Exercise calories...
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janejellyroll wrote: »The fitbit won't take into account the calories that you would burn if you where just sitting at your desk. That's why I don't add back 100% of my exercise calories. Don't go under 1200 for the day, but also, for example, start with 50% and move up from there. Most people on MFP found it works to eat back only between 75% - 50%. It depends on the person however.
My Fitbit does take my BMR (what I would burn just sitting at a desk or lying in bed) into account.
That's right. Fitbit includes everything in its calorie calculation @cee134 , not just your exercise.
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Jensylkat5 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »1290 does seem very VERY low for a 34 year old woman who is on her feet a lot of the day. What is your goal exactly? How did you arrive on 1290 calories?
In comparison I am a 6' tall 37 year old man. I set MFP to lose 1 pound a week and lightly active and it has me eating 1700 calories a day as my goal. I never eat that little though because I eat back calories on the basis of activity so I end up typically eating more like 2400 calories a day. I'm losing weight at a pretty steady 1 pound a week, actually a bit faster than that. That means my maintenance is probably like 3000 calories a day which would be my TDEE so I'm eating about 600 calories under my TDEE which is about 20% under my TDEE.
If you walk around, are on your feet in a school, are 34 years old and 5'6 your TDEE is probably a lot higher than 1290 calories x 1.2.
I'd recommend you not treat weightloss as a race where you eat as little as you can convince yourself to eat. It won't work out nearly as well as just setting a small deficit based on your estimated TDEE and adjusting over time as needed based on your results.
1290 is what MFP suggested after I put in all my stats. That is set on lightly active, not sedentary. I guess I'm going to have some trial and error here, finding out how much I can eat and get a loss. I had lost 65lbs on Weight Watchers 2 years ago... What I'm eating on 1290 cals on MFP seems more than the points I had on WW. Struggling to stick to it all at the moment, but that's a different story and purely related to stress etc in my life right now. I find it all very confusing tbh, and just always feel guilty eating any of my earned cals back.
MFP didn't suggest anything, it's just a calculator. To lose 2lbs per week (guessing that's what you entered) it would give you right around 1200 cals. That's about a 1000 calorie deficit from your tree. If you're struggling to stick with it, you should start eating back at least 50% and adjust from there. You really are cutting at a pretty sizable level for your stats (if your logging is on point)1 -
I am in a situation like yours and I don't try to eat those calories back. I only eat when I'm hungry and choose good foods to eat. Sometimes I'm under my calories for the day, but I'm not going to make myself eat that much if I'm not hungry for it. Fitbit and Myfitnesspal are not completely accurate, so don't try to be exact with your calories.0
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shadowfax_c11 wrote: »When I was eating the fitbit adjusted calories I was having a hard time losing. I decided to uncheck the Fitbit steps so that they no longer count towards exercise. Instead I use the information I get from my fitbit to set my activity level. Then I log any intentional exercise in MFP but I use the calorie burn Fitbit shows for that time period instead of the generic entry numbers. Now I do use the Charge HR and it registers workouts automatically so I only log workouts that Fitbit considers outside of my normal activity level.
Probably sounds complicated but it sure is working.
Yeah it does sound complicated. I'm not really understanding. you cancelled fitbits acces to mfp, but still follow fitbits calories?
MFP's and fitbits calories should closely match up at the end of the day, provided they are both set with the same info.
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LyssaRonnell wrote: »I am in a situation like yours and I don't try to eat those calories back. I only eat when I'm hungry and choose good foods to eat. Sometimes I'm under my calories for the day, but I'm not going to make myself eat that much if I'm not hungry for it. Fitbit and Myfitnesspal are not completely accurate, so don't try to be exact with your calories.
OP I would advise strongly against this approach of setting a goal and then purposefully not reaching said goal. Way undereating isn't good for you....food isn't some enemy to avoid unless absolutely necessary it's fuel for your body. If you exercise you should eat more...frankly that should be obvious.
Exercise takes fuel, if you don't refuel and instead use exercise to push your deficit higher all exercise is going to do is damage your muscles.2 -
Fat can come and go, muscle on the other hand is hard earned. If you diet in such a way that your deficit is too high chances are you are going to lose lean mass. If I were you I'd avoid that like the plague by slowing my weightloss and making sure to fuel my workouts.
If you lose muscle, it will be very hard to get it back....your BMR will drop and it will be more difficult to maintain a lower weight or ever get a toned appearance or high level of fitness.
Protect your muscle during weightloss...eat 0.8g protein per pound lean mass or more, do some resistance training with your cardiovascular and eat your exercise calories back.
The only question is about how accurate calorie burn calculations are. Can understand those who fudge and only eat back 70% of their burn.5 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »
To get to 1290 calories at lightly active I can only assume you maxed it out and told it 2 pound a week loss which is okay if you are morbidly obese but is extreme if you are just a bit overweight. You might want to consider setting that to 1 pound a week instead.
Thank you so much for your advise. I really don't feel I'm very well educated on this, so any help is truly appreciated.
Just checked and my goal was indeed set at 2 pounds, didn't even know that! So adjusted it down to 1 pound.... My calorie goal jumped up to 1650!! Wow!! How am I going to eat all that?! Haha.
I guess I had the whole "food is my enemy" drilled into me for so long, I'm finding it really hard to readjust. Been having huge issues with binge eating/food addiction lately and now I'm wondering if that is because I simply wasn't giving my body enough and it just drove me to get more and then inadvertently, too much.6 -
Jensylkat5 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »
To get to 1290 calories at lightly active I can only assume you maxed it out and told it 2 pound a week loss which is okay if you are morbidly obese but is extreme if you are just a bit overweight. You might want to consider setting that to 1 pound a week instead.
Thank you so much for your advise. I really don't feel I'm very well educated on this, so any help is truly appreciated.
Just checked and my goal was indeed set at 2 pounds, didn't even know that! So adjusted it down to 1 pound.... My calorie goal jumped up to 1650!! Wow!! How am I going to eat all that?! Haha.
I guess I had the whole "food is my enemy" drilled into me for so long, I'm finding it really hard to readjust. Been having huge issues with binge eating/food addiction lately and now I'm wondering if that is because I simply wasn't giving my body enough and it just drove me to get more and then inadvertently, too much.
Yah I figured as much too...
how do you eat all that food...with whatever you want.
The key to being success at weight loss and maintenance is to not give up the foods you want/love/crave.....
If you want that beer fit it in. Pizza have at...even KFC or McDonalds is doable.
If you look at my diary from previous years I ate an entire chocolate bar every night while losing 1lb a week...I love chocolate and wouldn't give it up and when I learned I didn't have too...well new ball game.
Log accurately and consistently...eat back exercise calories 50% until you are confident in them...it really is that easy.2 -
When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.0 -
Personally, I wouldn't eat them back. Some people eat 1/2 their exercise calories, but since this isn't purposeful, I'd leave them.
It seems like every time this question comes up, someone says not to count exercise that is not "purposeful." This is probably going to sound more snarky than I intend; but I don't understand the distinction. Does the body process "purposeful" activity differently?
Consider my admittedly extreme example:
Outside of my other exercise (taekwondo, and bicycling), I generally get about 30,000-35,000 steps in each day. 10-12 K are my morning workout. The other 18 are non-purposeful walking (i.e. walking while thinking through a work problem, covering the mile from the parking garage to wherever I need to be at the office, a lunchtime or after dinner walk etc.....)
I know I am an extreme example; but is the argument that my 18000 non-purposeful steps aren't burning calories? They were certainly reflected in my results when I lost my weight......
As to the OP's question, I would eat back about half at first and monitor the results as burn estimates can be off. (Though mine seem to be pretty much spot on.......)6 -
superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Sweetie, I can't not respond to this. You had crazy high burns during hockey season and weren't properly fueling them. I haven't been paying much attention to my feed since and hope you are eating more and no longer sounding like an exercise bulimic.1 -
Jensylkat5 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »
To get to 1290 calories at lightly active I can only assume you maxed it out and told it 2 pound a week loss which is okay if you are morbidly obese but is extreme if you are just a bit overweight. You might want to consider setting that to 1 pound a week instead.
Thank you so much for your advise. I really don't feel I'm very well educated on this, so any help is truly appreciated.
Just checked and my goal was indeed set at 2 pounds, didn't even know that! So adjusted it down to 1 pound.... My calorie goal jumped up to 1650!! Wow!! How am I going to eat all that?! Haha.
I guess I had the whole "food is my enemy" drilled into me for so long, I'm finding it really hard to readjust. Been having huge issues with binge eating/food addiction lately and now I'm wondering if that is because I simply wasn't giving my body enough and it just drove me to get more and then inadvertently, too much.
I would say there is a very good likelyhood that is exactly what was happening. You can eat enough to be satiated (not hungry) while still being in a slight deficit, the trick is to find where that is and then stick to it. If previously you were eating an amount where you often felt hungry, got dizzy, felt fatigued, exercise just made you immediately tired etc etc you most likely were simply not eating enough. Eat more, but not too much more (1650 seems reasonable) and give it a month. After that month see where you are at in terms of weight loss but not just weight loss also with how you feel. If you only lose a pound but you feel really good and comfortable with your diet, then you can get to your goal for sure just stick with it.
Could give you other tips from my own experience but honestly what you should eat and when to feel satiated and have enough energy is really personal and up to you to figure out.0 -
Jensylkat5 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »
To get to 1290 calories at lightly active I can only assume you maxed it out and told it 2 pound a week loss which is okay if you are morbidly obese but is extreme if you are just a bit overweight. You might want to consider setting that to 1 pound a week instead.
Thank you so much for your advise. I really don't feel I'm very well educated on this, so any help is truly appreciated.
Just checked and my goal was indeed set at 2 pounds, didn't even know that! So adjusted it down to 1 pound.... My calorie goal jumped up to 1650!! Wow!! How am I going to eat all that?! Haha.
I guess I had the whole "food is my enemy" drilled into me for so long, I'm finding it really hard to readjust. Been having huge issues with binge eating/food addiction lately and now I'm wondering if that is because I simply wasn't giving my body enough and it just drove me to get more and then inadvertently, too much.
Yah I figured as much too...
how do you eat all that food...with whatever you want.
The key to being success at weight loss and maintenance is to not give up the foods you want/love/crave.....
If you want that beer fit it in. Pizza have at...even KFC or McDonalds is doable.
If you look at my diary from previous years I ate an entire chocolate bar every night while losing 1lb a week...I love chocolate and wouldn't give it up and when I learned I didn't have too...well new ball game.
Log accurately and consistently...eat back exercise calories 50% until you are confident in them...it really is that easy.
My diary is open as well OP, since I started in July I've been losing a fairly steady 1 pound a week and if you look at my diet you will quickly realize it wasn't at the expense of foods I enjoy.0 -
Personally, I wouldn't eat them back. Some people eat 1/2 their exercise calories, but since this isn't purposeful, I'd leave them.
It seems like every time this question comes up, someone says not to count exercise that is not "purposeful." This is probably going to sound more snarky than I intend; but I don't understand the distinction. Does the body process "purposeful" activity differently?
Consider my admittedly extreme example:
Outside of my other exercise (taekwondo, and bicycling), I generally get about 30,000-35,000 steps in each day. 10-12 K are my morning workout. The other 18 are non-purposeful walking (i.e. walking while thinking through a work problem, covering the mile from the parking garage to wherever I need to be at the office, a lunchtime or after dinner walk etc.....)
I know I am an extreme example; but is the argument that my 18000 non-purposeful steps aren't burning calories? They were certainly reflected in my results when I lost my weight......
As to the OP's question, I would eat back about half at first and monitor the results as burn estimates can be off. (Though mine seem to be pretty much spot on.......)
I think the belief is that you have to raise your heart rate to a cardiovascular zone and then stay there for at least 15 minutes sustained. I think there is some truth to that for improving your cardiovascular fitness but I think people then misattribute that to a notion that therefore somehow it doesn't count unless you are "purposfully" exercising like that.
Walking from your couch to your fridge might not elevate your heartrate to a sustained cardio zone for more than 15 minutes but yeah, it still burns calories. Moving takes energy.1 -
superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Thats just disturbing to me frankly. Now if you ate 3000 calories a day every day and then worked out a lot to balance that out to lose weight or maintain okay, but if you have your goal set to 1000 calories and THEN do that then you are really not in a good state mentally.
You can eat a lot of calories and use exercise to still create a deficit. You can not exercise but lower your food intake to create a defecit. Or you can lower your food intake and exercise but eat back your exercise calories. What you should never do is both lower your intake AND exercise but not add more intake to support that exercise....thats just disorded.4 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Thats just disturbing to me frankly. Now if you ate 3000 calories a day every day and then worked out a lot to balance that out to lose weight or maintain okay, but if you have your goal set to 1000 calories and THEN do that then you are really not in a good state mentally.
You can eat a lot of calories and use exercise to still create a deficit. You can not exercise but lower your food intake to create a defecit. Or you can lower your food intake and exercise but eat back your exercise calories. What you should never do is both lower your intake AND exercise but not add more intake to support that exercise....thats just disorded.
Her calorie goal is currently set to 1055 calories and her fitbit is giving her calories up to 947. She didn't log any food on the 947 day, but back when I checked my feed regularly she chronically under ate. I kept expecting to see her posting from the hospital.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Thats just disturbing to me frankly. Now if you ate 3000 calories a day every day and then worked out a lot to balance that out to lose weight or maintain okay, but if you have your goal set to 1000 calories and THEN do that then you are really not in a good state mentally.
You can eat a lot of calories and use exercise to still create a deficit. You can not exercise but lower your food intake to create a defecit. Or you can lower your food intake and exercise but eat back your exercise calories. What you should never do is both lower your intake AND exercise but not add more intake to support that exercise....thats just disorded.
Her calorie goal is currently set to 1055 calories and her fitbit is giving her calories up to 947. She didn't log any food on the 947 day, but back when I checked my feed regularly she chronically under ate. I kept expecting to see her posting from the hospital.
Don't worry about me.
I've been very lacks on my logging this summer just getting back to logging and exercise thanks to being injured.
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kshama2001 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Thats just disturbing to me frankly. Now if you ate 3000 calories a day every day and then worked out a lot to balance that out to lose weight or maintain okay, but if you have your goal set to 1000 calories and THEN do that then you are really not in a good state mentally.
You can eat a lot of calories and use exercise to still create a deficit. You can not exercise but lower your food intake to create a defecit. Or you can lower your food intake and exercise but eat back your exercise calories. What you should never do is both lower your intake AND exercise but not add more intake to support that exercise....thats just disorded.
Her calorie goal is currently set to 1055 calories and her fitbit is giving her calories up to 947. She didn't log any food on the 947 day, but back when I checked my feed regularly she chronically under ate. I kept expecting to see her posting from the hospital.
Well the OP isn't doing anything that extreme so I think she likely recognizes the issue with that. 1290 and exercising without eating back is just a less mild version of that though.
OP I'd advise you bump up to 1650, try that for a few weeks and when comfortable start also eating your exercise calories back at maybe 60% of what you estimate. You'll still lose weight, you will feel better too.0 -
superhockeymom wrote: »When I'm actually on track I never eat them back purposeful or not.
I just think adding additional calories is odd. I work out to lose weight.
Do you honestly not know how MFP works? It's just TDEE, but you don't add the exercise to the day until you actually do it.0 -
Fitbit always overestimated for me, but for some its right on. You can always try it and if you are not losing then start only eating a portion back.0
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