthy life. It is completely worth the effort, but there is a lot of effort.

My weight is just makes it into 169 pounds. I am going to exercise now by running. BTW my body fat is at my best measurement to be 20.3 percent, much of which is in my midsection. According to some research on the Net, I find that the body fat percentage for a “fit” person is between 11 and 22. I need to reduce my fat percentage down to be closer to the middle of this range, perhaps 16%. Meanwhile, in doing so, I will be gaining muscle mass. Time to join a gym and exercise with machines that will reduce this fat.

I was 159.6 today. I am so happy to be below 160 again. My next goal is 155. I bought a pair of True Religion jeans from the thrift shop today they don’t fit but I bought them anyways. They were only $9 and are in excellent condition. I’m not one to do that, but I am so focused on getting to 135 and I think they will fit in 10 pounds or so. I think they will just motivate me even more. I’ve never done that with any article of clothing before. Today I had a prime rib Cobb salad for lunch. It had 810 calories. I didn’t eat all the prime rib since there was a lot of it. Dinner will be a bowl of homemade stew. I’m not sure on the calories on that but I plan on having a cup of it. Minute Maid lite lemonade is a great way for me to reach my calorie goal. If I am at 1,190
calories I’ll just drink 2 cans and I’ll be at 1,200.

9,477 steps. Exercised for 4.3 miles. I have burned 450 calories. This makes my target to be 2650 calories. I have consumed 2,545 calories. So I am under by about 100 calories. This is not bad. Since I am full, my eating stops here for the day. So I will carry the 100 calorie shortfall over to tomorrow.

As I have said earlier, I am going to join a gym primarily for using specific weight machines to burn weight that is around my midsection. I can use the treadmills when it is raining. Later down the line I will work to develope muscle tone, where my muscles will be beginning to show up from the bottom of that sea of fat on my body.

Cool and congratulations on good work!

I now weigh 171. I have started with yesterdays dinner leftovers. I may run around the condo complex. I am thinking about checking out Planet Fitness. I am going to have to determine how to calculate the calories on various exercise machines.

Today my afternoon weigh in was 162 exactly. I am probably close to 159.2 or 159. My next morning weigh in is Thursday.

Back home again. Went over by about 200 yesterday. Only have a little over 200 left today, so it may happen again. I likely underestimated walking exercise and hopefully overestimated some food that wasn't weighed, measured or packaged. I will see what the scale says in the morning. I am cautiously optimistic, but won't really know until I weigh.

Did not exercise at all. No energy. My target is 2200 calories. I have ate 2252 calories. Next I will visit Planet Fitness.

I just ate a fun size almond joy. Looks like exercise for tomorrow.

Ended up going over by 75 today. I was in the bathroom a little while ago and got curious enough to undress and weigh. I was playing the game of picking something up and weighing and then weighing again to keep it from reporting the same number over and over. The numbers I got were 155 and a little over. My recent fluctuations don't make a lot of sense, though I guess it is possible to retain water for several days. It could have to do with starting to work out often. It hasn't been long enough since I seemed to be 2-3 pounds heavier for me to have actually lost that much.

PF has that $5 to join, $10 a month no commitment thing going on for a few more day. Be sure to read the fine print - they will hit you with a $40 annual fee each November. Not a big deal if you keep the membership for the full year. It adds a little over $3 a month. A bigger deal with this being October if you were to join now and decide to quit next month after they had taken that. They require a card on file rather than billing. I am fine with all that as the situation will work well for me and I will be there several months at the least. Mine does have a year commitment with an $84 buy out which means after a couple of months it is pointless to quit before a year. The $10 a month with no commitment isn't offered as often.

PF does not take credit cards here. They want my account number for my checking account. I may open one up for this kind of purpose. In this way, no business will have the checking account number with all my money. This is also good for Net transactions like with PayPal.

Actually, maybe it was bank info. I have fraud/abuse protection.

I was dehydrated last night and I think some scale bouncing plays into it also because I am not sure I drank enough water to account for it, but I am back at 157. Digital scales do "remember" recent weights for a bit and repeat them when another weighing is very close. When you look close at an analog scale, it always wavers a little as you shift weight by leaning to look or even just breathing. A digital scale has the same issue so after wavering a bit, it just picks a mid range number to show you. Then if you weigh again right away, it uses the same number again if the weight is very close. It's mostly to avoid the perception that something is wrong with the scale. Anyway, if you happen to shift around to get a low weight, it tends to repeat it. I try to clear that by weighing with something that weighs a couple of pounds so it "learns" a new weight but I am not sure that always works like I think.

Long winded way of saying I believe the 157 pounds from today is accurate.

New thread is here https://forums.psychcentral.com/exer...ml#post6296811