My goal is to burn at least 1000 calories..

Hi solobiker. Everyone here has given you really good input. I just wanted to add that there is some good research out there to indicate that once or caloric intake drops below 80% of caloric expenditure, you run the risk of messing up your metabolic hormone levels. You and I are about the same size. I usually shoot for a 400 to 500 Cal deficit, and that done consistently over a period of a couple of months seems to get me on the weight loss track, without being that hungry our feeling too tired. But it does take time to kick in. About 4 weeks for me before I actually start to lose weight.

I don't worry as much about caloric balance on the weekends. Since I'm out doing a lot. In fact I eat more to make sure I don't fall too far bellow the 80% guideline.

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Originally Posted by Irulan

The database is huge, the bar code scanner is great, and even adding the scratch stuff I make at home ( I do this a lot!!) wasn't much of an issue. I followed the calorie guidelines pretty much to the t and was even able to follow my intake of protien carb and fats and make adjustments when needed. It was a very educational process and I'm really glad I did it. Plus leaning out like I did - can't complain about that.

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Irulan, any suggestions for speeding up the entry of "from scratch" meals? I've downloaded MyFitnessPal, but find myself losing patience with entering recipes. Otherwise, its great!

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Originally Posted by Becky

Irulan, any suggestions for speeding up the entry of "from scratch" meals? I've downloaded MyFitnessPal, but find myself losing patience with entering recipes. Otherwise, its great!

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THIS is the thing that makes it hard for me to lose. I don't lose unless I track, but I LOATHE not being able to eat food that's not prepackaged without trying to find something similar that someone else has already added or spending a lot of time making custom items.

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Originally Posted by Becky

Irulan, any suggestions for speeding up the entry of "from scratch" meals? I've downloaded MyFitnessPal, but find myself losing patience with entering recipes. Otherwise, its great!

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I found there were a few options. I do agree the first couple of weeks were tedious at times but it's a short curve I think.
1. look for a recipe someone else has done that closely resembles yours. or
look for an ingredient combo that's similar. One example is, I make stir frys a lot. So instead of doing 1 c broccoli, 1 c red pepper and so on, I might look for mix chopped vegs and find something close enough.
2. enter yours - you'll be surprised how easy it is to edit it later for when you make something kind of like it. Example, I do a tomato/veg saute that gets various different things added ( shrimp, poured over pork chops, black beans and some Mexican seasoning) and once its in there, I would just adjust a few ingredients.
3. Use the bar code scanner as much as you can. For example, when I made spaghetti sauce, I'd scan the jar of Classico, scan the can of diced tomatoes, scan the pasta package, scan the Costco Parm/reggio cheese; enter a few chopped vegs in an the meat and good to go.

Once I got the bar code scanner, that was great. I think I only scanned two items in the whole three months that weren't in there already.
After the first couple of weeks, everything I make was pretty much in there. What I had a hard time with was entering restaurant food.

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Originally Posted by Irulan

I'd look at the food piece of things. I recently went from 130 to 121, from 30% body fat to 21%. The main thing I did was nutrition tracking and ramped up my cardio. My goal was to lean out so I was pushing a little less me around skiing and biking. The food tracking thing was huge. I was thinking "sure I eat pretty healthy" but to be concrete about portion size and calories was rather enlightening. Also what I learned about the relationship between base calorie needs, and what you can earn through exercise, was also enlightening.

The main tool I used was a smart phone app, MyFitnessPal. Now I know a lot of folks dis these apps as approximate at best, but it sure worked for me. I used my age, starting weight and desired weight to set the parameters for the nutrition guidelines it used. The database is huge, the bar code scanner is great, and even adding the scratch stuff I make at home ( I do this a lot!!) wasn't much of an issue. I followed the calorie guidelines pretty much to the t and was even able to follow my intake of protien carb and fats and make adjustments when needed. It was a very educational process and I'm really glad I did it. Plus leaning out like I did - can't complain about that.

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Thanks!! This is pretty much what I have been doing since December of 2010 and is what I think helped me to lose those pesky 20#. I, like you stated above, want to see if I can drop just a few more to make mtn biking a little more easy on some of the more challenging hills out here :-)

I do appreciate all of the comments and the thought has crossed my mind many times that I may be over doing it or my body might getused to that kind of expenditure.

I guess I just need a goal/plan to focus on so I just picked those numbers as they are conrete vs..I am going to ride my spin bike with a training dvd.

My diet is pretty clean...mainly lean meat, fruit and veggies....although today I cheated as it is my B-day so I had some awesome lasagna.:D

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Originally Posted by Wahine

Hi solobiker. Everyone here has given you really good input. I just wanted to add that there is some good research out there to indicate that once or caloric intake drops below 80% of caloric expenditure, you run the risk of messing up your metabolic hormone levels. You and I are about the same size. I usually shoot for a 400 to 500 Cal deficit, and that done consistently over a period of a couple of months seems to get me on the weight loss track, without being that hungry our feeling too tired. But it does take time to kick in. About 4 weeks for me before I actually start to lose weight.

I don't worry as much about caloric balance on the weekends. Since I'm out doing a lot. In fact I eat more to make sure I don't fall too far bellow the 80% guideline.

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Thanks for your input! I don''t worry too much about calories on weekends either since I am always doing long fairly intesive carido activities. Maybe I will try to go for a less ambitious goal then 1000.:p We will see...I do have a hard time just kicking back and relaxing. :p

I was listening to a podcast not long ago, where a fitness coach mentioned something along the lines of "if you don't compete in a sport, it makes much more sense to try to minimize your trainingtime, rather than to maximize it". He said that trying to balance things out, so that you do enough to stay as fit as you want to be, and do all the things you want to do, but as little as possible in terms of time invested and "exercise load" on your body, is actually much more beneficial than trying to maximize exercise time.

This thought was very enlightening for me, as I was always striving to "exercise enough", without thinking about negative effects too much training could actually have. But as ever, more isn't always better ;)


Maybe a goal outside of "training time" would be better? Like doing x pushups or pullups or climbing that steep hill or whatever it might be for you :)

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Originally Posted by Susan

I was listening to a podcast not long ago, where a fitness coach mentioned something along the lines of "if you don't compete in a sport, it makes much more sense to try to minimize your trainingtime, rather than to maximize it". He said that trying to balance things out, so that you do enough to stay as fit as you want to be, and do all the things you want to do, but as little as possible in terms of time invested and "exercise load" on your body, is actually much more beneficial than trying to maximize exercise time.

This thought was very enlightening for me, as I was always striving to "exercise enough", without thinking about negative effects too much training could actually have. But as ever, more isn't always better ;)


Maybe a goal outside of "training time" would be better? Like doing x pushups or pullups or climbing that steep hill or whatever it might be for you :)

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Thanks! This was very insightful. Since reading everyone's posts I have thought quite a bit about my goal. I think I will change the focus of it because I am sure it will start to feel like a job and I will not enjoy doing it anymore. Plus I have so many other hobbies that I would not be able to do if I was spending all my time trying to achieve some #. I always tend to put a lot of pressure on myself both at work and at home to achieve fairly high standards...which I sometimes can't achieve.:o Drives my DH and my co-workers crazy sometimes. Oh well...I am still happy with my decision to back it down a bit and change my focus to more quality vs quantity which would be more beneficial and decrease my risk of overuse injuries.

Once again, thanks for all of your input. It is nice to come to my TE friends to bounce ideas off of. I always get great advice!!:D:p