Remind me please

mangojh2

Hello! I started EMTWL a couple weeks ago and I almost immediately dropped 6 lbs. But today the scale is up 3 of those pounds. My concern is the way it makes me feel emotionally. Its just like the months of april-june when I was eating 1460 calories and the scale wasn't moving. I feel awful.

Intellectually I knew this would happen. I've read all the stickies that said I might gain before I lost and to put away the scale and whats a couple pounds in the grand scheme of things.

Im just frustrated. A couple different websites have my bmr 600 calories apart. scooby and mfp are really close at 1980 ish but fat 2 fit which actually has you measure yourself says 1400 ish.

And I really don't know if I'm moderate or very active and thats driving me crazy because I want to do this right and I'm in it for the long haul but at the end of the day patience is a virtue I've never had...I guess I have to grow some.

So here I suit wearing my Hrm for 18 hours straight now to try to determine what my true TDEE is because I dont have a fitbit and I know its only 1 24 period....but at least I'll have a real idea.

Anyway, I'm just really struggling. I was struggling before I got to EMTWL and this morning I'm right back to those feelings I'd give anything not to feel.

my only request....tell me...is this normal?

moss11

Yes I think it is very normal both to go up some in the weight and to have those panic feelings of gaining when you are doing all the right things. Personally I weigh once a week and on about 1850 calories a day am losing about one and a half pounds a month. As has been said in similar posts you need to give it time. As to an accurate BMR, to a certain extent it will depend on your metabolism as well as your lifestyle. If you could hit the mid range with the figures you have and see how you feel. Will you have enough energy for exercise and enough food for your body to work at its optimum? If you are starving you need to rethink calorie amount or type. From what you said you are still three pounds down on your start weight which is brilliant. Remember Rome wasn't build in a day, and if it had been, would some still be standing!!

skbarton

So here I suit wearing my Hrm for 18 hours straight now to try to determine what my true TDEE is because I dont have a fitbit and I know its only 1 24 period....but at least I'll have a real idea.

Treat the number you get with wearing an HRM for 24 hours with caution. I tried that and it gave me a number of 3000 or so which was obviously (for me) inaccurate. I bit the bullet and got a FitBit (which I love) and my calorie burn is generally 1700 - 2000 depending on my activities of the day.

azalais7

What Moss said.

I just looked again at the fat2fit site and the BMR calculator there doesn't ask for anything additional other than body fat percentage, which you're simply not going to be able to calculate accurately on your own without calipers (those scales are notoriously unreliable, and the online BF calculators that use only your circumference measurements--waist size, etc.--overestimate by a fair amount).

As far as activity level goes, I mostly focus on hours exercising. For example, I walk about 30 minutes 7 days a week, so that's a little over three hours there. I also lift 3 days a week for about 30 minutes. Combined that takes me to 5 hours. Sometimes i "wog" instead of walk, sometimes I walk significantly more on one day, and obviously my burn would be a bit higher then, but I think once I average it all together I'm pretty comfy with "moderate" as per scooby.

mangojh2

What Moss said.

I just looked again at the fat2fit site and the BMR calculator there doesn't ask for anything additional other than body fat percentage, which you're simply not going to be able to calculate accurately on your own without calipers (those scales are notoriously unreliable, and the online BF calculators that use only your circumference measurements--waist size, etc.--overestimate by a fair amount).

As far as activity level goes, I mostly focus on hours exercising. For example, I walk about 30 minutes 7 days a week, so that's a little over three hours there. I also lift 3 days a week for about 30 minutes. Combined that takes me to 5 hours. Sometimes i "wog" instead of walk, sometimes I walk significantly more on one day, and obviously my burn would be a bit higher then, but I think once I average it all together I'm pretty comfy with "moderate" as per scooby.

Hello, and thank you for your response. For the fat 2 fit site they have you calculate your body fat % first if you can, you have to measure your neck, waist and hips, and thats where they calculated the much lower BMR for me considering my body fat percentages.

I appreciate the advice! I didn't really think to add up all my hours of exercise. I guess I'm just not really sure if its moderate or more intense but in the end I guess it doesn't really matter.

Thanks, I appreciate it.

mangojh2

So here I suit wearing my Hrm for 18 hours straight now to try to determine what my true TDEE is because I dont have a fitbit and I know its only 1 24 period....but at least I'll have a real idea.

Treat the number you get with wearing an HRM for 24 hours with caution. I tried that and it gave me a number of 3000 or so which was obviously (for me) inaccurate. I bit the bullet and got a FitBit (which I love) and my calorie burn is generally 1700 - 2000 depending on my activities of the day.

Interesting! I was worried about the accuracy. I would love to get a fitbit but I'm not sure if I would wear it everyday all day. Do you??

mangojh2

Yes I think it is very normal both to go up some in the weight and to have those panic feelings of gaining when you are doing all the right things. Personally I weigh once a week and on about 1850 calories a day am losing about one and a half pounds a month. As has been said in similar posts you need to give it time. As to an accurate BMR, to a certain extent it will depend on your metabolism as well as your lifestyle. If you could hit the mid range with the figures you have and see how you feel. Will you have enough energy for exercise and enough food for your body to work at its optimum? If you are starving you need to rethink calorie amount or type. From what you said you are still three pounds down on your start weight which is brilliant. Remember Rome wasn't build in a day, and if it had been, would some still be standing!!

Thank you. I needed to hear that. Yes I'm down from the start of EM2WL but at that point I was up about 9 lbs from my lowest point which was in May. I

It means a lot to me to hear your words, thank you.

skbarton

So here I suit wearing my Hrm for 18 hours straight now to try to determine what my true TDEE is because I dont have a fitbit and I know its only 1 24 period....but at least I'll have a real idea.

Treat the number you get with wearing an HRM for 24 hours with caution. I tried that and it gave me a number of 3000 or so which was obviously (for me) inaccurate. I bit the bullet and got a FitBit (which I love) and my calorie burn is generally 1700 - 2000 depending on my activities of the day.

Interesting! I was worried about the accuracy. I would love to get a fitbit but I'm not sure if I would wear it everyday all day. Do you??

I got mine on 4/28 and I have yet to not wear it. At first I was constantly checking the numbers as I was just putting it in my pocket. After a few times of starting the stop watch feature accidentally, I moved it onto my bra - not quite as convenient to check now and really didn't want a lot of weird looks (grin). My RMR was tested through my health insurance and was slightly lower than the various calculators so I wanted a better idea of what my actual activity level was. I debated between the fitbit, body bug and bodyfit media. I didn't want to have to pay for the service like you do with the others so I went w/ the fitbit - plus it is less expensive which is nice.

Seems to be pretty accurate on the number of steps which I was never able to do/get with a regular pedometer. You can't wear it while swimming and like most web sites, calorie burn while exercising may not be exactly accurate so I will use the HRM to get the calorie burn for that and input the data into MFP.

azalais7

Hello, and thank you for your response. For the fat 2 fit site they have you calculate your body fat % first if you can, you have to measure your neck, waist and hips, and thats where they calculated the much lower BMR for me considering my body fat percentages.

Ah. They're using the military formula. When I calculate my BF that way, I get 44%, but it's actually 35%. The measuring tape simply can't tell the whole story.

mangojh2

So here I suit wearing my Hrm for 18 hours straight now to try to determine what my true TDEE is because I dont have a fitbit and I know its only 1 24 period....but at least I'll have a real idea.

Treat the number you get with wearing an HRM for 24 hours with caution. I tried that and it gave me a number of 3000 or so which was obviously (for me) inaccurate. I bit the bullet and got a FitBit (which I love) and my calorie burn is generally 1700 - 2000 depending on my activities of the day.

Interesting! I was worried about the accuracy. I would love to get a fitbit but I'm not sure if I would wear it everyday all day. Do you??

I got mine on 4/28 and I have yet to not wear it. At first I was constantly checking the numbers as I was just putting it in my pocket. After a few times of starting the stop watch feature accidentally, I moved it onto my bra - not quite as convenient to check now and really didn't want a lot of weird looks (grin). My RMR was tested through my health insurance and was slightly lower than the various calculators so I wanted a better idea of what my actual activity level was. I debated between the fitbit, body bug and bodyfit media. I didn't want to have to pay for the service like you do with the others so I went w/ the fitbit - plus it is less expensive which is nice.

Seems to be pretty accurate on the number of steps which I was never able to do/get with a regular pedometer. You can't wear it while swimming and like most web sites, calorie burn while exercising may not be exactly accurate so I will use the HRM to get the calorie burn for that and input the data into MFP.

Wow, well that may be my next purchase. I can see never wanting to take it off

mangojh2

Well if my heart rate monitor is accurate over the last 24 hours I've burned 3355 calories, 651 of which were from my usual 5 day per week cardio/ weight workout.

Soooo Scooby is completely accurate RIGHT between the moderate and strenuous, which is several hundred calories more than I'm eating already.

I feel a huge sense of relief knowing that I have a pretty good idea of whats accurate now.

Now I just need a fitbit so I can obsess over my TDEE daily Kim