Weight Loss and exercise

I was at 166 this morning. I had voiced my concern to my doctor about my weight gain. I had been stressing about it. He suggested I try topamax. I had tried it once before and I had lost 50 pounds. I’m hoping this time I can lose the last 26 pounds I want to lose. This time though I’m on 50 in the morning and 50 at night instead of just 50 once a day. I took my first dose this morning. So far it’s been fine. I had a TV dinner and a strawberry lemonade. I plan on sticking to 1,200 calories.

My weight is 172. No exercise today, so I need to stay with the target of 2200 calories.

There was a mistake with my meal service. They shipped three orders. One was an order that was double shipped. Before I suspended my account, it was too late for the next shipment . So I am ending up with 24 meals. Most of this I need to eat within a week. They are well balanced meals, so this is their favor.

FWIW Their game is for you to select a meal plan. Then they select the meals for you, which you can make changes. But once the cutoff date has arrived, they will ship all the meals that have been selected at that time by you and their meal plan. There is no “checkout” feature. Silly me, I was not done with my selection. I may not have wanted to order anything at all. So if you do not want any meals shipped for the week, you have to deselect all that which was selected. Then the next week arrives for the same thing to happen all over again. It is all there to increase their income.

I am ~300 over, but again I think I shorted the exercise. It was unplanned but after I was headed toward going over I decided to hit the gym on the way home and maybe work off some stress that way instead of stress eating. My goal is still set to 1500, which is a decent deficit as I still would like to lose to 153. Tomorrow I have a gym training class on the 30 minute circuit from 1:30 until 2:00. I hope that works out well. It is highly regimented in terms of order of machines/exercises and duration. It's in a separate area and you have to start at the beginning and switch when the light goes red and start the next one when the light goes green. You modify the exercise if there is something you can't do because of joint problems or whatever. Anyway, I like the idea of it instead of wandering around randomly or trying to do a routine when machines you want next might be in use.

Then cardio after, probably treadmill. I have started running a little on the treadmill. It seems to be easier on my knees than road/trail running. I can keep HR around 150 and get it up to 170 much easier on the treadmill than the elliptical or Nordic ski machines.

EDIT - Now more like 500 over! Serious time on the treadmill tomorrow. I suspect I will still weigh ~157 on Thursday. Between being conservative on exercise burn and having goal set for a deficit, most of my overages have not done much except get me to about even.

I have conumed 2,437 calories which is over by 237 calories. Exercise should take care of this. I may go for endurance this time by pacing myself for a straight two mile run before resting at a restaurant.

What is interesting is that today a dog escaped from its yard. The faster I walked after it, the faster it walked. So I broke into a run for the rest of the block. I caught up to the little fart. If this happened in the past, I would not have been able to do this. Also I would have been breathing heavily for several minutes. So the exercising has been paying off. Nice!

Tucson - Good for you and good for the dog and the owner.

I did notice I really went a little overboard on estimating yesterdays's lunch when I copied it to today as I brought more of the same. One of my kids made a *lot* of vegetarian "beef" (burger like crumbles) stew a few days ago and I am using up leftovers. It's really good. But I may have gone under on last night's vegetarian spaghetti. He and I were the only ones home for dinner so I was happy to eat what he cooked again. The spaghetti was also really good.

I am going to do cardio before and after the 30 minute circuit class this afternoon, probably with a long after session unless I can get some others interested in a SUP paddle.

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:

YouTube

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.