Tuesday 11 December 2012
My Fitness Pal Blog - Day 1 - And Already Floundering
Sometimes you need a thing in black and white in front of you if you're going to believe it at all.
I joined My Fitness Pal yesterday, after the shocking discovery that my Christmas skirt - which previously needed to be pinned to stop it falling down - wouldn't zip up. It's supposed to be a good site. It's set out well, and it's easy to enter your food and exercise either on the site or the iPhone app (and I assume android, BB and tablet apps), and track your progress. In fact, I'd say it's a brilliant site.
Except that I'm flummoxed by what it's telling me.
I have it right there in front of me. At my weight, assuming I have a normal metabolic rate, I need to eat 2190 calories. I don't know if this is to maintain my weight, or to lose a pound a week (my goal) or what; it certainly can't be to stay alive.
In one (short) gym session - walking to the gym, 25 minutes of various cardio (each bit of which I put in individually: 10 minutes of walking at 4.5 mph, another 5 minutes of walking interspersed with jogging 7.5 mph, 7 minutes on the crosstrainer, resistance 8 at 10 rpm), 3 minutes of cool-down walking), getting home from the gym - I burned off 525 calories. That's a baby-step session, the kind I do in the first week back after being sick in bed. And it's a low estimate for calories, because I couldn't input the 15 minutes of stretches, or the fact that the first 10 minutes of walking was on a 40-degree incline.
If I eat the sandwich and fruit that I got for dinner - which I'm currently not hungry for - I will have eaten 705 calories today, netting me +180. The app is telling me that this means I'm running at a 2010-calorie deficit.
I'll admit I don't understand this calorie thing. I was always told, stay under a thousand and burn off more than you put in. I've only burned 525, so I still have 180 more to burn if I'm just to break even, right? But now I'm told that bodies burn off 1000-2000, depending on weight, just to keep the blood pumping and organs working. I'm not sure if you're supposed to figure that into your output or not.
The site seems very sure that I'm running at a deficit, but if that's happening - and this is not an average, but also not an unusual day, and I don't think I eat much more than 1000, occasionally 1200, on most days - then I don't understand why I'm not thin. Half the people I talk to talk about starvation mode, and the other half say it's a myth.
I've never believed it myself, but considering that I eat less than a thousand and currently weigh 264 lbs, maybe there's something to it.
I get that I have an eating disorder. I've had it 23 years. I understand that. The fact that 700 calories a day seems normal to me is proof of that. It'd be easier if the world would agree on whether I need to eat more or eat less in order to lose weight, but whatever, that's not the world's responsibility. It's my responsibility.
I dunno, I guess I need to talk to a dietician. And to Hot Personal Trainer Guy - who I'm not dating, but have occasional liaisons with - and see if he can help me set up a better exercise regime that'll get my metabolic rate up. I've been doing the interval thing - walking with brief intervals of running - because it's supposed to increase your metabolism, and I'll get back to weights in a week or so, but I need something else.
Sigh. It's a long road. I think I'm hungry, but then I've thought that I'm hungry since I was five. I don't even know what's real and what's in my head nowadays.
Edit: I ate two chicken fajitas and the bag of grapes I bought, and two pieces of puff pastry with cream and jam (why did I start this thing two weeks before Christmas?!) but not the melon or the sandwich. It's now 1.40am, and I've realised that the site will automatically add anything after midnight to the next day's food, so I'll have to consider a day to be from midnight to midnight rather than bedtime to bedtime the way I've previously done. Anyway, I had fajitas, grapes and napoleons for dinner, bringing the day's calories to 1036 - meaning I'm running 1679 behind.
I guess I need to go look at sugars, general carbs, fats and proteins now.
This whole thing is overwhelming.
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I think you should just use it as a guidline and get as close to it as possible and not worry too much about being exact. That should make it less frustrating for you :-)
ReplyDeleteChris is right. Also, the site is relatively good, and if it thinks you're at a calorie deficit, you probably are. So, following it's guidelines of intake vs exercise, you won't put on any more weight, but you won't lose any more either- To do that you'd have to double the exercise you do, while also keeping your calorie intake *the same*. That way your body has to find the energy from somewhere.
ReplyDeleteEssentially, you have to exercise more (a LOT more), not eat less. Eating less will result in you not having enough energy to get through the day.
Think of it like this: Out of the food you eat, some goes to keeping you alive, some is used as part of your daily activities, the walks to the shop, etc, and the rest is stored.
You want to reduce the amount you store. You do this by increasing the daily activities part, rather than eating less. Eating less will mean that the overall amount of energy you have for all three parts reduces.
So we've increased the daily activites bit, thus reducing the the amount of energy available for storing- That means you won't put on weight. But you already have fat you're trying to lose, so you have to *greatly* increase the amount of exercise you do, so that your body then has to dip into the stored energy.
That's overly simplistic (and may not be feasible for you), but it helped me to think of it like that. Hopefully you feel better, and don't forget to talk to an actual doctor, dietician and personal trainer! I make no claims to be any kind of healthcare professional :)