CICO huh?
Replies
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EbonyDahlia wrote: »Riddle me this. My calorie target is set to 1460 (used to be 1700 - but I've lost about 37kg). I'm 5'10" and 87kg so 1460 is fine.
For the Americans who may be metric challenged, this is about 191 lb, and a BMI of around 27.I wear a Misfit Shine (like a fitbit). It syncs with MFP and does the calorie adjustment based on activity. MFP is set to sedentary to allow for this. The Misfit seems pretty accurate (based on testing over time).
What do you mean by testing over time? That you used to lose in accordance with what it predicted?I do not eat back my exercise calories. My net calories for this week are in the pic below, and this is a pretty standard week, I'm a creature of habit. So, it seems I'm averaging 900 calories a day.
Net calories don't make a lot of sense when you don't separate between intentional exercise and activity level, which the Misfit will not. The bigger question is what your actual calculated deficit is -- actual calories vs. actual (estimated) activity. What are you getting for this number? You said over 1 kg for week is what you are predicting, so presumably 1200 or so as a deficit?Calorie calculator says this:
You need 2,207 Calories/day to maintain your weight.
You need 1,707 Calories/day to lose 0.5 kg per week.
You need 1,207 Calories/day to lose 1 kg per week.
You need 2,707 Calories/day to gain 0.5 kg per week.
You need 3,207 Calories/day to gain 1 kg per week.
Hmm. I ran your stats on McA-K using about 30% BF (reasonable with your BMI, but obviously could be off) and got maintenance of 2000 if sedentary, 2300 if lightly active, and 2600 if moderately active. 2900 if very active.
I then ran them with the M-StJ formula assuming you were 30 (no body fat for this one) and got similar numbers.
So based on these, to lose 1 kg per week (a very aggressive goal for someone overweight but not obese), 1460 would be about right if you are moderately active. But that's only if the calculation fits -- you could be off.
You said you were losing about 1 kg/month or -- as winogelato said -- about .5 lb/week. That means a deficit of 250. If you were eating around 1500 (allowing for error), that's lower than it should be, yeah.
Since you've been doing this for a while, I think the diet break is a good idea, or go see a doctor and ask for a referral to a nutritionist and bring all of your information. Since TDEE declining after some time of losing weight at an aggressive deficit isn't uncommon, though, I don't know that those numbers are off enough to suggest anything must be off physically, but it's worth giving a doctor the information.
It's also possible to get RMR tested -- might be interesting if there's an option not too expensively near you.
Just FYI, this has nothing to do with CICO. It has to do with your own TDEE/calorie balance. There's nothing here to suggest that cutting calories beyond your maintenance doesn't lead to weight loss for you, or that increasing it above maintenance wouldn't lead to weight gain. (What it might do, if done gradually and carefully, though -- a reverse diet -- is allow an increase in TDEE without meaningful weight gain.)6 -
if you're 100% sure about your CI, the easiest and most obvious explanation is the the CO portion of your equation is being overestimated. And it's always an estimate. This is why you have to learn what works best for you as far as calorie intake vs. exercise.9
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extra_medium wrote: »if you're 100% sure about your CI, the easiest and most obvious explanation is the the CO portion of your equation is being overestimated. And it's always an estimate. This is why you have to learn what works best for you as far as calorie intake vs. exercise.
This. Toss that tracker in the drawer for a month or two. You said you weren't eating back exercise calories anyway. Set your calorie goal, log accurately, and if you do exercise you should be eating back those calories. Use several calculators if need be to estimate an accurate amount of calories burned and then eat back only half of them. My wife had similar issues at first, it was her fitbit. The stupid thing was giving her steps for no reason all day long. She could tap her foot and gain steps. They just aren't accurate in my opinion. We tossed it out, and low and behold manual tracking and just using her phone in her pocket for intentional walks for steps and she lost weight at the average rate expected. We have not gone back to a fitbit for her, and probably won't. I always used my phone as a step counter, an app I trust and a HR strap for logging cardio exercise and CICO worked for me. I have no desire to use an activity tracker and feel it would likely set me back if I did.4 -
I second (and third) the comments about the Fitbit/MisFit tracking accuracy. Activity trackers - even the best ones - are notoriously inaccurate for correctly estimating energy expenditure - especially if it isn't measuring your heart rate (I'm an endurance 'athlete' in training and I use heart rate zones when I'm cycling or running to measure my effort/energy output, and it's also made a big, big difference in terms of knowing how many calories I'm using over a given period). And even with a heart rate monitor, you're still estimating (using a power meter when cycling, for example, gives even closer estimates to how many calories you're actually burning) but it's far, far closer than anything that I get when I'm just using my fitbit.0
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JohnDavid1969 wrote: »I second (and third) the comments about the Fitbit/MisFit tracking accuracy. Activity trackers - even the best ones - are notoriously inaccurate for correctly estimating energy expenditure - especially if it isn't measuring your heart rate (I'm an endurance 'athlete' in training and I use heart rate zones when I'm cycling or running to measure my effort/energy output, and it's also made a big, big difference in terms of knowing how many calories I'm using over a given period). And even with a heart rate monitor, you're still estimating (using a power meter when cycling, for example, gives even closer estimates to how many calories you're actually burning) but it's far, far closer than anything that I get when I'm just using my fitbit.
Agreed. For steady state cardio, and even HIIT, you can't beat a HRM for estimating calories burned. My equipment at home measures based on power output/resistance and always gives me a higher reading than what the HRM strap plus my app gives me. I go with the lower of the two estimates and still figure it's overrated by somewhere in the tune of 20%. That gets me pretty close. Of course for weight training, a HRM is pretty worthless unless you're doing something in between sets to keep your energy expenditure and HR up. At the end of my workout my app with the HRM strap will read somewhere in the 1100-1200 calories burned range, I figure for accuracy it's likely only 700-800 calories max, maybe less if I didn't put forth my best effort.0 -
The unfortunate truth is that every online calculator and every fitness tracker, at best, will give you an estimate for CO. And even the most accurate logging really only gives you an estimate of CI. The only way to get an accurate picture of what's going on is to look at your real-world data over time, and if it's telling you that you're losing 0.5 pounds per week, that means that you're creating a deficit of approximately 250 calories per day. Whatever else is going on, that's the real story.
If your projected data tells a different story than your real-world data, you have to operate from the assumption that something in your projected data is inaccurate. It could be that your MisFit is giving you inaccurate numbers (I think this may be the case). It may be that your estimate of CI is inaccurate (and you already told us that you round up, so we know that your CI is inaccurate). It may be that years of dieting is reducing your TDEE, or that you are unconsciously lowering NEAT to deal with the restricted caloric intake. It may be that you have some other medical issue that is causing an unexpected reduction in metabolic rate and you need to seek professional help to deal with that. It may be a combination of a few of these factors, and you may need to try a few different approaches to deal with everything.8 -
Spliner1969 wrote: »JohnDavid1969 wrote: »I second (and third) the comments about the Fitbit/MisFit tracking accuracy. Activity trackers - even the best ones - are notoriously inaccurate for correctly estimating energy expenditure - especially if it isn't measuring your heart rate (I'm an endurance 'athlete' in training and I use heart rate zones when I'm cycling or running to measure my effort/energy output, and it's also made a big, big difference in terms of knowing how many calories I'm using over a given period). And even with a heart rate monitor, you're still estimating (using a power meter when cycling, for example, gives even closer estimates to how many calories you're actually burning) but it's far, far closer than anything that I get when I'm just using my fitbit.
Agreed. For steady state cardio, and even HIIT, you can't beat a HRM for estimating calories burned. My equipment at home measures based on power output/resistance and always gives me a higher reading than what the HRM strap plus my app gives me. I go with the lower of the two estimates and still figure it's overrated by somewhere in the tune of 20%. That gets me pretty close. Of course for weight training, a HRM is pretty worthless unless you're doing something in between sets to keep your energy expenditure and HR up. At the end of my workout my app with the HRM strap will read somewhere in the 1100-1200 calories burned range, I figure for accuracy it's likely only 700-800 calories max, maybe less if I didn't put forth my best effort.
Re. the bold.
Sorry that's not true in the slightest.
HRMs are a vague average at best unless calibrated to meet people's particular MHR, VO2 max etc.
I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
Start using them for intervals and they are even more wildly inaccurate.
My very accurately calibrated FT60 would be out by 25% doing interval training.
Wish people would stop putting such faith in devices that end up being used completely inappropriately. HRMs can only count heartbeats, not calories.2 -
I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
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Nearly every time someone posts their tracker's calories (fitbit example) I always look at them and go "yeah, right lol". The number of times I see someone post they burn 1000+ calories for walking 5 or 10 km I just have to laugh a little. Maybe validate that your Misfit is actually even close.4
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cwolfman13 wrote: »You're chronically underfeeding with super low net calories...you're stressing your body out and jacking your hormones up. Adaptive thermogenesis is a thing...so you don't die...your body is pretty good at that.
I question whether her calculations are accurate, though. Inaccuracy is the number on reason why we think our metabolism is screwed up.5 -
The unfortunate truth is that every online calculator and every fitness tracker, at best, will give you an estimate for CO. And even the most accurate logging really only gives you an estimate of CI. The only way to get an accurate picture of what's going on is to look at your real-world data over time, and if it's telling you that you're losing 0.5 pounds per week, that means that you're creating a deficit of approximately 250 calories per day. Whatever else is going on, that's the real story.
If your projected data tells a different story than your real-world data, you have to operate from the assumption that something in your projected data is inaccurate. It could be that your MisFit is giving you inaccurate numbers (I think this may be the case). It may be that your estimate of CI is inaccurate (and you already told us that you round up, so we know that your CI is inaccurate). It may be that years of dieting is reducing your TDEE, or that you are unconsciously lowering NEAT to deal with the restricted caloric intake. It may be that you have some other medical issue that is causing an unexpected reduction in metabolic rate and you need to seek professional help to deal with that. It may be a combination of a few of these factors, and you may need to try a few different approaches to deal with everything.
Cosigned.
It may also be something simple as you having a food you eat frequently that you're using the wrong data base information for (this happened to me, and I thought I was a pro and had everything all done and dusted with logging).
The point stands, when the scale isn't performing, check all the variables. ALL of them. That's how I found the wrong entry I was using. I double checked even though I was sure I had everything right. I was glad I did.4 -
Nearly every time someone posts their tracker's calories (fitbit example) I always look at them and go "yeah, right lol". The number of times I see someone post they burn 1000+ calories for walking 5 or 10 km I just have to laugh a little. Maybe validate that your Misfit is actually even close.
Trackers can be useful if you calibrate them in accordance with real world data.
I trust my Fitbit, but only because I've taken the time to check it against scale performance and make some adjustments so that the feedback I get from it matches real world results.5 -
Spliner1969 wrote: »I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
The heart may be beating faster, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily working harder. There are a good number of adaptations that can occur as you get more fit that translate into more work being done per beat. As an easy-to-explain example, one of them is an increase in stroke volume - you pump more blood per beat, meaning your heart is working harder per beat but beating slower for the same amount of exercise effort.
ETA: Besides. Consider that heartbeats don't burn hardly anything in the context of total calorie burn during exercise. An heart rate increase of 50% adds a very small amount to the total.
ETA2: For fun, looked up energy produced by the 'typical' heart per day (typical activity, not exercise). According to this* (which may be complete crap, who knows) it's a whopping 115,000 J. That translates into 28 Kcal. Per. Day. Now think about how little difference it makes if your heart rate were 50% higher for a whole day, let alone the 30-60min that is a typical cardio session.
*Koehler, Kenneth R. College Physics for Students of Biology and Chemistry. Cincinnati, OH: Raymond Walters College University of Cincinnati, 1996: Chapter 3, Fluids: Human Cardiovascular System.2 -
@Spliner1969Spliner1969 wrote: »I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
Calories cannot be divided into heartbeats - that's a fundamental fact. HR is only used as an easy to measure outside of a sports science lab proxy for oxygen update - and an enormously varied one at that.
Using a HRM for HIIT is only good for bragging rights down the pub - might as well sacrifice a chicken and study its entrails.
Even for an individual HR varies - I'm coming back from a chest infection and the last few workouts my power output is dreadfully down at the same HR.
Steady state rides indoors for an hour at 150bpm have recently yielded average power outputs of 165 watts, 169w and today 172w. When fully fit I expect 185'ish - all at the same HR. Even within the same workout you see significant drift.
Dehydration or over-heating all skew the numbers badly, even a full stomach makes an impact.
HRMs are useful training tools and can provide a reasonable estimate for average people under suitable conditions - what they are not is accurate calorie counters. Usable with a bit common sense really is about the best most people will achieve.2 -
I'm going to tell you my opinion here that you are completely free to disregard. Just know that I'm speaking from a place of wanting to help and I don't intend any of this to come across rudely.
Before going into this, if you're willing to open your food diary that would be a great idea. It would allow people to check some entries in case there are potential errors and I find this is usually helpful.
First of all we have a substantial amount of evidence that people often eat more than they think they eat. This includes registered dieticians who are very well educated in nutrition.
My personal experience coaching people points to this also being true in the majority of cases. Does this ABSOLUTELY mean you are eating more than you think? Technically no it doesn't, but I've seen it happen with people who have years of logging experience.
The only possible explanations I can see here are as follows in your specific case:
1) You are consuming more calories than you are logging. This is not a function of honesty or intelligence by the way, and it's important to understand this.
2) You are not burning as many calories as you think. In fact, as you reduce calories you are reducing expenditure naturally by reductions in NEAT and TEF. Not to mention, as you lose weight you lose energy expenditure simply by weighing less, and additionally you will likely experience some degree of adaptive thermogenesis where energy expenditure decreases beyond what we would estimate based on your size and activity (likey due to spontaneous downregulation in NEAT).
3) You are retaining fluids due to stress and this fluid retention is masking some portion of weight loss on the scale.
In most cases it's a COMBINATION OF ALL of these things, and a diet break can potentially address all of these things.
Finally, calories IN causes changes to calories OUT, and so while it's still true that CICO works, you can't necessarily assume that you can change one variable without it changing other variables.
For example, in overfeeding trials there's a significant difference in weight gain between individuals. Not because Ci/Co doesn't work or isn't a valid equation, but because people respond differently to overfeeding with some people upregulating spontaneous activity more than other people, which changes calories OUT, and so even though you're giving each person a diet that is X calories above what you think maintenance is, you get a different outcome.
Anyway, I just wanted to elaborate on this a bit since someone linked the diet break thread (I didn't click but it might be the one I wrote) and I think it's a good topic of discussion.
I do wish you the best of luck!
Leisure reading:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17539863
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.000437723 -
Interesting comments, thank you. A few things. My logging is accurate, I'm sure of it. Not a thing goes into my mouth that doesn't go in my diary. I make sure the entries are accurate - weight everything. I do not eat things that are premade, if I cook a recipe I weight and record everything and then divide it up into serves. I do not record things like "small avocado" or "rasher of bacon". There is no room for improvement. The accuracy of the tracker is a non-issue. My activity level in MFP is sedentary. I eat 1460 cals a day or less. I should be losing weight even if I lay on the couch all day, which I don't. Even if I have a really active day and my misfit tells me I have an extra 700 calories, I don't eat them. I wear it more for interest to tell me if I'm doing enough. Assuming the misfit is out by 50% - I'm still netting under 1200 cals. Or grossing 1400 if you prefer. Yes, I'm fairly active, I walk a lot during the day. I have dropped my calorie limit down as I've lost weight. It used to be 1700 to 1800. On the 28th of February I weighed 87kg. Today I weigh 86.7kg. I don't want to "stop dieting" - it takes very little for me to start to gain weight again. And after 4 years of hard work I'm not prepared to do that. I don't think of it as a diet, it's the way I eat. Increasing my calories is not going to help me lose more weight.2
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I thought the OP indicated she was eating back her exercise calories, so she was eating 2,400-2,700 in the recent past.0
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OP, you may be missing part of the message about accurate logging. It doesn't matter if you weigh everything that goes into your mouth if the MFP entry you use to log it is inaccurate. There are huge numbers of inaccurate entries in the MFP database for just about every kind of food. That's why opening your diary up so we can see it might be helpful. Do you ever check the data in MFP for accuracy against the USDA nutrient database, for example?2
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I'm curious, prior to your surgery and diet break, at what rate did you lose weight and what was your calorie intake at the time? (gross).1
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I'm going to tell you my opinion here that you are completely free to disregard. Just know that I'm speaking from a place of wanting to help and I don't intend any of this to come across rudely.
Before going into this, if you're willing to open your food diary that would be a great idea. It would allow people to check some entries in case there are potential errors and I find this is usually helpful.
First of all we have a substantial amount of evidence that people often eat more than they think they eat. This includes registered dieticians who are very well educated in nutrition.
My personal experience coaching people points to this also being true in the majority of cases. Does this ABSOLUTELY mean you are eating more than you think? Technically no it doesn't, but I've seen it happen with people who have years of logging experience.
The only possible explanations I can see here are as follows in your specific case:
1) You are consuming more calories than you are logging. This is not a function of honesty or intelligence by the way, and it's important to understand this.
2) You are not burning as many calories as you think. In fact, as you reduce calories you are reducing expenditure naturally by reductions in NEAT and TEF. Not to mention, as you lose weight you lose energy expenditure simply by weighing less, and additionally you will likely experience some degree of adaptive thermogenesis where energy expenditure decreases beyond what we would estimate based on your size and activity (likey due to spontaneous downregulation in NEAT).
3) You are retaining fluids due to stress and this fluid retention is masking some portion of weight loss on the scale.
In most cases it's a COMBINATION OF ALL of these things, and a diet break can potentially address all of these things.
Finally, calories IN causes changes to calories OUT, and so while it's still true that CICO works, you can't necessarily assume that you can change one variable without it changing other variables.
For example, in overfeeding trials there's a significant difference in weight gain between individuals. Not because Ci/Co doesn't work or isn't a valid equation, but because people respond differently to overfeeding with some people upregulating spontaneous activity more than other people, which changes calories OUT, and so even though you're giving each person a diet that is X calories above what you think maintenance is, you get a different outcome.
Anyway, I just wanted to elaborate on this a bit since someone linked the diet break thread (I didn't click but it might be the one I wrote) and I think it's a good topic of discussion.
I do wish you the best of luck!
Leisure reading:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12396160
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17539863
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0004377
This one was a big one for me. I went from 1800 to 2300 calories and saw increases in weight loss.. largely, I think it's part of the Eat more to lose weight group. The increase consumption enables higher NEAT, TEF and even TEA outputs; meaning, my TDEE increased as my outputs increase due to an increase in energy driven by more calories. Conversely, the opposite can occur.3 -
agree @psuLemon - when I started working with the RD - the first thing they did was start increasing my calories - I went from 1800 on a low day to 2100 on a low day over the course of about 3 months (a high day is 2400 for me) and I've lost 10lbs - mostly weight stable and focusing on performance - more importantly, I feel better, my workouts are improving and I'm recovering better1
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Anniebotnen wrote: »OP, you may be missing part of the message about accurate logging. It doesn't matter if you weigh everything that goes into your mouth if the MFP entry you use to log it is inaccurate. There are huge numbers of inaccurate entries in the MFP database for just about every kind of food. That's why opening your diary up so we can see it might be helpful. Do you ever check the data in MFP for accuracy against the USDA nutrient database, for example?
Sigh ... yes I know there are many inaccurate entries in MFP. I do not use them. Yes I verify the entries I use, and I pretty much eat the same things. My logging is accurate, I can assure you. No, I do not wish to open my diary as that is my private affair and I don't need anyone to tell me whether my logging is accurate or not. I KNOW it is.
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VintageFeline wrote: »I'm curious, prior to your surgery and diet break, at what rate did you lose weight and what was your calorie intake at the time? (gross).
Prior to surgery, I lost around 1kg to 1.5kg a month. My calorie intake was 1700 to 1800 gross. Gross or net doesn't matter, I don't eat back exercise calories. After surgery I gained at the rate of about 1kg a week. And I was not eating a crazy amount of food by any stretch - my food was the same, just a few more snacks here and there (still extremely low carb).0 -
I suspect after your surgery, you also had a reduction of NEAT activities and TEA (if you were exercising). Ultimately, we don't live in a metabolic chamber so it's hard to understand how all the variables are affected. Also, keeping in mind, that trackers use standard algorithms for everyone, which can be off.1
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I do not understand your point to be honest. CICO simply means, Calories in (You eat them), Calories out (You burn them). It is the simple mechanism of your body works. You can't create random calories out of thin air and burn that.
So I don't really get the Aha! moment here.
There are few possibilities:- There could be an ingredient that is listed wrong. For example 500 grams of chicken breast can be different depending on the country, chicken, etc, up to 100 calories.
- Could be one of the store bought item that you eat often that has caloric discrepancy. Casey Neistat has a good video on that. I am suspecting this is the case.
- Your metabolism can be slower than someone in your age. The MFP and all other calculators show data for average human being, taken from thousands of data samples. Some are higher in this spectrum some are lower. You can perhaps have a metabolism test done in a facility if you truly think you are 100% accurate on your intake.
- My weight fluctuates up to 4 kg's depending on the day, carb cycle, sodium input, etc etc. Maybe its simply that your initial weight was one of those super low ones with low carb and sodium, and current ones are not? If you log daily I doubt this is the case though.
I would suspect a store bought item with calorie discrepancy though. Since we can't see your diary, can only speculate though.4 -
@Spliner1969Spliner1969 wrote: »I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
Calories cannot be divided into heartbeats - that's a fundamental fact. HR is only used as an easy to measure outside of a sports science lab proxy for oxygen update - and an enormously varied one at that.
Using a HRM for HIIT is only good for bragging rights down the pub - might as well sacrifice a chicken and study its entrails.
IF you're not using an HRM, you're not doing HIIT.
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stanmann571 wrote: »
@Spliner1969Spliner1969 wrote: »I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
Calories cannot be divided into heartbeats - that's a fundamental fact. HR is only used as an easy to measure outside of a sports science lab proxy for oxygen update - and an enormously varied one at that.
Using a HRM for HIIT is only good for bragging rights down the pub - might as well sacrifice a chicken and study its entrails.
IF you're not using an HRM, you're not doing HIIT.
Why would wearing a monitoring device be the determinant of the type of exercise you are doing?9 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
@Spliner1969Spliner1969 wrote: »I've seen two people producing the same power (steady state BTW) and one had a HR almost 50% higher than the other.....
So you're saying that the person with the HR that is 50% higher isn't burning more calories than the person with the HR that is 50% lower? The heart is a muscle, it's working twice as hard, and I assume that means it's burning more calories working harder to push oxygen around the body. I'll agree that everyone is different, but I'll trust a calorie estimate based on my HR over time over a machine's estimate based on power/RPM/speed any day of the week. A good calculator/app/device will calculate the calories burned using time, type of activity, and the HR, not just the HR. Not trying to argue with you at all, but I can say it's more accurate for me based on my own observations over the period of the last six to eight month's maintaining my weight. In that sense, I will agree, it might not be as accurate for someone else who's in better or worse shape, or taller/heavier/older/younger/etc. Only way to be sure is to compare the data over time to your real world results as @AliceDark explained.
Calories cannot be divided into heartbeats - that's a fundamental fact. HR is only used as an easy to measure outside of a sports science lab proxy for oxygen update - and an enormously varied one at that.
Using a HRM for HIIT is only good for bragging rights down the pub - might as well sacrifice a chicken and study its entrails.
IF you're not using an HRM, you're not doing HIIT.
Why would wearing a monitoring device be the determinant of the type of exercise you are doing?
Because in the studies that validate HIIT, that's the measure used... For example
30 seconds of work at 85% max HR... the 30 seconds doesn't start until you cross the threshold
60 seconds of active recovery at 40% max again, the 60 seconds doesn't start until you enter the recovery zone.
If you're not doing that, you're not doing HIIT... you're doing HIIT like interval training.1 -
I just want to say I feel your pain. I am having a similar issue and I believe it just comes down to genetics. Some people have higher metabolism than others and it sucks to be us. On the upside if there is ever a famine we will still be standing, lol. I have been on 1200 calories for a bit over a year. I've lost 73 pounds but in the last 4 months I've only lost 3. I haven't changed anything and in fact am moving more.
One comment about health issues, I have a low thyroid. I am medicated now but I was tested for years with nothing showing up. I personally believe that when you are low you learn to live in that space of comfort. When I was finally diagnosed I had been on a very long grueling trip and I thought I'd had a minor stroke. My doc tested and said he hadn't seen a thyroid that low in years. When they did ultrasound they found scar tissue so I know I was low for many years before it was discovered. So I said all that to say there could be something lurking in the background that they have missed.
Hang in there, some loss is better than none or a gain. I know that I will likely have to live on 1400 - 1500 calories for the rest of my life if I'm lucky as I still have 25 pounds to lose. I've finally made peace with that and that it may take time to get the rest of the weight off. I am so much better than I was that I can live with that.1
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