Ahhh, dont know whats going on.....

briniepoo
briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Before the Halloween season, I was on a role, managed even to get down past my fist goal of 65 kgs, to 63.9. Then from October 25th to Novemeber 1st, it was party after party, with little exercise.

As expected, I put on alittle weight and inches, I totally expected it. Since then, I have been good to get back to exercise and eating right. 3 weeks later, I am still 65 kg. Its not alot of time, but I hoped to get back to my 64ish weight by now.

So I thought I would question 2 things.
I am wondering if I am under reporting my calorie burn too much.
I do biking and running.
-On average per bike session I do 20 minutes and 10 km. I go 5 minutes with level 7 weight, then I go up until level 11 weight. I Go up and down for 15 minutes. All of this is done with 89-91 RPM.
-On average I run 30 minutes per session, and I run about 4.3 km. I start at 7.9/8km per hour, then the running machine goes up to 10km/h then 11km/h.

On the bike machine, it says I burn 170 calories, the internet says about the same. So on MFP I mark myself down with 130 calories.
On the running, the machine says about 200 calories. The internet says (http://caloriesburnedhq.com/calories-burned-running/, http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/running-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx, http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculator) about 270 to 280 calories burned. On MFP it says about 250 calories. I dont know which to use, so I follow the bike calorie burn and put 130 calories.

So my question is, perhapes I am underestimating my calorie burn too much, thus is making my body think its not getting enough. What do you think?

I am getting worries cause I am going on holiday and I maybe wont be able to exercise, or keep on track with my eating much. I never wanna be the weight I was again, I worked to hard to let it all go to the wind...
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Replies

  • gigglesinthesun
    gigglesinthesun Posts: 860 Member
    how is your calorie deficit?
  • Ninkyou
    Ninkyou Posts: 6,666 Member
    My guess is that you're not logging accurately. I looked at your diary and saw ALOT of Quick Add calories. That's not being terribly accurate. What about your other food? Are you weighing or measuring your food or are you guessing?

    Chances are you're eating more than you think.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    I am logging everything very very accurately except for the lunch time menues.

    I work at a school in Japan, and I have their menues, I have the calories. The meals are dished out very carefully because each teacher needs a portion. If I could add the fat content too, I would, but its never more than 50g. The School Lunch Centers are fanatical about calorie balance and nutrition. The meals usually are about 250 grams of rice, 100gram of veges, a bowl of miso soup, sometimes fish, sometimes meat. The meals rarely go over 800 calories.

    The Friday meal is a meal away from home, with alcohol and food. The meal tonight of 1000 quick add calories is an estimate of what tonights movie night will be, I will be adding the proper calories later. Most of the quick calories are me being too lazy to add the food to My Foods. But I know the calories from the boxes, amd just add the calories.

    As for my deficit, I net on average 1200-1400 calories. Sometimes on days I dont exercise, I net 1000-1100.
  • Phoenix_Warrior
    Phoenix_Warrior Posts: 1,633 Member
    You're playing around the overused term starvation mode and I hate to break it to you, but it doesn't exist. If you aren't logging everything, you can't say beyond any doubt, exactly how much you're eating. Weight loss requires a deficit and unless you buy a hrm, it's hard to guess how many calories you truly burn from exercise. Both the machines and mfp overestimate.
  • bethannien
    bethannien Posts: 556 Member
    Yeah I doubt that under reporting burns is your problem, unfortunately. Even if you were, it wouldn't be by enough to negatively effect you. Mfp way overestimates burns, though, so I'd guess it's more likely that you're over estimating your burns
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    Also, incase you want to know, I alter my days, I try not to have the same calories every day, I have 1 cheat day a week.
  • gigglesinthesun
    gigglesinthesun Posts: 860 Member
    I am logging everything very very accurately except for the lunch time menues.

    I work at a school in Japan, and I have their menues, I have the calories. The meals are dished out very carefully because each teacher needs a portion. If I could add the fat content too, I would, but its never more than 50g. The School Lunch Centers are fanatical about calorie balance and nutrition. The meals usually are about 250 grams of rice, 100gram of veges, a bowl of miso soup, sometimes fish, sometimes meat. The meals rarely go over 800 calories.

    The Friday meal is a meal away from home, with alcohol and food. The meal tonight of 1000 quick add calories is an estimate of what tonights movie night will be, I will be adding the proper calories later. Most of the quick calories are me being too lazy to add the food to My Foods. But I know the calories from the boxes, amd just add the calories.

    As for my deficit, I net on average 1200-1400 calories. Sometimes on days I dont exercise, I net 1000-1100.

    Portions in Japan will be smaller then the rest of the Western world, but I am still not sure your calories are accurate. Perhaps you need to move more towards the concept that other people who don't prepare their own food use and eat only 3/4 of the portion you are given and see how you go.
  • michable
    michable Posts: 312 Member
    Chances are you're eating more than you think.

    I agee with this.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    It would be great if I could only eat 3/4 of what I am given at school,.....but I cant. My school is very by the book, I have to eat everything. But as I get more comments, I am thinking about what I have eaten, can coffee be that much of an influence? I dont think I logged every cup of coffee I drank. But seriously, except for the school lunches, I am being very careful. I weigh everything, I measure, and try to be very accurate.
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    Also, incase you want to know, I alter my days, I try not to have the same calories every day, I have 1 cheat day a week.

    Depending on the size of your cheat day, this could be enough to wipe out your weekly deficit.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    My cheat day is usually about 2000 calories. I upped my calories because I was starting to feel horrible everyday. Before November I was netting from 1100-1200 calories a day, I felt horrible, and I was starting to binge. So I upped my calories. I dont binge anymore, and I feel much better, but I have stalled. Maybe its just a matter or waiting abit more....
  • Boogage
    Boogage Posts: 739 Member
    Its very difficult to work out where the problem is when we're not quite sure what your calories and macros are because you have to quick add calories and not sure your burns are correct. If you think you may be eating too little then try increasing your cals for a month and see what happens (it can take a while to see whether you are actually gaining fat). I ate too little for a while and didn't feel well and increasing my cals helped the last 10lbs fall off effortlessly, so I do believe in starvation mode. If you seem to be gaining after a month then you are consuming too much. I think trial and error is the only option in your situation I'm afraid.
  • nikilis
    nikilis Posts: 2,305 Member
    the difference between 65 and 63.9 is a bowel movement and an hour in a sauna.

    infact I've lost 2kgs of water weight in 1 hour at the sauna. no poop included.

    just keep going, and if there's no changes at all (visually or weight wize) you may need more exercise or to drop your calories.

    thats of you're honest about your logging.
  • bethannien
    bethannien Posts: 556 Member
    It would be great if I could only eat 3/4 of what I am given at school,.....but I cant. My school is very by the book, I have to eat everything. But as I get more comments, I am thinking about what I have eaten, can coffee be that much of an influence? I dont think I logged every cup of coffee I drank. But seriously, except for the school lunches, I am being very careful. I weigh everything, I measure, and try to be very accurate.

    Is it black coffee or do you add sugar and cream or milk? Just coffee is like 5 calories but if you have sugar and cream it's more like 80, which can really add up
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    My cheat day is usually about 2000 calories. I upped my calories because I was starting to feel horrible everyday. Before November I was netting from 1100-1200 calories a day, I felt horrible, and I was starting to binge. So I upped my calories. I dont binge anymore, and I feel much better, but I have stalled. Maybe its just a matter or waiting abit more....

    It's common to gain some weight or stall out while you increase your calories as your body replenishes it's glycogen stores. If this is what's causing your stall you'll just have to wait it out and see what happens in a few weeks.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    Yeah, I thought as much. I guess I am just afraid to trial and error lol. I felt horrible when my calories were lower, so I dont want to cut, and I am scared to gain, to I dont want to increase my calories. But, the only way to know, is to try!

    But thanks everyone, I shall, as the Japanese say, Gambare! I will start adding less Quickies and more food. I shall also be VERY careful about my cheat days. I could very well be eating more than I think on these days.

    Thanks for the reality checks and hints people!! :drinker:
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    I have 2 sashe coffees, they are 30 calories. I cant drink real milk, so I tend not to have any. I have a teaspoon of sugar. I think at least I had 4 of these coffees a day this week. So yeah, need to be more careful about that.
  • Phoenix_Warrior
    Phoenix_Warrior Posts: 1,633 Member
    Dou itashima****e!

    I think. I took Japanese 7 years ago loool. Love the culture though.
  • Siansonea
    Siansonea Posts: 917 Member
    Hmmm, that's funny, I know exactly what's going on. :huh:
  • gigglesinthesun
    gigglesinthesun Posts: 860 Member
    It would be great if I could only eat 3/4 of what I am given at school,.....but I cant. My school is very by the book, I have to eat everything. But as I get more comments, I am thinking about what I have eaten, can coffee be that much of an influence? I dont think I logged every cup of coffee I drank. But seriously, except for the school lunches, I am being very careful. I weigh everything, I measure, and try to be very accurate.

    what do you mean you have to eat everything you are given? I thought you were a teacher?
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    I am an ALT, (Assistant Language teacher). But I still have to eat everything, I eat with the kids, and if I dont eat everything, the other teachers say that the kids may think its ok not to eat everything. I have to be a good example. Even if we are teachers, we still have to follow the rules! Which means, we have to eat everything. Its not a school cafeteria, the food comes in, every plate has to have the same amount served so that theres enough. No food if allowed to go in the bin (unless its dropped lol), or returned to the School Lunch Center.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    Ok, just to get feedback.

    I did my biking, 30 minutes, 15.20 km, my heart rate according to the bike monitor was between 145 and 166 bpm, rpm 90-93, weights/ level 9-11. The bike said 250 calories give or take. If I was to input this, I myself would put in MFP 150 calories. What would you guys say?
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    My guess is that you're not logging accurately. I looked at your diary and saw ALOT of Quick Add calories. That's not being terribly accurate. What about your other food? Are you weighing or measuring your food or are you guessing?

    Chances are you're eating more than you think.

    This.

    Quick added calories are evil :bigsmile: because using them means we don't really know how many calories we ate.

    I agree that you need to log more accurately.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
    Ok, just to get feedback.

    I did my biking, 30 minutes, 15.20 km, my heart rate according to the bike monitor was between 145 and 166 bpm, rpm 90-93, weights/ level 9-11. The bike said 250 calories give or take. If I was to input this, I myself would put in MFP 150 calories. What would you guys say?

    Try this link.

    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

    I have found it helpful.
  • metalchic46n2
    metalchic46n2 Posts: 4 Member
    Your calories did seem low at 1000-1200, so glad to see you up them because the body can't sustain that for very long. It looks as though you are mostly doing cardio and after time cardio will actually slow your metabolism and your body will store the energy differently because it will want to save it for the endurance of cardio. You can increase your metabolism with weights and/or body weight exercises (Yoga actually uses your body as the weight). There are plenty of body weight exercises like squats, lunges, push ups, etc. to get you started and they can all be varied.
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

    Thanks, based on that webpage, I burned 280 calories. Haaaa
  • briniepoo
    briniepoo Posts: 73 Member
    Your calories did seem low at 1000-1200, so glad to see you up them because the body can't sustain that for very long. It looks as though you are mostly doing cardio and after time cardio will actually slow your metabolism and your body will store the energy differently because it will want to save it for the endurance of cardio. You can increase your metabolism with weights and/or body weight exercises (Yoga actually uses your body as the weight). There are plenty of body weight exercises like squats, lunges, push ups, etc. to get you started and they can all be varied.

    Oh, I do do weights!
    I do 30 minutes each day, Arms Mon, Wed and Friday. Legs Tues, Thurs and Sat. I do 30 to 40 minutes each.
  • Siansonea
    Siansonea Posts: 917 Member
    I am an ALT, (Assistant Language teacher). But I still have to eat everything, I eat with the kids, and if I dont eat everything, the other teachers say that the kids may think its ok not to eat everything. I have to be a good example. Even if we are teachers, we still have to follow the rules! Which means, we have to eat everything. Its not a school cafeteria, the food comes in, every plate has to have the same amount served so that theres enough. No food if allowed to go in the bin (unless its dropped lol), or returned to the School Lunch Center.

    What a convenient excuse! You poor thing, being force-fed, with literally no recourse. Aw. :huh:
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,089 Member
    I have 2 sashe coffees, they are 30 calories. I cant drink real milk, so I tend not to have any. I have a teaspoon of sugar. I think at least I had 4 of these coffees a day this week. So yeah, need to be more careful about that.

    So that's 4 coffees @ at least 45 calories each, depending on how generous your teaspoons are, or 180 calories a day minimum that you aren't logging.
  • sammycat1
    sammycat1 Posts: 56 Member
    Probably the best advice I can give you is to read this straight talking plan. Good luck

    http://www.acaloriecounter.com/diet/how-to-create-an-effective-diet-plan-for-free/

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