Shape Shifters Team Chat - April 2025
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Daily step goal: 10,000
* Tue 4/1: 11,310
* Wed 4/2: 11,125
* Thu 4/3: 12,2645 -
Hey all, Mulecanter returns after a "lost-mojo" hiatus of what? a year?
My starting weight this week: 218.7 (was 238.7 on January 1st). My son and I are racing to 200, me from above and him from below 🙄 (imagine wanting to gain weight)
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Welcome back @mulecanter! That’s an impressive loss since January! Keep up the good work. 🎉🥳🎉
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pedal__power
PW 217.8
CW 217.4
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Steps goal 12000
4/4 16344
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Daily step goal 10000
4-3: 10297
Thursday: About an hour of decluttering.
We had an unexpected visitor at lunchtime.
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Just wondering how many of you eat back your active calories? I try not to but tonight I am just ravenous after burning about 900 calories via steps, running, weight training, and playing with my son. I just ate a plate of vegan Bolognese as an extra dinner and feel better, but wonder if if I should try not to eat back my exercise cals...
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I generally eat 50% max, those hr monitors aren’t known for accuracy. @leanneosullivan4432
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I agree with @indoorsy_ that eating half the workout calories is a good goal to have. This week, I didn’t follow that rule myself 🙄 but that’s what I would like to do in the future. 🎯
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Wow! 🤩 Great picture @p8m6bwghh9! Thanks for sharing all your beautiful photos!
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A moose 🫎 so awesome. I’m going to Alaska in May and I can’t wait to see one.
Every time I’ve travelled somewhere you might see them I never do. Fingers crossed for an Alaskan siting4 -
@leanneosullivan4432 , @indoorsy_
Short answer:
I agree, if you do eat back your active calories, make it less than 100%.Long answer:
In your diet profile (under home…goals… Your Fitness Goals… View Guided Setup), it asks this question:
How would you describe your normal daily activities?If you use a fitness tracker to record your active calories, you'll want to answer this question ignoring those exercises. Otherwise, MFP's estimate will include those calories burned, and your fitness device will report those same calories burned, giving you an inflated total. I don't do much apart from my logged exercises, so I answered that question as Sedentary, even though I exercise 2+ hours/day 90% of the time.
Here's a couple different approaches you can try:
- MFP guides you through setting your daily calorie goal to include a deficit, based on your computed daily calorie requirement and on how much weight you want to lose each week. If you do this, then eating back some percentage of your active calories makes sense, especially if you exercise a fair amount. (This is assuming your answer to the above question does not consider those active calories.)
- Alternatively, you could set your daily calorie goal to be your RMR (in other words, maintenance) and rely on your active calories to provide a deficit. Exercise a little for a small deficit, exercise a lot for a large deficit.
In any case, to find what really works requires a little experimenting for a week or two:
- When you complete each days logging, make a note of what MFP says you'll weigh in five weeks.
- Compare this to what you actually weigh after five weeks (or extrapolate after a week or two).
- If those two answers agree on your actual pound/week loss, then you're good. If not, then you'll know how much error is resulting from your inaccurate food logging and/or your device's inaccurate estimate of calories burned.
- (This is extremely difficult to do if you can't be very consistent at least during that week or two.)
- Calculate what percent of active calories you can safely consume:
- this assumes your food logging is accurate
- adjust actual weight loss to represent projected weight loss in five weeks.
- compute actual weight loss / MFP projected weight loss = % active calories you can consume.
Example:
Suppose your RMR is 1,850 calories.
Let's say your goal = lose 1 pound/week (3,500 calories/pound ➗7 days/week = 350 calories/day deficit)
So, daily calorie goal = 1,850 - 350 = 1,500 calories/day.
Now, suppose MFP consistently says you'll lose 10 pounds in five weeks, but after 2 weeks you've lost only 2 pounds:
actual: 2 pounds/2 weeks = 1 pound/week
projected: 10 pounds/5 weeks = 2 pounds/week
actual ➗ projected = 1 pound/week ➗ 2 pounds/week = 50% active calories can be consumed(At least, I think this would work. Maybe I should give it a try. 🤔😂)
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Angmarie28
Fridays
Prev weweight-182.2
Current weight-182.4
Bloated bad this week, but I was sitting at 185 most the week, so it's getting a lot better
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indoorsy_
friday
pw 169.0
cw 169.0
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3/28-5,106
3/29-4,567
3/30-9,689
3/31-9,102
4/1-8,715
4/2-8,046
4/3-4,189
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Izzyred9400 Sat weigh in
PW 137.7 CW 135.8
- My steps
- 4/1 7,159
- 4/2 16,842
- 4/3 23,799
- 4/4 18,203
Found a way to do my steps without annoying double line space ! Interesting about how to track your calories whether food or exercise @frankwbrownI.I never eat my exercise calories.In my opinion you need a calorie deficit to lose weight.Ive also noticed that when it says what you will way in 5 weeks time it is always less if I've done a load of exercise eventhough Ive had over my daily calories.Ive set mine at Sedentry eventhough I'm very active.
They say food is 75% towards your weight loss journey.
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alleykat69
weigh in: Saturday
pw: 197.7
cw: 197.6
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Good morning!
Friday steps:12,109
As for eating back calories I agree with eating back a percentage as calorie burns are just estimates and unless you are 100% accurate weighing and measuring Every. Time. Calories consumed is an estimate also. @frankwbrown said, MFP is designed for you to eat them back, you can change that under your settings.
I want to throw out here that 1. Weight loss is not linear and 2. It takes time to see if any particular changes are working. Particularly if you are a female below a certain age. 😁 Your weight is going to fluctuate from day to day and week to week based on many things, including but not limited to: recent sodium or carb intake, water retention for muscle repair, hormone changes and food in your digestive tract on the way to becoming waste. Those fluctuations happen regardless of whether you are "doing everything right". It takes several weeks, and for women at least a full menstrual cycle, for actual changes to show up on the scale.
Getting off my soapbox now. 😁
@p8m6bwghh9 Love the moose! 💕
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CasandraW
Saturday weigh in
PW 230.8
CW 233No idea what’s going on with my weight, this is 5lbs in two weeks. My eating has been pretty good and exercise has been good as well. New med maybe 🤔
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For the eating back calories conversation, I do what @leanneosullivan4432 did the other day. I base it on how I feel. If I'm hungry, I will allow myself to have a bit extra. I try not to on a regular basis though, only when I need it. If I do too often, my weight loss stalls. But I do have a Huma gel before some runs to give me a little extra energy. It's 100 calories that is additional, not within my calorie budget.
On another note, I finally made it back to the gym last night. I just ran 3 miles on the treadmill, but it felt good to be back after I skipped for a whole week. Small step, but I'm proud of myself.
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Bearchested
Friday
PW: 188.0
CW: 187.8
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@mulecanter I sent you a message yesterday but didn't get a response…now I see you're back in the chat thread…got your starting weight but need your preferred weigh in day of the week, please. I'll put you down for now as Monday and we can switch it as needed, just let me know. Welcome back, my friend! And no, I cannot imagine having trouble gaining weight. I can think of food and gain a pound or two! LOL
Jessica
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Just wondering how many of you eat back your active calories?
I try not to use my exercise calories at all, but sometimes miscount or forget a piece of fruit or something and have had to. Just like @izzyred9400 said, I think you need a deficit to lose weight, at least for me that's true…and perhaps that says I'm not weighing close enough or something, but that's what I've found. Now as you mentioned you were doing some heavy exercise this week and in those cases, you likely need to push protein to keep your energy levels up and match the extra energy you're putting out, so watch WHAT you're eating as well as the amount of calories…great question!
Jessica
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We're missing 4 weigh-ins for the week:
Please report in ASAP! Thanks!
Jessica
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cre804
Friday
PW 194.5
CW 191.5
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Weigh In
PW: 142.5
CW: 143.0You must have missed it when I posted it yesterday. Here it is again. I'll stop rambling on so much with my weigh ins to make them easier to spot. Sorry!
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Steps
4/2 5,165
4/3 8,023
4/4 5,658
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@Zaxa2021 Sorry we missed your weigh in. You put it very clearly at the top, so no worries there. I think someone other than a captain clicked 'insightful' for your post. We use that to show the sheet has been updated so I am guessing we all just thought your weigh in got added so that is why you got missed. 🙂
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Weigh InYou must have missed it when I posted it yesterday. Here it is again. I'll stop rambling on so much with my weigh ins to make them easier to spot. Sorry!
PW: 142.5
CW: 143.0Never stop rambling…we love your posts!! Sorry we missed it. I knew I'd seen your name, but when I backed up to see what post it was, it was one to another member and didn't contain a weigh in…now I see that @Pupowl said THAT post was before the one I saw…in any case, we're good now. Carry on!
Jessica
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The April Week 2 Group Challenge is active and ready to begin on Sunday, April 6th. Please join us for the Write Your Own Ticket Challenge…should be a fun one! Here's your link:
April Week 2 Group Challenge - Write Your Own Ticket Challenge — MyFitnessPal.com
See you in the chat thread!
Jessica 😎
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