jsk

Just like so much of the dietary advice that has been considered conventional wisdom in the last few decades, the low-sodium recommendations from the CDC/USDA turns out not to have any basis is fact. Unless you have specific risk factors, there's no real reason to worry about your salt intake:

Levels of sodium intake recommended by CDC associated with harmful health outcomes, study finds -- ScienceDaily

GeorgeBMac

MyNetDiary does let you adjust the ratios of carbs, protein and fats -- but frankly I have not had good luck with it. But I didn't work with it much because I was more interested in my actual intake than comparing it to a plan or budget.

It also has fairly extensive Diabetic features... According to its instructions:
"Tracking Blood Glucose:
Available in the special "diabetes Tracking App" adding tracking of blood glucose, insulin, medications, and many other parameters. It also provides special charts and reports important for people interested in tracking carbs and managing diabetes and pre-diabetes.
If you are a MyNetDiary Maximum subscriber, diabetes tracking is already included ...."

jsk

You can adjust macro-nutrient ratios and other things (sugar, fiber, etc) on MyFitnessPal if you use the "custom" option for setting your goal rather than the "guided" option.

Porschefan

Thanks! I'm going to explore both of these possibilities.

STP

Machka 

10 days on MyFitnessPal ... 2.5 kg down. Finally!!

When/if I reach 5 kg down, I may add in a few more calories to slow the decrease a little.

Pathfinder27

+1 on myfitnesspal. If you use any Garmin products you can sync them with your account and get a more accurate count of how many calories you are burning throughout the day. I have the Garmin Forerunner 610 and the Garmin Vivosmart fitness tracker bracelet/watch thing. Those two things combined have helped me drop a lot of body fat, almost 9%. The most important thing for me when I set up my myfitnesspal account was having my wife build my metabolic profile for me (she's a personal trainer and a dietitian). It's important to be as accurate with your personal data as you can be if you really want to maximize the potential of tools like these.

Calder Benson

Do you mean macronutrient profile re: metabolic profile?

Pathfinder27

Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Metabolic profiles can be built with the results of a blood panel. Once you know what your glucose and electrolyte levels and kidney function are you can then build your diet around that.
We use macros to build our diet plans. We determine daily percentages for fat, carbs, and protein we need then we break that number down by meal. We consume the majority of our carbs later in the day and more protein in the and fat in the mornings.

Calder Benson

Wouldn't the profile change once you change the diet to match the profile?

Porschefan

I've been using myfitnesspal for about 3 1/2 weeks now and generally am happy with it. Since I have some low-hanging fruit/weight available I've lost 10 + lbs without feeling very deprived. And I've been exercising a good bit--alternating hikes with strength training in the gym.

I was surprised, though, that when I lose weight MFP cuts my calories down! I started at 1550/day and am now down to 1490!!

STP

Machka 

Yes, it does ... and that's good.

jsk

As you lose weight, your resting metabolism goes down, so you have to cut calories more to continue losing weight. Either that or increase activity/exercise levels to keep your total metabolism up (which MFP accommodates if you're tracking exercise since you "eat back" those calories).

Machka 

26 days on MyFitnessPal ... 5 kg down.


And that included dealing with a dinner with friends last night and my birthday the weekend before. Lots of cycling to burn the calories!

[HR][/HR]

A few additional comments about this ...

1) One thing all this tracking is forcing me to do is to really think about what I select to eat. For example, if I'm hungry, and I've got 100 spare calories I can consume, I want something with a bit of staying power ... I don't want something sweet which will spike my blood sugar and make me even more hungry 30 min later. I've also discovered that I don't want cashews ... 100 calories worth of cashews is 13 cashews and 13 cashews does absolutely nothing to ward off hunger.

2) I am really paying attention to labels and serving sizes and the calorie content of foods. I had a pretty good idea about most already, but one food item has surprised me a little bit ... pears. Pears are higher in calories than I thought. I also thought a tin of tuna was about the same number of calories as a tin of chicken. It's not. The chicken is less.

3) I'm not craving sweet stuff or "junk food" ... there's only one thing I am craving, and that's bread. Bread? Bread isn't something I usually eat much of. I rarely eat sandwiches, I'm not overly keen on places like Subway because the buns are too much bread, I don't eat bread with dinner ... I might have toast for breakfast on the weekends, but that's about it. And now, I feel like I could sit down and consume whole loaves of bread.

4) Weight loss does not happen in a nice neat downward sloping line. For the whole first week, I did everything I was supposed to do ... and nothing. Not a gram. Then I lost a couple grams, but so what, I do that all the time. And suddenly 10 days in, I was down 2.5 kg. And there I stayed for another week. Then I lost a couple grams and gained a couple grams, and lost a couple grams ... and I started to feel quite frustrated ... and suddenly I was down 5 kg.

Carbonfiberboy 

When I track weight, I graph it. I want to see a slope to that line that's trending to about the weight/week that I'm shooting for. There will always be ups and downs and flat spots, but over the long run, the trend should about follow that line. I try not to worry about variations unless the variation is persistent.

I know what you mean about choices. I don't count calories, but I know what does what and what feels about right, and I go by that. I eat bread, just not very often and not too much at one time. I don't limit anything, other than non-seafood meat which I don't eat at all, but I don't eat much of any one thing. F.i. I eat a little dark chocolate every day. JAMA just published a study showing that pesco-vegetarians have by far the lowest rate of colo-rectal cancer. They don't know why.

This year I've had the most success with fat loss that I've ever had by bulking up my muscles while living a relatively low calorie lifestyle. I highly recommend it and have lost body weight while doing it. In the past I've tried to just aerobic myself down but that wasn't as successful for dropping only fat.

jsk

Yeah I know what you mean. I find myself making choices like eating a bowl of strawberries rather than a few pretzels, much more satisfying. Also it's useful seeing the macro-nutrients for the day, realizing I need more protein etc.



I weigh daily but variations due to water weight etc can make identifying trends difficult. I've been using Tendweight to track my weigh-ins, works really well since I have the Withings scale. I imagine doing something similar with a spreadsheet wouldn't be too terribly difficult.

CanadianBiker32

use myfitnesspal

Machka 

7 kg ... 15.5 lbs ... down!!

It took a little while to get going, but once it did, it has actually come off quite quickly. In fact, I'm debating about raising my calorie maxium just a little bit to slow things down a touch.

All I did was to eat fewer calories than I burn.

I have eaten quite a variety of food in that time ... heavy on the veggies and grains. But I even ate half a small cheesecake a few weeks ago.


Oh, and today ... for the first time ... I can actually see a little bit of a difference.

Machka 

10 kg down using nothing but the CI<CO diet.


In the past, I've usually quit tracking after 3 weeks because the tracking sites have been that much of a pain to work with, but MFP is quite easy to use. I've been impressed.


One of the funny things that has happened over the last couple months is that we've ended up eating out a lot more than usual. First there was my birthday weekend, then we had friends visit on a couple weekends, then we visited friends over Easter. So it has been a bit of a challenge sticking to CI<CO while eating in restaurants. Fortunately some restaurants post their nutritional information so I could plan ahead. And otherwise, we just cycled and walked a lot to burn it off.

But the main thing CI<CO does for me is to get me to think about what I eat, rather than just shoveling it in.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yee-haw!

Porschefan

Hi Machka,

Well, I guess I'll brag a bit too . Started at 226 60 days ago and this morning weighed in at 199. I actually think I'm going to change my profile to a loss rate of 1.5 lbs per week because I think I may not be eating enough at this point. At least I'm not eating enough of "proper" foods--because I'm not really sure what is best and needed. That's one thing that I've noticed, in addition to the awareness of just how many calories are in food, that there are probably a lot more optimal foods that I could/should be eating. I'm also now very aware of why it's so easy for some (like me) to gain weight. It's because it's super easy to eat 3, 4, 5K calories in a day. Not a problem at all. Living on 1,500 a day + whatever exercise I earn, makes it very real that eating a Carl's Jr. $6 burger and such are WAY, WAY out of line!

Onward and upward....er...downward!

STP

Porschefan

I adjusted my MFP profile to lose 1.5 lbs./week (had been 2.0). I got an extra 210 calories, which I think is good. Now that I'm below 200 I feel a lot better and I'm not so focused on getting to my goal (175) as fast as possible. I want to start concentrating on eating BETTER as well as less.

BTW, I'm getting pop-ups on MFP to upgrade to the Premium version. $8/month or $50/year. Anyone tried it? Worth it? Ads go away and there are supposedly new features/premium content.

STP

Machka 

Oh, and I don't get pop-ups of any kind. I have that "feature" disabled on my computer. And I'm still using the basic, free MFP. Seems to be working all right so far.

Machka 

12 kg down ... CI<CO still works.


CICO means that calories in (what we consume) should be less calories out (what we burn). This can be accomplished in a number of ways:

-- A person can reduce the amount they eat, and not do much exercise
-- A person can eat the same amount as always, and burn it off with exercise
-- A person can do both ... reduce the amount the eat and increase the exercise.

All three methods work. I've done all three at different times of my life.

For years (mid-1990s to mid-2000s) I was very active, and ate a large amount of food, but would lose weight anyway. I actually struggled to keep my weight within a normal range. I kept dropping into the underweight range.

In 2011, heading into winter that year, my activity level dropped, so I just reduced the amount I ate, and I lost weight.

And this time I'm doing both ... reducing the amount I eat and increasing exercise.

Machka 

16 weeks ago I embarked on a mission to lose some weight. When I started, I didn't have a set number in mind, but along the way I created a few little goals.

First up was to fit into my Ground Effects cycling jacket again. I accomplished that quite a few weeks ago and have been wearing it comfortably since.

Next was to get back into a "normal" BMI range. I was just up into the "overweight" range when I started. So I accomplished that a few weeks ago.

Then I had a two-option goal ... either lose as much weight as I could on a net 1250 cal diet by mid-June or lose a total of 15 kg. Whichever came first.

Today, I have successfully lost 15 kg (33 lbs) in 16 weeks.


I am taking a break from the diet side of things ... still planning to keep up the exercise ... for the next month-ish. And then I'll reassess the situation and decide what I want to do next.

One of the features of MyFitnessPal is that when you close your food diary for the day, a message pops up telling you that if everyday were like today, you'd weight ____ in 5 weeks. Obviously each day is different, every day is not going to be like today, so the number they give you has a good chance of being inaccurate, but the thing it did for me was to suggest that perhaps I could get down to a weight last seen in about 2007. So we'll see. Maybe I will!

Machka 

17 kg (37 lbs) down ...

The next installment of the story: https://www.bikeforums.net/training-n...l#post18038194