Shorties who found success with this WOE?

lightweightdiva

Hey guys, I am fascinated by the concept that I could lose weight while not being starving, grumpy, and feeling deprived all the time.

I have done the dieting yo-yo for years including all of the fad diets and the frequent return to the 1,200 calorie diet where I usually find success (though very slowly). I have finally reached the point where I enjoy working out, lately I've been having fun with the Beach Body on Demand app and trying everything from Insanity to P90X.

When I ran my calculations it said my BMR= 1327 with my TDEE= 2057

I bumped my calories up to 1,300 this past week, and was planning to go up to 1,400 this week while eating back all of my exercise calories. I would love to find some friends who are finding success with this lifestyle to prevent me from getting discouraged. I'm also wondering if any of you who have been successful are vertically challenged like me. I'm 5'1" which seems to make weight loss that much more difficult, it also seems that my BMR and TDEE are much lower than a lot of the other people on these forums.

Candicem99

Hi Lightweightdiva, I am vertically challenged also, I'm 5'2. I haven't found success yet, but I am trying.

jerilynconn

Hi

I haven't found success yet but i'm still finding my tdee so i can reset. I'm sure with time and consistency I will get there.

Cutemesoon

Hi. I would suggest not eating back your exercise calories. It defeats the purpose. To answer your question, I have found "success." I've been using MFP for 2 yrs & I've lost 88lbs so far. I am 5'1. It was lots of trial & error, blood, sweat & LOADS of tears. My advice is to continue being consistent with your workouts. Do lots of research on healthy eating habits & continue to search the MFP forums. There's so much great info on them & I've found that there are lots of nice people here that are willing to help. Good luck on your weight loss journey!

lightweightdiva

Thanks cutemesoon, I guess I'm just confused because at 1,300-1,400 calories if I'm not eating my exercise calories back, I would actually be eating less than eating 1,200 and eating back my exercise calories which seems to defeat the purpose.

Honestly after looking around a bit on the message boards it seems like this plan may not be for me, but I was hoping I could find some friends who could convince me otherwise.

jerilynconn

Most people here calculate their tdee based on their daily activity (both exercise and regular) and eat a consistent amount every day.

You could use the mfp method of eating back exercise calories if you have a way to accurately estimate calories burned. If you choose this way, set your goals to lose .5 pounds a week.

You may need a reset though. Its worth a try. Nothing is irreversible.

Cutemesoon

Ok. I understand what you mean. NEVER eat less than 1,200 calories! You can use a heart rate monitor to track how many calories you burn from exercise. I've noticed that when I put in my exercise for the day, MFP grossly miscalculates what I burn. So keep an accurate record of how much you burn & try not to add to many calories back into your diet.

rjlkat

I'm also 5'1, and once I truly understood how this works, I applied it and it was working. Everything got sidetracked for about 4 months due to a significant job change and out of town training, so I ended up doing an unintentional reset, as I had no time for sleep, exercise, could not accurately track my calories and was under significant stress, so I gained about 8 pounds.

That said, I tell you this to say that yes, it does work for those of us below average height. You just have to decide - like stated above - what method you are going to use. If you follow EM2WL, then ignore completely the exercise calories (in fact, don't even register them); your exercise calories are already figured in your calculated TDEE. If you increase your calories quickly, you may have "weight gain" temporarily, but just review the stickies above for the 'what to expect' aspect.

Now that things have settled down for me, I am back to working out and am trying to tweak my calories appropriately. Depending on how much you have to lose, it may be a slow .5 pound loss weekly, but you'll feel better. When it finally started working for me, I had to increase my strength training some, reduce my cardio significantly, and increase my daily calories by 1,000 (over a 6-week period). Give it a shot; you'll feel better.

heybales

Just a point I think maybe is being missed.
@lightweightdiva is referring to only adding back exercise calories during this time of slowly raising calories up to the TDEE level. Right now she is way below.

And that's actually pretty valid if she was already following MFP method just with an extreme deficit.

The trick would be when you are getting closer to TDEE, if the exercise calories bump you over that average TDEE, don't eat over.

Now of course literally, you are burning more than average TDEE for that workout day and could indeed do it - but you don't want to get used to eating over TDEE really - you might enjoy it too much and not want to eat lower - and you will eventually.

Oh - shorties do indeed have smaller margin of error - so more accuracy is needed for food logging, and indeed the numbers aren't as high anyway. Unless you just add in decent amounts of cardio with more time merely to burn more - which is valid way to do it if you enjoy eating more.

As to HRM and your stated types of workouts - those are pretty close to anaerobic and non-steady state - HR is going all over the place.
That is exactly the opposite of valid use for HRM calorie burn formula - which only works for steady-state aerobic exercise.

For the Insanity stuff using body weight and very little rest ("intervals upside down") - calisthenics in database would be correct.
For P90X using weight and some rests - circuit training in the database would be correct.
And those would both probably give lower calories than a HRM would using inflated HR for the formula.
Probably lower than reality too - but closer and better than other entries.