Calorie intake

Johann1066

My calorie usage is normaly way more than intake. I cannot really see a difference. Is this normal or my imagination?

callsitlikeiseeit

how are you calculating both?

if what you burn is more than what you use, you will be in a deficit and lose weight. that is how CICO works in weight loss.

sijomial

Actual numbers would help, making your diary public would help more.

"Way more" needs to have a size and context.

Johann1066

New to MFP, I am using Garmin app connected to MFP enter my food intake on MFP.

sijomial

As you are new you may not realise that your data is personal to you unless you choose to make it public.
Food and exercise diaries are hidden from public view unless you change that setting.
Only you know your calorie goal, if you are actively trying to lose weight or not, what your weight has done over a certain time period. etc.

All anyone knows about you is that you are a male of unknown age so your questions are currently impossible to answer.

AllanMisner

Calorie intake and calorie spend are estimates. Unless you use precise carbon testing or live in a bubble, you can't know your exact calorie burn. We estimate it with formulas. Unless you measure every single ingredient used in your food, it is an estimate. And when we guess at things, we can be way off.

Another factor is time. How long have you been eating at a deficit? If your deficit is a few hundred calories, it would take over a week to lose 1 pound. And if you happen to be retaining water, that might not show on the scale.

And finally, if you're looking for physical changes in your body, it could take weeks or months. And many of us have "bad eyes" when it comes to seeing positive changes in ourselves. If you want to see change, you'll need a tape measure (or at least a pair of pants that are tight now and may be looser later).


Host of the 40+ Fitness Podcast
NASM Certified Personal Trainer (Corrective Exercise, Behavior Change, Fitness Nutrition)
FAI Certified Functional Aging Specialist
OTA Level 2 Online Coach

kshama2001

JohannEarly1081 wrote: »

New to MFP, I am using Garmin app connected to MFP enter my food intake on MFP.

I see your diary is open and on the 8th you got 2,700 exercise calories. What did you do that day other than the biking?

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/diary/JohannEarly1081?date=2021-08-08



On other days it looks like you did not finish logging or seriously under-ate. I would encourage you to log everything meticulously for a month. This will be even more accurate if you use a food scale and weigh everything.

I'm also curious about the entry for "Woolworths - Whole Woolworths Chicken, 600 gm 1,428 calories." It's quite possible that my perception is warped, but that sounds like a LOT of chicken to me so wanted to double check that and make sure you are just weighing what you eat and not counting the weight of bones.

lynn_glenmont

kshama2001 wrote: »

JohannEarly1081 wrote: »

New to MFP, I am using Garmin app connected to MFP enter my food intake on MFP.

I see your diary is open and on the 8th you got 2,700 exercise calories. What did you do that day other than the biking?

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/exercise/diary/JohannEarly1081?date=2021-08-08



On other days it looks like you did not finish logging or seriously under-ate. I would encourage you to log everything meticulously for a month. This will be even more accurate if you use a food scale and weigh everything.

I'm also curious about the entry for "Woolworths - Whole Woolworths Chicken, 600 gm 1,428 calories." It's quite possible that my perception is warped, but that sounds like a LOT of chicken to me so wanted to double check that and make sure you are just weighing what you eat and not counting the weight of bones.

On the other hand, it's not clear that the entry ("whole" chicken) doesn't intend you to weigh the bones. I would want to know how the chicken is cooked. I don't think 1428 calories is out of line for the meat, skin, and breading of 600 grams of bone-in fried chicken. But if this is rotisserie, it seems a little high for just 600 grams of meat and skin and a little BBQ sauce, but maybe the lab Woolworths uses assumes people eat more of the fat deposits on the chicken than the USDA assumes.

Even the fried, bone-in version is more chicken than I would generally consume in a sitting (although in part just because I don't generally want to "spend" 1400 calories on chicken in a single day), but I suspect there are lots of people who do, as that's about the calorie count for the chicken in a three-piece individual meal on the local fast-food fried chicken place.