Am i correct?
LisaMoxon155
Posts: 264 Member
Having lost 42lb over the last year with MFP.
Im now happy with my weight and more importantly apperance.
I have my calories set to mantain and my activity level at "lightly active: giving me 1600 per day.
Sometimes i go over this figure,sometimes not.(learnt not too stress about this😁😁)
Yet over the last 2 months or so Im still losing weight .
So my question is
Is my activity level more likely to be active as opose to ligjtly active.??
Any other views would be appriated.
Im now happy with my weight and more importantly apperance.
I have my calories set to mantain and my activity level at "lightly active: giving me 1600 per day.
Sometimes i go over this figure,sometimes not.(learnt not too stress about this😁😁)
Yet over the last 2 months or so Im still losing weight .
So my question is
Is my activity level more likely to be active as opose to ligjtly active.??
Any other views would be appriated.
1
Replies
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Its more that you actually either are burning more than 1600 or not eating as much as 1600. You can up your calories another 100 and see after a few weeks if your weight stays the same, if not you can add more calories again. Its a bit of trial and error to find our average maintenance calories.
If you are doing more than 7000-8000 steps a day its likely you are active rather than lightly active. Someone hopefully will post the chart that shows the steps quantity and the associated activity level.
p.s Just to give you an idea: I know my average steps are around 10k but I keep my activity set to lightly active and then add purposeful exercise on top of that - so that makes my maintenance calories average around 1900-2000. Or I COULD set it to active and not add in exercise - same difference.3 -
Perhaps. MFP (like all calculators) estimates your BMR (basal metabolic rate, calories used being alive in a coma) based on age, size and gender. Specifying lightly active multiplies the BMR by 1.375. For moderately active, the multiplier is 1.55. These are estimates based on large groups of people, and individual calorie needs can vary. So for you, the multiplier may be higher than 1.375. Or the BMR estimate is higher for your specific body composition. They’re all estimates.
But you don’t have to use estimates! If you have good data for the past couple months, use that to calculate your actual observed TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). This will be more accurate for you personally if your exercise/activity is pretty consistent week to week.
Energy deficit=3500 calories x pounds lost in last 60 days
TDEE=1600+energy deficit/60
MFP allows users to enter their calorie goal (vs calculating), so you can enter your TDEE instead.
Congrats on reaching goal, having such a healthy attitude about going over/under some days, and for getting a few more calories to enjoy in maintenance!5 -
Meant to say, congrats on your weight loss
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If you're still losing weight below your goal then eat more.
Regardless of the reasoning or the online calculators (which are just making generalizations) YOUR numbers are the final authority.
You know your tracking and your general daily needs, calorie-wise. Trust your own record keeping, always.
And eat! Go up to 2000 for the next two months and see how that goes. Give it time, though. If you put on a couple pounds don't panic (you will temproarily, and you're still below goal.)4 -
Do you workout? If so, are you eating those calories back. MFP gives you maintenance assuming no exercise, so if you want to maintain, you eat maintenance calories plus eat back what you burn from exercise.0
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Do you workout? If so, are you eating those calories back. MFP gives you maintenance assuming no exercise, so if you want to maintain, you eat maintenance calories plus eat back what you burn from exercise.
No i dont work out but if we go for a walk or do sonething outside my "normal" routine then ill add the exercise calories and then if o fancy something extra that day ill eat it.0 -
Iivingtheleandrean
"Its more that you actually either are burning more than 1600 or not eating as much as 1600".
I think more of burning more than actually think as opose to not eating as much as 1600 because i weigh ALL foods and liquids and add to diary evry single time without fail.
Ive looked at my app for my steps for the last 3 months and its an average of 10650 per day.1 -
LisaMoxon155 wrote: »Iivingtheleandrean
"Its more that you actually either are burning more than 1600 or not eating as much as 1600".
I think more of burning more than actually think as opose to not eating as much as 1600 because i weigh ALL foods and liquids and add to diary evry single time without fail.
Ive looked at my app for my steps for the last 3 months and its an average of 10650 per day.
MFP calorie allowance is also just an estimate, so even if your activity level is correct, you may just burn more calories than MFP assumes, BMR higher than the calculation assumes. You can manually increase your calories, or try upping your activity level.2 -
Of course yes .
Its all just a math sum i guess.
I also think nobody really knows how.many calories they burn even with all the technolly we have.
Thank you for reply2 -
Adjusting your daily goal manually gives you more scope to fine tunes things rather than the fairly crude adjustments of changing activity settings.1
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LisaMoxon155 wrote: »Of course yes .
Its all just a math sum i guess.
I also think nobody really knows how.many calories they burn even with all the technolly we have.
Thank you for reply
You can get pretty close though.
FitBits and those type things are just expensive calculators that can also be off by quite a bit. They're fun, but nol more accurate than just plain old logging food and weighing your body.1 -
Because foodstuffs are complex and so are people, the numbers at either side of the calorie equation are estimates.
The caloric content of foods is calculated by burning them to ash in a bomb calorimeter and measuring the energy they give off -- but our bodies don't do that.
Likewise, all estimates of how many calories we burn during a day are based on population-level statistics for people our gender, height, and size.
While CICO is solid science at a population level, applying it day to day in individual organisms is not an *exact* science.1 -
Because foodstuffs are complex and so are people, the numbers at either side of the calorie equation are estimates.
The caloric content of foods is calculated by burning them to ash in a bomb calorimeter and measuring the energy they give off -- but our bodies don't do that.
Likewise, all estimates of how many calories we burn during a day are based on population-level statistics for people our gender, height, and size.
While CICO is solid science at a population level, applying it day to day in individual organisms is not an *exact* science.
It's plenty darned close enough for lots of us, once we have some history of what we personally eat and exercise, how we personally log it, and how our scale weight responds. It's not exact, but it's useful as a practical matter.
If someone is calorie counting by some consistent method, their own data is a much better guide to maintenance calorie needs than any online "calculator" (should be called an "estimator") provides. "Calculators" just provide a statistical estimate based on research studies. They'll be reasonable for most people, because most people will be close the average people in the studies. They will be wrong for a few (high or low), and very wrong for a very, very few, because that's the nature of statistical estimates. You own data will give you a strong hint where you fall with respect to the underlying statistics.
1 -
I lost weight a few months after I started to maintain. Then I plateaued. Then I started to gain. My calories and my activity level were stable (I used a fitbit an then apple watch to measure). I think my body changed.
If you're happy with the loss, stick to it. You'll probably even out. You can add in more calories - up it by 200 and see what happens. I find adjusting calories more accurate than adjusting exercise levels.1 -
Because foodstuffs are complex and so are people, the numbers at either side of the calorie equation are estimates.
The caloric content of foods is calculated by burning them to ash in a bomb calorimeter and measuring the energy they give off -- but our bodies don't do that.
Likewise, all estimates of how many calories we burn during a day are based on population-level statistics for people our gender, height, and size.
While CICO is solid science at a population level, applying it day to day in individual organisms is not an *exact* science.
It's plenty darned close enough for lots of us, once we have some history of what we personally eat and exercise, how we personally log it, and how our scale weight responds. It's not exact, but it's useful as a practical matter.
If someone is calorie counting by some consistent method, their own data is a much better guide to maintenance calorie needs than any online "calculator" (should be called an "estimator") provides. "Calculators" just provide a statistical estimate based on research studies. They'll be reasonable for most people, because most people will be close the average people in the studies. They will be wrong for a few (high or low), and very wrong for a very, very few, because that's the nature of statistical estimates. You own data will give you a strong hint where you fall with respect to the underlying statistics.
Oh, obviously. Nothing I said there implies that calorie counting isn't legitimate. We just need to understand what it is and what it isnt'.
and its the only metric we've got. There's really no other option than to use the numbers that are calculate that way, and because they're all relative to each other, they'll give us a pretty good idea of where we stand.
We just need to know that we have to adjust it based on what we learn from accurate counting (and not count inaccurately and then claim that the numbers don't work).
And I was making that point because the OP was specifically saying that after moving to what should be maintenance, they were continuing to lose. That suggests that something in those estimates is misestimated. It could be that they're eating LESS than they log (but that's uncommon, or it could be that they burn more than they think they do....2 -
Because foodstuffs are complex and so are people, the numbers at either side of the calorie equation are estimates.
The caloric content of foods is calculated by burning them to ash in a bomb calorimeter and measuring the energy they give off -- but our bodies don't do that.
Likewise, all estimates of how many calories we burn during a day are based on population-level statistics for people our gender, height, and size.
While CICO is solid science at a population level, applying it day to day in individual organisms is not an *exact* science.
It's plenty darned close enough for lots of us, once we have some history of what we personally eat and exercise, how we personally log it, and how our scale weight responds. It's not exact, but it's useful as a practical matter.
If someone is calorie counting by some consistent method, their own data is a much better guide to maintenance calorie needs than any online "calculator" (should be called an "estimator") provides. "Calculators" just provide a statistical estimate based on research studies. They'll be reasonable for most people, because most people will be close the average people in the studies. They will be wrong for a few (high or low), and very wrong for a very, very few, because that's the nature of statistical estimates. You own data will give you a strong hint where you fall with respect to the underlying statistics.
Oh, obviously. Nothing I said there implies that calorie counting isn't legitimate. We just need to understand what it is and what it isnt'.
and its the only metric we've got. There's really no other option than to use the numbers that are calculate that way, and because they're all relative to each other, they'll give us a pretty good idea of where we stand.
We just need to know that we have to adjust it based on what we learn from accurate counting (and not count inaccurately and then claim that the numbers don't work).
And I was making that point because the OP was specifically saying that after moving to what should be maintenance, they were continuing to lose. That suggests that something in those estimates is misestimated. It could be that they're eating LESS than they log (but that's uncommon, or it could be that they burn more than they think they do....
. . . or it could be that the maintenance calories a "calculator" gave them are inaccurate, if it happens that OP is one of the few people not as close to the average of the statistical studies on which "calculators" are based. That was my main point (and that may be what you mean by "they burn more than they think they do" :flowerforyou: ).
I wasn't so much disagreeing with you, as trying to underscore the possibility that the maintenance calorie estimate, if it came from MFP or another calculator, could be inaccurate for OP. That's a key reason to consider what one's own logging data suggests.
MFP mis-estimates my maintenance calories (when I give it settings that are accurate according to the instructions). To get a number that's even close (but still a little low), I need to set my activity level at "active", when I'm actually somewhere varying from sedentary to the low end of lightly active (averaging 4,414 steps for the last 7 days, for example - which were not unusual). Almost 4 years of careful logging says MFP is several hundred daily calories incorrect, for me (as are some TDEE calculators). It's not common, but it happens.
Sometimes people for whom the calculators are close don't realize that it's possible for them to be less accurate, for a few people.2
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