Calorie intake confusion
nadineh
Posts: 5 Member
Hi! So quick question.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
1
Replies
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How did you determine that you burnt 1,352? Is that a synced fitness tracker or a total calorie count from another device?0
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It will depend on the source of those 1300 calories/how reliable that number is. Did you log walks or do you have a fitness tracker synced?
And how much walking did you do: how many steps (or what distance)?
How much do you weigh currently?0 -
Oh yes sorry I should have added that. Yes my fitbit sync0
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My Step count for today is 20k, I'm currently sitting at 95kg in weight.0
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Oh yes sorry I should have added that. Yes my fitbit sync
I would consider 1,352 to be a very high adjustment but we don't know enough about the activity and your weight to know if that's reasonable or not. If 1,819 is what you need to lose weight or maintain, then you do want to eat back the calories you've burnt through additional activity . . . but first you'd want to know whether or not your estimate for calories burnt through additional activity was reasonable.0 -
Hi! So quick question.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
I'm assuming you put in "sedentary" 1 Lb per week rate of loss. I only assume that because that's about what MFP gives me for the same. It assumes no exercise...and you're doing a lot of exercise....20K steps isn't remotely sedentary. Calories are energy...fuel. Does a car that travels 120 miles round trip per day need more fuel than a car that goes around the block once per week to get groceries?
I do not know how accurate your calorie burn is...but yeah...the more you move, the more energy (calories) your body requires. Your body requires calories just to function...like your heart beating, lungs breathing, etc. When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling I could easily burn 1,000 calories + in a day...at 1800 calories, that would have left me with 800 calories net for all of my other bodily needs which isn't nearly enough. When I was doing that, I could easily eat 2500-3000 calories per day and still lose weight.0 -
My Step count for today is 20k, I'm currently sitting at 95kg in weight.
1300 sounds a bit high to me. I'd say you're safe eating back half for a month. After that you can adjust based on your actual weight loss:
-if you're losing faster than the weight loss rate you selected, eat back a higher percentage
-if you're losing slower than the weight loss rate you selected, eat back less0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Hi! So quick question.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
I'm assuming you put in "sedentary" 1 Lb per week rate of loss. I only assume that because that's about what MFP gives me for the same. It assumes no exercise...and you're doing a lot of exercise....20K steps isn't remotely sedentary. Calories are energy...fuel. Does a car that travels 120 miles round trip per day need more fuel than a car that goes around the block once per week to get groceries?
I do not know how accurate your calorie burn is...but yeah...the more you move, the more energy (calories) your body requires. Your body requires calories just to function...like your heart beating, lungs breathing, etc. When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling I could easily burn 1,000 calories + in a day...at 1800 calories, that would have left me with 800 calories net for all of my other bodily needs which isn't nearly enough. When I was doing that, I could easily eat 2500-3000 calories per day and still lose weight.
I think I put in lightly active. Some days are busier than others of course. I'm doing anything between 13-20k steps a day so obvs the calories burned is different each day but my heart rate is elivated the fatburn/cardio levels on my fitbit app are up hence the calorie burned. I could also be around 100-150 calories out give or take for not 100% weighing of food. I just don't want to have an excess for 1k calories in the day and it stops me from actually loosing weight because I'm not eating enough.
I'm just wondering really should I ignore those calories remaining to a point and just make sure I'm keeping within the calorie goal/food intake. Unless I'm starving. Which I find I'm not.0 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »Hi! So quick question.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
I'm assuming you put in "sedentary" 1 Lb per week rate of loss. I only assume that because that's about what MFP gives me for the same. It assumes no exercise...and you're doing a lot of exercise....20K steps isn't remotely sedentary. Calories are energy...fuel. Does a car that travels 120 miles round trip per day need more fuel than a car that goes around the block once per week to get groceries?
I do not know how accurate your calorie burn is...but yeah...the more you move, the more energy (calories) your body requires. Your body requires calories just to function...like your heart beating, lungs breathing, etc. When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling I could easily burn 1,000 calories + in a day...at 1800 calories, that would have left me with 800 calories net for all of my other bodily needs which isn't nearly enough. When I was doing that, I could easily eat 2500-3000 calories per day and still lose weight.
I think I put in lightly active. Some days are busier than others of course. I'm doing anything between 13-20k steps a day so obvs the calories burned is different each day but my heart rate is elivated the fatburn/cardio levels on my fitbit app are up hence the calorie burned. I could also be around 100-150 calories out give or take for not 100% weighing of food. I just don't want to have an excess for 1k calories in the day and it stops me from actually loosing weight because I'm not eating enough.
I'm just wondering really should I ignore those calories remaining to a point and just make sure I'm keeping within the calorie goal/food intake. Unless I'm starving. Which I find I'm not.
Your calorie goal INCLUDES the calories burnt through exercise, so you'll want to account for those. If you're worried that your Fitbit might be over-estimating your burn, I'd recommend eating back a portion, monitoring your progress for a few weeks, and then adjusting as necessary (eating fewer if you are losing slower than expected, eating more if you're losing faster than expected). What I wouldn't recommend doing is ignoring those calories completely -- you told MFP you were lightly active and 20,000 steps is way more than that so you want to make sure you consider that.1 -
janejellyroll wrote: »cwolfman13 wrote: »Hi! So quick question.
My intake for calories is 1,819 a day. I have eaten my calorie intake of 1,801.
I do alot of walking fitness and school runs on foot. Today I have burnt 1,352 , so it says I have 1,370 calories remaining...
Is it good that I'm burning calories but somethings telling me that my excess of remaining calories is too high.
Even though I've met my calorie intake goal for today vs food consumed calories. My mind is telling me that it doesn't matter if I've burnt those calories I shouldn't eat anymore.
Should I be eating more? I'm so confused.
I'm assuming you put in "sedentary" 1 Lb per week rate of loss. I only assume that because that's about what MFP gives me for the same. It assumes no exercise...and you're doing a lot of exercise....20K steps isn't remotely sedentary. Calories are energy...fuel. Does a car that travels 120 miles round trip per day need more fuel than a car that goes around the block once per week to get groceries?
I do not know how accurate your calorie burn is...but yeah...the more you move, the more energy (calories) your body requires. Your body requires calories just to function...like your heart beating, lungs breathing, etc. When I was doing a lot of endurance cycling I could easily burn 1,000 calories + in a day...at 1800 calories, that would have left me with 800 calories net for all of my other bodily needs which isn't nearly enough. When I was doing that, I could easily eat 2500-3000 calories per day and still lose weight.
I think I put in lightly active. Some days are busier than others of course. I'm doing anything between 13-20k steps a day so obvs the calories burned is different each day but my heart rate is elivated the fatburn/cardio levels on my fitbit app are up hence the calorie burned. I could also be around 100-150 calories out give or take for not 100% weighing of food. I just don't want to have an excess for 1k calories in the day and it stops me from actually loosing weight because I'm not eating enough.
I'm just wondering really should I ignore those calories remaining to a point and just make sure I'm keeping within the calorie goal/food intake. Unless I'm starving. Which I find I'm not.
Your calorie goal INCLUDES the calories burnt through exercise, so you'll want to account for those. If you're worried that your Fitbit might be over-estimating your burn, I'd recommend eating back a portion, monitoring your progress for a few weeks, and then adjusting as necessary (eating fewer if you are losing slower than expected, eating more if you're losing faster than expected). What I wouldn't recommend doing is ignoring those calories completely -- you told MFP you were lightly active and 20,000 steps is way more than that so you want to make sure you consider that.
Thank you 😊 , I would say there's maybe 2 days out of the week that are around in the excess of about 20k because of housework/walking school runs. Hence the lightly active. I'm very rarely below 10k steps a day unless I'm unwell. I will definitely bare that in mind regarding eating back a portion regarding true stats on the fitbit. I've only started my calorie counting journey to get back on the ball so will monitor this for the next cpl weeks and see if there is any loose and take on bored your comments.
Thanks again 😊0 -
I, and lots of other people I know experienced crazy calorie burns with fitbit. Doesn't seem to happen with everyone, but those who get it just shake their head in amazement. You might be just be one of those people. Like others have said: Maybe eat back a part of these calories and see how things go. Give it at least 4 weeks, maybe a bit longer to account for a whole menstrual cycle to see if your weight loss is as expected, faster or slower, and then adjust what you eat back from exercise accordingly.1
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10k+ steps daily probably correlates more closely with "active" than "lightly active". 20k is certainly beyond. Whether 1300 is the right adjustment, I don't know, but it makes sense that you're getting an adjustment when your step count is above the typical threshold for the activity level.1
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With the Fitbit accounts actually synced (you have meal calorie totals showing up in Fitbit?) - doesn't matter what you have set as MFP activity level, the adjustment is for calories burned ABOVE that level.
Now - is a lot of your walking being logged as exercise on Fitbit?
If so it's using HR-based formula for calorie burn - and for walking on the lower end of aerobic exercise range - it's inflated.
If this is new usage too, like still in first 2 weeks of using device - estimate is even worse right now.
If a lot of the steps (distance is actually the important figure) is from daily activity, then the distance matters, so now the stride length setting is important for best estimate.
Ever walked a known distance at about 1.8 mph pace and confirmed Fitbit got the distance right?1
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