everyne says " eat more to loose weight " bs ??

HI CVCMAN! From what I can tell, the 2200 is what you should consume if you do nothing but hang out and do your typical activities minus working out. When you work out, you want to 'eat back' those cals because the 2200 it is giving you now is just to maintain the current body systems and muscle that you have. So, if you eat 2200 cals a day and then say, go biking and burn 600, you are now at 1600. Which confuses your body because it isn't suppose to be losing any more so it holds onto everything that comes in. So, what MFP does is say you have 'earned back' 600 cals to eat. So, you eat those and that puts you BACK at the 2200 you need to consume to maintain, give or take a little. I can tell you, I'm a woman and only 5'4" and much less active, and to maintain my weight I need well over 2000. So, it stands to reason that a very active man who is muscular (muscle burns more calories than fat) needs to eat more than I do. I hope this helps. I've read from the beginning and I see what you're trying to figure out but it can be hard on here! And I get that in your original post, you were only venting about the dad-gum little thing at the bottom. LOL But hopefully that helped. If you can, go back to your home page and then go to 'Goals'. Go down and hit 'Change Goals'. Then 'Guided'. Then set it to maintenance. Put in your food and exercise and then follow that for a few weeks and see how it goes. From looking at today's food and exercise, it says you are like, 1400 short. I don't believe in true 'starvation mode' but I think people sling that around too loosely. I think what they really mean is your body stalls out and hoards calories just to get through basic functions which will give you that wishy washy feeling, keep you from building more muscle, and in the beginning of adding food, make it seem like you are gaining. But if you just give it a bit of time, you'll see the loss of that and then maintenance. I also agree with lightening the cardio some and upping weights. You may gain from that, but the transformation in how you look an feel from building lean, toned muscle will be worth it! Good luck and hope I helped!

CVCman - you are getting some conflicting replies, because some are reading your original message, but not your last few.

You are attempting to do the TDEE Deficit method, not the MFP method with exercise eat back.

So, did 2200 include an estimate of time exercise each week?

If so then that includes exercise.

Was that the TDEE level, 2200, or was that minus a 15-20 deficit already?

If you included exercise in the time level, then you do not eat back exercise you included. If you do extra not included, you eat that back minus the same deficit %.

if you miss a planned workout, you eat 100 calories less that day, if you make it up, eat 100 more on that day.

The idea is to eat more than bare minimum for safety, or worse.

You must still eat less than what you burn each day, which on average is the TDEE you picked, if honest. And it is a rough estimate of course, you only have 5 levels.
But at least with a high level, you can adjust down. If starting to low and metabolism is already suppressed, down will just cause more stress and less loss.

yea like today it says im 1400 under...I assume thats because of the exercise ?? Im not hungry....now if I saw a big ice cream cone or pc of birthday cake I could become hungry easy

Well, and that's the problem using the TDEE deficit method with a system designed to do calorie eat-back, the math doesn't workout.

Now, you can help improve the math if that matters to you, like when it says "in 5 weeks you'd weigh ...." by changing the MFP Activity level to Very Active, which has no exercise expected. Now, that is a different level and equal to Moderately Active in TDEE charts that include exercise.

Change weight loss goal to maintain.

After saving that, you'll have to go manually change your eating goal again.

Or, or! what's wrong with cake and ice cream together. "dad is great, gives us the chocolate cake ..."

so im up in weight by 1.5 pounds since tying to eat more.....still cant wrap my brain around this eat more to weigh less thing...im still doing cardio 7 days and weights about 3 days a week

It's really confusing because this thread was started months ago but it looks like you just upped your calories?
If you did just up them last week, 1.5 isn't a big deal and you should track over 4-5 weeks.

Maybe post another thread instead of updating a long old one. It's hard to catch up with so many pages.

1.5lbs is water weight. I fluctuated 3lbs over the weekend. I hit an alltime low weight, and the next day was 2lbs heavier. It's all part of the game.

Amen.

I'm 3lbs heavier at night than I am in the morning. Sometimes that's 4-5lbs in a day if I'm eating high sodium content food or changing my workout schedule to include different stuff.

That's why looking for an average downward trend over time (say, over a few weeks) is ultimately a more helpful indicator. Or use a tape measure and lose the scale.....

wegh at the same time everyday ( morning )

Only valid weigh-in time unless you enjoy seeing how things can fluctuate is:
Morning after a rest day eating normal sodium levels and not sore from prior workout.

Anything else will have many reasons for false weight gain and loss, combined can look like you are really gaining a lot, or losing a lot, or holding steady, none of which may be true.

And you do cardio 7 days a week, to which the body will respond by trying to store more glucose for that effort, which stores with water, and you only gain 1.5 lbs when you finally eat more for the body to store it? Be happy.

Be happy too that water weight with glucose is part of your LBM, as that has increased so has your metabolism. That will help in burning the fat better.

Get out your tape measure and get that scale with displayed weight off your back.

I feel IF I dont do cardio everyday I will see the weight come back on.....I tried to back track after a weeks vacation to Maine...I didnt eat my salads everyday but rather ate bread on my lobster roll every day for lunch ( I never eat bread ) and ate lobster every night for supper ( I dont use the butter )....Only different thing was a big ice cream every night...I still ran every day and sometimes biked some the same day...
I came home 3 pounds lighter than when I left....maybe a ice cream diet is the answer

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but weight will come back on if you eat more than your TDEE on a regular basis, not if you just don't do cardio every day. Stay at maintenance and not doing cardio does not mean you should gain weight, you should MAINTAIN.

As far as the 3# lighter - you shocked your body by eating something different. Someone earlier mentioned eating at TDEE for a while to "reset" your system - you may vary well have done that while on vacation.

so if this were you would you;

a) do cardio every other day ? sure, I do cardio, but I also lift heavy - see (b)

b) if so do what on the off days ? lift heavy things and put them down - gain muscle and quit worrying about losing/gaining weight. Yes, you might gain muscle weight, but wouldn't you rather be 150lbs and have muscle definition than 140 and be weak?

Ok using online Harris-Benedict for 54 yr old man, 5'8" tall, weight 141 and exercise ( run 45 mins a t8 min mile pace ) everyday.

It CLAIMS BMR 1446

TDEE 2368.......so what do BOTH of these mean ????

BMR is the amount of calories your body needs in a day if you are resting all day. You should be eating more than it.

With your daily exercise, your TDEE is the amount of calories to eat in a day with the amount of exercise you do, to maintain your weight.

Not necessarily bs. Do a little research on Leptin. Its a fat burning hormone. If you don't eat enough food leptin levels drop telling your body your starving, there by holding onto the fat. you need to find a balance with your activity level, and food intake. You do have to eat less than you burn to lose but if you don't get enough nutrition the body goes into a panic mode. You could cause muscle damage or in my case i gained some weight back. Find that sweet spot between maintaining your weight and the need to lose it. Once a week go 1000 calories over your diet then eat protein the next day, maybe this helps. At least I hope it has.