Is it more than just counting calories?

I have seen a lot of people here who eat back those exercise calories. If you burn it off, and then eat it back, you have not created a calorie deficit. Not sure if that is what you do, just putting it out there.

umm... wrong.

Your calorie deficit is built into the number MFP spits out. If you eat back your exercise, you still maintain your calorie deficit that you have setup in your goals.

No. Not wrong. The people who have talked about eating back their calories, are going by the little caption under their diary that tells them how many calories the earned through exercise. They are going back and eating what that little caption tells them.

You do not understand how this works, then. Eating back the little calories it lists under there is how you maintain the deficit you are supposed to have. If you don't eat those, you are netting BELOW the calories you are supposed to have in a day. If that net amount is far below your BMR, it's bad for your health.

Not everyone is built the same.

If I eat my exercise calories back, I lose nothing. If I don't eat my exercise calories back, I lose.

Also, MFP is very generous with what it says you are burning. If I run 5 miles, MFP says "congrats, you just burned 850 calories", whereas a heart rate monitor would tell me "congrats, you just burned 550 calories". That's pretty dangerous.... that's a 300 calorie difference.

So if I go nom nom nom and eat 850 calories back, what I've really done is sabotaged myself and gone over 300 calories, which adds up.

Second - MFP uses basic average maintenance levels to determine what you should eat.

A man my size should eat 2500 - 2800 calories a day to maintain, says science.

After three years of testing and watching what my body does, my maintenance level has been confirmed to be 1600-1800 calories a day, not 2500-2800 calories a day. Another obstacle I had to find the hard way which was annoying and frustrating for me.

So MFP is a good starting guideline but two things:

* get a heart rate monitor
* find your true maintenance levels for weight loss. More than likely its close to the average, but some people can eat a lot more than the average and lose weight, and others must eat much less than the average just to maintain.

Anecdotal case in point - I have a couple buddies that both cram about 5000 calories down their gullet every day on average, and not health food either... we're talking whole milk, candy, cake, pizza, etc... have no workout activity at all, and stay below ideal weight with low body fat because that is how they are genetically built.

The rules do not apply to everyone, every body is a different machine with different settings. Some people have to work harder than others to achieve the same results, some people don't have to work at all.

Back to the topic, in MY personal journey, I tend to stall ever so often. This will last from 2-5 weeks. It is frustrating, yes, but keeping on track helps. There are suggestions here to try different things such as changing from white rice to brown, or adjusting you diet.
Sometimes the smallest changes help. Good luck and keep the faith!

Oooh! ok, I kinda wondered about some foods when they're meant to be high in protein end up being so high in carbs XD

Go into your Goals and manually change them after working out your macros, pretty sure i linked a site before.

Protein intake should be roughly 1g per lb of bodyweight, yours is currently 57 which is great for RDA, but RDA is wrong!

I thought it was 1g per pound of lean body mass....is that what you meant or am I wrong in thinking that?

Is it really that hard for people to understand that these people are not staying within theior guidelines? do you understand THAT? They have mistakenly went over because they were mislead by those "calories earned" . They are in the red, not the green.

No. Everyone understands that these people are not within their guidelines. That much is obvious. You, unfortunately, don't understand why that is. It's not because they ate back their exercise Calories - it's because, as someone else mentioned - these people ate MORE than that total amount.

If you don't believe us, contact the MFP site administrator(s) and ask them how the system works.

You should eat back only half the calories you earned from exercise. This is to offset the fact that it is actually quite difficult for most people to accurately measure their caloric burn in an activity.

Your protein and your calorie goal seem appropriate for your efforts.

Oh, also that link is broken because of the period. Here's the link: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/654536-in-place-of-a-road-map-2-0-revised-7-2-12

Use this! I stalled for 2 months and after much trial and error I found this link and I'm finally losing again. I dislike many sources of protein (so eating more than 100 g protein was overwhelming)bso I adjusted my macros to 45 carbs/25 protein/30 fat. Seems to be working for now and I'm getting used to eating more protein

I noticed you also don't eat much early in the day, just a thought but for me I feel the best and seem to lose better when I have a protein carb and fat everytime I eat. Plus if I consume my calories evenly throughout the day I find myself not wanting to splurge at night.

Feel free to add me. I know how frustrating stalls can be! I thought I was going crazy for 2 months!

Oooh! ok, I kinda wondered about some foods when they're meant to be high in protein end up being so high in carbs XD

Go into your Goals and manually change them after working out your macros, pretty sure i linked a site before.

Protein intake should be roughly 1g per lb of bodyweight, yours is currently 57 which is great for RDA, but RDA is wrong!

I thought it was 1g per pound of lean body mass....is that what you meant or am I wrong in thinking that?

No you're right sorry, 1g per lb of LBM

Actually, that's a common misconception. The MAXIMUM amount per lb proven to yield benefits is 0.8g/lb of lean mass.. And we're talking about strength athletes here. Admittedly drug enhanced bodybuilders eat more, however.

The only conceivable benefit to eating that much protein is the fact that protein has a higher TEF (you burn more calories digesting it than fat or carbs), and it's satiating properties (you feel fuller from protein-rich meals).

Recent research shows that the RDA doesn't appear to meet the needs of exercising adults. One of the top researchers in this field, Dr Peter Lemon, stated in a recent review paper that, "the RDA for those engaged in strength training should be about 1.7 - 1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body mass per day". Dr Lemon came to this conclusion after citing several studies (Fern, 1991, Tarnopolsky et al., 1992) which used amounts of protein ranging from 1.3 - 3.3 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

At Kent University researchers tested 3 different groups of people:


- On a low protein diet which was 0.9 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

- Another group eating 1.4 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

- A group eating 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.

Both sedentary and strength training groups were involved. The results showed that 1.4 grams resulted in protein synthesis while there were no changes in the low protein group and, finally, the group that ingested 2.4 grams of protein did not see any more increased protein synthesis than the 1.4 grams of protein group.

1.4 grams per KILOGRAM of bodyweight.. 1KG = 2.2 lbs.

So that would suggest the max necessary level is 0.63g of protein per lb of muscle mass. Even less than I stated.

Note that the group who ingested 2.4g/KG of bodyweight (1.09g/lb) experienced no greater benefit.


Also, Dr. Lemon's suggestion of 1.7-1.8g per KG is roughly the same as 0.8g per lb.