Weight Watcher's Thread

[GBC]

This is why the mfp is so good, everything has to be accounted for so you know exactly how much you are eating.
Went slightly over last night (85 cals) but had a 300-400 defecit from the week so all good

Couldn't agree more about MFP. As I'm approaching middle age, (59 in March) I decided it's time to lose at least some of the gut, and get down from 16st 4lbs to somewhere about the 14st mark. Having read about MFP on this thread, I decided to try it and I'm finding it an invaluable tool for identifying where I'm going wrong. I suppose I knew already to some extent, but seeing the way that innocent 'one little bit won't make any difference' snacks tally up, in stark black and white, was really a bit of an eye-opener. So far so good with it, and although I believe that weight can be lost fairly easily in the initial stages, I'm really pleased at losing 3lbs in each of the first two weeks.
For anyone thinking about it, I would certainly recommend it.

 

[potsy]

It's a gain! Lost the plot a bit Yesterday and this morning I was 13st 10 / 87.1 Kg.
I'll get back to business and check in again on Weds or Thursday morning. Should be back on track after this minor 'blip', ugh...

You are a disgrace to this thread ducky

*forgets about all the 'blips' I had last year*

 

[ColinJ]

I've bought some digital kitchen scales so I can actual weigh what I am eating. I'm hopeless at portion control when cooking pasta, rice etc. - I always guess how much to cook, do too much and then eat the lot. It makes sense to allow myself 100 g of this, 200 g of that (etc.) and stick to those numbers every time.

If I choose to cut down my portion sizes, this will make it easier - a 10% reduction would then mean 90 g of this, 180 g of that and so on. I reckon that would be easy to do.

 

[RWright]

After week 3:

from 244.0 to 242.0

I am paying more attention to my portions too. I bought another measuring cup. Eating out of measuring cups isn't so bad after you get used to it. Saves on washing so many dishes as well.

Since I feel that MFP is allowing me too many calories credit for the cycling, I try to eat around 500 less than the goal on the days I ride. It is harder for me to do on the days I don't get to ride.

I thought I would be lower this week as well. I might work a little harder this coming week and try to come in sub 240 next week. Good luck to all this week.

 

[potsy]

Since I feel that MFP is allowing me too many calories credit for the cycling, I try to eat around 500 less than the goal on the days I ride. It is harder for me to do on the days I don't get to ride.

I think a good compromise is to down play your cycling by 25% so it doesn't give you too many calories for the day, seems to be working for me
Good work though, 8lbs in 3 weeks is great.

 

[Biscuit]

Weighed in this morning, cos I forgot yesterday. 89.6kg, down from 91kg last week. Happy with that!

 

[tadpole]

Strava and MFP both over estimate cycling calories by quite a lot. Depending on my effort my Cheap Heart Rate Monitor tells me I've burnt 350 450 calories for my 9 mile ride to work Strava and MFP estimate 600 660 for the same Trip.
Worth getting a HRM even if it is just a £12.99 on from Aldi. Ok it's still only a 'guide', but more likely to reflect the effort put in, rather than a wildly inaccurate calculation based on time and distance

 

[Rob3rt]

Strava and MFP both over estimate cycling calories by quite a lot. Depending on my effort my Cheap Heart Rate Monitor tells me I've burnt 350 450 calories for my 9 mile ride to work Strava and MFP estimate 600 660 for the same Trip.
Worth getting a HRM even if it is just a £12.99 on from Aldi. Ok it's still only a 'guide', but more likely to reflect the effort put in, rather than a wildly inaccurate calculation based on time and distance

The HRM doesn't know what you are doing, i.e. it can not determine calorie consumption.

The accuracy of Strava etc depends on your equipment.

If you want dependable calorie data, pay the big bucks, get a power meter.

 

[ColinJ]

I agree with Rob3rt!

How does a HRM know if you are riding up or down hill, or if you have a terrible headwind or a fantastic tailwind, or what the road surface is like etc.?

Try just plugging your numbers into bike calculator and you will probably get a better idea of how many calories you are burning!

 

[Rob3rt]

I agree with Rob3rt!

How does a HRM know if you are riding up or down hill, or if you have a terrible headwind or a fantastic tailwind, or what the road surface is like etc.?

Try just plugging your numbers into bike calculator and you will probably get a better idea of how many calories you are burning!

That is not what I meant, if the work your legs are doing increases (uphill, wind) or decreases (downhill) the HR will respond, the HRM will detect this. It knows when you are working harder or less so (subject to error introduced by stress, caffeine consumption, temperature etc).

What I meant is that it does not know about the activity you are doing, for example, you could run and cycle at the same HR, but burn quite different numbers of calories due to the muscle groups used etc. To illustrate this, albeit rather awkwardly, you will have a different MHR for running and cycling, not a single value that covers both sports.

Any calculation of calories burned based on HR should include details on the activity being undertaken.

 

[tadpole]

C = (0.6309 x H + 0.09036 x W + 0.2017 x A -- 55.0969) x T / 4.184. C is the number of calories that you burned, H is your average heart rate, W is your weight, A is your age and T is the length of your exercise session in minutes.

​

HRM Calculate for shorter periods of T with greater accuracy so instead of calculating it once over say 35 minutes, HRM calculate it for say 1 minute segments and add all 35 calculations up​

Strava and MFP don't even factor in effort it's just a simple time distance calculation. Strava doesn't even take into account wind speed, tyres Body mass, I doubt if it even calculates for bit of a ride where you're not pedalling.​

So HRM are not like a Vo2Max calculations but are is more accurate than pulling figures from your arse, which you seem to be suggesting they are.​

 

[Rob3rt]

C = (0.6309 x H + 0.09036 x W + 0.2017 x A -- 55.0969) x T / 4.184. C is the number of calories that you burned, H is your average heart rate, W is your weight, A is your age and T is the length of your exercise session in minutes.

HRM Calculate for shorter periods of T with greater accuracy so instead of calculating it once over say 35 minutes, HRM calculate it for say 1 minute segments and all all 35 calculations up
Strava and MFP don't even factor in effort it's just a simple time distance calculation. Strava doesn't even take into account wind speed, tyres Body mass,I doubt if it even calculates for bit of a ride where you're not pedalling.
So HRM are not like a Vo2Max calculations but are is more accurate than pulling figures from your arse, which you seem to be suggesting they are.

You post does not show otherwise to what I said above. It does not take into account the activity being carried out. What are these constants? Empirical fitting values? If so, they are only valid for the activity they were derived for (unless by fluke).

BTW Strava and likewise make calculations depending on the data available. Based on the data coming out of my power meter and knowing roughly the relationship between kJ and kCal expended to produce that amount of kJ, the calories provided to me by Strava are a good approximation.

 

[tadpole]

You post does not show otherwise to what I said above. It does not take into account the activity being carried out. What are these constants? Empirical fitting values? If so, they are only valid for the activity they were derived for (unless by fluke).

BTW Strava and likewise make calculations depending on the data available. Based on the data coming out of my power meter and knowing roughly the relationship between kJ and kCal expended to produce that amount of kJ, the calories provided to me by Strava are a good approximation.

Not many people can or want to afford spending £1000+ on a power metre when all we want is a guide as to the amount of energy we burn cycling. So using a HRM gives a rough (but better and more accurate) guide to the amount of effort put in, rather than relying on standard on size fits all formulae.

 

[Rob3rt]

Not many people can or want to afford spending £1000+ on a power metre when all we want is a guide as to the amount of energy we burn cycling. So using a HRM gives a rough (but better and more accurate) guide to the amount of effort put in, rather than relying on standard on size fits all formulae.

Still not getting it are you? A HRM alone, provides no better estimation than most other methods. The HR monitor needs to be calibrated for the activity it is going to be used for!

I am not disputing the ability of the use of a HRM for increasing accuracy of calorie expenditure (it can to some degree if used correctly), I am drawing your attention to the limitations, especially of one that is a general piece of kit rather than sport specific.

Also making the point that Strava and similar work wtih the data you give them, give them little to go on, it will guess! Give it good data and you get better results.

 

[tadpole]

Studies have also shown that it is possible to estimate energy expenditure from heart rate using multivariate predictive equations derived from group data in adults “Strath , 2000; Hiilloskorpi, 2003; Dugas , 2005; Keytel , 2005)”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15966347
The correlation coefficient (r) between the measured and estimated energy expenditure was 0.913. The model therefore accounted for 83.3% (R2) of the variance in energy expenditure in this sample. Because a measure of fitness, such as VO2max, is not always available, a model without VO2max included was also fitted. The correlation coefficient between the measured energy expenditure and estimates from the mixed model without VO2max was 0.857. It follows that the model without a fitness measure accounted for 73.4% of the variance in energy expenditure in this sample. Based on these results, we conclude that it is possible to estimate physical activity energy expenditure from heart rate in a group of individuals with a great deal of accuracy, after adjusting for age, gender, body mass and fitness.

A Novel Energy Expenditure Prediction Equation for Intermittent Physical Activity
In this study the difference between a Vo2 max R1 and measuring the resting/sitting heart rate R2 and calculating from that, is the difference between 82% Accuracy R1 and 78% accuracy R2 so that is only 4% more accurate with a Vo2max calibration

In fact nearly all the studies I’ve found on-line have come to the same conclusion, using HRM for EE is accurate enough for most aerobic activities for Most of the Adult population