*** Big Fat Weight Loss Thread ***

[ic1male]

I'm giving up for December now. Not going to worry about anything and just see where I am on January 1st next year. Right at this moment, I'm 2kg lighter than I was in January 2021 so although there has been very little weight loss (still need to do another 10kg or so), I'm really happy that I've not gained any. And boy have I eaten tons of sugary muck this year.

On another lighter note, I'm really enjoying doing the strength classes on Peloton. I doubt it will add much muscle as the weights are pretty light but it's better than doing none at all, I reckon.

 

[Uther]

Abandoned watching the scales for a change, lost the first 15ish lbs and then weight loss started crawling. Body composition is still improving massively weekly though.

Yeah, scales aren't moving much but my clothes are a lot looser.

 

[Josh]

2st down as of this morning. First stone was easy but these last 2-3lbs have taken an age!

Can't stand still though, on to the next target.

 

[nlel1975]

I'm doing well 10.62 Stone is my ideal weight being 5 foot 9.5 inches tall and this is my progress over the last week...



I weigh myself every morning at roughly the same time. I'm doing well just got to remember that when I think of eating crap.

 

[Martynt74]

Thank **** i've started running a lot, because i've been eating so much crap recently. Fancied a gingerbread man yesterday, got home and made a batch of about 10 cookies! Also spent Monday walking around Christmas markets eating and drinking a lot of rubbish.

The wife also bought me a beer advent calendar so that's not going to help me not drink much!

 

[Alice In Wonderland]

This is where I ended up btw, semi-relaxed front/back. Should probably have taken before pics.

Got leaner than this before but started out with more body fat than I’d had in quite some time so it’ll do. Next time I diet I won’t have let myself go so much so maybe I’ll see if I can look like a human road map again. Maintaining weight till December then I’ll start seeing if I can ‘fail’ at weight loss and let it creep back up again (this time with proper training, unlike during lockdown…).

Very nice

 

[Martynt74]

I've always tried to be pretty accurate with my MFP logging, and logging specific ingredients, albeit with some estimations around weight etc rather than weighing everything out. So if i have a bowl of chilli and rice, i'll just stick find something that fits around 600 calories which in my head seems sensible. However i'm starting to wonder if i'm largely underestimating things.

I have my daily calorie goal set to 1500 per day (based on being 100kg and 6'3 and wanting to lose maximum weight, whilst being inactive), and then any exercise calories i burn i aim to eat on top. Whilst i know that that this can be inflated i figure that i'd still be at a defecit due to the daily goal being so low.

I would say i'm usually either 100-200 either side of my Net calorie goal, some days i'll be well over if someone has come round with cake and other days i'll be well under if i've done a few workouts, but generally i'm fairly close. My logic being that even if i was over my goal by 200 calories a day, that in theory should still only be 1700calories for the day and therefore low enough to bring on weight loss.

I found this Chart on the MFP website showing Net Calories over the last 90 days. Annoyingly it's not in the App, that would be a great feature.




Whilst it shows that i'm actually often above that 1500 mark, i'm still mainly below 2000kcal which i would expect to result in some weight loss, albeit gradually. However looking at my weight over the same period, it has largely stagnated, with a ramp up this last week which corresponds to eating more this last week, and not helped by having a beer advent calendar which adds ~200kcal per day of "nothing" calories.




This therefore suggests i must be underestimating the quantities i'm eating and where i need to get much better. Especially since this is generally the period where things will loosen a lot more with more junk food being around. All i can hope is that i keep my running up to offset this.

It has been a fairly depressing few months as i was really hoping to drop weight after my injury to help recovery and that really hasn't happened which is annoying me now i reflect back on it.

 

[ic1male]

What I found recently, running about 3-4 times per week was that I wasn't eating enough! I was going for 1600kcals daily and I stopped losing any weight. When I stopped running for a couple of weeks but still ate 1600kcals, the weight began coming down again. It all seems to defy the law of physics.

 

[Martynt74]

Ha well, good to know it's not just me!

I did stick quite strictly to low calories when running at the start of 2020, but found that i struggled on some runs due to running out of energy, and so started eating my exercise calories. I think in hindsight, given i've re-found some consistency with running/exercise that i'd be better to work out an average of calories burned per week and then spread that over the week and revise the daily calories and then perhaps only eat extra calories on days where i do burn excessive amounts. That way my body is fueled better and has less spikes in terms of intake.

 

[Martynt74]

MFP doing it's best to encourage people. Post an article on how to avoid alcohol over the holiday period, followed up with an advert for delicious red wine

 

[AndyCr15]

Tbf, one is chosen by MFP, the other is influenced by you

 

[Martynt74]

Hmmmm, good point!

Although in my defence i rarely buy Bordeaux wines

 

[AndyCr15]

Usually I cycle anywhere from 100 miles to 250 miles a week, but I've not cycled for 11 days now, due to a cold (maybe linked to my booster jab, I don't know?) and I notice how my appetite eventually changes. Yesterday morning I got by on just my bowl of porridge and nothing else until lunch. Normally I would be crazy hungry if I try this, but yesterday was fine. In the evening I often have to snack quite a lot, so I don't feel hungry and can sleep, I often wake during the night hungry and snack on a protein bar or something, but last night neither of these happened.

You might think this is obvious. I can burn around 2,000 to 3,000 cals in a bike ride, so of course if will make me hungry, but I'm not really just talking about the day of, or the day after. It's taken a good 8, 9 or even 10 days for my appetite to lessen. I think that's quite interesting, no?

 

[Martynt74]

Yeah that is interesting.

I've revised my current goal to just be to get to the new year hovering at my current weight (97-99kg) rather than exploding over 100kg. Then in January once the Christmas snacks/booze is out the way start to really dial my diet in. I'm still in a defecit most days so in theory it should be do-able.

Yesterday my watch told me my calorie consumption was ~2900 yet MFP tells me i ate 2500. I also had taken my watch off for a 30 minute spell in the Sauna at the gym which i imagine would've burnt a few hundred and not been counted.


I've never really followed the reading on my watch. Have you ever used it for tracking? I know Mark Lewis seems to.


Speaking of @AndyCr15, have you come across Mark Lewis on Youtube? Feels like he's be your kind of guy, into his cycling/running/weights and has a good personality which makes him easy watching.

 

[AndyCr15]

have you come across Mark Lewis on Youtube? Feels like he's be your kind of guy

I had to google him, but yes, I've watched some of his videos. I think when I started indoor cycling a year or so back.

 

[Martynt74]

Ok so official NYD weigh in at 100.2

I wanted to start under 100 but it’s not too bad. I got a huge pizza last night topped with donner meat as a final massively unhealthy meal. However it came topped with more than I could eat and so literally ate donner meat for tea and have an entire 14” plain pizza for today.

My goal is to drop to 90kg by my race on the 12th March. That’s around 10 weeks away and so amounts to 1kg a week which should be achievable if I’m strong. My running is up to around 30 miles a week plus a few gym sessions so the aim is to go for a 2000kcal per day target and then eat half of any calories burned by exercise and see how that works to start with.

Will order some huel to use as top up food I think so that I don’t end up massively under and then to absolute junk!

This is all going to be trickier due to the house being full of chocolate still. If it was up to me I’d throw it all out but the wife doesn’t see that as fair given other family members have the ability to not just destroy entire bags of food!

 

[ic1male]

1/1/20 - 81.6kg
1/1/21 - 82.3kg

GAIN of 0.7kg

Which, to be honest, I find frankly miraculous. I've spent 2021 as one of the most unhealthiest years ever in terms of food. I ate way too much sugar. But my running efforts have mostly offset it all it would seem. 2022 target is not a weight but to reduce body fat which is still massive at 27%. I'd be happy if I can get it to <20%.

I was planning to pick up my healthy eating (much Huel) today but like @Martynt74 there is still so much junk in the house that I refuse to throw out. So the next two days will be polishing that off ready to go on Monday 3rd.

What race are you doing @Martynt74 (distance-wise)?

 

[Martynt74]

Perimetral de Benissa. It’s a mountain ultra of 73km and ~4000m of ascent so going to be very very tough. I posted a YouTube clip from a previous year and it looks brutal. Very rocky and so not very runnable in places. Makes training tough as there’s not much similar terrain over here.

Thinking the weight loss will help massively on the climbs. I had a fell race yesterday that had a similar profile albeit slightly less ascent (7 miles and 1600ft ascent) and the steep climbs really punished me.

 

[AndyCr15]

This morning's weight in was 16st 3.2lbs with 24% body fat. I want to try and get back on to a weight loss diet, try to drop to somewhere between 15st and 15½st for my Mallorca cycling trip at the end of March. Climbing hills is much harder with the extra weight!

My trending weight at the start of 2021 was 15st 7lbs, so I gradually gained around 10lbs through the year. (2020 started at 16st exactly, so if you look at it over 2 years I've only gained a few lbs )

It all seems a lot worse when I see I was around 14st 10 in April 2021, so in 9 months I've gained 19lbs...

So, I always said I can do it when I need to... let's see how I get on now! Like @Martynt74 I've set calories down around 2,200, but will eat a little more to compensate for exercise... if I need to. I'll probably end up eating (hopefully) around 2,400 to 2,700 cals a day with a good 1,000 burnt a day on average.

 

[tom_nieto]

I’ve fired up MyFitness Pal again… need to redistribute some weight! I mostly need to knock booze on the head until my birthday in Feb and stop eating chocolate like it’s going out of fashion. Hopefully doing some food logging will help me to achieve a calorie deficit with higher protein intake. Getting myself on my bike again will be a big help too, I don’t think I’ve cycled any significant distance since August.

Good luck for everyone’s 2022 goals!