Confused on calorie tracking

alexgallo6536

So I wear an Apple Watch and it tracks how many calories I burn in the whole day including my workouts. I googled if I should be adding my total active calories I’ve burnt in the whole day or just my workout calories. I can’t land on a clear answer because one source will say yes and other will say no because when myfitnesspal asks how active you are you it guesstimates already those active calories you burn just from what you do at work and your lifestyle and puts it into aspect of what you should be eating and anything extra you do workout wise is what should just be recorded. I said that I’m active when it asked how active I am. I’m a hairstylist, I went to the gym and burnt 250calories on the elliptical. And burnt 580calories working. Should I log that 580calories? Cause idk if it’s doing an accurate job. I’m 185lbs, 5’7, Male. I’m choosing a low carb diet because I eat way too many carbs and carbs is my biggest issue. I do definitely feel I'm experiencing “carb flu” cause I feel like absolute crap and having sick symptoms without being actually sick cause I don’t have a fever. It’s recommending me to eat about 2200 calories if I wanna meet my end goal at a moderate pace. I’m on day 3 of it and I’m extremely hungry. I’ve been letting myfitnesspal create my meal plan for the entire week, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and I’ve been following it to a tea.

csplatt

Is your apple watch communicating your entire days burn to MFP, or just the workouts? My apple watch only syncs the workouts I initiate in the Workout app, but I cannot remember how I set that up. You don’t want to end up for double credit for daily movement by getting it both from the watch AND from the “activity level” settings. However, if you’re already starving and feeling sick, I’m not sure you want to lower cals yet.

I tried carb cycling for about four days once because it was trendy and I liked the videos about it. To truly get to a “low carb” day was so hard that I was incredibly miserable and even mean. Everything has carbs, even fruit.

I would not make this too hard on yourself. Set yourself up to succeed, which may mean just get good as calorie counting and let go of the low carb stuff for now. May be a solution.

AnnPT77

That's a key question: Have you set up MFP to sync with your Apple watch? If so, Apple and MFP should be talking behind the scenes and working things out for you.

If you're not syncing, but using the Apple watch to estimate exercise calories, MFP is designed for you to consider your job and home chores - all the non-exercise parts of your life - when you choose your activity level in MFP. MFP gives you a calorie goal that it estimates will deliver your requested weight loss rate, on average over around 4-6 weeks (because loss isn't completely steady/even every week).

In that situation, you'd log only your exercise calories in MFP. Your job calories are already accounted for in your base calories via your activity level setting.

Whichever route you go - syncing MFP and Apple, or manually logging exercise - you'd follow that calorie estimate in MFP for 4-6 weeks since you're male (women with monthly cycles would use whole menstrual cycles as the timing). Then you compare your weight change over that whole time period to the loss rate you requested in MFP. If your actual weight change is close to your requested weight change, you're all set. If very different, you may consider manually adjusting your calorie goal.

A thing to know: Your watch doesn't actually measure your calories burned, and MFP doesn't calculate your calorie needs. Both Apple and MFP estimate using solid research-based statistical formulas. Essentially., both are giving you estimates based on the statistically average person demographically similar to you (age, sex, height weight, etc.). The estimates will be close for most people - that's how statistics work - but noticeably far off for a few. That's why we recommend the 4-6 week (or one cycle) trial period/test drive of the starting estimates.

If you want to eat low carb, that's fine, but it's not the only way. It's true that adapting to low carb eating can cause some negative symptoms at first. Some people are helped if they increase hydration and add electrolytes - sodium, potassium, magnesium, etc. Another option would be to gradually reduce carbs rather than doing a steep cut all at once.

Hunger is maybe a little different. I think it's normal to feel some pangs in the first couple of weeks, just because our bodies are habituated to eating certain amounts at certain times. Beyond that, it may take some experimenting to find your most filling mix of foods and timing of eating: It's individual.

Many people feel more full more of the time when eating primarily simple foods like meat, fish, veggies, fruits, whole grains, rather than mostly refined or highly-processed foods. Protein and fiber are filling for many people. Fats are filling for some people, but not all. Some people need a high volume of food, but it doesn't need to be high-calorie foods. Individual people can do best on any eating schedule from one meal per day to grazing on many small meals/snacks over a day, and anything in between. If the MFP plans aren't delivering good satiety for you after a couple of weeks, you may need to strike out more on your own.

Since it's individual, you may need to experiment. For one, when logging your food, notice which meals keep you fuller longer, and try to eat that way more often, and in reverse notice days when you're more crave-y and use that information to tweak your plan. Sometimes it's not just about food or timing, but can also be affected by hydration, sleep quality/quantity, exercise intensity or type, stress, boredom, emotions, and more. Those are things we can figure out. If there are some eating oopsies along the way, that's normal and OK, as long as those are treated as learning experiences and an opportunity to improve the plan: They're not moral failures.

Weight management by calorie counting is a process, and also a learning process. It's not a conveyor belt we just get on and ride - don't I wish it were! 😆 If you keep thinking, reviewing, working at it, you'll succeed.

Wishing you success!