Confused

tony090370

Hi All,

Hoping someone can point me in the right direction?!

I'm just under 300lbs and trying to lose 1lb per week, so my daily calorie goal is set at 2180 as I'm an office worker and therefore have my activity set at "Not very active"

Recently I've been doing a lot of walking (5-6 miles per day) whilst wearing a Fitbit, so my net calories each day are much lower, sometimes only 800-900 net per day. I don't eat back the exercise calories and I rarely reach the 2180 target, and I'm pretty accurate and honest at recording all my food, so really confused as to why I seem to be losing only 0.4lb per week sometimes?

I'm enjoying the walking, so don't want to stop doing that as it must be good for me right? But I would like to see better results for my efforts. I thought I understood the calories in/calories out thing, but does anyone think I'm missing something?

Thanks in advance,
Tony

88olds

First, it’s working. I got my own issues with the “too slow” thinking. Be careful. It’s working. Don’t let your brain mess with you. But you ask a question, so two things come to mind.

Do you weigh your food whenever possible? There’s a difference between weighing and measuring. After years of measuring, I put my morning oatmeal, dry precooked, on the scale. What I measured as 3/4 of a cup, weighed as an entire cup. A 33% undercount that I had made nearly every day for years.

Also, all these calculator gadgets are based on averages. Outside of a lab, there’s no telling what we actually burn. So the MFP target # is what the nonexistent average guy should expect. So gently tweak if you must. Try to keep an attitude of experimentation.

Back to too slow. I know MFP is telling you to expect X lbs by Y date. I hate that. Consider if you can comfortably live your life with your current routine. Because if you are spot on with your calorie count, the tweak is going to be a calorie cut. What will that be like? Read this board for a while, lots of folks wreck themselves over the time issue. Don’t. Good luck.