Ready to reset does this look right??

wannabf1t

Hi! I have spent a good amount of time reading through the stickies and preparing myself mentally to find my true maintenance. I just want to make sure I am on the right path.

My stats are:

5'2/ 122.3lbs (as of today)/ 35 yo
Moderate activity : 2 days bootcamp (mostly body weight)/ 2 days Crossfit/ 1 day running (3-4 miles) Rest of the day is very sedentary. Sitting at a desk all day, not much activity after I get home.
BMR: 1350
TDEE: 2031


Here is were I get a little confused, about two years ago I had a bod pod test done and my RMR came to 1085cals not sure how relevant or accurate this is. Also, I have a polar activity tracker and on my non workout days my calories burns are around 1350-1600. How does this two compare to the scooby BMR??? Should I ignore this numbers and go with scooby's formula?

As of today I am eating 1600 cals, up from 1350-1450. I started last week at 124, by Friday I was 122, by Monday 124 again, and today 122.3, so very up and down. Should I continue to add slowly until I get to 2030??? This process is a little scary but I am trying to stay positive. Im tire of loosing and gaining the same 3-5 lbs and not seeing real changes! Any advise, encouragement is welcome.

kmac1196

Hi! Welcome! I'm not sure what polar activity you have but HRM generally track aerobic activity well but not over all burn (from what I understand). So I would start with Scooby. How long were you at 1350?

I would continue to go up. Next week add 100 and then you can go to 200 per week to get to 2k. Also, this is completely a mental thing. Staying off of the scale (monthly is the best way to see patterns) because there is always fluctations. And you will gain initially....as glycogen stores fill up and muscles heal from cross fit, etc.

Good luck.

mymodernbabylon

Yup. Stick with Scooby for now as it gives you a good solid goal. Truly, this is an experiment as sometimes it's under, the same or over for different people. Definitely continue to head up - you will see weight fluctuations - they are normal. Think about a few things...glycogen stores will fill, you'll probably get more carbs/sodium and you may have fluxes in your hormones. All these things will cause 'weight' gain - but as we say...a big increase overnight is always water weight.

wannabf1t

Thank you ladies for the responses. @kmac1196 I read your ripping of the band aid post and you are so brave for increasing all at once. To answer your question, I have a polar M400 which is a sports watch /activity tracker all in one. It tracks your daily activity. I only use the HMR when I work out. To be honest with you I don't know how long I was at 1350. I was not always good bout tracking and I know that on the weekends I ate well over 2000 and about ~1350 during the week. But for the last 3-4 months I have been at 1450. I felt extremely full last night after eating 1600 but this morning I was so energized during my workout.

@mymodernbabylon I'm mentally preparing myself for that. Still at the same weight. I will monitor just because I want to see how my body reacts. I know about those crazy fluctuations, not long ago I did a challenge at the gym and I lost "9lbs" but only 4 of those were real weight. As soon as I started incorporated my regular foods I was up 5lbs the next day. I will try to up my calories another 100 today to bring them up to 1700.

I felt so full yesterday after eating 1600 but so energized this morning during my workout. I will continue to check in to let you know of my progress.

kmac1196

LOL! I don't know about brave...I was just hungry. LOL I've been dieting a long time and had to drop so low to get any scale movement. I was long overdue for a break. And honestly, the mental progress is worth every pound gained on the scale. I just feel relaxed. I know I'm not going back to obese. I know I'm not going to go on a diet again. I will eat a little less to get the rest of the 40 lbs off. I will take my time and take more scheduled breaks. It's all ok. Nothing to panic about. That peace is worth everything. Even if I was stuck at this weight (scale) forever....I'll be good. The changes in my body are huge. Recomping crew checking in!!!

mymodernbabylon

I do want to point out that you are at a healthy weight so you may find losing 'weight' difficult. I do think you should get your metabolism going by doing a reset...but after that, you may find doing a body recomposition a better idea than losing pounds.

heybales

Bodpod doesn't measure metabolism, it measures bodyfat %.

The report took your LBM and applied probably the Nelson RMR formula to it, maybe Katch or Cunningham, just depends on what they used at the time.

So that was calculated metabolism, sleeping or resting.

You can use the same thing on Scooby's site - look for Most Accurate link, select Katch BMR, and enter in LBM if you think you are about the same now as then.

The Polar activity tracker is probably pretty good at daily activity, those 23 hrs of the day - but I'll bet it's inflated for calorie burn - if based on HR - for those workouts.

Does it use HR for workouts or do you put on the HR strap?
Or do you manually log any of those workouts but no HR is used?

Because one way will inflate, one way is underestimated.

Outside of possible corrections - the tracker should be good start since it beats you guessing from 5 rough levels that don't even include daily non-exercise life in them.

Ditto's to above advice about reset, and recomp this whole time.

wannabf1t

@mymodernbabylon Yes, that is my plan to do a recomp at maintenance. I wanted to do it the right way, so I'm not spinning my wheels. I will be dropping some Crossfit/bootcamp classes and incorporating SL.

@heybales thanks for the explanation. I don't think my LBM is accurate as I have lost weight since then and my body looks different. I will continue go with 2000 and adjust as needed.
Regarding the polar, I use a HRM strap for my workouts only. Today I forgot to wear it and I noticed that it gave me a higher burn for the workout than it would usually would. Also, I'm not sure if it was included in my daily activity either. How does it underestimate/overestimate activity? How should I incorporate the tracker info to my goals?

Thank you so much for all your help!!!

heybales

HRM calorie burn formula are only valid for use when doing steady-state aerobic exercise, same HR for 2-4 minutes.

Boot camp and Crossfit are no where near steady-state - so inflated HR readings.

So calorie burn is inflated for them when based on HR calc's.

The workouts are included in your daily activity - because it's part of your day.
They may separate the stats so you can view what occurred during the workout - they should or how else could you compare to see improvements.

I wouldn't bother wearing the HRM for those workouts, at least not for calorie burn purpose.
If using it to confirm you are getting the HR as high as normal - sure.

The step-based burn you got today is probably higher because it thought you took a lot of serious steps, more than the activity really burned.

Normal lifting is underestimated by steps. You do 10 squats and it sees maybe 2 steps in 45 seconds - that is slow pace and low calorie burn from the looks of those 2 stats only - but obviously you burned more than that doing squats with serious weight.

What was your workout today?

If either of those workouts has rests of around 1 min or tad less, and reps of 15 or more - I'd suggest manually logging that on Polar's site as Circuit training, and take their estimate of calorie burn.

Uncorrected, what does your daily average burn look like on a weekly basis from Polar?
And how much time in total are you doing these workouts in a week, don't count running, that's best estimate already.

wannabf1t

Thank you @heybales. There is always some rest in between the workouts. For the most part I don't record the warm ups which can be a 400m or rowing 250m followed by lunges, air squats or whatever the coach says. Then we might do some stretching if we are doing any lifts, then the actual workout which can any anywhere from 25-12mins. That is the part that I record (I've done from start to finish just out of curiosity). My burns for these workouts I burn anywhere from 150 to 380ish. I need to calculate the average.

On another note, I ate 1775 cals yesterday and my weight has not changed (well, I did go down an onz). Today I've eaten close to 1900 but will probably go over 2000 for sure. I'm still amazed that I haven't seen some crazy water weight gain because that has always been the case for me.

wannabf1t

Another update. So Saturday I ended up eating around 2400 est. cals, Sunday I ate 1900 and today I will be increasing to 2000. Sunday morning my weight went up from 122.2 to 123.4 and this morning was 124.4. I'm expecting TOM anytime so I know some of that is hormonal. Still happy that I'm only up two pounds.

The strangest thing happened to me this morning, I woke up feeling very full (I have some digestive issues) but as soon as I started my workout routine the feeling change to straight up hunger! It level out by the end of the workout but I thought that was strange. Has anyone had this happened before?

One last thing @heybales, I averaged the calories that the polar gives me on non workout days. I'm pretty sedentary and although I have kids they are old enough that I do not need to run around after them. So for July the average cals on those days was 1645 and so far in August is 1626. Do I need to eat this on my non workout days or just continue to eat 2000 or whatever I determine my TDEE is?? This is a little confusing to me.

Thank you!

desjham1

Great job on the mental aspect. The 2 lbs is nothing! And yes, I'll wake up fine, and then half way through my workout I am STARVING, but then by the end it subsides enough to make it home, shower, and eat something.

heybales

Depends on what helps best with your planning, since planning and preparation help with success.
Can you really adjust your eating daily to match what you burn that day, exercise included, so a dynamic eating goal?
Or would you rather have a static goal so it's easy to plan on the same number each and every day?

Your TDEE estimate, either from rough 5 level guess or Polar weekly review averaged out (not just rest days), is really just balancing each day by getting an average from weekly total.
So some days you are really eating below that average TDEE, but that is balanced by days you really are eating over that average TDEE. But if you have average workout schedule and picked the TDEE level correctly (or using Polar), then that difference would never be that great to matter.
After all, 1 day of 700 cal workout over 7 days is only an increase of 100 calories per day.

That's why I suggested it would probably be better to correct the Polar for what exercise is needed - and then view it's average calorie burn with all exercise included.

I do notice though, your non-exercise day burn 1635 / 1350 BMR = 1.21 activity factor, so indeed close to Sedentary (1.20) on those charts if you did no exercise.
But that's not useful because you do exercise.

So you don't need to calculate average burn for your workouts, unless just curious - it's not going to be used in the math anywhere.
The fact you don't start the workout to include the warmup rowing or such doesn't matter - because it's still in your daily stats anyway, just inaccurate since rowing usually has no steps to it to calculate a calorie burn. If wearing your HRM strap, I'd turn on at start of workout to include all those things. You aren't doing any one thing long enough that the misuse of HRM for calorie burn matters much.
If you did 3 x 60 min straight lifting weekly, then yes, using HRM would not be good for calorie burn, it would be inflated and that's long enough to matter.
For what you do, doesn't matter, because there are other things there it's underestimating for.


Oh, feeling hungry that fast.
Usually has to do with blood sugar levels.
Reason some people can have a meal high in carbs or eat the carbs first, and within 2 hrs feeling more hungry then they should for just having eaten a meal. The spike of insulin caused low blood sugar, felt hungry, liver just not getting a chance to release some more glucose in to blood yet or insulin not dropped yet to allow that to happen.
Similar effect to workouts before eating if that's what happened.
Lowish blood sugar in morning anyway, and liver is likely getting low too.
Jump in to intense workout that is mainly carb burning, and before the muscles start using their own supply of glucose the blood it used for it's supply, causing low blood sugar, and with liver not having much to replenish with, feel hungry.
Then the workout produces lactic acid which can be used as energy source for brain and raise blood sugar levels, or liver did have enough to replenish just took a bit.

wannabf1t

You have been such an immense help @heybales ! I will be leaving you alone for a while since you just have cleared up all my confusion.
Regarding my question, I will stick to eating the same number of calories every day. I feel it makes things easier. I have disconnected my polar from MFP and just keeping track on my burns on their website.

The hunger explanation makes a lot of sense because I actually workout on an empty stomach. I workout early in the morning, and it is hard for me to eat before. I try to have a decent dinner the night before.

I'm struggling getting all this cals in but I know it will get better with time. But right now the struggle is real!

heybales

And I'd suggest now that eating more, you could easily be making those workouts even harder than they were before - burning up more of the limited carbs you got - especially in the morning fasted state.

With tummy issues and early workout - may not be good to attempt eating before workout - so may look at having a good sized 200-300 cal snack right before bed if you don't already.

The carbs your liver has available in the morning starts with last big meal that topped them off - and how active between that meal and workout.
If 6 pm dinner and decently active before bed, may be burning enough of those off to cause issues by morning.

If you seem to get through the workout strong enough (which could be hard to compare if nothing to compare to) then may not matter.

wannabf1t

Thanks Heybales. Yes, I get really nauseous if I eat before a workout. I try to eat a decent meal at nighttime to have enough energy in the morning. It was difficult for me to adapt to this because in my country the norm is to have a big meal at lunch (and maybe a siesta ) and something light for dinner. But I learned the hard way that I can't do that in order to sustain my workouts. Now I eat as late as 8-8:30 and I'm usually in bed by 10-10:30.

My weight went up by another 4onz, so I'm at 124.4, up 2.2lbs so far. It is very possible for it to drop a little sometime this week.

The only think I am not enjoying about this is feeling stuffed 24/7. I feel like I'm about to give birth to a food baby anytime! Having slow digestion only makes things worse. Hoping it goes away as my body adapts to all the food.

wannabf1t

Another update. Today is my third day eating 2000 or slightly above. This morning I was down 6oz so sitting at 124.2 ( my number yesterday was wrong, I was 124.8). Also I maybe retaining water from tom. For the last three days I've eaten 2045 /2006 and 2142. I missed my workout today but will probably make up for it on another day. So According to scooby my maintenance cals are around 2031ish. Should I continue to increase or hang around 2030's for the rest of the week and see what happens?

MandaLeigh123

Your body WILL adapt... it might take a few weeks but you'll get there and you'll wonder how you ever ate less. That's how it was for me anyway I was moaning so much, "I'm sooo stuffed.... I feel sick eating so much... " on and on. But my body adjusted!

heybales

At least a week at a time I'd suggest.

For women it's hard to discern anything anyway since BMR literally changes through the month, so it really takes that long to have good figures to, figure something from.

Pick the right 2 weeks, might get something useful there too.

Time spans of less than a week, and weight changes less than the accuracy of the scale (10 ozs may be alright, as it may be accurate to 0.2 lbs or 3.2 ozs, but unlikely), probably won't be useful.

Suggest if you do miss a workout that was planned and included in your TDEE estimate - skip 100 calories that day.
If you make it up - eat 100 extra that day.

If you add a totally new workout session that is not included in TDEE, eat back those calories.

wannabf1t

MandaLeigh123 wrote: »

Your body WILL adapt... it might take a few weeks but you'll get there and you'll wonder how you ever ate less. That's how it was for me anyway I was moaning so much, "I'm sooo stuffed.... I feel sick eating so much... " on and on. But my body adjusted!

My body seems to be adapting really well. I went over yesterday and would had been ok eating more . The last two days I've felt satisfied but not stuffed. I've always had some indigestion issues which eating more has brought back, but I know that they will be less as my body continues to adapt.

@heybales, I was thinking yesterday that for Scooby formula I used the moderate level of activity which is 3-5 days of workouts. I usually do 5 but there are weeks that I only do four if I feel like I need the extra rest. I've dropped some of my CF sessions and replaced them with weight lifting (not going too heavy yet) and I feel I don't burn as much as with crossfit. I do not know if that makes a difference TDEE wise.

I will try to average 2040ish this week. I will increase another hundred on Monday. The next couple of weeks I should have a more accurate picture of how my body responds to the added calories.

heybales

If you notice - they are more specific than days, which is really about useless.

Is 4 days of crossfit 1.5 hrs each the same as 4 days walking 45 min each? of course not.
And of course 3 is not the same as 5.

They ask for hours. Then again, hours is improvement but still - is 1 hr running the same as 1 hr walking as 1 hr crossfit as 1 hr lifting? of course not.
At least 3-5 hrs is not a huge difference usually, but it could be depending on intensity of workout.

So that change would be a difference in average TDEE
But perhaps not much, same amount of time, different activity, maybe 100-200 less per workout. 400 less per week maybe, or 57 cal / day.

If you want to start with better first estimate, I'd recommend the spreadsheet in my profile call Just TDEE please.
Copy it to your own Google Drive space, and fill in your stats and expected workout times. Crossfit would be high cardio, except for whatever time is given to the WOD as lifting.

wannabf1t

OK, I was not using that spreadsheet. Thank you for the info! I'm not going to lie, this is so overwhelming. I feel like I have information overload. If I go according to the spreadsheet and if I put my numbers right, it gives me a TDEE of 1943. See below:



If I do not go over my cals too much over the weekend, I should be averaging 2045 this week. Weight is stable at 124 with minor fluctuations.

heybales

Well, that's the first spreadsheet actually - it's the 2nd one that say "Just TDEE Please".

But, you might like the Progress tab and BodyFat Calc in the one you got though. And it uses the BF% to get better BMR estimate. So that can make a difference too.

Most the info was your own stats though, right?
That's always good to have, measurements. Only thing extra was daily activity calc, and your workouts not too bad it appears to estimate with 5 per week.

You do have a 45 hr week standing job or minor movement type job, or at least referring to on your feet most the day with kids and house work?
If kids and then Sat & Sun count too - that's good estimate.

Then that is indeed good TDEE estimate, and notice that your activity factor is indeed 1.56, compared to the TDEE charts Moderate which is 1.55.
Sometimes a person does hit the average the TDEE level is based on. But your activity level may indeed change if you change workouts enough.
And if weight drops while LBM stays the same, TDEE won't drop that much actually.

And indeed then - TDEE almost 2000 right now - I'd call it that.

Keep track on the Progress tab of measurements and weight. Always good to see movement there. Monthly perhaps, or biweekly at most.
Use the far right on Progress tab after reset to track TDEE based on actual monthly results. Just need accurate food logging.

wannabf1t

Thanks Heybales, I will look at the other tab. I took measurements and I am waiting a bit to retake them. I do not have a standing job. I sit at a desk from 9-5:30, I do have kids but they are older and don't require me to run after them. We do some activities on the weekend but we're pretty laid back, so no crazy sport schedules to keep up with.

I will continue to eat 2000. I have to say yesterday was a tough day. My weight was up to 126.4 (now 126) and I had to keep reminding myself to look at the big picture. I kinda expected to see an increase in weight but I thought part of increasing cal an eating at maintenance was not to continuously be bouncing the same 2lbs.

Anyway, I did have a really fun weekend. I went to a craft beer festival with unlimited tasting. Needless to say I ate and drank a lot but I don't regret it. I estimated that I ate around 2900 but I had saved some calories from Friday in anticipation and also made up the workout I missed during the week on Saturday. I ran 5 miles which gave me an extra 700 cals. I averaged 2050ish for the week. I'm up 4lbs since starting. Maybe beer and crab cake sandwiches and pizza have something to do with that

I'll continue updating. If I see my weight go to 128 Monday, I think I'm going down to 1900 cals. What do you think?

heybales

Ok, so my comments about the 45 hrs is because I notice you filled in 45 hrs weekly of service trade type job in the activity calc.

But that doesn't apply then, so you need to remove that, and you'll have a better TDEE estimate.

wannabf1t

Ok! Back to plugging numbers! So I deleted the 45 from that first spreadsheet and according to my 3x week of bootcamp (about 45-50 mins) and 2x weight lifting (60 mins ) I get a TDEE of 1793.
If I go to the just TDEE please spread sheet I get 1915. Why are the numbers so different?

So weight is back down to 124.3. Sticking with 2000 cals for now.

Thank you again Heybales, you are a saint!

heybales

Did you remove the check mark in the options for daily activity so that it was set to sedentary?
The top checkmark is basically Lightly Active, so the same as a standing/slow moving job, around the same as 45 hrs you had in the first spreadsheet. Since sedentary, you want no checkmarks.

Then the difference is because the big spreadsheet uses BF% to get a more accurate BMR, but Just TDEE please uses Mifflin like MFP and Fitbit do.

wannabf1t

New week, new numbers. So this is what I have so far:

Week 1 1350cals 122.00 lbs
Week 2 1734cals 122.3
Week 3 2030cals 124.3
Week 4 2044cals 124.5

I estimated a lot over the weekend so the numbers might be a little off. Also, I'm recording my Friday weight which I think it's the most accurate because water weight has gone down by then. I'm always up 2lbs on Mondays .I'm 126.8 today but I know some of that is water.
I'm trying to eat 2000cals but it is hard on the weekends. Thinking I should save a few cals during the week to balance it out. My body is already used to eating all this food and it is not hard for me to go over. I haven't taken my measurements again but I feel a little fluffier. I do enjoy the extra energy during workouts, eating more makes a difference.
The trend seems to be going up slowly. Should I continue to eat 2000-2050? Is it too early to know if this is maintenance or not?

mymodernbabylon

Very much too early. You need to consistently eat at a range for at least a month. As you have stepped up and the numbers went up quickly versus slowly, it's water weight not weight gain.

LastingChanges

I started gaining weight while trying to eat more and got scared and cut back my calories. I also felt that surge of energy like you did that helped my work outs a lot, I am considering trying it again but scared to gain any more weight. Anyway, I would like to follow your progress. Please keep us updated

wannabf1t

Thank you mymodernbabylon that is what I thought, that there's not enough time to know yet. I'm in no rush to cut but I do have a big event in late October which is the only thing making me freakout a bit about putting on weight. I can hear that little voice telling me to eat less but I've been trying to shut it down.

heretoorwin I'll continue to update every week. It took me a long time to come to this decision. I've been a member for a while but never had the guts to do it. Now I feel like I wasted so much time eating low cals and busting my butt at the gym and still seeing very little progress. Even if I gain a few pounds ( which I can lose) the fact that I get to eat more than 1300 cals is so worth it.