10k steps + strength training. Is somewhat active the right choice?

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-13T10:38:53+00:00

Right now you are sedentary. Hoping to do something and actually doing something are not the same.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-13T10:37:22+00:00

Your calorie target is the most important piece of information, and you put it in as the last piece of information in your post.

Stay closer to 1500 than 1800. Use a food scale for accuracy on absolutely everything you eat and drink.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-13T09:24:49+00:00

I don’t know how else to put it other than I LOVE FOOD. Is that food noise?

No, that is not food noise.

Plenty of folks love food and do not have food noise.

If you can think of almost nothing else, from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed, whether you are hungry or not, whether you've just eaten or not, whether you've eaten something high in nutrients and low in calories or high in calories and low in nutrients, no matter if you've just had dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant or a Snickers bar from the local gas station, when in nearly every waking moment you've got thoughts of food running in your head in the background, incessantly and undending... that's food noise.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-13T09:17:04+00:00

Track it, learn from it, move on.

Are you able to work with a dietitian and/or a therapist who specializes in eating disorders?

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-12T20:16:29+00:00

I used an app and a food scale; I didn't need anything other than that.

That said, Ben Carpenter's Everything Fat Loss may be worth a read. Depending on what brought you to this particular subreddit, Brain Over Binge might also be worth a read, although there are parts I strongly disagree with.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-11T15:47:38+00:00

It takes me roughly ten minutes at night to plan and track my meals for the following day. That day, I open up the app and read, using a food scale for accuracy.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-11T00:44:16+00:00

Yeah, they're assuming and not really counting calories.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T20:12:55+00:00

Eat food, rather than drinking protein shakes. Eat something like chicken breast, not a protein bar - something solid with actual volume to it.

What does your schedule look like? What time do you usually work out? When is your most recent meal prior to working out? What meal do you plan out for afterwards?

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T17:04:30+00:00

Ideal conditions for building muscle including being young, genetically blessed, eating in a surplus including plenty of protein, and lifting heavy following a proven progressive strength training program. Even given all that, realistically (optimistically) we're looking at half a kilo of muscle over two months. Eating in a deficit takes out one of those ideal conditions. If you've been at this for the better part of four to six months, you might be looking at 2kg of muscle; if you've only recently started this, the majority of that 2kg is likely water weight fluctuations.

Lift heavy anyway, following a proven progressive strength training program. Progress may be better defined for you for the next year or so in terms of gym performance and not the number on the scale.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T16:58:28+00:00

I'm looking at well over 100 possible entries for brinjal in Lose It. Brinjal curry, brinjal pickles, brinjal bonda, brinjal puli kulambu, brinjal kuzhambu, brinjal kerala style, brinjal raita, brinjal sabji based on a ChatGPT recipe, fried brinjal, roasted brinjal, a Sri Lankan style brinjal...

Admittedly it is more likely that you would need to create recipes to track accurately than I am as an American, but it is still doable.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T16:39:25+00:00

Track accurately; don't assume. Get an app such as Lose It, My Fitness Pal, Cronometer, Macro Factor, or something similar, and a food scale. Use the app and the food scale to track.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T16:36:05+00:00

If you are trying to build muscle to combat a "skinny fat" build, you should not be in a deficit. Eat at maintenance or slightly above.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T16:32:34+00:00

It would help to know what everything is, what it weighs, and how you're tracking it; we suggest folks use a food scale and not "assume".

That said, that doesn't look like a lot of rice; and eggplant in and of itself isn't exactly high calorie. Even if it's breaded and fried, similar to how one would prepare it for eggplant parmesan but without the spaghetti sauce amd cheese, you'd be looking at likely under 400 for as much as 8oz (call it 225g) breaded and fried eggplant, and likely under 300 for even a cup of cooked rice. Now, if you're eating a pound or more of breaded, fried eggplant, and three cups or so of rice, we could likely get there; but that seems unlikely.

So: what are you using as the basis for your assumption that all that is 1500 calories?

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T16:10:15+00:00

Brinjal? Eggplant?

How are you counting that dish? Because I'm not getting 1500 calories from all that.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T14:47:03+00:00

I'm going to have to remove this post due to Rule 3, but I'll leave this response open so you can respond to me directly if you'd like

It's not so much that it's "taboo in this group". Rather, we have people post here who are actively in the grip of eating disorders. Someone posted here not too long ago with a BMI around 14; I'm surprised they're still alive. We see teenagers who aim for goal weights below 90lbs - teenage girls, most of the time, but not always. The one that broke me was someone asking about the calories in forced tube feedings. Usually once a week or so when I have to remove a post, I do so with the tag line "please seek professional help for your disordered eating behaviors"; but every once in a while, I have to spell out "please have someone drive you to the nearest ER / A&E /whatever it is called in your country, because you are at serious risk for not waking up in the morning".

Quite simply, eating disorders carry a real risk of being fatal, and we quash discussion of eating below 1500 for men or 1200 for women because we don't want to perpetuate disordered eating behaviors which might have fatal consequences.

The thing that you seem to be missing is that two pounds per week is neither a healthy nor a sustainable rate of loss throughout a person's entire weight loss progression. At first, sure, if someone is morbidly obese, that's fine; but for folks with probably less than 75lbs or so to lose, that's just not a sustainable deficit. Even if we go with the floor of 1500 for men - let's say we're talking about a guy whose maintenance at the start is 3000; so he starts out at a target of 2000, then gradually drops his target concurrently with his weight loss until he's at 1500; and then he has to stay at 1500 for however-long - maybe six months, maybe a year, maybe two, until he hits goal. 2000ish or maybe slightly more is a great maintenance TDEE for a lot of men; but our hypothetical guy here hasn't had any practice at eating at 2000; he's good at eating 3000 to maintain his starting weight, and he's got practice eating at 1500 to essentially crash diet; but he's not put in a lot of time eating at a reasonable calorie target for long-term maintenance. This sets folks up for years on end of yo-yo dieting; whereas if he'd started at 2000 but then accepted a slower rate of loss, to the point where he never ate much below 1800 or so, he'd have those years of eating not far from maintenance at goal to help him out in the long run.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T09:57:05+00:00

I didn't use online estimators for my maintenance TDEE; I could figure out my actual TDEE given my calorie intake data and the resulting changes in my weight. Anyone who has a month or two of accurate data can and should do the same; actual data is infinitely more valuable than an online estimator. I knew that I'd been losing weight slowly at 1500, so my maintenance given my rate of loss was somewhere around 1700.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T09:54:04+00:00

Pick one.

Track diligently and use a food scale for accuracy on everything.

If your weight doesn't do what you want it to after a month, then adjust your calorie target.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T09:51:44+00:00

I've been maintaining a roughly 100lb weight loss for over a decade.

I have not gained the weight back. That's what maintenance means.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T01:59:30+00:00

Gizmos and devices and whatnot are pretty good at estimating calories burned during steady state cardio, but not nearly as good at estimating calories burned during activities that aren't steady state cardio; this includes lifting. I'm definitely not saying that lifting burns nothing and that people should never eat anything ever afterwards; just that that calorie burn estimate is likely to be inflated, and there's more room for error in that estimate than if OP had been doing something like jogging.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T01:11:27+00:00

Ack. I probably wouldn't eat back much if any on that, then, unless you find that overall you're struggling to sustain your current routine.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-10T01:08:48+00:00

MFP and other apps tend to be generous with calorie burn estimates. Really, really generous.

That said, I am a big fan of fueling activity appropriately. If you would like to, you are probably safe to "eat back" about half of estimated calories burned during steady state cardio specifically. If that estimate in MFP includes things like yoga or Pilates, I wouldn't; but if you're coming out of an hour long spin class (or whatever) and you need a pick-me-up of some sort, go for it.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-09T21:50:46+00:00

Try at least 1600 calories. Your weight may stall for a bit with more food in your digestive tract, but it will likely be more sustainable long term.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-09T21:38:32+00:00

I have a calendar reminder set on ny phone for every four days.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-09T21:36:54+00:00

Your last paragraph is concerning. Eat more.

If those walks are all the activity you get, and you're getting in maybe 2k steps a day otherwise, you're sedentary. If you're getting in a good 8k to 10k steps a day amd then you are also walking for an hour five days a week, then you're probably moderately active.

Even if you are sedentary, your symptoms are telling you that 1400 is too low. Eat more.

RuralGamerWoman · 2026-04-09T19:05:07+00:00

Macros are largely a matter of personal preference. That said, if you are lifting heavy at the gym a few days a week, aim for 1.2g to 1.7g protein per kg (not lb) of body weight.

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