New guy understanding Calories needed. Please Help!!!
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SpiritOfTheFox
Posts: 10 Member
I am new to this fitness life. But I am very serious. I need to get into shape for my future career. I'm 19 years old 6 feet and 260lbs. I'm trying to lose about 2lbs a week. My daily calorie intake allows me to have 2,580. I also bought a Fitbit charge HR which I did my research and it seems to be very accurate. But my only confusion is after I work out the calories I burn, adds onto my overall calorie intake, up to 3,500. This confuses me, should I eat 3500 calories or only what MFP started my day off as.(2580) I feel like 3500 calories is a lot to eat and I find it hard to reach that goal. Please help!!
Thanks in advance!!!
Thanks in advance!!!
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Replies
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Eat 50-75% of exercise calories.
Exercise is normally over estimated while food is under estimated.
Eating exercise calories is to force your deficit to be similar day after day so you don't lose too fast.
What exercise are you doing to burn 1000 calories?0 -
If you want to lose 2 lb per week then 2500 would be the number. Burning 1000 calories is pretty intense I don't what you are doing in the gym.0
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If you want to lose 2 lb per week then 2500 would be the number. Burning 1000 calories is pretty intense I don't what you are doing in the gym.
So 2500 cals that is with a 1000 cal deficit right? Since he wants to lose 2 pounds.
Assuming his exercise burns are accurate for a moment
That would make it 2500 cals but with 1000 deficit plus another 1000 exercise making it a potential loss of 4 pounds right? Too high a loss.
That's why you eat the exercise calories back at least partially.
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Eat 50-75% of exercise calories.
Exercise is normally over estimated while food is under estimated.
Eating exercise calories is to force your deficit to be similar day after day so you don't lose too fast.
What exercise are you doing to burn 1000 calories?
According to my Fitbit I burn about 3,000-4,000 calories a day throughout my normal day and workouts. And I connected my Fitbit to MFP and it adds 755-900 for exercise. Which comes out to 3,350~0 -
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Yes if he is going by MFP then he is going to have to eat those calories back to maintain 2 lb per week.If you want to lose 2 lb per week then 2500 would be the number. Burning 1000 calories is pretty intense I don't what you are doing in the gym.
So 2500 cals that is with a 1000 cal deficit right? Since he wants to lose 2 pounds.
Assuming his exercise burns are accurate for a moment
That would make it 2500 cals but with 1000 deficit plus another 1000 exercise making it a potential loss of 4 pounds right? Too high a loss.
That's why you eat the exercise calories back at least partially.
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That would equal losing a pound a day. ...I think you need to check your settings! ☺SpiritOfTheFox wrote: »
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SpiritOfTheFox wrote: »
That is what I thought through out the day. If you want 2 lbs a week go with 2500 cals. I am going to assume FitBit is in the right ballpark.
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The 2580 sounds like your total TDEE according to MFP, not the amount you'd be allowed to eat. Did you tell MFP you wanted to lose 2lb/day? A sedentary 19 year old of your weight has a TDEE of about 2570, so they'd need to eat 1570 to lose weight; MFP should be recommending something in the 1500-1800 kcal range for you if you have put your info in properly.
Osric0 -
OsricTheKnight wrote: »The 2580 sounds like your total TDEE according to MFP, not the amount you'd be allowed to eat. Did you tell MFP you wanted to lose 2lb/day? A sedentary 19 year old of your weight has a TDEE of about 2570, so they'd need to eat 1570 to lose weight; MFP should be recommending something in the 1500-1800 kcal range for you if you have put your info in properly.
Osric
No for me to maintain my weight I would have to eat 3,500 calories a day with out working out. So the 2,500 calories is with a 1000 calorie deficit. Which will lead me to lose 2lbs a week acorrding to MFP0 -
Yes, your exercise calories get added to your total allowance - if you burn more, you need to eat more.
As others have said, it is sometimes best not to eat right up to the total if you've been burning a lot of calories, as these systems often overestimate the calories burned, so if you eat all the way up to that total, you may be unwittingly going over your target. Heavy exercise day = leave some calories in hand.
On the other hand, if you have not done much exercise that day, then you should aim to eat right up to your allowance to make sure you're getting enough.
I agree with others that 1000 extra calories through exercise is pretty extreme. What kind of exercise are you doing?
Also 3500 calories a day to maintain weight seems very high - either you'd have to be very heavy just now, or doing a very demanding manual job, to require that much energy just to maintain. If neither of those are true, I think you should re-check those numbers.0 -
The important thing right now is to stick with it! 2500-3000 total per day (if you're accurate with your logging and weigh your foods on a scale) sounds like a great place to start. Don't get too hung up right now on what the EXACT right number is. Just be consistent right now and see where it takes you
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SpiritOfTheFox wrote: »No for me to maintain my weight I would have to eat 3,500 calories a day with out working out. So the 2,500 calories is with a 1000 calorie deficit. Which will lead me to lose 2lbs a week acorrding to MFP
You've gotten it to double count your exercise somehow. If you know you need to eat 2500 to lose 2lb/week, but MFP says you need to eat 2500+1000, it means that MFP thinks 3500 is 1,000 over your regular burn and is trying to add on the exercise calories for you.
Just ignore it and eat 2500 or less. I would bet money that even at 2500 calories logged, you'll find you lose less than 2lb/week.
Osric
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When your calorie numbers on the right hand side go up telling you that you can eat 3500 kcals, these are your 'exercise' calories. Whether you choose to eat back your exercise calories is up to you - however, it is recommended for healthy weight loss that you do not. Stick to your original goal of calories shown on the left.
For extra insight you can also go onto 'Nutrition' in your profile bar, and where it shows 'calories', 'macros' etc. Click calories and look where it says 'Net calories'. If you are wanting to lost weight, your net calories should be a minus number (e.g. -220). This means you are burning off more calories than you are eating, and will therefore lose weight. Just please do this healthy and steadily, the last thing you want to do is burn yourself out.
Hope this helps! Good luck! X
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You aren't logging your exercise on MFP, too, are you? If you have your Fitbit synced to your MFP account, you don't log exercise on MFP.
Anyway, if you burn 3500 calories per day and eat 2500, that amounts to a loss of approximately 2lbs per week. If 2lbs per week loss is your goal, eat 1000 calories less than your Fitbit says you burned.0 -
Do you by any chance have your activity level set to "high", AND your fitbit is logging every single bit of activity you do?
I'm not familiar with the Fitbit, so I'm not quite sure how this works, but it seems like there's a high chance of double-counting exercise here - Fitbit experts care to chime in?0 -
I think you're fine. I'm 5'3" and I went from 139 to 123 in the past two months. At first I was doing a loss of two pounds per week but then I slowed it down to half of a pound per week. I'm allowed to eat 1310 calories per day but often earn 300 to 700 extra calories from my Charge HR due to my movement throughout the day. I exercise most days of the week but nothing too hardcore. I have my levels set to sedentary, so I start my day with a negative amount of calories burned by the fitbit adjustment. So these days I've been eating anywhere from 1600 to 2000 calories per day depending on what I earn that day from fitbit. I thought it was too much and I'd surely gain weight, but when I stepped on the scale this morning I weighed 121.8 pounds. I was shocked. So if you want to lose a bit faster, eat 50% to 75% of your earned calories back, but don't be afraid to eat a bit more back when you need it.0
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SpiritOfTheFox wrote: »I'm 19 years old 6 feet and 260lbs. I'm trying to lose about 2lbs a week. My daily calorie intake allows me to have 2,580. I also bought a Fitbit charge HR.
Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight. If (and only if) you enable negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, your adjusted goal is TDEE minus deficit.
Connect your accounts at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/fitbit
Set your goal to .5 lb. per week for every 25 lbs. you're overweight: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided
Enable negative calorie adjustments: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings
In the MFP app, go to More > Steps and choose Fitbit.
You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users0
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