Advice needed: Plateau - water retention having this big of an effect??

jkal1979

Well hopefully someone comes along and can explain it better than I can. I still think that your exercise calories on the days you log your runs separately are overestimated.

Angel_Grove_

jkal1979 wrote: »

Well hopefully someone comes along and can explain it better than I can. I still think that your exercise calories on the days you log your runs separately are overestimated.

The calculation is pretty simple. Misfit shows a total burn of 2995 for the day. MFP estimates a sedentary burn of 1931 plus the 5.5 mile walk logged at 556 = 2487. 2995-2487=508 for the calorie adjustment from the rest of my daily activity (which included 2-3 hours of strenuous yard work, chasing/playing with my kids at the park, and probably another 1-2 miles walked that evening.) They may be overestimated due the inherent inaccuracy of the device, but they are most definitely not "double-logged".

Fesanso

I'm two inches shorter than you and just a few pounds lighter at 168, but I wouldn't lose if I ate all my exercise calories every day even tho I'd be within MFP's quota. Since the end of January, so far I have a reasonably steady loss of 1-2 pounds a week, but it goes up and down during the week. I also like to weigh myself every day, and have a scale that does fat/water/muscle/bone percents, which while not terrible accurate gives me a general idea of water retention as both water and muscle figures go up then while fat remains fairly stable.

I have a Fitbit Charge HR which I wear all the time which is the only exercise adjustment I add to MFP. I usually do 50mins - 1.2 hours of high impact cardio or weight combo. Plus walking which clock up about 16000-19000 ish steps a day. Once in MFP from Fitbit this usually gives anywhere between 700 - 1000 a day extra calories. However I feel my actual daily burn is less (always had a sluggish metabolism) and so I only eat back a lot of my calories Friday, Sat and Sun (actual calories eaten usually ranges between 1900 - 2000 on those three days but on the rare occasion when I'm eating out it's more like 2300). This includes half a bottle of wine with dinner on those days. I've only go over my net quota once or twice per month when I'm out and can't compensate with exercise.

But for the rest of the week I try to make sure I stick closer to my actual calorie base target (lower than yours at 1300, which is to lose about a 1lb a week) and only eat 200-300 over that. At max (unless I'm eating out or just terribly hungry) I try to only eat half or under of my extra exercise calories.

Perhaps MFP is giving you a higher daily burn than you actually have? I have my setting to lightly active.

I only drink the 8 cups of water a day. I can't take more than that.

Angel_Grove_

Fesanso wrote: »

I'm two inches shorter than you and just a few pounds lighter at 168, but I wouldn't lose if I ate all my exercise calories every day even tho I'd be within MFP's quota. Since the end of January, so far I have a reasonably steady loss of 1-2 pounds a week, but it goes up and down during the week. I also like to weigh myself every day, and have a scale that does fat/water/muscle/bone percents, which while not terrible accurate gives me a general idea of water retention as both water and muscle figures go up then while fat remains fairly stable.

I have a Fitbit Charge HR which I wear all the time which is the only exercise adjustment I add to MFP. I usually do 50mins - 1.2 hours of high impact cardio or weight combo. Plus walking which clock up about 16000-19000 ish steps a day. Once in MFP from Fitbit this usually gives anywhere between 700 - 1000 a day extra calories. However I feel my actual daily burn is less (always had a sluggish metabolism) and so I only eat back a lot of my calories Friday, Sat and Sun (actual calories eaten usually ranges between 1900 - 2000 on those three days but on the rare occasion when I'm eating out it's more like 2300). This includes half a bottle of wine with dinner on those days. I've only go over my net quota once or twice per month when I'm out and can't compensate with exercise.

But for the rest of the week I try to make sure I stick closer to my actual calorie base target (lower than yours at 1300, which is to lose about a 1lb a week) and only eat 200-300 over that. At max (unless I'm eating out or just terribly hungry) I try to only eat half or under of my extra exercise calories.

Perhaps MFP is giving you a higher daily burn than you actually have? I have my setting to lightly active.

I only drink the 8 cups of water a day. I can't take more than that.

That's helpful.

I ran the numbers as if I were you (5'6", 168lbs), though, to see where it may be overestimating and at sedentary with 1lb/week loss it gave me net 1300 something (1340 I think?) and lightly active it gave me net 1600. I wonder if there's just a glitch on my account?

I've run my stats through other TDEE calculators as well, though, and gotten from 1877 to 1949 at sedentary, up to the exercise I usually do which is 5x/week or 3-5 hours moderate and gotten from 2287 to 2465. That was when I weighed 172.7, so not far from what I weigh right now. That's about on par with MFP (giving me around 1944 to maintain before exercise) and Misfit (averaging my total daily burn at 2482 over the last 5 weeks), though admittedly they're both on the high end of those calculators. If the lowest TDEE calculator is closest to my real number, I guess Misfit would be estimating an extra 6825 calories worth 1.95 lbs over the course of the 5 weeks.

That probably accounts for at least part of it. I guess I need to do my own "study" to figure out what my TDEE actually is - sans alcohol or copious amounts of sodium.

editorgrrl

Angel_Grove_ wrote: »

Has anyone else felt that their Misfit/Fitbit/whatever tracker was overestimating drastically?

I lost the weight & have maintained for a year with Fitbit + MFP. So my Fitbit burn is 100% accurate.

You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

The key to my success was learning to log everything I eat & drink accurately & honestly. I followed the advice in the Sexypants post: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

ndj1979

here are my thoughts..

You said you don't always log everything. Start logging everything.
You are eating back 100% of 1000 calories burns. Start only eating back 50% of burns.
Tighten up logging to use accurate entries.

The combination of these three things can make your logging off by as much as 25%. On a 1500 per day diet that would mean that you actually consumed an extract 400 calories per day, which would wipe out your deficit for the week.