[UpDownAround]

9458 steps. 1703 calories. I am going to adjust up for walking if (when) I drop into the 150s. Weigh tomorrow, maybe. I have to run one of my kids to catch a bus very early in the morning. A local non profit selected some kids to take to Washington to march and he did his senior project on gun violence, so he was invited.

[Tucson]

Let’s see, as you can tell looking on my chart, I met my calorie goal of 2600. This started out at 2150 calories, but my walks burned calories. In order to maintain weight, I just have to eat that much more. I am not using exersize fore losing weight, but just to get in better shape.

I have taken 7897 steps. I have burned about 488 calories by walking two miles, and before this, about a half a mile to the Circle K and back. I did not walk too fast this time since I am still recovering from my long walk a couple days ago. My water consumption is about 32 oz from what I can remember. I need to drink at least a quart a day. I will make up for this by bedtime. I am significantly short on protein again. Tomorrow I will need to drink a smoothly spiked with protein powder. It tastes a bit chalky, but it is not too bad.

I think the distances listed above may not be accurate, but still in the ballpark. I have adjusted my activity tracker to my stride length. I shall see how this changes the stats tomorrow.

[UpDownAround]

My app is telling me 384 calories for my 9500+ steps. I am hauling around about 15 less pounds than you, but one of our devices or apps is out of whack. This is one of the things that makes me afraid to trust these things to say how much extra to eat. Is mine telling me too little or yours saying too much? Both? I guess we figure it out from watching the scale.

[Cocosurviving]

MFP calories 1,172 total. I was sick with my allergies today so I did not have on my Apple Watch. Water intake 50.7oz. I did go to my doc and was given allergy meds.

[Tucson]

UpDownAround,

I am trying to make my band as accurate as possible. I calculated it was using a three foot pacing instead of my two and a half foot pace. I have adjusted it accordingly. I did some calculations. The best I can tell, the band changes the steps per calorie depending on the heart rate or step rate. I do not know which. Maybe both. The steps I took while in my home, including the many extra steps that can be added on while home for some unknown reason, counted with the most steps per calorie. In other words, there was much less of an effort to take those steps compared to when I went walking for exercise. The long walk I took only at a moderate pace. Out of the two walks, this had the second lowest steps per calorie amount. My short trip to the Circle K resulted in the lowest steps per calorie. I think this makes sense since I walked faster. I will see what comes up now with my adjustment to pacing. As far as accurate calorie amounts go, I guess the only real test there is the weight scale.

Here is an interesting article concerning the steps per calorie: https://www.livestrong.com/article/2...s-to-calories/

[Tucson]

I have done some research. It looks like yours is more accurate according to this calculator: Walking Calorie Calculator - High accuracy calculation This calculation for a brisk walk burns 24 steps per calorie, using 2000 steps per mile. This means 396 calories for 9500 steps. This compares favorably with your 384 calories. My activity band is using, depending on its measure of effort, anywhere from 18 down to 12 steps per calorie. I need to see if I can fix this.

[Tucson]

Sorry for the triple post.

I lost a couple more pounds. I am at 174 now. I will restrict my exersize to 3 miles. Let’s see if that slows down the weight loss. [panic starting to set in] I also will make sure I eat at least 2300 calories a day, and more if MFP tells me to eat more. This means no skipped meals. The calories burned up is automatically taken into consideration by MFP with the data it gets from my activity tracker. I will start out with oatmeal spiked with a fair amount of sugar.

By the way, I discovered a thing called “activity class” is used along with other personal information to calculate calories. I have significantly adjusted this down. Let’s see how many steps per calories this will show on my next activity. Previous to this change, it was showing 12 to 14 steps per calorie which is way to little.

[UpDownAround]

162.2 again this morning.

@Tucson - Maybe I should turn heart rate back on. I am already at almost 12000 steps for today. About 7500 of them were on a walk that took about an hour. The other 4500 were mowing the grass with a walk behind (self propelled, but still need to push/pull some and turn it around), also for about an hour. They are treated equally on a per step basis by my watch/app, which is no doubt incorrect. I probably burned substantially more mowing the lawn. I entered them in MFP, but shaved the minutes to 45 each of walking at 3 mph and mowing. It added 485 to my total calorie allotment for today. That seems like too much; almost 2200 calories! I will eat some extra, but not all of that.

[Tucson]

Use that calculator I posted a link to as a guide. I found two parameters that would effect calories but nothing else. This is weight and activity class. Activity class determines how much in shape you are by basing it off of the amount of regular exersize you do. The weight has the most significant effect on calories for obvious reasons.

Using the rule of thumb of 100 calories per mile, which is about 2000 steps, the calories per step come to 20 steps per calorie. Still, that calculator that I posted the link to, allowing for some variation, seems to support your calories burned I do think this calculator will be more accurate. Still, it will come down to the scale.

I am trying to tune my band to match yours for now which I think would make for a much more accurate calculation of calories. But I do not know how accurate. So far, I put the activity class up to the max. I then reduced my weight on the mobile app until I ended up with very close to 24 steps per calorie that your watch calculated. I am down to weighing 80 pounds on the app.

When we post the steps counted at days end, lets post from the band the calories burned. Let’s see if our steps per calorie keeps being the same. For shits and giggles, I also will go to the gym that I rarely go to and see what the calculator on the treadmill says. We will figure out how to get our bands accurate for our purposes with respect to calories burned one way or another.

By the way, I think you should enable the heart rate monitor. That is the only thing I go by to determine if my walk is a cardio workout.

[Mountaindewed]

I gained 5 pounds. Just 5 pounds. I went up 4 sizes in pants, and my new spring jacket is very tight.

I’m terrified of gaining the 74 pounds back.

My coworkers and managers are brutal. If I gained that much weight, they would tear me a new A hole.

[Mountaindewed]

I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve read that you can do nothing if you get teased about your weight. Like it’s not protected or something. I’ve read that employers could possibly be on your coworkers side.

I just heard this on the web, I have no idea if it’s true or not.

[UpDownAround]

@Bozdickens, if that was over a really short period, it sounds like water weight. But just return to the habits that got the weight off. Adult bullying is a tough thing, I am not sure what the law is. I lost over 50 pounds 4-5 years ago and then gained it back. I am fortunate to work in a place where no one harassed me about it. Now I have lost a little over 60 and I am also fearful about gaining it back, which is making me take baby steps about normalizing my calories again.

@Tucson, I will post calories in a bit; still mulling over how many of the exercise calories to eat back. I have gotten up over 1800 for the first time in 7 months. I need to get up the courage to do it a few days in a row, watching the scale. If it starts to creep up, I will just cut back again. I am still mulling over going a little lower, but stabilizing where I am while deciding wouldn't be a bad thing. Right now, the watch says 12190 steps, 5.45 miles and 495 calories. Today is a bad day to compare it's accuracy to reality because of the mowing, which added a lot more burn to 4500 of the steps.

[Cocosurviving]

MFP calories 1,239 total. Apple Watch steps 8,134. Water intake 50.7 oz. I was not feeling that great but I power walked around Lowe’s with my mom.

[UpDownAround]

I pushed it up over 1900, but I am done. 1929 calories. Too much of it is snacks; I need to eat more at meals. I know my maintenance should be around 1900 and I burned some extra calories today but it still feels like cheating to eat this much.

[Tucson]

@BozDickens: You are not the only one that feels this way. Both UpDownAround and I do feel very concerned about gaining our weight back.

@UpDownAround: I PMed you.

I walked 9,500 steps. This burned off something like 394 calories. I am estimating here because momitor band calculated the calories improperly. I am in the process of fixing this. So I will be eating a bit more than the 2500 calorie target given the calories that I have burned. This assumes two slices of pizza. I feel rather full, so I may just eat one slice of pizza to bring the calories in-line of my target.

[UpDownAround]

I wonder if we should be in the exercise and diet thread, but probably doesn't really matter. Two old guys that think walking is exercise might be out of place in that other thread. It is exercise, just not the kind that the workout folks are doing. I will do some of that once I lose a little more; I want to try to build up my chest and shoulders and it is really hard to add muscle if you aren't eating more than maintenance, so I might lose to 155 and then gain back to 160 trying to work my upper body hard (if my bursitis and costochondritis will allow it).

Numbers from a morning walk - 6367 steps, 2.84 miles, 61 min, 258 calories, 115 max HR. I suspect the HR is not right, but it could be. There are two steep long hills that were on my walk and I didn't drop pace for them. 115 is aerobic, though.

[Tucson]

I weigh 177 pounds. Perhaps water retention explains the swing in weight. Tomorrow’s weight should be interesting to me. I am in the process of adjusting my monitor to average 24 steps per calorie for a fast walk. This is going to take a couple days to get it fine tuned. From now on, I will post the steps, the calories burned, and my maximum heart rate.

UpDownAround, I am sure that your heard we are like a bottle of good wine, it gets better with age. I think at this point of time in our lives, our purpose is to age gracefully with some measure of class. However, I will have to work on the “class” part.....maybe even the “age gracefully” part too.

[Mountaindewed]

I ate 1,170 calories yesterday and I weighed myself this morning and I was 2 pounds less. My size 8 pants fit now and yesterday my size 14’s were too small.

I don’t really understand how this happens. I guess maybe it’s just water weight or Maybe some of it is in my head/the power of suggestion?

When it’s this easy to take it off I need to learn to just relax and not think that a 5 pound weight gain will turn into a 74 pound weight gain.

[UpDownAround]

@Tucson - You are forgetting I am in recovery; you have to find a different analogy.

I think I am done with the walking today, except around the house a little; probably less than 100 more steps. I walked a fair amount today. 17561 steps, 7.85 miles, 712 calories in 2:46 0r 166 minutes. Highest HR recorded was 123. I logged 105 minutes at 3 mph. I am still afraid that mfp will give me too many extra calories if I log all of it. I am going to have trouble eating what it is up to anyway.

Tomorrow morning's weigh in will be interesting after two days with lots of long walks and going over my usual allotment to account for some of that. I am going to try not to stress too much this week because a week from Monday I have one of those procedures with the camera and light (because it is going where the sun doesn't shine). The prep and recovery from that is usually close to a two pound drop.

EDIT - adding in my menu. 1942 was all I could manage and that seems like too much. Hopefully, I won't see a big swing up tomorrow and I can convince myself it is okay to eat more.
EDIT AGAIN - Decided to have one Oreo cookie and brought th total to 1995...

[Cocosurviving]

MFP calories 1,129 total. Apple Watch steps 2,868. Water intake 84.5oz. I was pretty much inside all day. It rained and stormed in my area. I believe it will for the next few days.

[Tucson]

UpDownAround: OOPS. Sorry about the mention of wine. Let’s see, cheese. That’s it! Cheddar cheese gets better when aged. BTW I do like aged cheddar cheese for my home made maccaroni and cheese dish. This tastes really really good. I even throw in some paprika.

Anyway, back to business. I took 5489 steps on two walks which totaled themselves to 250 calories burned. So I had a 2150 + 250 = 2400 calorie day. I hit this amount pretty close. So this translates to 21 steps per calorie. There are remaining steps taken. So if this is added in, I burned 460 calories. I tend to ignore this value, but maybe I should not. Many of them are do nothing steps totaling to actually very little calories burned.

I am going to adjust my monitor band a bit to have a brisk walk yield a total closer to 24 steps per calorie. Tomorrow, I will walk about 4 miles. I will keep allowing calories burned to update my MFB totals. I want to see if this has me losing more weight or remaining the same, or actually gain weight. Oh yes, I drank somewhere about 40 to 48 ounces of water.

What a great thread.

I will say that I've tried the Vegetarian and Vegan lifestyle for more than one year each, and neither helped me in the long-run. I had to eat meat again due to the vitamin and mineral deficiencies from both Vegetarianism and Veganism foods.

I don't eat a lot of red meat but mostly chicken and fish. I do love a good cheeseburger on occasion.

[UpDownAround]

@Tucson - I think the "do nothing" steps are to be ignored as they are figured into your base. Even sedentary is more than just BMR.

EDIT - Example - I am in the office this morning and have about 250 steps. It's a sedentary job, but there is the parking lot, going to bathroom/break room ,etc. That's one reason I have been adding only a % of my exercise calories the last couple of days. I am pretty sure that is calculated into the base number, though now that I am not basing it off the desired loss, it is less relevant. I can make it relevant again by setting it to maintain, but I am not sure what it will give me. Hmmm...

EDIT again - I set it to maintain and it set calories to 1910.

@StreetcarBlanche - I am similar on proteins, only no cheeseburger. I don't eat mammals, so my proteins are fish, poultry and dairy.

I weighed 162.0 this morning, a new low by only 0.2. I think I need to go ahead and move my daily allotment to 1800. It's not like it's a law that you have to eat your allotment every day, so I can still lose a little more as a cushion. EDIT - Changed it by letting it get automatically set for 0 gain/loss. it is now 1910.

[Tucson]

177 pounds today. I purchased the first clothes since before my weight loss. I actually fit in the large instead of XL shirt size. My waist went from 44 to 36. Amazing. However, I will no longer be able to jump in and pull off my pants without unzipping them. The oversized pants from the past allowed me to literally jump into them with at least five inches to spare. I still have this small roll of fat that peeks a bit over the waist of the pants. argh! Maybe weighing less than this may be a better idea. However, exersize may help diminish it.

[UpDownAround]

I went from 38 inch pants to loose 32. I even tried on a pair of 30s and could button and zip, but they were a little too tight to be comfortable. I still have a little roll also if i squeeze. Yeah, exercise to reconstitute - stay about the same weight with more muscle and less fat. I am having a tough time with upper body work because of bursitis and costochondritis. I have to push enough to get some gain without inflammation.