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Sedentary vs Lightly Active
Mr_Hill10
Posts: 5 Member
Hello all,
I have successfully lost 4 stone pushing 4 and a half stone on average weekly weigh ins, and put my type 2 diabetes into remission. Currently my deficit is "Sedentary" with 2207cals with 178g protein target. At the moment with the cold weather, potential boredom(?) of tracking for 5 months solid I am finding that I am exceptionally snacky and craving that little bit more in the evenings. On my weight loss journey I didn't go out of my way to exercise, just naturally living and looking after kids and some form of activity at the weekend. I work a desk job 2 days at home and three in office. I regret at this point not doing some form of strength activity, but you live and learn.
My inline hockey training resumed mid August, been training three days a week and now solid 2 days a week (wed/Thurs) for about an hour and a half each night, I am wondering if this is enough to validate "lightly active" on my calorie calculator which would give me 2529 cals? Would I need to start fitting in another form of workout to justify the increase. Lets be brutally honest, I could probably do with fitting in some form of strength training or conditioning, but feel like I am too tired to do this at the moment.
Currently weigh 18 stone 7/9 lbs weekly average, height 6 ft 1.
Calculators vary so much, if your using one please let me know the details. I use the one provided by The Fitness Chef UK profile section which has served me well so far without a drastic deficit that MFP sets.
Any advice appreciated and welcomed.
I have successfully lost 4 stone pushing 4 and a half stone on average weekly weigh ins, and put my type 2 diabetes into remission. Currently my deficit is "Sedentary" with 2207cals with 178g protein target. At the moment with the cold weather, potential boredom(?) of tracking for 5 months solid I am finding that I am exceptionally snacky and craving that little bit more in the evenings. On my weight loss journey I didn't go out of my way to exercise, just naturally living and looking after kids and some form of activity at the weekend. I work a desk job 2 days at home and three in office. I regret at this point not doing some form of strength activity, but you live and learn.
My inline hockey training resumed mid August, been training three days a week and now solid 2 days a week (wed/Thurs) for about an hour and a half each night, I am wondering if this is enough to validate "lightly active" on my calorie calculator which would give me 2529 cals? Would I need to start fitting in another form of workout to justify the increase. Lets be brutally honest, I could probably do with fitting in some form of strength training or conditioning, but feel like I am too tired to do this at the moment.
Currently weigh 18 stone 7/9 lbs weekly average, height 6 ft 1.
Calculators vary so much, if your using one please let me know the details. I use the one provided by The Fitness Chef UK profile section which has served me well so far without a drastic deficit that MFP sets.
Any advice appreciated and welcomed.
1
Replies
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Not sure I understand what you mean with 'without a drastic deficit that MFP sets': MFP sets a calorie goal based on your choice of weight loss rate. The deficit is only drastic of you choose an aggressive rate of loss 🙂
The way MFP is intended to be used, your activity level reflects non exercise activity. Workouts should be added separately when done, which will give you more calories on those days.
Or you can use MFP differently as intended and keep a fixed daily goal, but it then does make sense to increase your activity level if you are increasing exercise.
I would use your current rate of loss as an indicator, more reliable than any calculator.
1lb of lost bodyweight is the equivalent of a daily deficit of 500 calories.
Losing 0.5-1% of your bodyweight is generally the recommendation.
If your rate of loss has increased since increasing exercise, or is too quick to be healthy or the hunger is hard to manage, increasing your calories is ac logical thing to do. An increase of 300 calories per day sounds like a safe approach, the worst that can happen is a slightly slower rate of loss (presuming you've been losing at a fair pace so far, it's not clear from your post).3 -
Not sure I understand what you mean with 'without a drastic deficit that MFP sets': MFP sets a calorie goal based on your choice of weight loss rate. The deficit is only drastic of you choose an aggressive rate of loss 🙂
The way MFP is intended to be used, your activity level reflects non exercise activity. Workouts should be added separately when done, which will give you more calories on those days.
Or you can use MFP differently as intended and keep a fixed daily goal, but it then does make sense to increase your activity level if you are increasing exercise.
I would use your current rate of loss as an indicator, more reliable than any calculator.
1lb of lost bodyweight is the equivalent of a daily deficit of 500 calories.
Losing 0.5-1% of your bodyweight is generally the recommendation.
If your rate of loss has increased since increasing exercise, or is too quick to be healthy or the hunger is hard to manage, increasing your calories is ac logical thing to do. An increase of 300 calories per day sounds like a safe approach, the worst that can happen is a slightly slower rate of loss (presuming you've been losing at a fair pace so far, it's not clear from your post).
True, the deficit is going to be determined by what you set your weight loss weekly goal to. That being said, I have noticed myself that MFP seems to allot a relatively low calorie amount comparably to other calculators. I figure it's because MFP takes out exercise calories so you "eat them back". I think this creates a bit of an artificially low calorie allotment. But, absolutely every calculator is going to be wrong. It's up to the individual to play around with how much they eat and figure out how much they actually need.1 -
sollyn23l2 wrote: »Not sure I understand what you mean with 'without a drastic deficit that MFP sets': MFP sets a calorie goal based on your choice of weight loss rate. The deficit is only drastic of you choose an aggressive rate of loss 🙂
The way MFP is intended to be used, your activity level reflects non exercise activity. Workouts should be added separately when done, which will give you more calories on those days.
Or you can use MFP differently as intended and keep a fixed daily goal, but it then does make sense to increase your activity level if you are increasing exercise.
I would use your current rate of loss as an indicator, more reliable than any calculator.
1lb of lost bodyweight is the equivalent of a daily deficit of 500 calories.
Losing 0.5-1% of your bodyweight is generally the recommendation.
If your rate of loss has increased since increasing exercise, or is too quick to be healthy or the hunger is hard to manage, increasing your calories is ac logical thing to do. An increase of 300 calories per day sounds like a safe approach, the worst that can happen is a slightly slower rate of loss (presuming you've been losing at a fair pace so far, it's not clear from your post).
True, the deficit is going to be determined by what you set your weight loss weekly goal to. That being said, I have noticed myself that MFP seems to allot a relatively low calorie amount comparably to other calculators. I figure it's because MFP takes out exercise calories so you "eat them back". I think this creates a bit of an artificially low calorie allotment. But, absolutely every calculator is going to be wrong. It's up to the individual to play around with how much they eat and figure out how much they actually need.
Yes apologies, I have found across multiple calculators they all averaged out in the similar range however the MFP one is a drastic cut in comparison. I do not apply exercise to my deficit or connect up the steps tracker, as it gave me a false sense of "I can eat more". I may give myself an increase for a couple of weeks and see how it goes - I have league matches which will give an extra session this week and next, I am so close of my 1st target I don't want to jeopardise my progress.0 -
You talk about potentially jeopardising your progress.
Let's crunch some numbers: how fast are you losing weight currently? For example: how much have you lost the past 4 weeks?
I'll invent some numbers myself, just to show you:
If you are losing at 1lb a week
- you have daily deficit of 3500 calories per week -> 500kcal deficit per day
- if you eat 300 kcal more per day than before, your rate of loss would slow to 0.4lbs per week
- You can eat 500 calories more per day than your current intake and maintain your weight
- If you increase your intake by more than 500 kcals, you would start to gain weight/lose progress
If you are losing at 2lbs a week
- you have daily deficit of 7000 calories per week -> 1000kcal deficit per day
- if you eat 300 kcal more per day than before, your rate of loss would slow to 1.4lbs per week
- You can eat 1000 calories more per day than your current intake and maintain your weight
- If you increase your intake by more than 1000 kcals, you would start to gain weight/lose progress
So depending on your current rate of loss and your hunger levels, you can evaluate whether or not (and by how much) you can increase your intake without jeopardizing your progress.
PS: a caveat here - if you've noticed a slower rate of loss since you started exercising more, water retention for muscle repair could confuse the numbers a bit.3 -
Much appreciated on that clarity.
I do daily weigh ins and take the weekly average as a "where I am at" figure.
June 13 lbs
July 11.2 lbs
August 11.8 lbs
Sept so far 4.6 lbs
Ive had a lot to lose since my 23 stone starting point0 -
You are placing too much emphasis on an arbitrary label for an online calculator. They simply take a statistical estimate of your BMR and multiply it by 1.25, 1.4, 1.6, etc. depending on whatever bucket you initially feel applies to you, based on that site's descriptions of each bucket.
That was just a starting point. Now that you've been doing this for a while, you know you're losing about 2.5 pounds per week? That's a deficit of about 1,250 calories per day. What is your actual TDEE then? If you track your input calories, e.g. here on MFP, and do so diligently and accurately, then your actual TDEE is probably about 1,250 above that.
As you lose more weight, your BMR and TDEE will continue to drop slightly, so the exact same calories in will naturally lead to slower weight loss.
I highly recommend adding resistance training. Two sessions per week would be good for you, and you could maybe focus on upper body there, since you're doing two skating sessions. Unless you're a noob lifter, you're probably not going to build much if any muscle with such a large deficit, but it will help protect what you have, and set you up well for later when your body fat is lower. You say you regret not doing this. It's not too late to start.3 -
Retroguy2000 wrote: »You are placing too much emphasis on an arbitrary label for an online calculator. They simply take a statistical estimate of your BMR and multiply it by 1.25, 1.4, 1.6, etc. depending on whatever bucket you initially feel applies to you, based on that site's descriptions of each bucket.
That was just a starting point. Now that you've been doing this for a while, you know you're losing about 2.5 pounds per week? That's a deficit of about 1,250 calories per day. What is your actual TDEE then? If you track your input calories, e.g. here on MFP, and do so diligently and accurately, then your actual TDEE is probably about 1,250 above that.
As you lose more weight, your BMR and TDEE will continue to drop slightly, so the exact same calories in will naturally lead to slower weight loss.
I highly recommend adding resistance training. Two sessions per week would be good for you, and you could maybe focus on upper body there, since you're doing two skating sessions. Unless you're a noob lifter, you're probably not going to build much if any muscle with such a large deficit, but it will help protect what you have, and set you up well for later when your body fat is lower. You say you regret not doing this. It's not too late to start.
Much appreciated, I am still learning my way and whilst I was putting a lot of focus on the two labels and a difference of 300 I am still not clued in enough to work this out yet.
As for resistance training yes, I am in the process of converting my garage to throw in a weights/kettle bell routine and a Pilates/yoga routine a week as I sit all day for work (and hobby) and need to stretch out my back. I have noticed a reduction in muscle size and possible injury developing in my shoulder, and the extra definition as I keep dropping would be preferable.0 -
You have three months of back data.
Aim to lose no more than 1% of your current weight per week.
If you weigh 220-300, then two pounds loss per week is probably okay. When you approach 200 in weight, then one pound or a pound and a half loss per week is better. At anything less than 200, aim for one pound loss per week until you are close to a healthy BMI, at which point (say...just at the upper limit of your healthy BMI) switch to, "Lose 1/2 pound per week."
Be as honest as you can on the Activity Level.
Accuracy in logging food is a factor. Double check your database choices for accuracy. Use a food scale. Preparing most of your own meals is a factor. Estimating exercise is a factor.
You will have to play around with your exercise calories. What have you been using up to now? A fitbit? Myfitnesspal's exercise numbers? Something else?
Figure that 3500 calories (roughly) equals one pound of body weight change.
Back-calculate your past three months of results. Adjust accordingly.
0 -
cmriverside wrote: »You have three months of back data.
Aim to lose no more than 1% of your current weight per week.
If you weigh 220-300, then two pounds loss per week is probably okay. When you approach 200 in weight, then one pound or a pound and a half loss per week is better. At anything less than 200, aim for one pound loss per week until you are close to a healthy BMI, at which point (say...just at the upper limit of your healthy BMI) switch to, "Lose 1/2 pound per week."
Be as honest as you can on the Activity Level.
Accuracy in logging food is a factor. Double check your database choices for accuracy. Use a food scale. Preparing most of your own meals is a factor. Estimating exercise is a factor.
You will have to play around with your exercise calories. What have you been using up to now? A fitbit? Myfitnesspal's exercise numbers? Something else?
Figure that 3500 calories (roughly) equals one pound of body weight change.
Back-calculate your past three months of results. Adjust accordingly.
April 9 lbs
May 1 stone 1 lb
My bodyweight at the start was 322 lbs, now 261 lbs.
I dont use any trackers for exercise, I dont own a fitbit and do not allow MFP to minus exercise from my deficit.
I am thorough with my food tracking and weigh my meals, being the main cook in my house this is easy enough.
I will work on back tracking the recent losses and see where it works out - thank you!0 -
You're burning the candle from both ends (exercise increase and fast weight loss) and you're starting to feel it.
You're also probably also coming close to the six month mark where hormones start acting up more (look into the NIH body weight planner and at graphs of where during the weight loss process people start their rebounds)
You're concentrating on creating a larger and larger deficit. You don't want to see your weight loss slowing down.
Wrong thoughts.
How can I eat the most while still continuing to lose weight at an adequate clip? How will I be eating and exercising over the next five years in order to maintain my loss?
Right now you should be feeling so energized and strong that it's not even funny.
Pick up a vest with the weight you've lost (while your still can, because for example I now wouldn't be able to) and you will know why.
Are you?
Because it sounds like you're flagging and having trouble completing exercise sessions becausevyou're undereating to the point that it affects performance
It is false to think of yourself as sedentary if you're not counting your exercise separately.
You would be closer to active not lightly if you were doing that and the labels don't mean much other than being short-hand descriptions for levels of calories like was mentioned above.
It is also false to think that a device tricks you into eating more. If you're more active you SHOULD be eating more.
The answer is not to let lethargy take over and to slow down by undereating to lose faster.
Your awesome progress has bought you a ticket to having lost enough weight to markedly improved your health and to now have the luxury of having the time to make adjustments.
Now you need to protect your improvements. Eat enough to be able to do the things you weren't able to do before. And more importantly make weight management as easy and fun as you can so that you improve your chances of continuing.
Awesome progress. Now concentrate on not being a rebound statistic. And the only way I know that you can give yourself a chance to do that is to play for time.
Your goal **dates** are now meaningless. Your goals aren't. But the dates are.
As long as you're heading in the right direction you're good. If you're 180 in two years that's 2.5 years of reduced weight and health benefits in the bag.
Athletic stuff and exercise. Strength training. All of it is good and allows you to explore the benefits of losing weight. Flattening the curve and playing for time is not bad... to the contrary it may help with sustainability of effort and long term adherence4 -
MrHill, I agree with what PAV said above, and hope you take it to heart.
I did not have as much to lose but six months into my sensibly paced deficit, I was feeling better, not tired - ready to pick up a barbell and start lifting.
I admit I did sometimes feel deprived, but that was in error and not what I was aiming for. I took it seriously to fix things when I was flagging.
Sleep enough. Dude. Sleep. You need sleep. Don’t kill your body.
Eat enough. Sure, you want to lose fat but you don’t want to lose muscle and hair and all of that too. You will be fit and trim and gorgeous, it’s not a race. You don’t get extra prizes for losing twice as fast - you get penalized.
Get those things sorted, give yourself time to heal and feel better. Your body is you, it’s not your enemy.3 -
Hello all,
I have successfully lost 4 stone pushing 4 and a half stone on average weekly weigh ins, and put my type 2 diabetes into remission. Currently my deficit is "Sedentary" with 2207cals with 178g protein target. At the moment with the cold weather, potential boredom(?) of tracking for 5 months solid I am finding that I am exceptionally snacky and craving that little bit more in the evenings. On my weight loss journey I didn't go out of my way to exercise, just naturally living and looking after kids and some form of activity at the weekend. I work a desk job 2 days at home and three in office. I regret at this point not doing some form of strength activity, but you live and learn.
My inline hockey training resumed mid August, been training three days a week and now solid 2 days a week (wed/Thurs) for about an hour and a half each night, I am wondering if this is enough to validate "lightly active" on my calorie calculator which would give me 2529 cals? Would I need to start fitting in another form of workout to justify the increase. Lets be brutally honest, I could probably do with fitting in some form of strength training or conditioning, but feel like I am too tired to do this at the moment.
Currently weigh 18 stone 7/9 lbs weekly average, height 6 ft 1.
Calculators vary so much, if your using one please let me know the details. I use the one provided by The Fitness Chef UK profile section which has served me well so far without a drastic deficit that MFP sets.
Any advice appreciated and welcomed.sollyn23l2 wrote: »Not sure I understand what you mean with 'without a drastic deficit that MFP sets': MFP sets a calorie goal based on your choice of weight loss rate. The deficit is only drastic of you choose an aggressive rate of loss 🙂
The way MFP is intended to be used, your activity level reflects non exercise activity. Workouts should be added separately when done, which will give you more calories on those days.
Or you can use MFP differently as intended and keep a fixed daily goal, but it then does make sense to increase your activity level if you are increasing exercise.
I would use your current rate of loss as an indicator, more reliable than any calculator.
1lb of lost bodyweight is the equivalent of a daily deficit of 500 calories.
Losing 0.5-1% of your bodyweight is generally the recommendation.
If your rate of loss has increased since increasing exercise, or is too quick to be healthy or the hunger is hard to manage, increasing your calories is ac logical thing to do. An increase of 300 calories per day sounds like a safe approach, the worst that can happen is a slightly slower rate of loss (presuming you've been losing at a fair pace so far, it's not clear from your post).
True, the deficit is going to be determined by what you set your weight loss weekly goal to. That being said, I have noticed myself that MFP seems to allot a relatively low calorie amount comparably to other calculators. I figure it's because MFP takes out exercise calories so you "eat them back". I think this creates a bit of an artificially low calorie allotment. But, absolutely every calculator is going to be wrong. It's up to the individual to play around with how much they eat and figure out how much they actually need.
Yes apologies, I have found across multiple calculators they all averaged out in the similar range however the MFP one is a drastic cut in comparison. I do not apply exercise to my deficit or connect up the steps tracker, as it gave me a false sense of "I can eat more". I may give myself an increase for a couple of weeks and see how it goes - I have league matches which will give an extra session this week and next, I am so close of my 1st target I don't want to jeopardise my progress.
You are "exceptionally snacky and craving" because you are not fueling your workouts.
The other calculators give you more calories because they include exercise, unlike MFP. If you use MFP to set your calorie goal, exercise, but don't eat back any exercise calories, you are not using MFP the way it was designed.
https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-
Unlike other sites which use TDEE calculators, MFP uses the NEAT method (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis), and as such this system is designed for exercise calories to be eaten back. However, many consider the burns given by MFP to be inflated for them and only eat a percentage, such as 50%, back. Others are able to lose weight while eating 100% of their exercise calories.
0 -
What they said about MFP expecting you to add exercise calories, plus the probability that you're seeing the consequences of having a bigger than ideal calorie deficit for too long a time.
If you do prefer to use the TDEE method (averaging in exercise rather than logging it separately), you might take a look at this calculator:
https://www.sailrabbit.com/bmr/
Personally, I prefer it because it has more activity levels than most other calculators, and also has better descriptions of each level. On top of that, it lets you compare several research-based formulas for estimating calorie needs (and makes all the multipliers/assumptions explicit rather than black-box).
That does mean that the user interface is more cluttered than other calculators, but if you step through it methodically, it's easy to figure out.
I'd suggest that when using the TDEE method, you not subtract more than 20% from your estimated TDEE to get a reasonable calorie deficit. Less than 20% would be fine. More than 20% might be fine if severely obese and under close medical supervision for deficiencies or complications, but it isn't anything I'd recommend for long-term DIY weight loss.0 -
@Mr_Hill10 : Congratulations on your progress so far! Good show!
@AnnPT77 gives the best link, which I got from her a long time ago and have used. You find out that the activity level is just a multiplicative fudge factor: It takes a formula for your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate-- what you'd burn while in a coma) and multiplies it by some factor between 1.25 and 2, depending on your activity level. It's quite a crude tool for estimating your actual TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or what you burn in a day with all activities included). It is truly not rocket science!
Your TDEE varies considerably day-to-day with activity level. (Some people take it to mean the average TDEE, which if all fine.)
But, you've already determined pretty well what your NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis-- the amount you burn without workouts) is. So, I personally wouldn't change anything EXCEPT that I'd pick an estimate to add in for your workouts on those days. You can use the MFP estimate for ice hockey as a guide. Note that you should only put in the approximate minutes you are actually playing. For me, it gives about 650kcals per hour. Experience will tell you if the estimate is right. You don't have to eat the extra calories in one day, but I might suggest eating a bit extra (like a power bar or banana) right before you play. It's hard to exercise when you are on a diet!
I would suggest a fitness watch, but I don't think any of them would do a good job of tracking inline hockey (which sounds like an awesome sport).
Best of luck!1
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