Thoughts?

gunnerslove77

I'm female 5ft 9 age 39 weight 166.
Bmr 1508
Tdee (With moderate ex ) 2338

The last 2 weeks I've been eating 1600//2000 on no gym days and 2300//2840 on gym days and i am losing.. do you think I'm eatting the right amount to continue losing safety? or would you suggest upping slightly? Or just continue as I am for another few weeks?

heybales

Is this just starting a diet for fat loss coming from a long time of eating at maintenance, gaining nothing or super slow?
Or have you been eating even less than that for a decent amount of time?

Because 2 weeks for a female - whose BMR literally changes through the month - isn't long enough to discern anything with weight changes.
Besides the fact you know if you picked the wrong 2 weeks - water weight would go the other direction.
So also picking the right 2 weeks - water weight can go down.

So hard to know, and hard to suggest without knowing what state you are coming from.

You don't really have much to lose it sounds like to healthy weight, so it also depends on how many gym and non-gym days those eating levels are at. Even if it is good time to lose fat and don't need to reset and eat at maintenance - a 10% deficit might be better than 15%.

The TDEE estimate is a weekly average TDEE - meaning every day that average works out to a weekly balance that is right - if you got the activity level correct.

Now - if you are only trying to do a deficit on non-workout days, but eat at maintenance on workout days - that's a valid method that can be useful.

gunnerslove77

I've been on a diet since January never eatting less than 1250.(after 6 years of not caring what I ate and 2 pregnancies ) . but in June I started eatting low carb as I started showing signs of diabetes (50g of carbs) I had to.. as I'd literally binge on chocolate in my calorie allowance of 1300 with just a taste of sweetness. So low carb helps with my control..on lchf I generally have been eatting 1400/ 1600 and eatting back exercise. . And now I've lossed 50lbs I want to get to the point where I eat more and prepare myself to maintaining my new healthy weight.. although my goal is 14 more lbs.

gunnerslove77

My diary is open... if there are days I've half logged (3 or 4 occasions where it stops at 500 cals) it's because I gave up low carbing for the day and ate like there was no tomorrow guaranteed the calories would be 3000+ on those days..
So the question again is am I doing this right ? How long Should I continue eatting between 10 to 15% of my TDEE on my no exercise days ( i do eat to my body's demands on gym days...but I have no accurate way to guess what I burn.. but it's normally 60 mins doing cardio and 10 mins strength three times a week. ) when would you change the deficit to 5% / 10%? I have another 14lbs to go.

heybales

If you prefer the more cardio over strength workouts - I'd suggest 15% isn't bad because you have your workout days with no deficit. So your 4 days at 15% and 3 days at no deficit actually average out to 9% deficit overall weekly.

So eating 1400-1600 and then on exercise days added calories.

So I'm trying to get a handle if your overall deficit for the many months was minor or major.

If workouts are about the same, then your TDEE was higher then with higher weight, so above 2400 easily.

15% deficit to that would be 2040.

So likely never reached that - certainly not on rest days, unlikely you ate more than 800-1000 on workout days.

So you had a rather extreme deficit this entire time.

If you are really going to try to do this different eating levels on different days depending on workouts or not - you'd be better served not attempting to use a system that relies on average weekly totals and deficits and eating amounts.

You'd be better with MFP method, which assumes a non-workout day, and eating more on workout days.

Just set to maintenance, pick the correct activity level for your non-exercise part of day (lightly active if you have kids or dog or busy after even a sit-down desk job).
Then see what your maintenance calories would be looking at food diary.

Now take off 15% - and go adjust your daily eating goal manually - mess with macros to hit your desired diet type.
Say this ends up being a 300 cal deficit, only on non-workout days.

Now on days you exercise, log the workouts so your daily goal goes up. (where are you getting calorie estimates from?)
If you truly want no deficit on these days - you know you can eat 300 cal more and be fine.
If you keep the deficit you set, at least you'll know it's still 300, even though your literal TDEE this day went up, so deficit is smaller than 15% now.

Yes, this is going to sound confusing - but it sounds like you have some methods you want to use that don't fit to the average weekly TDEE method of same calories daily.

gunnerslove77

Thanks for replying.. ive just reset mmyfitnesspal goals to maintaining at low activities.. it says 1860 so going to leave it there and eat back my calories.. hopefully I'm more active than I know and it will work out at a deficit.. going to think about a fit bit so I know my property tdee.. which one would you suggest?

empressichel

I like my Fitbit charge HR, I do manually add in my strength training.
It made me realise just how much more active I was than I thought.
It confirmed I needed to increase calories.
They are good as a guide to hit.
Ichel
EM2WL ambassador and moderator

gunnerslove77

Thanks for the input.. I keep changing my mind about mmy goal lol.. I know I under guess a lot about my food when I log for example 1 table spoon of peanut butter really weighs double. And the same with spoons of ground almonds and linseeds.. so I'm going to put in maintenance but a lower exercise like that of a school teacher.. not a mail man and see how that goes for a few weeks . I guess it's about trial and error.. and over coming fear .

jvezzsb01

A scale is a huge help to get an idea of what a serving is. I'm always weighing my peanut butter, because it is so dense. I've had min for years because I like to bake with a scale when I can and I use it to stretch the cereal out for the kids and to weigh my food when I need to.

Sevio

I too rely on my food scale. I even weigh out a serving of popcorn!! My husband thinks I am nuts but it's so easy to think that you aren't having that much when in reality that's your serving. Ask Santa for one for Christmas!!!