Weight Loss Discussion Thread

[woollypigs]

Didn't know it was that easy

[TimC]

The waistband of my trousers confirms that there has been no commensurate loss of flesh.

However, I now need to establish exactly what my weight is. It makes some sense that the accuracy of my scales deteriorated as the batteries became exhausted. Looking at the recorded weights of the last two years (all on that same set of batteries), it remained fairly consistently between 83-88 kg, with the variations depending on how seriously I took being overweight. At 88kg, my recorded waist measurement was exactly what it is now. From the beginning of lockdown I have not worked, so I have not visited restaurants or been involved in big social get togethers, I've done more exercise than usual and even been fairly seriously ill, yet my weight (according to Garmin) increased from 87kg to 96kg. yet my clothes fit as they always did. The newly-rebatteried scale gave me a weight of 86.6kg. Hitherto, I would have regarded that as reasonable (FACVO reasonable...) whereas 96kg worried me enough to take on Dry January and the Tour de Zwift - neither of which apparently reduced my weight one iota.

Given that my gym remains shut, and I will not trouble my GP for the triviality of checking my weight, I may have to buy a set of scales simply as a double-check!

[Wowbagger]

17 stones this morning. That's 2 stone 7lb down on my weight of about 6 to 7 months ago.

[hellymedic]

The waistband of my trousers confirms that there has been no commensurate loss of flesh.

However, I now need to establish exactly what my weight is. It makes some sense that the accuracy of my scales deteriorated as the batteries became exhausted. Looking at the recorded weights of the last two years (all on that same set of batteries), it remained fairly consistently between 83-88 kg, with the variations depending on how seriously I took being overweight. At 88kg, my recorded waist measurement was exactly what it is now. From the beginning of lockdown I have not worked, so I have not visited restaurants or been involved in big social get togethers, I've done more exercise than usual and even been fairly seriously ill, yet my weight (according to Garmin) increased from 87kg to 96kg. yet my clothes fit as they always did. The newly-rebatteried scale gave me a weight of 86.6kg. Hitherto, I would have regarded that as reasonable (FACVO reasonable...) whereas 96kg worried me enough to take on Dry January and the Tour de Zwift - neither of which apparently reduced my weight one iota.

Given that my gym remains shut, and I will not trouble my GP for the triviality of checking my weight, I may have to buy a set of scales simply as a double-check!

Weird behaviour of those scales! Most battery-operated devices I have seem to retain accuracy as the battery fades. The display fades until unreadable but the numbers are consistent.

Do pharmacies still have any sort of weighing machine?

I'm inclined to believe tape measures and clothes more than weighing scales.

[TimC]

I'd like to agree, Helly, but I do like data and my poor branes are confused by conflicting data (measurements vs strange scales readouts). I have ordered a 'control' scales. Not vast amounts of money like the Garmin thing, but hopefully good enough to tell me whether it's right or has gone doolally.

[hellymedic]

I'm a data freak too!

I'm also 'careful' so in the circs, I would have gone for a simple, basic model of plain weighing scale from a reputable brand.

[Kim]

Speaking of data, I was just looking at mine, and it seems that I've finally managed to stop losing weight.   

Hopefully this will stand up to better cycling weather...

[Polar Bear]

Further to Tim's comments, can anybody recommend some quality reliable scales please?   We have two sets, one e digital, one analogue: they are both branded Salter.  The scales with the big round dial and pointy red needle consistently reads a little higher than the digital ones.  The digital ones are inconsistent.  I can step off, wait for reset and step back on and get a different reading completely.

I'm currently relying upon the "fit of clothes" method to reassure myself that I am slowly and steadily losing weight.

[rafletcher]

Just use the dial one, and mark progress rather than absolute weight - unless the latter is a specific requirement.

[Polar Bear]

That's my usual routine but it would be nice to have something trusted and reliable to use if at all possible.

[TimC]

I'd like to agree, Helly, but I do like data and my poor branes are confused by conflicting data (measurements vs strange scales readouts). I have ordered a 'control' scales. Not vast amounts of money like the Garmin thing, but hopefully good enough to tell me whether it's right or has gone doolally.

New scales have arrived, and confirmed that the Garmin scales are out by around 10Kgs. Why this should have occurred on changing batteries I have no idea, but I've lodged that question with Garmin and will see how they reply. In the meantime, the new scales claim to do quite a lot of clever stuff and do talk to my phone. For £22 I'm not expecting a lot, but we'll see...

[citoyen]

That's my usual routine but it would be nice to have something trusted and reliable to use if at all possible.

My understanding is that with modern digital bathroom scales, consistent results can be obtained by using them in a consistent way. In other words, lack of reliability and accuracy is likely to be a user problem, not a device problem.

[Kim]

That's my usual routine but it would be nice to have something trusted and reliable to use if at all possible.

My understanding is that with modern digital bathroom scales, consistent results can be obtained by using them in a consistent way. In other words, lack of reliability and accuracy is likely to be a user problem, not a device problem.

I bought a set of Salter digital ones last year to replace our notoriously inaccurate analogue ones, because they'll hold the reading for long enough for you to step off and bend down^[1] to look at the display in a way that analogue ones simply don't, thereby avoiding the having-to-go-and-get-your-glasses-to-weigh-yourself problem.  In this respect, they've been excellent.

The problem is that they double as a means of measuring the unevenness of the bathroom floor, and it's easy to get a kilo or so of error depending on exactly where you place them.  My approach (apart from avoiding the worst of the floorboards) is to move them slightly and take another reading until I get two that agree.  This brings the error down to within the noise caused by the vagaries of my digestive system, which is as good as you can expect for body weight.

I don't think this is really the scales' fault.


_{[1] The display is big enough that I can read them from a standing position, but barakta can't.}

[Polar Bear]

Re the digital scales that we have

Quite so Kim.  I bought digital for the exact same reason.  I keep forgetting to take my monocular into the bathroom to read the scales ...

Re inaccuracies:   I use the vinyl floor pattern in the bathroom to position the scales near as dammit in the exact same place every time I use them.  And as I say, I can weigh myself, step off, await reset, step on and get an entirely different reading.  The difference can be up to 2kgs.

Short of ensuring the exact same house / room temperature and humidity it is difficult to see how I can improve this.

[rogerzilla]

13st 1lb this morning.  That's 5lb in ten days.  Maybe a bit too fast.  I was aiming for a pound a week, so it seems my calorie limit of 2350/day might be a bit low.  It will probably slow down, though.

12st would be a pretty good racing weight, as I'm built like Peter Sagan but a bit shorter.  I'm never going to be one of tbose climbers with little dinosaur arms.

[Wowbagger]

I seem to have plateaued again, at 108kg or thereabouts (17 stones). i spent a couple of months at 17½ stones from mid-November, so I think it will shift again, but according to my calorie counting, I'm living off <2000 calories a day at the moment, and I'm getting a reasonable amount of exercise (averaging over 9k paces a day this year). I don't think I could keep up fewer calories a day than that.

My spell with Noom is coming to an end so I will be "on my own", as it were, after that.

[rogerzilla]

Half a stone down now.  13lb to go.

[Wowbagger]

I forgot to measure my waist on 1st March so have just done so: 1.5cm less than on 1st Feb. However, I haven't bought any new trousers since the start of my weight loss: this is because I have been in the habit of doing up my trousers below a large overbelly. However, we are now at the stage at which I can do these trousers up and pull them up over my paunch. If my waist becomes significantly less, I will have to spend some money, either on new trousers, or comedy braces.

[rogerzilla]

Strava calories are bollocks, aren't they?  I reckon the marginal energy use from a 2 hour ride is more like 350-400 kcal than the 1800 kcal Strava calculates.

[Wowbagger]

I think Fitbit's are as well. They reckon I'm running a calorie deficit of about 1000 a day and have been for ages, yet my weight loss is now pretty well glacial.

[Davef]

I think Fitbit's are as well. They reckon I'm running a calorie deficit of about 1000 a day and have been for ages, yet my weight loss is now pretty well glacial.

Running good rules of thumb are -

Pessimistic - 1 cal per kg per mile
Optimistic - 1 cal per kg per km
 
So if you way 100kg, somewhere between 10km and 10 miles will burn 1000 cal.

[Kim]

Strava calories are bollocks, aren't they?  I reckon the marginal energy use from a 2 hour ride is more like 350-400 kcal than the 1800 kcal Strava calculates.

Easily demonstrated by comparing the results for similar rides on different bikes.  With its hopelessly vague categories, the algorithm doesn't have a clue how (in)efficient the bike is, let alone account for your luggage and riding position.  (It always thinks I'm taking it easy when I ride the Brompton, thus demonstrating that it's never ridden a Brompton.)

[Paul H]

Need a new plan, lost 30kg in the last seven months, now struggling to lose the last few, ideally another 7.  I'm convinced that routine is the enemy of weight loss, I've tried a few diets and fitness programs and every one of them has worked for a while, then the effect has diminished as my body adapts.  Like others, the calorie counting says I should be losing half a kg a week, and I'm not
What next?  5/2 intermittent fasting worked well to kick this off, but daily life is a lot more active at present so not sure I could cope with that, I've tried Keto a couple of times but it didn't suit me, when the gyms re-open I'm thinking of trying some HIT sessions, open to suggestions.

[Wowbagger]

Need a new plan, lost 30kg in the last seven months, now struggling to lose the last few, ideally another 7.  I'm convinced that routine is the enemy of weight loss, I've tried a few diets and fitness programs and every one of them has worked for a while, then the effect has diminished as my body adapts.  Like others, the calorie counting says I should be losing half a kg a week, and I'm not
What next?  5/2 intermittent fasting worked well to kick this off, but daily life is a lot more active at present so not sure I could cope with that, I've tried Keto a couple of times but it didn't suit me, when the gyms re-open I'm thinking of trying some HIT sessions, open to suggestions.

I've lost about half what you have in a similar time frame. I think I'm still losing weight, but it's now very slow. I've been following the Noom programme. I think the basis for it is good, but on the tech side, I found the app to be quite annoying (too small, only available on mobile devices, prone to crash), and the whole thing is is far too American (WTF are "biscuits with gravy"?). The programme finishes for me on 18th April and I've had an email saying that I won't automatically renew.

One of the points made is that as you lose weight, your metabolism changes quite drastically. Our bodies, according to their blurb, go into some kind of defensive mode after we've lost weight, and they cited the example of a pair of identical twins, one of whom had become overweight and the other hadn't. Even when they got back to the same weight, the one whose weight was constant was able to consume a lot more calories for a given exercise regime than his brother, but not put on weight. From memory, and this was a few months ago that I read this, the one who had lost a lot of weight was having to keep his daily intake down to about 1800 calories daily whereas the brother was consuming about 2300.

My plan is to continue to monitor what I eat and not put the weight back on. If I continue to lose weight slowly, then that's fine by me. If it starts to go back on, I will probably sign up for another programme, if not Noom, then the NHS version.

[woollypigs]

I would highly recommend not to look up what biscuits with gravy if you are planning to keep the weight down I sadly didn't get to taste it, but looking at the queue for it in Portland and the look on my friends face when he clocked that we didn't have time to wait for before our flight, I would have loved some.