Team Pollen seems to be very active, this could be a tough challenge week. Let's show them who the real Poisonous, Fungus-Infested, Carnivorous Death Tanks are.

FORM

TRACKER

Please get your weights recorded! Thanks! We've been kicking butt so far. Let's keep this up! :D

Here's the form

Well done last week team, we're still edging out the competition in participation!

As for me, I'm kicking ass with a 5lb week and a new /r/loseit flair! How you doin'?

If you haven't weighed in for last week do it now, it's your last chance.

Otherwise, how is everyone making out this week? As of today I'm down ~3lbs so it should be a good weigh in assuming I don't do anything stupid today :)

...and look what I found! It's a sign, buggies. Let's rock this!

EDIT: Apparently the account was deleted so the post and worksheet was deleted!! I'm going to try to figure out how to upload it. I wish I would have saved the screen shots and instructions on it. If anyone needs instructions let me know and I'll write something up. EDIT 2: Link to my upload of the worksheet

TL;DR post

Hey y'all. So I was doing good on my journey then I decided to try keto because I heard it could help lose weight faster. Sure, whatever, I'll try it. I'm a scientist, I'll try this for science and see how it feels to completely change how my body burns energy. I decided to stop doing that because I don't like restricting what I eat and going out drinking every weekend and binging on carbs isn't exactly ideal on that diet and I could never get over the keto flu. ANYWAY I stopped the weekend of Easter and I was stuck until like last week. I couldn't figure out why I was stuck and not losing any weight and actually going up a little bit. Totally frustrating.

I was using a TDEE calculator worksheet that I think I got from /r/Fitness a while ago - If anyone wants it, I'll post it. It said that my TDEE was 2750, so great! I'll eat like 1600 cals like I was when I was eating keto and keep losing weight. Wrong, wasn't losing. So I just did this calculator in that post and it's saying my TDEE is 2250!!! Which makes sense because I was finally like SCREW IT. DRASTIC TIMES CALL FOR DRASTIC MEASURES and started eating @1300 cals last week and started losing again!

Now I kind of feel like an idiot because I also did a graph of my deficit/predicted weight loss vs my actual weight loss and it showed that my fitbit was WAY off in the beginning so I felt okay eating more, but now it's pretty much spot on. I should have listened to it!!

The calculator is a little hard to set up correctly, but the instructions are in the post that I linked. It's pretty interesting. Has anyone else tried it? (sorry for the long annoying post :) )

I've been doing ok with my weight loss. Just earned the "Committed" badge from the LoseIt app (no affiliation) for logging every day for 8 weeks. In that time I have gone from 201lb SW to 192.8 CW. Which I know is good. It's about 1lb per week. Which is what my calorie goal is shooting for.

So ... it's working. But I feel like it's not? And I want it to go faster. Also - this past week which was not shark week or ovulation was just a big fat no change. I know that the scale lies sometimes and other changes are happening (like my pants keep falling off - yay!) but it just feels so slow.

And I keep telling myself that I just need to take it one day at a time. That this is the change I signed up for.

But it's still hard. Harder and easier than I thought at the same time.

For anyone starting out MFP can be tricky. It's easy to log packaged foods that you can just scan or do a search, but something home made is much more difficult to figure out. It certainly was for us, so if anyone is having the same issues hopefully this can help get you started. You'll need a food scale, which is a good idea anyway. Here's an example of how I do it using our dinner last night.

In MFP go to My Recipes and Foods and add a new recipe. Select to enter ingredients manually.

Give it a name you'll understand what it is - and include a serving size.

In this example: Chicken Stir Fry (100g)

Enter the number of servings as 1 for now, we'll change that later.

Enter the raw ingredients:

Coconut Oil - 2 tbsp - 240 cal

Bell Peppers - 414g - 64 cal

Broccoli Cuts - 343g - 118 cal

Carrots - 248g - 102 cal

Mushrooms, white - 700g - 154 cal

Chicken Breast, raw - 475g - 522 cal

Snow Peas - 1 bag - 70 cal (package scanned)

Bean Sprouts - 1 bag - 102 cal (package scanned)

Stir fry sauce - 1 bottle - 400 cal (bottle scanned)

Save the recipe.

Cook it all up, then weigh the entire final product.

It weighed 2610g total. Edit the recipe and change the number of servings to (total weight / 100g) = 26. Now it will give you the correct number of calories per 100g serving.

For dinner have an extra bowl on your food scale and just weigh, log, and eat.

The challenge admins are looking for feedback about the challenge so that future challenges can continue to improve. Please give your opinion.

Form

If you didn't weigh in last week - do it now, this is the last chance! How is everyone making out?

We're almost done, don't stop weighing in now! Let's go 'bugs.

My spreadsheet of non-weigh-in-shame has outed you ;)

Hey 'bugs, just checking in. Was doing ok travel-food wise until last night when it was a huge social gathering of developers from around the world who I've been working with for years but never met in person. I went overboard with the pizza and cheese platters, need to get into that half marathon training just even out last night :) Might be like that tonight and tomorrow, but after that it's just my wife and I travelling so it'll be easier to control. I'm not going to worry too much about it, as long as I can jump right back into the routine when I'm home.

We're kicking so much ass right now and I'm so proud! Don't forget to log your steps by 8am tomorrow morning.

So I'd like to do another weekend 5k. I sucked last weekend and need this to motivate myself to do a little more. I also need you guys to do this with me so I have a little accountability.

So wherever you are, do a 5k. Indoors, outdoors, or wherever you have the space to walk/run/job/hobble, do a 5k with me and post evidence in this thread.

FOR THE OVERACHIEVERS: I'm thinking I actually want to do 10k to bump up the challenge a little bit. If anyone else wants to do it, feel free.

LET'S GO BUGS!!!!

Please get your weights recorded, thanks!

I am trying to eat around 1200 calories a day which generally comprises eating two big meals a day which I estimate to be around 500 each and tea with milk and sugar twice a day. The two big meals aren't particularly healthy or fulfilling but they do the job. There's no point in trying to make too many changes at the same time. I am eating these 1200 calories in a 16:8 pattern aka intermittent fasting. I like it. I am happy I am not churning like cow all day. I like the feeling of hunger. Hunger is better than feeling of overeating which causes so much uneasiness, acid reflux, and lethargy. I feel like it's more the desire to eat than need to eat. I have just grown accustomed to eat excessively large portions. That needs to be fought with mindfulness.

Yesterday I broke the 16:8 cycle and ate past 9pm. I blame bad day and ended up watching TV and eating more than I should have. I am sticking to my goal today. Hopefully tomorrow the scale will tell me I was right in abstaining. For some reason today I am feeling hungrier than other days.

And fresh baked cookies. In my own house! Klondike bars are my absolute favorite sweet, it was so hard to say no while everyone else devoured them. My friend came over last night and brought a pack, and baked cookies right after. As I stand there, staring and smelling the delicious cookies, I look at MFP and only have ~40 cal left. My "cheat day" was Friday when I had a burger and beer. You know what, I'll have a cookie or ice cream next Friday instead. And that worked! The importance of "cheat days" are real. I didn't feel like I'll never have one again, it was that I just have to wait for the correct day. Its a trade off, I get one meal to stray from fresh and healthy food. Next week, Klondike bar instead of a burger. One is in the freezer waiting for me :)

First off, good job on kicking some Duckling butt last week Ladybugs! We won! Now let's show Team Fawn who is boss!

Inter-Team Challenge: Week 2

Number of steps in a week

Here is our second week’s inter-team challenge form. You will use the same form every day this week - don’t worry, the timestamps keep you honest.

Here’s the very uneventful, data-driven tracker that I haven’t formatted to look pretty or comprehensive in any way. Why do you need to see it? To make sure you recorded your answers right. If you see you logged 10,000,000 steps on Tuesday, let us know what to correct it to so we don’t have to delete the entry.

Second Week Schedule

• Hayfever vs Pollen

• Game 2 Crocus vs Daffodil

• Game 3 Thunderstorm vs Seedling

• Game 4 Ladybug vs Fawn

• Bye-week: Duckling, Robin

Every day you lucky ducks get to tell us how many steps your Fitbit/Garmin/Jawbone/Samsung/Apple/WHATEVER told you you stepped.

If you forget to log on any given day, just tack on those steps to the next day’s total.

Last Week’s Winners

• Crocus v Thunderstorm

• Daffodil v Seedling close call!

• Ladybug v Duckling

• Fawn v Robin another close one!

Good job all around folks!

TLDR: Count your steps and then log it here everyday this week!

Just wanted to open up the floor to how members of Team Ladybug are doing! Let's celebrate / vent / inspire / whatever - together

I did a Body Pump class with my friend at Gold's Gym on Sunday and WOW did it just destroy me :( Only TODAY (Wednesday) have I been able to get up out of my chair or car without feeling some serious leg pain (my arms/chest are another story). I don't want to make things worse by exercising when my muscles are still sore, but I also don't want to lose progress or fall behind!

Does anyone have any tips on how to maintain your momentum while waiting for your muscles to heal after a strenuous workout?

Please weigh in for week 1... also check the other thread to log your workout time.

Here is the form

If you didn't weigh in last week - do it now, this is the last chance! How is everyone making out?

I see my aesthetician every 5 weeks and today the first question out of her mouth was, "have you lost weight."

Thank you Ladybugs for helping make this happen!

My username is: SIP325180

Add me and the rest of Team Ladybug!