Three Weeks of EM2WL; Sharing for Anyone Who Might Be Interested

andymcclure

OK, short background on me: I'm 6' 1", 44 years old, and male. Four years ago, I was at 276 pounds, and very little of that was lean muscle mass. I got aggressive about my weight loss, first with Weight Watchers, then MFP, currently MFP + Fitbit. I bottomed out a couple months ago at 189 pounds.

Losing 87 pounds is a pretty significant accomplishment, but I did it by gradually cutting more and more calories (or "points" during the Weight Watchers years). When I bottomed out, I was starting my day at 400 calories plus what I "earned" with my Fitbit. On a really active day, that would get me an extra 1,200 calories or so, for a total of 1,600. For a guy my size, that's not enough.

So, I came across this EM2WL group a while back, thought it sounded great, as I was SOOOO hungry all the time. I didn't exercise much, because I had no energy. I wasn't sleeping well because I went to bed hungry every night. I was grumpy a lot.

My first attempt to EM2WL didn't go well. I put on a few pounds instantly, panicked, and cut my calories way back down again. I was able to re-lose most of that weight pretty quickly, but was also right back to being hungry/tired/grumpy all the time.

So, three weeks ago, I started again. Scooby calculated my my BMR at 1,877, TDEE at 2,252. I went with a nice round 2,200 and continued to eat back what I "earned" with my Fitbit. (I feel like everything I read says Fitbit underestimates the burn, so I should be pretty safe eating back what it says.)

Once again, I gained a bunch of weight quickly, panicked, and really wanted to cut way back again, but I've forced myself to stick with it. Turns out, this is mentally even more challenging than it was for me to cut my calories so low in the first place. (Eating more on purpose while still worrying about weighing less? That can't be right!)

Anyway, I started at 190 on September 2, jumped to 198 on September 9, stayed at 198 on September 16, and another small jump to 201 today. So, 11 pounds in three weeks.

That sounds terrible, but back in my ultra-low calorie days, I would see 4–8 pounds gained EVERY WEEK when I added even 100 or 200 calories. So, to see these results when adding 1,800 calories is pretty encouraging. (I opted against a gradual increase, as that seemed to result in a frightening amount of weight gain.)

Now, is the hard part. Mentally, I'm pretty discouraged just because I crossed the 200 pound line again. Yes, the difference between 199 and 201 is only a couple pounds, but seeing that "2" on the scale again really hurts.

I re-calculated things today, since I'm 11 pounds heavier than when I started, and bumped my starting point up to 2,300. My goal is to find where my actual maintenance levels are, THEN cut a few calories to start seeing a consistent loss. Ideally, I will lose the rest of the weight very slowly but still be able to eat a decent amount of food.

These first few weeks have been fun... I've been able to eat whatever the heck I want. I've eaten a lot of crap that I couldn't before. I've also started feeling horrible afterwards, because my body doesn't know what to do with junk food anymore. (My extra calories have been mostly meat and heavily processed carbs.) So, I'm trying to re-focus my energy on eating well AND getting my full dose of calories.

So, yeah, there you have it. I'm not sure if I had a point when I started. I guess what I'm saying is that so far, I've added 1,800 calories and seen less weight gain then I did when I tried adding 200 calories. To me, that reinforces this whole EM2WL thing.

(I also read the updates from @MandaLeigh123 and found them to be helpful. Just added that for anyone else in a similar position to me; it's worth reading.)

mymodernbabylon

Can I ask why you are eating back calories when your TDEE counts them? It may be that you are actually over your TDEE if you are eating above it by eating back Fitbit calories as well as the TDEE calories.

BUT, I also want to remind you and others that very quick gain is always going to be mainly water weight. There may be a touch of fat, but not as much as you'd imagine.

And please join us at the forum: http://forums.eatmore2weighless.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=20, and start your own journal. Make sure you have read and re-read the starting guides: http://training.eatmore2weighless.com/get-your-quick-start-guide/

husseycd

mymodernbabylon wrote: »

Can I ask why you are eating back calories when your TDEE counts them? It may be that you are actually over your TDEE if you are eating above it by eating back Fitbit calories as well as the TDEE calories.

I agree. Your TDEE should already include your Fitbit calories.

andymcclure

My schedule is pretty erratic, with no formal exercise plan. As such, my activity level varies a LOT, so I compute my TDEE as sedentary. So, I view it as BMR is what I'd burn if I stayed in bed all day, TDEE (as computed here) is what I burn doing a normal day's minimal activities (all the little things we do all day that aren't really exercise, but burn more calories than just lying in bed.)

heybales

That method doesn't really work well with Fitbit synced.

Besides - why guess amongst 5 rough levels of TDEE when Fitbit is giving you infinite daily values?

If you can adjust to eating different amounts daily - then keep Fitbit synced - just set MFP to Maintain no weight loss - and eat to your daily goal as shown, which includes the adjustments so you are eating what you burn.

But Sedentary TDEE from 5 level chart when you have that little girl is wrong, you are lightly active minimum.
But again - don't waste time guessing - use the Fitbit.

Just correct it on Fitbit's site for things it won't estimate well - like lifting for any model.

andymcclure

I'm not sure if I follow you, but I think that's more or less what I'm doing. I just started from the Scooby calc's numbers instead of MFP's. (I chose that, as pretty much everything I read on here refers to the Scooby calc, so I figured that would give me numbers more consistent with others on here.)

So, between MFP and the Scooby calculator, I found a reasonable baseline to start from, then add the activity from Fitbit to MFP to get the additional calories based on my activity level. Instead of letting Fitbit and MFP decide everything, I'm just tweaking the system a bit to find my personal maintenance level.

In essence, I'm doing exactly what Fitbit would do, just starting with a lower number that seems more accurate than Fitbit's initial estimates.

Or am I totally missing something?

heybales

Yes - what you think is happening won't be.

If you have MFP set to incorrect Sedentary (which doesn't matter if syncing with Fitbit correctly) and it estimates you burn 2500 daily say.

You got your TDEE from Scooby as Sedentary (which is tad lower than MFP level) and manually set your eating goal to 2400.

Fitbit comes in and reports that you actually burned 3000 for this day, or during the day MFP figures it looks like you'll hit 3000 by the evening meal.

Fitbit daily burn 3000 - 2500 MFP daily burn estimate = 500 cal adjustment.

500 + 2400 eating goal = 2900 base eating goal.

Except in your case, I think the difference will be more extreme than just 100 calories.

But why estimate Sedentary TDEE from Scooby when MFP already has that setting.

Fitbit already underestimates daily burn - why not just set MFP to maintenance, and sync away?
Because your BMR is no where near 600 daily. Unless you are missing several of your major metabolic organs that causes most of your calorie burn, or have wasted away all your muscle, except even that wouldn't be enough.

The Scooby calc is referenced when you are actually trying to estimate TDEE - which you aren't.
Because you aren't including exercise in it - therefore not TDEE.
In which case MFP was designed to do exactly what you are desiring - changing activity levels that makes it unrealistic to estimate a weekly amount. Therefore adjust daily based on what you really do.

andymcclure

I'll give it a shot. I changed my settings to let Fibit and MFP do all the calculating, and it made a difference of 20 calories (to start).

I'll be curious to see if that changes what MFP/Fitbit estimate for my activity. If what you're saying is accurate, then I've been underestimating how "smart" the connection between Fitbit and MFP is. Up to this point, I've viewed the Fitbit as nothing more than a glorified pedometer. (Originally, I was more enticed by the sleep tracking features, which turned out to be pretty worthless for me.)

I guess it really comes down to how well Fitbit and MFP work together to come up with a reasonably accurate assessment of intake vs. burn.

heybales

Fitbit underestimates because all non-moving time is given BMR level burn.
So awake actually burns more - RMR level.
Standing not moving burns even more.
Digesting/processing food burns about 10% of calories eaten.
All that is unaccounted for.

But moving time with lower HR is based on steps, which provides distance along with time. And pace and weight formulas for walking are the most accurate for your daily stuff. HR-based formulas aren't even valid for below aerobic exercise level, about 90 bpm.

Exercise level time depends on model.
HR-based start adjusting for your specifics and get more accurate estimate of calorie burn when HR-based formula is valid use of it. Valid is cardio that is steady-state aerobic, same HR for 2-4 min. The farther you move away from that the more inflated it gets, but usually people spend less time doing it, so may not matter to many. Like lifting should be manually logged.
Step-based need to have manually logged any workouts that are not step-based with normal impacts like walking/running/gym classes - so swimming obviously, rowing, stair climbers, elliptical, biking, lifting, ect.

So it's much more than pedometer merely counting steps and perhaps applying a fixed stride length to it to give you daily distance travelled.
It uses seen hang time and impact from tri-axis accelerometer, compared to expected impact based on weight/avg stride length - it can adjust dynamically the current distance traveled pretty well.

As any tool, some extreme uses can make it not work as well - if life is full of such extremes - accuracy is off.
Like medically induced lowered HR.
Walking on crutches, obviously a wheelchair.
Daily movements that appear as weak steps, though they rarely add up to much distance or calorie burn, even if the steps are high.

Of course for intake, that's merely accuracy of your logging all you eat by weight of food, volume of liquids.
With MFP having the eating goal you follow, Fitbit having the eaten calories doesn't matter to the math on what it reports as daily burn.
MFP adjusts it's daily burn to match, through the day attempting to estimate what it'll likely be.

Might read through this for some other tips, and 2nd half for fun with math if curious how it works together.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy

andymcclure

Awesome, thanks so much for that info. That's by far the best explanation I've seen of how this all works together.

After one day (which is hardly a great sample, I know) it looks like my daily totals will come out just about the same as what I was getting before. But, this way I can let the computers do all the work and adjust to all the variations for me. This will provide a much lower risk of operator error on my part.

heybales

And MFP will auto-adjust the daily burn estimate as you log lower weight.

At 10 lbs lost it'll ask to adjust the eating goal - say yes. That's about how much you have to lose for the calorie change to be significant.

XavierNusum

Welcome! Now that you've had your tutorial via heybales.
Congrats on your accomplishments thus far!

izzy214

Hi
I have been trying to use the EM2WL website and weight loss calculator and its not so easy. The calculator did not work.

heybales

izzy214 wrote: »

Hi
I have been trying to use the EM2WL website and weight loss calculator and its not so easy. The calculator did not work.

What's the link to the EM2WL weight loss calculator that you are using?

andymcclure

Here's the Scooby calculator that seems to be very popular here on the forums. For whatever it's worth, I got nearly identical results using Scooby as I did letting MFP/Fitbit do everything automatically.

http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/

heybales

I'm thinking she may be talking about something else, as that's not an EM2WL site, and I don't believe EM2WL has a calculator, so curious as what she is using.

andymcclure

Here's another question I have; and I haven't discovered a solid answer:

How do I avoid the endless cycle of cut calories>lose weight>plateau>cut calories>lose weight>plateau until I'm back to eating way below my minimums?

The best I can figure from what I've read is that every 8-12 weeks, I should go back up to maintenance level for a week, then return to deficit. But, I'm not seeing anything really solid out there on the subject. Thoughts?

andymcclure

Also, there's this calculator at EM2WL: http://eatmore2weighless.com/weight-loss-calculator/

I think it's pretty much identical to the Scooby calculator I linked above.

@izzy214 can you clarify what it is you're confused about? I'll help if I can, but I suspect @heybales will have a better answer.

heybales

Oh good, they do have one, I'd not seen it.

And it didn't work for me either - but then I again I know I have some blocking apps on my web browser that prevented it.

Since you can post in the forums now from mobile - it could be the calc doesn't work on mobile browser.

retirehappy

I tried their calculator on my pc, worked fine, using Win10, FF browser, with adblock add-in. I have decided to just use the Heybale's TDEE only spreadsheet instead of calculators, since Fitbit gives me good data, activity mins. etc. to use it effectively.

andymcclure

Also, week 4, no change on the scale. This is amazing to me, as many evenings I find myself having an extra snack just to hit my calorie goal. Now that I'm focusing on eating better, it'll probably be even harder to hit that number. (It's easy if I just stop at the bakery, but I don't need an extra 1,500 calories of processed sugars!)

Anyway, it would seem that I'm leveling off a bit. If this olds, I'll try backing off a little to try to get my weight back down. Slow and steady wins the race, right?

heybales

Watch out for other interesting physical changes as body is willing to speed back up to use those extra calories.

Workouts getting better - if you have a way of measuring intensity/speed/weight to compare.
Hair/nails growing faster. I always notice on toenails first since they are slowest anyway, but also speed of healing of cuts/scrapes. Keeping warm easier, ect.

andymcclure

...also, sleeping better.

andymcclure

Week 5, 3.8 pound increase. Not so thrilled about that, but I'm trying really hard not to get hung up on the small week-to-week changes. This is still WAY less weight than I was gaining when I starved myself.

So, I'm going to start backing off on calories to see if I can start losing again. I'm starting at 500 calories/day for a goal of losing 1 pound a week. I'm also going to try to increase my exercise a little. (I've not been very good about doing my PT exercises, which is my main form of exercise right now.)

heybales

Well, careful of doing the old double bang of eating less at the same time as exercising more.

That just creates more deficit. Keep it reasonable on both and that's fine. Make each by itself reasonable, and it just became unreasonable combined.

So if exercise is going up your TDEE you were doing is now lower than what it will be, so 500 off now lower figure means bigger deficit there than 500.

So a water weight gain of 3.8 lbs in 1 week, since wk 4 saw no change.

Maybe body finally responded well to good workouts and increased water weight associated with that.

andymcclure

I definitely FEEL better overall, and that seems more important than a number on the scale for now. My pants are all getting a little snug, which is not so great. I am trying to pay more attention to my macros, not just calories; I'll be curious to see how that changes things. I'm finding it hard to get enough protein, so that's where I'm focusing for now.

heybales

When eating at the higher maintenance level, and the fact it's maintenance too - the protein level being at 30% can be overkill for what is really needed.
Won't provide anything extra except making you feel full - which perhaps isn't a problem anyway, and lightening your wallet, which may not help the pants situation anyway.

I'd suggest see how many grams is bodyweight x 0.8 and call that desired, you can eat more if you really want to work at it.

retirehappy

Bumping.

andymcclure

OK, I'm 9 weeks in and 12 pounds heavier than I started. Here's where I'm running into trouble:

I let MFP and Fitbit work together to give me a number (currently 1830 calories/day, based on sedentary activity level and losing 1 pound/week), and that number is nearly identical to what I got doing far more calculation. So, I feel pretty good about that number.

Great. I get to eat a lot more. My weight jumped up the first couple of weeks, but that was expected. Then the weight gain slowed, but was still creeping up. Again, not terribly surprising. Then I actually started to lose a tiny bit of weight. Then a plateau. Plateau. Gain. Plateau. Gain.

So, here's the part I don't understand about EM2WL (or any weight loss program, really)...

I eat X calories a day to maintain my weight. I eat X-Y calories a day to try to lose some weight. I lose some weight. THEN, X-Y calories becomes what I eat to maintain. So, then I eat X-Y-Z calories to lose some weight. Repeat endlessly.

Over a surprisingly short amount of time, I'm starting the day with just a few hundred calories and still gaining weight, which is where I was 9 weeks ago (12 pounds lighter but hungry and crabby all the time).

So here's the question I can't seem to get answered anywhere:

To lose weight, one must take in fewer calories than one burns. What prevents my body from simply adjusting to the new reduced calorie intake and starting to plateau (or even gain)?

Right now, I'm about halfway down the slide: eating more than I was 9 weeks ago, but less than all the EM2WL info would suggest.

kmac1196

Muscle. Kiki (from Eat More Weigh Less) just did a persicope about this very issues. When you diet down, you lose muscle, some water, fat, etc...lots of stuff. And then your metabolism slows down (becomes efficient...remember, your body wants homeostasis). Building muscle and lifting weights help to preserve metabolism. As does taking breaks.

FYI..I am cutting at 1950-2k.

KickboxDiva

I 2nd kmac... Pump some iron!! . Weight training supports your metabolism in a major way. I'm 5'7 172lb female at 20ish% body fat maintaining at 2200-2400 calories. Mulling over tipping the calories higher to bulk before the cut in January.