MFP and diet tracking Apps

[tedwelser]

I am in the process of a slow weight loss for fall season, with an eye towards a permanent move from 15% bodyfat to 10% or so.   I am 6 feet tall and was weighing 167-8 first thing in the morning, and after 3 weeks of focused effort I am weighing 162-3.   I am trying to lose slowly in order to push more of the loss towards fat, and less from muscle.  There is a research paper that shows that fast rates of loss are both fat and muscle, more so than slower rates.  Also, the lower the percent fat the harder it is to lose the fat.  

So, I have been using the "My fitness pal" app to track my diet and exercise.  I have found it to be very helpful, and I wonder if other folks have tried it out.   I also wonder if others are working on a longer term diet plan, rather than the speed loss version.  On reason for my interest in the longer term, slower loss plan is that I am less interested in maximizing my short term performance level and more interested in sustaining a lower, healthier and more climbing conducive weight.   

Here is a screen shot from my phone and the weight tracking results from mfp.  The upticks in my record are due to the weekly soccer games which, I assume, temporarily boost my leg muscle glycogen storage.

[joev9]

I have been using My Fitness Pal and love it. I use it a lot before I eat to figure out how much I can eat and stay under my goal for the day.

[joshvillen]

I wish my weight loss was more gradual but my body doesn't really cooperate with me. I am way better at losing weight than gaining muscle so I just ingest as much muscle building supplements I can and hope for the best during my cut. First day on a diet I lost 4 lbs over night, its scary to think of how much of that was muscle (muscle I spent a lot of time building).

I dont use apps because my diet is extremely easy to track, 960 out of 1500 is protein shakes which leaves the remaining calories easy to calculate 

[jessebruni]

I used myfitnesspal during my last cut. I thought it was marvelous. I was starting a long term cut for the same reasons as you, expected to get down to goal weight in about 3 months, one month in I got chickenpox and a week later I was at goal weight. I expected it to go back up but it never did, anyway that means no more dieting for me so...yay!

[Lundy]

Hi Ted,
I don't use an app like this, though it sounds like everyone loves it. Rather, I just record in my phone's notepad what I eat during the day and the calories. If I don't actually know the calories at the time, I just go look them up later, so this sounds like a great improvement over that, especially the way JoeV9 was using it to proactively manage how much he could eat.

I do have one question for folks, though. Why the worry about losing muscle mass during the weight cut? I'd be thrilled to drop 15 pounds of muscle, as long as it didn't come out of my forearms. My general take is that I don't really care how the weight comes off, frankly, as long as it doesn't impact my finger strength. Actually, now that I write that, I probably shouldn't even mind if it effects my finger strength, so long as the tradeoff is still worth it (i.e. the muscle I lose weighs more than the equivalent loss in strength.)

This ties to an earlier question I had about supplemental exercises. Folks seem to be using the same hypertrophy, power, power endurance protocols as they are for their fingers, but why would you want hypertrophy in any muscles other than your forearms to begin with? And tying it back to this thread, why wouldn't you want to lose that muscle as part of your weight cut?

Just something I think about a lot in the context of fast v. slow cuts. Probably just an excuse I make for myself since I HATE cutting, so I tend to do the crash course version instead of the long, slow. I just don't think I have the patience/self-control/lifestyle for that.

[joshvillen]

Upper body strength/power is super important to me since the boulders and routes I climb are really thugy. Being able to pull 2x my body weight is a necessity to send a lot of my double digit projects. I've lost too much muscle mass before...and it wasnt fun! Felt like going back to square 1, I was lighter and could hold on to anything but I couldnt move between them

[willblack]

Just for the sake of comparison, how many calories/day do you guys usually shoot for when using MFP? I'm 6'5" and 170# heavy/155# light and have always done 1800cal/day which leads to super fast weight loss but also occasional burnout, so I'm considering allowing myself a few more bites of food per day next time around

[Will S]

Sept 21, 2015 7:59:42 GMT -7 joshvillen said:

 First day on a diet I lost 4 lbs over night, its scary to think of how much of that was muscle (muscle I spent a lot of time building).

I'd say little to none of it was muscle, particularly if you are putting down something like 1g/lb bodyweight in protein. Probably just a combo of eating less, pooping out what was in the guts and some dehydration. You cannot physically lose 4lb of muscle and fat over a single day without cutting off some flesh or limbs ala Dexter.

You can, however, lose several pounds in water weight and poop. When I wrestled in HS and college I saw some pretty extreme cases of people cutting to make weight. Laxatives, diuretics and sweating. Hit the scale, then binge.

I used to use this app called Noom a couple years ago, but it started crashing. Myfitness pal has access to your contacts, camera, location, and more info (at least in android it does). I don't load any apps that are data mining privacy invaders, so MyFitness Pal can, as the Brits say "do one". Simple enough just to write the stuff down on a scrap of paper.

[Chris W]

Sept 21, 2015 20:42:03 GMT -7 Will S said:

Sept 21, 2015 7:59:42 GMT -7 joshvillen said:

I'd say little to none of it was muscle, particularly if you are putting down something like 1g/lb bodyweight in protein. Probably just a combo of eating less, pooping out what was in the guts and some dehydration. You cannot physically lose 4lb of muscle and fat over a single day without cutting off some flesh or limbs ala Dexter.

Excellent point. As long as you consume an appropriate amount of protein (no need to over-do-it on supplements) you shouldn't have to worry about losing muscle mass. Positive nitrogen balance + [- caloric intake] = loss of body fat (overly simplified).

I don't like counting calories, more out of principle than practice. I also don't feel able to cut weight fast. I need to eat or will start to feel physically ill. My approach has been to trade high calorie foods for low calorie foods and cut down on portion sizes. This can be extremely difficult at times, but I try to 'keep my eyes on the prize'. Kids eating pancakes? I'll pass and have a small bowl of oatmeal with stevia, cinnamon, and eggs. Ordering Chinese food at work? I'll pas on the sesame chicken and get hunan beef (crap load of veggies and meat) and skip the rice.

[Axel]

Hello, I do use MyFitnessPal also to track my weight (for more than 1 year now).

And I use the calories counting app only during "performance phase"

You guys are very light compared to me I think: 6ft for a weight between 178-172 lbs but I still climb well at a good 5.13+ level so I can't understand how come I can't go below 170 lbs... so right now I am in the process of getting my body fat measured because I must have heavy bones because I can't picture why with a body pretty lean I am still at 175 lbs more or less...

Right now, I have been eating 1500 calories per day (net result)for the last 3 weeks and I went from 178 lbs to 172-173 lbs.

My QUESTION:

How do you count your calories burnt while climbing?
MFP is saying that climbing for 60 min burns 865 calories...

In all my readings I found that climbing calories burning rate is almost never mentioned.

What does it mean 60 min of climbing? Do they count actual climbing or the hour spent doing bouldering including rest between each try???

How do you count your calories burnt while climbing at the gym basically...?
thank

[daustin]

Sept 23, 2015 11:52:51 GMT -7 Axel said:

My QUESTION:

How do you count your calories burnt while climbing?
MFP is saying that climbing for 60 min burns 865 calories...

In all my readings I found that climbing calories burning rate is almost never mentioned.

What does it mean 60 min of climbing? Do they count actual climbing or the hour spent doing bouldering including rest between each try???

How do you count your calories burnt while climbing at the gym basically...?
thank

This is a great question, one that I've also wondered. My stopgap solution has been to just be conservative with my entries for calories burned while climbing -- I pretty much always enter 30 mins of climbing, which is ~430 calories. For me, this "works" insofar as I don't think I'm overestimating the # of calories I've burned and therefore I don't think I'm overeating, which is good because I'm actively trying to lose weight right now. That said, I really have no idea how accurate this assumption is and would be interested to learn if there's a better way to estimate calorie use during climbing.

[Axel]

Daustin,
I understand your "technic" but on the long run, I would need to know better because, in theory, based on my body type, my calories intake should be more around 2300 calories, to keep my healthy weight, which means I have a 800 calories deficit everyday. I think it is already a lot.

I think jessebruni is around 6ft also but "much much" less heavy than me and this is the part that makes me hesitating. What if my body composition would prevent me from losing much more weight?
I have read about these "tanita" body composition scales but they are expensive...

[tedwelser]

Hey Lundy- Those are good questions, and I suppose that from the perspective of a short term performance max I think your emphasis on "all weight loss is fine" makes sense. However my goals are more longer term, and I care more about elevating my general climbing capacity for the coming 15 years. So, the first thing I want to do is get to sustainable "higher orbit" in terms of general strength and fitness. I like to climb steeper routes so I have found a stronger core and stronger pulling muscles to be helpful, even if they might make me a bit heavier. Hopefully I also become sturdier and more injury resistant.

So along those lines I have been doing a wider range of bodyweight exercises (especially using bars and rings for push ups, dips, etc) as well as some light running and cycling. I plan to cut the leg cardio out once sending season starts in October, hopefully that will buy me some short term glycogen weight loss for this season.

Over the coming 7 months if I were to lose 4.5% bodyfat and gain half those 7 pounds back as core and pulling muscles I would be psyched. Then my main goal would be to find a maintenance diet that is enjoyable without creeping the percent fat back up. Finally, a slow fat loss plan is likely to be pretty similar to what my maintenance diet is like, though hopefully with slightly more interesting options.

[slimshaky]

i would be pretty surprised if a person burned more than 400 calories in a half hour of climbing. my guess is that any sort of online reference would confuse climbing with mountain climbing (ie steep hiking). this seems like it would be more in line with the 400 calories (ie moderate stair climber for 30 minutes).

another problem is trying to figure out how much time you actually spend climbing. if you are ARC'ing, this is pretty straight forward. however, if you are climbing at the gym for 2 hours with a partner... that knocks it down to an hour, minus walking around trying to find a route, messing with shoes, chatting, etc. i think you would be surprised at how little time is actually spent climbing.

[daustin]

I figure that I am actively "climbing" for (at least) 30 mins in a typical 2 hr climbing session. Often will include 20 mins of ARCing. Have ~10 mins total TUT for my HB workouts. If I'm training power or PE, I'll probably be climbing for at least 10 mins. To slim's point, it's not precise, but for me personally I think it's a pragmatic assumption that I'll be on the wall for ~30 mins per workout.

In terms of whether 30 mins of "climbing" equates to ~400 calories burned, I really have no idea! I doesn't "feel" like that number is too high relative to the amount of effort/energy I feel like I expend, but that's obviously totally subjective and unreliable

…I just did a little searching and found this pub: bjsm.bmj.com/content/31/3/224.full.pdf+html?sid=f29af6d8-08c1-4dee-a58f-9989c165ccf3

I'm not going to dig into in detail right now but the preliminary conclusion seems to be that energy expenditure for climbing appears comparable to that of jogging at a moderate pace. I'm sure there are all sorts of limitations and issues with the study, but for the sake of being pragmatic, this makes me more comfortable to assume that I'm probably burning ~400 calories in 30 mins of climbing. Would love to hear others' thoughts! (does Aerilli post here???)