Best away to adjust intake if TDEE varies greatly every day
oat_bran
Posts: 370 Member
Since I got my Fitbit Charge HR about a year ago I realized what a difference there can be in terms of TDEE between a lazy day spent at home and an active day outside, even if there was no deliberate exercise involved. I'm a 28y female, 5'2'', currently about 130 lbs. I am a student and have two very active side jobs. I also live in a big city without a car so i rely a lot on public transport and walking places.
According to my Fitbit, on lazy day that I spend mostly seated at home I'd usually burn around 1600 calories. On active days where I go from one job to class to another job etc. I can burn hundreds more. The most I've burned on such a day according to my fitbit would be just over 3000. That's what a difference running up and down the stairs in an absence of an elevator and walking places can make. But on average it's 2000-2400 cals a day.
I do realize that an activity tracker even with a heart rate monitor can be inaccurate. It might be overestimating my calories somewhat during my active moments but I think it all evens out eventually because according to my gains and losses (or lack thereof) it should be pretty accurate or at least not to far off.
For the last few months I started experiencing an unexplained increase in hunger levels even though my diet, activity level or weight hasn't really changed (go figure what caused it) so I find it really hard eating at maintenance some days not to mention to have a deficit. Any time I accidentally have a deficit over 500 I'd get ravenous the next day. I'd be really hungry until I eat several calories over my TDEE. Having a smaller deficit would usually mean that I'd need somewhat longer to get ravenous. But the hunger usually catches up with me sooner or later. This is why I've been hovering around 130lbs mark forever and it's getting really frustrating. But this thread is not about me asking me how to stop the increased hunger (I tried everything - upping my protein, fat, lowering carbs, eating even more fiber, having more smaller meals etc, drinking more water., so please don't waste your time with these tips). I just think I'll have to suck it up and deal with hunger.
I'm mostly just wondering here what would be the best way to adjust my daily intake to be able to control my hunger levels a bit better? I don't think I can rely on mfp to tell me how much I should eat since my TDEE varies so much. Should I try to keep a consistent deficit based on what my firtbit says I burned that day? Like eat more if I burned more? My schedule is really unpredictable and some days most of my activity is in the evening, others it's mostly at night. Sometimes it's spread throughout the day. So constantly adjust the intake according to my TDEE would be complicated especially in terms of meal planning. I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be a better approach to try to get my body into the habit of eating the same amount of calories every day irregardless of my TDEE? Or should I just listen to my hunger levels? So far it's not working for me. I might have a normal sized nutritious meal and feel satiated afterwards and then suddenly an hour an a half later get really hungry - as if my body suddently realized how many calories actually were in that meal and that it's not enough. These moments are really dangerous because I get ravenous quite suddenly and might end up overeating.
I'm really at loss at what would be the best approach. I'm having a difficult time seeing patterns here as my schedule and theerfore activity levels are very unpredictably and vary greatly. And so are my hunger levels. Any tips?
According to my Fitbit, on lazy day that I spend mostly seated at home I'd usually burn around 1600 calories. On active days where I go from one job to class to another job etc. I can burn hundreds more. The most I've burned on such a day according to my fitbit would be just over 3000. That's what a difference running up and down the stairs in an absence of an elevator and walking places can make. But on average it's 2000-2400 cals a day.
I do realize that an activity tracker even with a heart rate monitor can be inaccurate. It might be overestimating my calories somewhat during my active moments but I think it all evens out eventually because according to my gains and losses (or lack thereof) it should be pretty accurate or at least not to far off.
For the last few months I started experiencing an unexplained increase in hunger levels even though my diet, activity level or weight hasn't really changed (go figure what caused it) so I find it really hard eating at maintenance some days not to mention to have a deficit. Any time I accidentally have a deficit over 500 I'd get ravenous the next day. I'd be really hungry until I eat several calories over my TDEE. Having a smaller deficit would usually mean that I'd need somewhat longer to get ravenous. But the hunger usually catches up with me sooner or later. This is why I've been hovering around 130lbs mark forever and it's getting really frustrating. But this thread is not about me asking me how to stop the increased hunger (I tried everything - upping my protein, fat, lowering carbs, eating even more fiber, having more smaller meals etc, drinking more water., so please don't waste your time with these tips). I just think I'll have to suck it up and deal with hunger.
I'm mostly just wondering here what would be the best way to adjust my daily intake to be able to control my hunger levels a bit better? I don't think I can rely on mfp to tell me how much I should eat since my TDEE varies so much. Should I try to keep a consistent deficit based on what my firtbit says I burned that day? Like eat more if I burned more? My schedule is really unpredictable and some days most of my activity is in the evening, others it's mostly at night. Sometimes it's spread throughout the day. So constantly adjust the intake according to my TDEE would be complicated especially in terms of meal planning. I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be a better approach to try to get my body into the habit of eating the same amount of calories every day irregardless of my TDEE? Or should I just listen to my hunger levels? So far it's not working for me. I might have a normal sized nutritious meal and feel satiated afterwards and then suddenly an hour an a half later get really hungry - as if my body suddently realized how many calories actually were in that meal and that it's not enough. These moments are really dangerous because I get ravenous quite suddenly and might end up overeating.
I'm really at loss at what would be the best approach. I'm having a difficult time seeing patterns here as my schedule and theerfore activity levels are very unpredictably and vary greatly. And so are my hunger levels. Any tips?
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Replies
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I'm the same as you, in that some days I'm a lazy cow lounging on the couch, and the next day I have 25,000 steps and I've been walking like it's going out of style. Personally, I add these calories to MFP using the exercise "Walking, leisurely pace" with no regard to the actual minutes or anything, I just add the amount of calories that Fitbit has given me over MFP's assumed maintenance.
Example: MFP gives me a sedentary maintenance of 2100, given that I'm both tall and fat.
If I get around 5000 steps, Fitbit gives me about the same amount. Anything over 5000 steps, and I'll add those calories back, so say I got 10,000 steps and my end-of-the-day Fitbit calorie burn is 2400. I'll add 300 calories to my MFP diary, using the "Walking" entry and editing the calories to suit me.
I prefer this method over changing my activity level, because I'm really more of a lazy butt at heart and I don't want to feel like I HAVE to get those 25,000 steps every day or otherwise have to figure out how many calories to NOT eat on MFP.
Hope this helps!1 -
Measure your TDEE over 2-4 weeks and take an average then calculate your desired deficit. Or each day check your TDEE as you go and hit your deficit for that day.
Personally the first one would be my preference as it allows you to have a constant calorie goal. If you don't lose weight at the desired rate, your average TDEE is a bit high and you should adjust it down.3 -
What I did is averaging my Fibit calories over a week or two, and pick a 20% deficit from there.0
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I would suggest that you go with consistency. If you're chasing your FitBit calories, you'll be doing very different things from day to day, and that makes it quite tricky when to know to make an adjustment.
What I do and what I recommend to people is to eat at a calorie level that allows you to make good progress towards your goal. For example, if you are trying to lose weight, eat so you drop 1-2 lbs/week. This assumes an average calorie burn from you getting in all of your workouts. This will be different for everyone, so you'll have to do some trial and error to figure it out. I'd start ~1600 cal/day. Hit this goal, along with your macros and getting in your workouts, for 2 weeks. If you lose 1-2 lbs/week, you're good to go. If you lose too much, increase your intake and repeat. If you don't lose enough, reduce your intake a bit and repeat. After a few cycles, you'll figure out what works for you in your situation.
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Average minus 20% and see how it goes. You can make adjustments if needed after a couple of weeks.0
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If I were you I would start to document by journaling, any trend you notice with regards to hunger levels.
Once you've established that, I would consider a cyclical kind of set up where you are using a combination of high and low days to arrive at your desired deficit.
Generally I would keep fat and protein roughly the same and adjust carbohydrates up-and-down to bring calories to a reasonable level.
And I've seen it done plenty of different ways so it's hard to say "do it this way" without knowing some of those trends with hunger that you currently have.
I'm primarily suggesting this to see if it smooths out the amount of hunger you are experiencing while still putting you in a deficit.5 -
Average it out0
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If you're burning anywhere from 1,600 to 3,000 calories a day, it's not going to benefit you to eat a consistent number of them. People are only suggesting that because of their own preference, not because it applies to you.3
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If it were me, I'd drop the TDEE method. Sync your fitbit with mfp and follow the calories it gives you. I use Fitbit for calories out and MFP for calories in.6
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longstocking wrote: »Since I got my Fitbit Charge HR about a year ago I realized what a difference there can be in terms of TDEE between a lazy day spent at home and an active day outside, even if there was no deliberate exercise involved. I'm a 28y female, 5'2'', currently about 130 lbs. I am a student and have two very active side jobs. I also live in a big city without a car so i rely a lot on public transport and walking places.
According to my Fitbit, on lazy day that I spend mostly seated at home I'd usually burn around 1600 calories. On active days where I go from one job to class to another job etc. I can burn hundreds more. The most I've burned on such a day according to my fitbit would be just over 3000. That's what a difference running up and down the stairs in an absence of an elevator and walking places can make. But on average it's 2000-2400 cals a day.
I do realize that an activity tracker even with a heart rate monitor can be inaccurate. It might be overestimating my calories somewhat during my active moments but I think it all evens out eventually because according to my gains and losses (or lack thereof) it should be pretty accurate or at least not to far off.
For the last few months I started experiencing an unexplained increase in hunger levels even though my diet, activity level or weight hasn't really changed (go figure what caused it) so I find it really hard eating at maintenance some days not to mention to have a deficit. Any time I accidentally have a deficit over 500 I'd get ravenous the next day. I'd be really hungry until I eat several calories over my TDEE. Having a smaller deficit would usually mean that I'd need somewhat longer to get ravenous. But the hunger usually catches up with me sooner or later. This is why I've been hovering around 130lbs mark forever and it's getting really frustrating. But this thread is not about me asking me how to stop the increased hunger (I tried everything - upping my protein, fat, lowering carbs, eating even more fiber, having more smaller meals etc, drinking more water., so please don't waste your time with these tips). I just think I'll have to suck it up and deal with hunger.
I'm mostly just wondering here what would be the best way to adjust my daily intake to be able to control my hunger levels a bit better? I don't think I can rely on mfp to tell me how much I should eat since my TDEE varies so much. Should I try to keep a consistent deficit based on what my firtbit says I burned that day? Like eat more if I burned more? My schedule is really unpredictable and some days most of my activity is in the evening, others it's mostly at night. Sometimes it's spread throughout the day. So constantly adjust the intake according to my TDEE would be complicated especially in terms of meal planning. I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be a better approach to try to get my body into the habit of eating the same amount of calories every day irregardless of my TDEE? Or should I just listen to my hunger levels? So far it's not working for me. I might have a normal sized nutritious meal and feel satiated afterwards and then suddenly an hour an a half later get really hungry - as if my body suddently realized how many calories actually were in that meal and that it's not enough. These moments are really dangerous because I get ravenous quite suddenly and might end up overeating.
I'm really at loss at what would be the best approach. I'm having a difficult time seeing patterns here as my schedule and theerfore activity levels are very unpredictably and vary greatly. And so are my hunger levels. Any tips?
I ignore the "Calories burned" reading on Fitbit. It's not very useful to me. It includes the calories you burn eating, digesting, breathing and sleeping plus non-exercise activity thermogenesis, and I'm more interested in what I earn on top of that.
I've worn a Fitbit Charge HR since October 2015.
I synced it with MFP and when I was trying to lose weight I ate back 50-75% of the exercise calories I earned.
Since hitting my goal weight in April 2016, I've eaten back 100% of my Fitbit exercise calories and maintained goal.
MFP's daily calorie limit is already set to have you lose weight. If you eat back your exercise calories, you will still lose weight.
When I was losing weight, I stuck to my daily calorie limit every day.
Since being in maintenance, I sometimes need to go over my daily limit to keep my weekly calories in/out balanced.
The MFP app lets you view your weekly net calories in the "Nutrition" section (button at the bottom of the diary).
If you can't stick to your daily limit every day, you can still lose weight by keeping your weekly calories in check.
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Christine_72 wrote: »If it were me, I'd drop the TDEE method. Sync your fitbit with mfp and follow the calories it gives you. I use Fitbit for calories out and MFP for calories in.
Christine - should she also set her MFP activity level to sedentary and enable negative calorie adjustments?3 -
Christine_72 wrote: »If it were me, I'd drop the TDEE method. Sync your fitbit with mfp and follow the calories it gives you. I use Fitbit for calories out and MFP for calories in.
Christine - should she also set her MFP activity level to sedentary and enable negative calorie adjustments?
Yes and yes. This is exactly what I've done.
1 -
Christine_72 wrote: »If it were me, I'd drop the TDEE method. Sync your fitbit with mfp and follow the calories it gives you. I use Fitbit for calories out and MFP for calories in.
Christine - should she also set her MFP activity level to sedentary and enable negative calorie adjustments?
Yes.1 -
If you click the profile page, Fitbit averages out your daily burn for the last thirty days.
Personally, NEAT was starting to grate me a little after over a year and a half. I did use the average burn and a calculator to help me come up with a number for my maintenance days.1 -
You have to evaluate what works for you.
Obviously tdee -20 is too much. Try tdee -10%
Fitbit is tdee. It is not exercise calories. I repeat it is tdee and your adjustment just adjusts your mfp tdee to be equal to your fitbit tdee.
The solution for you is Christine's but modified.
Calculate your lowest 15 days average out of the past 30.
Set mfp base activity at your low 15 days average. This might be lightly active as opposed to sedentary. You know you have at least this to plan your day with. And if because of that you end up high on a day or two... oh well. It is only a day or two.
And the rest of the days use fitbit to match consumption to activity.
And in the end use trendweight.com connected to fitbit to evaluate your progress :-)1
This discussion has been closed.
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