My 97 day challenge

All right, y'all. I've been lurking here for a while and it's time I threw down the gauntlet. I'm going on a cruise at the end of January. You know how you hear those stories about everybody getting sick on a cruise and the whole vacation is spent puking? It always gets blamed on norovirus. The truth? Somebody took their shirt off that shouldn't have. I don't want to be that guy.

I'm 5'7" with a big frame, so a BMI of 24-25 is about right for me. That translates to a weight of 155-160, depending on how much muscle I'm carrying. I've been here before. I got to 155 ~2002 and then added 5 lbs of muscle. It was about this time that I reconnected with my future wife, a woman I had known for 8 years at that point but hadn't seen for a couple. She seemed pleased to see me; the rest is history...

I went from 174 to 152 ~2008 with the help of a group that keeps a close eye on their weight with weekly meetings. This REALLY worked well for me at the time. It's calorie counting for dummies and the accountability of the meetings was helpful. Somehow I've lost my mojo since then and can't seem to get it back. I've tried that group. I've tried their online-only. I've tried counting on my own. I just can't seem to get the tracking down as a habit, and I know that's the key to success. I have a hard time making it to meetings anymore, although I don't mind going - nice people, good stories, some good tips/tricks.

A couple things are holding me back besides my inherent tracking laziness.

1) The weekly allowance. The idea is that your daily calorie allowance is reduced a bit and you have these calories that are available to spend however you want over the course of a week. Great idea in theory, and it worked for me in 2008. Now, however, if I have a day where I don't track food, I tend to look at the whole week as ruined and don't even attempt to start until next week. Well, as long as I'm not tracking this week, where's the ice cream...

2) The new calorie-counting-for-dummies system introduced a number of years ago has some changes that I don't like. For example, all fruit is free. Now, it's great to be able to snack on any fruit I want to. However, we all know that fruit is not calorie free. To "pay" for this giveaway, some other foods I like became way more expensive. I know this sounds silly, but it makes me not want to track.

I'm going to try out myfitnesspal for a while instead and see what I think. I may go to some meetings (I'm paid up until December 10), but I'm not going to use their tracking system. I used their fitness tracker and found it lacking. I have a Fitbit One en route.

QUESTION 1: how do you guys that track calories deal with unusual days (a wedding, Thanksgiving, etc)? Of course, the challenge is to not fall into the trap of having "unusual" days all the time, but we all know they're going to happen once in a while. Do you write them off? Do you have a weekly allowance for that sort of thing? I know David adjusts his daily target by a couple hundred calories either way depending on what's going on with his weight and what he ate yesterday.

QUESTION 2: do you count all of the calories that your Fitbit spits out and eat that much more? Half of them? Does anyone bike (not very friendly to accurate accelerometer calorie estimates)? Do you just use the time you spent biking to come up with a calorie estimate?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your support! No one wants to see Mickey Mouse retching over the railing of the ship.

If you made it through that last post without falling asleep, here are the specifics.

Current: ~182 lbs
Goal: 160 lbs
Due date: Jan 31
That's a bit over a pound and a half per week.

Regimen:
Supply side: track on myfitnesspal and follow their calorie guidelines for my goals. I know from experience that getting more veggies (which I love) into the equation results in feeling full without the calories

Demand side: try very hard to do some exercisely activity for 30 minutes 3 times per week. One of these will be weights to minimize muscle cannibalization during weight loss. I will try to take a cue from my wife and do some sort of exercise for 10 minutes every day no matter what (she will get on the Stairmaster in her work clothes for 10, because if she has to change into exercise garb, she doesn't get around to it).

Good luck with your quest, Doc. You are considerate of the other cruisers. Too bad that more people aren't.

i do a lot of different things in phases. Bulking, cutting, hi rep vs low rep bla bla bla. You've heard the story. But when I'm strictly cutting calories I do intermittent fasting. This is something people either love or hate, so I know I'm gonna get people either +1ing this or saying I'm off my rocker, take it for what you will. There are a lot of health benefits to doing a 24 hour fast (as long as you do it right) but it knocks out 1500-2000 calories a week. A guy named Brad Pilon wrote a book called, "Eat, Stop, Eat." If you're interested give the book a look. Again - just one mans opinion on what worked for me. I lost thirty pounds before joining the Army doing it and still do it for a couple months every year (usually after the holidays). So the normal disclaimer...YMMV. (That saves me from too much scrutiny right? Lol)

Doc,

First of all...welcome!

Second, I use MFP. Great website. For unusual days (weddings, Christmas, Thanksgiving, the odd bender weekend) I just ignore the numbers...at a certain point, you're going to have off days...and if you've been on for long enough, a day or two here or there won't set you back. I look at the weekly totals and have more good days than bad. If you get tied up in a day to day count, you'll go crazy...weekly totals are where it's at.

I don't exactly understand question 2...I count what I eat on MFP, track calories in fitbit and try to come in under my daily target when taking into account calories burned...does that make sense?

Again, welcome...good luck and keep the questions (and energy coming!)

Heya Doc ... I'm on myfitnesspal (MFP) too. Feel free to friend me same screen name: jjking54

I do bike ... and when I compared my heart rate monitor figures to the figures that MFP puts out, it indicated that MFP over-estimates my caloric burn, basically two times what it actually is. So if I don't wear my HRM, I take the total MFP puts out and cut it in half, that's my burn. Lately I'm not tracking calories in, for various reasons, but mainly because I was trying to find a way through a plateau. And I got it finally

As far as "unusual" days, honest answer is I don't log on those days. I also don't typically log on the weekends, but I do try to be mindful of what I'm eating/drinking.

Good luck!

I use MFP to track calories with it, but not as thoroughly as I did. For a good 9 months I tracked everything I ate and drank and it really helped me to lose weight. I went from 200 to 185 without much exercise; losing ~ 1 lb/week. My feeling is that once you track your calories for awhile you know what and how much to eat without needing the calculator. That being said I still use it because seeing how many calories I've taken in during a day helps me to resist taking in too much more. I just don't get OCD about tracking calories any more.

I have entered calories burned from exercising as well, but that can be dangerous at least for me. I'd see that I burned an extra 250 or 500 calories and immediately want to eat that much more as a reward instead of eating when I was hungry. I think it depends on how you perceive the data as to what will work best for you. I still track the days I exercise as I want to average at least every other day, but I don't watch calories burned too closely. I focus on strength training and intervals mainly rather than just cardio. I want to work out smarter than I used to. I've become a big P90X fan although I prefer the 30 min P90X3 workouts.

If you don't mind skipping breakfast, then intermittent fasting may be something to try. I'm not a big breakfast person so this has worked well for me. Basically if you have dinner at say 6 pm then you don't eat again until noon the next day. Some studies have shown having the same calories/day but in a shorter time span will help you lose weight. This has worked for me and I found I would many times eat less since I just ate lunch, snacks and dinner, but at times I ate maybe 10% more calories and was still losing my 1 lb/week. If you're a breakfast guy though this will probably just make you cranky so I'd either skip it or try going without food from say 2 pm one day until 6 am the next. Basically you try for at least 16 hours without food. I'll still do this, but maybe 3-4 times/week at most and maybe only to make up for eating a lot on the weekend.

I'm not going to track EVERY calorie on Thanksgiving. I know I'm going to eat and drink more than I should, but screw it I'm with family and I want to enjoy myself. I'll eat a lot less the following week and exercise more. Thanksgiving is my reward day and you should have those every so often. That works for me, but maybe not for everyone. I'd like to lose another 10 lbs or so as I've been stuck around 180-185 for awhile, but I know I need to up my exercise or watch my diet even more and I haven't found the motivation to do that yet. My clothes fit and I feel pretty good which was my goal and so I'm just maintaining now.

I think you have to try some things and see what works best for you. Find exercise that you enjoy and will keep doing. Find healthy foods that you actually like. Just keep making improvements bit by bit. I think if you try to change too much too quickly that you won't still with those changes. I've been slowly eating less bread and wheat based food and eating more veggies and getting more protein. I've switched to black coffee and plain tea and lots of water. It took awhile, but now I don't mind it at all. Slow steady continuous improvement is much easier IMO.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement, everyone! Sorry question #2 wasn't very clear. What I was trying to ask was, do you eat all of the calories you burn in addition to your daily target. So if MFP gives you an intake target of 1500 kcal and you burn 500 kcal according to your Fitbit, do you eat 2000 kcal that day, or something less than that.

A followup question is, do you treat all kcal that you get from Fitbit (even just walking around) the same, or do you put more emphasis on calories burned with some intentional "extra" exercise (going for a walk, running, biking, swimming, etc).

The plan that I have followed in the past gave points back for exercise, but when I figured out the calories, it looked like it was only giving about half credit for that exercise. This seems to make sense to me. My concerns with eating ALL of these calories earned from exercise is that it isn't totally accurate (to your point, jjking54) and that counting every last activity calorie is somewhat unfair, because some of that is included in your intake daily target (you get a higher intake target if you're a construction worker than if you're a desk jockey).

For me it's been difficult to find a balance between eating back some of the calories I burn and making sure I'm properly fueled.

I was commuting to work by bike, 24 miles each day, three or four days a week, and had to make sure I was eating enough after bonking hard on a commute home one night. What I ended up doing was spacing out my eating throughout the day, and making sure I had something about a half hour before riding home. That helped a great deal, and I didn't have to eat too much of those calories back. If I rode I burned around 1,200 calories just getting back and forth from work. I'd aim to eat about 400 of those back on a given day.

I'm not riding as much now, due to the weather. And I'm not tracking religiously at the moment, but I'm also finding I'm not that hungry, and when I am, I aim for a small portion of something healthy to tide me over until I feel hungry again.

feel free to find me on MFP as well @kevdogg329.

Set your MFP to lose 1.5 to 2 lbs a week and focus on cutting the calories back to those totals.

don't bank on losing by excercise alone or you will end up going the wrong way. I for a couple of months coasted with my food intake and gained back a portion of my losses. The food intake is a bigger key than the excercise from my experience.

Count excercise as a bonus, not as a part of your daily goal. (we can easily underestimate our food intake)

kevdogg329 said:

feel free to find me on MFP as well @kevdogg329.

Set your MFP to lose 1.5 to 2 lbs a week and focus on cutting the calories back to those totals.

don't bank on losing by excercise alone or you will end up going the wrong way. I for a couple of months coasted with my food intake and gained back a portion of my losses. The food intake is a bigger key than the excercise from my experience.

Count excercise as a bonus, not as a part of your daily goal. (we can easily underestimate our food intake)

Click to expand...

Well said Kev.

You definitely do NOT want to eat all your calories back just due to exercise...days where you register decent exercise you should just be ending the day with a lot of calories left over.

Best of luck and keep us posted!

Thanks for the advice, all. I was thinking it would be a bad idea to eat all of the exercise calories earned, but MFP makes it look like that's what you're supposed to do.

I agree with you Kev about exercise. I don't think I've ever lost any significant weight with exercise. I think it makes you feel better and keeps your muscle tone up (plus heart benefits, etc), but calorie restriction is where it's at for me and weight loss. The trick is staying motivated to track. This is especially hard because I cook so much from scratch. I just don't have the energy to look up all the ingredients, calculate the total calories for the dish, then divide that by a serving size, then figure out how many of these artificial servings I ate.

Which brings me to what I'm trying starting this week. I took your advice jKyro and checked out Pilon's book (kinda pricey... maybe I should write a book...). I did a fast from Tuesday to Wednesday morning (I'm currently working the night shift this week, so I did breakfast to breakfast), and it went pretty well. I'm still tracking on my non-fasting days because I want to make sure I don't inadvertently eat 3500 kcal on those days and cancel out the benefit of the fast. I change MFP to "maintain" my weight and use that as my goal on the non-fasting days. I think this might work pretty well, because I felt like that was a lot of food to eat. After skipping a day, it sort of reset my food-o-meter. We'll see how it goes going forward. Maybe I won't want to keep doing it.

Initial weight is coming off - mostly water, I'm sure, but I'll take it. Down 2 lbs as of 10/29.
Not a lot of luck exercising yet. Usually I'll have a slow night or two and can sneak down to the gym at work, but so far the ICU is keeping me hopping with sick patients.

Hey Doc, sorry I didn't see this sooner I've been only on once in a while lately. Best of luck and I'll keep watching this to see your progress. You've set the bar high but doable and without a goal there is no direction and no movement!

docholliday77 said:

A couple things are holding me back besides my inherent tracking laziness.

1) The weekly allowance. The idea is that your daily calorie allowance is reduced a bit and you have these calories that are available to spend however you want over the course of a week. Great idea in theory, and it worked for me in 2008. Now, however, if I have a day where I don't track food, I tend to look at the whole week as ruined and don't even attempt to start until next week. Well, as long as I'm not tracking this week, where's the ice cream...

2) The new calorie-counting-for-dummies system introduced a number of years ago has some changes that I don't like. For example, all fruit is free. Now, it's great to be able to snack on any fruit I want to. However, we all know that fruit is not calorie free. To "pay" for this giveaway, some other foods I like became way more expensive. I know this sounds silly, but it makes me not want to track.

I'm going to try out myfitnesspal for a while instead and see what I think. I may go to some meetings (I'm paid up until December 10), but I'm not going to use their tracking system. I used their fitness tracker and found it lacking. I have a Fitbit One en route.

QUESTION 1: how do you guys that track calories deal with unusual days (a wedding, Thanksgiving, etc)? Of course, the challenge is to not fall into the trap of having "unusual" days all the time, but we all know they're going to happen once in a while. Do you write them off? Do you have a weekly allowance for that sort of thing? I know David adjusts his daily target by a couple hundred calories either way depending on what's going on with his weight and what he ate yesterday.

QUESTION 2: do you count all of the calories that your Fitbit spits out and eat that much more? Half of them? Does anyone bike (not very friendly to accurate accelerometer calorie estimates)? Do you just use the time you spent biking to come up with a calorie estimate?

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your support! No one wants to see Mickey Mouse retching over the railing of the ship.

Click to expand...

Brent,

To be a little more specific now, I would definitely integrate your MFP account with the Fitbit tracker. I use the Fitbit to track my caloric burn and MFP to record the food and they talk well to each other. You can also use Map My Fitness to keep track of your workouts and activities in a little different form that I find works better for me than the Fitbit and MFP forms. As for caloric tracking, daily is the default mode because it's easier to track activities and eating daily but a lot of people use a weekly view of caloric deficits so that it evens out over several days and you can always make up for one bad day over the next day or two.

As for the caloric deficit/surplus calculations, a lot of people ignore the daily numbers (based on BMR + daily estimates of EAT and NEAT) and look at a theoretic TDEE calculations and set their caloric goals to -15% below the calculated TDEE regardless of the daily fluctuations. You can find TDEE calculators here http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ or here http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/ .

MFP has a lot of good posts by some pretty knowledgeable individuals, but a lot of not so good posts as well, but if you look around and ask you can find some good answers.

Wow, David, you can get a lot of numbers off those sites. It was instructive to see the difference in method and the slight differences in the TDEE there and on MFP. Actually, it was mostly reassuring that they were all within 50 kcal of each other. I came up with a starting point for my daily/weekly calorie goals. We'll see what the scale does!

Got a workout in this AM, upper body weights.

Keep up the good work!

>10,000 steps Saturday
Almost 14,000 Sunday
Lower body weight routine overnight tonight (early 11/3).

Done with a work block in 9 minutes, so now shifting back to being awake during the day and asleep at night.

Sounds like that Fitbit is doing a good job for you. They do keep you motivated when you need it.

25' on the Stairmaster tonight.
Down 4.6# overall!

Was a baaaad boy with some sweets last night, but overall did well for the day, and doing well today.