Before changing dietary and exercise habits, do this.

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  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    When I originally joined MFP I set my goals to sedentary and a 1lb week loss since the amount of exercise I do varies a lot from day to day and some days I do no exercise, or didn't then. I was allocated 1390 cals per day. I followed this and ate exercise calories back and was losing about 1lb a week until I hit a plateau about 6 weeks ago. I went a month and lost nothing so did some research, got some advice and I have adjusted my calories to TDEE - 20% which for me comes out at 1600cals per day. I have been trying this for about 10 days now and lost 2lb the first week, although my weight seems to have increased a bit this week which is a bit worrying. My TDEE is based on lightly active assuming 3 x 1 hour workouts a week. If I do more exercise than that should I eat more? or if I do less should I eat less? A bit confused

    If you've included your workouts in your base calories, you can add calories for workouts beyond what you've already included. It gets confusing, because doing it that way is based on a weekly average rather than the daily calories MFP is designed for. Theoretically, you could also subtract calories if you are working out less, but it doesn't really work that way since the calories are averaged over a week- really you should just be diligent to exercise the amount you have planned.

    **Important note: When MFP asks you how much you intend to work out during the week, THOSE CALORIES ARE NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR GOAL AT ALL. They are purely for goal setting and have no impact on your daily or weekly calories. You can go change them to zero and the calorie target will be the same.

    If you want to eliminate the confusion, take the calories out of your weekly target and add them in as you do them on a daily basis, the way MFP was designed to work. To do this:

    Take your BMR and multiply by 1.2 for sedentary, or 1.35 for lightly active
    Multiply that by 0.8, this is your target, not including exercise. Add exercise as you do it and eat the calories back.

    So, for example, if you're lightly active with a BMR of 1300,
    1300 x 1.35 = 1755
    0.8 x 1755 = 1404, round to 1400<----Target calories, TDEE - 20% not including exercise.
  • sarahcuddle
    sarahcuddle Posts: 349 Member
    Thank-you MoreBean13. I have been doing it wrong, should be eating 1600 AND eating exercise calories back as this number comes out from your sums assuming I am lightly active. How do you decide how active you are though? I'm a stay at home Mum at the moment so do housework, looking after the kids etc. Is that lightly active or sedentary? Any walking I do (to school and back, shops etc) is included in my exercise log along with proper workouts. Thank you once again for your help
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    Thank-you MoreBean13. I have been doing it wrong, should be eating 1600 AND eating exercise calories back as this number comes out from your sums assuming I am lightly active. How do you decide how active you are though? I'm a stay at home Mum at the moment so do housework, looking after the kids etc. Is that lightly active or sedentary? Any walking I do (to school and back, shops etc) is included in my exercise log along with proper workouts. Thank you once again for your help

    Lightly active is probably the right choice. Very few people that have full mobility are actually sedentary- especially with the housework and running after kids you described. You may actually be higher than lightly active, but that choice is a good place to start. Even most people with desk jobs (like myself) are not actually truly sedentary.
  • sarahcuddle
    sarahcuddle Posts: 349 Member
    Thank you so much. A bit scared to eat that much! Might stay away from the scales for a while as someone suggested while I get used to this :)
  • MissNations
    MissNations Posts: 513 Member

    It is up to us, as people with enquiring minds, to do our research and work out what is best for us as an individual and not just follow instructions blindly like sheep.

    This.
  • sarahcuddle
    sarahcuddle Posts: 349 Member
    The other question I have is which value of BMR do you use? Using the formula given by a previous post my BMR comes out at 1514 but the BMR calculator on MFP puts my BMR as 1422. Which one is right. For me this results in a 100 calorie difference per day
  • MoreBean13
    MoreBean13 Posts: 8,701 Member
    The other question I have is which value of BMR do you use? Using the formula given by a previous post my BMR comes out at 1514 but the BMR calculator on MFP puts my BMR as 1422. Which one is right. For me this results in a 100 calorie difference per day

    Are you referring to my post? I never gave any formula for calculating BMR. You should either use the Harris-Benedict or the Katch-McArdle formula- KM is considered more accurate, but the accuracy depends on having a *good* estimate for your body fat %. If you go to http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/bmr/ it will give you the results for both formulas.

    Unfortunately, short of going and having your metabolic rate tested, any method will just be an estimate. 100-calories really isn't that big of a deal..it equates to a difference of 1/5 of a pound per week. When you get down to the nitty-gritty of the numbers you have to be patient and experiment to find out what is the most optimal number for you. If you go back to the original message of GeekyJock's post, it is questions like this that would benefit from taking the time at the beginning to find out your maintenance TDEE. Once you know that number, you can back calculate your BMR...but doing this you still have to make assumptions about your activity multiplier. If you find out your "real" TDEE, you can take the assumptions out of the picture by cutting your real TDEE by 20%, which doesn't make any assumptions based on some average person with your statistics.
  • sarahcuddle
    sarahcuddle Posts: 349 Member
    Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I have to work on where I am now. MFP recommendations worked for me for the first few months so I had no need to do any research or change anything as I was losing weight at the rate I had asked for. It was only when I reached a plateau that I had to think again. I have done the calculations on fat2fitradio which gave me the 1600 calorie per day number in the first place. The number of differing calculations (and opinions) are in general confusing even to someone like me who has a Biomedical Sciences degree. How is jo-public with limited maths and science skills supposed to go on if I can get easily confused with this? Not everyone has got the time, or even inclination, to go hunting through masses of scientific papers for the answer. They probably won't find it anyway because there are as many opinions as there are answers. The views of people on here who have lost weight, got through a plateau, and found a system that works for them is just as valid.
  • SWilkins75
    SWilkins75 Posts: 277 Member
    Never figured it out. I guess its oh someone lost weight with 1200 I can also. Its like people going the gym in makeup doing the elliptical for 20 minutes and walking right back out thinking they got a good workout.

    Sometimes I wish MFP would have a separate section on the forums just for 1200 calorie diet users so I have try to give advice to people serious about losing weight.
    I am serious about losing weight. I'll take any advice you would like to give.
  • Hendrix7
    Hendrix7 Posts: 1,903 Member
    Good post.
  • wolfgate
    wolfgate Posts: 321 Member
    Scary to me. But I'll try. Doing the math in this thread says i should be consuming 1975 calories a day to lose a pound a week. I've been trying more like 1600 calories a day. I'm thinking that doesn't mean eat what I've been eating and add 2 beers, though...

    Interesting post though. Hard for me to figure out some of the parameters. I have a desk job but run 270 minutes a week regularly that is spread over 6 days. ST roughly twice a week, also some core work . I'm thinking that's a "moderate" exercise factor???

    Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 X wt in lbs) + (12.7 X ht in in.) - (6.8 X age in years)

    Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 X wt in lbs) + (4.7 X ht in in.) - (4.7 X age in years)

    This figure is the amount of calories your body burns just keeping you alive. After this you apply the Harris-Benedict Equation.

    Harris Benedict Equation:


    Little to no exercise Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.2
    Light exercise (1–3 days per week) Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.375
    Moderate exercise (3–5 days per week) Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.55
    Heavy exercise (6–7 days per week) Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.725
    Very heavy exercise (twice per day, extra heavy workouts) Daily kilocalories needed = BMR x 1.9

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