What do I base my net off?

kpkitten

Hi

I've been using Fitbit since Christmas, and I've got it set to a 1.5lb weekly loss target - however, I'm changing this to 1lb (or 500 calorie deficit) as I think it is too large at the moment.
My BMR is 1878, so I should never eat less than this - not a problem.
But I shouldn't net less than this either. Now here's the problem. By using Fitbit, my understanding is that every calorie over my BMR that I burn comes across to MFP as "exercise". Which means that if I tried to net 1878 using my current setup, I'd end up eating at maintenance, rather than a comfortable amount below this.

My activity level is hard to estimate as I very recently changed job, and am now very active 4 days a week, and lightly active on the others. By this, I mean that Fitbit calculates my average daily calorie burn as a little over 3,000 calories, with the highest in the last 2 weeks being 3,600ish and the lowest 2,550. But if I take my average of 3000, a 15% cut puts me on 2550, which is 500 calories less than my average burn.

So should I just change my Fitbit settings to 1lb a week loss (500 calorie deficit), ensure that I eat at least 1878 calories a day, and rely on whatever Fitbit calculates with these settings as being close enough to what I should be eating to be OK?
And if I've misunderstood how MFP and Fitbit will communicate with each other, and there is a way I can "net" without just maintaining, can someone explain that to me please?

heybales

It's really tough to do it that way - because the calorie adjustment is NOT just exercise - it's merely the difference between Fitbit's daily burn, and MFP's estimate of your non-exercise daily burn.

So you can't use that figure to attempt to calculate net calories.

1 lb weekly loss is correct then to hit that 15% deficit. For now.

And it sounds like your increased daily burn is from work mainly, not workouts.
So the whole NET theory doesn't apply anyway.

Indeed, just reach your daily goal, no matter what it may be, using the 1lb weekly loss.

To plan better, you should probably increase the MFP activity level so your adjustments aren't so big and varied.

Now, to your point of other way of doing it.
If the slightly adjusting daily goal has you missing it, because harder to plan, then you could unsync accounts, and just make a manual eating goal based on the average TDEE Fitbit shows you getting.
Probably every 2 weeks of data is often enough.

And you must log non-step based exercise on Fitbit then for best estimate of TDEE, unless you have a Charge HR or Surge with HRM calorie burn for exercise.
Otherwise, swimming, biking, rowing, lifting, elliptical - all are under-estimated.

Actually, even with the HRM versions, you should manually log lifting, because it'll give you inflated calorie burn actually.

kpkitten

heybales wrote: »

It's really tough to do it that way - because the calorie adjustment is NOT just exercise - it's merely the difference between Fitbit's daily burn, and MFP's estimate of your non-exercise daily burn.

So you can't use that figure to attempt to calculate net calories.

1 lb weekly loss is correct then to hit that 15% deficit. For now.

And it sounds like your increased daily burn is from work mainly, not workouts.
So the whole NET theory doesn't apply anyway.

Indeed, just reach your daily goal, no matter what it may be, using the 1lb weekly loss.

To plan better, you should probably increase the MFP activity level so your adjustments aren't so big and varied.

Now, to your point of other way of doing it.
If the slightly adjusting daily goal has you missing it, because harder to plan, then you could unsync accounts, and just make a manual eating goal based on the average TDEE Fitbit shows you getting.
Probably every 2 weeks of data is often enough.

And you must log non-step based exercise on Fitbit then for best estimate of TDEE, unless you have a Charge HR or Surge with HRM calorie burn for exercise.
Otherwise, swimming, biking, rowing, lifting, elliptical - all are under-estimated.

Actually, even with the HRM versions, you should manually log lifting, because it'll give you inflated calorie burn actually.

Thanks Heybales

I decided to stick with a 500 calorie planned deficit, and use MFP to track food (and non-step exercise) and Fitbit to see how much to eat and track everything else.

But I'm really struggling to eat my calories and hit my macros. I know there's no benefit in eating more than a certain amount of protein, so I aim to eat 120-150 and keep my fat at 60-80, but then if I have a very high burn one day, I would have to get the remaining calories all from carbs? Is it OK to eat more fat - I like nuts and seeds for snacking, and could eat other healthy fat sources too. I don't know how much I should aim for the 40/30/30 split (especially as eating at my current level, I tend to have a 50/30/20 or 45/35/20 split).

Obviously the work calories I can't change, I can't exactly just quit my job. And I'm trying to do some resistance training 3-4 times a week. But I'm also walking 2-3miles 3-4 times a week outside my job, and doing an intense workout (c500 calories) once a week. This means I'm getting a LOT of calories to eat.

I've kept a spreadsheet of everything so I can see how my progress relates to what I'd "expect" (initially to check that Fitbit's estimates of my calorie burn were accurate) and I added a column showing my actual percentage cut. The results are pretty awful. In the last week, my "lowest" cut was 24%, and the highest was an enormous 45%!! So obviously something needs to change.

I guess what I want to know now is, am I better off eating the calories from whatever sources I can, including much more fat because it's calorie-dense....or cutting back the exercise, which is the only "medium-high intensity" stuff I do, and would leave me with just the low-intensity but high frequency stuff for my job.


Here's my last week:
Day 1 - burned 3611 - ate 2515 - 50/24/26
Day 2 - burned 3548 - ate 1919 - 58/21/21
Day 3 - burned 3633 - ate 2451 - 43/34/23
Day 4 - burned 3232 - ate 2444 - 46/32/22
Day 5 - burned 3003 - ate 2066 - 56/25/19
Day 6 - burned 3655 - ate 2839 - 54/23/23
Day 7 - burned 3588 - ate 2420 - 56/23/21

Thanks!!!

mymodernbabylon

What's wrong with carbs? Or fat? I drink beer and eat chocolate regularly. As well as burgers and chips and pizza. Definitely eat more cause I'm seeing 1000+ calorie deficits up there!

mymodernbabylon

(And honestly, I'm jealous you can eat that much with even a 500 calorie deficit)

kpkitten

mymodernbabylon wrote: »

(And honestly, I'm jealous you can eat that much with even a 500 calorie deficit)

Haha, yeah my mum hates it! But her constant "you can't possibly be hungry" gets quite annoying!! But I'm 230+ lbs at 160cm and 22 years old...

Carbs are fine, but I know sugar isn't great (I've just started tracking it so I can keep an eye on it), and I should be aiming for complex carbs, but there's so much stuff out there about carbs and fat being awful (and a few things saying protien is too) that it's difficult to know what's true and what isn't.

I will occassionally have a beer or cider, but I don't drink very often, and I've read that alcohol prevents fat loss whilst it's in your system, so after a workout I won't drink it at all.

I guess I just need people to confirm that it IS OK to eat carbs and fat to get my calories up!!

mymodernbabylon

Unless you are diabetic, sugar is NOT evil. But yes, you can eat carbs and fat to get your calories up. I am eating around 200 grams a day (or more) and I'm still losing. If you find that it's inhibiting weight loss for some reason (and I do believe there may be some people who do respond better to less than the amount I eat), then eat more nuts, peanut butter and other protein/fat combos.

heybales

Your complex carbs turn in to sugar in the bloodstream, absolutely no different than eating table sugar.
The speed it gets there is the difference is all. And how much other nutrients was with it.

Eat your carbs, for intense cardio and doing it the next day - you need more of it, that's what the body wants.
-
Get a post workout snack in within 30 min of intense cardio - carb to prot ration of 4:1.
That's a 250 cal Clif bar, or chocolate milk 2%, or Ensure or Boost or Equate nutritional shakes.

You are finding it easy to use Fitbit for the eating goal?

kpkitten

heybales wrote: »

Your complex carbs turn in to sugar in the bloodstream, absolutely no different than eating table sugar.
The speed it gets there is the difference is all. And how much other nutrients was with it.

Eat your carbs, for intense cardio and doing it the next day - you need more of it, that's what the body wants.
-
Get a post workout snack in within 30 min of intense cardio - carb to prot ration of 4:1.
That's a 250 cal Clif bar, or chocolate milk 2%, or Ensure or Boost or Equate nutritional shakes.

You are finding it easy to use Fitbit for the eating goal?

Yes, using Fitbit for eating goal is fine. I don't mind if I end up +/-100 calories of what it suggests, and it's not too difficult having a different target every day.
But I'm struggling to eat enough - so I'll make some changes to what I'm eating and hopefully that will improve things!

Post workout snacks I haven't really been doing well at all. But I think that should be easy enough to change.

After a few weeks of feeling pretty good, I did feel pretty tired the last few days. Admittedly I did longer shifts at work, but I think it's shown me how much I need to stick to the plan, and actually eat more, not just aim to do so!