A new low...

savithny

What's your activity level for most of the day? I ask because a 30 minute walk is actually not necessrily enough to define yourself as "active" if the rest of the day is fairly sedentary. 30 minute walk is between 1.5 and 2 miles, between 3000 and 4000 steps (probably), and if you don't do much else the rest of the day, that does leave you still in "sedentary" rather than "lightly active" territory.

You might try rerunning the numbers as "sedentary" and split teh difference?

Or run the numbers for TDEE and -20 as if you were "sedentary" but then eat back any additional exercise (including figuring out your walking speed and using that for the exercise calculation).

Duck_Puddle

I don't get it, isn't eating 1440 a day, exercising and burning say 300 cals, then eating this back the same as eating 1700 a day with exercise and not eating the calories back?

It is the same. The issue is that I don't see any 300 calorie burns in your diary. Most that I saw are 200 or less, and don't happen every day. If you're eating 300 calories of exercise calories but don't burn 300 calories 7 days a week (or some combination that adds up to 2100 cal per week), you're eating more than you use and you're gaining weight. Using mfp as set up helps you see exactly what you are actually burning. If you burn 190 calories, you eat 190 and you're still in a deficit. If you burn 190 and you eat 300, on top of your rounded up TDEE calculation, you are not eating at the deficit you think you are. Add that to the days where you haven't logged everything...

I think the suggestion to reassess your activity level is a very good one. I don't think it's a bad idea to talk to your doctor. But if you are consistently gaining weight over time, you're eating more calories than you are burning. You need to eat less and/or burn more if you want to lose. Just throwing out some suggestions on how you might be able to get a handle on where that magic balance is for you.

Xhell_on_heelsX

Maybe try switching up your workout routine..It could be that your body is just getting used to it. I have done 30 day shred multiple times and it's an awesome workout. I'm also trying to up my protein and cut down on my carbs. Stick with it girl, you might just need to change a few things, that's all

cmeiron

You might simply be eating more than you think you are. Weigh and log EVERYTHING, even those bits of oil, for a few weeks and see where you're at.

savithny

Just out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers two ways.

First, I got my numbers for Sedentary Lifestyle: BMR 1710, TDEE 2053

Then I changed it to "Light exercise." My TDEE went up to 2353. -- That's a 299 cal increase
Then I changed it to "Moderate exercise." TDEE now 2651 -- ANOTHER 299, or 598 over sedentary.

Okay, "light exercise" is listed at "1-3 hours a week."
Lets say I walked at a brisk 3.5mph 30 minutes a day: MFP has that down as burning 185 calories for me.
If I did it every day, that would be 3.5 hours a week. Yet it's definitely not burning an the extra 2,093 calories a week that would define me as "Light exercise."

To burn enough calories on a daily walk to raise my total expenditure to the "Light exercise" line, I'd need to walk between 45 and 60 minutes at 3.5mph every single day.

llkilgore

Just out of curiosity, I ran my own numbers two ways.

First, I got my numbers for Sedentary Lifestyle: BMR 1710, TDEE 2053

Then I changed it to "Light exercise." My TDEE went up to 2353. -- That's a 299 cal increase
Then I changed it to "Moderate exercise." TDEE now 2651 -- ANOTHER 299, or 598 over sedentary.

Okay, "light exercise" is listed at "1-3 hours a week."
Lets say I walked at a brisk 3.5mph 30 minutes a day: MFP has that down as burning 185 calories for me.
If I did it every day, that would be 3.5 hours a week. Yet it's definitely not burning an the extra 2,093 calories a week that would define me as "Light exercise."

To burn enough calories on a daily walk to raise my total expenditure to the "Light exercise" line, I'd need to walk between 45 and 60 minutes at 3.5mph every single day.

That's about how far my dog insists that I walk on an average day. In my case, the burn reported by MFP for my walks exceeds the difference between the "Sedentary" and "Lightly Active" settings and appears to be overly generous, as evidenced by the fact that the amount of weight I lost per week was inversely proportional to the number of walking minutes I logged. Logging the walks and taking the estimated burn at face value was eroding my deficit. So I quit logging walks and set my activity setting to "Lightly Active" to cover that activity plus the not very demanding strength training I was doing at the time. My total for the day was thus lowered and I was able to get back on track. I turned to the elliptical, and later running, for loggable cardio.

NakeshiaB

Thanks everyone. My question now is: do I go by MFP guidelines or Road Map guidelines? I read these as two quite different processes...

Eat back or do the math and don't eat over, even after burning?