4 ms·

I've lost 16kg this year, which I attribute to 3 things: 1. being fairly strict with calorie intake - though I have gone over my limit a whole bunch of times

I've lost 16kg this year, which I attribute to 3 things: 1. being fairly strict with calorie intake - though I have gone over my limit a whole bunch of times 2. upping my running game - 80km+ most months 3. being diagnosed asthmatic (after 40 years of merely "you've got shitty lungs, sorry") and prescribed a morning+night inhaler Dieting isn't new to me, I've been a fat bastard all my adult life. Previous attempts at losing weight have involved doing (1)+(2) and each time I lost weight and got faster. But with the diagnosis at the start of this year, and despite a higher calorie allowance, I've smashed my PBs at various distances - multiple times - and lost more weight (NB. because I started higher; I'm not at a record low, yet). So it seems pretty intuitive to me that "I'm better at breathing" has played a hell of a part.

rconti 9y ago
I highly recommend a meal tracker app for anyone who's looking to lose. I avoided it for ages. I didn't want to be "one of those people". I felt like I ate fairly well and was working hard enough, I shouldn't have to stoop to that level. I started bike commuting over 3 months ago now, but my weight was only increasing, and I was pretty sure my diet was the same as ever -- healthy breakfast, fairly healthy lunch, healthy dinner -- mostly homemade, rarely eat out, etc. My only real "sin" was drinking, but it didn't seem to matter if I drank every night or cut back to weekends only (which I had when I started biking, working out more, and again seeing no real benefit). So I finally broke down and started using one a few weeks ago and it's made all the difference in the world. The biggest advantage is the immediate metrics. I HATED the idea that I could work my ass off for a week or three and see my weight go up, or down, and really have no idea what was happening on a day to day basis. By tracking my meals (plus workouts and commuting between Strava and Apple Health sync), I can immediately see if I'm ahead or behind. It's the feedback I had been craving for years. Where I thought the point of one of these apps was to try to learn what's healthy to eat and to be calorically restrictive (which was unappealing.. again, I don't want to be "that guy"), it's really the realtime data that's useful. In my particular case, I've learned I actually eat amazingly well for the most part, and it's very easy to run huge caloric deficits during the week. Without even trying I was seeing a deficit of perhaps 1500kcal/day (during the week). What was killing me was beer (on weekends, but then again, 3/7 days is almost half the days of the week) and the occasional big consumption day. You know, have a big breakfast on the weekend, a big lunch, some drinks, and pretty soon 1 day could almost kill a whole week's progress. The tracking has given me the ability to say actually, yeah, one more beer really WILL push me over the edge from a deficit to a gain. I don't really need that 3rd bagel. And so on. And given that I tend to consume more on weekends, and typically I only got a single short run in one weekend day, those weekends were just killing my progress. On the other hand, it's made me mind snacking a bit less -- the deficits I run during the week are so big that a couple fun size bag of Skittles (we just ran out of halloween candy at work) make almost no difference in my daily progress. I'm just starting out with it, but again, the realtime feedback has made me realize how much EASIER it's going to be than I ever expected. When I felt I had nothing left to easily cut or change, I actually found the solutions were far easier than I realized, and it's helped me to quantify things that I knew were bad but didn't really appreciate the magnitude of. And because I no longer have to just "do my best" or a month and hope it shows up on the scale, there's no more disappointment/discouragement.
- averageweather 9y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Also didn't want to be that person tracking calories ... but now that I do and can look back, my perspective is more of "let's face it, losing weight is not easy" and those people tracking were doing hard work. But you realize, finding your macro deficit combined with an app like my fitness pal makes it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Losing weight becomes simple arithmetic. Alcohol is rough. So many people have no idea what a drink actually contains calorie wise. Even the new and popular alcoholic seltzers will list something like "100 calories", and then the nutrition facts will list something like "5 carbs". With 4 calories per carb ... 4 * 5 does not equal 100. It is more accurate to just take the calorie count of 100 and divide by 4. Now you have a 25g of carbs drink, which is fine, but you need to factor that into your daily tracking. Alcohol has calories per gram, but it isn't required to be listed. This makes craft beers very interesting. Take a 16oz can of some double IPA at 8% and boom, you have around 320 calories in that one drink ... or 80 carbs if you look at it that way. I've tried to simplify it a bit with this calculator that actually factors calories/g of alcohol. http://www.thealccalc.com/ http://www.thealccalc.com/
  - rconti 9y ago
    I need to do more reading on this calories per carb thing. I don't get it at first glance. I also hated the "if it fits your macros" type thing. I'm not a body builder, what do I care? But when you see the real impact of what you're about to eat it actually frees you quite a bit (assuming you generally eat well). I'm actually happy to grab that extra piece of cheese because I can easily take the calorie hit, I gotta eat something, and some protein and fat seems better than carbs. I did the math on craft beer last winter, and cut back on beer for a bit, but it never stuck. 2.5cal per ounce per % abv. It would not be unheard of to drink half a POUND of calories in an afternoon, say, watching football. As I've switched to wine, even when I have more than I should and input the numbers, I simply cannot believe my eyes in terms of how FEW calories it has. I overestimate my consumption to be "conservative" and yet it still barely makes a dent in my diet. It's amazing. I've done dry january a few times, and never saw a bit of benefit. But a month is a short time to see a trend, and it's not a time when I'm training for a race or doing much cycling; most of us are indoors a lot, maybe you have a dessert once or twice a week when normally you'd have none, and bam, you get discouraged and it feels like cutting out alcohol entirely makes no difference at all. Again, when you can see the data on a day-to-day (or even minute by minute) basis, it's so freeing. Looking at myfitnesspal right now, my 'goal' is 2220kcal (which I think is a 500kcal deficit since I set it to lose 1lb/week). goal 2220, -470 food, +1141 excercise and I've got 2934 left to 'spend' for the rest of the day. It's amazing to get to work and have more than your entire BMR left to eat.
ksec 9y ago
asthmatic - how did you get it diagnosed after 40 years? just wondering, pure coincidence ?
- darrenf 9y ago
  I had brochitis as a child, which by adolescence and several years of treatment with inhaled steroids seemingly just settled into an adulthood of "I wheeze and my lungs just don't work well". Never saw anyone about it, just figured it was my lot. In 2012 I had a really bad lung infection that resulted in an asthma-like attack and ambulance taking me to hospital in the middle of the night. Months of tests resulted in them diagnosing me with Small Airways Disease, which my layman brain recalls as meaning "your big pipes are fine, but your thousands of small pipes are terrible". Not much to be done medically, but they were astonished that I had at that point run a couple of half marathons and essentially prescribed "keep running!". My readings when keeping a peak flow diary were "lungs of an 80-85yo female", rather than the 35-40yo male I was. That's pretty bad: https://patient.azureedge.net/media/Default/_Profiles/4e436251/93a66eeb/peak-flow-normal-values.jpg?v=636469588230000000 https://patient.azureedge.net/media/Default/_Profiles/4e4362... At the end of 2016 I had reason to visit my surgery's nurse about another matter and she said "can I hear a wheeze?". A few tests later, and (apparently) some kind of threshold for one of the measurements has changed in the last few years, and hey presto: I'm officially asthmatic.
  - ksec 9y ago
    That is a lot of information to dig through. The reason it got me asking was because I thought with asthma couldn't run a marathon. Even in my earlier year of youth when I was fit I could never run a marathon. Or even 10km. But i was never diagnosed as one with Asthma. I had always felt the air was lacking "oxygen", I am now guessing may be again my big pipes is good, but small pipes are bad.

rconti 9y ago

I highly recommend a meal tracker app for anyone who's looking to lose. I avoided it for ages. I didn't want to be "one of those people". I felt like I ate fairly well and was working hard enough, I shouldn't have to stoop to that level. I started bike commuting over 3 months ago now, but my weight was only increasing, and I was pretty sure my diet was the same as ever -- healthy breakfast, fairly healthy lunch, healthy dinner -- mostly homemade, rarely eat out, etc. My only real "sin" was drinking, but it didn't seem to matter if I drank every night or cut back to weekends only (which I had when I started biking, working out more, and again seeing no real benefit). So I finally broke down and started using one a few weeks ago and it's made all the difference in the world. The biggest advantage is the immediate metrics. I HATED the idea that I could work my ass off for a week or three and see my weight go up, or down, and really have no idea what was happening on a day to day basis. By tracking my meals (plus workouts and commuting between Strava and Apple Health sync), I can immediately see if I'm ahead or behind. It's the feedback I had been craving for years. Where I thought the point of one of these apps was to try to learn what's healthy to eat and to be calorically restrictive (which was unappealing.. again, I don't want to be "that guy"), it's really the realtime data that's useful. In my particular case, I've learned I actually eat amazingly well for the most part, and it's very easy to run huge caloric deficits during the week. Without even trying I was seeing a deficit of perhaps 1500kcal/day (during the week). What was killing me was beer (on weekends, but then again, 3/7 days is almost half the days of the week) and the occasional big consumption day. You know, have a big breakfast on the weekend, a big lunch, some drinks, and pretty soon 1 day could almost kill a whole week's progress. The tracking has given me the ability to say actually, yeah, one more beer really WILL push me over the edge from a deficit to a gain. I don't really need that 3rd bagel. And so on. And given that I tend to consume more on weekends, and typically I only got a single short run in one weekend day, those weekends were just killing my progress. On the other hand, it's made me mind snacking a bit less -- the deficits I run during the week are so big that a couple fun size bag of Skittles (we just ran out of halloween candy at work) make almost no difference in my daily progress. I'm just starting out with it, but again, the realtime feedback has made me realize how much EASIER it's going to be than I ever expected. When I felt I had nothing left to easily cut or change, I actually found the solutions were far easier than I realized, and it's helped me to quantify things that I knew were bad but didn't really appreciate the magnitude of. And because I no longer have to just "do my best" or a month and hope it shows up on the scale, there's no more disappointment/discouragement.

averageweather 9y ago
Couldn't agree more. Also didn't want to be that person tracking calories ... but now that I do and can look back, my perspective is more of "let's face it, losing weight is not easy" and those people tracking were doing hard work. But you realize, finding your macro deficit combined with an app like my fitness pal makes it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Losing weight becomes simple arithmetic. Alcohol is rough. So many people have no idea what a drink actually contains calorie wise. Even the new and popular alcoholic seltzers will list something like "100 calories", and then the nutrition facts will list something like "5 carbs". With 4 calories per carb ... 4 * 5 does not equal 100. It is more accurate to just take the calorie count of 100 and divide by 4. Now you have a 25g of carbs drink, which is fine, but you need to factor that into your daily tracking. Alcohol has calories per gram, but it isn't required to be listed. This makes craft beers very interesting. Take a 16oz can of some double IPA at 8% and boom, you have around 320 calories in that one drink ... or 80 carbs if you look at it that way. I've tried to simplify it a bit with this calculator that actually factors calories/g of alcohol. http://www.thealccalc.com/ http://www.thealccalc.com/
- rconti 9y ago
  I need to do more reading on this calories per carb thing. I don't get it at first glance. I also hated the "if it fits your macros" type thing. I'm not a body builder, what do I care? But when you see the real impact of what you're about to eat it actually frees you quite a bit (assuming you generally eat well). I'm actually happy to grab that extra piece of cheese because I can easily take the calorie hit, I gotta eat something, and some protein and fat seems better than carbs. I did the math on craft beer last winter, and cut back on beer for a bit, but it never stuck. 2.5cal per ounce per % abv. It would not be unheard of to drink half a POUND of calories in an afternoon, say, watching football. As I've switched to wine, even when I have more than I should and input the numbers, I simply cannot believe my eyes in terms of how FEW calories it has. I overestimate my consumption to be "conservative" and yet it still barely makes a dent in my diet. It's amazing. I've done dry january a few times, and never saw a bit of benefit. But a month is a short time to see a trend, and it's not a time when I'm training for a race or doing much cycling; most of us are indoors a lot, maybe you have a dessert once or twice a week when normally you'd have none, and bam, you get discouraged and it feels like cutting out alcohol entirely makes no difference at all. Again, when you can see the data on a day-to-day (or even minute by minute) basis, it's so freeing. Looking at myfitnesspal right now, my 'goal' is 2220kcal (which I think is a 500kcal deficit since I set it to lose 1lb/week). goal 2220, -470 food, +1141 excercise and I've got 2934 left to 'spend' for the rest of the day. It's amazing to get to work and have more than your entire BMR left to eat.

ksec 9y ago

asthmatic - how did you get it diagnosed after 40 years? just wondering, pure coincidence ?

darrenf 9y ago
I had brochitis as a child, which by adolescence and several years of treatment with inhaled steroids seemingly just settled into an adulthood of "I wheeze and my lungs just don't work well". Never saw anyone about it, just figured it was my lot. In 2012 I had a really bad lung infection that resulted in an asthma-like attack and ambulance taking me to hospital in the middle of the night. Months of tests resulted in them diagnosing me with Small Airways Disease, which my layman brain recalls as meaning "your big pipes are fine, but your thousands of small pipes are terrible". Not much to be done medically, but they were astonished that I had at that point run a couple of half marathons and essentially prescribed "keep running!". My readings when keeping a peak flow diary were "lungs of an 80-85yo female", rather than the 35-40yo male I was. That's pretty bad: https://patient.azureedge.net/media/Default/_Profiles/4e436251/93a66eeb/peak-flow-normal-values.jpg?v=636469588230000000 https://patient.azureedge.net/media/Default/_Profiles/4e4362... At the end of 2016 I had reason to visit my surgery's nurse about another matter and she said "can I hear a wheeze?". A few tests later, and (apparently) some kind of threshold for one of the measurements has changed in the last few years, and hey presto: I'm officially asthmatic.
- ksec 9y ago
  That is a lot of information to dig through. The reason it got me asking was because I thought with asthma couldn't run a marathon. Even in my earlier year of youth when I was fit I could never run a marathon. Or even 10km. But i was never diagnosed as one with Asthma. I had always felt the air was lacking "oxygen", I am now guessing may be again my big pipes is good, but small pipes are bad.