Suggested Calories Completely Off?

lgoldgirl

I've recently started using this app again to track calories, since I let myself get a little out of control, lost some tone and gained a couple of pounds over the summer. Though I am generally very good about reigning myself in, I know that using an app like this helps "talk me out of" things like ordering pizza after a day of football, excessive amounts of beer and buying lunch and snacks at work as opposed to bringing my own from home.

Overall, I like the app, but I have found a couple issues. First, vigorous strength training burns almost as many calories per minute as cardio, yet when you enter strength training as strength training in the app, it shows 0 calorie burn. As a result, I am still heavily reliant on endomondo, which I don't particularly mind, since it is a better/more accurate exercise tracker. I really wish the two apps could combine.

My second and major issue is that when I entered my weight (116) and my goal (108), the app stated that in order to lose 1 lb a week, I'd have to eat (effectively) under 1,170 calories. In order to maintain, it said to eat under (effectively) about 1,600. This seems very off to me. I am a smaller woman and I work a primarily desk job, though I am up, walking around the office quite frequently. I exercise at least 3 hours every Saturday, and average about 45 minutes 3-4 other days of the week (not counting 3-5 2.5-5 mile walks a week). Last year at this time, I weighed about what my goal is now and I was probably exercising about the same and eating 1,800-2,200 calories a day. I have been taught that under 1,200 calories is starvation mode and even this app agrees that I would burn about that if I did nothing, other than sit in bed all day, not moving.

Anyway, putting all logic and knowledge aside, I decided that maybe I have been overestimating what is appropriate for me to eat for some time and decided to try cutting back to 1,200 (effective) calories. I have been doing this for 4 days. The first day, I ate 1,600 calories and exercised off a little over 400. The second day, I ate about 1,500 and exercised off a little over 300. The same goes for the day after. Now, on day 4, I'm weighing in at 2 lbs less than where I started. I weigh myself at the same time everyday: 1st thing in the morning, after using the bathroom, before eating or drinking anything, right before I hop into the shower. This seems unhealthy and also seems to agree with my hypothesis that the math for the calorie estimates was off. Not only that, I have been starving every single day and it is damn near impossible to meet proper nutritional levels with this amount of food, without resorting to supplements, which I truly feel should be a last resort.

I guess my question is, have other smaller/shorter people (or people in general) found that the math really doesn't work for the suggested calorie intake? My metabolism is a bit fast, but I can't imagine most people I know who are around my size could safely eat what the app suggests, even if their metabolism is on the slow-normal side.

o2bADyer

The only knowledge I have to share about your post is that you "can" add your strength training under "cardio" and it will give you calories burned there. As for the rest, I'm sure someone else will be able to help you figure that out. Good luck to you!

lgoldgirl

itsamore: A friend told me that too. It's frustrating to do that, and counter intuitive to boot, but as I said, the calorie burn counts are not as accurate on this site as they are on endomondo, so I generally just use these as estimates anyway and it isn't a big deal.

lgoldgirl

Thank you, though! It is much appreciated !