Weight Loss and exercise

I weigh 174 today. My leg is still hurting, but it is hurting less when I stay off of the leg. I will not do any exercise for today.

I didn’t weigh myself today. I plan on weighing myself on Monday.

I woke up at 10. I usually have my first meal at 11. I had a lean cuisine at 310 calories. At 3:30 I had a hunk of beef from the pot roast the other night. I put it at 150 calories. For dinner I had two kids size quesadillas from Chipotle’s. They had 180 calories each. I fixed two servings of fries in my air fryer. They had 90 calories for each serving.

Total it was around 1,020 calories. Probably less because I think I went a bit high on the pot roast.

I’m having blood work done on Monday. If my numbers are good I won’t be worried about my eating habits.

2735 steps. Another graduation today.

A nice dinner tonight that one of the kids made; a lot of estimation. I had a small grilled chicken gyro and a little rice, but I had a couple of brownies and some frozen yogurt. 1939 calories. i will paddle early am and probably more than account for the overage.

I weighed before paddling; down another half pound or so to a new low - 156.0. Paddled 6.5 miles. Strave gave me 902 calories. I don't think I will edit it.

As planned I didn't weigh myself. My stomach was sticking out more than it has in weeks. Maybe it was just in my head. But I can usually tell I've gone up on the scale based on how far my stomach is sticking out. I'm usually correct.

Today I had a vanillia coke in the morning. 150 calories. At lunch I had a lean cuisine. 330. At 3:30 I had 2 serving of fries at 90 calories each. And 2oz of Turkey deli meat. I'm assuming that was 60 calories. For dinner I had two pieces of frozen fish at 240. I had another serving of fries at 90 calories. I'm pretty low today at 1,050 calories. I feel like I've been eating all day. In reality it was just my usual 2 meals and an afternoon snack and I went hours between them. I may have a handi snack or ice cream sandwich for dessert.

I might actually go over 3000 calories today. I am not even sure that will be surplus calories but I think so. Besides the paddling I did some yard work, but not that long, and a little bit of walking, but not that far. I just walked down to the neighbor hood pond and caught a few fish. Anyway, I need to stop the slow loss. I know I really need to get the average day right and not bounce between extremes (and today probably isn't as extreme as I think it is), but hopefully I will at least stop losing.

Watch says 15812 steps but a lot was paddling 6.5 miles. Some of it was raking grass as it grew too much between mowings and didn't mulch properly; I logged the raking. Some was shopping, walking to the pond and fishing, which I did not log.

3140 calories. Crazy stuff! I'll see how it goes for the next few weigh ins.

My pants that came up to my knees a few weeks ago are now pretty loose.

I had/am eating about 1,140 calories today. I’ve been sitting on my recliner all day. So I think the low calories will be fine.

20209 steps. Soe of it was paddling. Logged about 5 miles of walking and walked a couple of additional miles unlogged. Paddled only a couple of miles today as I went with my son, who kayaked, and his hands blistered and his shoulder hurt so I ended up towing him back across the lake. So half the distance was high intensity. Also, I did some work on technique and fell in several times; climbing back on takes more than you might think. And I never log the pumping (inflatable paddleboard).

2782 calories. Seems like too much; kind of hope it is to creep weigh back up a little.

Since I was wet with lake water from paddling, I showered tonight and went ahead and weighed. It was 157.8 and I hadn't eaten diner at that point. So probably over 158 now. I will weigh next on Wednesday morning.

A total of 595 steps. Incredible! This will change in the near future. My leg is much better, but this time I will work up to intense walking exercise. So my target is 2090 calories. I ate 2062 calories. This included a rich muffin for desert.

I have been depressed lately. I have been letting go doing anything to clean up after myself. This needs to change. I missed my lunch. I think the reason I have been feeling this way is because I have not been exercising. I think tomorrow I will walk around my townhome complex for two miles. I like it since the roads go up a bit in altitude, and then back down. This will give me some exercise.

Exercise definitely can help me pull out of down swings, though sometimes it can make it worse if I stew about a problem while out for a long walk. It seems to depend on whether it is brain chemicals or situational depression, if that makes any sense. paddling seems to help with either, oddly enough. It's still new enough that I usually think of other places and better boards to paddle on brighter days in the future.

I didn’t weigh myself today even though I had planned on it. But I had a psychiatrist appointment today. The vitals lady weighed me and said I was 158. I had heavy jeans on clunky shoes and a t shirt on. The last I was weighed at that doctor I was 167. It was one of those sliding scales. I always think those weigh much higher then digital scales. So I’m thinking I’m more like 153 with my digital scale. Which is a big deal for me.

Today I had 1,200 calories. I wasn’t very hungry. I’m wondering if my new birth control is causing decreased hunger. I’m not sure though, but the weight seems to be pouring off me.

I’ve also started having a schedule with my meals and snacks. The first meal is at 11. Snack is at 3:30. Dinner is at 6:30. Possible evening snack is at 8. It’s almost like it rewired my brain or something.

7539 steps. Logged 4159. Weather was threatening late afternoon through evening so I didn't do a planned late day walk. It turns out I could have, but there was no way to be sure.

2537 calories - about 600 over goal. I am going back to goal again tomorrow and then will weigh Wednesday morning. I don't expect to see much impact yet from just a few days of splurging. I want to get back to 158 or 159 and then try to ease into maintenance again losing very slowly. I was losing too fast on my first attempt. I am still well under goal; that's staying at or below 164.

1712 steps. No exercise. Target of 2090 calories. I consumed 2111 calories. I am not using foods that I cannot ascertain an accurate calorie count. I want to do it this way to nail down the reason I am losing weight. I think I was overestimating the calories for my homemade trail mix when I could calcuoate an accurate calorie count on it. I will not attempt to break any personal record this time.

Tomorrow, I will start exerscisihg by resuming my power walking. I have been on my leg more, as indicated by my rising step count, and have had no problems with that leg. I will start by walk only in a brisk pace, with no running.

PS This time I created very carefully two new food entries in MFP. One is for my tuna fish sandwich, and the other is my trail mix. I will continue to make menus without these until I can determine the total calorie count for the menu was made from specific entries with MFP.

I weigh 175 today. It has been five days where I am eating food that can be accurately ascertained from MFP, except for maybe for one or two cases. I then carefully measured the calories of my tuna fish sandwich, and my home made trail mix. My trail mix was way off in my previous calorie assessment. I thought this may have been true. I used an incorrect entry that I tried to use as a proxy for the above foods. Well, I am getting things “ship shape”.

I exercised today. I walked very briskly four miles with a stop after two miles to get some water and rest for a period of time. My pace is about 16.5 minutes a mile. My average heart rate on the first leg of the trip was 153 bpm. My peak heart rate was 169, probably happened one time for only a few moments. So I am not placing much weight on my peak heart rate this time. I did witness it going up to 162 bpm. The second leg was not as notable.

My average heart rate is surprising to me. I have not put out the same effort that I did before my leg injury. However, I did get much more tired than usual. So I think my fitness went down a bit for not having exercised for a noticeable period of time due to my leg injury. I have burned 472 calories.

153.2 today. I ended up at immediate care and then the hospital because of severe pain that might be a possible kidney stone.

Honestly, I’m kinda worried something more serious is going on.

12329 steps, logged 7275 (seems a little low for 4.1 miles).

2195 calories; 38 over goal.

I weigh tomorrow morning and plan to paddle tomorrow night. I am going to guess it will be 158.4.

I made 10,411 steps. I have burned 472 calories. This makes for a target of 2,562. I have consumed 2,542 calories. So I met my target. Now let’s see what happens over the next several days. Do I gain weight, remain the same, or lose weight. IOW how accurate is my watch on calories burned? I have my calorie count for food being close to being accurate. If like other watches, it will be at least 20% off too high, or much more.

@UpDownAround, when you walk 12,000 and sometimes many many more steps that you sometimes make, you have to be burning a significant amount of calories. 12,000 steps for me is basically 5.5 miles. In the past, I think you registered 20,000 steps, correct? 20,000 steps for me is about 9 miles. As a rule of thumb, count 100 calories for each mile. This is not completely accurate. My watch gives me 105 to 115 calories per mile, with a couple times more, and a couple times below 100. Notice this is usually still above 100 calories per mile. So I think 100 is perhaps good enough to see if your watch is in the ballpark. Also when you halve the number of calories, this would mean you are burning 50 calories per mile. I think this is much too low. Oh yes, I just remembered that you use strava to calculate the distance. This makes it easier.

Otherwise, check to see if your steps on your watch is accurate. You know, walking around with you counting off the steps. Walk let’s say 500 steps. As you know, it should match your watch. Use google maps to determine the set of roads that are at a known distance, preferrably about a mile. Then walk that distance with your normal stride allowing your watch to count the steps taken. Do some math to give you a result for one mile. Then in the future, you can convert you steps to the number of miles. This is where the 100 calories per mile can be applied to check the accuracy of your calories burned given by your watch.

I have calibrated my watch this way to determine the accuracy of steps and the distance given by my GPS. They are both pretty close except for the occasional hiccup. Even then, it still provides only about a 10% or less error. This amount is the norm for many fitness watches, some even worse, except for the better more expensive watches. My error rate on steps and distance are normally about 3 to 5 percent, 3 percent frequently being the norm for me. BTW my normal stride is about 2.5 feet per step. I have gone as high as 3 feet per step.

Just my suggestion to you FWIW I do think you are doing great.

PS I need something like SUP to exercise my upper body. Maybe the weight machines at my gym can work out. But how can my watch calculate the calories burned from this? There are some exercises where the watch can, and others that it cannot. I have to find the machines that do work with the watch.

@Bozdickens - I hope they are able to get you feeling better soon.

@Tucson - I use Strava for paddling and MMW for walking, but I turn MMW logging on and off because I think it gives me too much. I have been walking a lot and my legs have pretty much always been in good shape except when I have had arthritic flares and couldn't walk much for 2-3 months. I am hopeful i will get few if any knee flares with my lower weight. Anyway, I don't get my heart rate very high so i think I burn well under 100 but I am not sure.
The thing about paddling is that it is pretty strenuous or at least I can make it so from time to time and when I go for 2-3 hours I do some fairly long continous stretches. i am paddling and in motion about 80% of the time.

I weighed 158.6 this morning so my guess was pretty close. My scale only reports even tenths so I was only one measurement fine unit off. It was too fast to be a true gain of 2 pounds so I think it is a spike and I probably really weigh 157 and change. That is where I want to stabilize, though I am toying with the idea of stabilizing at 155 +/- 3 pounds instead. It is purely a mental thing but I don't want to see 160 even on a spike.

EDIT - Just read something that said walking typically burns (.57 x weight x mileage). That would put me at about 90 calories per mile.

EDIT #2 - that was in a forum post and someone else replied:

Note that this formula provides the GROSS calorie burn from walking. That is, the result will include calories you would have burned even if you had not taken a walk.

The formula for the NET calorie burn (the extra burn resulting directly from your walk and thus the amount you can eat back) is 0.3*weight*mileage.

I set my goal as a custom amount because the number mfp gives me is too high, but I may be going too low. Ideally, what I would like to do is have my base include no steps and log every one of them but I wold need to know how to log them with some degree of accuracy. I understand why most people end up doing mini yoyos in maintenance. There was some luck involved when I stayed really close to 160 for so long before I decided to drop it down a few more pounds.

The problem with using resting metabolic rate as a starting point is it will be difficult to assess calories burned through all the different activities done during the day, like washing dishes and pushing a vacuum. Also, at least on my watch, calories burned outside of exercise due to normal daily activity is probably way off. So in order to include calories from normal daily activity, an estimation would have to be made for this part, which for instance, can be a percentage added over the resting metabolic weight. Many of your calculators online use this approach. I do not think there is any realistic way to do this otherwise. As a consequence, this calculated amount can be more accurate some days, and less accurate in others.

By the way, from my reasearch, the calculation of the resting metabolic rate needs to include the percentage of body fat. From what I have learned so far, this can make a significant difference in accessing the calories burned with respect to ones metabolic rate. I guessed mine to be 25%. This made a significant difference to the result. The typical online calculator places my RMR to be around 1800. However, when using a calculator that includes percentage body fat, my RMR ends up being about 1400 calories. I estimated the 25% by critically examining many of the photos available on the online. Those are the photos of actual people that display a percentage fat along with how it makes the person look.

I found one equation that determines the calories expended during exercise using a value that describes your fitness level. This is called VO2max. This would need to be included in the calories burned calculation, since the more fit someone is, the less calories they burn for the same exercise. This formula is available online. My watch includes all of this in its calculation of calories burned for an exercise. However, this does not mean it’s accurate. There are several different formulas that can be used that attempts to calculate the same result. Also I think there are still assumptions that needs to be made even when considering all of these variables that I specified above.

So calculating calories burned appears to be more complex than much of the online information leads us to believe. I think the best way to approach this is to take the amount given by a formula that perhaps includes the most relevant of these variables, and adjust it for your particular situation. For instance, it need not use VO2max since fitness changes slowly. Also if you can try to manage expending the same amount of effort in all of your walking exercises, this can further eliminate variables. Your can measure this effort by trying to keep your hear rate within a specific range. The calculation of your RMR may not need to include the percentage of body fat. This also changes slowly when not trying to shed pounds.

I think the finding of a suitable result would involve trial and error until you find a percentage adjustment that will allow you to maintain your weight. I see this is what you have been attempting to do with your watch. However, IMO the use of some kind of formula may provide a more consistent result which then you then adjust by that percentage for your situation. IMO the formulas used do not have to be very accurate. They just need to aid in providing a consistent enough result which then you can adjust.

As far as the estimation provided by your watch goes, perhaps it can provide a usable value with some adjustment. However, I think you will not know until you calculate the calories burned yourself over a period of time using some type of formula mentioned above as a gauge. As respect to my situation, I will be finding the percentage to adjust the value by that will keep me weight neutral. I am assuming it is making the calculations in an intelligent mamnner, and it is providing a consistent result.

There is a way that appears to simplify this problem to an extent by using MET values. The MET value, standing for metabolic equivalent, describes the amount of effort put into a particular activity, in relation to other activities. MET values for hundreds of activities have been compiled, and is available online. What is nice about this is that this value can be used not only for specific exercises, but also much of the daily activity itself. For instance, I think there is a MET value for washing dishes.

PS I still think 50 calories a mile is low. Many of the formulas provided online seems to validate this. However, even these formulas in the form of calculators need to be taken with a grain of salt. I guess what is more important is consistency.

IMHO YMMV

I weigh 175 today. I will do some mild exercise today. This may be a comparativley slow walk directly around where I live. I am saving the more strenuous exercising to every other day for now.

I did some slow walking for my exercise which burned 191 calories. This makes for a target of 2280 calories. I consumed 2,679 calories. So I am over by about 400 calories. My homemade macaroni and cheese has more calories than I thought it did. Tomorrow is a day for exercise. I will handle this surplus of calories consumed over the next two days.

I think I will do an endurance walk. Instead of my normal 4 miles, I will walk 6 miles at a brisk pace, co,pared to a very very brisk pace. I am not attempting to break any personal records with this one. If I do this, I can burn close to 600 calories which should help with the overage for today.

I didn't note the steps, but did no dedicated walking. Paddled 5 miles and accepted the 849 calories it gave me. I think that is high. Last night was pretty social and slow paddling. 5 miles still takes a lot of effort and for part of it i was working on technique and was in and out of the water a lot. And as usual, I didn't count the 15 minutes of intense exercise pumping (probably 100 calories minimum; may be as much as 200).

2550 calories consumed. A few estimates in there. A coworker brought in some really good cheesecake his wife made. I had a couple of servings logged as one from mfp that might be low. had chicken tacos at a restaurant that had no mfp listing and I picked another that I am pretty certain is significantly higher than what I had.

My weight is 175. I will do an endurance walk today before it gets hot outside. My goal is 6 miles. This will burn approximately 600 calories.