Looking for a calorie math check

csuhar

I think I’ve found an error in my calorie counts / goals, so I wanted to see if some people who don’t go all deer-in-the-headlights when I mention terms like BMR and TDEE could check my math.


1) I am 6’2”, 233lbs, 29 years old, and male. Using the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation, that yields a BMR of 2095 calories. I’ll call this “A”.


2) I am continuing to follow the You Are Your Own Gym (YAYOG) bodyweight calisthenics program. This involves a “moderately active” multiplier of 1.55, which adds 1152 calories, which I’ll call “B”, onto my BMR.


3) I’m in the military, so I also go running. However, I’m rarely running at a steady speed, and it’s not always regular. It's whatever the unit happens to decide to do for that day. This makes it harder to use the cardio entries on MFP or to simply adjust my activity level in the system, so I use a FitBit to estimate these calories and those burned by the additional walking I do during the day. (I don’t wear it during my calisthenics. That way, it doesn’t try to measure them.) This varies, but I have averaged about 900 additional calories burned a day. I’ll call this “C”.


4) Because A and B are relatively regular, my daily caloric goal on MFP (my Fitness Pal) is set to A+B (3247 calories).


5) But, because maintenance is my baseline goal, I need to plan on consuming as many calories as I burn, running/walking included. So my TDEE would be A + B + C (about 4147 calories a day).



I think what has been happening is MFP takes those additional FitBit calories and, when I synch the two systems, applies them against the BMR x 1.55 portion because I haven’t told either system that the 1.55 multiplier comes specifically from calisthenics and that running / walking calories go on top of that. As a result, on a heavier cardio day where I burned 1100 calories running and walking in addition to my calisthenics, my FitBit adjustment was 0.


I’m usually quite confident in my ability to add, but potentially adding up to 1000 calories a day is a big enough step that I wanted to double check that my public school math skills haven't failed me.

vorgas

I believe the moderately active multiplier, the way you are doing it, is a substitution of A, not an addition.

For example, a sedentary person burns 20% more calories during the day than being in a coma: B = A * 0.22
A lightly active person burns 35%: B = A * 0.35
And a moderately active person burns 55%: B = A * 0.55

However, you are multiplying by 1.55, which is the same as A + (A * 0.55) to get B. See what I'm saying?

Don't know about how MFP interacts with fitbit, so can't help you there, but I'm pretty sure your A + B is overestimating.

MinnieInMaine

Surprisingly, the OP's calculations are correct. I ran his numbers on scooby's workshop (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) and A is actually BMR with B being his program only/moderately active TDEE.

Again, I have no clue on the Fitbit thing. Maybe try searching the forums for Fitbit to see if you can find a similar posting about the adjustment? Or you click on "contact us" at the bottom of the page and ask the website folks directly.

csuhar

Yes. The moderatively active multiplier of 1.55 is basically a substitution for A.

So I have the BMR of 2095.

I multiply that by 1.55.

The product is 3247.25.

The difference is 1152.25.

The reason I said "addition" was that I was trying to uniquely identify the calories that make up the difference between the original BMR and the TDEE that comes from using the multiplier. I wanted to identify this separately because I think this 1000-ish calorie space is where my FitBit is messing up my daily burn amounts.

I think that if I manually input the 1152 calories for my calisthenics in my exercise log, then MFP will recognize them as calisthenics and add my FitBit adjustment on top. But that may involve some trial and error for a bit.