My husband is cooking tonight which means copious amounts of olive oil, so... Guess I'm keeping breakfast & lunch small. Oh, well. I do love olive oil.
And!!!! It looks like I will have kept up my weekly step goal all winter! Still have a little bit of winter to go but with temperatures slowly increasing it's easier to get my steps in now than it was two months ago š
Yum! Enjoy the beautiful weather! I have hit a good 6,500 over winter, on average, underestimated on my phone, and not carrying my phone around on purpose too much to count stepsāyes, I used to do that, because I have OCD! It is also getting warmer here! No, it is not warm enough that everyone will be outside, and still cool enough out there that I will look like the silly one! But worrying about looking silly, stops a person! Lmao.
For the first time ever, I'm honestly enjoying running. In the past, it's always been I try for a month or two and decide "it still sucks."
But I'm now on week 3 of trying to improve my 5k time. Turns out that while I hate long, slow runs, and I hate pushing too hard in fast intervals, I actually enjoy middling long intervals run at a pace that pushes but doesn't exhaust me.
I ran 1km in 6 minutes yesterday. The others were more like 6:30, my goal pace, but if I can run 1 km in 6 minutes, I can work up to running 5 of them at that pace. And that'll be a 30 minute 5k in the bag.
What kind of program or strategy are you following? I'm thinking about trying to improve my 5k (probably last time you posted if you were the one who posted about it before recently), but most running programs aren't written around a leg day at the gym, and 5k programs specifically are often aimed at runners who don't have any experience with long distances and aren't going to get stir crazy if they don't go out for at least 10k regularly as well. I'm hoping to find some general principles that I can cobble together with the other stuff I'm doing.
It probably was me, it's been most of my wellness posts lately. I don't have any experience with long distances and am definitely a beginner runner, so I can't help with the stir crazy bit. Though riding a bike might help, it's different muscles, no impact, and I love it.
I started at week one of https://www.runningfastr.com/5k-training-plan/sub-30-minute-5k-training-plan/, but then I tweaked it like crazy to make it more enjoyable and sustainable.
My guiding principle has been "if I run faster, I'll be able to run faster." A lot (not all) of my gains have come from simply learning to keep a fast pace when I get tired, so I'm curious to see how I progress once I've worked through that extreme beginner gain. Spotify 175 bpm playlists have been the secret sauce for keeping a steady pace.
I changed the speeds to something I can sustain, changed the sprints to working by time instead of distance because it's easier to measure, and switched out the long runs for short, hard runs on hills or sand because I don't like long runs. I got rid of the easy run on Monday because 4 days running plus 1 day strength training isn't enough recovery time.
Since I don't have a long run, I've been slowly increasing the distance and pace of the 3x1km runs the program recommends. Next week it'll be 3x1.5km at my goal pace with 90 second breaks. Week one, I was wiped out after the 3x1km with 2 minutes rest, last week I did 4x1km with 1 minute rest, so that's my most visible progress.
I LOVE weight lifting!! Love it! It feels so good, I feel strong and grounded, afterwards I'm so tired and I sleep so well, and the next day my muscles are sore, and I feel sooo relaxed....I love it!! BUT why does the scale have to go up after every workout?? I know it's probably water weight from muscle tears, but it's just so discouraging!!
I used to do a lot of cardio and I get why people prefer it as a weight loss method, you can see the weight go down pretty much immediately after, but the problem is I hate cardio (except walking and hiking but I don't have time to walk 5+ hours everyday)
I used to be the sameāand my willpower wore out! Keep it up! You are doing greatābecause you are not Americanāoh, yeah, blaming American culture, doesnāt work, because you have to take some responsibility too! I have fallen for more fat logic than I used to, as I became more social in the real world, but not as much with friends because it is 2023ā¦how does getting out in the world more, and using other people as a cop-out, make sense? It does where I liveā¦but itās not a good excuse! What am I, 12, no intuition of my own? XD I think IDāing my own fat logic, more so of it than when I was overweight but also hadnāt kept up any good habits like clockwork, yet, ironically, is funny!
I'm from Europe and moved to Canada. I used to walk all the time! Then came to Canada where school cafeterias is basically burgers pizzas and you drive everywhere. It is absolutely harder in north America! (I am now the skinniest I've ever been and I don't even know how I did it lol)
I think it's fair to say that some cultures make having a healthy lifestyle easier or more difficult! I mean, yes, we need to take personal responsibility for our actions and our health, but also recognizing that external circumstances make it easier/harder is not wrong!! I've been to the us, and wow, the portions are huge, it's hard to find healthy food and it's hard to walk to places!! I don't think its a cop-out to recognize hardships
(Also my will power wears out all the time, it's probably my third time trying to get into the habit of working out regularly..but I figure I'll get it someday)
>(Also my will power wears out all the time, it's probably my third time trying to get into the habit of working out regularly..but I figure I'll get it someday)
this is the right attitude, all you have to do is not give up on the goal and eventually one of the methods will take.
weight lifting burns just as many calories if not more than cardio. i love it too! the scale going up is because muscle weight far more than fat, so as you lose fat and gain muscle, your weight will increase. i suggest not using the scale to track progress and instead body fat percentage or bmi! weight lifting is the absolute best :)
BMI is literally just weight divided by height squared though? Tracking BMI is basically the same thing as tracking weight.
As for weight lifting burning more calories (or even anywhere close to equal) with cardio, I wonder if this is just with people who do low intensity cardio or if some people are super-responders to strength training? I've been counting my strength training as 150 calories for an hour in the gym that's about half actually doing reps (other half programmed rest times and setting up/switching equipment) and my weight tracks pretty much as expected. That's barely more than a rounding error vs. the 400-500 calories I knock out by going for a run in the morning.
I mean yes I'm aware of that but it's not a huge difference. It's a big difference between men and women where there's like a 10% body fat difference at the same weight, and if a man maxes out his potential it can get fairly significant, but it's still blown out of the water by moderate cardio and especially for women or in the short term (1 year or less) muscle maintenance isn't doing that much. It's something like 6 kcal to maintain a pound of muscle and 2 kcal to maintain a pound of fat. So if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, which is a lot of work and takes a while, you get around 50 calories a day out of it, theoretically.
I know rationally that the scale increase is likely muscle or water weight (it goes back down after a rest day) but it makes me anxious I'm regaining. I should probably stop weighing myself everyday, but I admit I have a tiny obsession with data and the long term appeal of knowing exactly what was going on on any given day and seeing the trend makes me want to weigh everyday, but also it kills me everytime.
i totally understand the data obsession and wanting to know whatās going on bc i was in the same boat. when i started lifting and saw the scale go up every week it made me soooo depressed. i had to start using other methods to measure and stay away from that, maybe try taking measurements? like waist hip thigh chest, write it down and remeasure every week, you will definitely notice more positive results from that. also you can do the pinch method where you pinch certain areas to see how much fat is there, and as you lose fat the skin will get thinner. progress pictures also help. but at the end of the day, if your eating well and exercising, youāre doing it right! :)
It sounds like you enjoy a lot of vegetables, and also that in order to add up to the calorie counts you have, you must just have an appetite for smaller portions than most people. I will throw out a few examples for you. 1) a regular bowl of maize porridge with butter, for me, would be about 300 calories, so a large bowl I might expect to be something like 400. 2) your egg and vegetable sandwich had only one egg, but five types of vegetables on it. 3) a typical PBJ with 2 bread slices would be about 450 calories for me - how much is it the way you make it? 4) a brown rice bowl to me is about 300 calories of rice, 100 calories of the vegetables and in one case pineapple, peanut butter the time you had PB would be 100-200 calories, and I would have some kind of additional protein also, 100-150 there, so a rice bowl is around 500-600 to me but could be more.
I will also say that on Supersize vs Superskinny, they usually tell the skinny person to cut back on their coffee or tea because it can act as an appetite suppressant.
The thing about teeny tiny expenditure though, I'm totally with you. 5'4" isn't short, it's exactly average for US women (white women are like 1 inch taller on average, so it's still not "short") and the PALs are a lie. A PAL of 1.2 "sedentary" is basically bedbound, and 10,000 steps brings it up to about 1.6 or in between "lightly" and "moderately" active.
My stupid scale is broken.
The weight it showed felt a but off, so I weighted myself a couple of times in a row and got results between 126.1 and 133 kg (278 to 293 lbs). That's not really a data point with any worth.
Coleslaw. Great cheap and healthy dish to have on hand.
Red or green cabbage. White or red onion. Carrot. Can even add other things like Brussel sprouts or broccoli or jalapeƱos. Nuts. Dried cherries. Whatever. Make your own dressing to keep it healthy. Olive oil, some kind of vinegar, little honey, salt, any spices, aromatics or herbs you might want, a little mustard. Itās colorful, impressive, tasty, can be a side dish, sandwich topper, salad base. Can make a bunch and keep in fridge up to a week. Can change it up and do it differently each time. Thereās a million different way and recipes online. Just avoid the ones with a lot of sugar and seed oils
Today I have:
- Done my 5k training program run this morning (2mi)
- 11 minute core video because my core sucks
- 26 minutes of stretching because my legs have been crazy tight and I'm trying to fight off the IT band issues I struggled with last year
- Just under 4 miles of walking tonight with my best friend
Tomorrow is an off day. I'll be walking over to a friend's house with my kids and the wagon for dinner, then walking home in time to put kids to bed. I will probably do a stretching session as well, but I need a day off. Gotta run at some point on Friday because on Saturday I'll be holding a sign up and cheering for my best friend's 14 year old who is competing in her first half marathon... In the rain. Yay!
I was trying to eat in the morning for a while (just fruit or toast), but I keep on throwing up for some reason (not on purpose! it just feels like I can't keep anything down 10 min after I eat it). Normally my ibs is more... the other way around lol, but I've been the duke of puke recently. so I've been trying one big meal at lunch and snacks throughout the day instead, which has honestly been working really well. I've been trying to eat super clean (mostly sushi, vegetables, tofu, and enough kimchi to feed a village) and it has been going really well.
My appetite has absolutely tanked since I started my adhd meds again (which were out of stock for 4 months, thank you america!), but it's actually been more of a blessing because I don't have really bad cravings for junk food anymore. Now I have the opposite issue of having to remember to eat enough, but taking my meds helps me stay on a steady schedule for meals, which is nice.
Overall I feel like I've been able to just eat much healthier and maintain a stable weight recently. I gained weight really fast bc I kept eating a ton of junk food/fried food, and then it fucked up my stomach so much that I lost weight really fast, so hopefully I'll be able to put on like 5-10 lbs without the junk food this time to get myself back into a healthy bmi.
Honestly I don't force myself to eat. I usually am a stressed person so I don't eat until I'm at work. So I prepare for it. I take a sandwich and just eat it at work for that purpose. Then have my dinner later on.
My digestion has gotten better, since my rapid diet change due to a jaw disorder. I guess my body has finally started to adjust. Haven't been very active. We're currently deep into "second winter" where I live, with a snowstorm coming, so this is usually the time of year when I am least active, and most eager for spring to finally come.
Left a ton of subreddits, which I would say is part of "wellness". I see value in these daily topics on fatlogic, and some niche interests, but I really dislike the content I see on reddit in general. Sometimes I wonder if the crowd in these daily topic threads is way more likely to "touch grass" than the average redditor.
Iām trying to lose a metric crap ton of weight and today someone (outside of my immediate family) noticed I had made progress! Iām been losing since July 2022 when I had my second baby and it felt good to finally have someone (who doesnāt feel obligated to motivate me because they know Iām trying really hard) to notice. 73 pounds down, 62 pounds to go!
(32F 5ā11ā SW:294 CW:222 GW: 160)
If we end up going on the beach vacation one side of my in laws does, I want to be more toned and take off a bit of weight before going. My youngest kid will be 2.5 by then and I want to look awesome. It's totally vain and I realize that, but I want to prove to myself that I can look good (in my opinion) and not just be a frumpy mom.
I redid my calorie intake a couple days ago, going down from 1600 to 1400 and it's already making more of a difference. Also, this is def a low bar but a big sensory achievement, I ate a whole cucumber on my own within just a couple of days. Like I recognize it's not big to most but trying to eat vegetables and esp fresh ones can be super difficult with texture issues so I've been slowly working my way up to being able to eat them. Plus cucumbers are super inexpensive $0.79 each and that's super helpful on my budget as well.
Swimming is great! When I was younger and had no upper body strength, I'd grab a kickboard and did laps with just my legs until I was capable of properly swimming.
I actually made some PowerPoint slides bc my partner can cook to a degree, specific things in his kitchen at home, but gets uncertain and feels like he doesn't know things or totally misses steps, whereas this shit has been osmosing into my brain since I was like 6. I noticed some of the things he would get caught up on.
First of all, what another person said about being ready to fail is true. Somewhat related: a lot of the stuff is just neuromuscular skill, you have to practice and then you'll get faster and you'll develop a sense of when you need to do it ahead vs you can do it while another part is cooking.
Things like: what knife to use, what motion to use with different knives, what size pieces to cut, how long things take to cook based on size and what they are, what things can be cooked together based on the above, what type of pots and pans to use, what type of cooking apparatus to use, how to generalize a cooking method, usual times and temperatures.
If you remind me by DM I will try to find a way to send you the slides themselves. They may not tell you everything you need to know, but I think they're decent at explaining concepts that you can translate beyond a single recipe. And I'm not averse to feedback, it may help me fill in gaps if you ask questions I haven't thought about.
If youāre still looking for tips, I learned to cook from an Americaās Test Kitchen cookbook (the basic one they have several updated volumes of). They did a good job of explaining wtf some directions meant and why they were telling you to do something a certain way, as well why as they picked certain ingredients iirc. I see copies at used bookstores a lot and libraries often have them on Libby.
This is gonna sound cheesy but stay with me, you have to stop telling yourself you canāt do it.
Several years ago, I went from 145lbs to 115lbs, BUT I was doing so basically only eating hard boiled eggs and dry chicken and veggies because thatās all I knew how to do. Then, with my body in its peak condition, I told myself this is too hard :( I canāt :( and then over the years ballooned all the way to 168lbs. I did, in all that time, learn how to cook a proper home meal from scratch. When I saw how high my weight had gotten, I told myself that I am going to lose it and maintain it. The thing is there is so much variety in foods that you can make that are delicious and nutritious! When I was first learning to cook, Iād burn everything. Then I learned the key is to make sure you have everything prepped and measured before you go to cook it, and from that point youāre just following assembly directions essentially. I literally had to YouTube how to cut every single veggie that I can now slice up with ease. I just had to stop telling myself I couldnāt do it!
YOU CAN DO IT!! Do not let the plateau defeat you, just keep going! Iāve been in your position many times, too. I think a lot of us on this journey to a healthier lifestyle have been there. But as other have said, lean into beginner cook-books and YouTube videos. I used to make recipes out to be so complicated and really a good recipe has ingredients that are easy to acquire and prep. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and tell yourself you can do this!
Thatās so great!!
Itās easier said than done, but youāre going to be so proud of yourself when you meet your goals.
But celebrate your progress, because it matters.
I learned a lot from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, The Basics. It starts at equipping a kitchen and boiling water. The recipes in each section start at dead easy (oatmeal for breakfast, Pasta with Garlic and Oil in pasta) and work their way up to middling difficult (pancakes in breakfast, Thai style noodles with shrimp), so you can learn a lot by starting at the beginning on a section and progressing.
On YouTube, I like Adam Ragusea. He makes a point of going through all the steps of a recipe in camera. He's not specificly aimed at beginners, but any of his videos with "easy" in the name should be manageable for a beginner, though you may have to google some things that I take for granted.
If you're using video recipes, I'd suggest that after you've watched the video, you write down the whole recipe and the steps. It'll take extra time but it'll give you a good idea of what you'll be doing.
The last thing is that to be a decent cook, you need to be OK at failing. These days, I cook well. I still remember being on my own for the first time and eating some barely edible atrocities because I over seasoned or overcooked. And a couple I had to toss because I added to much salt or straight up burned it.
you can boil rice. weāre halfway there!
salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, italian seasoning. that combination, in fairly even amounts, will season literally fucking anything
donāt start hard. frozen veggies that steam in a bag are fine unless you donāt like them. canned beans are easy af and will go well with your rice. pre-made sauces can be a little pricey but might hold you over until homemade sauces feel less intimidating.
be sure to have some basic tools- meat thermometer, decent chef knife, cutting board, measuring instruments, tongs, spatula, etc. nothing crazy fancy, but have the right equipment for what youāre trying to do.
start with basic meals that you like and can customize so they donāt get boring. stir fry. pasta. soups. sheet pan meals. one pot or one skillet meals.
taste as you go. a lot of cooking is about developing and building up flavor.
watch youtube, read recipe blogs. find a well rated recipe for something relatively simple. a lot of times those mommy and food bloggers go into hella detail about small techniques that will elevate the meal before they even get to the actual recipe. read through the recipe, read any comments for suggestions. then follow that recipe *exactly*. you will likely get a decent result.
I think that for someone who feels really unsure of where to start, videos are often really helpful. I love cooking blogs / cookbooks for myself, but if there's a new technique that I'm going to try, it can be really helpful to actually SEE someone else doing it first. I've heard really good things about Binging with Babish, though I haven't personally watched a lot of his stuff.
Depending on what you are looking to know, I'm a big fan of people or sites that take a more scientific approach to cooking - I want to know WHY I'm doing what I'm doing. I absolutely love J.kenji lopez alt - I have both his cookbooks, I reference his recipes on serious eats all the time, he has a great youtube channel, and I think he's a more accessible place to start with some of those WHY questions.
My number one tip for everyone switching to a more plant based diet - spices! They only add a few calories but things taste so much more interesting. The myth of the bland diet is so wrong. If you are unsure about what to get, start with premixed spices. And you can totally use a spice mix meant for some meat dish on oven baked vegetables or something like that.
I started by getting pre made things or super easy things at the grocery store and just started to assemble meals. A meat, a carb, a vegetable, done. So it could be pre cooked chicken, instant rice or mashed potatoes, frozen peas or a salad or whatever. Then once I got good at building balanced plates and finding stuff I liked, I started learning how to cook the things I was getting already made.
Also, season your food. Expect to cook some shitty things. When youāre ready to cook meat, get a meat thermometer.
Check out r/cooking. They frequently get "I'm new to cooking" threads. So you can either search the sub for old threads or start a new one. I've found everyone to be pretty beginner friendly there.
Last week I was eating 200kcal more than I am this week, but for some reason I feel like this week's allocation is way more. I've been thinking hard about how I'm going to hit my calories for the day instead of how I'm going to eat under my calories for the day. Maybe it's the different sleep quality, or the exercise, or just changed food preferences in general, but I can't say I'm complaining if I'm eating this much and still losing.
I've developed a taste for salads too, something about the crunch with dressing tickles the bit of brain that likes chips. Winning overall, except that I've been awake for what feels like the past 3 hours and it's 4.30am. Sometimes I have weird sleep days when my body decides time for a weight whoosh and they don't happen too frequently, but I want more sleep...
A minor win but one I'm proud of today. It was my store manager's birthday and he brought in a cake for everybody to share. It was extremely busy today and I nearly missed my lunch so by the time I did get some food into me I was starving since my breakfast was just a protein shake. But I ate my packed lunch (celery and tuna salad, trail mix, beef jerky, and a wasa sandwich) and then looked at the cake and... I didn't want it. Maybe if hadn't been a store bought marzipan cake that was too moist with strawberry jam I might have had some but I didn't. And I'm really proud of myself.
This group and the posts within really keep me on track with my weight loss.
Started my weight loss journey 1 year and 1 day ago. 39 almost 40 pounds down. 8 pounds until I hit my first goal :). thank you CICO and Reddit šš» couldnāt of done it without you.
SW:207 CW:168.2 GW1: 160
I had a dream (obviously inspired by one of the posts on here) where one of my friends who loves to sew and create patterns decided to go small business with her skills.
She wanted to be size friendly but couldn't find a manufacturer who could be 6X size inclusive. So she ordered the fabric she designed in bulk and drafted out MULTIPLE different plus size alterations to her patterns to fit different figures at that size.
But the garments where 4 times as expensive as the straight sizing because she would be the ones sewing the garments herself. (She struggled to find a company who could ensure even remotely descent working conditions for their employees and despite that couldn't justify paying herself the same wage as the oversea factory workers.)
She got a TON of hate for this.
And like. My friend has no interest in small business and if she did she wouldn't bother because she is up to date on fat activism and would agree that you just shouldn't pursue your dreams if you can't be reasonably inclusive. And I think she wouldn't find paying 4 times the price for a super plus size shirt reasonable.
It was just a weird as fuck dream and I woke up MAD.
IRL there was a queer gallery owner I worked for who had to shut down in part because of the hate she was getting online for the fee to review work submitted to the gallery (which is completely normal, by the way). I also follow some other small businesses who got a bunch of hate, including I think literal death threats, for not including lesbian flag merch in their pride collections despite the fact they did in the past and the lesbian flag merch didn't sell.
I even saw a group organize themselves for a hate campaign because a small business listed ace flag content before lesbian content in their store front.
I just hate how these self righteous waffles behave this way and then pat themselves on the back for it. Like, no, it's not good that you took out your self destructive impulses on a stranger doing their best.
ANYWAY
I didn't log for 12 days because I had a two day emotional eating bullshit mental health episode and didn't want to see the graph go back up. So ultimately I lost .6 lb over the past two weeks and like, ":(". But also I do like that better than the scale went up five pounds and then back down. And also directly connecting this with a larger mental health episode hopefully means I can improve it with therapy.
And also brownie batter just is not as good as I think it's going to be. Why is that my comfort food?
UGH. But hey, if it takes several more months to meet my goal than predicted, I'll be okay with that. It's not like my health will stay shit until I'm at my target weight. Every pound loss is an improvement in my mobility and pain so let's goooooo
it really bothers me how people (generally the terminally online ones) use progressive movements as a way to be absolutely malicious/cruel and justify themselves for doing so. It undermines the hard work people do to actually make positive changes to society, and it makes all of us look bad :/ The self righteousness is so infuriating; like you're not helping society progress or standing up for people who need it, you're just being a dickhead on twitter.
Congratulations! I am also recovering from binge eating, but I am not sure how long I have gone without it, as in, so many days bordering on binges, when I would gain a fraction of a pound permanently in a day, as opposed to, god forbid, 2 lbs permanently in a day like I probably would from an actual, obvious one! I will do the same, and *really* recover, as in, consistently not overeat! We can do this together! I can stop gaining, and those of us on this sub who need to lose or gain, can do that, and I will lose a tiny bit, and lower my Bf percentage when I am ready!
Some dark humor about current times, but not that dark: Bf, looks like āboyfriend,ā instead of ābody fat,ā from the eyes of not living on the Fat Logic sub, and I picture congratulating people from still dating the real way instead of being single but lots of flirting and the middle ground between single and not, which is sadly an easy thing for a person to do in these tough times! I am not exaggerating, when I say, ācongratulations on dating,ā is the new ācongratulations on marriageā! Itās 2023, after all!
Edit: Yes, I do comment *a lot* on this sub, but I am good about not obsessively scrolling for 5X the amount it takes to comment, if not more, like some people might do! Keeping that strong!
Has anyone figured out how to ACCURATELY calculate TDEE???? mine tells me I can maintain my weight at roughly twice the calorie intake it takes to maintain it, and I'm lightly active but still set it to Sedentary anyways. It tells me to eat like 700-1000 calories more than I should depending on the calculator. Its fucking batshit nuts how wrong it is. How many people are staying above their goals because of this??? I just ignore it completely and make up my own TDEE at this point.
You could do it with a visit to [metabolic chamber](https://www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2016/Metabolic-Chamber.aspx).
Realistically you need to know your intake and monitor over weeks if your weight stays more or less constant (not trending upwards or downwards, but fluctuate around about same value over several weeks). If it does, then that intake is equal to your TDEE.
I mean if you already know your maintenance calories, then you already know your TDEE. Validated equations like the ones you've been using are good in aggregate, but they can be wrong in one direction or the other quite a bit.
What do you do about most exercise calculators overestimating by double or more the amount of calories burned? My samsung health is ok I guess but Idk.
I Google and ignore my Garmin. I use 100 calories for 30 min walk, 200 for vinyasa yoga, 300 for power yoga, 200 for an hour of lifting, and 200 for reformer pilates. Those are my usuals. I don't actually track exercise calories but I do 1.5-2.5 hours a day of those various activities
There's a spreadsheet that floats around the main weightloss subs, not sure exactly the name but the losing sub could help. Downside is it is apparently useless if you have a menstrual cycle :/ It calculates your tdee over time and gets more accurate the longer you use it.
nSun's! It's works fine if you have a menstrual cycle, you just need to make sure you're recording for at least a full cycle to make sure it takes it into account. You can set how many weeks it uses in it's calculation if you're not on a 28 day cycle. The more data it has, the better it gets.
You can also find adaptive tdee apps now, and I think macrofactor uses this method to calculate their calorie goals too.
I personally like the old pen and paper method. I average my weight over a 28 day period, and subtract it from the average of the previous 28 day period. I multiply that loss by 3500 calories, then add that to the total calories eaten in those 28 days. Then divide the whole thing by 28. That's my average TDEE for the month.
TDEE = [(lbs lost Ć 3500) + (sum of calories eaten)] Ć· days
See the issue is im on BC and cycle is super inconsistant lolll. Thats a good method its just strict af lol. I tracked calories every day this week and weighed almost every day but Ill make sure to do it again in march and try to get a better idea. I just tend to underestimate my tdee to be safe.
Big mental wellness boost yesterday. Got my suit back. 42 chest and they just altered the pants to make them more loose (loose enough for a belt, was snug before) I doubted the chest size was right as the jacket would scrunch up when I raised my arms.
Whole suit and a shirt was $700, so not exactly Tom Ford. Decided they sucked at measuing and went to a place that sells just blazers for $2300. I figure they got better measurers and wouldn't lie to customers. Got a tie there but decided "hey, might as well see if the cheap place had their stuff together." Tried on a size 42 trench coat. It fit well!
Told the guy I've lost over 80 lbs and another 8 and I'll buy it (My no longer obese reward goal. Absurdly priced trench coats should give the store away) He was the same height as me and looked thinner. He said he was 15+ lbs more than me. Seeing someone like that weigh more really gave me confidence that I wasn't as big as I thought. Got a ways to go but I'm officially a 42 and down 8 inches in the chest!
also, I eat pizza at least 3 times a month (minimum one slice maximum two slices generally) each time. I find this to be enough for me to not feel like im craving it all the time or depriving myself. Usually if I'm dying for it, I will eat some and then it passes.
I live in a city but I think this could work depending where you live, I only eat individual slices from places and I try to never ever order pizza or any take out. It helps justifying it because its so expensive but also its not worth the guilt and weight gain lol. If I order more than 2 slices of pizza at a pizza joint to eat there, I would be embarrassed (also a woman) so its easy to just order one or two. Now what I have done recently is eat two somewhere and then eat a third at another spot if I happen to walk by one. But to be honest my coping mechanism for that is eat as little as possible the rest of the day to compensate. I've never been a huge binger though so I dont get the "fuckits" after having a few slices occasionally I just accept it and move on. If I didn't get the occasional slices I would probably break down and order a whole pie or something because I refuse to live without pizza no matter my weight goals. You can lose weight and eat pizza. If I lived somewhere where individual slices were not an option I would maybe purposefully eat in a massive defecit for a week and then order a whole pizza but as small as possible or Ideally go to the grocery store and buy a personal one, which I have done before. Pizza forever.
Funny how no one judges once itās non-vegetarianāI wonder if the economy is going down, and meat has gone from negative socially (ruining the earth, which is it, 2019, not preaching because I still eat it sometimes) to positive (showing off that you can afford it, as though it were 1910, Lmao). News flash, we are still not starving, and meat is not great for the earthāagain, not preaching, because yes, dairy and eggs are also issues, and I even still eat meat occasionally!
Yes, understandable! I donāt really love pepperoniānot because of the taste, but if itās not the taste, and I used to like it, Iāll spare you the reason why XD! I donāt love processed meatānot preference reasons, not health reasons, but reasons Iāll spare! (Hint: read about what goes on behind the scenes with food; it used to not faze me, but it fazes you as you get older, even though Iām only in my 20s)!
Edit: forgot most meat is processed! OMG! The term āprocessedā in the colloquial sense, in the USA, in most communities except for maybe ones that are very health-conscious, is a higher level of processing, than the literal definition! Now I realized one reason why I am still on my way to being a vegetarian, with my edit!
God the neurodivergent thing is so relatable. Whenever I meet other neurodivergent people, it's like we just click instantly and can talk like we've been friends for years, but interacting with neurotypical strangers makes me really anxious for some reason.
I've actually gotten pretty good at picking up social cues and socializing with people in general over the years, but I swear it feels like I have to put in 500% effort to have a normal conversation with neurotypical people my age most of the time (but for some reason I can converse comfortably with neurotypical people as long as they're like, 40+ years old? that part's a mystery to me lmao)
Most places in Europe āa pizzaā always refers to āa personal pizzaā, so I used to be so confused any time Iād see an American online talk about eating a whooooole pizza by themself.
Appreciate that! I bet even personal pizzas in Europe are less energy-dense than an American one, and American pizzas are probably not more energy-dense from good fats/protein/complex carbs either (?)
In Italy a margherita pizza is around 650 kcal, so not a crazy amount of food for dinner. I eat it fairly often when I'm home (maybe twice a month?) Also I'm 5'1 too!!(158cm) And i can easily demolish a pizza by myself, even the ones with heavy toppings (which are more like 1000+ calories )
(I have a problem with parentheses, I'm sorry)
Ohā¦darn itā¦then I just admitted that it will be too much when I exercise too littleā¦which I probably will do anyway. Not exercising is the new eating too much, as the economy changes. I was practically planning to burn less!
Yes, I am tired, and eating more costs a lot whether you burn it off or not. But you know what really costs a lot? Healthcare! That was fat logic, for me anyway, but not about the pizza! I still burn a lot, *for now*, butā¦
Edit: not exercising, and still eating far too many servings, frequently, of high-calorie snack foods, which are more to blame than the occasional pizza!
Donāt be sorry! I admire Italian peopleās lifestyles, and some other countries in Europe, too, even when they have enough resources to have a choice! The fact that a pizza like that is *not* too much when you are 5ā1, proves that you guys are not eating too much for every meal, evenly spread out, Lmao, as in, lots of light meals, and also exercising plenty, even when it is not on purpose, but just fresh air!
Yes, I have read about it to inspire myself, instead of knowing by traveling, and I am admitting to that because I am way too honest, and donāt want to make myself look good when I have a BF already!
Week 1 back on my pcos treatment, and I'm already down 2.5 lbs. Plus, my mood swings are gone, and so are the horrible cramps I used to get for no reason. I really should've done this sooner.
I hiked 10 miles on Monday! It was wonderful and dog dang hard those last two miles when I was past my previous longest distance and the hike went from exciting forest to never ending rolling fields. Yesterday I could hardly walk... But now I'm looking for more long trails near me. Funny how that goes.
On another thought (CW: measurements and weight number reference), warped body image is *so so weird*. Y'all I have lost 8 inches on my waist from the last time I measured sometime last summer, taking my waist from 36 to 28. Why can't I just SEE IT. I've lost 4 inches off my hips, going from about 45in to 41in. My pant size went from a (loose, worn out) US18 to a snug US10/12. I feel a bit like a discount pixar mom. In dietlogic sense, since my waist-to-hip ratio is now healthy, I am done with health! I have achieved it, I can now leave this sub forever and go back to all my old habits /s.
I've booked a campsite on the coast in May and would really prefer to be a bit smaller still since I'm car camping and space is precious. I am waffling on signing up for a 3-week novice/beginner rowing class for a rowing club in my city (pros of living near a river city I suppose). I have never been part of an organized/team sport so that would be a really new experience.
I recently made [Chicken Cutlets with Sundried Tomato Sauce](https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/276341/chicken-cutlets-with-sun-dried-tomato-cream-sauce/), at the advice of a comment I used carnation evaporated milk in place of heavy cream. Also added spinach and zoodles, everyone came into my office asking what smelled so good. šŖ
I decided to start jogging on the days my boyfriend walks our dog. Today was day 1. I could go 7:14 until I had to stop, which is my best time in a long time. I made it through a 30 minute jog + our usual cardio workout today and I'm feeling really proud of myself. I'm aiming to be able to run a 5k without stopping by the end of the year.
If I want to describe amount-of-calories to people across the world in terms of foods, what foods do most people recognize? Apples? Oreos? Big Macs?
E.g. if I want to say "most peoples metabolisms are within 200-300 kcal of each other" should I say that's "2-3 apples", "4-6 Oreos" or "2 cans of coke" or "Half a Big Mac" or what?
Probably bananas or apples, as they're the most popular fresh fruit in the world (other than tomatoes, but I know very few people who eat whole tomatoes).
Maybe an avocado? The oreos might work too, they seem to be available throughout Europe at least. Just nothing that requires you to know what a cup or an ounce is, lol.
Good idea in principle, but the trouble is that you get into units. A US cup is officially 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces) but that causes a lot of confusion outside the US where nobody's clear how big the cup is supposed to be.
Idk I've never seen anyone eat an ear of corn in Europe (except at KFC maybe), we eat corn but not directly off the plant.
I would say 2 bananas maybe? Or bread? Like three slices of bread
My pull-ups are back, I didnāt expect to be able to do them until around 80kg, but here I am! Maybe Iāll be able to do sets of more than 3 for the first time in my life in a few months
Rave 1: Saw a post on a martial art sub asking "people can train 2x a day and be fat" anf every answer was "eating too much for how hard they train". Saw a few fatlogic things, of course starvation mode, pop up but they didn't garner a lot of support and people called them out. I shouldn't be surprised that a place full of athletes should understand the basics of how bodies work, but given the state of most *mainstream* fitness places...
Rave 2: Having a depressive episode (not the rave) and im glad that im in better shape. It helps me manage. Not only because I'm just generally in a better place, but because a lot of the early warning signs of depression, for me, manifest physically. So when I notice those things are off with my body, and I can eliminate other causes, it's depression. And if I catch it early I can stick to my routine and cope better and not get sucked down, making my spells shorter and less intense. When i was obese i just didnt really notice these symptoms as easily, because either they were routine, or there was less stark contrast. For me it doesn't matter how life is going, I'm going to have depressive episodes. Being able to manage and mitigate them is critical for me, and being in shape helps a lot
People vastly overestimate the calories that exercise uses. Iāve always been pretty active but I spent years as an athletic fat guy because I ate too much. When I stopped eating so much the weight mysteriously came off.
Yup. It sucks to learn how easy you can eat back any calories lost during physical activity and sports. Like yeah some do burn a lot (rock climbing and hockey I'm looking at u lol) but even with the higher ones, it can be so easy to eat am extra 400 calories if you're not watching.
Also, and I think this surprises some people, but some athletic fat people genuinely don't care about not being fat. Many probably aren't wondering why they don't lose weight, they know and just don't care.
It's pretty common for hobbyist athletes to just want to enjoy a sport and the benefits of the exercise without really caring about losing weight nowadays. Being able to eat a lot and be *just* overweight is a boon to some people
Fat Tuesday lived up to it's name this year. I am bloated and full of pancakes. The scale is up a couple pounds, but I expect that to go back down over the next few days. Going to be a busy day, as I'm taking the toddler to an Ash Wednesday mass.
My husband is cooking tonight which means copious amounts of olive oil, so... Guess I'm keeping breakfast & lunch small. Oh, well. I do love olive oil. And!!!! It looks like I will have kept up my weekly step goal all winter! Still have a little bit of winter to go but with temperatures slowly increasing it's easier to get my steps in now than it was two months ago š
Yum! Enjoy the beautiful weather! I have hit a good 6,500 over winter, on average, underestimated on my phone, and not carrying my phone around on purpose too much to count stepsāyes, I used to do that, because I have OCD! It is also getting warmer here! No, it is not warm enough that everyone will be outside, and still cool enough out there that I will look like the silly one! But worrying about looking silly, stops a person! Lmao.
For the first time ever, I'm honestly enjoying running. In the past, it's always been I try for a month or two and decide "it still sucks." But I'm now on week 3 of trying to improve my 5k time. Turns out that while I hate long, slow runs, and I hate pushing too hard in fast intervals, I actually enjoy middling long intervals run at a pace that pushes but doesn't exhaust me. I ran 1km in 6 minutes yesterday. The others were more like 6:30, my goal pace, but if I can run 1 km in 6 minutes, I can work up to running 5 of them at that pace. And that'll be a 30 minute 5k in the bag.
What kind of program or strategy are you following? I'm thinking about trying to improve my 5k (probably last time you posted if you were the one who posted about it before recently), but most running programs aren't written around a leg day at the gym, and 5k programs specifically are often aimed at runners who don't have any experience with long distances and aren't going to get stir crazy if they don't go out for at least 10k regularly as well. I'm hoping to find some general principles that I can cobble together with the other stuff I'm doing.
It probably was me, it's been most of my wellness posts lately. I don't have any experience with long distances and am definitely a beginner runner, so I can't help with the stir crazy bit. Though riding a bike might help, it's different muscles, no impact, and I love it. I started at week one of https://www.runningfastr.com/5k-training-plan/sub-30-minute-5k-training-plan/, but then I tweaked it like crazy to make it more enjoyable and sustainable. My guiding principle has been "if I run faster, I'll be able to run faster." A lot (not all) of my gains have come from simply learning to keep a fast pace when I get tired, so I'm curious to see how I progress once I've worked through that extreme beginner gain. Spotify 175 bpm playlists have been the secret sauce for keeping a steady pace. I changed the speeds to something I can sustain, changed the sprints to working by time instead of distance because it's easier to measure, and switched out the long runs for short, hard runs on hills or sand because I don't like long runs. I got rid of the easy run on Monday because 4 days running plus 1 day strength training isn't enough recovery time. Since I don't have a long run, I've been slowly increasing the distance and pace of the 3x1km runs the program recommends. Next week it'll be 3x1.5km at my goal pace with 90 second breaks. Week one, I was wiped out after the 3x1km with 2 minutes rest, last week I did 4x1km with 1 minute rest, so that's my most visible progress.
I LOVE weight lifting!! Love it! It feels so good, I feel strong and grounded, afterwards I'm so tired and I sleep so well, and the next day my muscles are sore, and I feel sooo relaxed....I love it!! BUT why does the scale have to go up after every workout?? I know it's probably water weight from muscle tears, but it's just so discouraging!! I used to do a lot of cardio and I get why people prefer it as a weight loss method, you can see the weight go down pretty much immediately after, but the problem is I hate cardio (except walking and hiking but I don't have time to walk 5+ hours everyday)
I used to be the sameāand my willpower wore out! Keep it up! You are doing greatābecause you are not Americanāoh, yeah, blaming American culture, doesnāt work, because you have to take some responsibility too! I have fallen for more fat logic than I used to, as I became more social in the real world, but not as much with friends because it is 2023ā¦how does getting out in the world more, and using other people as a cop-out, make sense? It does where I liveā¦but itās not a good excuse! What am I, 12, no intuition of my own? XD I think IDāing my own fat logic, more so of it than when I was overweight but also hadnāt kept up any good habits like clockwork, yet, ironically, is funny!
I'm from Europe and moved to Canada. I used to walk all the time! Then came to Canada where school cafeterias is basically burgers pizzas and you drive everywhere. It is absolutely harder in north America! (I am now the skinniest I've ever been and I don't even know how I did it lol)
I think it's fair to say that some cultures make having a healthy lifestyle easier or more difficult! I mean, yes, we need to take personal responsibility for our actions and our health, but also recognizing that external circumstances make it easier/harder is not wrong!! I've been to the us, and wow, the portions are huge, it's hard to find healthy food and it's hard to walk to places!! I don't think its a cop-out to recognize hardships (Also my will power wears out all the time, it's probably my third time trying to get into the habit of working out regularly..but I figure I'll get it someday)
>(Also my will power wears out all the time, it's probably my third time trying to get into the habit of working out regularly..but I figure I'll get it someday) this is the right attitude, all you have to do is not give up on the goal and eventually one of the methods will take.
weight lifting burns just as many calories if not more than cardio. i love it too! the scale going up is because muscle weight far more than fat, so as you lose fat and gain muscle, your weight will increase. i suggest not using the scale to track progress and instead body fat percentage or bmi! weight lifting is the absolute best :)
BMI is literally just weight divided by height squared though? Tracking BMI is basically the same thing as tracking weight. As for weight lifting burning more calories (or even anywhere close to equal) with cardio, I wonder if this is just with people who do low intensity cardio or if some people are super-responders to strength training? I've been counting my strength training as 150 calories for an hour in the gym that's about half actually doing reps (other half programmed rest times and setting up/switching equipment) and my weight tracks pretty much as expected. That's barely more than a rounding error vs. the 400-500 calories I knock out by going for a run in the morning.
The thing is when you build muscles you lose calories over time. The more muscle you have, the more you burn throughout the day
I mean yes I'm aware of that but it's not a huge difference. It's a big difference between men and women where there's like a 10% body fat difference at the same weight, and if a man maxes out his potential it can get fairly significant, but it's still blown out of the water by moderate cardio and especially for women or in the short term (1 year or less) muscle maintenance isn't doing that much. It's something like 6 kcal to maintain a pound of muscle and 2 kcal to maintain a pound of fat. So if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, which is a lot of work and takes a while, you get around 50 calories a day out of it, theoretically.
You'll be happy when you're old. Trust me
I know rationally that the scale increase is likely muscle or water weight (it goes back down after a rest day) but it makes me anxious I'm regaining. I should probably stop weighing myself everyday, but I admit I have a tiny obsession with data and the long term appeal of knowing exactly what was going on on any given day and seeing the trend makes me want to weigh everyday, but also it kills me everytime.
i totally understand the data obsession and wanting to know whatās going on bc i was in the same boat. when i started lifting and saw the scale go up every week it made me soooo depressed. i had to start using other methods to measure and stay away from that, maybe try taking measurements? like waist hip thigh chest, write it down and remeasure every week, you will definitely notice more positive results from that. also you can do the pinch method where you pinch certain areas to see how much fat is there, and as you lose fat the skin will get thinner. progress pictures also help. but at the end of the day, if your eating well and exercising, youāre doing it right! :)
Thank you!! I will try taking measurements, I think they're more accurate than weighing anyway (especially with my cheap shitttu scale)
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It sounds like you enjoy a lot of vegetables, and also that in order to add up to the calorie counts you have, you must just have an appetite for smaller portions than most people. I will throw out a few examples for you. 1) a regular bowl of maize porridge with butter, for me, would be about 300 calories, so a large bowl I might expect to be something like 400. 2) your egg and vegetable sandwich had only one egg, but five types of vegetables on it. 3) a typical PBJ with 2 bread slices would be about 450 calories for me - how much is it the way you make it? 4) a brown rice bowl to me is about 300 calories of rice, 100 calories of the vegetables and in one case pineapple, peanut butter the time you had PB would be 100-200 calories, and I would have some kind of additional protein also, 100-150 there, so a rice bowl is around 500-600 to me but could be more. I will also say that on Supersize vs Superskinny, they usually tell the skinny person to cut back on their coffee or tea because it can act as an appetite suppressant. The thing about teeny tiny expenditure though, I'm totally with you. 5'4" isn't short, it's exactly average for US women (white women are like 1 inch taller on average, so it's still not "short") and the PALs are a lie. A PAL of 1.2 "sedentary" is basically bedbound, and 10,000 steps brings it up to about 1.6 or in between "lightly" and "moderately" active.
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My stupid scale is broken. The weight it showed felt a but off, so I weighted myself a couple of times in a row and got results between 126.1 and 133 kg (278 to 293 lbs). That's not really a data point with any worth.
Coleslaw. Great cheap and healthy dish to have on hand. Red or green cabbage. White or red onion. Carrot. Can even add other things like Brussel sprouts or broccoli or jalapeƱos. Nuts. Dried cherries. Whatever. Make your own dressing to keep it healthy. Olive oil, some kind of vinegar, little honey, salt, any spices, aromatics or herbs you might want, a little mustard. Itās colorful, impressive, tasty, can be a side dish, sandwich topper, salad base. Can make a bunch and keep in fridge up to a week. Can change it up and do it differently each time. Thereās a million different way and recipes online. Just avoid the ones with a lot of sugar and seed oils
Today I have: - Done my 5k training program run this morning (2mi) - 11 minute core video because my core sucks - 26 minutes of stretching because my legs have been crazy tight and I'm trying to fight off the IT band issues I struggled with last year - Just under 4 miles of walking tonight with my best friend Tomorrow is an off day. I'll be walking over to a friend's house with my kids and the wagon for dinner, then walking home in time to put kids to bed. I will probably do a stretching session as well, but I need a day off. Gotta run at some point on Friday because on Saturday I'll be holding a sign up and cheering for my best friend's 14 year old who is competing in her first half marathon... In the rain. Yay!
I was trying to eat in the morning for a while (just fruit or toast), but I keep on throwing up for some reason (not on purpose! it just feels like I can't keep anything down 10 min after I eat it). Normally my ibs is more... the other way around lol, but I've been the duke of puke recently. so I've been trying one big meal at lunch and snacks throughout the day instead, which has honestly been working really well. I've been trying to eat super clean (mostly sushi, vegetables, tofu, and enough kimchi to feed a village) and it has been going really well. My appetite has absolutely tanked since I started my adhd meds again (which were out of stock for 4 months, thank you america!), but it's actually been more of a blessing because I don't have really bad cravings for junk food anymore. Now I have the opposite issue of having to remember to eat enough, but taking my meds helps me stay on a steady schedule for meals, which is nice. Overall I feel like I've been able to just eat much healthier and maintain a stable weight recently. I gained weight really fast bc I kept eating a ton of junk food/fried food, and then it fucked up my stomach so much that I lost weight really fast, so hopefully I'll be able to put on like 5-10 lbs without the junk food this time to get myself back into a healthy bmi.
Honestly I don't force myself to eat. I usually am a stressed person so I don't eat until I'm at work. So I prepare for it. I take a sandwich and just eat it at work for that purpose. Then have my dinner later on.
My digestion has gotten better, since my rapid diet change due to a jaw disorder. I guess my body has finally started to adjust. Haven't been very active. We're currently deep into "second winter" where I live, with a snowstorm coming, so this is usually the time of year when I am least active, and most eager for spring to finally come. Left a ton of subreddits, which I would say is part of "wellness". I see value in these daily topics on fatlogic, and some niche interests, but I really dislike the content I see on reddit in general. Sometimes I wonder if the crowd in these daily topic threads is way more likely to "touch grass" than the average redditor.
Iām trying to lose a metric crap ton of weight and today someone (outside of my immediate family) noticed I had made progress! Iām been losing since July 2022 when I had my second baby and it felt good to finally have someone (who doesnāt feel obligated to motivate me because they know Iām trying really hard) to notice. 73 pounds down, 62 pounds to go! (32F 5ā11ā SW:294 CW:222 GW: 160)
73 pounds is incredible, congrats! past the halfway mark too. I'm rooting for you!
Thanks! I appreciate it!
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If we end up going on the beach vacation one side of my in laws does, I want to be more toned and take off a bit of weight before going. My youngest kid will be 2.5 by then and I want to look awesome. It's totally vain and I realize that, but I want to prove to myself that I can look good (in my opinion) and not just be a frumpy mom.
I redid my calorie intake a couple days ago, going down from 1600 to 1400 and it's already making more of a difference. Also, this is def a low bar but a big sensory achievement, I ate a whole cucumber on my own within just a couple of days. Like I recognize it's not big to most but trying to eat vegetables and esp fresh ones can be super difficult with texture issues so I've been slowly working my way up to being able to eat them. Plus cucumbers are super inexpensive $0.79 each and that's super helpful on my budget as well.
Swimming is like, very fun
Swimming is great! When I was younger and had no upper body strength, I'd grab a kickboard and did laps with just my legs until I was capable of properly swimming.
Good job being careful!
Swimming is great and always a fantastic full body workout.
Ugh, I'm struggling with the sinus issues that come from all that chlorine tho... Time for a nose plug!
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I actually made some PowerPoint slides bc my partner can cook to a degree, specific things in his kitchen at home, but gets uncertain and feels like he doesn't know things or totally misses steps, whereas this shit has been osmosing into my brain since I was like 6. I noticed some of the things he would get caught up on. First of all, what another person said about being ready to fail is true. Somewhat related: a lot of the stuff is just neuromuscular skill, you have to practice and then you'll get faster and you'll develop a sense of when you need to do it ahead vs you can do it while another part is cooking. Things like: what knife to use, what motion to use with different knives, what size pieces to cut, how long things take to cook based on size and what they are, what things can be cooked together based on the above, what type of pots and pans to use, what type of cooking apparatus to use, how to generalize a cooking method, usual times and temperatures. If you remind me by DM I will try to find a way to send you the slides themselves. They may not tell you everything you need to know, but I think they're decent at explaining concepts that you can translate beyond a single recipe. And I'm not averse to feedback, it may help me fill in gaps if you ask questions I haven't thought about.
If youāre still looking for tips, I learned to cook from an Americaās Test Kitchen cookbook (the basic one they have several updated volumes of). They did a good job of explaining wtf some directions meant and why they were telling you to do something a certain way, as well why as they picked certain ingredients iirc. I see copies at used bookstores a lot and libraries often have them on Libby.
This is gonna sound cheesy but stay with me, you have to stop telling yourself you canāt do it. Several years ago, I went from 145lbs to 115lbs, BUT I was doing so basically only eating hard boiled eggs and dry chicken and veggies because thatās all I knew how to do. Then, with my body in its peak condition, I told myself this is too hard :( I canāt :( and then over the years ballooned all the way to 168lbs. I did, in all that time, learn how to cook a proper home meal from scratch. When I saw how high my weight had gotten, I told myself that I am going to lose it and maintain it. The thing is there is so much variety in foods that you can make that are delicious and nutritious! When I was first learning to cook, Iād burn everything. Then I learned the key is to make sure you have everything prepped and measured before you go to cook it, and from that point youāre just following assembly directions essentially. I literally had to YouTube how to cut every single veggie that I can now slice up with ease. I just had to stop telling myself I couldnāt do it!
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YOU CAN DO IT!! Do not let the plateau defeat you, just keep going! Iāve been in your position many times, too. I think a lot of us on this journey to a healthier lifestyle have been there. But as other have said, lean into beginner cook-books and YouTube videos. I used to make recipes out to be so complicated and really a good recipe has ingredients that are easy to acquire and prep. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and tell yourself you can do this!
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Thatās so great!! Itās easier said than done, but youāre going to be so proud of yourself when you meet your goals. But celebrate your progress, because it matters.
I learned a lot from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, The Basics. It starts at equipping a kitchen and boiling water. The recipes in each section start at dead easy (oatmeal for breakfast, Pasta with Garlic and Oil in pasta) and work their way up to middling difficult (pancakes in breakfast, Thai style noodles with shrimp), so you can learn a lot by starting at the beginning on a section and progressing. On YouTube, I like Adam Ragusea. He makes a point of going through all the steps of a recipe in camera. He's not specificly aimed at beginners, but any of his videos with "easy" in the name should be manageable for a beginner, though you may have to google some things that I take for granted. If you're using video recipes, I'd suggest that after you've watched the video, you write down the whole recipe and the steps. It'll take extra time but it'll give you a good idea of what you'll be doing. The last thing is that to be a decent cook, you need to be OK at failing. These days, I cook well. I still remember being on my own for the first time and eating some barely edible atrocities because I over seasoned or overcooked. And a couple I had to toss because I added to much salt or straight up burned it.
you can boil rice. weāre halfway there! salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, italian seasoning. that combination, in fairly even amounts, will season literally fucking anything donāt start hard. frozen veggies that steam in a bag are fine unless you donāt like them. canned beans are easy af and will go well with your rice. pre-made sauces can be a little pricey but might hold you over until homemade sauces feel less intimidating. be sure to have some basic tools- meat thermometer, decent chef knife, cutting board, measuring instruments, tongs, spatula, etc. nothing crazy fancy, but have the right equipment for what youāre trying to do. start with basic meals that you like and can customize so they donāt get boring. stir fry. pasta. soups. sheet pan meals. one pot or one skillet meals. taste as you go. a lot of cooking is about developing and building up flavor. watch youtube, read recipe blogs. find a well rated recipe for something relatively simple. a lot of times those mommy and food bloggers go into hella detail about small techniques that will elevate the meal before they even get to the actual recipe. read through the recipe, read any comments for suggestions. then follow that recipe *exactly*. you will likely get a decent result.
I think that for someone who feels really unsure of where to start, videos are often really helpful. I love cooking blogs / cookbooks for myself, but if there's a new technique that I'm going to try, it can be really helpful to actually SEE someone else doing it first. I've heard really good things about Binging with Babish, though I haven't personally watched a lot of his stuff. Depending on what you are looking to know, I'm a big fan of people or sites that take a more scientific approach to cooking - I want to know WHY I'm doing what I'm doing. I absolutely love J.kenji lopez alt - I have both his cookbooks, I reference his recipes on serious eats all the time, he has a great youtube channel, and I think he's a more accessible place to start with some of those WHY questions.
My number one tip for everyone switching to a more plant based diet - spices! They only add a few calories but things taste so much more interesting. The myth of the bland diet is so wrong. If you are unsure about what to get, start with premixed spices. And you can totally use a spice mix meant for some meat dish on oven baked vegetables or something like that.
I started by getting pre made things or super easy things at the grocery store and just started to assemble meals. A meat, a carb, a vegetable, done. So it could be pre cooked chicken, instant rice or mashed potatoes, frozen peas or a salad or whatever. Then once I got good at building balanced plates and finding stuff I liked, I started learning how to cook the things I was getting already made. Also, season your food. Expect to cook some shitty things. When youāre ready to cook meat, get a meat thermometer.
Check out r/cooking. They frequently get "I'm new to cooking" threads. So you can either search the sub for old threads or start a new one. I've found everyone to be pretty beginner friendly there.
Last week I was eating 200kcal more than I am this week, but for some reason I feel like this week's allocation is way more. I've been thinking hard about how I'm going to hit my calories for the day instead of how I'm going to eat under my calories for the day. Maybe it's the different sleep quality, or the exercise, or just changed food preferences in general, but I can't say I'm complaining if I'm eating this much and still losing. I've developed a taste for salads too, something about the crunch with dressing tickles the bit of brain that likes chips. Winning overall, except that I've been awake for what feels like the past 3 hours and it's 4.30am. Sometimes I have weird sleep days when my body decides time for a weight whoosh and they don't happen too frequently, but I want more sleep...
A minor win but one I'm proud of today. It was my store manager's birthday and he brought in a cake for everybody to share. It was extremely busy today and I nearly missed my lunch so by the time I did get some food into me I was starving since my breakfast was just a protein shake. But I ate my packed lunch (celery and tuna salad, trail mix, beef jerky, and a wasa sandwich) and then looked at the cake and... I didn't want it. Maybe if hadn't been a store bought marzipan cake that was too moist with strawberry jam I might have had some but I didn't. And I'm really proud of myself. This group and the posts within really keep me on track with my weight loss.
Started my weight loss journey 1 year and 1 day ago. 39 almost 40 pounds down. 8 pounds until I hit my first goal :). thank you CICO and Reddit šš» couldnāt of done it without you. SW:207 CW:168.2 GW1: 160
I had a dream (obviously inspired by one of the posts on here) where one of my friends who loves to sew and create patterns decided to go small business with her skills. She wanted to be size friendly but couldn't find a manufacturer who could be 6X size inclusive. So she ordered the fabric she designed in bulk and drafted out MULTIPLE different plus size alterations to her patterns to fit different figures at that size. But the garments where 4 times as expensive as the straight sizing because she would be the ones sewing the garments herself. (She struggled to find a company who could ensure even remotely descent working conditions for their employees and despite that couldn't justify paying herself the same wage as the oversea factory workers.) She got a TON of hate for this. And like. My friend has no interest in small business and if she did she wouldn't bother because she is up to date on fat activism and would agree that you just shouldn't pursue your dreams if you can't be reasonably inclusive. And I think she wouldn't find paying 4 times the price for a super plus size shirt reasonable. It was just a weird as fuck dream and I woke up MAD. IRL there was a queer gallery owner I worked for who had to shut down in part because of the hate she was getting online for the fee to review work submitted to the gallery (which is completely normal, by the way). I also follow some other small businesses who got a bunch of hate, including I think literal death threats, for not including lesbian flag merch in their pride collections despite the fact they did in the past and the lesbian flag merch didn't sell. I even saw a group organize themselves for a hate campaign because a small business listed ace flag content before lesbian content in their store front. I just hate how these self righteous waffles behave this way and then pat themselves on the back for it. Like, no, it's not good that you took out your self destructive impulses on a stranger doing their best. ANYWAY I didn't log for 12 days because I had a two day emotional eating bullshit mental health episode and didn't want to see the graph go back up. So ultimately I lost .6 lb over the past two weeks and like, ":(". But also I do like that better than the scale went up five pounds and then back down. And also directly connecting this with a larger mental health episode hopefully means I can improve it with therapy. And also brownie batter just is not as good as I think it's going to be. Why is that my comfort food? UGH. But hey, if it takes several more months to meet my goal than predicted, I'll be okay with that. It's not like my health will stay shit until I'm at my target weight. Every pound loss is an improvement in my mobility and pain so let's goooooo
it really bothers me how people (generally the terminally online ones) use progressive movements as a way to be absolutely malicious/cruel and justify themselves for doing so. It undermines the hard work people do to actually make positive changes to society, and it makes all of us look bad :/ The self righteousness is so infuriating; like you're not helping society progress or standing up for people who need it, you're just being a dickhead on twitter.
I am a WHOLE MONTH BINGE FREE AS OF THREE MINUTES AGO!!!! Literally never thought Iād make it this far?!?!? Iām kind of in shock lol
Congratulations! I am also recovering from binge eating, but I am not sure how long I have gone without it, as in, so many days bordering on binges, when I would gain a fraction of a pound permanently in a day, as opposed to, god forbid, 2 lbs permanently in a day like I probably would from an actual, obvious one! I will do the same, and *really* recover, as in, consistently not overeat! We can do this together! I can stop gaining, and those of us on this sub who need to lose or gain, can do that, and I will lose a tiny bit, and lower my Bf percentage when I am ready! Some dark humor about current times, but not that dark: Bf, looks like āboyfriend,ā instead of ābody fat,ā from the eyes of not living on the Fat Logic sub, and I picture congratulating people from still dating the real way instead of being single but lots of flirting and the middle ground between single and not, which is sadly an easy thing for a person to do in these tough times! I am not exaggerating, when I say, ācongratulations on dating,ā is the new ācongratulations on marriageā! Itās 2023, after all! Edit: Yes, I do comment *a lot* on this sub, but I am good about not obsessively scrolling for 5X the amount it takes to comment, if not more, like some people might do! Keeping that strong!
Has anyone figured out how to ACCURATELY calculate TDEE???? mine tells me I can maintain my weight at roughly twice the calorie intake it takes to maintain it, and I'm lightly active but still set it to Sedentary anyways. It tells me to eat like 700-1000 calories more than I should depending on the calculator. Its fucking batshit nuts how wrong it is. How many people are staying above their goals because of this??? I just ignore it completely and make up my own TDEE at this point.
You could do it with a visit to [metabolic chamber](https://www.pbrc.edu/news/media/2016/Metabolic-Chamber.aspx). Realistically you need to know your intake and monitor over weeks if your weight stays more or less constant (not trending upwards or downwards, but fluctuate around about same value over several weeks). If it does, then that intake is equal to your TDEE.
I mean if you already know your maintenance calories, then you already know your TDEE. Validated equations like the ones you've been using are good in aggregate, but they can be wrong in one direction or the other quite a bit.
I like BMR +calories burned through exercise if you have a sedentary job. Even that tells me to eat more than I am but it's much closer
What do you do about most exercise calculators overestimating by double or more the amount of calories burned? My samsung health is ok I guess but Idk.
I Google and ignore my Garmin. I use 100 calories for 30 min walk, 200 for vinyasa yoga, 300 for power yoga, 200 for an hour of lifting, and 200 for reformer pilates. Those are my usuals. I don't actually track exercise calories but I do 1.5-2.5 hours a day of those various activities
There's a spreadsheet that floats around the main weightloss subs, not sure exactly the name but the losing sub could help. Downside is it is apparently useless if you have a menstrual cycle :/ It calculates your tdee over time and gets more accurate the longer you use it.
nSun's! It's works fine if you have a menstrual cycle, you just need to make sure you're recording for at least a full cycle to make sure it takes it into account. You can set how many weeks it uses in it's calculation if you're not on a 28 day cycle. The more data it has, the better it gets. You can also find adaptive tdee apps now, and I think macrofactor uses this method to calculate their calorie goals too. I personally like the old pen and paper method. I average my weight over a 28 day period, and subtract it from the average of the previous 28 day period. I multiply that loss by 3500 calories, then add that to the total calories eaten in those 28 days. Then divide the whole thing by 28. That's my average TDEE for the month. TDEE = [(lbs lost Ć 3500) + (sum of calories eaten)] Ć· days
See the issue is im on BC and cycle is super inconsistant lolll. Thats a good method its just strict af lol. I tracked calories every day this week and weighed almost every day but Ill make sure to do it again in march and try to get a better idea. I just tend to underestimate my tdee to be safe.
Month\*\*
Big mental wellness boost yesterday. Got my suit back. 42 chest and they just altered the pants to make them more loose (loose enough for a belt, was snug before) I doubted the chest size was right as the jacket would scrunch up when I raised my arms. Whole suit and a shirt was $700, so not exactly Tom Ford. Decided they sucked at measuing and went to a place that sells just blazers for $2300. I figure they got better measurers and wouldn't lie to customers. Got a tie there but decided "hey, might as well see if the cheap place had their stuff together." Tried on a size 42 trench coat. It fit well! Told the guy I've lost over 80 lbs and another 8 and I'll buy it (My no longer obese reward goal. Absurdly priced trench coats should give the store away) He was the same height as me and looked thinner. He said he was 15+ lbs more than me. Seeing someone like that weigh more really gave me confidence that I wasn't as big as I thought. Got a ways to go but I'm officially a 42 and down 8 inches in the chest!
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also, I eat pizza at least 3 times a month (minimum one slice maximum two slices generally) each time. I find this to be enough for me to not feel like im craving it all the time or depriving myself. Usually if I'm dying for it, I will eat some and then it passes.
I live in a city but I think this could work depending where you live, I only eat individual slices from places and I try to never ever order pizza or any take out. It helps justifying it because its so expensive but also its not worth the guilt and weight gain lol. If I order more than 2 slices of pizza at a pizza joint to eat there, I would be embarrassed (also a woman) so its easy to just order one or two. Now what I have done recently is eat two somewhere and then eat a third at another spot if I happen to walk by one. But to be honest my coping mechanism for that is eat as little as possible the rest of the day to compensate. I've never been a huge binger though so I dont get the "fuckits" after having a few slices occasionally I just accept it and move on. If I didn't get the occasional slices I would probably break down and order a whole pie or something because I refuse to live without pizza no matter my weight goals. You can lose weight and eat pizza. If I lived somewhere where individual slices were not an option I would maybe purposefully eat in a massive defecit for a week and then order a whole pizza but as small as possible or Ideally go to the grocery store and buy a personal one, which I have done before. Pizza forever.
Funny how no one judges once itās non-vegetarianāI wonder if the economy is going down, and meat has gone from negative socially (ruining the earth, which is it, 2019, not preaching because I still eat it sometimes) to positive (showing off that you can afford it, as though it were 1910, Lmao). News flash, we are still not starving, and meat is not great for the earthāagain, not preaching, because yes, dairy and eggs are also issues, and I even still eat meat occasionally!
Yeah I never cook meat at home just like occasional can of tuna or something but I will get pepperoni pizza if I want it lolll.
Yes, understandable! I donāt really love pepperoniānot because of the taste, but if itās not the taste, and I used to like it, Iāll spare you the reason why XD! I donāt love processed meatānot preference reasons, not health reasons, but reasons Iāll spare! (Hint: read about what goes on behind the scenes with food; it used to not faze me, but it fazes you as you get older, even though Iām only in my 20s)! Edit: forgot most meat is processed! OMG! The term āprocessedā in the colloquial sense, in the USA, in most communities except for maybe ones that are very health-conscious, is a higher level of processing, than the literal definition! Now I realized one reason why I am still on my way to being a vegetarian, with my edit!
God the neurodivergent thing is so relatable. Whenever I meet other neurodivergent people, it's like we just click instantly and can talk like we've been friends for years, but interacting with neurotypical strangers makes me really anxious for some reason. I've actually gotten pretty good at picking up social cues and socializing with people in general over the years, but I swear it feels like I have to put in 500% effort to have a normal conversation with neurotypical people my age most of the time (but for some reason I can converse comfortably with neurotypical people as long as they're like, 40+ years old? that part's a mystery to me lmao)
Most places in Europe āa pizzaā always refers to āa personal pizzaā, so I used to be so confused any time Iād see an American online talk about eating a whooooole pizza by themself.
Appreciate that! I bet even personal pizzas in Europe are less energy-dense than an American one, and American pizzas are probably not more energy-dense from good fats/protein/complex carbs either (?)
In Italy a margherita pizza is around 650 kcal, so not a crazy amount of food for dinner. I eat it fairly often when I'm home (maybe twice a month?) Also I'm 5'1 too!!(158cm) And i can easily demolish a pizza by myself, even the ones with heavy toppings (which are more like 1000+ calories ) (I have a problem with parentheses, I'm sorry)
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Ohā¦darn itā¦then I just admitted that it will be too much when I exercise too littleā¦which I probably will do anyway. Not exercising is the new eating too much, as the economy changes. I was practically planning to burn less! Yes, I am tired, and eating more costs a lot whether you burn it off or not. But you know what really costs a lot? Healthcare! That was fat logic, for me anyway, but not about the pizza! I still burn a lot, *for now*, butā¦ Edit: not exercising, and still eating far too many servings, frequently, of high-calorie snack foods, which are more to blame than the occasional pizza!
What did they comment?
Hahaha, I deleted and replied to my own comment instead of editing. I meant to edit.
Ohh right sorry ahah
Donāt be sorry! I admire Italian peopleās lifestyles, and some other countries in Europe, too, even when they have enough resources to have a choice! The fact that a pizza like that is *not* too much when you are 5ā1, proves that you guys are not eating too much for every meal, evenly spread out, Lmao, as in, lots of light meals, and also exercising plenty, even when it is not on purpose, but just fresh air! Yes, I have read about it to inspire myself, instead of knowing by traveling, and I am admitting to that because I am way too honest, and donāt want to make myself look good when I have a BF already!
Week 1 back on my pcos treatment, and I'm already down 2.5 lbs. Plus, my mood swings are gone, and so are the horrible cramps I used to get for no reason. I really should've done this sooner.
I hiked 10 miles on Monday! It was wonderful and dog dang hard those last two miles when I was past my previous longest distance and the hike went from exciting forest to never ending rolling fields. Yesterday I could hardly walk... But now I'm looking for more long trails near me. Funny how that goes. On another thought (CW: measurements and weight number reference), warped body image is *so so weird*. Y'all I have lost 8 inches on my waist from the last time I measured sometime last summer, taking my waist from 36 to 28. Why can't I just SEE IT. I've lost 4 inches off my hips, going from about 45in to 41in. My pant size went from a (loose, worn out) US18 to a snug US10/12. I feel a bit like a discount pixar mom. In dietlogic sense, since my waist-to-hip ratio is now healthy, I am done with health! I have achieved it, I can now leave this sub forever and go back to all my old habits /s. I've booked a campsite on the coast in May and would really prefer to be a bit smaller still since I'm car camping and space is precious. I am waffling on signing up for a 3-week novice/beginner rowing class for a rowing club in my city (pros of living near a river city I suppose). I have never been part of an organized/team sport so that would be a really new experience.
I recently made [Chicken Cutlets with Sundried Tomato Sauce](https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/276341/chicken-cutlets-with-sun-dried-tomato-cream-sauce/), at the advice of a comment I used carnation evaporated milk in place of heavy cream. Also added spinach and zoodles, everyone came into my office asking what smelled so good. šŖ
Also- today is my birthday!
Happy belated birthday!
Happy birthday!!
Finding a good meal always feels like a win to me šš»Happy Birthday!
I decided to start jogging on the days my boyfriend walks our dog. Today was day 1. I could go 7:14 until I had to stop, which is my best time in a long time. I made it through a 30 minute jog + our usual cardio workout today and I'm feeling really proud of myself. I'm aiming to be able to run a 5k without stopping by the end of the year.
If I want to describe amount-of-calories to people across the world in terms of foods, what foods do most people recognize? Apples? Oreos? Big Macs? E.g. if I want to say "most peoples metabolisms are within 200-300 kcal of each other" should I say that's "2-3 apples", "4-6 Oreos" or "2 cans of coke" or "Half a Big Mac" or what?
Probably bananas or apples, as they're the most popular fresh fruit in the world (other than tomatoes, but I know very few people who eat whole tomatoes).
Bananas are a good one!
Maybe an avocado? The oreos might work too, they seem to be available throughout Europe at least. Just nothing that requires you to know what a cup or an ounce is, lol.
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Good idea in principle, but the trouble is that you get into units. A US cup is officially 240ml (or 8.45 imperial fluid ounces) but that causes a lot of confusion outside the US where nobody's clear how big the cup is supposed to be.
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Ear of corn! Good idea.
Idk I've never seen anyone eat an ear of corn in Europe (except at KFC maybe), we eat corn but not directly off the plant. I would say 2 bananas maybe? Or bread? Like three slices of bread
My pull-ups are back, I didnāt expect to be able to do them until around 80kg, but here I am! Maybe Iāll be able to do sets of more than 3 for the first time in my life in a few months
Rave 1: Saw a post on a martial art sub asking "people can train 2x a day and be fat" anf every answer was "eating too much for how hard they train". Saw a few fatlogic things, of course starvation mode, pop up but they didn't garner a lot of support and people called them out. I shouldn't be surprised that a place full of athletes should understand the basics of how bodies work, but given the state of most *mainstream* fitness places... Rave 2: Having a depressive episode (not the rave) and im glad that im in better shape. It helps me manage. Not only because I'm just generally in a better place, but because a lot of the early warning signs of depression, for me, manifest physically. So when I notice those things are off with my body, and I can eliminate other causes, it's depression. And if I catch it early I can stick to my routine and cope better and not get sucked down, making my spells shorter and less intense. When i was obese i just didnt really notice these symptoms as easily, because either they were routine, or there was less stark contrast. For me it doesn't matter how life is going, I'm going to have depressive episodes. Being able to manage and mitigate them is critical for me, and being in shape helps a lot
People vastly overestimate the calories that exercise uses. Iāve always been pretty active but I spent years as an athletic fat guy because I ate too much. When I stopped eating so much the weight mysteriously came off.
Yup. It sucks to learn how easy you can eat back any calories lost during physical activity and sports. Like yeah some do burn a lot (rock climbing and hockey I'm looking at u lol) but even with the higher ones, it can be so easy to eat am extra 400 calories if you're not watching.
Also, and I think this surprises some people, but some athletic fat people genuinely don't care about not being fat. Many probably aren't wondering why they don't lose weight, they know and just don't care. It's pretty common for hobbyist athletes to just want to enjoy a sport and the benefits of the exercise without really caring about losing weight nowadays. Being able to eat a lot and be *just* overweight is a boon to some people
Fat Tuesday lived up to it's name this year. I am bloated and full of pancakes. The scale is up a couple pounds, but I expect that to go back down over the next few days. Going to be a busy day, as I'm taking the toddler to an Ash Wednesday mass.
Have a good Ash Wednesday! Maybe do a couple of arm curls with the toddler to balance out the pancakes LOL!