Fitness!

Does anyone use a calorie tracking app?
I use to use one that was included in the FitBit app, but I just signed up for Lose It! and will give it a shot for the trial time.
 
Ginormousthumbs said:
Does anyone use a calorie tracking app?
I use to use one that was included in the FitBit app, but I just signed up for Lose It! and will give it a shot for the trial time.
Click to expand...
I used my macros plus for years (iOS). I intuitively eat now but only because I spent years learning how to by carefully tracking. If I were trying to do some specific bulk or cut now I swould definitely go back to it. I did find that MFP stats can be way, way off. MM+ has a feature where you can point the camera at the actual nutritional info table and it will auto populate correct stats for you.
 
So, I haven't done a marathon or half marathon since around 2014, and my wife has never been into running due to her asthma. But this year my wife has lost about 50 pounds since Thanksgiving and we've both been running several days a week.

On Tuesday, registration opens for the SF Half Marathon in February and I think we are both going to do it together.
 
Ginormousthumbs said:
Does anyone use a calorie tracking app?
I use to use one that was included in the FitBit app, but I just signed up for Lose It! and will give it a shot for the trial time.
Click to expand...

debianlinux said:
I used my macros plus for years (iOS). I intuitively eat now but only because I spent years learning how to by carefully tracking. If I were trying to do some specific bulk or cut now I swould definitely go back to it. I did find that MFP stats can be way, way off. MM+ has a feature where you can point the camera at the actual nutritional info table and it will auto populate correct stats for you.
Click to expand...
So this is basically what I do. I have macro blocks and depending on how much cardio I do, I can adjust carbs up or down. I usually aim for macro blocks with 9 grams of carbs, 7 grams of protein, and 1.5 grams of fat and I usually eat 7-9 macro blocks a day. This has also become intuitive for me since I've done this, on and off, for quite a while. I understand calories in and calories out, but it always got me that 10 calories of apple and ten calories of brownie were really the same. When I started reading about nutritional macros, this made much more sense to me and I found it much easier to track than just calories.
 
Great work in July everyone! @debianlinux worked out for 30 hours and took home his 5th trophy 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 🏆 , congrats! It was a very close one with he and @ByersVinyl fighting for that top spot. Here were the final standings:

1. @debianlinux - 30:00:xx (seconds cut off for some reason in my app)
2. @ByersVinyl - 29:23:41
3. @bfly - 17:20:21
4. @nolalady - 17:00:00
5. @Ginormousthumbs - 16:04:50
6. @Kris - 15:36:42
7. @RowBearToe - 15:06:40
8. @Corycm - 11:38:25
9. @LeSamourai - 11:04:11
10. @trickyseven - 3:59:43

This has to be one of the best outings we've had as a group that I can remember. For me personally this was one of the most active months I've had this year and I still finished in 7th haha I mean hell, 9th place had 11 hours, which is nothing to be ashamed of. Let's keep it up in August!

I've started the August challenge and invited everyone who has been involved in a challenge to join. If you'd like to join and haven't before, just let me know!
 
debianlinux said:
I used my macros plus for years (iOS). I intuitively eat now but only because I spent years learning how to by carefully tracking. If I were trying to do some specific bulk or cut now I swould definitely go back to it. I did find that MFP stats can be way, way off. MM+ has a feature where you can point the camera at the actual nutritional info table and it will auto populate correct stats for you.
Click to expand...
I’m going to check out MM+. I need to get better control of my input because I feel like I’m constantly shorting myself. Any good first time user tips (or for just macros in general)?
 
Corycm said:
I’m going to check out MM+. I need to get better control of my input because I feel like I’m constantly shorting myself. Any good first time user tips (or for just macros in general)?
Click to expand...
The main thing is to get the right starting point working out your TDEE and BMR. It doesn't have to be perfect but it needs to be tight. From there you want to track real close (no cheats) and monitor weight. Personally, I stay away from frequently weighing. Main thing there is to be consistent about how. Like say, when you get out bed on Sunday morning before any breakfast or drink but after the morning constitutional and naked (this is gonna net you the lowest possible number).

You will work out a sustainable rate of gain or loss and monitor weight until it stops or is achieved. For example, you may wish to lose 60lbs but we're going to focus on losing the first 10lbs and when we arrive at that point we reassess if what we're doing needs addressing to continue. As a general rule you don't want to have your total caloric intake be more than +/-10% of your TDEE (regardless of cut or gain).

Assuming you're 200lbs and want to lose weight with a reasonable deficit (say 200kcal per day). Monitoring the weight initially tells you how well you calculated your numbers. Afterwards monitoring tells you when you need to change things or not because the needle stopped moving or it's where you want it.

I'd say getting started you want to focus on calories with a broad sense of macro balance. 30/40/30 P/C/F is a failsafe you'll find all over the internet but it's actually pretty hard to do consistently because the protein requirements are pretty high.

My recommendation is figure out Fat first and put it at something like 04.g/1lb bodyweight. You don't want to go too low on fat as it is the primary source for hormone production. Don't go less than say 0.3g/1lb and I'd say anything over 0.5g/1lb is overkill. If you are exerting yourself and trying to grow muscle then lean towards the higher end.

Assuming you weigh 200lb we'll allow 90g of fat which comes out to ~810kcal.

Next up protein. There is a lot of controversy around this one especially with regards to building muscle. As a general rule, you can't have too much but you can really start unbalance your diet and make it difficult to achieve and thus hard to sustain. The 1g/1lb rule absolutely works although it is going to be pretty high protein requirements. As someone who builds muscle for elite competitive performance I can tell you I do just fine on 0.75g/1lb and I feel comfortable slipping from that time to time. I'd say you should go for 0.5g/1lb as the lowest, though. Yes you can get by with less but no matter your pursuit the best outcome is maintaining lean muscle which is metabolic by virtue of existing.

For fun let's allow you 0.65g/1lb at 200lb is 130g of Protein which is ~520kcal.

So we have a combined fat and protein caloric requirement of 1330kcal.

Going back to your calculations for total daily caloric intake let's say your looking at maybe a 1900kcal diet to effect your cut. You now how 570kcal of carbohydrates which works out to ~145g of carbs per day.

I literally made this shit up on the go so let's see how it looks against the 30/40/30 paradigm. 28/30/42. Nice! You might swap out some of your fat calories for more carbs depending on how your diet tends to go normally (protein and carbs are 4 calories per gram, fat is 9 calories per gram). This is balanced as-is however.

Once you get in the groove and find meals that work for your goals and start to stabilize around them you can begin to focus on more micro aspects such as getting appropriate amounts of fiber and calcium or reducing simple carbohydrates in favor of complex ones. The thing that happens is you will inevitably trend towards those diets that "healthy people" eat with vegetables and lean proteins. I have found that being vegetarian makes the whole thing substantially easier to do. The thing about this approach is that it allows for you to have pizza and ice cream or whatnot as long as you track those things and stay within your macro bounds (IIFYM approach).

The one thing I never dealt with and can't speak on is incorporating alcohol consumption into this approach.

I may have hit your question points or widely missed them but I'll be happy to give more information upon request. I intentionally used some acronyms, specific terms, and left out some details to encourage research because I feel it is important to do your own diligence and be bought into your own plan.
 
debianlinux said:
The main thing is to get the right starting point working out your TDEE and BMR. It doesn't have to be perfect but it needs to be tight. From there you want to track real close (no cheats) and monitor weight. Personally, I stay away from frequently weighing. Main thing there is to be consistent about how. Like say, when you get out bed on Sunday morning before any breakfast or drink but after the morning constitutional and naked (this is gonna net you the lowest possible number).

You will work out a sustainable rate of gain or loss and monitor weight until it stops or is achieved. For example, you may wish to lose 60lbs but we're going to focus on losing the first 10lbs and when we arrive at that point we reassess if what we're doing needs addressing to continue. As a general rule you don't want to have your total caloric intake be more than +/-10% of your TDEE (regardless of cut or gain).

Assuming you're 200lbs and want to lose weight with a reasonable deficit (say 200kcal per day). Monitoring the weight initially tells you how well you calculated your numbers. Afterwards monitoring tells you when you need to change things or not because the needle stopped moving or it's where you want it.

I'd say getting started you want to focus on calories with a broad sense of macro balance. 30/40/30 P/C/F is a failsafe you'll find all over the internet but it's actually pretty hard to do consistently because the protein requirements are pretty high.

My recommendation is figure out Fat first and put it at something like 04.g/1lb bodyweight. You don't want to go too low on fat as it is the primary source for hormone production. Don't go less than say 0.3g/1lb and I'd say anything over 0.5g/1lb is overkill. If you are exerting yourself and trying to grow muscle then lean towards the higher end.

Assuming you weigh 200lb we'll allow 90g of fat which comes out to ~810kcal.

Next up protein. There is a lot of controversy around this one especially with regards to building muscle. As a general rule, you can't have too much but you can really start unbalance your diet and make it difficult to achieve and thus hard to sustain. The 1g/1lb rule absolutely works although it is going to be pretty high protein requirements. As someone who builds muscle for elite competitive performance I can tell you I do just fine on 0.75g/1lb and I feel comfortable slipping from that time to time. I'd say you should go for 0.5g/1lb as the lowest, though. Yes you can get by with less but no matter your pursuit the best outcome is maintaining lean muscle which is metabolic by virtue of existing.

For fun let's allow you 0.65g/1lb at 200lb is 130g of Protein which is ~520kcal.

So we have a combined fat and protein caloric requirement of 1330kcal.

Going back to your calculations for total daily caloric intake let's say your looking at maybe a 1900kcal diet to effect your cut. You now how 570kcal of carbohydrates which works out to ~145g of carbs per day.

I literally made this shit up on the go so let's see how it looks against the 30/40/30 paradigm. 28/30/42. Nice! You might swap out some of your fat calories for more carbs depending on how your diet tends to go normally (protein and carbs are 4 calories per gram, fat is 9 calories per gram). This is balanced as-is however.

Once you get in the groove and find meals that work for your goals and start to stabilize around them you can begin to focus on more micro aspects such as getting appropriate amounts of fiber and calcium or reducing simple carbohydrates in favor of complex ones. The thing that happens is you will inevitably trend towards those diets that "healthy people" eat with vegetables and lean proteins. I have found that being vegetarian makes the whole thing substantially easier to do. The thing about this approach is that it allows for you to have pizza and ice cream or whatnot as long as you track those things and stay within your macro bounds (IIFYM approach).

The one thing I never dealt with and can't speak on is incorporating alcohol consumption into this approach.

I may have hit your question points or widely missed them but I'll be happy to give more information upon request. I intentionally used some acronyms, specific terms, and left out some details to encourage research because I feel it is important to do your own diligence and be bought into your own plan.
Click to expand...
That’s good info. Macros are one of those things I’ve heard people talk about, but never really explored because it always felt like a thing for People Who Take This Stuff Very Seriously as opposed to the average person off the street. But I think it seems like a pretty valuable tool for what I’m trying to accomplish, and would be worth the extra research.
 
Corycm said:
I’m going to check out MM+. I need to get better control of my input because I feel like I’m constantly shorting myself. Any good first time user tips (or for just macros in general)?
Click to expand...
Specific to MM+. I got a lot of miles out of building recipes. Then you can simply add a recipe as a whole line item instead of individual items. Just build the recipe in the program as you cook it the first time and then it's an easy add from there. Also, I made heavy use of the copy meals because I often ate the same things every day so once input it was just a matter of copying days and meals.

Also, the Macro Goals section is where you input the results of the post above. I actually had a few setup because I would eat different for workout days than off days and also had periods of long recovery from a surgery for example where I ate differently but knew I would return to the old goals later. You can easily apply a macro goal to any given day in order to objectively track towards that goal with the P/C/F indicators.

You can also toggle if you want to see it represented as calories remaining or calories consumed. I found it helpful to use calories remaining view. I would build out a day of meals the night before knowing what I would have for breakfast, morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack. I would leave a reasonable amount open for dinner and let that inform what I would have for dinner when we got home and that topic came up. Same paradigm if I knew I was going out for lunch the next day but not sure where.

There's a lot you can do for free in the program and I never subscribed. Subscription gets you some features but is primarily for the auto coaching thingy. Just explore the interface well as there's a lot there that may not be immediately obvious.
 
debianlinux said:
The main thing is to get the right starting point working out your TDEE and BMR. It doesn't have to be perfect but it needs to be tight. From there you want to track real close (no cheats) and monitor weight. Personally, I stay away from frequently weighing. Main thing there is to be consistent about how. Like say, when you get out bed on Sunday morning before any breakfast or drink but after the morning constitutional and naked (this is gonna net you the lowest possible number).

You will work out a sustainable rate of gain or loss and monitor weight until it stops or is achieved. For example, you may wish to lose 60lbs but we're going to focus on losing the first 10lbs and when we arrive at that point we reassess if what we're doing needs addressing to continue. As a general rule you don't want to have your total caloric intake be more than +/-10% of your TDEE (regardless of cut or gain).

Assuming you're 200lbs and want to lose weight with a reasonable deficit (say 200kcal per day). Monitoring the weight initially tells you how well you calculated your numbers. Afterwards monitoring tells you when you need to change things or not because the needle stopped moving or it's where you want it.

I'd say getting started you want to focus on calories with a broad sense of macro balance. 30/40/30 P/C/F is a failsafe you'll find all over the internet but it's actually pretty hard to do consistently because the protein requirements are pretty high.

My recommendation is figure out Fat first and put it at something like 04.g/1lb bodyweight. You don't want to go too low on fat as it is the primary source for hormone production. Don't go less than say 0.3g/1lb and I'd say anything over 0.5g/1lb is overkill. If you are exerting yourself and trying to grow muscle then lean towards the higher end.

Assuming you weigh 200lb we'll allow 90g of fat which comes out to ~810kcal.

Next up protein. There is a lot of controversy around this one especially with regards to building muscle. As a general rule, you can't have too much but you can really start unbalance your diet and make it difficult to achieve and thus hard to sustain. The 1g/1lb rule absolutely works although it is going to be pretty high protein requirements. As someone who builds muscle for elite competitive performance I can tell you I do just fine on 0.75g/1lb and I feel comfortable slipping from that time to time. I'd say you should go for 0.5g/1lb as the lowest, though. Yes you can get by with less but no matter your pursuit the best outcome is maintaining lean muscle which is metabolic by virtue of existing.

For fun let's allow you 0.65g/1lb at 200lb is 130g of Protein which is ~520kcal.

So we have a combined fat and protein caloric requirement of 1330kcal.

Going back to your calculations for total daily caloric intake let's say your looking at maybe a 1900kcal diet to effect your cut. You now how 570kcal of carbohydrates which works out to ~145g of carbs per day.

I literally made this shit up on the go so let's see how it looks against the 30/40/30 paradigm. 28/30/42. Nice! You might swap out some of your fat calories for more carbs depending on how your diet tends to go normally (protein and carbs are 4 calories per gram, fat is 9 calories per gram). This is balanced as-is however.

Once you get in the groove and find meals that work for your goals and start to stabilize around them you can begin to focus on more micro aspects such as getting appropriate amounts of fiber and calcium or reducing simple carbohydrates in favor of complex ones. The thing that happens is you will inevitably trend towards those diets that "healthy people" eat with vegetables and lean proteins. I have found that being vegetarian makes the whole thing substantially easier to do. The thing about this approach is that it allows for you to have pizza and ice cream or whatnot as long as you track those things and stay within your macro bounds (IIFYM approach).

The one thing I never dealt with and can't speak on is incorporating alcohol consumption into this approach.

I may have hit your question points or widely missed them but I'll be happy to give more information upon request. I intentionally used some acronyms, specific terms, and left out some details to encourage research because I feel it is important to do your own diligence and be bought into your own plan.
Click to expand...
You can add in alcohol. It's a carb, so have a handful of mixed nuts and a low calorie beer and you've got yourself a decent way to kick back after a hard day. Distilled alcohol has very little nutritional value so it's sort of a freebie--but distilled alcohol hangover is woof! I also found some hard kombucha which is AMAZINGLY GOOD, and I recommend highly. There are aren't many carbs associated with it; the sugars that are in it are usually fermented by the time you get it so it doesn't really impact your blood insulin levels. I also drink ciders but they rarely fall into my macros, because they are too sweet. Some of the sugar is fermented though so it's not as hard on your insulin levels, but it's still going to raise them.

I ascribe to the 40/30/30 model. It's just how my body works best (40% of calories from carbs; 30% from protein and 30% from fat) and this is a good place to be if you are trying to control your insulin levels--which is my main goal.
 
Corycm said:
That’s good info. Macros are one of those things I’ve heard people talk about, but never really explored because it always felt like a thing for People Who Take This Stuff Very Seriously as opposed to the average person off the street. But I think it seems like a pretty valuable tool for what I’m trying to accomplish, and would be worth the extra research.
Click to expand...
I will say the average person off the street wants to look or feel better and they've tried various things and failed numerous times and they feel very frustrated with the whole thing. This person may feel they're just somehow different and shit just doesn't work for them. Tracking slots us all as basic human organisms and that if we do x we can also get y. I've compared several other methods out there, like Weight Watchers for example, and they always end up nearly matching these same criteria in the end.

Tracking takes discipline and it takes honesty. If all you bring to the table is discipline and honesty I can promise you that even if you don't meet your goals you will have a very clear understanding of why not and what to do to meet them. This clarity is what average Joe is generally missing.
 
debianlinux said:
I will say the average person off the street wants to look or feel better and they've tried various things and failed numerous times and they feel very frustrated with the whole thing. This person may feel they're just somehow different and shit just doesn't work for them. Tracking slots us all as basic human organisms and that if we do x we can also get y. I've compared several other methods out there, like Weight Watchers for example, and they always end up nearly matching these same criteria in the end.

Tracking takes discipline and it takes honesty. If all you bring to the table is discipline and honesty I can promise you that even if you don't meet your goals you will have a very clear understanding of why not and what to do to meet them. This clarity is what average Joe is generally missing.
Click to expand...
I think the logic is the appeal. Also as someone who dissects and analyzes stuff, it resonates a lot more to help add structure where there are a lot of X factors. In my situation, I lost more than a quarter of my body mass (which was at around 185 at 6’0) and after some triage “just put on weight we don’t care how” from the doc, I’m back to around 155. Now it’s into more organized rebuilding time. I’ve never been a particularly big dude and never had to lose weight as I’ve been in pretty good shape, and always have eaten relatively healthy so tracking those numbers has never been a big deal. But knowing that adding weight needs to be more organized than say shitcanning a few sleeves of Oreos a week, this feels like a solid way to establish a foundation.
 
Corycm said:
I think the logic is the appeal. Also as someone who dissects and analyzes stuff, it resonates a lot more to help add structure where there are a lot of X factors. In my situation, I lost more than a quarter of my body mass (which was at around 185 at 6’0) and after some triage “just put on weight we don’t care how” from the doc, I’m back to around 155. Now it’s into more organized rebuilding time. I’ve never been a particularly big dude and never had to lose weight as I’ve been in pretty good shape, and always have eaten relatively healthy so tracking those numbers has never been a big deal. But knowing that adding weight needs to be more organized than say shitcanning a few sleeves of Oreos a week, this feels like a solid way to establish a foundation.
Click to expand...
Oh! welcome to the I want to put on weight club. It's a much more difficult internet morass to wade through as 90% of the stuff out there is about losing weight.

In that case, you will definitely want to have some amount of resistance training going on to translate the gains into muscle mass instead of fat reserves.
 
debianlinux said:
Oh! welcome to the I want to put on weight club. It's a much more difficult internet morass to wade through as 90% of the stuff out there is about losing weight.

In that case, you will definitely want to have some amount of resistance training going on to translate the gains into muscle mass instead of fat reserves.
Click to expand...
Yep. I’m working with a trainer 1:1 once per week (plus working out on my own) to figure out some quality full body workouts, help with form, etc. and increasing those weight days as my recovery gets a bit better, and dropping down the cardio stuff a little right now.

But I’m concerned/pretty sure I’m not getting enough of the right stuff in to help me out with both the weight gain and (to a lesser extent) recovery. So that’s where I was hoping to pick up some guidance for intake from a macro program. But you’re right - there’s a TON of stuff out there that’s either aimed at the dieting crowd (OR on the other end, people looking at more of the Very Serious Bodybuilding end). So like you said, finding a decent/reputable baseline source is going to take some wading to find some theory/basic instruction.
 
One of my biggest habits that I’m going to try and break is cooking 2 sides with dinner. My mother always fixed a protein, veggie and some kind of carb. It’s a little challenging because my daughter eats like 8 things total, but tonight I did good and only fixed a protein with one side of mixed veggies 😊
 
Ginormousthumbs said:
One of my biggest habits that I’m going to try and break is cooking 2 sides with dinner. My mother always fixed a protein, veggie and some kind of carb. It’s a little challenging because my daughter eats like 8 things total, but tonight I did good and only fixed a protein with one side of mixed veggies 😊
Click to expand...
ARFID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) is real and it sucks.
With my son, he eats very few veggies or fruit and lives off of carbs and eggs. I recommend having something on the plate that she will eat (even if it means cooking something that isn't in your diet) so that it doesn't look so daunting to her.

I also grew up with protein, veggie and carb side. I find that if you swap things like white rice for brown rice and put more veggies on your plate, with only a small side carb, you can basically do the whole protein + veggie + carb plate, just adjust your proportions. Eat more of the less calorically dense but higher nutritionally dense greens.
 
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