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Several questions about tracking & measuring

Old 02-23-2012, 07:59 PM
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Default Several questions about tracking & measuring

Hi all! I have been using Fitday since early Jan. and exercising 5 days a week. In the last 8 weeks I have lost 21 lbs. It has been great to see my pants getting loose on me and I feel much better.

I have several questions that I am hoping I can find answers for here. I didn't see any other boards that look like they were the appropriate categories for my questions.

1- How do I calculate total inches lost? (I know how to do the actual measuring, but not how to figure the total). Is this just the number of inches on your waist or is it adding up the inches lost from specific areas of the body?

2- I see that some people enter sleep on their activities. I guess for tracking purposes this lowers the number of actual calories you expend during those hours? I have not been logging sleep and my weight loss seems pretty accurate (2-3 lbs per week) for my what I enter on my nutrition and activity levels. Is there a point that may change? Why do some people need to log sleep to be accurate and others don't seem to need to log it?

3- I have noticed that as I enter my new weight each week that my calories burned for lifestyle becomes lower. What happens if you are doing strength training and building/maintaining muscle? Is the lower calorie expenditure for lifestyle actually accurate since you burn more calories with muscle than fat? I know they say you don't really build much muscle when you are loosing weight, but I know have built some, because I can feel bicep muscles that never used to be noticeable.

Thanks for your help!
Terri

Starting weight (12/25/11): 217
Current weight (2/23/12): 196
Goal weight: 140
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Old 02-23-2012, 11:07 PM
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Welcome aboard and great job on losing the 21lbs!!!

On how to figure the "Total inches lost" you just add up all the inches that you've lost, or you can take the total inches you started with and subtract the inches you have left. Truthfully it's not a very important number.

I do log my sleep, because I'm short and I'm in my 40's, the fitday estimate for my daily calories tends to be high, and logging sleep helps me to get a more accurate estimate. We're all a little different, so if you don't need to figure that in, don't.

The reason your lifestyle calories go down is that the lighter you are the fewer calories you burn. It just takes more energy to get a 200lb woman out of bed than a 100lb woman, no surprise there right? It doesn't seem the least bit fair to me that the less you weigh the less you burn, but there you go. It's even less fair that men burn more calories in a given day than women. This makes me especially bitter when I'm running around cleaning house and my husband is sitting on the couch watching football.

I know "they" say that you can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but I have news, "they" are wrong. I'm proof positive that it's possible to gain muscle while dieting, but then again I workout quite a bit, try to eat a fair bit of lean protein right after my workouts and I'm a woman. The people that go on and on about it not being possible to gain muscle and lose weight simultaneously, are typically men that want to lose their beer gut and "bulk" all on the same day, which at least on paper can be made to seem impossible. I suppose it could be true that the body can't manage both losing and building muscle in the same instant, but I do think that it could flip flop back and forth between the two on any given day. Have you ever noticed that right after you eat you feel sort of sleepy and sometimes cold? Well that's because when your body is digesting food it gives less energy to keeping you awake and warm, but it's still doing all three anyway. I suspect that losing and bulking are like that too. I've quite often felt achy from a hard workout and hollow like I'm starving to death on the same day, and if I have to suffer both feelings, it's only fair I get all the benefits of each right? LOL, I know I know it doesn't quite work like that.

Last edited by almeeker; 02-23-2012 at 11:14 PM.
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Old 02-24-2012, 06:24 PM
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Thanks for your input. The main reason I wanted to know about how to measure inches is because muscle weighs more than fat and I know I am gaining muscle, so about once a month I measure myself. That way if the scale isn't showing a loss I can check and see if I have lost inches.
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