Calorie deficit?
DanielleMesa
Posts: 38 Member
Hello. I am in a frustrating plateau right now. What kills me is that my weekly Fitbit report shows an 8500 calorie deficit for the week, yet I lost nothing. My question is, how accurate do you think Fitbit is with calculating total calorie burn?
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I lost the weight & have maintained for 9 months—so my Fitbit burn is 100% accurate.
How accurately & honestly do you log your food & drink? Do you ever log step-based exercise, or non-exercise (such as housework)? Do you log non-step exercise (like swimming or biking) in Fitbit or in MFP?
A healthy, sustainable loss is .5 lb. for every 25 lbs. you're overweight. And weight loss is not linear. Some weeks you do everything right but maintain—or even gain. Others you lose a whole lot in a "whoosh." How long is your plateau?0 -
I do not log any other activity other than what my Fitbit detects. I tend to only walk as my exercise. I have been flat for about two weeks now.0
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Also, I would add double checking your exercise calorie burn. My fitbit started overestimating my walks and I found out I was maintaining when I thought I was in a 3500 calorie deficit.0
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Make sure your stride is set too. Mine was off. That might help as well.0
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For me, the key is accurately logging calories in. I was doing way too much estimating (especially things like butter, oil, cheese, etc.) and too much of what I call "casual snacking". That is a couple of nuts here, a bite of chocolate there. If I'm going to do that, I know I need to measure the snacks ahead of time and log them, but I'd gotten in the habit of not doing that. When I 'm being diligent, I weigh everything. For instance, I put the bottle of olive oil on the scale and zero it, then pour some into the pan I'm cooking with, put it back on the scale, and note how much I used. Yeah, it's only 7 grams, divided over a meal for 2 people, and I might have estimated close to that, but 3.5 grams of oil is significant so it is better to not estimate it. Yes, it's a hassle to weigh virtually every bite, but that is what it took to take me from slowly gaining back to losing again.
Last night, I was really tired earlier than usual and my will power was all used up. I ate more chocolate than I should have, without weighing it, so I don't really know how much I ate. In the future, I'm going to try to be on alert for that and go to bed, even if it isn't quite "bedtime".
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8500 calorie deficit for the week?
So on average daily eating 1214 less than you burn.
You burning up around 6000 calories daily for that to be anywhere near a reasonable deficit amount?
Your body won't be happy with under-eating that much.
You didn't gain it fast, don't attempt to lose it fast, unless you do indeed want less muscle too.
For mainly walking which is so low calorie burn anyway - probably really close daily burn estimate, unless your stride length is just way off for some reason.
Then again, Fitbit is estimating an average healthy body and what it burns, by under-eating that much, I'd suggest yours isn't anymore.0 -
I already set my stride, but I will check it again. Looking at my food log, I averaged around 1500-1600 calories consumed per day. I don't think I am under eating. Here is my weekly stats. 8200 calorie deficit.
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Nancy, you make a good point on the small grazing. I am going to really tighten down on it and start weighing things more. I also think my sodium intake might be too high.0
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It's not about the total calorie level eaten - it's about how much less you are eating than you are burning which the body starts to react badly about.
Morbidly obese people that burn 4000 calories with just sedentary lifestyle that are put on 2000 calorie diets have a metabolic/daily slowdown, it's expected, upwards of 20%.
But they have enough calorie range to still lose weight.
If your potential TDEE drops 20%, now how much deficit do you have, and do you keep chasing that lowered TDEE crashing into the ground?
You merely need to eat a reasonably amount less than you burn to lose fat weight.
Bigger than reasonable, not just fat lost.
Giving the body 50% of what it burns is recipe for disaster, if repeating this again next year is considered a disaster.0 -
Listen to heybales. He can point you to the studies that show what he's saying. You don't want your body to get even more efficient at using calories by not eating enough. Set a reasonable weight loss goal (as outlined by editorgrrl), log your food carefully, and trust your FitBit for a few weeks.
I was amazed at how accurate it was once I started tracking my food carefully. However, I haven't done a huge amount of yo-yo dieting in my life, I exercise daily (as much as I'd prefer to skip it), and I've taken things slow. I think all of those help to counteract the metabolism slowing effect of eating at a calorie deficit.0 -
Wow, I really didn't think I was under eating! I always thought that exercise calories were optional to eat. I will go ahead and try eating the full amount and see what happens.0
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DanielleMesa wrote: »Wow, I really didn't think I was under eating! I always thought that exercise calories were optional to eat. I will go ahead and try eating the full amount and see what happens.
You eat say 2000 calories. Your body burns say 1600 merely for the functions of life, if you slept all day. That means another 400 for daily stuff.
You go workout and burn 500 calories off the top during the workout, calories the body can't use for anything else now, it was used purely for mechanical movement.
Now how much is your body left with to use.
1500, less the 400 for mechanical movement during the day, so 1100 left.
Your body wants/needs 1600 for the functions of life, those can only be slowed down so much.
The first thing the body does is slow down your daily activity, so you really don't burn that 400.
But Fitbit with goals helps keep that level up.
So what's a body to do - adapt. Become more efficient, slow down what it can, hair/nail growth, skin replacement, women's functions, hormones regulating metabolism (thyroid), eventually just becoming more efficient at everything that goes on.
It also slows down or stops repair of stressed body parts - like what that workout did.
So now the workout doesn't get recovered. So now the next one isn't as intense.
The body doesn't want to change, it must be forced to.
Like gaining muscle - it doesn't spend more energy adding something that will use more energy - for no reason.
And especially when it's already slowed things down to conserve energy.0 -
I'm just going to jump in here. I ran about 90 days' of FitBit data and figured it's only about 90% accurate in terms of calorie burn for me. You're going to have to give it some time to observe trends for you.
You may also want to switch the setting to non-dominant hand if you think it's crediting you too many calories.0 -
I think the rule of thumb there is to have your setting at dominant hand but wear it on your non dominant hand. The non dominant hand setting makes it more sensitive to movement.0
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Actually, I wear mine on my non-dominant (right) wrist and have it set to non-dominant. So, not everyone does it that way. My accuracy (both calories and steps) seems good.0
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Is it bad to wear it on your ankle??0
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Is it bad to wear it on your ankle??
Fitbit does not recommend wearing the Flex on your ankle: http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-do-I-wear-my-Flex
If you're biking, you need to log it—either in Fitbit (which is what I do) or in MFP.0
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