Am I Doing This Right?

AudreyPriceAz

I downloaded the app last night and kinda jumped right in adding my food for the day. It calculated I need 1200 calories a day to lose 2lbs a week and it says I can lose 3lbs by mid April but my actual goal is 2lbs a week, not 3lbs a month so it needs to get on board with that. 😁

Anyway, so 1200 a day is what it says I need to consume, is that correct?

And then it takes off whatever the walking calorie burn number is, correct?

I saw on one website calculator that for my age and weight and time walking it says 116 calories burned walking 1 mile. I don't know if that's right, wrong, off, on, wildly unrealistic or what.

But using it for the example, it shows for today I burned 354 calories walking 120 minutes (3 m walk at 116 per mile) and my overall calories are at 1194 - 354 and now it's 360 calories left of the 1200 I was supposed to be eating.

So if that is actually correct then would this be what you mean by calorie deficit since it's less than 1200?

Or what does that mean if not?

Am I supposed to find more stuff to eat up to the 360 or is it okay to just not...

Reason being, I'm incorporating IF 8:16 and started the fast about 8pm...it's just water til tomorrow. But if I need to eat the rest of it to actually do 1200 then I'm sure I can throw a pepsi and small bag of popcorn back in there 😁 (Just kidding, I'm actually doing IF seriously) just trying to understand what to do the right way.

I also saw that basically you walk off one pound of calories for every 5 miles and if you're at a calorie deficit then you'll lose 1lb that way.

If that is correct, and if I walked 15 miles a week and was always under 1200 calories a day on average, should I then expect I'd actually lose 3lbs a week?

If so, then I could lose 3lbs every week doing the same thing the same way and be at 107ish by July.

Yes, no? Am I reading this right?

Also, does this app have the option to scan barcodes on products to get the right one to find its calorie info?

Let's say I make a big old pot of veggie soup with canned veggies. I put in 1 can of mixed veggies, 1 can of vegetable soup, and 2 small chopped potatoes. I don't eat it all at once. I have a bowl and some crackers or whatever. How would I enter something like that to know what the calories are and not have it count each full can when I'm only actually having a bowl with a little from each...and another bowl tomorrow, that kind of thing.



Just trying to understand all this so any clarity is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

callsitlikeiseeit

okay, you have a lot of questions lol

lets take this step by step.

1. 1200 calls a day is REALLY hard to do. not impossible, but I can't do this, and I'm an old hand at it. It is better to lose weight slower, AND KEEP IT OFF, than to lose fast and gain it all back. You did not gain the weight quickly, you won't lose it quickly. As an example, I am 5'1, 43 years old, and a hair over 200 pounds. I eat 1400ish a day. If I work out for an hour, I can eat back around 200 calories. Sometimes I eat them back, sometimes not. But again, I've been doing this a long time, a larger deficit won't hurt me, and I know my body and its signals and can recognize if I need to eat some back.

2. Related to #1, Depending on your stats (age, height,weight), 2 pounds a week may not be realistic. The rule of thumb is 1% of your bodyweight per week, but even that's not always quite possible. The less weight you have to lose, the longer it will take. Also, weight fluctuates, for any number of reasons not necessarily related to what you have eaten.

3. 116 cals for a mile seems really high to me. Again, depends on your stats and fitness level, but I would take that with a grain of salt. or maybe a big box of salt.

4. Yes you should eat back exercise calories, but keep in mind, it is ALL an estimate. Most people start back by eating half and watching their weight for a few WEEKS. if you are losing faster than anticipated, eat back some more. If less than anticipated, eat back less.

5. regarding IF, if it works for you, great. I can fit in an insane amount of calories in ANY time frame, so for ME... it wouldn't work so well LOL weight loss is all about calories- regardless of when or what type. my diary is open. you can see the *kitten* I eat. I eat everything. I lost 130 pounds eating everything. if I can make it fit, i eat. even if i cant make it fit, some days, i still eat it (we all have good days and bad lol)

6. the 5 week projection on mfp is NEVER EVER EVER correct. ignore it and it will be better for your mental health. lol

7. yes you can scan barcodes (on the phone app) that does not mean that the entry it comes up with is accurate. Always compare against the label. Most database entries are user entered, and therefore subject to human error. Old or inaccurate info, typos, etc. always compare.

8. The recipe builder and 'large batch' recipes. I do it all the time. its not hard to do (and doesn't take long once you get the hang of it) but a bit harder to explain, and everyone does it a slightly different way. weigh each ingredient (in grams) as you put it in your pot (bowl, whatever). Total the # of grams up for everything (so, if you had 100 grams of soup, 100 grams of potatoes, and 100 grams of mixed veg your total would be 300). This will be your number of servings. use the database to find the correct entry for the calories for each item. you will log the # of grams as your # of servings. So if i dish up 50 grams... its 50 servings. You can see an example of that in my dinner last night. alternatively (especially if you are the only one eating it) you can eyeball it. If it will give your 2 meals... log it as 2 servings in the recipe and only log 1 in your diary.


hope that helps!

Redordeadhead

All of the above.

Also note that 1200 calories is the minimum setting the app will give for a female, it DOES NOT mean 1200 will produce the weight loss rate you have selected. If 2lbs per week is too fast for your current height/weight, and I suspect it is, then you would need to consume less than 1200 to achieve it and MFP will not give you that goal as it is not safe.

If you calculate your maintenance calories (you can do that on the app too by temporarily selecting the goal "maintain my weight", you need a deficit of 250 calories per day to lose 0.5lbs per week, 500 calories per day to lose 1lb per week and 1000 calories per day to lose 2lbs per week. By doing this calculation, you can see what is actually a reasonable rate of loss for your current stats.

AudreyPriceAz

Yes, thanks. After posting I found other threads about the dreaded 1200 base...so I checked out several calculators and got what I think is an average so I set mine at 1450 and then went back to the stuff I ate and just did it by each little thing. It's nitpicky as all get out if ya ask me but I do see the value in setting my typical food choices since I usually eat the same things all the time anyway and don't branch out much.

Today's said I have more cals but it's 15 til fasting time and I'm not hungry. I was going to do 5 miles today, did 2.5 but I've got some stuff to work on so I'm leaving it at that and just taking the "deficit" from today. It did say I'd be at 132 in five weeks if I do this all the time lol. I'm fine with that.

I'm still trying to go through it all and do the most intuitive stuff first and work it out. Definitely will check the recipe option too then.

Appreciate the in depth feedback a lot. Thank you so much!

Redordeadhead

Great that you are taking it in! It does get easier with time, honestly, you'll get there!

I just wanted to reiterate one part of @callsitlikeiseeit 's post, as you mentioned the projection again:

"6. the 5 week projection on mfp is NEVER EVER EVER correct. ignore it and it will be better for your mental health. lol"

It's not realistic that you will lose 3lb per week so best to abandon that idea.

AudreyPriceAz

Yes, I got it. I've narrowed down the truest most probable suspect, Armchair Sleuth that I am lol...drinking a liter of soda every day, eating fast food a couple times a week, the gummies - I don't do much candy, this is my favorite but I was overdoing it but OMG theyre so friggin good - that dramatically added to the gain over and above age and menopause and just an increase in eating now that I could taste food after quitting smoking.

I found that when I went the entire 2 weeks 3 days replacing all soda with unsweetened tea (Community Porch Breeze 0 cals), and just didn't eat out, even though I didn't really reduce portions I dropped from 150 to 146. So while I'm using the cal tracker thing and it's truly helpful in that it's keeping me mindful of what I want to eat for the day, and actually looking at the calorie content instead of grabbing it off the shelf and going with it, I've decided to try an experiment with this particular routine this week and see what the scale says on Sunday.

Literally the first time in my entire life I'm anxious for Sunday to get here to see what happens...if nothing else, it's still data and that data is helpful to find the right plan. My goal with it is to find something I know realistically is sustainable.

Also the 105 by July-August is a goal. I have no idea if it'll happen or not but it keeps me focused every week now on what and how much I am eating. And walking. I do think I can drop 2lbs a week and get back to 105-110 in that range by the fall doing exactly this routine but I'm not going to beat myself up if it takes a little longer...as long as it's dropping, then I'm happy.

Oh, side note I noticed...today when I was leaving the store, I kinda trotted down the curb and to the car...and suddenly I noticed I actually didn't feel any ankle pain, I felt like there was a spring in those few steps, and I just felt normal again. It was a nice feeling. I want more of those