Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, you can't have any - you're a Slenderista! Join us to lose 7lbs of February flab

[BitOutOfPractice]

Welcome to the new Valentine's edition of the best thread on MN™ where we encourage and support each other to lose 7lbs in a month (though that happens so rarely maybe we need to change our USP!)

Link to the January thread here

Everyone welcome, new and old

Thanks for the race tip fezzles I just picked that one because we will be in london that weekend and the route seems cool

Just back from a few days away which involved big dinners, breakfasts and booze. I did manage to walk in the mornings and afternoons so steps were high, I just fear not high enough

feel fat right now and not looking forward to cardio tennis tonight...

Hello all.

I don't really understand this average thing...can someone explain?

TV power through the dread and go to tennis. It won't be as bad as you imagine

My 1lb gain yesterday was a blip as I suspected. I ducked under 11 stone for the first time in months this morning. I am powering on now. So glad my hard work finally paid off

Woah Hoop you must be very small, that's a really low weight!

Feezles I was going to say in my post, I don't like fennel either, it's the only thing I really dislike - anything aniseedy just turns my stomach. I can't imagine how limited you must have been not eating cheese and tomatoes though, I can see why you wanted to broaden your horizons!

I started watching the averages as it’s recommended by the group I follow (I’m making it sound like a cult!)
Using the Fitbit dashboard or something like happy scales you’ll enter your daily weight, each day it totals it and divides by the number of days. So for example I’ve weighed in 4 days and my average is 160.3lbs, but my weight today is 161.2 - by Sunday I’ll have my weekly average. So last Sunday I was showing 1lb down from the previous week but if I’d taken Fridays weight I would have thought I was half a pound up, but on Saturday I was down 1.2
I know the ethos of the thread is 7lb a month but what happens if last weigh in shows a 2lb gain which might be fluid retention and it’s so disheartening.
I’ve probably confused you even more!

Yep Quim I've not reached the dizzying heights of 5ft yet......so I can't hide any weight gain really, at 9 and a half stone it was really noticeable.

IMade sense to me Not and makes sense in general. Last night I was reading the mindful eating thread. That made sense too. Except I never seem to feel full. I can eat my own body weight a couple if times over without feeling ill. I'd make a great woman Vs food contender.

NO no that makes sense!

I didn't realise you could enter weights in FitBit. It's been getting weights from MFP anyway, though I only tend to add that if it's a big jump up or a drop. I'll start entering it daily now!

Brilliant boop, I think that’s 3 of us now - btw, you can go back in the Fitbit and do each day so if you had a spare few minutes and you want to see how it worked over February so far it’s possible. Honestly maybe February isn’t as bad as all the flux is leading us to believe?
You joining in hoola 😉

Has anyone got the salter body fat scales that you can buy in aldi? I was wondering if it was any good. Toying with body fat scales but they seem expensive. Thanks.

We have whizzy techno scales that connect to our WiFi and then to MFP and FitBit - DH does love a gadget! I don't even have to enter my weight, I just stand on the scales and it grasses me up records my weight automatically.

When we first got them set up, it used to send me 'motivating' text messages about my weight changing. Imagine being told off by your scales! I turned off pretty damn quickly!

I'm flat too - but that's because I don't always record gains

I'm three stone lighter than when I got my fitbit though!

I agree that weekly averages is the way forward. I find it easy to get wrapped up in daily weighing and be annoyed by every half lb increase, but as long as the overall trend is downwards it shouldn't matter if there is flux or that's what I'm telling myself

KOKO glad you are feeling a bit better, good and nourishing food sounds like a brilliant idea!

I'm having a fast day today. Had a green salad and some carrot and celery sticks for lunch, and I'm having veggie burgers and more salad for dinner. Slightly concerned that veggie burgers count as "highly processed food" but I'm pushing past that fear for now.

I've been reading about "highly processed foods" today too. Scary stuff. And almost impossible to avoid if you think that mass produced bread is in that category

Do you all guess at weights, measures etc or check? Today I had porridge with semi skimmed milk and golden syrup for breakfast. Homemade veg soup for lunch snacks of a tiny cheesy biscuit I made with dc and half a slice of dcs left over buttered toast. Tonight I'll have 2 sausages from the butcher, made into toad in the hole, so batter with heaps of carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. Bisto gravy.

I've logged it all in my Fitbit using approximate quantities and similar items from the list and it's come in at 1184 calories for the day. But that seems very low to me as its definitely enough food for the day. Do you to UK no I'm estimating low?

I weigh and measure everything!

Yep weigh and measure everything. It does sound low, porridge is 147 cals for 40gr, that’s not a huge amount, milk & syrup could be another 100. Toad in the whole, so batter made with flour/milk/egg? Flour alone is 360 cals per 100gr, 70 per egg, milk 40-64 per 100ml depending on fat level. Sausages usually pretty calorific. Your total does sound low but unless you measure you won’t know for sure. If you’re losing then I guess it doesn’t matter, if you aren’t you need to tighten up and weigh/measure

Boop was it you who weighed cooked pasta? I should do that, pasta is my chocolate!

Yep, I thought it sounded low. I'm loosing at the moment, just by thinking about it and not snacking all day. But I might try to get into the habit of weighing for when I stop loosing.

Maybe boop does too hoola but that was me yesterday. You don’t have a huge amount to lose do you? It’s even more important to be clear on what you’re eating, don’t get an idea in your head you can’t lose weight when you eat v low cals like 1000-1200 when you very likely aren’t eating that little. Best to lose weight on a decent amount of cals, much less likely to binge.

A question for the mfp experts.

Is there any way of seeing a graph of how many cals I've logged over a few months?

Only week by week as far as I can see (unless it can be exported but that might require pay version)
Press nutrition at the bottoms of screen, change to calorie, change to week view then arrow left to go back. You’ll see your weekly average calories. And now I’ve seen this I know why I’m basically maintaining

Just had a Cauli Burger from Sainsbury's for my tea and it was really lovely. Only 102 cals even when fried in oil. Had it with a massive bowl of steamed veggies and a steamed chicken breast and I am now so full I cannot move. Whole dinner was only 360 calories!

Ooooo didn't know that about the Fitbit app - MFP doesn't let you change it more than weekly I don't think. I love seeing my weekly averages, I used to record it myself and work it out in spreadsheet geek so this will be a good addition. Or it will be once I get rid of my period and start focusing again. sometime at the end of April maybe?

Glad you are finding the website uself keepon, I really did too.

I am having Pizza chicken for tea. (No actual pizzas were harmed in the making of this dinner - chicken in a pizza-ish sauce using sundried tomatoes and cheese.)