Need opinions onweight loss and calories

nutmegoreo

Mugs203 wrote: »

Hoping to get some advice.
Trying to lose weight and MFP says I shoud be eating 1200 calories per day. I like to workout and can burn 500-600 per day in spin class or on elliptical machine etc. Because my calories are low to begin with, I am not sure if I should be eating back those calories. What are your thoughts?

Others have already explained how MFP works. The calories given to you do not include exercise. That being said, given that you are lighter and less tall (I am also 5'2"), the MFP floor for calorie recommendations is 1200, so you might find that if you set your loss rate to less, you might still end up with 1200, or close to it. Eat at least 50% of your calories back (there are both estimation errors and logging errors that can complicate the process) until you see how it is working for you. Then adjust based on your results (give it 4-6 weeks to see the overall trend, a weight trending app can be very helpful for this).

naomi8888

lemurcat2 wrote: »

Yes, you should definitely eat the calories back, or else you will be way under a healthy goal for the day and it won't be sustainable and could lead to negative health consequences. The way MFP, unlike some other plans, works is by setting a goal for days on which you do not exercise.

That said, at your weight 500-600 seems like a lot for a spin class or elliptical session, at least if we are talking 60 min or less. I'd start by eating back about 2/3-3/4 of the calories.

I lost a good bit of weight eating 1250+exercise calories (MFP gave me 1200, but I didn't like that it would say I was undereating at 1195 and overeating at 1205, so I gave myself some leeway). Once I was convinced that my exercise was pretty consistent from week to week I just raised my goal and didn't eat back exercise calories, but with the MFP 1200 goal, please do eat them back.

I also would not aim for more than 1 lb/week loss, but at your height and weight you easily could get 1200 even with only 1 lb, especially if you said sedentary (if you are at all active, for example walk 5000+ steps or more before workout, you should probably be lightly active rather than sedentary, however).

I agree with the calorie burns. I'm heavier than you and I need to push super hard in a one hour spin class to burn 600 calories. This means staying in the top HR zone (level 5 on Polar) for 20 minutes and the second top (level 4) for about 30 mins, so not much recovery at all.

However you need to find a balance that you can maintain. There's no point going too hard in the beginning and not maintaining this lifestyle forever.

Lorleee

njitaliana wrote: »

The calorie burn listed for exercise are really not accurate. If you eat them all back, you can end up not losing anything. My dietitian says to never eat the calories back unless I do a really hard workout that exhausts me and leaves me feeling famished.

My RD said the same.

lemurcat2

People often misunderstand how MFP works.

If you get your calorie goal from elsewhere, it assumes some exercise in the total, and so you don't eat exercise back unless it's really out of the ordinary. But MFP (especially if the person says sedentary) gives a goal that is assuming no exercise and really sedentary. Especially if the person picks the max loss and is careful about logging calories accurately, it can be unhealthy not to eat back exercise and it is certainly not using the tool as intended.

Now of course how much exercise matters. We all know that some will log daily cleaning and there are studies where a group of obese women were asked to start exercising by walking on a treadmill, misperceived how many cals they burned, and then easily ate back more cals than they'd burned. But they weren't tracking calories.

Very often RDs and doctors assume that people won't log calories accurately and will cheat (they are overweight, after all), and so recommend cutting cals to 1000 if 1200 is not working (assuming 1200 is really more like 2000) or say "don't eat back exercise unless it's way out of the ordinary" assuming that the person's exercise is not burning many cals anyway.

None of this applies to a person close to a healthy weight who is eating only 1200 and routinely exercising vigorously for an hour and burning 600 (or even 300-400), if that person is logging accurately. It's the same as eating a goal of, say, 800 without exercise, and clearly that's not a good idea.

As I said above, I had a goal of 1250 and ate 1250 + exercise cals (logging most of them), and for me that exercise was mostly running. Eating 1250 when running 5 miles would have been a BAD idea. Instead I'd eat 1650 or 1700, and still lose as planned (often more, and looking back I likely was undereating some even then).

WinoGelato

OP others have already covered how MFP is designed to work and why you’re meant to eat back exercise calories if you use MFP to set up your goal.

For what it’s worth I’m 5’2 and started about 5 lbs heavier than you, lost down to my goal weight of 125 eating between 1600-1900 (total) cals per day with my net goal being 1400-1700 during that time period. I lost a pretty predictable 1 lb/week for 5 months and then increased my goal and got a FitBit to lose 0.5 lbs/week for the next several months. It took me about a year and ended up shifting to maintenance at around 120 lbs.

cmriverside

I'm with Lemurcat.

If you go to a dietician and they give you a plan, go with their plan. I mean if you are paying someone to help you with weight loss and nutrition then it makes sense to follow their instructions. MOST dieticians are going to allow for your exercise IN your calories goals.

If you use Myfitnesspal's numbers then you eat back the exercise calories. Two different methods. Pick one. You don't combine the two, pick one.

apullum

Lorleee wrote: »

njitaliana wrote: »

The calorie burn listed for exercise are really not accurate. If you eat them all back, you can end up not losing anything. My dietitian says to never eat the calories back unless I do a really hard workout that exhausts me and leaves me feeling famished.

My RD said the same.

Again, your RD is (hopefully) calculating your calories using a different method from the one MFP uses. The method they use is likely TDEE, which accounts for exercise you usually do. Using this method, you do not count exercise calories separately since they are already built in.

If you use MFP’s calculations, then you eat back exercise calories. MFP uses a method called NEAT, which only accounts for non-exercise activity. This method counts exercise calories separately. Therefore, if you use MFP’s calorie goal, you must eat exercise calories or else you will be undereating.

erickirb

apullum wrote: »

Lorleee wrote: »

njitaliana wrote: »

The calorie burn listed for exercise are really not accurate. If you eat them all back, you can end up not losing anything. My dietitian says to never eat the calories back unless I do a really hard workout that exhausts me and leaves me feeling famished.

My RD said the same.

Again, your RD is (hopefully) calculating your calories using a different method from the one MFP uses. The method they use is likely TDEE, which accounts for exercise you usually do. Using this method, you do not count exercise calories separately since they are already built in.

If you use MFP’s calculations, then you eat back exercise calories. MFP uses a method called NEAT, which only accounts for non-exercise activity. This method counts exercise calories separately. Therefore, if you use MFP’s calorie goal, you must eat exercise calories or else you will be undereating.

^ This

As an example say MFP gives you 1450 calories to lose 1 lb/week, and you plan on exercising 5x/week for an average of 400 cals per workout. well MFP will tell you to eat 1450 on the days you don't workout and 1850 on the days you do whereas a "professional" or TDEE calculator may tell you to eat 1700 everyday regardless if you workout.

So for the week MFP will have you eat 12,150 (1450*2+1850*5) whereas doing it the other way will have you eat 11,900 (1700*7) almost the same number of cals for the week (250 dif). The issue in not following MFP is if you don't workout the full 5 days or burn more or less than planned. If that is the case you may lose more or less than your goal, whereas MFP will have you lose your goal amount regardless how much you actually workout.

What many MFPers do is take the low 1450 and not eat back exercise calories which is wrong, if you are not eating them back then your daily activity level should reflect the higher burn with would be covered in the 1700/day above.

piddings1951

I started out like you targeting 1200 calories and not eating back my exercise calories. I ended up getting physically tired all the time. I ended up moving my target up to 1300 and then 1400. With moderate exercise i still lost a half pound a week. I felt a lot better. It just took longer. I an 5’2 and 122. (Now)

7elizamae

Mugs203 wrote: »

Hoping to get some advice.
Trying to lose weight and MFP says I shoud be eating 1200 calories per day. I like to workout and can burn 500-600 per day in spin class or on elliptical machine etc. Because my calories are low to begin with, I am not sure if I should be eating back those calories. What are your thoughts?

If you don't eat them back, you are probably going to feel miserable.

Mugs203

Thank you everyone. I use my Apple watch for calorie burn during spin and I think it's fairly accuarte -it's usually an hour long class. I know the HRM is not a perfect science but its close. (I think)

earlnabby

Mugs203 wrote: »

Thank you everyone. I use my Apple watch for calorie burn during spin and I think it's fairly accuarte -it's usually an hour long class. I know the HRM is not a perfect science but its close. (I think)

If you have no reason to think otherwise, go with the calorie burn you are getting from your fitness device and eat those calories back. If, after about a month or so, you have not lost close to the rate you expected then maybe lower the % of the calories you eat back.

All of this advice assumes that your food logging is accurate. make sure you weigh all solids and semi solids (like peanut butter and mayo) and measure all liquids. If you are loosey-goosey with your food, the exercise burn will appear off.

abetteryou082807

A lot of trainers have told me to take my body weight and multiply by 11.
That's how many calories you should eat to lose weight. As you drop weights, adjust.

WinoGelato

abetteryou082807 wrote: »

A lot of trainers have told me to take my body weight and multiply by 11.
That's how many calories you should eat to lose weight. As you drop weights, adjust.

Those numbers generally only work when one is significantly overweight. For someone close to goal, or at goal, and someone who is active, that lazy approach would have them dramatically undereating. I would find new trainers.