Fitness watches and maintaining

fitter_happier94

I have an activity tracker (Polar A300) that puts my TDEE at roughly 1600 a day on a typical sedentary day. It uses an algorithm based on my age, height, weight, gender, and its own data of how active I am that day. I'm maintaining my weight now and am wondering what is a good amount (preferably in percentage form) to knock off of my daily allowance, as an margin of error, so that I don't end up gaining weight?

I'm also curious as to what percentage of exercise calories you all eat back, and your rationale for that percentage? If it's of any help, I use a chest strap to measure my heart rate and my watch uses that alongside the other data I mentioned to determine calories burned, so it's about as accurate as that kind of technology can be, though I suspect it's quite generous with the kcal burned data, if anything.

Thanks!

fitter_happier94

Sorry, I should have mentioned: When I refer to eating back exercise calories, I'm talking exclusively steady state cardio. I don't use my watch during strength exercises.

jeepinshawn

Thats a good question, and one I have been researching off and on for a few weeks myself. Currently I try and create a 300 margin of error, so in other words if I burn 2900 calories that day I try to only eat 2600. I have only been at maintenance for a few weeks though so it is really to early to tell.

fitter_happier94

@jeepinshawn If possible, let me know how you get on please. 300kcal would be too steep for me given how little I can eat, but it is more or less a 10% margin of error which sounds pretty good, it's what I had in mind really.

Suppose the best way forward would be to do that for a few months and document weight fluctuations to see where it gets me. Dunno how reliable that would be though considering my weight fluctuates up and down by as much as 5lbs a day! Only way I could work out an average is if I did it for a bloody decade.

jeepinshawn

everything I have read says it is normal to fluctuate up to 4 or 5 lbs, I guess you don't have to worry much unless the weight stays high or you go over that then you got to start cutting back on calories again. This stage of things is more complicated and frustrating to me then the actual loosing.

Laura3BB

If you just want to maintain no need to be at a deficit...

BikeTourer

I agree with Laura3BB if you are diligent with your food log you should be able to eat back your exercise calories. With that said, it nearly impossible to eat to zero consistently so just try to make sure your negative days counterbalance your positive overage days over a week or month. Other than that listen to your body, don't eat back calories if you are not hungry for them and when you do eat them do try to make them high quality calories not junk.

fitter_happier94

@Laura3BB I know, I haven't said I'm going to be eating at a deficit, that would obviously be counter-intuitive. There's a big difference between leaving a margin of error and eating at a deficit. Most exercise watches massively overestimate the amount of calories burned so it's a pretty sensible thing to do and a lot of people on MFP do the same.

@BikeTourer I'm pretty good at eating more or less the exact same amount of calories daily, mainly because I tend to eat the same things most days so that's not too much of a worry for me really. I don't think diligence comes into it here though - the technology isn't there yet for watches to accurately calculate my calories burned, and algorithms are too generalised to be trusted, so I have to allow for a margin of error to compensate otherwise I will gain weight.

Thanks for the replies I'll figure something out. I suppose it's just a bit of trial and error. @jeepinshawn I completely agree! We'll get there though