Accounting for massive calorie deficits.
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Not for some people. But, for me, a 55 year old woman with a weight range between 140 and 145 who weight lifts 3 days a week, with cardio after, and runs 3 days a week, they are a few hundred too high. That's why I use the estimates on my heart reate monitor, because they have proven to be more accurate for me.0 -
I am fairly active and at 173 pounds don't have all that much more to use. I go by the rule that I should intentionally eat more on days I am active. If my activity increases my TDEE by 500 calories I do eat that back. That said I've had days where my calculated TDEE was 6000. If ai stuck with my goal of eating 500 below my TDEE I should have eaten 5500 calories. I didn't though I ate only 3400. Reasons were some doubt in accuracy of excercise burn estimates and the fact that eating that much especially while being active throughout the day was pretty much impossible.
My take is this...if I have a bunch of days in a row like that and start feeling weaker or fatigued I need to ease up and refered a bit with lower activity. If I don't I carry on still tracking my weight and calories. So far I've felt fine and my weightloss is a steady pound per week as intended.1 -
robertw486 wrote: »For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.
No kidding. I'm sitting here 300 cal short of my normal 2300 goal and still needing to find room for another 1250 on top of that just to eat back half my exercise calories, and I don't know how I'm going to do it. Got some salmon in the skillet and squash in the oven and I'll have extra bleu cheese on the salad and see where I'm at.
Next time I'll eat more earlier in my day.Congrats on your weight loss so far, and on being able to ride a bike as much as you do!
Thanks! That 290 isn't ALL fat.
Aaron_K123 wrote: »My take is this...if I have a bunch of days in a row like that and start feeling weaker or fatigued I need to ease up and refered a bit with lower activity. If I don't I carry on still tracking my weight and calories. So far I've felt fine and my weightloss is a steady pound per week as intended.
I think this is pretty much where I'm at with it. It's all just numbers anyway, so I'm not too hung up on making everything match. I'll fiddle with my calorie goals as necessary to keep the pounds coming off and me feeling good.0 -
robertw486 wrote: »For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.
No kidding. I'm sitting here 300 cal short of my normal 2300 goal and still needing to find room for another 1250 on top of that just to eat back half my exercise calories, and I don't know how I'm going to do it. Got some salmon in the skillet and squash in the oven and I'll have extra bleu cheese on the salad and see where I'm at.
Next time I'll eat more earlier in my day.Congrats on your weight loss so far, and on being able to ride a bike as much as you do!
Thanks! That 290 isn't ALL fat.Aaron_K123 wrote: »My take is this...if I have a bunch of days in a row like that and start feeling weaker or fatigued I need to ease up and refered a bit with lower activity. If I don't I carry on still tracking my weight and calories. So far I've felt fine and my weightloss is a steady pound per week as intended.
I think this is pretty much where I'm at with it. It's all just numbers anyway, so I'm not too hung up on making everything match. I'll fiddle with my calorie goals as necessary to keep the pounds coming off and me feeling good.
I agree with one of the other posters, that you are not feeling fatigued at this time because of excess reserves that you have. When I first started on my 87 pound weight loss journey, I ate about 400 calories less than I do now and exercised at least 2.5 times more than I do. I didn't get fatigued or hungry. Now, that doesn't work. At first, I couldn't understand why until I realized that I have far less reserves to pull energy from.
Listen to your body and respond accordingly. Good luck on your journey and many congratulations on your progress!
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leejoyce31 wrote: »robertw486 wrote: »For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.
No kidding. I'm sitting here 300 cal short of my normal 2300 goal and still needing to find room for another 1250 on top of that just to eat back half my exercise calories, and I don't know how I'm going to do it. Got some salmon in the skillet and squash in the oven and I'll have extra bleu cheese on the salad and see where I'm at.
Next time I'll eat more earlier in my day.Congrats on your weight loss so far, and on being able to ride a bike as much as you do!
Thanks! That 290 isn't ALL fat.Aaron_K123 wrote: »My take is this...if I have a bunch of days in a row like that and start feeling weaker or fatigued I need to ease up and refered a bit with lower activity. If I don't I carry on still tracking my weight and calories. So far I've felt fine and my weightloss is a steady pound per week as intended.
I think this is pretty much where I'm at with it. It's all just numbers anyway, so I'm not too hung up on making everything match. I'll fiddle with my calorie goals as necessary to keep the pounds coming off and me feeling good.
I agree with one of the other posters, that you are not feeling fatigued at this time because of excess reserves that you have. When I first started on my 87 pound weight loss journey, I ate about 400 calories less than I do now and exercised at least 2.5 times more than I do. I didn't get fatigued or hungry. Now, that doesn't work. At first, I couldn't understand why until I realized that I have far less reserves to pull energy from.
Listen to your body and respond accordingly. Good luck on your journey and many congratulations on your progress!
I'd agree with this. If you do start feeling fatigued or weakened then listen to your body and don't be afraid to increase your intake until you can perform again, you can still lose weight that way. If it is to the point where you literally can't eat enough to sustain that level of activity then I guess you need to do less activity, but it probably won't come to that.0 -
You can estimate how accurate your burns are for you by evaluating what you've logged vs what you've lost.
Are they going to be 100% accurate? Probably not. Are they going to be MORE than 50% accurate? Probably yes. Walking, running, and cycling are all activities that have been studied and measured quite extensively. Strava with an HRM and power meter is almost like a portable lab on wheels.
You should NOT be logging, even while obese 50%+ deficits.
25% on a consistent basis... maybe. Drop that down to 20% or even 15% when you're no longer obese. One day of 30% or bigger? Probably won't hurt anything. Keep doing it all the time and you will be affected and will not even know you were till much later (after some damage has already been done)
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Funny that people think because a person is large and overweight that they have extra energy stores to pull from.
The same folks who thought the camel's hump was full of water I suppose.0 -
Birddog6424 wrote: »Funny that people think because a person is large and overweight that they have extra energy stores to pull from.
The same folks who thought the camel's hump was full of water I suppose.
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What do you think the fat is there for? It's a store of energy. That's what it is. 3500 calories in every pound. That is the entire purpose of the body storing fat. For energy.
But that doesn't mean overweight people should starve themselves. OP, why not just log the exercise on mfp? That gives you extra calories to eat. You don't need to eat them the same day, but try and average over the week. I often finish the day under goal if I've had a lot of exercise, then I'll be hungry the next day or the day after and go over goal.
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Birddog6424 wrote: »Funny that people think because a person is large and overweight that they have extra energy stores to pull from.
The same folks who thought the camel's hump was full of water I suppose.
What do you suppose all that extra weight is there for? And what's your understanding of how/where the body stores energy?2 -
Yesterday I weighed 198.2 lb and logged 74 minutes of "Bicycling, 10-12 mph, light (cycling, biking, bike riding)", which traveled 9.7 miles for 662 calories. I consumed my usual 1600 calories without adding any for the exercise.
This morning I weighed 195.8, a loss of 2.4 lb. While some unclear portion of my loss was part of an ongoing weekend whoosh, the exercise certainly was a factor in that. If you bike to work every day, firstly you're going to lose weight rapidly if you don't eat back some of the calories, secondly you're going to lose weight anyway so the problem of eating enough diminishes over time. You would be wise to keep close watch of your calories in, calories out, and weight, so that you don't exceed a loss of more than 1% weekly.0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »We cannot base his burns on our own, especially if you are a female. He's a 290lb male, it takes a lot of energy to move yourself. My burns now are half what they were when I started 50lbs ago and I ate most of my burns back then (admittedly from an HRM but i don't always do steady state either).
It's not that likely that 50 lb actually equals a real 50% reduction, although it would equal some.
There's another effect, though - HRM calculations tend to overestimate burns in those with low cardiovascular fitness and underestimate burns in those with high fitness. That's because heart rate is only one of two variables needed to calculate cardiac output, and there's no way to measure the other (stroke volume) at home. As your heart gets stronger, it moves more blood per beat and requires fewer beats to supply the same level of oxygen to your tissues.
So if you built a significant amount of cardiovascular fitness over those 50 lb., it's likely your actual calorie burns haven't changed as much as the HRM estimates.1 -
robertw486 wrote: »For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.
No kidding. I'm sitting here 300 cal short of my normal 2300 goal and still needing to find room for another 1250 on top of that just to eat back half my exercise calories, and I don't know how I'm going to do it. Got some salmon in the skillet and squash in the oven and I'll have extra bleu cheese on the salad and see where I'm at.
Next time I'll eat more earlier in my day.
Yup, moving forward eat more during the day. Otherwise, have pizza or other calorie dense foods for dinner.
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You sound a lot like where I was about 4-5 years ago. I started out at 305. In my avatar, I'm at 180. The biggest thing I can suggest -
You are overweight because you have bad eating/exercising habits, but you are changing that. Right now, you don't need to worry too much about not eating enough. You have plenty of energy reserves and unless you are eating less than 1200 or so TOTAL calories, you will likely get the nutritional needs. It is a myth that you must NET more than your BMR (or else you'll die!), especially when you have a lot to lose. So, what I need to tell you is this - DON'T MAKE YOURSELF EAT! You will just be changing one bad eating habit for another, which you will have to break sooner or later. If you have the energy you need to workout and feel fine, don't eat back those calories unless you are hungry, weak, or otherwise NEED food.
That said - don't go crazy. You still need to make sure you aren't dropping weight so fast that you get baggy skin and lose muscle mass. If that takes treating yourself to a hamburger for lunch on a workout day, then so be it, but don't force-feed yourself. Set up your deficit, then make sure you are eating about 1g protein per lb of lean body mass and you will be in good shape.
Once you get down to your last 30-40 lbs, you will want to START worrying about undereating. In your last 20 lbs, you'll want to control weight loss to 1 lb/week and hit that protein goal. Your last 5-10 lbs or so will be at 0.5 lbs/week.
Of course, right now do plenty of cardio and mix in some weights. As you get leaner, you will probably want to transition to a 50/50 cardio/strength mix, and then at your leanest you will probably want to be mostly weights. This helps preserve muscle mass while on a deficit.1 -
I'm gathering that you haven't been doing this for very long. You may just need to give your body time to adjust to the caloric demands you're putting on it. In other words, there's a good chance the hunger and fatigue you're expecting will catch up with you at some point. Meanwhile, as long as you're sure your calorie burns are accurate, then you really should make sure you eat enough calories, whether you feel hungry or not. I believe the recommended minimum for males 1500 NET, that is, after exercise.1
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Birddog6424 wrote: »Funny that people think because a person is large and overweight that they have extra energy stores to pull from.
The same folks who thought the camel's hump was full of water I suppose.
Well, what do you think fat is?
Never heard a camel's hump had water, but it is extra fat storage for those long treks through the desert. In other words, that hump is energy storage. 0
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