Really? Truly?

Hertford86

So I seem to have stalled out on the last 10lb - this is partly because I've been lifting and have something resembling, (admittedly it's a distant resemblance) muscles for the first time in my life. But it's been a while, and I'm a little tired of 1300 calories and eating back exercise calories, so I've been reading up on EM2WL and have decided to give it a go - I followed ipoarm and calculated my TDEE- 20% at 1680. Which seems nuts - if I'm not losing at 1300 how am I going to lose at 1600? So, go ahead and tell me - this actually works, right:?

heybales

So I seem to have stalled out on the last 10lb - this is partly because I've been lifting and have something resembling, (admittedly it's a distant resemblance) muscles for the first time in my life. But it's been a while, and I'm a little tired of 1300 calories and eating back exercise calories, so I've been reading up on EM2WL and have decided to give it a go - I followed ipoarm and calculated my TDEE- 20% at 1680. Which seems nuts - if I'm not losing at 1300 how am I going to lose at 1600? So, go ahead and tell me - this actually works, right:?

First, 20% is too much when down to last 10 lbs, should be 10% now, though with lifting heavy you'll maintain LBM and could have slightly more deficit. And that will make sense when you understand what happened.

Second, you were eating at 1300 plus exercise calories, so how can you compare 1300 to 1600? You'd have to compare 1600 to 1300+ exercise, right?

Third, you are lifting and basing exercise calories on what exactly? HRM is totally invalid and inflated for anaerobic lifting workouts for calorie estimates. Those formula's are only valid for steady-state aerobic range cardio. MFP's estimate for strength training may seem low but is actually best estimate. HRM reported calories is really 1/4 to 1/3.

Fourth, is your current goal based on loss goal of 1/2 lb a week? It should be at this point.

Fifth, stall is no weight OR measurement change for at least 3 weeks with no changes to diet or exercise. If that is the case, likely your TDEE must not be what it is estimated to be, but has been suppressed to the amount you are currently eating. But then again, 1300 + inflated exercise calories may be over that TDEE.

So I see likely the problem is your rest day goal is to low for amount to be lost. Your lifting day eat ends up being at TDEE with no deficit actually. Not sure how many rest days you have, but if only 1 or 2, not enough deficit days to show a loss except over a long period of time.

So TDEE of 2100.
Mifflin BMR of 1440, doesn't sound right though because it doesn't fit in with 2100.
MFP has you with maintenance at 1800, and you have 1lb weekly loss goal, bringing it down to 1300?

Fill in the details, hard to know.

But you got the idea right, you are taking your planned weekly activity, and avg it out to a daily level, to eat each and every day the same amount.
Exercise days bigger deficit, rest days smaller deficit and making up for the big days. Weekly you are a better realistic level so the body is stressed how to handle your activity load with too few calories, and instead of suppressing metabolism to accomplish that, lets it increase.

So while you could end up eating 200 more daily, your metabolism starts burning say 400 more daily. You just gained 200 calories daily, which is now your deficit. Better than the nothing you could have now.

Hertford86

Gosh - not sure I understand all this - it's late, and I'll sit down to it tomorrow when I'm fresh. But thank you very much for taking the time - I really appreciate it.

LuluProteinFueled

So I seem to have stalled out on the last 10lb - this is partly because I've been lifting and have something resembling, (admittedly it's a distant resemblance) muscles for the first time in my life. But it's been a while, and I'm a little tired of 1300 calories and eating back exercise calories, so I've been reading up on EM2WL and have decided to give it a go - I followed ipoarm and calculated my TDEE- 20% at 1680. Which seems nuts - if I'm not losing at 1300 how am I going to lose at 1600? So, go ahead and tell me - this actually works, right:?

Have a read of all the stickies. It's already been written out for you.

Hertford86

Er, sorry - stickies?

heybales

Er, sorry - stickies?

Where it says this near top of page:

Message Boards » Eat More To Weigh Less » Discussion » Reply To Topic

Click on Discussion, stickies are always at the top.

CanGirl40

So I seem to have stalled out on the last 10lb - this is partly because I've been lifting and have something resembling, (admittedly it's a distant resemblance) muscles for the first time in my life. But it's been a while, and I'm a little tired of 1300 calories and eating back exercise calories, so I've been reading up on EM2WL and have decided to give it a go - I followed ipoarm and calculated my TDEE- 20% at 1680. Which seems nuts - if I'm not losing at 1300 how am I going to lose at 1600? So, go ahead and tell me - this actually works, right:?

First, 20% is too much when down to last 10 lbs, should be 10% now, though with lifting heavy you'll maintain LBM and could have slightly more deficit. And that will make sense when you understand what happened.

Second, you were eating at 1300 plus exercise calories, so how can you compare 1300 to 1600? You'd have to compare 1600 to 1300+ exercise, right?

Third, you are lifting and basing exercise calories on what exactly? HRM is totally invalid and inflated for anaerobic lifting workouts for calorie estimates. Those formula's are only valid for steady-state aerobic range cardio. MFP's estimate for strength training may seem low but is actually best estimate. HRM reported calories is really 1/4 to 1/3.

Fourth, is your current goal based on loss goal of 1/2 lb a week? It should be at this point.

Fifth, stall is no weight OR measurement change for at least 3 weeks with no changes to diet or exercise. If that is the case, likely your TDEE must not be what it is estimated to be, but has been suppressed to the amount you are currently eating. But then again, 1300 + inflated exercise calories may be over that TDEE.

So I see likely the problem is your rest day goal is to low for amount to be lost. Your lifting day eat ends up being at TDEE with no deficit actually. Not sure how many rest days you have, but if only 1 or 2, not enough deficit days to show a loss except over a long period of time.

So TDEE of 2100.
Mifflin BMR of 1440, doesn't sound right though because it doesn't fit in with 2100.
MFP has you with maintenance at 1800, and you have 1lb weekly loss goal, bringing it down to 1300?

Fill in the details, hard to know.

But you got the idea right, you are taking your planned weekly activity, and avg it out to a daily level, to eat each and every day the same amount.
Exercise days bigger deficit, rest days smaller deficit and making up for the big days. Weekly you are a better realistic level so the body is stressed how to handle your activity load with too few calories, and instead of suppressing metabolism to accomplish that, lets it increase.

So while you could end up eating 200 more daily, your metabolism starts burning say 400 more daily. You just gained 200 calories daily, which is now your deficit. Better than the nothing you could have now.

Heybales - I always enjoy reading your thorough posts! Thank you for being so knowledgeable! Sorry to hijack this thread, but I'm confused about what you said about HRM's overestimating strength training....I just got a Polar FT40 and used it for the first time last week. For a 65-minute workout it read 620 calories, which I thought was way too much (especially since as you say on MFP it seems so low...) It was 65 minutes of interval running/spinning mixed with heavy lifting which often got my heart rate up to 170...I guess I'm just confused about how a HRM can be misleading...(I have a fitbit too but don't use it for exercise...)

heybales

Heybales - I always enjoy reading your thorough posts! Thank you for being so knowledgeable! Sorry to hijack this thread, but I'm confused about what you said about HRM's overestimating strength training....I just got a Polar FT40 and used it for the first time last week. For a 65-minute workout it read 620 calories, which I thought was way too much (especially since as you say on MFP it seems so low...) It was 65 minutes of interval running/spinning mixed with heavy lifting which often got my heart rate up to 170...I guess I'm just confused about how a HRM can be misleading...(I have a fitbit too but don't use it for exercise...)

Oh, get ready!

The way energy expenditure is done best you've probably seen, is with the gas masks on the treadmill or bike.
Literally capturing the gas inhaled and exhaled, so much oxygen and carbon dioxide went in, so much came out. The used O2 and expelled CO2 spell how much energy you just burned, because so much O2 is needed to burn so much energy, and the result of more or less CO2 spells what range of carbs to fat burned to provide that energy.

But the formula's for how many calories are burned for a measured amount of O2 usage, is only valid for energy produced aerobically.
Energy produced anaerobically doesn't even require O2, hence the term means without oxygen.
That would be lifting heavy and sprinting and intervals with HR going above what is called the lactate threshold, where you no longer are supplying enough O2 to burn glucose completely and lactic acid builds up rather quickly, causing that burning in your legs you'll notice. For lifting it's merely the pressure of what you are doing that shoots it up.

Nothing to do with weight or age or height or HR in those equations. Though a certain level of HR usually happens at different levels of O2 usage for you personally. That's what studies look at. What are the stats of folks with known O2 abilities and how does that tie to HR.

So the HRM is using your stats, and through study formula's trying to figure out what your fitness level, and amount of O2 you could supply (VO2max) to any effort, and then trying to tie that back to a HR to match it with. You hit this HR, you must have been providing this much O2, you must have been burning this many calories.

But if you are reaching said HR anaerobically, the formula's are out the window, inflated. Because the HRM thinks you reached that level aerobically, and you did not.

Now, Garmin has several models that use Firstbeat algorithms where they match the heart beat to if you were breathing in or out, it's actually possible. So when you go anaerobic, the HR takes off without corresponding breathing rate, and the HRM knows that, and disregards trying to calculate energy burn on those inflated HR's.

So using that Garmin HRM in comparison to the Polar, I found that doing lifting with the 1 min rests between sets and 2 min between lifts, resulted in calorie burn 1/4 to 1/3 what the Polar reported. Actually matches what MFP said by 25-50.
For sprinting, which does have a tad more aerobic nature to it, 1/2 to 2/3 what Polar reported.

There are other reasons even that ability to try to match HR to calorie burn can be very off.

Heat elevated HR - increased blood flow to help with cooling, nothing to do with you needing more O2 to burn energy.
Stress elevated HR - get excited, angry, whatever, and HR goes up. Fight or flight, body prepping for doing something, but no actual increase in energy burned as it goes up.
HR drift - after an initial warmup, usually the HR will drop somewhat, even though you could be on a treadmill doing the exact same pace, meaning the exact same energy is really expended. But do it long enough, and the stress of endurance starts making the HR rise and go even higher. Nothing to do with more energy required or spent, just increased HR for other things.

So it has it's limits.

That's why I'm in disagreement with you must NET above your BMR, because that instruction is based on using HRM calorie burns. And those can be mighty off.
Besides which, those reported calorie burns are NOT over and above what you would have burned anyway, the HRM doesn't know that.
But on a diet, you have an assumed calorie burn for the day, your TDEE. So actually for accounting purposes, what you spent an hr doing in exercise was already accounted for with TDEE/24. The HRM calorie count, even if as accurate as could be - contains that amount in that count too.
So really, for a 1 hr workout, HRM calories reported minus TDEE/24, is the amount you burned above what was planned anyway. If the HRM calories is decently correct.
So literally, you must subtract it if you want to try to NET above your BMR always.

Everybody could pick a 24 hr period in their week where they did not eat at their BMR for that 24 hrs (not a day, any 24 hr), the idea it would stop at midnight is .....

Just some thoughts since this topic is called Really? Truly? - thought those facts fit in well.

CanGirl40

OMG Heybales! I am still chuckling. I can't *believe* how much you know about this (and how much of that knowledge you are willing to SHARE!) Thank you so much! I hadn't even thought about the TDEE/24 idea and how that should also factor into the hour exercise!

So my thinking is, that if my Polar says I've burned 620 I'll go with 1/2 of that amount just to be on the safe side...? (which totally *sucks* BTW!!! LOL) 30 minutes of that is interval running or cycling. So I would think 300 calories would be "safe" to assume!
Gah!

Now back to original poster, the last 10lbs is the hardest but it sounds like you need to up your calories, and eat more protein!