My goal is to burn at least 1000 calories..

[Irulan]

Thanks for all of your comments. I don't think I have too much more to lose. I am 5' 6" and weigh about 140. It would be nice to lose about 5 more pounds. I eat pretty clean...no junk food/processed food with the exception of energy bars of some sort on the weekends while backcountry skiing. I have pretty good endurance...can ski tour for many hrs without needing to rest. I am very goal driven. I guess I was just giving myself something to shoot for just so my training/exercise more of a purpose behind it... I would gladly take any other suggestions.


I do wear a HR monitor which I know is not completly accurate but it does give me a rough idea.

Thanks again!!

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.

[Becky]

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.

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!

[zoom-zoom]

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!

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.

[Irulan]

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!

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.

[solobiker]

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.

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.