I know we've all done this one before...

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  • CassOfAllTrades
    CassOfAllTrades Posts: 40 Member
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    Sarahz5, I gained the weight after my husband came back from deployment (fat and happy!) and then we moved cross country and ate out quite a bit. I thought once I went back to eating normally, the weight would drop off.

    I calculate my cals burned with my HRM. I also keep an eye on the treadmill cals burned vs MFP cals burned. If MFP says I burned 200 cals, my treadmill will say 300 and my HRM will say 400. Perhaps this is where I'm getting totally messed up. I've been completely ignoring my actual cals burned vs what MFP is saying here on MFP. Whatever I enter exercise-wise is what I go by. So while MFP is saying I burned 200 calories and I use that to figure out how many calories I have left in the day to eat, in reality I have burned 400 and I'm not eating them back. Crap, I think you may have figured it out for me.

    edited for spelling
  • Sincere24
    Sincere24 Posts: 126 Member
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    Sarahz5, I gained the weight after my husband came back from deployment (fat and happy!) and then we moved cross country and ate out quite a bit. I thought once I went back to eating normally, the weight would drop off.

    I calculate my cals burned with my HRM. I also keep an eye on the treadmill cals burned vs MFP cals burned. If MFP says I burned 200 cals, my treadmill will say 300 and my HRM will say 400. Perhaps this is where I'm getting totally messed up. I've been completely ignoring my actual cals burned vs what MFP is saying here on MFP. Whatever I enter exercise-wise is what I go by. So while MFP is saying I burned 200 calories and I use that to figure out how many calories I have left in the day to eat, in reality I have burned 400 and I'm not eating them back. Crap, I think you may have figured it out for me.

    edited for spelling

    I think you're totally right, it's impossible to get a real grip on how much one burns while running. So i think its best to underestimate the amount you burn while doing so... running is a low calorie burn unless you're either running long distances or at a ridiculously high pace.

    It's best to assume that your TDEE is in margin (as someone has mentioned) at around 2300 or so, with the exercise included over the course of the week. With this in mind you should probably simply zig zag or average your calories around the 1500-1800, giving you room to indulge in little deserts during the entire week instead maintenance + on the weekends...leading to greater consistency.

    It'll be slow but a greater chance of consistency will definitely help. You should try it out for 3 weeks or so and see if it helps. :)
  • sarahz5
    sarahz5 Posts: 1,363 Member
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    You do not HAVE to set your calories at your TDEE with exercise. If you prefer to continue setting it at a sedentary baseline and then increasing it by how many exercise calories you burn, you absolutely can do that. I find it useless FOR ME to set my calories at 1700 or 1800, though that's what I average... because some weeks I burn 2500 calories exercising, some weeks I burn almost none because I'm busy. I prefer to give myself plenty of fuel on the weeks I burn a ton.

    I actually have to question your HRM a little, because MFP is almost always high from what I've heard. I think you should stick with whichever burn is lower, or at least in the middle. I don't think that would be leading you astray.

    Look, whether you should be eating 1500+exercise (say 2000) or 2300, I'm sure with the weekend splurges you are eating ENOUGH that it's not stopping you from losing weight. It sounds like you need to figure out how much you are really eating on the weekends and go from there.

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