8 weeks later, back for help please...

KatiAuchinleck

Quick overview: I'm 42 and 5'9", female. Did my Scooby calculations and average Fitbit (Charge HR) TDEE. Came out to between 2300 and 2350 fairly consistently over the last 8 weeks. I've been eating at 2000 calories for the last 8 weeks with a VERY rare day when I went over by a few hundred. Typical exercise is 3 strength training days (30-40 minutes), 5-6 cardio days (walking 30-60 minutes), and yoga 2-3 times a week.

My weight has not changed one iota. I am consistently fluctuating in a 5 pound range. Fluctuation is very common for me due to water weight changes so I don't let that affect my outlook. That is also why I wanted to give this a good amount of time to evaluate.

3 weeks ago I took a 2 week strength break (vacation). I'm now walking 75-100 minutes 6 days a week along with the strength and yoga work. I'm feeling sluggish and am often hungry.

WHAT TO DO? I feel that if I'm exercising more, than my cut is getting larger. Obviously this is making no change in the weight loss. Is this a situation where more calories are needed?

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time everyone!

heybales

Concerning your Fitbit estimated TDEE - that has your greatest potential of best accuracy, not the TDEE chart picking from 5 rough levels. You may luck out and exactly hit the same number, but don't count on it.

So to the Fitbit Charge HR and your main calorie burns of strength training.
Do you manually log those, because you need to.
HR-based calorie burn for those is inflated.

Walking is fine, or should be. Ever confirmed the distance on treadmill matches what Fitbit said it was?

Yoga probably needs manual logging too, as I've heard reports the Charge HR stops logging as activity since HR is usually too low combined with too few steps, so basically underestimated there.

So why are you creating a bigger deficit by exercising more?
Perhaps you think weight loss is per exercise. Not.

Diet is for weight loss - if done right fat loss only, done wrong muscle mass too.
Exercise is for heart health and body transform - side effect of water weight gain, done right supports fat loss, done wrong includes muscle mass too.

Only thing exercise helps with diet is causing you to burn more daily, so when you eat less, you eat more than if you did no exercise.

Do you weigh all the foods you eat?

Because it could be Fitbit calorie burn is over-all inflated, and you could be eating more than you think if not weighing foods - so no deficit in place.

Then again, Fitbit could be badly underestimating calorie burn, you play food logging on the safe side underestimating - and your deficit is way bigger than it should be for reasonable.

How low were you eating prior, and for how long, with this same weekly routine?

KatiAuchinleck

Hi Heybales,

I manually log all strength and yoga. I had not confirmed the distance via treadmill but I did use my car to determine and it matched within .1 of a kilometer.

I do weigh all of my food when I am home with only the occasional "estimation" happening when I am away from my scale.

I ate at approximately 1500 calories from February to May with the same exercise routine. Before that I have no idea what I was doing: aside from a 30 minute walk once or twice a week and eating whatever I wanted.

Thanks for your quick response.

heybales

Well, 4 months at pretty big deficit (800 cal if the 2350 is Fitbit avg, not avg of Fitbit & TDEE chart) is easily enough time to lower TDEE from potential.

And since not really eating at potential TDEE yet - easily be from 6-12 months to get it burning again.

Shorter if you move on up.

KatiAuchinleck

So would a gradual increase be in order? I know my body needs something because of the sluggishness and hunger. I'm not afraid to move up. I just want to be sure that I do it gradually and on the right time frame. 100 every week? 200? Every other week? Just not sure what to do. Thanks!

heybales

100 extra daily for a week at a time - just 2 weeks at that low increase.

Gives body a chance to see extra food is coming, it can speed up. And you'll see water weight gain that obviously can't be fat since eating such a minor amount over prior levels.

Then if more room to move up - 200 extra daily per week is fine at that point.

KatiAuchinleck

Even weighing and measuring as I do, I sometimes wonder if I'm exact enough to be reaching exactly 2100. Starting 2100 today. Thanks for your help!

heybales

Even 5-10% accuracy is close enough, which labels are allowed anyway. That's why results trump estimates - as long as the estimate was clearly high enough to not cause results to be skewed.

KatiAuchinleck

Thanks for your assistance!