Scenario 2 is the process that you are looking for. It can take months, or years depending on how bad the damage is. The end result is the ability to lose fat while still eating healthy amounts of nutrients because you should get to a point where you can drop your cals by 10% from that 2000 (or whatever your tdee is supposed to be) and slowly lose.

Yep, agree with the above! Your TDEE shouldn't really change unless you 1) lose body fat and/or gain muscle, OR 2) increase or decrease your activity level. Your BMR should be the same for you as anybody with your same height, age, and body composition.

What will change is that your body will make more efficient use of the calories you intake, more on a normal level. If you're undereating, it saves as much of the fuel as it can and instead uses lean body mass or other things as fuel for your burns. If your metabolism is healing, your body uses the fuel you give it as fuel because it is no longer trying to save it in case you stop feeding it.

Blargh...somehow I KNEW you were going to say this! Mental battle turning point... I feel like I'm playing Candyland, one second I was just 4 squares from the Candy King (end), and now I'm back to the Candycane Forest (beginning)! :ohwell: Well...it's time to pick myself back up and start eating more...AGAIN! If my BMF is right, I need to get up to at least 2800 cals a day. :noway: Only the Lord knows how long I've been under eating...this could be a long process...but I'm up for it. *pumps fist* :happy:

It mirrors the decline, just in reverse.

When a person enters calorie restriction, certain compensatory mechanisms occur in response. As one's RMR declines due to their deficits, so does their TDEE - thus energy in the form of calories needed to maintain weight relative to current activity will lessen over time. Furthermore, calorie restriction alters hormonal function. When people increase calories back up to maintenance, the alterations will - in time - recover. However, significant recovery will occur while staying within [at least] maintenance level calories. The time in which it takes to recover depends on a few factors: 1) the duration of maintenance compared to restriction; 2) degree of fat-free mass loss; and 3) rate at which fat-free mass (which was lost) is recovered. However, in one particular study, the amount of total weight loss, not fat-free mass loss, had greater influence and effect on the degree of RMR decline. This out of proportion decline was observed despite the subjects' relative preservation of fat-free mass.

Here is a link to the above-mentioned study.

http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/early/2012/04/24/jc.2012-1444.abstract?rss=1

WoW...I'm will need to read your answer severel more times before it sinks in. LOL Am I understanding correctly, that what you are saying is, in the case of someone who has been in caloric defecit for a certain (albiet unknown) amount of time, their RMR will decrease (thus TDEE would decrease), so scenario (#1) listed above applies...?

I'm trying to figure out what reset "looks" like...mainly, does metabolism heal by increasing caloric expediture or by changing the way the body responds to eating TDEE... Errrrr, I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well here :embarassed: ...lol...to put it another way, if you go through reset while wearing a BMF/fitbit/bodybugg, which scenario would you see play out:

Scenario 1: You actually see your daily burns increase during reset. Example: So let's say the Scooby calculator says your TDEE is 2000, but your device says you burn 1600 (on avg). You begin to eat 2000, and over time, your device begins showing a avg daily burn of 2000.

Scenario 2: Your body learns to respond appropriately to your intake. Example, you already expend 2000 a day (according to the device) and the during reset process, your body adjusts to the additional calories you are giving it everyday, eventually, healing to the point where you maintain at the 2000 intake level.

Hopefully ^^ makes sense, lol, I'm so confused at what my body is doing right now...and can't decide if I trust my BMF.

Appreicate any insight. :flowerforyou:

Neither, and both.

Those devices base non-moving activity, or very little moving, on BMR, actually RMR. If suppressed, it's giving inflated values already.
Walking and jogging type movements are using the formula for weight and pace basically, that's why they track steps. Very simple and potentially good estimate of calories burned. So 12 hrs a day of one, 12 hrs of another? Or deskjob with 18 hrs of RMR, 6 hrs of other?
Other stuff may be sorely underestimated.
Like if you were using it and it says you burned 2000. You eat 1500, and there is no weight or measurement loss week after week, either intake is wrong, or expenditure is wrong. One has greater accuracy potential than the other.

If your metabolism really was slower and it started to recovery, that means you are producing more heat, so the BodyMedia may pick up on that fact with it's 1/4" sensor. But it doesn't have a huge bearing on the math. It's mainly used to tweak the BMR during sleep, to potentially allow a better BMR estimate.

That would be the only way the BodyMedia device would show a difference for that aspect.

Now, what studies have shown is that the BMR can only be suppressed so much - functions must be done, some can be done slower or less often, but not much. So the body just slows down other daily activity to leave more for it.
So you may indeed see more daily activity go up, spontaneous movement. It probably can't catch the fidgeting factor though.
But performance on exercise can usually go up too, body has enough left over energy to actually make improvements for exercise. So that translates to faster pace and better burn.

Both devices too, as mentioned, use your BMR as base level to build on. Harris BMR exactly. I've seen Katch BMR's be 200-400 less than Harris BMR, and Katch is more accurate. So the devices could be inflated daily for that much for the 16 hrs of deskjob, sleeping, sitting activity that uses BMR as basis.

I don't think you'll get enough changes from the devices to tell. Body heat is one, may not be as cold. Hunger increasing is usually another. And feel more energetic, either daily, or better in your exercise.

Heybales - thanks a bunch for the additional insight!

Ok, so here's what I should have done in the first place, give you the story, I'll try to make it brief. :laugh:

Stats: 32 yo, 5'5'', SW: 142, CW: 144.7, BF% (as of Nov): 27%

I started EM2WL last March at 15% cut (1800ish) of my scooby calculated TDEE of 2150ish. Increased to TDEE around May. Nailed that everyday, consistently also hitting my macro goals (40c/30f/30p). Was a cardio fan, but gradually started adding heavy weights in. I tried a low carb diet (Primal Blueprint) in July...a mistake because I couldn't stick to it (carb binging became an issue). Went back to eating TDEE and added carbs back in. Sometime between May and Nov, I gained 2% bodyfat (measured by BodPod). From Mar-Dec, my weight fluctuated unpredictibly, sometimes trending down, sometimes trending up.

I bought a BMF in Nov. and immediately started increasing my cals to mirror daily burns. The first couple weeks I lost a couple lbs. After 4 weeks worth of data, my avg daily burn was 2800, so I increased cals again, trying to eat at least 2600. My weight started bouncing around. At this point, I seem to be on an inflation trend.

So now, I'm trying to figure out if my BMF numbers are inflated, or if my metabolism was/is more damaged that I thought.

Couple notes: a) I lift heavy 3x a week, do one HIIT session, and one long run (no more than 5 miles at 10 min/mile), b) I have a desk job, but am a busy body; according to my BMF, on avg, I'm active 4 hours a day, with almost 8000 steps per day, c) my HRM always registers a higher burn than any calcultor out there...when I run, I can still talk and carry on a conversation when my HR is above 80% of max. I have a Polar FT40; with Polar's version of the VO2max, I register "elite"...I don't know what that means, but I feel like it's important.

The scale is up, which I really don't care that much about, but I'd like to find my real TDEE so I can start burning some fat off, and I feel like using the scale is the only way to really see when weight stabilizes.

So, after all that rambling...anyone have an opinion on what's happening over here? Is my metabolism still trying to heal? Or is my BMF showing inflated numbers?

So first the HRM. Your HRmax is probably wrong.
They test for the VO2max stat, and pretty decently (what is it BTW, in settings somewhere?).
So your HRmax is probably higher than the HRM has set, so you are getting inflated burns.

My OwnIndex (Polar's version of VO2max) number is showing currently as 50. I'm not sure how that translates (or if it does, at all) to actual VO2max numbers, though.

You make a good point about my HRmax being higher than the HRM is set, I looked at the settings and Polar has my HRmax as 188. I've seen 190 on my HRM before and wasn't even worried (based on how I felt). So, how does one go about calculating a more accurate HRmax?

Now, sounds like you did a lot of cardio. Upper end anaerobic, always as hard as you could, or decent amount of aerobic level too?

Most of my past was spent doing moderate aerobic level activity, I think. Lots of time on the ellyptical or stationary bike and my HR (according to the machines) was rarely above 160. It wasn't until I started endurance running (Mar '12), that I started to feel like I was really "pushing" it. I bought the Polar FT40 at that point. Historically, I've been a short distance kinda girl (100m sprinter & short distance hurdles, etc. in High School).

So Katch BMR 1405, Harris BMR 1439, so close enough the BMF isn't using a hugely inflated BMR, though it does tweak that base figure based on heat.
Interestingly, 5% more accurate than Harris is Mifflin BMR - 1367.
That would imply you have better LBM to fat ratio of avg lady your age, weight, and height - congrats. Means you get to eat more too.

That 2% BF gain is within the possibly inaccuracies of the BodPod actually, and hydration levels could easily effect that. So I wouldn't worry about that.


Because it is entirely possible to improve your aerobic system so well that your body becomes more efficient and you do burn less when at rest - which is usually a big part of people's day. Still good for the movement related burns on the BodyMedia, but the sitting/sleeping time could be inflated still.

For example, my own example. After months training for a triathlon, got a VO2max test done afterwards. They do a 5 min base level measurement. So not even a true RMR test, which is usually minimum 15 min laying down resting.
So for that level, my actual calorie burn was 200 below what the BMR was estimated to be based on Bodpod LBM. And during that training I had no problem eating more than enough. My diet was always based on the Katch BMR, so always eating enough, so it was no problem of suppressed metabolism giving me a low reading.

Just very aerobically efficient. If you think you reached that state, or genetically disposed to that well, then that could be the case too.

Or the BMF is overestimating a lot of exercise it's not good at measuring, and it does indeed lose it on intense running, or other stuff that doesn't translate well, usually underestimating. But good arm movement can fool it the other direction.

All great information, thank you!!

Assuming my BMF and HRM have been giving me inflated readings, I'm left with completely unreliable devices? Perhaps then, it would be best to go back to using the Katch, Harris, or Mifflin, calorie calculators and give myself more credit for daily activities (up and down the stairs 20x at night, chasing toddler around, etc)? As long as I can feel confident that my metabolism is healed, I'm fine with playing with the numbers until I find the magic digits.

^^ this is awesome. Thanks a million!!