More calories when sick?
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A lot of questions there! First, I tried but am unable to figure out how to accurately separate my exercise cals from my total calories. Yesterday was a very lazy day and I laid around mostly bc I didn't feel well (Fitbit still recorded 10 min of exercise??). My total calories yesterday were 1926. I would ultimately like to lose 21lbs. I selected a loss of 1-2lbs per week. I track very accurately with a scale 98% of the time unless I cannot (no scale with me, etc).1
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A lot of questions there! First, I tried but am unable to figure out how to accurately separate my exercise cals from my total calories. Yesterday was a very lazy day and I laid around mostly bc I didn't feel well (Fitbit still recorded 10 min of exercise??). My total calories yesterday were 1926. I would ultimately like to lose 21lbs. I selected a loose of 1-2lbs per week. I track very accurately with a scale 98% of the time unless I cannot (no scale with me, etc).
Forgive me if this has been answered somewhere upthread, but what is your height, current weight and goal weight?1 -
I figured it out. Yesterday Fitbit added 180 calories. So my BMR is 1746.0
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A lot of questions there! First, I tried but am unable to figure out how to accurately separate my exercise cals from my total calories. Yesterday was a very lazy day and I laid around mostly bc I didn't feel well (Fitbit still recorded 10 min of exercise??). My total calories yesterday were 1926. I would ultimately like to lose 21lbs. I selected a loose of 1-2lbs per week. I track very accurately with a scale 98% of the time unless I cannot (no scale with me, etc).
It has been a while since I had a Fitbit (I have been using a Garmin Vivofit for the last 4 years) but IIRC your daily info on the Fitbit app should list total calories burned and under that will be calories earned from exercise. Subtract exercise calories from the total and you will get your "normal" daily calories burned.0 -
It's a bit trickier these days! Luckily MFP separated it out.0 -
I eat maintenance rather than loss when sick. Especially if it's more than just a passing cold. Otherwise you may recover slower, and that's not something I want to deal with because I have to go to work. Why drag it out.1
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If that 21 lb loss will put you in the healthy weight range for your height, then you really don't have enough fat reserves to be aiming for a 2 lb loss each week, and your body is going to pull some of that from your muscle mass (which includes your heart).
If you only ate 1200 cals yesterday, that would mean you had a 700 cal deficit if your Fitbit is accurate for you (and as @WinoGelato said, many of us find our Fitbits to be highly accurate). You can work out how accurate yours is by using your Fitbit TDEE (that's all the calories it says you've burned in a day), your calorie intake info, and your weight loss averaged over 4-6 weeks.1 -
That feels like a lot of math. My head cold can't deal with that right now. 🤓3
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Okay, so even yesterday you weren't actually sedentary, you were lightly active (my mighty 2500 steps with most of the day lying on the couch was sedentary).
Looking over your last 4-6 weeks (if you've been at a deficit that long), what's your average weekly weight loss?0 -
I can't do math either. If you have a friend or spouse who is good with numbers, maybe ask them for a favor. I pass math to Husband and he passes grammar to me.1
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That feels like a lot of math. My head cold can't deal with that right now. 🤓
Fitbit will do most of the heavy lifting for you, but it's okay to wait until you're feeling better. As others have said, eat around maintenance while you're sick, then holler and I'll tell you how to pull that data from Fitbit (it's easy, i promise!).1 -
never mind
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Okay, so even yesterday you weren't actually sedentary, you were lightly active (my mighty 2500 steps with most of the day lying on the couch was sedentary).
Looking over your last 4-6 weeks (if you've been at a deficit that long), what's your average weekly weight loss?
Since January 5 (month and a day) I've lost 8lbs. Not linearly.0 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Okay, so even yesterday you weren't actually sedentary, you were lightly active (my mighty 2500 steps with most of the day lying on the couch was sedentary).
Looking over your last 4-6 weeks (if you've been at a deficit that long), what's your average weekly weight loss?
Since January 5 (month and a day) I've lost 8lbs. Not linearly.
Well, weight loss is never linear, particularly for pre-menopausal women!!
Is Jan 5 your starting date? You possibly have some water weight loss in there muddying the picture, but based on that, your rate of loss is too fast for the amount of fat you need to lose. Obviously you can choose to ignore the advice to increase cals and take a gamble on adverse effects, but you're still restricting calories if you increase to slow the loss to 1lb a week, but in a much safer way. There aren't more health benefits with greater restriction, that's not how it works, actually the opposite.0 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »That feels like a lot of math. My head cold can't deal with that right now. 🤓
Fitbit will do most of the heavy lifting for you, but it's okay to wait until you're feeling better. As others have said, eat around maintenance while you're sick, then holler and I'll tell you how to pull that data from Fitbit (it's easy, i promise!).
Yeah I was going to say the same. FitBit and MFP really do most of the math if you know where to look and how to interpret it.
In case you’re curious OP you can go into your diary and under exercise you can click in and see how the adjustment is calculated . Here is mine from yesterday. The number on the bottom shows what MFP thinks you burn, based on the activity level you chose and stats you provided. I’m lightly active, 5’2 and 135 lbs currently. It estimates my NEAT (not BMR) as 1688. Yesterday was a pretty typical activity day for me with no exercise but still got around 8000 steps. So FitBit says I burned 1876 up till about 10:15 and therefore my adjustment was 1876-1688 = 188.
If I were aiming for 1200 I would be undereating for my activity, and that’s even without any real exercise.
You can also checkout the FitBit user group for more info like this.
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You aren't calling me premenopausal are you?!?! I'm only 35. 😞1
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I put my activity level as sedentary in Fitbit too bc like you said, if gives you too many cals until it's too late - 10pm! Rather just eat the calories I do use back. From your question earlier, I do half bc that seems to be what people say so you don't overestimate?0
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I put my activity level as sedentary in Fitbit too bc like you said, if gives you too many cals until it's too late - 10pm! Rather just eat the calories I do use back. From your question earlier, I do half bc that seems to be what people say so you don't overestimate?
The cals on your Fitbit are 'live' info, ie, it's not projecting based on what you've done earlier in the day, it's giving you your actual total calorie burn up to that point (but not for the two hours post-10pm, where you're still burning calories to stay alive, for me, that's an additional ~120 cals, my baseline at rest being around 1 cal per minute).
The half to three quarters is the advice for initial stage (and generally aimed more at exercise machines, or estimates from the MFP exercise database and similar). The idea is to do that for 4-6 weeks, then adjust based on your actual results. Your actual results are saying that you are losing too rapidly.1 -
Checking out the Fitbit forums, a moderator just suggested to set it to sedentary that way you eat the calories as the day goes on. It makes more sense to me.0
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I put my activity level as sedentary in Fitbit too bc like you said, if gives you too many cals until it's too late - 10pm! Rather just eat the calories I do use back. From your question earlier, I do half bc that seems to be what people say so you don't overestimate?
What do you mean it gives you too many calories until it’s too late? I didn’t say that, are you misinterpreting my screen shot?
The adjustments move around all day. They are an estimate of how much you’ll burn by the end of the day based on the activity you’ve had. It’s also advisable to enable negative calorie adjustments so that if you really do have a more sedentary day than normal, then MFP actually subtracts calories to account for that. (with the caveat that it will never go below 1200). The only time I end the day with a negative cal adjustment is if I’m completely ill and bedridden or if I’m on a long haul international flight or on a long road trip.
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Noni, I have only been on mfp for 27 days, hopefully missing the initial water weight loss. In those days, I've lost 5lbs which is pretty close to 1 pound per week?0
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Also, one of those pounds lost was from weighing today and I attribute it to illness.0
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Isn't eating them as I go the same thing though? I exercise in the morning so there's no chance that I'll leave a bunch of calories on the table. 🤔0
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If my BMR is indeed 1746, a 500 calorie deficit (1 pound per week) would be 1246. No?0
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Checking out the Fitbit forums, a moderator just suggested to set it to sedentary that way you eat the calories as the day goes on. It makes more sense to me.
A moderator on FitBit but was it specific to how to use MFP and FitBit together?
What is your typical step count, when you aren’t sick?
Some people like leaving themselves at sedentary. Regardless of what activity level you choose, MFP and FitBit sync up all day long. Also after you’ve been doing this for a while, you get a feeling for what your averages are and can better predict how many cals you’ll end up with at the end of the day.
When I first started I was set at 1200 cals and sedentary and I didn’t have a FitBit. I thought that was the right setting for me because I had a desk job and my only exercise was walking a few times a week, which I logged and ate back the calories burned. I was losing, faster than my desired 1 lb/week. I upped my cals to 1300, then 1400 and kept losing. About 6 months after I started I got a FitBit and I was averaging 10,000 steps without even realizing it and without it being “exercise”. The synced calorie adjustments were large. I got good advice on these forums that if I made myself lightly active or active, then the adjustments would be more indicative of my purposeful exercise and not just my high NEAT from being a busy working mom of two kids. That gave me a higher baseline on MFP and my adjustments were smaller but easier to plan into my day.
It’s really personal preference - the math works out the same, as long as you trust the adjustments and eat them back.
I do recommend the negative calorie enablement especially if you change your activity level.0 -
If my BMR is indeed 1746, a 500 calorie deficit (1 pound per week) would be 1246. No?
Where did you get the 1746 figure from?
Again, you don’t take the deficit from BMR. You take it from your TDEE. The total amount of calories you burn including just being alive (BMR), plus daily actors (= NEAT) + purposeful exercise = TDEE or total daily energy expenditure.
BMR is the amount of calories your body needs to support basic bodily functions. It’s what you would need if you were comatose (when, as I think you said you had some experience with head injury upthread). Eating 500 calories less than that would be literally starving your body of the nutrients it needs to keep you alive.
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If my BMR is indeed 1746, a 500 calorie deficit (1 pound per week) would be 1246. No?
If that is your BMR, no that is incorrect. You don't calculate your deficit BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) as has been explained earlier in the thread. You calculate it from your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). That number will vary from day to day but you are using a Fitbit and that should give you a reasonable approximation.
As has been said a couple of times already, BMR is what you would burn alive but totally sedentary. Think in a coma. That is your BMR. You seem very confused between BMR and TDEE.0 -
I'm not confused at all! 🙂 I'm just saying my BMR seems kinda low. Yes my FB calculates my TDEE. I've been eating half my exercise cals back but I will start eating all my cals back bc I'm assuming my FB is fairly accurate.
Wino - It does not give me the option of don't negative calorie adjustment bc I'm already on sedentary (1200).
I average about 8000 - 10000 steps per day. My 2 youngest still want me to lay with them while they nap so that's 2 hours less activity 😬0
. As in, you are not yet in menopause (nor the lead up to it). 
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