Exercise is good for us, but from what I understood the biggest key to losing weight is making lifelong changes to your eating habits. Is that not true?
I'd say diet is king. But research supports the idea that in order for weight loss to be maintained, exercise is extremely important. There are many reasons for this, but one of the largest is the fact that post-weight loss it appears that there's a substantial drop in calories expended via activity.
Many folks scratch their heads at that comment because, "Hey, I increased my activity via planned exercise which I coupled with my diet."
But that's missing a huge fraction of what comprises energy expended via activity. We have a genetic hardwire that dials down the amount of activity we expend, almost unconsciously, when we're exposed to extended caloric deficits.
This can be viewed as part of the "starvation mode" that everyone likes to talk about and exercise is the key player in what it takes to offset this adaptation to dieting.
So I started to make time to exercise (I was down to 165 by this time). But this has made it a LOT harder to figure out where that line is between losing and maintaining, or gaining. I weighed less now, so maintenance levels were now lower than what they were 20 lbs ago. But that's if I were still sedentary. But I'm not. I've worked myself up to 30 minutes, 5 days a week now with a weekly pattern of cardio-weights-cardio-rest-cardio-weights-rest (I couldn't just jump right into this, but have had to work up to it). So my reasoning was that at some point my body is going to need either the same calories as it did when I was heavier, or slightly more to keep losing at the same rate. But the more I was able to add in more exercise to my routine, the slower my rate of loss became. I hadn't really made any changes to my eating.
Hmm, I'm not sure I'm following your line of reasoning. Can you explain what you mean by "at some point my body is going to need either the same calories as it did when I was heavier, or slightly more to keep losing the same rate" ?
However, now I think it's time that I do that because the scale doesn't move much any more (even though the inches are still slowly decreasing). Maybe it's even time to re-evaluate my goals? I don't know if continuing to lose 2 lbs a week is realistic (or even healthy) at lower weight levels. As you weigh less, is it healthier to slow the rate of loss down?
See above.
And as you near your weight goals, the odd thing is it becomes less and less useful to use weight as your gauge or metric for measuring progress. For instance, you've added exercise, which can do all sorts of whacky things like add muscle, increase water storage, etc. So even though fat loss can still be happening, albeit at a reduced level given your now smaller size and adaptations associated with dieting, these losses can be completely masked by other markers that comprise weight that are rising.
Which is why it becomes increasingly important to use things like monthly pictures, measurements, etc. They tell a truer tale than weight at this stage in the game.
I tried playing with the numbers on my spreadsheet to recalculate BMR (which is now down to 1450). I think that activity levels are pretty relative based on each individual. One person may think that they are getting moderate exercise when they work out 2 or 3 hours every day, while the next person considers that to be working out very hard. I haven't found black and white information yet on which multiplier you should use to figure out your new maintenance level when you are becoming more active. Any knowledge/advice anyone has on that would be greatly appreciated.
I wouldn't worry about figuring out what multipliers to use. As noted above, what you pick as your intake matters little. It's what you do in response to what happens in terms of weight, body comp, feel, etc after you start using the calorie intake you initially picked.
It's an ongoing process... not a singular act.
Check out this article I wrote a bit ago.
I am sorry for being such a bitch in my last post, but I felt like I had done a lot of research and was trying to conciously make healthy choices for myself based on facts, not opinions. I've had a lot of people tell me what they think I should or should not do over the last few months to lose weight, but it's all been general opinion and not based on any medical knowledge or scientific proof on their part. And most did not know (or ask) a single thing about me (age, height, weight, sex) to base those opinions on. I guess it's made me a little defensive (ok, maybe a lot).
Haha, totally understand. No need for apologies, but since you threw one out there, it's certainly accepted. And I'm sorry as I know I can be a bit too straight forward or blunt at times.
I have a habit of jackhammering my ideas into people's heads rather than finessing them in there.
Now based on your experience/knowledge do you think I'm way off base in what I've been doing/plan to do? Am I working from bad or incorrect information here or have I misunderstood some key part of this equation?
Your plateau could be a few things:
1. You have been eating slightly too little and your body is fighting back by lowering the energy out side of the equation below what would be predicted using any equation for your new, lower weight. If this is the case, you'd have to either cut calories lower to "outpace" the adaptation to lowered calories or give your body a rest, as noted previously, to allow some things to reset.
The problem with the former approach is you can only cut calories so much before you start running into problems.
The problem with the latter approach is that if this isn't the case, you're adding calories for no reason and can experience temporary weight gain. But more folks should take a longer terms perspective and not worry about short term fluctuations.
2. You're adding muscle since you were previously sedentary. Sedentary folks can easily add a bit of muscle in the face of a calorie deficit, which, as noted previously, can render fat loss undetectable when using the scale. My advice in this case would be to stay the course and expand your stable of metrics you use to track how you're doing.
3. You could be underestimating the calories you're actually consuming, thus putting you nearer to maintenance than you believe. Many folks immediately shake their heads no at this possibility as they believe they are perfect. With tools such as food scales, fitday, and the like... sure, life of counting calories has become much simpler. But that doesn't negate the fact that even with these tools, humans straight SUCK at accurately recording energy intake.
There's a mound of research that supports this notion too. Even some that shows that registered dietitians inaccurately record their energy intake by a substantial margin.
4. The foods that comprise your calories might be holding you back. I think you hinted to what you were consuming, but I deleted some of your verbiage and am too lazy to open another window to see. But suffice it to say that obviously the nutrients you use to obtain your calories are vital to success. In very generic terms, I personally like to see:
a) protein at 1 gram per pound of goal body weight, or thereabouts.
b) fats at 25-30% of total calories, coming primarily from the good stuff.
c) 4-7 servings of fibrous veggies and 2-4 servings of fruits.
d) whatever is left in terms of your caloric allotment after a through c are taken care of can be filled with whatever you like and can control.
I could probably rattle off a few more numbers in terms of what the possibilities are, but I'm sure you can tell that there is nothing concrete here. It could be anything. All you can do is make an educated guess, try it, see what happens, and respond accordingly.
And the biggest question - am I doing permanent damage to my body?
No.
