Thoughts/Help on My Calorie Intake

Jules_farmgirl

Would like some advice. I am open to suggestions. I will start with, yes I am losing weight. However my concern here is if I am actually eating too little daily, as I don't want to have negative impacts on my health.

My info:

Age: 29
Weight: 169lbs
Height: 5'1"
Daily "activity": Sedentary (I have a desk job)
Exercise: 60mins x 6/week (this is approx. 1/2 cardio and 1/2 strength training) and a 30min walk at lunch everyday

MFP set me at 1200cals/day (not a big surprise). I manually reset this to 1300cals as I didn't like the 1200, I found this would be too low.

I have been wearing a Fitbit with HR 24/7 for a little over a month now. (Yes I do realize that these are not 100%, but I did want an idea of calorie burn through a day)

When I take my average over 30 days I burn 2650cals/days.

Now if I allow for a margin of error on my FitBit of 300-400cals/day, it still seems to me like I am eating way too low of calories.

Is my best bet to up my calories and see how it goes for a few weeks and adjust if needed? I feel some days I am fine with my calorie intake, but others I feel shaky at the end of the day, and as though I need that extra.

Any advice would be great. Thank you!

Oh!! And my diary is open for public if that helps at all.

Spliner1969

Jules_farmgirl wrote: »

Would like some advice. I am open to suggestions. I will start with, yes I am losing weight. However my concern here is if I am actually eating too little daily, as I don't want to have negative impacts on my health.

My info:

Age: 29
Weight: 169lbs
Height: 5'1"
Daily "activity": Sedentary (I have a desk job)
Exercise: 60mins x 6/week (this is approx. 1/2 cardio and 1/2 strength training) and a 30min walk at lunch everyday

MFP set me at 1200cals/day (not a big surprise). I manually reset this to 1300cals as I didn't like the 1200, I found this would be too low.

I have been wearing a Fitbit with HR 24/7 for a little over a month now. (Yes I do realize that these are not 100%, but I did want an idea of calorie burn through a day)

When I take my average over 30 days I burn 2650cals/days.

Now if I allow for a margin of error on my FitBit of 300-400cals/day, it still seems to me like I am eating way too low of calories.

Is my best bet to up my calories and see how it goes for a few weeks and adjust if needed? I feel some days I am fine with my calorie intake, but others I feel shaky at the end of the day, and as though I need that extra.

Any advice would be great. Thank you!

Oh!! And my diary is open for public if that helps at all.

I dunno about fitbit (I never trusted them) but over at iifym.com if you run your stats through their calculator, it shows that with your age/sex/height/weight your TDEE with 60min x 6 days a week is 2031 calories a day. That's what you can eat 7 days a week and stay at the same weight. So if you wanted to lose say 1 lb a week, you'd need to drop that by 500 calories a day, so 1531/day. With their calculator, I selected moderate intensity for your workouts because weight training doesn't burn as much as cardio, had it been all cardio I'd have gone higher on the intensity. I've been using their calculator for about a year and a half just plugging in their numbers into MFP's site and have had really good luck, especially with recomposition. So I do believe that 1200 is too low, MFP sets you at that because you likely chose 2lb/wk loss rate, which would technically be (by iifym's calculator) 1031 calories a day and the lowest MFP will go is 1200. IIFYM is good for setting a daily calorie intake that doesn't change because I hate having to eat less on rest days.

GottaBurnEmAll

Jules_farmgirl wrote: »

Would like some advice. I am open to suggestions. I will start with, yes I am losing weight. However my concern here is if I am actually eating too little daily, as I don't want to have negative impacts on my health.

My info:

Age: 29
Weight: 169lbs
Height: 5'1"
Daily "activity": Sedentary (I have a desk job)
Exercise: 60mins x 6/week (this is approx. 1/2 cardio and 1/2 strength training) and a 30min walk at lunch everyday

MFP set me at 1200cals/day (not a big surprise). I manually reset this to 1300cals as I didn't like the 1200, I found this would be too low.

I have been wearing a Fitbit with HR 24/7 for a little over a month now. (Yes I do realize that these are not 100%, but I did want an idea of calorie burn through a day)

When I take my average over 30 days I burn 2650cals/days.

Now if I allow for a margin of error on my FitBit of 300-400cals/day, it still seems to me like I am eating way too low of calories.

Is my best bet to up my calories and see how it goes for a few weeks and adjust if needed? I feel some days I am fine with my calorie intake, but others I feel shaky at the end of the day, and as though I need that extra.

Any advice would be great. Thank you!

Oh!! And my diary is open for public if that helps at all.

How's your rate of loss been? Unlike the previous user, I find my fitbit to be pretty darned accurate in pinning down my TDEE.

At the burn it's giving you, you should be losing at quite a clip, and for your current weight, that's awfully fast.

You could probably safely and comfortably lose at a rate of 1.5 pounds a week now. If you're losing faster than that, then yes, up your calories.

Jules_farmgirl

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

How's your rate of loss been? Unlike the previous user, I find my fitbit to be pretty darned accurate in pinning down my TDEE.

At the burn it's giving you, you should be losing at quite a clip, and for your current weight, that's awfully fast.

You could probably safely and comfortably lose at a rate of 1.5 pounds a week now. If you're losing faster than that, then yes, up your calories.

I am losing steadily, but I also just added in the strength and still losing... I feel like adding that in should have stalled my weight loss temporarily and yet it hasn't.

GottaBurnEmAll

Jules_farmgirl wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

How's your rate of loss been? Unlike the previous user, I find my fitbit to be pretty darned accurate in pinning down my TDEE.

At the burn it's giving you, you should be losing at quite a clip, and for your current weight, that's awfully fast.

You could probably safely and comfortably lose at a rate of 1.5 pounds a week now. If you're losing faster than that, then yes, up your calories.

I am losing steadily, but I also just added in the strength and still losing... I feel like adding that in should have stalled my weight loss temporarily and yet it hasn't.

Are you losing over 2 pounds a week?

Rachelmilloy

I have had the Fitbit One for almost 3 years, and rely on it completely. I only override it to input strength training calories (using MFP's estimate) and calories burned on the elliptical (using the machine's estimate. I set my self up as 'sedentary' too. I eat my daily TDEE minus 500 and that generally gives me the expected one pound weekly weight loss. Using your figures, I would be eating 2650 - 500, ie 2150 daily. However, my net calories are much lower... probably around 1300.

Jules_farmgirl

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

Are you losing over 2 pounds a week?

I did twice already, which, outside of my first water weight drop shouldn't be happening

Rachelmilloy wrote: »

I have had the Fitbit One for almost 3 years, and rely on it completely. I only override it to input strength training calories (using MFP's estimate) and calories burned on the elliptical (using the machine's estimate. I set my self up as 'sedentary' too. I eat my daily TDEE minus 500 and that generally gives me the expected one pound weekly weight loss. Using your figures, I would be eating 2650 - 500, ie 2150 daily. However, my net calories are much lower... probably around 1300.

So perhaps upping the intake to even out a little more of the exercise burn.

I don't feel I need to lose 2lbs/week, its a marathon, not a race, I just want to do it in a healthy manor that isn't causing my body harm.

StaciMarie1974

If you have Fitbit synced, you should be showing earned calories. Leaving some behind, to account for potential errors, is wise. But otherwise: eat the calories MFP is telling you to eat. Not just the 1300. 2650 less 300-400 would be 2250 conservatively. At a 1.5 pound deficit you should be able to eat 1500. Beyond that you need to decide if you want to eat less/lose faster which is not likely sustainable.

Jules_farmgirl wrote: »

Would like some advice. I am open to suggestions. I will start with, yes I am losing weight. However my concern here is if I am actually eating too little daily, as I don't want to have negative impacts on my health.

My info:

Age: 29
Weight: 169lbs
Height: 5'1"
Daily "activity": Sedentary (I have a desk job)
Exercise: 60mins x 6/week (this is approx. 1/2 cardio and 1/2 strength training) and a 30min walk at lunch everyday

MFP set me at 1200cals/day (not a big surprise). I manually reset this to 1300cals as I didn't like the 1200, I found this would be too low.

I have been wearing a Fitbit with HR 24/7 for a little over a month now. (Yes I do realize that these are not 100%, but I did want an idea of calorie burn through a day)

When I take my average over 30 days I burn 2650cals/days.

Now if I allow for a margin of error on my FitBit of 300-400cals/day, it still seems to me like I am eating way too low of calories.

Is my best bet to up my calories and see how it goes for a few weeks and adjust if needed? I feel some days I am fine with my calorie intake, but others I feel shaky at the end of the day, and as though I need that extra.

Any advice would be great. Thank you!

Oh!! And my diary is open for public if that helps at all.

lemurcat12

Jules_farmgirl wrote: »

Would like some advice. I am open to suggestions. I will start with, yes I am losing weight. However my concern here is if I am actually eating too little daily, as I don't want to have negative impacts on my health.

My info:

Age: 29
Weight: 169lbs
Height: 5'1"
Daily "activity": Sedentary (I have a desk job)
Exercise: 60mins x 6/week (this is approx. 1/2 cardio and 1/2 strength training) and a 30min walk at lunch everyday

MFP set me at 1200cals/day (not a big surprise). I manually reset this to 1300cals as I didn't like the 1200, I found this would be too low.

Remember that MFP is before exercise, so you would normally be adding it back in.

I have been wearing a Fitbit with HR 24/7 for a little over a month now. (Yes I do realize that these are not 100%, but I did want an idea of calorie burn through a day)

When I take my average over 30 days I burn 2650cals/days.

That seems high, but if you are losing more than 2 lb/week it could be right. Mine was pretty accurate, but I didn't have the HR one and don't know how that works.

Now if I allow for a margin of error on my FitBit of 300-400cals/day, it still seems to me like I am eating way too low of calories.

Is my best bet to up my calories and see how it goes for a few weeks and adjust if needed? I feel some days I am fine with my calorie intake, but others I feel shaky at the end of the day, and as though I need that extra.

I'd either up the calories to around 1600-1700 per day and see how that goes or at least eat back exercise. You can adjust based on results then.

Jules_farmgirl

@StaciMarie1974 - Ya I am not concerned how fast the weight comes off, its the sustainability as you mentioned, that I need to be sure I can keep up with and be successful!

@Lemurcat12 - This was the exact thought I had. To up to what may be a more reasonable intake, and see what happens (giving it a few weeks to truly show) and adjust down from there slowly if needing too.


Thank you guys for your advice

CSARdiver

This is all basically guesstimation at best. There is an inherent 20% margin of error in calorie calculation. If you are hitting your performance goals and you weight loss goals, all is well.

If you're really concerned step up the protein a bit for muscle mass insurance, but sounds like you're crushing your goals. Nice logging!