Just crunched 4 months worth of calorie and exercise data. Interesting result!
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lgfrie
Posts: 1,449 Member
So, bored today, I decided to go through my last 4 months of MFP data and figure out what my true TDEE is. I opened a spreadsheet and put in all my calories consumed, exercise calorie burns per MFP's estimates, and scale readings. Then I:
Kind of an interesting outcome:
Actual TDEE: 2627.40
MFP's estimate of my TDEE based on the data I gave it on the first day: 2630
I think MFP's goals tool might be onto something LOL
- subtracted my avg daily exercise cals from my avg daily calories consumed, and added in my avg daily cals lost according to the scale (which equals [pounds lost / # of days] * 3500), to get my avg TDEE during the 4 month period.
Kind of an interesting outcome:
Actual TDEE: 2627.40
MFP's estimate of my TDEE based on the data I gave it on the first day: 2630
I think MFP's goals tool might be onto something LOL
22
Replies
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You must've been really bored. 😂
Pretty interesting results, though.4 -
Wow that's comforting actually!
Out of curiosity, did you eat all your exercise calories back or a percentage?3 -
That's pretty amazing. And congrats on all your progress!1
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Wow that's comforting actually!
Out of curiosity, did you eat all your exercise calories back or a percentage?
That shouldn't make a difference in the calculations. More exercise would have meant more weight loss, and the TDEE calculation should end up in the same place (not clear to me whether OP was calculating TDEE or NEAT, but MFP actually calculates NEAT, although I guess if you track the daily adjusted goal after logging exercise, you could say it tracks TDEE, and I think that sounds like what OP was comparing).
I did this twice with three months of data, the first time with data from my second through fourth months on MFP, while I was losing an average of 2 lbs a week, and then about a year later when I was losing no more than a half pound a week. My NEAT actually went up a bit (about 100 kcals, if I recall correctly) in the second year, despite weight loss, presumably because I was more active in daily life when I felt better and didn't have to haul around quite so much extra cargo. But my calculations did not confirm MFP's prediction. Despite having a desk job and logging the walking portion of my commute as exercise, I still had to tell MFP my base activity level was active to get it to predict something close to my NEAT, although even that was still about 100 calories below the NEAT I got from my actual data. I figure it's a combination of luck in being a statistical outlier, combined with some assumptions being made about the statistically average woman of my age that aren't true of me, plus being inclined to move around whenever there's music playing (dancing might be too kind a description
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Do you mean you worked out your NEAT?
From what I read you subtracted your exercise cals from the equation, I may be erroneously thinking you ate them back, then compared it to the NEAT cals MFP gave you for your deficit.
A little confused.
Cheers, h.0 -
Be careful starting spreadsheets. They can become monsters. Mine has gotten ridiculously elaborate in the year I have been using it.7
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Congratulations, you're very, very close to average!
What you've done is a very useful exercise, and one one of the advantages of logging fairly meticulously is the ability to do it. I went through a similar process on my way to maintenance. The difference was that, for me (as for Lynn), MFP wasn't anything close to accurate in its estimate for me . . . but I'd already figured that out quite soon after joining MFP, by losing way too fast at first, when I hadn't intended to.
It may be even more valuable to do, for those of us who suspect or know that MFP produces an inaccurate estimate, since we don't have the option of simply setting MFP to "maintain weight" once we reach goal (if we want to actually maintain ).
I, too, set MFP to "Active" to get it a little closer to an accurate estimate, even though I'm fairly sedentary (outside of intentional exercise, which is a separate issue, of course). That way, it's only a hundred or so calories low. Eventually, I just set my daily goal manually.
Unlike Lynn, I don't dance. 2 -
And how has that compared with plugging your details into tdeecalculator.net ? curious now to see what that will give you!1
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Cahgetsfit wrote: »And how has that compared with plugging your details into tdeecalculator.net ? curious now to see what that will give you!
Good question! So I just banged my stats into tdeecalculator.net and got 2587. This compares to my own calculation of 2627 from actual data, and 2630 from MFP. So basically, all of the numbers are within a 1.6 % margin of error, insignificant. I'm stunned at how well these generic calculators can predict the actual fat burn rate. It's almost magic.Be careful starting spreadsheets. They can become monsters. Mine has gotten ridiculously elaborate in the year I have been using it.
Someday we will have to compare spreadsheets for grins and giggles. Mine now has an average of averages -- a second derivative function that averages the rolling average weekly weight loss and computes the most precise daily fat burn in calories I've ever seen. 0.2843 lbs per day to be exact LOL But my visuals are very primitive, not much better than MFP. The underlying calculations are elegant, though.Wow that's comforting actually!
Out of curiosity, did you eat all your exercise calories back or a percentage?
I waver on this. I have not yet established a firm game plan for what % of the exercise calories to eat back. My cardio is always the same, and MFP awards me ~ 300 but the machine itself reports out 180. I've tended to eat back half of what the machine says. I think MFP's estimate is way too high - definitely gross exercise calories, not net.4 -
I waver on this. I have not yet established a firm game plan for what % of the exercise calories to eat back. My cardio is always the same, and MFP awards me ~ 300 but the machine itself reports out 180. I've tended to eat back half of what the machine says. I think MFP's estimate is way too high - definitely gross exercise calories, not net.
...and even that really is insignificant because as long as you use the same numbers it all works the same.
I mean, I'm curious just how accurate you are with your food? Do you make all your own meals from scratch and use a variety of foods? If so, do you use a digital food scale? Or are you eating the same meals over and over and using pre-prepared foods? There are so many ways to mis-calculate. I make most of my meals from home and use a food scale, but of course can't get every number every week.
I also have a four month running average, daily over/unders, Net calories, weekly averages by Net and Gross, running overages - it goes on and on. Excel is a Beast! I love it.
Well done, and pretty interesting data, regardless of the possibility for error. 3 -
cmriverside wrote: »I waver on this. I have not yet established a firm game plan for what % of the exercise calories to eat back. My cardio is always the same, and MFP awards me ~ 300 but the machine itself reports out 180. I've tended to eat back half of what the machine says. I think MFP's estimate is way too high - definitely gross exercise calories, not net.
...and even that really is insignificant because as long as you use the same numbers it all works the same.
I mean, I'm curious just how accurate you are with your food? Do you make all your own meals from scratch and use a variety of foods? If so, do you use a digital food scale? Or are you eating the same meals over and over and using pre-prepared foods? There are so many ways to mis-calculate. I make most of my meals from home and use a food scale, but of course can't get every number every week.
I also have a four month running average, daily over/unders, Net calories, weekly averages by Net and Gross, running overages - it goes on and on. Excel is a Beast! I love it.
Well done, and pretty interesting data, regardless of the possibility for error.
I'm almost embarrassed to say this, because my wife and I are avid home chefs who love to cook - it's been our main hobby for many a year and our friends and family were in a veritable state of shock at the sudden and unannounced dearth of feasting opportunities at our house, but when we decided It Was Time some months ago, we switched to a meal delivery service so we could get contained portions with the calories and nutritional info already nailed down on a nice little label. Wife had to give it up because she has Celiac's disease (extreme gluten intolerance) and none of the services could deliver a reliable truly gluten free product, despite their claims. But I've stuck with it - I get my lunches and dinners from here:
https://eatmightymeals.com/
The only other things I eat besides Mighty Meals are stuff like granola bars, bananas (lots of 'em, I love those things), almond milk in my coffee, and the most important piece of the puzzle, a 43 calorie Dove Promises chocolate every night.
So I would say that the only variable in the whole food counting equation for me is the exact # of calories in a banana; everything else has got a food label with the calories already worked out. I try to grab average sized medium bananas and I just generically count them as 105, per the MFP database.
It does bother me a little that the bananas aren't as nailed down as everything else, but then I try to remember that I have numbers OCD and really need to lighten up and let it go already LOL
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Out of boredom you have achieved good and very useful information 0
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It does bother me a little that the bananas aren't as nailed down as everything else, but then I try to remember that I have numbers OCD and really need to lighten up and let it go already LOL
This cracked me up! I'm right with you on that. Do you ever get a really big banana or small banana and slightly adjust the quantity eaten? Yeah, me neither.
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cmriverside wrote: »I waver on this. I have not yet established a firm game plan for what % of the exercise calories to eat back. My cardio is always the same, and MFP awards me ~ 300 but the machine itself reports out 180. I've tended to eat back half of what the machine says. I think MFP's estimate is way too high - definitely gross exercise calories, not net.
...and even that really is insignificant because as long as you use the same numbers it all works the same.
I mean, I'm curious just how accurate you are with your food? Do you make all your own meals from scratch and use a variety of foods? If so, do you use a digital food scale? Or are you eating the same meals over and over and using pre-prepared foods? There are so many ways to mis-calculate. I make most of my meals from home and use a food scale, but of course can't get every number every week.
I also have a four month running average, daily over/unders, Net calories, weekly averages by Net and Gross, running overages - it goes on and on. Excel is a Beast! I love it.
Well done, and pretty interesting data, regardless of the possibility for error.
I'm almost embarrassed to say this, because my wife and I are avid home chefs who love to cook - it's been our main hobby for many a year
<snip>
I'm sad for your friends, too!
I hope you'll learn to use the recipe tool here on the site, it's a little more work but not so much more that it should keep you from your love of cooking.
Are you going to continue to use the delivery service after you lose weight? I mean, at some point I hope you'll go back to cooking - and delivery is so expensive and not nearly as good I'm sure!
I use the recipe tool and do my own cooking, no one cooks things the way I like them like I do.
When I first started on weight loss, I made severe changes like you did. Obsessed over exactitude(s). It wasn't sustainable for the rest of my life and it was too stressful. In maintenance I rarely hit anywhere close to my numbers and I've stayed within five pounds for years.
I still love the numbers, I'm just not under the illusion that I need to be so rigid. My body works much more perfectly than I would have ever thought if I am reasonably consistent and don't string too many high calorie days together.
3 -
cmriverside wrote: »I'm sad for your friends, too!
I hope you'll learn to use the recipe tool here on the site, it's a little more work but not so much more that it should keep you from your love of cooking.
Are you going to continue to use the delivery service after you lose weight? I mean, at some point I hope you'll go back to cooking - and delivery is so expensive and not nearly as good I'm sure!
I use the recipe tool and do my own cooking, no one cooks things the way I like them like I do.
When I first started on weight loss, I made severe changes like you did. Obsessed over exactitude(s). It wasn't sustainable for the rest of my life and it was too stressful. In maintenance I rarely hit anywhere close to my numbers and I've stayed within five pounds for years.
I still love the numbers, I'm just not under the illusion that I need to be so rigid. My body works much more perfectly than I would have ever thought if I am reasonably consistent and don't string too many high calorie days together.
I doubt I'd continue to use a delivery service for all my meals once I get to maintenance, maybe some though. It's pretty expensive, but although very convenient! I do really like the food, too. We went through five delivery services and the one we went with, Mighty Meals, is actually quite good - it's a local company, the food is delivered fresh from local farms. It's not anything like the packaged frozen dinners from the other places. I'm actually quite content and happy with the food, but we are cooks here and I think the dream is to really get the weight locked down and then transition back to our own food.
The thing is, all the issues people bring up here about weighing, trying to get things exact, not always being sure -- those are real issues we faced when we were initially trying to diet off our own food. I can't even express how much getting a standard food label with a calorie count on everything I eat has simplified and facilitated my weight loss so far. I love that aspect of meal delivery and I've had a very easy glide to 40+ pounds so far.
But yeah, we know there is a challenge ahead in that there will be a big shift when we get to, or close to, maintenance and our dieting habits at that point won't really square with the habits we will need going forward, due to transitioning from pre-made food to our own cooking. We've just kind of pushed that issue to the side for now, but it's coming. It's really hard to stay on track when you're in a kitchen apron with 5 pans sizzling on the stove and a dozen different things to sample while putting together a meal. Very challenging indeed. It's a big part of the reason we looked at meal delivery in the first place.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »I'm sad for your friends, too!
I hope you'll learn to use the recipe tool here on the site, it's a little more work but not so much more that it should keep you from your love of cooking.
Are you going to continue to use the delivery service after you lose weight? I mean, at some point I hope you'll go back to cooking - and delivery is so expensive and not nearly as good I'm sure!
I use the recipe tool and do my own cooking, no one cooks things the way I like them like I do.
When I first started on weight loss, I made severe changes like you did. Obsessed over exactitude(s). It wasn't sustainable for the rest of my life and it was too stressful. In maintenance I rarely hit anywhere close to my numbers and I've stayed within five pounds for years.
I still love the numbers, I'm just not under the illusion that I need to be so rigid. My body works much more perfectly than I would have ever thought if I am reasonably consistent and don't string too many high calorie days together.
I doubt I'd continue to use a delivery service for all my meals once I get to maintenance, maybe some though. It's pretty expensive, but although very convenient! I do really like the food, too. We went through five delivery services and the one we went with, Mighty Meals, is actually quite good - it's a local company, the food is delivered fresh from local farms. It's not anything like the packaged frozen dinners from the other places. I'm actually quite content and happy with the food, but we are cooks here and I think the dream is to really get the weight locked down and then transition back to our own food.
The thing is, all the issues people bring up here about weighing, trying to get things exact, not always being sure -- those are real issues we faced when we were initially trying to diet off our own food. I can't even express how much getting a standard food label with a calorie count on everything I eat has simplified and facilitated my weight loss so far. I love that aspect of meal delivery and I've had a very easy glide to 40+ pounds so far.
But yeah, we know there is a challenge ahead in that there will be a big shift when we get to, or close to, maintenance and our dieting habits at that point won't really square with the habits we will need going forward, due to transitioning from pre-made food to our own cooking. We've just kind of pushed that issue to the side for now, but it's coming. It's really hard to stay on track when you're in a kitchen apron with 5 pans sizzling on the stove and a dozen different things to sample while putting together a meal. Very challenging indeed. It's a big part of the reason we looked at meal delivery in the first place.
I still use my food scale. I still taste foods. I enter the recipe into the recipe builder and then weigh out my portion as I eat it. Well, that's not even 100% true. I've been using a half cup ladle for portioning entrees that are saucy or soups etc. I weigh meats. I use one and two ounce ladles. It's close enough, and with time I can eyeball almost everything.
I get it about the ease of use with the pre-made meals. Maybe start small, like log one recipe a week, it would definitely be overwhelming to try to log all recipes all week at first. Like any skill/tool, it takes practice.
For the record, those meal labels are "off" too. But they are close enough, which is the take-home point. 2 -
No one should be embarrassed about finding their easiest path forward. If you said you were using the cabbage soup diet with a slimfast chaser I would say go do you.
I fell over backwards into essentially doing one meal a day. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone and I am hesitant to tell most people only because they might mistakenly think it added any special sauce to my considerable weight loss.
I have followed my progress in great detail for just over a year now and I lose weight at ~3500 calories per pound. My system shows me each day what my new low weight would be based on the calories eaten the day before. If I am above that number I know I am masking weight loss. My actual weight loss has synced back up with my 'lowest track' 6 times in the last 30 days within +/- .4 so it remains fairly accurate. Eventually the margin of error will overtake it and I will have to manually adjust it to match again.
I am waiting for some more exercise numbers to see how closely MFP gets me. I have a TDEE calculator built in to my spreadsheet that is pretty much on the money. It adjusts TDEE daily for deficit tracking purposes which is very overkill lol.2
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